Episode 1268: Name drop

Zain 0:01

This is The Strategist, episode 1268. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Carter, you finally joined us. You're finally

Carter 0:10

finally doing it. Sorry. You

Zain 0:10

You were late. Yeah, what were you doing? What were

Carter 0:11

were you doing? Sorry.

Carter 0:13

What was I doing? I was having a nap. Fuck, I'm old, you know? It's like Friday. I barely made it.

Carter 0:18

Barely made it to the end of the week. Well, the reason we're recording on a Friday

Zain 0:21

Friday is because of you backing out yesterday. Now, we've got a huge backstory in terms of what happened, which I'm sure people can get access to, Corey. we were actually releasing the what happened to carter last night as its own episode

Corey 0:31

it's it's like our own snyder cut yeah

Carter 0:35

yeah i was i was out for dinner okay

Zain 0:37

well we know that it's

Carter 0:38

it's pretty good you can hear

Zain 0:39

hear you can hear all and

Carter 0:39

and then um no

Zain 0:40

no we no one gave you permission i'm

Carter 0:42

i'm celebrating the travis kelsey jason kelsey release of uh uh

Carter 0:47

uh their their christmas song uh it was pretty great you're

Zain 0:51

you're into this taylor swift stuff a little bit too much i I have to say, I don't know, three

Corey 0:56

episodes in a row.

Zain 0:57

We're like, you know, like when Annalise asked the question, I'm like, you know, yeah, yeah, I'd go to the concert. But now you're just like bringing it up as your topic. I

Carter 1:05

this is because, this is because, this is what's happened. I have given

Carter 1:10

given up Twitter, as you know, because Elon Musk is anti-Semite. I think we can say that. I think that that's okay. Am I going to get sued for that, Corey? I don't think so. I don't think I will. well

Corey 1:20

it's probably the corporation that'll get sued for platforming

Carter 1:24

platforming yeah anyways i i i'm not there but that leaves me on tiktok only and tiktok's all tail air all the time so i'm

Zain 1:33

i'm surprised your tiktok is not about 95 pickleball content i'm

Carter 1:40

i'm not gonna lie i have to actively avoid pickleball as much as i actively is your phone

Zain 1:44

phone beside you right now can you take off your headphones and i'm just gonna yell pickleball into the room and and

Zain 1:50

just watch what happens to your algorithm just watch i

Carter 1:53

i don't want to i don't want to lose my tray can you keep

Zain 1:55

keep saying pickleball over

Zain 1:57

again just stop it

Carter 1:57

it tray taff tray taff tray taff pickleball

Zain 2:00

pickleball just say repeat after me carter pickleball come

Carter 2:03

come on let's do a show people don't tune in for this nonsense

Zain 2:07

you'd be surprised uh cory uh what's going on with you are you are you fine i don't care but But like, you know, what's running through the most?

Carter 2:15

Corey's never been happier with me. It's true. Carter

Corey 2:18

Carter has really come through here. I have my level two charger in my car hole now. So that's all good. Can you get me one, Carter?

Zain 2:25

I don't, I have a 2005 Toyota Corolla.

Zain 2:29

Okay, that's fine. No,

Carter 2:30

No, your inability or lack of desire to spend money on things is really impactful. I

Zain 2:36

I thought you were going to say it's cultural, but okay. That

Zain 2:38

That would have been a

Carter 2:41

good way to land that plane. I can't help you if you won't help yourself. Wow. That's all I'm saying.

Zain 2:45

Wow. Okay. Wow. Yeah, that was... Never give Carter the pen on a DEI strategy. Jesus fucking Christ.

Carter 2:53

Let's move it on to our first segment. We're not doing DEI anymore. Didn't we all decide that? Okay, great. Corey,

Carter 3:00

do you want to talk about this? What does it stand for? Am I thinking about drugs? Am I misinterpreting an acronym again? You

Zain 3:05

You might be. You might be. I mean... Our first segment, name drop. Rob, Corey, we're going to do a one segment. We're going to do a one-issue deep dive. We're going to talk about the rebranding of the Alberta NDP. Why are we talking about this? Because, guys, there's

Zain 3:24

there's a new group, albertasprogressivefuture.ca. They are making a case. It seems like a one-issue organization, at least thus far, that has sprouted up, exploring the idea of rebranding the Alberta's NDP. They provide some polling, some isolated questions from some Janet Brown polling. They make an argument for many center-left voters not choosing the Alberta NDP because of its affiliations with the federal NDP. And then they give about five points about why it's time to change the name of the Alberta NDP. The NDP lost an election they should have won. The party's evolved. They need to be in control of their own brand. A progressive government is more important than nostalgia for a brand. And finally, progressive voters will not stay united if we, as in the NDP, don't win.

Zain 4:14

There's a lot to talk about, and I want to spend the majority of this episode talking about the how, irregardless of what you guys think of an Alberta NDP rebrand. But it'd be weird for me to jump straight into that without asking you. Carter first. From where this stands, from when that election was in May, to where we are in November, to to where you see things going, to the rumors you hear about leadership, give me your top line answer on the question that this group is posing. Should the Alberta NDP be strongly considering a rebrand slash name change?

Carter 4:49

Well, you can't say rebrand slash name change. That's not the same.

Carter 4:57

Because it's not a rebrand. Brand is not about name. You know, if you go to, you know, a discount airline like Flair Airlines, you know, you're you're it's not just the name Flair Airlines. I mean, if we rebranded it and called it the Taj Mahal Airlines, if it still has the same business practices, it's still going to be a discount airline. You don't just simply say, oh, we're going to rename

Carter 5:21

rename this organization and therefore change the entire brand structure of the organization that it represents. It's not how branding works. The brand is a cumulative experience of how people interact with your organization. And just calling on the NDP to change its name is a total misunderstanding of how branding works. So

Zain 5:44

So this argument, Corey, just go back to this group for a second, and then I'll get into the group and the how and all that sort of stuff, like the deep dive old school strategy session that we'll do, Carter. But Corey, this group talks about initially off the top saying exploring the idea of rebranding the Alberta's NDP, and then concludes with those five points that I brought up that are the justification, they say, to why it might be time to change the Alberta NDP name. name and and i and carter your point taken on conflation of those two things but i also want to give this group clarity in terms of what they're trying to say in terms of what a name change would be cory name

Zain 6:17

name change rebrand either or conflate them together if you want does it need to change i

Corey 6:25

mean i 100 agree with what steven said and and i've i've lived some of these fights before with the alberta liberal party a lot of activity got consumed in the idea of identity and specifically the name of the party i do a hundred percent agree though brand is about more than just name and there are more important things to to address what

Corey 6:46

i always say to people because i sometimes get asked about my opinions on this particular matter is i think that the name change is the last thing the ndp need to consider and i don't mean that in the sense we often say that's the last thing they should consider which is like they should never consider yeah

