Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is Strategist episode 1267. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, it's
Zain
0:10
it's Monday the 13th. Welcome back. Is it? Wow. It is. Time move sword. Okay. Stephen Carter.
Carter
0:17
Time is standing still for me, my friend.
Corey
0:19
Are you sure? Are you sure? What year is it, though, Zain?
Corey
0:21
Because I'm pretty sure... On the Muslim calendar? It's 2022. Okay, well, no, that's... I'm pretty
Carter
0:26
That's not... Okay, let me tell you. No, it's not, because... I
Corey
0:30
Suella Braverman was just fired as Home Secretary. There's a Prime Minister in the UK who's now under assault from the right wing. And I don't know, I kind of think it might be 2022. 22 it's actually 1445
Zain
0:43
1445 uh after hijra which is uh the year that i go by
Corey
0:49
feel like you had to google that yeah
Zain
0:50
yeah no i i wouldn't
Zain
0:51
wouldn't you know my internet's slow enough for me i could not i could not have googled that in the time that i had uh no um it's of course internalized carter um speaking of things that are internalized carter um you're pending doom you were just mentioning that too as offline yeah anything you want to share with the broader broader audience uh about uh eventual heart attacks that you might suffer no
Carter
1:14
no i mean it looks like i now have a seven percent chance of dying in the next 10 years but my doctors worry that i might have a heart attack when i'm 80 and i'm like i
Carter
1:23
think that's fine i think it's good i think 80 is fine like how much 11 years is great yeah
Carter
1:28
oh my god that's
Zain
1:30
that's pretty good you
Carter
1:31
you know so zane you probably don't know but cory and i are getting a big upgrade to our houses tomorrow it's very very exciting it's been to just sit there it's just to sit there and just say yeah i'll just take one of whatever he's getting we're
Carter
1:43
we're getting new upgrades to the power supply so yeah
Carter
1:46
least i'm going to i'm not sure i'm gonna let i don't get it now i'm just not
Zain
1:50
not so sure yeah
Corey
1:50
yeah it's pissed me finally getting those level two chargers and we're we're going in uh
Corey
1:54
uh on a team deal here here's
Zain
1:57
here's the issue for one let me tell you something for one 2005 Toyota Corolla does not need plugging in works just fine no i mean it
Corey
2:03
it does for different does
Zain
2:04
does not need plugging in no No, it does not. Yeah. Okay. Have you driven one? Have you driven that luxury?
Zain
2:09
Tape deck and all? No, we've seen you drive
Zain
2:11
it. Yeah. That's enough for us. Roll down the windows. Let's move it on to our first segment. I've had enough of this shit. Our first segment, why the fuck do we still do this? Guys, it's an oldie but a goodie. I'm going to test why the fuck we still do this, except I'm going to put a spin on it. Because in this case, we don't do this all that often. And we've seen it happen. Corey, you teased this a bit. We're going to go to the UK to talk about this political tactic. You don't need to know a lot, listening audience, about the UK, other than what Corey's mentioned, which is you have a Home Secretary who should not have been Home Secretary. She's been given the boot. You have a Prime Minister who has replaced Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, who is desperately fighting for his political life, heading into an election, down in every single poll. And one of the moves Corey has made is not just booting a unpopular, hardlining Home Secretary, which he has, and Suella Braverman, which, by the way, is the second time she's lost her job in the last 12 months, but that's a different show. um the
Zain
3:07
same job by the way the same job she's lost the same job okay
Corey
3:10
okay yeah so somebody fired her and then he hired her again and then fired and then had to fire like
Carter
3:17
like i said that sounds like a familiar story to me the most interesting thing
Corey
3:21
thing carter she got cartered
Zain
3:23
cartered for sure no doubt about it she got cartered um the most interesting thing steven carter about this story yeah
Zain
3:29
is um with With all the shuffling, it left a room or a spot for someone to take on the foreign secretary, foreign affairs minister, as we would call it here. And Rishi Sunak has reached deep into the conservative bucket and has found former Prime Minister David
Zain
3:48
David Cameron to take on the role. Now, Carter, this will all sound familiar to those who've seen the movie Dave. Oh, yeah. Because this, of course, is about Dave. This
Carter
3:58
This is how he made his cabinet. that carter we
Zain
4:00
we have not seen this in a very long time in the uk i do not think we have seen this ever in canada well so the question i have is why the fuck do we not see something like this uh happen why is this considered so novel so interesting give me give me your thoughts
Carter
4:15
well i think it all depends zane on where we draw the line are we drawing the line at a you know
Carter
4:21
know a former politician being invited into cabinet are we drawing the line and a non-member of the legislative branch being dragged into cabinet. We did see Jim Prentice drag Stephen Mandel and Gordon Dirks into cabinet before they'd won their respective by-elections. So that is one time that we have seen that, even here in Alberta. We
Carter
4:43
We certainly talked about putting in a cabinet minister from outside of our caucus. caucus uh turned out our caucus when when allison redford was selected in 2011 had exactly four people with any talent in it um so it was really tough to make a cabinet so we tried to reach outside of that um you know it's it so it's not necessarily unheard of to invite a you know a non
Carter
5:08
a non-member of the legislative portion
Carter
5:10
portion of government it is i think very unusual to invite former prime minister who is a non-sitting member of
Carter
5:17
of the government it is uh i actually went and i had to check because i wasn't sure that you know i thought david cameron had stepped down from as his as a member of parliament um
Carter
5:26
um and he had but i had to check because it just seems so weird to to reach out and put him in um
Carter
5:31
um it reminded me of brian mulrooney uh bringing joe clark into his his cabinet in 1984 as
Carter
5:40
as the foreign affairs minister. But it's a little
Carter
5:44
little different because Clark was still in the caucus.
Zain
5:50
Corey, this is different to a degree. And even if I wanted to ask you the broader question of members from outside, I'm asking the specific question of esteemed statesmen. And I know David Cameron is not that to many people, even in concert. but but a former prime minister david
Zain
6:07
pig oh i have googled david which by the way do we own david cameron pig.ca i i think if we don't we
Zain
6:14
we should that's co.uk
Carter
6:16
.uk i think you are going to bankrupt this podcast every
Zain
6:24
definitely um ensure that yeah we we have that under our belts let me let me let me just jump hey cory yeah give me give me Give me your thoughts. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Corey
6:35
Look, I don't think there's many universes where you fire Suella Braverman for all of the reasons we've just said, where that's not the headline. Yeah, yeah. But the headline instead is David Cameron is coming back to government. And he's going to be, you know, essentially the foreign affairs minister, as you said. And so I don't
Corey
6:52
don't know. I mean, I think in some ways, this is this is kind of classic misdirection. This is okay, well, if we're going to do this, this is going to be a big thing. My government is already down by about 20 points in the polls. I'm looking for a big throw anyways. I wouldn't mind just changing up this conversation entirely. The last couple of prime ministers have been knifed by the right. Maybe that's not a great dance partner. Maybe I've got to look to the center. Maybe the reason I'm down 20 polls is because I'm not looking to the center. And so I think that Rishi Sunak's just kind of trying to throw out the rundown here. Now, what's interesting to me is there is still like a year to the next UK election, And it does seem likely to me that he's going to have some sort of coup
Corey
7:33
coup or surge of opposition coming from inside his own party
Corey
7:37
party again. Although, let's be clear, and I think this has to be part of his calculation, that would make the UK Conservatives look like the ultimate clowns. They've gone through Johnson, Truss, and Sunak, and now if they end up on a fourth one in this short term, that would be very wild to me. And that's to say nothing of the last two leaders that were knifed before that election. Well,
Zain
7:59
Well, and the one
Zain
8:00
who stepped down because of the Brexit vote, which was, to your point, Cameron.