Corey 7:03

name change is something you do when you fundamentally change the product underneath if you believe that still makes sense you don't do it first you do it first and you're going to have a situation where um my

Corey 7:16

my god you're you're they're just the same it's just a paint a coat on the same thing look they're still connected to the federal ndp look they still have all of this union influence all of the things that the critics would say they will continue to say if all you have done is change the name of the organization. I'm not convinced that they ever need to change the name of the organization. And I am entirely convinced that conversations about changing the name of an organization are a waste of time. So look, my personal view of this is you want to change your brand, you change your brand by doing the hard work of changing who you are and you change the relationships that your organization has with people. If you want to change the name, you

Corey 7:56

you don't debate it. You don't have the conversations about is this a good name or a bad name you're just poisoning your own name if you do that if

Corey 8:03

you want to change the name you do it in

Corey 8:04

in the dead of night mob

Corey 8:05

mob hit style you

Corey 8:07

you just do it like a radio station flip

Corey 8:09

overnight like a i'm yeah i'm serious and um anything you do otherwise is just going to be too

Corey 8:17

too disruptive and too damaging to an organization well and and and it's just not worth it it is not worth it we're

Zain 8:25

we're in it let's just get in it like in in the strategy side of things Carter, we're in it, and Corey's put his thinking out on the table. There's so many questions to ask about this, right? And I'm just going to muse about a few of them. If we're talking about a rebrand or name change, and I got your guys' perspective on both, whether it needs to happen or not. No one gave me a clear answer, but is that a surprise on this fucking show? Definitely not. So, it

Zain 8:47

was not clear. Carter, you just woke up from a nap. You think you're delivering missives like Jesus. No, you're not. Oh,

Carter 8:54

Oh, my God. It was

Carter 8:55

was better than Jesus. He says, Jesus gave you all this contradictory stuff. Listen to everything I said before. I mean, now, I don't know. Nice,

Zain 9:01

nice, nice dig at Jay there.

Zain 9:06

Hey, by the way, one of my prophets, right? Like, he's a homie, right? Like, he's a very close homie. Peace be upon him. Peace be upon him and the other 124,000 prophets that we believe in. Carter, it's about just a little, just twice the size of Red Deer.

Zain 9:26

listen cory this is a a multi-year uh muslim explainer podcast okay that is the undercurrent i love

Corey 9:34

love how you made red deer like the delaware of of canada too like you're like what's a yardstick people will understand two red deers

Zain 9:41

two red deers um you know mecca points to red deer as as has been said now uh carter this

Zain 9:51

is a fucking disaster you guys

Carter 9:53

guys you guys got jumpy when i i wasn't we

Zain 9:55

didn't get jumpy things

Carter 9:56

things have gotten this is an educational

Zain 9:58

educational podcast about the one true religion um carter okay let's get back on track we

Zain 10:05

have so many things to talk about around a rebrand and how it should happen this is why i want to kind of get into like that whiteboard strategy moment because there's timing there's who should carry the particular sort of case for it should it be a third party group or should some candidate should rachel notley leave be the the one to carry this particular thing? You know, the order effect that Corey mentioned, should it happen at all? Like, all these things need to be considered. So I want to kind of like whiteboard it. If the goal, and this is like, and I'm not putting you in a different mode, here's the question. If the goal is to at some point, whether it's Corey's point of ultimately, which you might agree with, or initially, two years out, three years out, four years out, like we are right now, change the name, what would you advise the process be? That's what what I want to spend the next number of of minutes on which is if this is the goal what should the strategic process be what would you advise kick

Zain 11:00

off with some thoughts and I'll take some notes and like try to mold this conversation sure

Carter 11:04

sure so begin with you

Carter 11:06

you know what is it we we're we mean when we talk about brand change and let's go back to what Corey and I both said and that is that changing a brand is about changing the kind of the the entire experience of the of the party party, if you will, what is it that we stand for? Who are we? What are we known for? And I think that that doesn't start with something like, like, let's say that Rachel Notley is planning to, you know, to resign as speculation is rampant, and she's going to leave the leadership. Well, don't change the name of the party on your way out the door, because the name of the party on the name of on the way out the door isn't actually going to change the brand relationship. Instead, Instead, a new leader comes in, a new leader comes in. But it's not just that there's a new leader in town. What it is, is there's a new leader who's going to run the party with different values, different morals, different ideas, different thoughts, different priorities, different ideas. You know, all the all the things that we think of when we think of a political party, that's going to change because there's there's new leadership. and it reflects the values of the potential voters that we wish to attract in a different way. So don't begin at the end. Don't say we're going to change the name because this is different. Instead, begin at the beginning and say, what is it that we're trying to create? What is it that we're trying to create? And if it is a different relationship with different voters, then start to make that change. Make all of that change before you even think about changing the letterhead,

Carter 12:35

letterhead, changing the logo, changing the name.

Carter 12:40

instead what we try and what we see most of the time, and I think this is maybe where BC United went horribly wrong. Um, BC United just changed their name. Uh, BC liberals, uh, changed their name, uh, just a couple, well, I guess maybe a year ago now. Um, but

Carter 12:56

but they changed their name because they thought that they needed to have a different relationship with their voters without changing the relationship with their voters. They didn't change. They didn't work

Carter 13:05

work with people and become a different party. And then people say, oh, yeah, that's the party I really want to vote for and then change their name. Instead, it was just the

Carter 13:13

the name changed. And all

Carter 13:15

all that changed is people went, I don't know who they are. They sound like a soccer team and said, oh, I'd rather vote for the conservatives anyways. wise

Zain 13:24

carter's thrown a lot on the table cory there's a new leader in town i don't talk about the new leader effect should that happen um different priorities policies i do want to also get into like does a group like this and who should carry this particular cause is a group like this actually advance a cause or is it outright you know harming the cause if a name change is what folks want like if the cory the question here is if this is where you want to go you have said this is the last thing to fall into place right rather than the first thing you ultimately do. How would you structure this particular exercise? What would you have on your like strategic document of the steps that we are following?