Corey
8:04
Cameron. Well, I would argue, yeah,
Corey
8:05
it's a fair point. He stepped down, but I mean,
Zain
8:08
mean, these all happened
Corey
8:08
happened because of pressure, right? Absolutely.
Zain
8:10
Absolutely. So can I get out of the UK politics for a second and ask about the materiality of folks coming into cabinet that have served in government before at a high level? Like, that's the core question of why we don't do this. We've talked on this program of prime ministers or cabinet ministers that were legendary at their portfolios, but their time is up. They're never really brought back. But we've also talked about this other sort of swim lane of people being addicted to the craft, the attention. Why do we not see this, what we saw today? And I get the political calculus, Corey. Why don't we see something like what we saw today more often? Yeah,
Corey
8:45
it's super simple, is because it doesn't work when there's two bosses in the room. And if somebody was there, and they were in charge, and then they're in a room with somebody else who's supposed to be in charge, you've set up a weird power dynamic right from the start. Frankly, the reason why it worked with Joe Clark is nobody thought Joe Clark was the boss. Like, Brian Mulroney was kind of a force, and Joe Clark was kind of not. Wow.
Corey
9:08
Picking on Joe. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to pick on Joe. Picking
Corey
9:13
But that was the read of it at that moment. And that's why he was able to do it. And in fact, it allowed Brian Mulroney, who, if anything, kind of had kind of an ego attack. You know, like people would say he's egotistical. He can't kind of work with other leaders. It allowed him to kind of push the other way. But it's
Corey
9:30
it's tough. Like, it is tough to be in a room when you had the job of leader, that you've relinquished the job of leader and not have people assessing your leadership versus the leadership of somebody else, which is why we generally like our politicians to go away.
Corey
9:46
It's kind of rare that they don't. Like Joe Clark didn't, right? He stuck around. Diefenbaker didn't. He was there until the 70s, I believe, as an MP. But generally speaking, once you've done the big job, you leave. And so
Corey
10:00
that's a huge part of it. The other piece is more for the person who's leaving. If you've been the prime minister you
Corey
10:08
tend to be remembered by the last thing you did and if the last thing you did was prime minister then you're going to be remembered as a prime minister does david cameron really want to be remembered as the foreign secretary to yeah i
Zain
10:19
i want to speculate i want to speculate about his motivations but carter he'll be remembered for brexit well but also he'll be remembered at david cameron pig.ca which is uh which is the website that's c-o-u-k of course we'll take both yeah um
Zain
10:31
we'll get both carter can i ask can i ask you to to test Corey's, like, very conventional, and I don't mean that as an insult, Corey, like, hypothesis, once you get the big job, you leave. And I guess the question I have for you, Carter, if I'm going to expand that a bit, once you have one of the big jobs, you leave. Should it be that way? Like, is it, and I understand Sunak's potential desperation for doing what he did today or misdirection, but should it be that way as one of the rules of of our politics that we that we just so rotely follow well
Carter
11:02
well i mean in in foreign affairs it's a little different because what you're doing is you're dragging on the relationships of the people who were there i think that if he was being brought in to be made health minister that would be a completely different uh kettle of fish but he's being brought in to be a foreign affairs minister and that implies certain relationships with with foreign leaders um i think i'm thinking as we're discussing this about the number of times that former presidents are asked, Bill Clinton is asked to go and be an envoy in a special place, or Jimmy Carter used to be sent all over the world at the behest of a sitting president. That's a far more common example than putting someone into a, you
Carter
11:44
you know, a permanent position. You know, even John Kerry coming back from being the presidential nominee to become the Secretary of State and then the climate czar,
Carter
11:54
I think that there's more of a history of when international relationships are at stake, reaching out to someone who has those relationships. And this might be one of the most challenging times in international relationships that we've seen since, I don't know, the UK left Europe. But still,
Carter
12:15
see what I did there, Corey? I did that for you. That was nice. But I think that David Cameron does have a lot of relationships. Now, a
Carter
12:22
a lot of the players have changed,
Carter
12:23
changed, too. I mean, it is not
Carter
12:24
not like the world has been a stable place since he left, in part because of Brexit.
Carter
12:35
did the same joke two times. It's good. And it was good both
Corey
12:39
I think this is actually an interesting one, because you can sort of look in isolation at the David Cameron appointment, and you can kind of look in isolation at the Braverman firing. I think that the politics that layers on top of it is, you know, Sunak would much rather we're talking about the David Cameron. But Carter's right, like he's got all sorts of relationships, he'll have immediate credibility, as he's engaging with foreign leaders who know him as a serious player. And when you think about his interactions on the continent, you know, with the most important allies of the UK, they know he was on the side of remain, you know, and that actually means something too at this particular moment when you're trying to hold everybody together here. So, there's actually a lot of logic if you can set aside some of like the weirdness of it all, you know, the fact he wasn't even an MP, although he was given an appointment to the
Zain
13:34
the House of Lords today,
Corey
13:35
And, you know, I mean, desperate times, desperate measures, man, that's true in international
Zain
13:41
international affairs, and that's true in politics. So, Carter, the question I have, and I know we want to get into the UK stuff a bit with our limited knowledge, and when I say our, I mean you and I, Carter, because of course, you're doing fine. Could this happen? We've been here.
Zain
13:56
Do you? Yeah, well, let me draw a little poorly. Could Pierre appoint Harper as the next foreign affairs minister? Like, I'm just going to throw in a random example.
Carter
14:06
Well, how about these examples? How about if you were a former premier in the province of Alberta and you got brought back by Daniel Smith, as Ed Stelmack just did last week? Or how about if you were the former finance minister and the best premier that we never had in Jim Denning and you're selling your soul to try and get us to become our own pension plan?
Carter
14:24
Both of those are a similar tactic at just a different level.
Zain
14:29
So the question, agreed, right? Yeah, damn right. could it get to the level that sunak has put into play cory in
Zain
14:38
in canada well i
Corey
14:41
but it's not likely it wasn't likely in the uk and that's what it comes down to i think now that there's an example on the table we'll see how it goes if this is a great disaster because all of a sudden there's this big conflict between cameron and and sunak god forbid one of them says one thing is the foreign policy of the uk and one says another or something like that right but doesn't
Carter
15:01
doesn't this feel Does it feel a little bit West Wing, like Arnold Vinnick getting the appointment? It does.
Zain
15:06
I mean, Corey hasn't watched it, so he'd also probably just say yes. He
Corey
15:09
He didn't see that episode? So this is actually my other question to you guys.