Corey 14:01

Yeah, if I wanted to change the name, and I do want to be clear, I'm not saying the Alberta NDP need to change their name, or I'm not even saying that they should consider it. I want other

Zain 14:10

other people to have that conversation. Yeah,

Corey 14:11

Yeah, I aggressively don't think they should consider it, right? Even if they do it, they shouldn't consider it, if that makes any sense. Like they should not be talking about this is a distraction but if you want to do it uh what you need to do is you need to get to a place where um where

Corey 14:27

where doing it will not have the downsides of doing it and so if you want to do a bit of a work back on this particular thing well

Corey 14:34

well i mean there's so much i could say i don't i almost don't know where to start sorry

Zain 14:37

sorry and i'll i'll try to frame yeah 100

Corey 14:40

100 you don't do it before with a leader on the way out the door not that i thought there was a risk of that with rachel notley anyhow 100 you don't do it your first days of the leadership if you're a new leader because all you're going to do is create kind of a maximum moment of acrimony where perhaps you're going to splinter your party and you're going to pull things other ways you don't even want to give like two years of debate or deliberation for this you don't want your party organizers all fighting inward and debating with each other when they should be trying to be united and getting voters to support them you change behaviors you you change the way the party approaches things you you marginalize the voices that you think will ultimately be a challenge on this front in institutional ways, right? And you've got to kind of get, if you're the Alberta NDP, you got to drop the Brothers and Sisters in Solidarity forever before you drop the Alberta NDP name. And you've got to have an organization that kind of supports all of that. In my opinion, the best time to do it is probably six

Corey 15:35

six months before an election, Stephen. I mean, I'm flexible on the time. I haven't given it a ton of thought, but you want it where you've got that starting darting pistol staring at you where you're gonna nobody's got time to organize a massive resistance you've just done it in the dark and night you're reintroducing yourself as the part of the brand of the party and once you've gone through one election with this new brand it's the new brand and people will be fine with it but like you don't let like uh you don't let a counterinsurgency come on the particular name question carter i think we'll get i think we'll get to our like

Zain 16:05

like core sort of like what strategy or sort of like navigation on this by asking why you shouldn't do certain things. So I'm going to ask you another one of those questions. Do you mind if I do that? Why shouldn't this

Zain 16:18

this be something, and you might agree that this be a should, so is there advantage for one of the leadership candidates to run on this, to

Zain 16:26

to run on a rebrand, to run on a name change to the base? Talk to me about this. I'm going to give you these scenarios, and then we're going to whittle this down to what the strategy looks like.

Carter 16:36

Well, I mean, if you were to run on a name change, then all of a sudden you're just the the name change candidate and people aren't going to be evaluating on your leadership capacity they're not going to be evaluating on whether or not you're going in the right direction they're not going to be evaluating on anything except should you change the name and this isn't a question of whether or not you should change the name this is a the primary question of a political party is should we change the relationship with our voters should we you know do we want When they think of the NDP, do we want them to think of—I mean, Corey brought up a great point with the brother and sister thing.

Carter 17:16

Hogan. If you're still talking about Brother Hogan, when the campaign or the name change is done, then have you really changed the brand at all? You do realize it's

Zain 17:28

it's not the Mormon church, right?

Carter 17:32

But this is part of it, right? There is

Zain 17:34

is a religiosity to a party

Carter 17:36

party like this, sure.

Carter 17:38

They're more church-like than they are, and that's fine. Being a small organization that has kind of a clicky inside, that's great. There's a lot of value to that in a political party. I mean, I think there's a lot of political parties that would kill to have that kind of loyalty and relationship with their individual voters. That's a great idea. But if you want to win an election, being a small clicky party is not necessarily the way to win an election. Right. You you have to recognize that the brand that you want isn't necessarily the brand that you have. So, you know, even Corey's putting the time frame on it. Like my view would be, what

Carter 18:19

what does it mean to like if you're a leadership candidate? Right.

Carter 18:23

So if you were a leadership candidate right now, you would have to be working through and saying, OK, well, what? What party do I want to actually lead?

Carter 18:31

Do I want to lead the New Democratic Party or the Alberta New Democratic Party?

Carter 18:37

As it was constituted, as it's been led by Rachel Notley, as it's been led by Brian...

Carter 18:45

Mason. Mason. As it's been led by Pam Barrett, as it's been led by... Like, go back and say... Poor Raj.

Corey 18:54

Raj Panu just... Oh,

Carter 18:55

Oh, I skipped right over Raj. um but

Carter 18:59

do you want i want to lead it in that form do i want to to be an ed broadbent style of leader or do i want to be leading something that that

Carter 19:07

that is different than all of that but still holds true to certain principles that i think the new democratic or the voters of the new democratic party are are interested in and my view like when allison redford ran to be the leader of the the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta, we

Carter 19:25

we changed fundamentally the brand relationship with the voters, because we changed who we were, and they came to us expecting a different outcome. Now, obviously, we didn't provide that in the long run, and we wound up on our tushies. But the brand promise that was made, not necessarily the brand that was delivered, but the brand promise that was made was very very valuable and enabled us to win another election when

Carter 19:52

when winning another election may not have been in the cards we might have just been

Carter 19:56

been jim prentice one election earlier so

Carter 19:59

think that that's what you start to do is what what you know what do we want the party to be not and then then you work through well what what does that mean right like what does it mean to

Carter 20:11

how are we going to build this relationship with the actual voters the same way you would do it if you were running colgate and you wanted to increase your market share you don't say well we'll increase our market share by calling it duplo i don't know i just made duplo up um yeah you made duplo

Corey 20:26

duplo up yeah it's

Carter 20:28

it's just a big thing it's a big bigger blocks bigger blocks than lego anyways you know that you don't change the name and get a bigger market share uh in fact just changing the name may dilute your existing brand position and you may just lose market share as we've seen with the BC United.

Zain 20:47

Unfortunately, Corey, duplo.ca is taken. Oh, that's too bad. It's going to be unfortunate for us. Hey, Carter. Okay, so what I'm hearing you say, you would not advise a candidate to run on this particular thing. Corey, would you? No. Would you do that? Would you advise, in terms of getting this thing done, right, like the scope? Once again, I'll kind of set our scope here. If you want to get this thing done, would you put it in the hands of a candidate to run on?

Corey 21:14

well you there's a version of it where you say i'm the change candidate and i'm going to change everything up to and including the name and

Corey 21:21

maybe you win on that maybe you get 51 of the vote on that but i'd ask yourself whether that is actually

Corey 21:27

actually a productive approach because if you do that the other thing you need to consider zane is you're effectively saying i

Corey 21:35

i don't want this party i want to create an entirely new party and it's going to feel like an awful lot like a takeover a hostile external takeover in that situation and that is going to guarantee a reaction that is going to guarantee a backlash the side that loses won't just say oh well we lost but we're all new democrats and it's time to get behind the new leader they're going to say they don't even want to fucking be new democrats like these people don't want anything except the apparatus that exists this official opposition status they're not us and you are going to have people walk away from the party people you can't afford to lose in that situation probably mlas certainly party organizers and so you've you've just sort of established for yourself a day one problem that you don't need you just don't need it carter now

Carter 22:21

now part of that new brand if you did create it if we did follow a timeline similar to the one that cory's proposed there six months before the election you know this new the new brand is ready the new organization is rolled out and if you happen to to lose eight mlas or six mlas who said oh no we're not going to go that way we're going to hold on to the new democratic label and we're going to be the new democratic label that

Carter 22:46

that might be super valuable that

Corey 22:47

that might actually that might depending on what you're trying to do right

Carter 22:50

right because if you're trying to brand as we're not them yeah

Carter 22:54

yeah right that might be really valuable but again you can't just embark on that and hope that it works and hope that when you know five mlas you know Leave your party apparatus because they're so angry with you. You can't just create that and hope that it

Carter 23:12

it works out. It has to be done for a strategic reason with strategic rationale behind it.