Zain
15:14
I wanted to do this both on the Sunak side as well as the Cameron side, knowing that folks may not know the context or the deep context of each. But is this inspired? Is this desperate? Desperate? How would you read this? A move like this that has not happened in some 50 years in the UK from something. How would you read this, Corey, as a top line? Carter, same question to you in a second. it desperate
Corey
15:40
desperate i mean it's so desperate and one of the things that i have to imagine was in uh sunak's mind was either
Corey
15:48
either a i don't have anybody else who can do this job right
Corey
15:52
right or like and maybe not this job like broaden it to like there's these four great offices of state in the uk we've talked about this before right it's the you know it's the chancellor it's the prime minister it's the uh home secretary and the foreign secretary so either he said i don't have somebody i can elevate to one one of those positions because everybody and their fucking dogs in the cabinet in the uk right but he's decided that he can't elevate one of these people or
Corey
16:15
or he's worried about the internal dynamics of elevating any of them like the the warfare that it will cause so he's like well can't choose a can't choose b i guess i'm gonna smash through this wall and grab c off the street like this this seems to be the logic here and this does strike me as a as a generally desperate move this is not a move that you would expect from a totally healthy government that is up 10 points in the polls where everybody's getting along let's put it that way carter
Zain
16:41
carter cory says desperate is are desperate and inspired two sides of the same coin or no listen
Carter
16:48
listen i think that from desperation comes a lot of innovation i think that sometimes you know if you're really desperate you got to come up with a better idea um so desperation creates innovation um this innovation i think is uh perhaps too far but at the same time and i think that cory's brought up a reason why we didn't pursue it uh
Carter
17:08
uh back in the day uh it really does send a shitty message to the rest of your caucus uh yeah sorry guys we had to reach outside and i don't think that david cameron is you know particularly loved by the far right i mean he he was against brexit he's
Corey
17:23
he's sure not you know
Carter
17:24
know he's he's um he's a moderate in in many regards i mean i had to take
Carter
17:29
take a moment to you know was he laboring oh of course he wasn't no
Zain
17:33
was conservative you can find the whole bio like
Carter
17:35
like david cameron okay stop
Zain
17:41
cory hey and actually carter carter let's take it with you on this no i'm i
Carter
17:44
i think i'm done uh
Zain
17:44
uh humble service ego addiction those are three options why would uh dave say yes to this uh
Carter
17:52
uh it's porn addiction i think is probably what's firing it he needs you know i
Carter
17:57
i don't know why would you no seriously on the other hand he didn't finish he didn't finish he left before finishing and i think that there's something to be said for wanting to go back into the chair that you you vacated uh prematurely fuck
Carter
18:15
you thinking about premature okay you're
Carter
18:17
you're just a dirty boy zane humble
Zain
18:19
humble service ego addiction cory either of those three none of those three combination of those three i
Corey
18:25
i it's always a combination of those it's It's funny because I had – Carter
Corey
18:29
Carter drew this parallel to some of the things we're seeing in our home province of Alberta where a lot of yesteryear's politicians are being dragged out to validate this current government's agenda.
Corey
18:40
And I had the same question about Jim Dinning. I threw it out on Twitter and it was effectively, why did Jim Dinning agree to do this? Like, there are more important plot lines
Carter
18:50
lines in the pension plan.
Carter
18:51
People come back with, he's a whore?
Corey
18:53
A lot in my comments
Carter
18:55
said it was about money
Corey
18:56
money or attention or whatnot. not but it's an interesting question why why a politician decides to come back to this limelight here but you know for me the answer is pretty simple like i it's
Corey
19:07
it's addictive it's really addictive the entire world cares what you have to say you're incredibly relevant god if you're the prime minister of the united kingdom that's a that's an important country in the world in world affairs screwed up basically the whole globe and everybody still wants to have your opinion for some reason right and um and then to go from that to private citizen is is quite a come down so if somebody offers you a role strokes your ego a bit and says like you know you can do this i see this i see this foreign secretary as being like a partnership like i really respect what you did only you can do this the world is falling apart at the seams we need a serious adult in the room this is you david david we need you to do this right now he
Carter
19:48
he did see the west wing zane oh
Corey
19:49
oh but isn't that i I mean, is that ego? Is that, like, it could be any of your categories, what I've just described there, right? And I think people ultimately want to be relevant. And it's tough to leave a job before you want to leave a job. He's not getting that job back, but he's getting maybe some parts of it. And that's
Corey
20:10
that's interesting to me. We're
Zain
20:11
We're going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our next segment. Our next segment, 6% up. Corey, they've done it. The Alberta pension plan has a boost in a new poll by Leger Marketing. It suggests that it has gone from 21% support within the Alberta populace to a full 27% support. I'll put the sarcasm aside because there is some interesting numbers in here. Opposition for it fell from 54% to 48%. And respondents who don't know held steady almost since October at 24%. This is, of course, the Alberta pension plan, $7.5 million ad spend on this particular thing. I think that ad spend is not completely exhausted. Corey, can I start with you on this? You have been used to, you know, public sort of campaigns within the government context. I give you some of the top lines, right? $7.5 million campaign, 6% boost, 4% drop in opposition. opposition, taking off this hat, putting on that old hat, how would you kind of read what I just put on to you top line? Or how would you start reading what I just threw to you top line with your former PE add-on?
Corey
21:23
Yeah, I would say that those numbers could very easily mislead. And we certainly need more information than we have from this poll. And certainly the government has that information. So what's interesting to me is not that the number moved from 21 to 27% support. Just for ease, let's just stick to the support
Corey
21:39
numbers. Ultimately, it's more popular now. Not by a ton, but it's more popular now.
Corey
21:45
Because the original polling, the reference polling was done too
Corey
21:49
too early. I think the reference poll was actually done in the spring. And even if it was done right after this was all dropped out in October here, it doesn't tell us enough about how much it permeated into the population. And what we need to know is how much of that six point gain was from that initial bundle of offerings right is this you know we're going to get 334 billion dollars your premier now supports it that's an important part of the offering your team supports it right uh so 334 billion your team now supports it you'd be paying less you'd be getting more that initial bundle and how much of that is the result of this media campaign pain that's gone on since and if if all of that came in the first couple of days and none of it has come since well then they're obviously in some serious serious trouble and so if all of it came as a result of advertising in the past four weeks well i guess now we know they can move agree by about one point a week and then you're not in trouble at all you easily have the runway to get there if you need to not saying that you're not going to hit saturation points yeah yeah
Corey
22:52
But that's the conversation that needs to be happening in government. Like, what actually drove these changes? Carter? I
Zain
22:59
I want to get your perspective. That's actually very helpful, right? Like, so the last point I find particularly insightful, which is that should this government have unlimited appetite on an ad spend or a greater appetite than the initial tranche of money that they have, if they can move a point a week, they're going to take that in a binary race and push it to this eventual referendum, which they've highlighted. lighted this is not coming in the next 12 months for example it may be a longer runway than that so to speak uh if they wanted to kind of go through this one point a week sort of drudge carter you read it from your strategist lens not to say that what cory's provided isn't a strategist lens but it's i asked him for a slightly different one what do you see when i give you some of these top lines well
Carter
23:42
well this is one of the reasons that we rail against top lines all the time and
Carter
23:46
and because because I'm not sure what the willing to move looks like. We've done communications for very contentious issues. And those contentious issues often wind up with very polarized off groups, right? So you wind up, oil and gas is a great one, right? A pipeline.
Carter
24:03
We call them like a seven point Likert scale. Some people like a five point. Some people like a three point. Doesn't really matter. We wind up with, you know, on the seven point Likert scale, we call them ones and twos and sixes and sevens. Those people already agree with you or disagree with you. where's the middle? Where's the three, fours and fives and what's going to force them to change their mind? And what I'm seeing with this is that, you
Carter
24:24
you know, there's actually a substantial number of people who
Carter
24:28
who have a position, right? And that position, we know from our historical work in these areas, that changing someone's mind around a position is way harder than introducing someone to a new topic and getting them to come to your side.
Carter
24:42
And what we're watching right now, in my mind, is the hardening of these positions. And if we were doing questions, we would then say, how likely are you to change your mind? And then we would also test various messaging to determine how their mind would change. And the fact that Leger has not done that, you know, has not shown us those levels of polling, I think is interesting. Because I think that, you know, if we were doing it, we would do that for sure. We would want to know what the world of potential voter looks like. do we have a large enough group that we could win the election? Right now, I don't think Danielle's got a big enough group because Corey said, you know, it's gone up X number percentage, but it's hardened both sides.