Zain 23:18

Okay, so I'm hearing a lot of things. This is helpful. Corey, Carter, am I fair to say that if we were whiteboarding this, which I'm kind of doing on our behalf, you agree with Corey's premise that this is a T-minus last six months sort of thing and it's at the end? Is there any part of you that would challenge Corey on the ordering of when this would go? Let's start here and clean up some of this stuff.

Carter 23:41

No, I think I mean, I think Corey and I are both saying that you have to change the if you're changing the brand, like if you're a brand new leader, you

Carter 23:48

you change the organization first. You change what the what the expectation is with voters. You change your positioning. Maybe you take a new position that people can associate you with or newly. And of course, a new leader, because you couldn't change the name with an existing leader and expect it to be seen as a different organization.

Zain 24:09

organization. I'll go back to the front of the timeline in a second here. So I've got both of you saying at the front of the timeline that this is a new leader thing, not necessarily having a new leader run on it, because there's potential downside. Corey, you called it a day one problem. You also said there's a chance that someone could run it as the holistic change candidate and win, but that's a political gamble, so to speak. And then on the back end, I've got this is like a thing that you flip over, right? Like six months before I introduced a new brand, here it is. It's the last thing to fall into place, not the first thing to fall into place. So far, so good. Can

Carter 24:39

I add one more thing to that? Keep

Zain 24:41

Keep adding, because I've got other things I want to add in between.

Carter 24:44

If you set out, I think that you're going to change the name as a dedicated outcome. You've done it wrong. Yes.

Carter 24:51

Right. You must set out with the dedicated outcome, we are going to change the relationship of this organization with our primary set of voters. And then if you get to the end of that, and the only way that you can really show voters that you have changed, that you are different as an organization, is to change the name, then you change the name.

Carter 25:13

And you do it exactly, you know, the TELUS brand change from Alberta Government Telephones still stands as one of the greatest name changes I've ever seen because it was done instantly. And

Carter 25:24

And it did represent the change of the way that they interact with their customer base.

Zain 25:28

Correct. Correct. So, Corey, I want to go to you. Carter's saying that the line at the top of this document that we are creating through just our voice should have a, you know, a different question to ask rather than the strategy to change the Alberta NDP name. It should be titled, this memo that we are writing should be titled something different. Do you agree?

Corey 25:49

I do. And I think that maybe you don't call it the distancing strategy, but like, a name change is a means to an end. And actually, this group, this Alberta's Progressive Future, This talk has a question about like, oh, too close to the federal NDP. Not the only way you can resolve that problem. Like one of the things we heard a lot during the election was a standard talking point of the NDP constitution says the federal constitution takes precedence, right? So Jagmeet Singh is Rachel Notley's boss. Okay, well, change the NDP constitution,

Corey 26:19

the fucking constitution, right? Labor's got too much authority. Did you know labor gets these seats and these votes in the NDP constitution? Change the NDP constitution, right? uh and then at the end of the day when you've done those things if well okay let's just let's just throw it all out there you don't get to a point where it's six months before an election and say okay everybody i fucking got you here we are i'm changing the name correct no you wait until jigmeet singh does something really dumb i mean set your second hand to it it's not going to be that hard and then you say you know what we've had enough we've tried to make it clear that we're we're not there because of the NDP constitution changes we did. We have certainly staked out some territory that's a little bit different than this. And now we're just, this is just too much. Like we're, we're, we're looking for a way to establish ourselves as an independent organization. And look, we, you

Corey 27:12

you know, we appreciate that there's a lot of people who are members of the federal NDP and provincial NDP. And we're not saying there's anything wrong with being a federal New Democrat, but we're saying we're

Corey 27:20

we're going to be our own thing now. And so like, you need that trigger as well. So when you talk about that strategy, that strategy has to be more like a

Corey 27:29

a sovereignty association strategy, to use that old, like, you know, 1995 Quebec referendum language. And then if you end up there, you end up there. But you can't... It's

Zain 27:39

It's a good point. It's a good point, Carter. It reminds me of something our friend Susan Elliott would often say. This is an old colleague of ours, you know, old PC warhorse, right? She'd say one of the biggest mistakes that politicians make is that they try to solve problems that they don't necessarily define, right? They don't define the problem. And Corey's trigger is interesting, because many folks would know the problem, but people aren't paying attention to this day to day. You need a proof point, an example, a live wire to trigger a particular move and saying this is a pattern of behavior that we can no longer stomach. I appreciate that, Corey. Carter, your take on this, because we're getting some clarity in terms of what this memo looks like.

Carter 28:16

you can even hope for better right

Carter 28:18

right like it doesn't need to be an action that jagmeet singh takes that you just disagree with i mean imagine that you go through the constitutional changes that cory is defining right and and you're in the you're in the meeting you're changing the rules about unions you're changing the rules about connecting to you can make it so you're

Corey 28:33

you're not automatically a member of the federal ndp when you join you have your own yeah

Corey 28:36

yeah there's a check box you gotta check

Corey 28:38

check it says hey you want to be a member of the federal ndp too you know you can do these things all

Carter 28:43

all of those those things are being changed and you're changing them radically and it's happening very quickly and the

Carter 28:49

the other way that you can you

Carter 28:50

you know this could happen is that the federal ndp take an action that say you know what you guys aren't the ndp anymore yeah

Carter 28:56

oh how terrible oh no we've

Carter 29:00

we've been thrown out of the federal ndp what

Carter 29:03

what better proof point do you need that you're not the ndp anymore oh

Corey 29:06

oh my god you

Carter 29:07

you almost want to orchestrate

Carter 29:10

because you want you want to push them so far you want to to push them so far so fast that they can't possibly keep you in and you do this all timing so that and then there's there's you know provocateurs in ontario in in manitoba in in saskatchewan and british columbia that all go to the national convention and say we can't have those fuckers from alberta in our party anymore look what they've done they're not new democrats boom

Carter 29:36

boom problem solved now

Carter 29:38

now you've got a brand change because you've literally changed the brand right

Carter 29:42

right the brand is no longer the new democrats they've kicked you the fuck out perfect

Corey 29:48

probably a good time to remind everybody we are not saying this is a good idea we are saying if you wanted to change the name this is