Corey
25:26
Yeah. When you look at the strongly agrees and strongly disagrees on that particular poll, like the amount who are strongly opposed to an Alberta pension plan
Corey
25:34
feels like it's enough to kill it, frankly. Like it's hard to move a strongly. It's really hard hard to move as strongly. And especially when you consider that the opposition to an Alberta pension plan increases with age, or in other words, support declines with age. Well, old people vote, right? And they're
Carter
25:54
they're hard to change their minds. It's
Corey
25:56
It's hard to change their minds. You know, we get stubborn as we age, man. It happens to all of us. And I
Corey
26:02
I think that's a real tough wall to climb up but again there is some information underneath that the government would have that any political pollster would have that
Corey
26:13
the top line pollsters aren't going to get because that's not what it's going to get well you know like they get the news story from the top line right they can put one question in an omnibus or a couple and they get the news story but um well i
Carter
26:24
i was sitting with lege at the public affairs thing and i said haven't you guys not polled
Carter
26:28
polled on this yet and they said oh and they texted their boss and they're going to poll on it So this is the leisure. Oh, this is your fault? This is my fault. Congratulations,
Carter
26:37
But I didn't say to them, why don't you get me to write the questions, because then they'd be better. That was my fault. I should have maybe mentioned that. You
Zain
26:43
You weren't explicit enough, which is something very, very rarely you get criticized.
Carter
26:48
criticized. Very unusual for me. Can
Zain
26:49
Can we talk strategy for a second here? So I
Zain
26:52
actually want to pick up on exactly what you guys said, which is this concept that often it's the high-level top line that drives the media narrative, or at least even not even the media narrative, the narrative narrative. And sometimes, like,
Zain
27:03
campaigns internally, like, even if they're not formalized, but there is an APP campaign here, like, let's be clear about it, even if it doesn't have formal roles like a campaign would. Carter, if you were on the inside of that thing, how would you leverage a 6% bump and a 4% reduction in opposition alongside the fact that, you know, your UCP support, if you're a UCP supporter, you're now plus 30 than when you were when this was initially pulled from 21 to 54. Like, you know, you're now shaping narrative less so trying to use numbers to analyze next moves. What would you do from a message narrative perspective if you want to take these numbers I like and mold them to your benefit, stretch them, you know, contort them in a particular way. Talk to me about that from from your messaging strategy experience.
Carter
27:52
Well, so I'm not sure really what you want me to do in terms of changing the numbers. What would you center?
Zain
27:57
What would you not center? What would you leave out? Those sort of things I find really fascinating to kind of drive a particular story within your campaign or within the broader public. Right. That's kind of where I'm trying to get to. Yeah. I
Carter
28:08
I think the big thing here is the signaling of the team, right? One of the things that Danielle has done, and this contrasts greatly to Notley when she brought in the carbon tax. When the carbon tax was brought in, the people who stood up on stage with Rachel Notley were the CEOs of the big oil and gas companies in Calgary. And those CEOs stood up and said, we've been paying carbon tax forever, and this is a good thing for all of Alberta. And people forget that because those CEOs ran away with their tails between their legs when things started to get tough. But this is kind of the same.
Carter
28:49
You need to be signaling to people who aren't part of your tribe that this is still a good thing. And right now, the problem is, Danielle has chosen mostly people who are seen to be from that, you know, the single group that is conservative. I don't think she's getting credit for bringing back Stelmack or bringing back Dinning. I think that she needs to find a way to get, you
Carter
29:14
you know, Ed Broadbent to talk about pensions or something along those lines. That's a name for the past that Corey and I, Ed Broadbent used to be the leader of the NDP, Zane, when you were six. Well, thank you
Zain
29:24
you so much. I really appreciate that, Carter. No
Zain
29:26
worries. Hey, Corey, what would you center? You're in the APP campaign. You're the government, I guess, in this case, and those that want this thing to move forward. You have some top-line numbers. You have some raw ingredients to mold public narrative out of. You're seeing some growth where you need to see some growth. It may not be what you need to in terms of how you're and what you're making your decisions on, but it's enough to mold something. What are you molding?
Corey
29:48
Yeah. Well, first, let's be clear. When you've got people who are strongly for or against this tactic works less what i'm about to say but it is a pretty common tactic when you start using polls and weaponizing them and it's part of why during elections people pull their hair out when there's a very suspect poll that because it looks like it creates social acceptability for a choice right like oh i thought that was dead maybe that's not dead oh that's interesting people are actually on board with that oh maybe i should open my uh my mind to that and it allows you as a government to say things like well as people learn more about an alberta pension plan they love it they really get on board and you know i too was skeptical at the start but when these facts are presented it's just such a no-brainer for alberta and you can see that in the polling as we've gone out as we've talked to more people we have persuaded people simply by putting the facts in front of them that this is right for alberta here right and then as captain gary russell would say fasten your seat belts anything can happen from there all of a sudden you've got a majority level of support for this fucking thing and and you know that's that's what the government hopes for that's that's what the government aspires for, but see my comments at the start. It's probably not that likely in a scenario where there's so many strongly opposed, right? Because it's just, it's, you're not sitting there kind of clueless to how people feel about this particular thing.
Carter
31:03
feels like a real Gary Russell tactic too, like where he's pushing just a little bit too hard trying to get it to the win. And I'm not sure that that's necessarily the time for this. I mean, I think if you can move it another six points, then that argument becomes stronger. And don't try and gary russell it too early well
Corey
31:18
well and you know it's like what gary russell has that the government doesn't is a button that he can just push to land the plane it requires no intelligence or skills true the
Corey
31:27
government doesn't have that button so no
Carter
31:30
government's actually gonna have to
Corey
31:33
the government's gonna have to lean in hard on this and find a way to to successfully so don't go on autopilot is what i'm
Zain
31:39
i'm hearing you you need the experienced pilot to push this through okay hold on hold on i need to pick up on something thing that cory said here is there a chance cory that this partisan hue that is now being like like the growth the extreme growth that we are seeing the 20 i'm gonna call it extreme growth it's 30 points between ucp folks being like if my if my side is supporting this i better get on board
Zain
32:06
what is there is is there just pure upside for the pro app at this point to kind of follow that path and say our our number one pathway to growth is partisan and like and and that's sort of like like i know carter's saying like coalition ed broadband or whatever the equivalent but is is the number one pathway to growth and viability or even having a shot in hell is just being like
Zain
32:30
let's just get this to a 50 50 partisan fight and like make the other side as make the make the make the the the pro cpp side the ndp side and that's the best chance we have at this like talk to me me about that that binary that's yeah
Corey
32:43
that's obviously the tactic they're going for here right the way that they've tried to say trudeau can't say what you do with the pension only you can and the notion that they continue to trot out all of these old conservative war dogs to to suggest that this is not such a bad thing um and in general endorse their agenda i mean this is if they could get it to a point where it's conservative versus new democrat they've got you you know, it's, it's pretty even it's relitigating.