Zain 29:55

so the reason we're doing this episode is is a

Carter 29:58

a version like a pretty good idea no

Corey 30:00

a version a version i was worried we were getting too into it i'm really this

Carter 30:04

this is classic whiteboard

Zain 30:06

energy but yeah a version of it was thrown up and the premise of this episode and we'll talk about this particular group in a second at the end, but the premise of this episode is how would you do it, right? This is how one group did it. How would you do it, right? And I wanted to test that. Okay, so I've got a lot. We do it better. I

Carter 30:25

I mean, can we just start with that premise? Your premise is interesting,

Zain 30:28

interesting, right? So you've got new leader, not necessarily doing it as part of the leadership race. You've got trigger points. You've got T-minus sort of like six months, but it's not a date on the calendar. You say we're going, do or die. No, you look for an organic moment to kind of make this happen. You try to orchestrate a bit of that. You include policies, constitutional changes, other relationships throughout this period that make it very clear. Corey, I have to push a little bit on policies, and then I want to push on third party groups. Those are the two things on my mind. Do you need a big signature trigger policy policy to create distance it doesn't have to be in that same time horizon just before you do it but do you need something to create space and then what is that for you you talk about orchestrating what would you orchestrate from like a policy perspective that could create that distance we've talked constitution we've talked brand we've talked name etc policy does paul where does that kind of fit in yeah

Corey 31:27

yeah i i think that's exactly where we need to go next and one of the things that a a next leader of the NDP is going to have to deal with, if there's a next leader of the NDP, if Rachel Notley, I mean, there will be some day, but like in

Carter 31:38

in the next bit,

Corey 31:39

bit, is they're going to need to say why their party is different than the party that was. And ultimately, there are some pretty showy things you could talk about if you were an NDP leader, one of them being the carbon tax. Coming out in opposition to the carbon tax doesn't mean you're against environmental action. we've talked about this on this podcast a lot you could say you know what it

Corey 32:02

it was it was a well-intentioned idea it was probably a mistake for us to put trust in this in this like weird market mechanism uh which was going to ultimately hurt people and instead we're going to make sure that it's it's large corporations and you know the the super wealthy flying around in jets and the people who are causing this pollution are going to pay for it not you and we're going to shield it and we've got this new regulatory approach we've got this way that we can address it at kind of the institutional level it's not going to be you anymore so i think that a policy like that that it doesn't need to be that i want to be clear but where you're actually taking on what has been at least for the past five plus years a sacred cow of the alberta ndp is something you've got to do uh it's got to be something of that size of that magnitude something that you you could say the alberta ndp would never do that right i think one of the ones that really makes a lot of sense to me is

Corey 33:00

is actually one that steven threw on the table pre-election mid-election like a big tax cut by the alberta ndp targeted at lower incomes for sure you know but you know like things that you historically wouldn't associate with the alberta ndp that are policy changes that sort of signify not

Corey 33:16

not the same organization how close how close are you doing this

Zain 33:19

this to the next election versus like doing this what you'd call traditionally mid-cycle these

Corey 33:23

these i do right away like i do these mid-cycle which is not sooner like this becomes almost part of a leadership contest this is a bundle of changes you bring forward and say i

Corey 33:33

i want to do things a little bit differently we're all new democrats but i have these different policy initiatives that are coming forward this is part of that work i was talking about where you actually change who you are before you even consider some of these like name change things that are down the road you know changing the color of your party changing the name of your party all of that nonsense that that is like that's the final coat of paint you know so if if you want to change the organization's brand and

Corey 34:02

and that doesn't necessarily mean name change you start with those things and you see where you end up thanks for saying cory that

Corey 34:07

that they have a great logo uh

Zain 34:08

uh carter um from your perspective talk

Corey 34:12

talk to me about do people know that uh your involvement in the logo they do now i you know

Carter 34:18

know they would have if we'd done a post-mortem yeah you would let us yeah

Corey 34:21

post-mortem i nailed it that was it right there right

Carter 34:23

right there logo fuck you if you'd had a different name you'd have won a better logo that's

Carter 34:28

that's why you lost hey zane just

Carter 34:30

just the name you

Zain 34:30

you want to ask me the question why'd

Zain 34:33

why'd you lose thank you i

Corey 34:35

feel right without the question

Zain 34:36

um hey carter where does policy fit in how close does these signature orchestrated flashy policies need to to be to the next election versus leadership versus immediately versus floated out as trial balloons, like literally now. Talk to me about where policy fits in if the headline of this memo is changing the relationship.

Carter 34:55

Well, I mean, I remember being very enthusiastic a couple episodes ago about the NDP and the way that they instituted their carbon tax. But you don't need to do a carbon tax to have a bunch of money to spend on changing the economy. I mean, if you you look at what's happening in the united states you could steal straight out of joe biden's bucket of okay we're going to reinvest money into the economy to enable it to become a green economy and that puts people to work puts creates you know great green jobs and whatever the hell he his his talking point is um that i'm not sure what

Carter 35:29

what else you could put in the window i'm not sure like i was i was trying to think like i don't i didn't want to follow and just say yeah yeah, that's a good one, Corey. Um, but I don't have a lot of other talking points. Like you're going to be committed to certain primary commitments

Carter 35:42

commitments that are going to stay the same, right? Like you're going to stay committed to healthcare, you know, the public healthcare system. Um,

Carter 35:48

Um, you're going to stay committed to, uh, public education. You're going to stay committed to post-secondary education, but there's different ways of delivering all of these things too. So maybe you, you talk about changing the focus of the government on a couple of those But I think that right now with environmental politics being as powerful as it is, that's a place to just really define yourself as different from from Rachel Notley. The other would be just action. I mean, the Alberta NDP did nothing to stop me from paying for my own MRI when I separated my shoulder mountain biking. uh and and sarah hoffman was the minister of uh of health right like the

Carter 36:31

the alberta ndp did nothing to change the way that we look at a health care in this province um maybe you can make a case that you

Carter 36:38

you know that you're going to be the health care uh party there's there's a number of different ways to kind of dig into it um but i think that the climate change one is probably the best well look

Corey 36:49

look regardless of which one you want and don't let our imagination in the moment and make it seem more self-limited than it is. There's lots of things you could talk about here.