Corey
33:12
But you know, it's even and, and probably advantage conservatives there. The challenge that they're going to have with that is it's not necessarily perceived as a conservative idea. And this does pull the other way too. Like this, this transposition of one issue over another is kind of politics 101 stuff, but the risk is it also makes you take on some of the characteristics of the thing you're trying to transpose over too right so if you risk hurting the conservative yeah you risk hurting conservatism by tying it to this deeply unpopular idea yeah you'll make some people support the unpopular idea because they're conservatives but you'll make some people say maybe i'm not a conservative and in a province that has become much closer to 50 50 in a province that it actually does look a bit like coin toss elections are on the horizon here i'm not really sure you want to do that like this might be the kind of the the archetypical win the battle lose the war like the question i think conservatives need to ask themselves is would
Corey
34:11
would you rather get an alberta pension plan or
Corey
34:14
or conservative governments in the future because that might actually be the choice that conservatives have uh going forward here i
Zain
34:21
i want to hear your thoughts on this but can i can i ask you the opposite side of this question or another one that i'm contending with which is how does cppib or those that manage and are invested in ensuring the cpp remains as big as it uh ultimately can be how do they ensure that they don't get caught in the partisan war that that the uh government is trying to potentially paint this how do they ensure in the simplest terms that they're not seen as the ndp side of the argument in
Zain
34:49
in the alberta context what what advice would you have for them in this particular sort of case and cory i'll come to you on that if you've got any thoughts i'm
Carter
34:56
i'm not so sure that they can i think that sides
Carter
35:00
sides are going to be drawn up and trying to stay neutral i think is sometimes the hardest thing to do because people are going to perceive you as having a side anyways um so you may as well jump in and take the position that makes the most sense for you if you think you're on the side of the right don't worry about how how you're being necessarily perceived like i don't think this necessarily should be justin trudeau's battle because i think that that would bounce back but i think this could certainly be um a bigger battle that that that takes a look you know grabs people from um across
Carter
35:36
across the country to to jump into it i think this is one of the challenges that we faced with the uh the quebec the quebec referendum when you
Carter
35:45
you know when there was a you can't have a test that says that only Only certain people can be involved in this. I think that's one of the great questions of this entire referendum, if we do get to one. Is this a provincial referendum with our rules here, or is this a federal referendum? And
Carter
36:02
a federal referendum comes with some different advantages. Corey,
Zain
36:06
Corey, same question to you. CPPIB, how do they ensure they don't get caught in the trap? You may disagree that it's even a trap in the first place to be in the same side as Is the NDP almost being driven as a passenger in this partisan war?
Corey
36:26
Well, this is a challenge they're going to have. Like, there's going to be all sorts of pretty mediocre fellow
Corey
36:32
fellow travelers who are going to say, I'm also opposed to an Alberta pension plan and standing next to CPPIB. Because, like, look, this is a fucking unpopular issue for the government. And if you're opposed to the government, this is a great issue to hit them. with. Everybody can see that.
Corey
36:49
The NDP messaging, you can see that in how some of the classical opponents of the government have come out pretty hard on this, even if it's only like somewhat related to their mandates. I'm looking at you, Alberta Federation of Labour, like I understand. Yes, absolutely. You know, working classes rely on the pension. But, you know, frankly, by that logic, there's literally no issue that's out of bounds, which which actually kind of reflects the AFL's approach. So not shocking here. But yeah, you're going to have people come up and stand up and say, these are my things and this is what I'm going to do. If you're the CPPIB, you just need to kind of make sure you're following your own path and be very mindful.
Corey
37:29
Like, let's just put it this way. Anything that looked like coordination between CPPIB and the NDP would be a nightmare for the CPPIB, right? But it's not to say that That there aren't abilities that the CPPIB has to drive message and signal what the stronger messages are and to put things out there into the public consciousness that can be then picked up and carried by other people. And similarly, they can look at what's being used successfully out there by politicians and hangers-on of politics and say, maybe that's something that we can leverage and use too. But you've just got to be purer than pure on some of this stuff here and make sure that you're not going to be stuck. Go
Carter
38:09
Go ahead, Carter. A Canada-wide campaign could work too, right?
Carter
38:12
right? It doesn't necessarily just need to be in Alberta. All of Canada, you're standing up and protecting our pension funds? I like that.
Zain
38:18
Well, okay, we sit here in November. I want to ask you this question again. The last time I brought this topic up in detail, I asked you a similar question, and I'll start with you, Carter.
Zain
38:27
Is CPPIB's current strategy to not say a lot publicly still the right one for them?
Carter
38:40
No, where we are now, we need to start hearing the other voices. It's been weeks, weeks, and the only person in the field, the only group in the field has been the Alberta pension or the government of Alberta. And the truth is that I think that to fight this government, it's not going to be a grassroots organization. You know, Corey and I aren't going to be able to do this. You know, like this is going to be government versus government.
Carter
39:05
And it's going to have to it's going to have to look different than. I
Zain
39:09
I want to come back to that point, but keep going. I just
Carter
39:12
don't see the capacity of—like,
Carter
39:16
of—like, let's take Corey's original point. Hey, they've gained 10 points or whatever, 8 points in the first— It wasn't my point, but—
Zain
39:24
but— No, I asked
Carter
39:25
asked him to go down that path,
Carter
39:33
have this belief that the UCP could in fact break this thing through and put a wedge in Alberta politics, this is going to be disastrous. So you best start figuring out how you can play. Corey,
Zain
39:47
Corey, your advice has been that not communicating is always a viable option. They seem to have taken that option. I'm talking about CPP. I
Corey
39:54
haven't. So let's be super clear about what they can and cannot do. You can't have somebody from Toronto coming in and saying, this is my argument. Let me debate with you, David Parker. Let me debate with you, Danielle Smith. That's not the type of communications
Corey
40:10
CPPIB has available to them. What they have available to them is advertising, which there's a ton of, guys. There is a ton
Corey
40:19
advertising in Alberta, and they have the ability to coordinate with stakeholders. And there's a ton of that happening right now, too. So, like, let's not say it's not communication simply because we can't see a spokesperson standing up and talking. And in terms of, like, what would be the next steps and going out there, that's
Corey
40:37
that's not their next step. That's simply not their next step. Yeah, there's the things that they can do and the things that they should do. And then there's the things that would actually probably incur a bit of a backlash. And having like the
Corey
40:48
the president of CPPIB or something coming in and debating with Albertans is not – Well, that's not what I'm suggesting as
Carter
40:55
though. Fair point around what we're not seeing. Oh, my goodness. But hold on. I've been slandered.
Corey
41:01
Carter talking about in terms of like the – like it's just like an open field for the APP? In the past couple of weeks, we've seen Pierre Polyev oppose this.
Zain
41:10
this. We've seen provincial
Corey
41:10
provincial governments come out against this. We've seen Chrystia Freeland come out and the federal government and make comments. Now, I wasn't necessarily wild about some of them, but we've talked about them. As recently as last fucking episode, like, there are people on the
Carter
41:24
the field here. Was I on the last episode? You were.
Corey
41:26
You were. You loved it. Okay, so tell
Zain
41:28
Was it good? This is what actually helped me develop a holding statement for CPPIB right now. Now, if they were questioned on this, this is, you know, and so for folks to bring them in on this exercise, right? Corey, I get it. They've got a lane that they're communicating in right now. It's not seen in a, but if they were pushed on this issue, if they were like cornered on this issue, right? Parkade, whatever president found where, like one of those situations, what's in the holding statement that's getting passed to the executive around Alberta wanting to do this? What would... Yeah, I mean, Albertans
Corey
42:01
Albertans absolutely have the right, but it would hurt Albertans. it would hurt Canadians. And ultimately, I think if Albertans want to have a conversation about this, they need to have a conversation rooted in the facts. And the facts are bigger pensions get better returns, bigger pensions are less risky. A pension that allows you to port your pension from province to province is good for all of us because it supports mobility of Canadians. And, you know, we just really hope that the government of Alberta takes this seriously and doesn't see this as a communications exercise, but instead a very serious conversation about about the cons of stepping out of the Canadian pension plan, as well as what they perceive as the pros. Carter,
Corey
42:38
Carter, anything to add there?
Carter
42:42
I would just say, you know,
Carter
42:46
this is something that requires more information. More information needs to come very quickly. And that
Carter
42:52
that Albertans should be encouraged
Carter
42:54
encouraged to, I don't know, I'm making shit up. I'm not very happy with it. I'm going to move away from what I was saying. Thank you very much for your opportunity. Well,
Zain
43:01
Well, actually, here's two things I want to gnaw on for a second here.
Zain
43:06
Corey, you talk about the facts. You don't outline Alberta's current request of 50 plus percent of the pension, would you? Or no, you stay away from that in your mind.
Corey
43:19
Well, look, they've already commented on this. It's kind of funny, because you're asking for like a holding statement that they've effectively given. Well, trust
Zain
43:24
trust me, there's a second part to this that I'm going to get to.
Corey
43:28
Do I, you know, I don't know if I go, I would say that number is not realistic. But you're going to have to go to the Ministry of Finance to determine what the actual number is. But in some ways, debating that number is not even the territory that I necessarily want to hang out on. Like, don't
Corey
43:45
don't get me wrong, that's a very powerful argument. And that's affecting a lot of views here in Alberta in terms of the realisticness or not of that number.
Corey
43:53
But what do you gain as CPPIB getting involved there any more than just sort of poking it and saying, that number is not really rooted in the realities. You can't go too far, because you don't actually have the number, the number lives in finance, it doesn't live with you. So I don't
Corey
44:08
don't know, like, don't don't go too far. would you mention
Carter
44:11
well it's it's interesting i'm not sure i would but it i think when we go back in time um and we look back at this uh we may be looking at the provincial government and saying did they step on it when they actually came up with this number did they think they were presenting a winning argument but it really created an incredulous argument that no one believed and as a result they actually hurt themselves um that that will be determined i think in the fullness of time um but it's something that you
Carter
44:41
you know i'm very interested and i think that that will be an interesting i told i
Zain
44:44
i told cory there's a part two this is exactly where i wanted to get to which is making the opposite argument of what you just have carter would cppib by not focusing in on the fact that albertans you guys have a fundamental choice here it is your choice you ultimately get to choose repeating choice over and over again in different ways saying we feel strong in our case but you have a choice here and not making that the core of it versus getting into what seems to be, and this is not CPPIB's sort of MO, but Corey, you've mentioned it, talking about the, you know, that's not a real number. A lot of us who are against the APP are talking about these fantasy numbers, myself included, Carter, as you heard on a recent podcast for us. Are we falling into the COVID trap where
Zain
45:28
where we're not highlighting that folks have a choice and it kind of sounds like a, more of like a, and once again, to get to the the partisan hue, a left-wing sort of like, we know better, this is bullshit, you folks fucking idiots, and it turns people off in a certain way. I know the current numbers, Carter, to your sense, are maybe sensing a hardening of strong opposed, but I want to put that counterpoint on the table, on core messaging of this united, even with, what did you call it, mediocre travelers that you're associated with against against the APP. Is there a trap here that we collectively could be falling into?
Corey
46:08
So I think that there's the risk of that. I don't know that you could look at anybody's messaging and not see Albertans have a choice, right? I think everybody is really mindful of that. I do think that there's an interesting thing that happens more so today than in times past, for a million reasons we can go into, but news cycles really whip around right now. But let's let's let's slow it down like this has been out in the public discourse for like a month right and this slow this down is actually my advice for for anybody who is kind of on the opposed
Corey
46:41
opposed side of an alberta pension plan you do not need to have the entire conversation over the next three months if this is going to occur over a couple of years here you don't want all of your arguments to seem two years old by the time that this thing happens slow this fucker down covid was an urgent situation COVID did not allow anybody to slow things down. This is not an urgent situation. This is a conversation about a pension that maybe will result in a referendum, maybe in 2025, maybe later. And if you throw all of your arguments on the table, all you're doing is giving an opportunity for people who have shown themselves not exactly to be like the
Corey
47:19
the biggest proponents of truth to come up with new untruthful arguments to start chiseling away at you here. here. So, slow this fucker down. Start thinking in terms of months, not weeks. You do not need to do things as fast as you're thinking you do. You just don't. Let this thing play out a bit.
Zain
47:35
Carter, it's similar to, you know, if I tally up what's on the other side of the argument,
Zain
47:42
Krista Freeland, the Finance Minister of Ontario, fantasy numbers, you know, the other side arguing like, listen, it's all bullshit, none of it's real, you know, don't be duped for it. You know, if I'm on the APP side, I'm like, this is a great recipe to rally against in some ways, right? Like, I got all the ingredients of folks of, like, you know, the progressive left collectively telling me that I don't know jack shit. And we've seen that hasn't necessarily translated well in a populist era. Are you concerned around where the messaging track might be headed?
Carter
48:17
don't think i'm concerned yet i mean i think that this feels to me like it's an it's uh still a novel concept it's something that's still new um i
Carter
48:27
i think that this is such a uh
Carter
48:30
uh i'm not sure we're going to get to a referendum on this i i think that there's a very real possibility that this
Carter
48:36
this government just walks away and tries to accomplish other things that they feel is more important like uh in some fashion hurting trans children you know like that's really what that's really where their heart lives so you know it's it's it's difficult to imagine that they're necessarily going to be able to see through all of their uh ridiculous policies we're
Zain
48:56
we're going to leave that segment there moving on to our next segment cory our next segment a friend of my friend is my friend uh let's move it on to the ontario liberal party campaign okay yeah listen Listen, two homies, two current sitting MPs are now teaming up-ish. Nate Erskine-Smith and Yasser Naqvi came out with a joint press conference and release. This was on Thursday. We record here on Monday, so just before Remembrance Day, saying in a bid to stop Bonnie Crombie, they are urging their supporters to put the other. So if you're a Nate fan or a Yasser fan, you encourage your supporters to put the other person, vice versa, as their second choice in the preferential ballot to stop Bonnie Crombie and ultimately help them finish at the top of the pack because of this preferential voting system. They had a lot of rhetoric about the important choices, about how Bonnie Crombie is terrible, et cetera, et cetera. Carter, I want to go to you on this. You're not surprised why I start with you on this first.
Carter
50:03
No, I mean, I'm actually someone who's done preferential ballots. Is
Zain
50:06
Is this the right way to do it from your perspective? That's just like the top line question I have. These two guys going out together saying, hey, you know, if you like me, you also should like him. Transit of property, first and second, second and first. Timing, cadence, announcement. Tell me about it. Like you've studied these mechanics intensely. Is this how you would have done it? Is this the right way to do it?
Carter
50:29
Absolutely not. on this is the exact wrong way to do it um you the psychology
Carter
50:34
psychology of this is really straightforward people who there is a clear front runner people who choose not to vote for that front runner are doing so for a very specific reason uh yasser and nate aren't going to lose because of um you know people loving bonnie too much if bonnie gets over a certain percentage right now i would peg that percentage somewhere around 45%, 43% on the first ballot, then she's going to win. And that's just the way that's going to go. If she gets below that, then she only wins if there's something called attrition, which means that people stop marking their ballots for Yasir or Nate or someone else. So Bonnie is in real trouble if she doesn't get close on that first ballot. And that's where i think these guys have gone wrong they seem to think that they have to paint a negative picture of bonnie crombie for them to actually win what they're doing is actually hurting themselves what they should be saying is i really like that uh nate i really like that yasser we agree on so many things we want to support each other we are in fact a unified candidacy one and two one and two it does not matter who you put one it does not matter who you put two who
Carter
51:48
who the hell cares Who cares about Bonnie Crombie? Who the fuck is she? We don't care at all. All we're trying to do is to prohibit or to reduce attrition,
Carter
51:59
attrition, because there's only two ways to win a preferential ballot. One is through roll-up, and the other is attrition. Bonnie needs attrition, Yasser and Nate need roll-up.