Corey 36:59

In a sense, what you're trying to do over that period of time is you're trying to do something that has, maybe even your critics say, that's not NDP. And then you go, yeah, that's Alberta NDP. We're different. And if they say, well, then Alberta NDP isn't NDP, then you've ended up in a place where you say, well, maybe you're right, right? Like to Stephen's idea before. But addressing these things first, to me, it's

Corey 37:22

it's a necessary condition. does not require you to then go on and change the name but if you actually want to talk about brand you got to talk about the things that matter right that actually reflect people's relationship and if

Carter 37:35

if we changed it if we change the taxation structure kind of moving back to my you know what i was thinking about earlier if you change the taxation structure and you say we're going to tax these following groups less than these following groups more um you could really build some momentum. And again, I think that it'd be really important to carve out some ideas that aren't going to be universally accepted by the caucus that you're representing, that aren't going to be universally accepted by the traditional New Democratic voter. Why would you do that? Why would you give up a known set of voters? Because there's another known set of voters that didn't vote for you last time. The work that this party, this little group has done, whatever it's called that uh malkinson's working on the

Carter 38:21

the the data is there i mean the data that they presented isn't necessarily wrong it's

Carter 38:26

it's just not necessarily the data that would convince me just to change the name it

Carter 38:30

it would be convincing me that maybe there's a small group of voters that i can turn away from to pick up a larger group of voters if i change my behaviors uh and change my brand structure yeah

Corey 38:41

yeah and it's like in the movie dave when they're trying to get the astronauts back from the failed old spacecraft oh yeah it's going to the moon yeah

Corey 38:49

you are going to lose a certain number in the conversion it's not going to be perfect you're not going to say there's four times as many people over here as i've got here i'm going to get four times as many you're going to lose a lot of votes on the way but if you still end up in a net positive situation frankly

Zain 39:06

frankly that's the hope because it was

Corey 39:08

but it was this close like the thing i want to underline is it was this close so like you really are talking about marginal efficiencies over last election in order to win the next election i

Carter 39:18

i mean allison redford gave up fiscal conservatives in order to win a certain female voter segment it was a great trade uh but it ultimately cost her her leadership too so you got to recognize that you know and in a perfect world we would have had a lot more lloyd snellgrove's if you recall lloyd snellgrove left the progressive conservative caucus because Because he was not prepared to serve with Alison Redford. That was great for us. That enabled us to say, we're losing this old guard and we're picking up new people because we have changed so dramatically. But it turned out that he left because of her individual failings, which was a, yeah,

Carter 39:58

yeah, that was a great precursor to what was going to happen. So

Zain 40:00

So we've got a lot on the table. We've got this, you know, this doesn't happen now, new leader, maybe not run on it. I want to get back to this for a second before I talk about third party groups. We've got, like, this T-minus six months, the trigger points, policy fitting in there, creating some distance. Some, Corey, would suggest you right away. Carter, I think you'd agree with that. I want to talk about if you are a leadership candidate or a potential leadership candidate that either wants to go for the change candidacy but doesn't want to acknowledge it, Corey, what's

Zain 40:27

what's your line? Like, and what I mean by that, you're not the change candidate running on the party, you know, needs a name change, needs a brand change. Alberta NDP doesn't. If that's not your explicit, like, focus, and you're not mentioning those words, what's your line around, hey, a brand, a brand, name change? Because this question may keep coming up. Like, I don't know how much juice it's got, how much life it's got. It's clearly got a bit of juice right now because of this group coming out. What are you saying to both of you? Like, how are you navigating those worlds? worlds you

Corey 40:57

know you get the opportunity to make a statement that is probably not 100 true but sounds 100 righteous and won't do you any harm where you can say you know initiatives like this don't give voters enough credit like if if the ndp has things it needs to do there are things we need to change about ourselves here but like the idea that you're just going to put a different coat of paint on things and and trick voters is is foolish that's not going to happen and that's not where where I'm going to be putting my efforts. I want to be talking about policy. I want to be talking building bridges to communities. I want to be talking about the ways that we can reflect the concerns of Albertans that don't currently feel like we reflect those concerns. And those don't have anything to do with our name, and they have everything to do with how we act and who we are.

Zain 41:39

Carter, what would you add to that? What would you take away? What would you completely remodel?

Carter 41:44

Yeah, I'm not the least bit interested in changing the name of the party. I am, however, interested in changing who the party appeals to. And that's going to involve us us bringing a whole bunch of new ideas to the table. Ideas like walking away from the carbon tax while reaffirming our commitment to the environment. Walking, you know, changing the way that we impose taxes on Albertans so that the people who have the most resources pay their fair share and we close the income gap in this province, which has become so unbelievably crazy. The way that we have, I'm going to really put an emphasis on children um you

Carter 42:23

you know we're watching the ucp destroy children in our province and and we're going to focus on children so that they have the best possible province to grow up in or whatever i mean but

Carter 42:33

but that's what i'm going to change i'm not going to change the name i don't have no interest in in

Carter 42:37

in in playing these silly games by people who've got too much time on their hands uh that don't recognize how people actually vote people

Carter 42:45

people voted for or against rachel notley too you know Like, come on now.

Corey 42:50

I think Albertans have gotten their share of distracted government focusing on the wrong things. I'm going to be offering

Corey 42:56

offering them something different.

Carter 42:57

Real changes that make a real difference in their lives. Let

Zain 43:00

Let me stay on this track. These are good responses. Let me stay on this track for a second. I think, and I'm getting a little bit more into the leadership style things, which we haven't really discussed because we don't necessarily know. But let's say it happens. One of the concerns that you hear from the party is that you want the acknowledgement of folks building on Rachel's success, not undercutting it, so to speak, right? And as much as you talk about new, different, et cetera, Corey,

Zain 43:27

Corey, any cautions for folks that would run on this that have, and I'm going to stick to our scope here, that have the ambition of a potential rebrand, et cetera, to build rather than undercut and strip down and rebuild? Does that make sense to you? Because I think at the end of the day, the viability of this party is due to pretty much one woman And what she was able to do with it, one would argue, or there is an argument to be made. You may want to disagree with it, either of you. But I'll put that on the table as a consideration for the broader rebrand change the relationship project that this memo is about. out?

Corey 44:01

Ah, you know, that's, that's one of those questions where it's like, I hear what you're saying. But I also think that people who say that are, are entirely missing the point and the realities of politics. The

Corey 44:12

minute Rachel Notley leaves, she's gone. And you can no longer bank on and cash out that relationship she has with Alberta voters. Any new leader is going to be a leap of faith. Any new leader is going to require saying, this is who we are, this is what we're going to be and setting their own direction i mean this can't be a political party like north korea where like i think two leaders ago is still technically the eternal president right where everybody talks about how great they were if it's going to be a living vibrant political organization it's got to be molded in this shape and reflect the strengths of whoever the next leader is because the next leader will not be rachel notley and so the idea that you're going to sit there and have a bunch of like sacred moses style tablets which were whatever rachel said is ridiculous and it it actually wouldn't be doing a service to rachel notley's legacy either the best thing you can do for rachel notley's legacy within the party is make sure that the ndp remain a perpetual force in alberta politics you do not need to sit there and put her on some sort of phony pedestal and say we can't undo anything that rachel said she's a human folks i've met her you guys have met her like makes mistakes is sometimes awesome sometimes drives you nuts and and like we've just got to to sort of accept that while she is a phenomenal leader uh there is not only one way to do things that's just the simple reality of it and so like like let's not create these false idols let's not do this ridiculous thing carter