Carter
52:11
That's it. And by bringing Bonnie into it, they weaken their own argument.
Zain
52:15
Corey, one second. Carter's explained this to me 50 times, and I ask this genuinely, which is why I'm like, Carter, does this make sense? Because I'm reading it as an argument. I'm like, it kind of makes sense. But you're telling me, explain this to me. I actually am not able to follow the thread here. How does,
Zain
52:33
how does, okay, well, you just said if what they did actually hurts themselves. Can you explain that a bit more? Like, I don't actually fundamentally get it, to be totally honest with you.
Carter
52:45
you're giving a reason where reason doesn't need to be given so it's it's essentially the same thing as when the uh the pension plan inflates itself to uh 54 for albertans um it it causes people to go hold on a second here why am i not supporting that why don't that doesn't that seems suspect to me people aren't going to change their votes to stop bonnie cromby they want to vote for for yasser and nate so don't give them the wrong reason for that give them instead a combined vision give them instead if you like nate you like yasser if you like yasser you like nate but wouldn't they be arguing don't worry about who you don't like there's
Zain
53:26
there's a nuance but they they're they're doing something
Carter
53:28
something there's no nuance they're
Carter
53:30
they're jumping on it way too hard saying we don't like bonnie let's fuck bonnie so
Zain
53:34
so you think it's this is not a fuck bonnie equation so it's not It's not the mechanics of what they've done. It's the messaging of what they've done, just so I'm clear. The mechanics
Carter
53:41
mechanics are perfectly sound. You need to roll up. Interesting. Corey, your
Zain
53:45
your take on this.
Zain
53:46
This is always fun to me because I get to ask Carter and then he explains to me, roll up an attrition arm that I forget every single time. But your take on this in terms of these two guys, current liberal, I mean, there's some interesting elements to this, right? Like they're current liberal MPs. They're both wanting this job. They've clearly painted a singular opponent. They've indicated by doing that that she's the front runner. People may already know that. Your take on how they've put this sort of strategic ploy out there.
Corey
54:13
Yeah, it's really, really hard to argue with Stephen on this, because ultimately, he's right. The idea that somebody is going to flip and become a supporter of theirs who was otherwise going to be a crummy supporter seems relatively remote to me, just because of how leadership politics often work. And he really stuck the landing when he talked about like, it's about attrition and the fact that you might otherwise have some of the supporters just say, I'm voting one, and that's done. Like, I'm marking an X, I'm not even putting numbers at all. And so this is a way to avoid that. And look, I can speak from some limited experience here. In 2006, in the Dionne campaign, there was all sorts of conversations with Gerard Kennedy delegates. And there was, of course, a broader deal that is well understood, like whoever was behind the other one was going to drop off the ballot, right? And so there are ways to signal those things and there are dynamics that can exist and be unspoken, such as we've got to stop Michael Ignatieff. But the minute you speak to them and bring them in, you're bringing kind of an ugliness that almost demands a backlash. And we started to see that last week. So, you know, right around the time Captain Gary Russell was celebrating his birthday with a giant piece of cake in the cockpit of his 737, totally feeling himself creating a huge delay at Pearson while he demanded somebody bring him chocolate ice cream, not vanilla
Carter
55:33
ice cream. I was stuck in that delay.
Corey
55:34
Well, right around that time, you
Corey
55:36
you know, Bonnie Crombie's team's getting together and saying, my God, this is a bad look for them, you know, piling on against the only female candidate in this race and creating another dynamic.
Corey
55:47
That's the kind of dynamic that can actually upset and shift votes. votes
Corey
55:51
type of dynamic that they've talked about here where it's like you got to vote for us you know anybody but bonnie sort of thing that's
Corey
55:57
that's not that's costed in man like if you think that conversation hasn't happened for everybody you're kidding yourself it is about the attrition there but that the minute that you sort of refix this conversation into something that's about gender politics or fairness or aren't we all supposed to be in the same party that's a new element that's potentially explosive in a way that frankly that the element that they otherwise tried to introduce wasn't. And there's some irony there, because I'm effectively saying they just made explicit what was implicit. But that's the dance we play in politics. That's the dance we play in politics.
Zain
56:29
That's a good point there, that last part of the implicit and explicit. By the way, I should mention to folks that are listening, this vote happens not this coming weekend, but weekend after. So Carter, two weeks to this thing. They kind of go out with this announcement the Thursday before. Talk to me about how, if you were the party, how you'd be be feeling about this. We rarely kind of give the party like a strategy voice. But if you're a political party, the executive director of the Ontario Liberals, these sort of conversations, like, and Corey, I'll come to you in a second for natural reasons. Are these helpful in the sense that like people are gunning to be our leader, like top line, like that's what's penetrating, like this is actually like good for us that people are doing joint press conferences or multiple articles being written about this? Give me like the party's sort of strategic thinking. And I want to get Corey's thoughts in a second.
Carter
57:17
I mean, this is why you do a preferential ballot. You do a preferential ballot or an STV or whatever we want to put ourselves, you know, whatever terminology we want to use, because we want to see people stick around to the end. This used to be the mechanism in a delegated convention. The difference is that in a delegated convention, you're not doing it just one time. You're doing it live, right? It's happening in the moment. You're getting jockeyed and lobbied and you've got an individual voice and you've got an individual opportunity. This is just a kind of a mathematical roll up. And the mathematical roll up is
Carter
57:52
is a little less exciting, a little less dramatic. But as a party, all
Carter
57:57
all you really care about is, are you raising the
Carter
58:01
the chances of the party to actually get elected in the next election? And I would argue that the liberals, regardless of who wins, are in a much better position after this leadership than they were prior to this leadership. I mean, first of all, just installing anybody with a personality is
Carter
58:19
is a huge step up.
Carter
58:22
Like a human being, Corey. They're going to put a human being into the race. It's hard to imagine,
Carter
58:26
It's almost like unbelievable that this is something that could happen to the Ontario Liberals. Corey,
Zain
58:32
Corey, give me the party's voice on something like this. If you were the ED of this party, how would you be thinking about how you see this leading into two weekends from now?
Corey
58:43
um so i would be doing my and i like i've kind of been there right which is why i'm already doing i would
Corey
58:51
would be keeping my head so fucking down like i would not want to be looking like i was on one side or the other especially knowing the message and coming to the crombie camp god forbid you actually look like you're in cahoots and this entire thing looks like it's being like pulled into kind of a suspect situation there anybody calling for comment i'd say go talk to the the candidates you know our job is to run a a flat process here i have no opinions about this and um uh yeah that's that's kind of what you would be doing kind of publicly like
Corey
59:22
it's tough like privately you're just like fuck me these assholes are gonna blow this fucking thing up is you might not even be thinking about that about you know yasser or nate or bonnie you might be thinking about all of them and being like how did we get so close to the finish line before this stupid shit starts happening that's going to bleed in past the leadership contest but you know it really depends and part of this stuff may not last very long these you don't have to look very far again if you're here in alberta you'll of course remember there were an awful lot of opponents to daniel smith who said some very firm things who are now
Corey
59:59
now in daniel smith's cabinet right
Carter
1:00:01
oh but so gross so
Corey
1:00:03
so uh you know you do fret about these these things and you've heard about how you have to keep these things together and when you're in the party office part of your job is to keep these things together like it's the functioning of the organization that you're charged with uh
Zain
1:00:17
uh carter it's only a matter of time until david cameron uh runs for the ontario liberal party right or gets his oh yeah somewhere
Zain
1:00:23
somewhere okay i feel like he's going to be our i feel like dave cameron is uh we're going to call him dave cameron and he's going to be the new mark carney of the show uh well david cameron pig
Zain
1:00:31
pig.ca is available for his leadership yeah we will definitely be using that um but but of course we'll more than likely be using that when he runs in edmonton center let's move it on to our final segment our final segment carter are over under in our lightning round uh carter we do this for you is
Carter
1:00:44
is this going to be all about uh travis and taylor because um now that i'm off now that i'm off twitter uh the tiktok thing is pretty addictive in or out on the
Zain
1:00:55
the lyric change oh
Carter
1:00:57
oh i love the lyric change i mean i actually wept uh when she jumped into his arms there was a moment of pure happiness the likes of which i've not had since i saw cory in person last yeah
Carter
1:01:09
and he jumped into my arms and that
Carter
1:01:11
that was a pretty special moment hey cory uh
Zain
1:01:13
uh cory were you in
Corey
1:01:13
in or out on the lyric change i'm gonna drive right past that i honestly don't know what you're talking about and i feel pretty good about wow carter what carter update him with
Carter
1:01:21
with the one fact
Corey
1:01:21
fact you have about the situation go ahead don't need
Corey
1:01:23
need it don't No, I think we
Carter
1:01:24
we can just move on. Travis flew to Argentina, you see, and he was there and he changed. Was
Corey
1:01:31
captain Gary Russell? It
Carter
1:01:32
It was Gary Russell. And here's the thing. He was backstage and she leapt into his arms. Was the he
Corey
1:01:39
he Gary Russell? Did Taylor Swift
Corey
1:01:41
leap into Gary Russell's arms?
Carter
1:01:43
I believe he did.
Carter
1:01:44
And more importantly, this
Carter
1:01:46
this whole thing is unfolding in front of us. It is an amazing romance. We're going to get such a great breakup
Zain
1:01:53
breakup song about this. this oh my god oh it's
Zain
1:01:55
um if you want to know more about gary russell of course uh
Zain
1:01:58
david cameron pig cory do you want to explain the david cameron pig story should we just leave it to uh no
Corey
1:02:06
no no i don't i definitely don't carter do you want to explain the david cameron pig story no he doesn't he doesn't he definitely doesn't
Carter
1:02:14
do but uh i'm being censored by cory and i'd like this that sounds right
Zain
1:02:17
right hey carter overrated underrated uh new poll coming coming out that says most Canadians want Justin Trudeau to cut the carbon price on all home heating. Unsurprising poll that asks the question and gets the answer that most would expect. But from a political pain perspective, we talked about the compounding political pain this federal government is facing. Overrated or underrated in your mind?
Carter
1:02:41
Underrated. I think that, you know, this is the pain that this man has offered, you know, has demanded upon himself. and uh he seems to be unwilling or unable to recognize that there's a consequence to his actions cory
Zain
1:02:54
cory overrated underrated in your mind you know he's facing a lot of
Zain
1:02:58
of political sort of shots this particular one verified by polling which you probably didn't need verified by polling but
Zain
1:03:07
wants the fucking break didn't
Corey
1:03:09
didn't need to be verified by polling the most obvious outcome of a poll i think ever and so i think you have to say it's overrated for that reason this is entirely costed and of course canadians think this was unfair of course canadians want a break if they see some of their fellow canadians getting a break yeah
Corey
1:03:25
that's a given and it just underlines how dumb this move was in the first place and how it will have a ripple effect for time to come but it's it's overrated in the sense that this one individual poll is not going to change the course of history. History is unfolding now. The actions that are going to occur because of that original action, they are going to occur, and they are not shifted by this one poll.
Zain
1:03:47
Hey, Corey, let me actually pick up on that for our final question in the over-under, which is the Mark Carney, quote-unquote, campaign. The exclusive to the Globe and Mail, now the rumor mill churning about where exactly he'd run, doing interviews on podcasts and and different platforms um you may think it's happenstance it is not this is not coincidence this is being orchestrated really hold on really are you in are you in or are you out on what you're seeing right now the breadcrumbs that are being dropped uh the order of said breadcrumbs uh around i'm back this is
Zain
1:04:22
bread this is full baguettes just pouring
Corey
1:04:24
pouring out of your individual
Corey
1:04:25
individual out of your like enormous mac truck right like this is
Zain
1:04:32
that he drives, just to be clear. Yeah, his
Zain
1:04:34
truck. Are you in? Are you in on the baguette crumbs or baguette rolls as you see them drive past Spark Street, Corey?
Zain
1:04:43
rolls on Spark Street. Which, by the way, I believe, I don't know if you can drive on Spark Street. Can you drive on
Zain
1:04:49
can't. That's why I said it. That's why I
Zain
1:04:53
Are you in or are you out? I don't know what you're seeing from Carney. And if you're out, give me a sense of why you're out.
Corey
1:04:58
I mean, I guess this is exactly what you expect when a leader clearly has their expiry date approaching, right? People start jockeying. And in some ways, I think it's kind of interesting that he is the only one who's made the calculation to be this quasi-public about it. Of course, he's got that luxury not being a sitting MP, but some
Corey
1:05:19
some of the other people who are maybe hopefuls and maybe not top-tier
Corey
1:05:24
-tier hopefuls, but the second-tier trying to make things happen, they're going to start looking at these and saying, I
Corey
1:05:30
I wouldn't mind taking a shot at this too, and maybe this is an opportunity for me to stand up and say something as well. In some ways, it just takes one to be the starting pistol that justifies everybody else's actions. And
Zain
1:05:41
And if you're Carney, you say, get your own baguettes, Carter. Are you in or are you out from what you see with the Carney steps in the process? You've seen, you've manufactured, you've engineered these steps. I'm not 100% convinced he didn't manufacture these
Carter
1:05:55
these steps. There's absolutely no evidence of me doing so. Are
Zain
1:05:58
Are you in or are you out on them, Carter? And if you're out, what's missing? What's not happening fast
Zain
1:06:02
What are you missing? The
Carter
1:06:03
The person who puts
Carter
1:06:04
puts in the knife is usually not the person who wins the actual contest. So I'm a little bit concerned for Carney. You think that would be him and
Corey
1:06:16
Trudeau's own caucus collectively? Well, I was going to say, I feel like Trudeau plunged the knife into himself at this point.
Carter
1:06:23
point. Am I allowed to do on the other
Corey
1:06:24
other hand, which I was just starting? There's a big butt coming.
Corey
1:06:26
There's a butt coming. On the other hand,
Carter
1:06:27
hand, one of the concerns with the caucus and the party is, is there someone willing to step up and take this who can actually deliver? And I think that Carney, at the very least, even if he's not the person who should be delivering, is conceivable as that. And there are others as well. Well, I mean, honest to God, if Trudeau is unable to see the
Carter
1:06:52
the writing on the wall, I mean, it's
Carter
1:06:55
it's over. This decision that he just made was the worst decision in electoral history. Yeah, that's a little bit of hyperbole. That
Corey
1:07:02
That was, yeah. Because
Carter
1:07:03
Because David Cameron's back in politics.
Corey
1:07:07
You don't need to look far, really.
Carter
1:07:09
really. In this episode. But yeah, I mean, I think that this is going to be ultimately fine.
Zain
1:07:16
Corey, would Justin Trudeau bring in Jean Chrétien as his Foreign Affairs Minister? Probably,
Corey
1:07:24
Yeah, a serious guy. He'd be well regarded by the rest of the world leaders. Let's make it happen. We're
Zain
1:07:31
We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1267 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belch. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.