Zain 45:36

carter it's it's an ongoing narrative within the party would you like cory kind of quash it like he has or or side not sure you didn't sidestep but i think you dealt with it head on would you would you deal with it like how cory has both in terms of um how he's positioned it and the subsequent actions there on in let's

Carter 45:52

let's be very clear i mean she didn't succeed right

Carter 45:55

right she has the largest opposition in alberta history that's great that's fantastic she was also

Corey 46:00

also premier for four fucking years yeah

Carter 46:02

yeah and if she'd left after those four years that would have been great but she lost because

Carter 46:06

because we're only as good as the last election and she's had two losses back to back so that means that the voters who had the choice who had the opportunity to invest in her, said they'd prefer not to. In fact, in the last election, they said they'd prefer to invest in a lunatic. So with lunatic ideas and lunatic backers, that's not great. So don't

Carter 46:27

don't overinvest in something that didn't win. If your objective was to be the biggest opposition in Alberta history, then I guess, you know what, you can reinvest in that. That did work. But I don't think the objective is that. And that actually would be one of my talking points If I was running in a leadership or running a leadership campaign, I would say, you

Carter 46:47

you know, Rachel Notley did

Carter 46:49

did amazing things, but we

Carter 46:51

we need someone who will close the deal because it's too important. It's too important. You know, we see the stakes now. What happens when we're unable to win? They win. And when they win, it's bad. So

Carter 47:06

So we need to make sure that we're different enough to get enough people to vote. Corey might

Zain 47:11

might be grabbing the eraser for the whiteboard. Go ahead, Corey. I don't give a fuck.

Zain 47:15

mean, I just, I think

Corey 47:15

think that's like, yeah, I don't know. Like, what are you, what are you doing here? Like, I think we have to acknowledge where the NDP was before she

Corey 47:22

started. No, we don't. Of course

Carter 47:23

course we do. Okay.

Carter 47:24

She's a loser. She's just a loser. Okay,

Corey 47:27

Okay, listen, let's, let's look.

Corey 47:30

You and I have had this conversation so many times over the years. My thesis has always been about 2015, that there

Corey 47:38

there are trends in Alberta. There are demographic changes. There are, you know, attitudinal changes that have occurred in the province of Alberta that

Corey 47:45

that have meant that eventually we were going to end up with a government like the Alberta NDP government. And that 2015 was like a dramatic manifestation of those changes and probably happened

Corey 47:57

two or three elections too early. And

Corey 48:02

here we are. If we actually say that was an aberration, if you just want to look at where the NDP was prior and where they are now, how do you argue anything but incredible

Corey 48:12

incredible success of her leadership there? I think that's ridiculous, the argument you have just made here. No,

Carter 48:17

No, it's not, because people weren't voting for her. They were voting against Prentice. And that's great, because so many elections are—that's how you win elections, arguably. And arguably, people, you know, if Pierre Polyev becomes the next prime minister of Canada, it won't be because he's the next best candidate. It's because they're voting against, you know, who they perceive to be a bad prime minister. And they may or may not be wrong in that. But that's how people make decisions. They're sometimes voting for you and they're sometimes voting against you. And I would say that they, you know, and I put myself in this category. Alison Redford didn't win in 2012 because they were voting for her. they she won because they were voting against danielle smith and her crazy people yeah

Carter 48:58

that was you know so i'm not just sitting here saying oh look how you know bad or you know this is a bad way of winning it's a great way to win in fact some might say it's

Corey 49:08

it's the only way you were literally chanting she's a loser a second ago

Carter 49:11

ago okay anyways my point is that she needs like the party if the The party wants to win. It can't just be building an opposition, you know, hope that people

Carter 49:22

people choose to vote against Danielle. You got to build up something that people want more. Corey, I'm

Zain 49:26

I'm liking the shape of this. I'm liking the shape of this memo. Is there anything else you want to add? I feel like if people...

Carter 49:30

people... I feel like you stepped on the dead end. If people want...

Zain 49:32

want... I feel like it was getting redundant, Carter. At some point I had... Redundant

Carter 49:36

Redundant and Carter are redundant

Zain 49:39

I'm liking the shape of this memo, Corey. Is there anything you want to add? Because my final point is to talk about outside pressures, third party groups like this one, to drive it home to our current reality.

Corey 49:49

Yeah, well, I think one of the things we haven't talked about here, but you also need to have in your mind, I don't know that your answer to it changes what you do.

Corey 49:57

Any of the conversations we've had around policy, leadership, timing, any of that is, like, there are shades of name change, right? There is, like, a literal name change to something like the Alberta Progressives, right? Do we own that,

Zain 50:15

Alberta Progressives? well we should

Corey 50:16

should see if it's available yeah that's good uh and then there are things along the lines of just dropping the new and maybe not even legally in the party just saying like we're branding ourselves just as the democrats now it's

Carter 50:28

it's a really good the way to talk about like you don't need to legally change the name of the party yeah change the brand that's good we

Corey 50:34

we should you change and you can like literally in alberta you just write a letter if you're like a principal officer i can't remember the exact phrasing they have for it like the the executive director of the party the leader can send a note to elections alberta and say this is the name we want to show up on the ballot next to it right and so like you don't need to go through big constitutional arguments and bylaw changes and your ability to do that is strengthened the closer you sit to the current legal name of the party like as long as it is a portion of the current legal name you

Corey 51:05

you know elections alberta is not going to have a leg to stand on to say no you don't need to have the big internal fights so there are also things you need to consider on that front because well we've talked Oh, we do all of these things. And we've sort of assumed, A, we have all of the authorities of the leader, both as candidate in the leader's office, but B, that we'd be able to slide everything through bylaws without like some sort of contentious fight on the floor of a convention. So, I mean, you've also got to think about that, because that's going to dictate some of your tactics and approaches as you move forward. now

Zain 51:33

now here's what's interesting alberta democrats.ca is taken cory

Zain 51:38

someone someone's thinking ahead well

Zain 51:39

well i'm sure but alberta dp.ca is not taken so if you want alberta democratic party just out of curiosity yes

Zain 51:46

yes go ahead carl

Zain 51:49

uh i mean it might be very it may

Carter 51:51

may in fact be us i think we may have talked about it oh my god cory

Zain 51:55

cory please how did this not come up in the on an episode they

Zain 51:59

they should have i don't know cory is cory's been getting extremely extremely shitty it yet is very sloppy um yeah we'll we'll capture all the domain names so should that this ever happen um the party i don't

Carter 52:07

don't think we ever will know all the domains no no

Corey 52:10

no you know the problem is because like i was looking at the list of ones we registered at hover but i sometimes do it at names pro i sometimes do it at like names

Zain 52:17

names cheap do you do

Corey 52:19

could be anywhere right

Zain 52:21

yeah carter we need to we need to get all of them we may even own alberta democrats.ca we should start our own political party carter you know

Carter 52:27

know what we should we should start our own political party that'd be great i like that what could possibly go wrong we got We've got Zane

Corey 52:32

Zane for Leader posters available at thestrategist.ca. Well, just

Carter 52:35

just out of curiosity, who would oppose him?

Carter 52:37

I mean, if Zane decided to run for leader, we're

Corey 52:40

We're all in. I mean, yeah. I mean, you

Corey 52:42

you might be using a royal we there. I would certainly strongly oppose him, but...

Carter 52:48

I mean, don't get me wrong, catastrophic for the province, but nonetheless, I can

Carter 52:55

can wrap my head around it. Carter, what

Zain 52:55

what else needs to be included in our memo? What's missing from your perspective? Well,

Carter 52:58

Well, I mean, you do want to talk about these third parties. I do. The third party is a problem. Okay, so let me frame it

Zain 53:05

it in my way. Is there a point in this time horizon that we're talking about where Corey's kind of anchored us to T minus six months with eventual potential name change? Is there a period at any point that having a third party, whether it's this group, different groups, formal, informal, informal. We talk about generating the parade of the enthusiasm for something like this to happen. Is that helpful? This group is saying they want to start the conversation, right? That's their mantra. That's what they're asking. But is there a point anywhere in the process that a group or groups or individuals chattering about this at any given volume is helpful to the outcome that you want, which in this case for the exercise we're doing is to change the name? Carter, to your thoughts and then Corey you absolutely

Carter 53:56

absolutely not because let's assume that this is something that a leadership candidate you know we can see this happening down the road now all of a sudden we are just taking the position of an existing third party like they're

Carter 54:09

they're they have some sort of influence over us like they're the leader I mean this is about leadership this is about being in charge and we're not going to hand over being in charge to some third party group we want to be in in charge that's essential to the overall exercise is that you know the the leadership candidate or the leader is is driving this bus but now we have to be beholden to this third party leadership group or this third party group that is already advancing a you know a name change a a trademark change without going through the work of actually changing the organization organization. All this is doing is making it less likely that the Alberta NDP winds up being in a position where it can change its name.

Zain 54:54

So, Carter, you would have the same reaction, Corey, I'm coming to you in a second on this particular question. You'd have the exact same reaction to this Alberta's progressive future if it happened eight months before the next election, as you do today. Is that right? Yeah,

Corey 55:05

Yeah, more so. Okay, Corey, jump in. Any part

Zain 55:09

part of the time horizon is a third party or anyone providing a groundswell to make this happen useful? That's the question, Corey.

Corey 55:16

Well, so listen, my personal philosophy of this is somewhat, like I said, informed by having to live like many years of pain of this conversation with the Alberta Liberal Party. And ultimately, I believe it was so bad for the party. It was such a distraction. Party couldn't get its pants on. There was so much internal strife over the particular matter, right? So I'm somewhat informed and somewhat scarred, frankly, by that particular experience. experience here's the thing should the albert ndp do this i don't think so but i'll entertain debates on it is the conversation helpful fuck

Corey 55:48

no it will force lines to be drawn it will take energy away from things where energy is required it will make authority look like it came from elsewhere to steven's point here and it creates a pressure that you're going to be forced to either approve or deny and imagine a scenario you just talked about eight months before if you you plan to do this two months from now and now you have some random fucking group demanding you do it and you're gonna do it like it actually does make it impossible to do to steven's point so like i just i don't i don't think the conversation is helpful and i think you

Corey 56:18

you know and ultimately by raising conversation about this you make it impossible for the leader to do it quietly like you essentially have elevated the question to the point where it demands the involvement of other people also

Carter 56:30

also this idea that conversation is required in some sort of political environment like Like, this isn't actually how politics works. I mean, how Alberta Party of them. I mean, you got to admire their commitment to the Alberta Party. There's a case

Carter 56:42

Let's talk about it.

Zain 56:43

There's a case here that if, and this is no slight to the folks organizing this, but if they had the heft to make this happen, they could do it behind closed doors, right? Like, is that what you're ultimately trying to say? They could do it strategically behind closed doors, be part of a plan, sort of thing, be involved in the process, sort of thing. Yeah.

Corey 57:01

Well, look, I have a good friend. His name's Justin Archer. He had analysis after the 2015 election about why the Alberta NDP won, which I kind of fundamentally agree with here in terms of not so much why the Alberta NDP was ahead of the wild rose, but why the Alberta party became nothing, the Alberta liberals became nothing, and the Alberta NDP sucked up all of that vote, right? It's because those other two organizations were so internally focused and trying to figure out the perfect mechanism through which this vote could be delivered instead of actually doing the work that's required. And the way Justin's put it, and I've stolen and I've used this phrase a bunch of times, is they are the only ones who were dressed when the bus came, right? Like everybody else was fucking debating about what clothes they're going to wear that day. And so, yeah, I mean, these things can be poisonous, distracting arguments. And lest we forget, in 2015, in Edmonton Centre, in a Liberal-held seat, the Alberta Liberal Party held the seat, Lori Blakeman lost. I think she might even come in third, but I might be wrong about that. Remember this, yeah, sure.

Corey 58:04

Yeah, David Shepard won NDP.

Corey 58:08

Lori Blakeman ran with signs that she had coordinated a deal where she got the nomination of the Green Party, the Liberals, and the Alberta Party, and she had all three fucking logos on there trying to look like she was, like, this consensus change candidate. And everyone's like, and she's the sitting MLA, and everyone's like, that's great. I'm going to vote for those guys. They seem to actually be talking about the things I care about right now. yeah

Corey 58:30

conversations about brand matter

Corey 58:32

matter so much more to the political class than they do to the voting class and polling like we've seen from alberta's progressive future is essentially polling on where people already feel about these things and there's such a tail wags the dog a bit to this right like oh i you know why aren't you going to vote ndp i don't have a good reason so i'll give you the bad reason you put in front of me like you've got to be fucking careful full following polls on this stuff, too.

Zain 58:55

Carter, final question here, which is really about packaging this memo. And if someone were to want to absorb it, someone were to go back to this episode, write everything down, put it together and say, this is my game plan. I want to change the name of this party. I'm committed to this project. I don't know who this person is. I don't have anyone in my mind. But I'm just saying like, someone's like, yes, motivated by this.

Zain 59:17

Give me as we wrap up this episode, your cautionary note on all of this. You may have have already delivered it through some of your other analysis. And Corey, I'm coming to you with the same question. Your cautionary

Zain 59:26

cautionary note to take what we've said on this show and start applying it to their political future, a candidate of choice's political future, backpocketing it for the next time there's a leadership change. What cautionary advice would you have for them around implementation? Because a plan is great, but if you can't implement it properly with folks that know how to execute it, it can turn into shit. So give me your take, Corey, your take, and then then we'll close this thing out.

Carter 59:53

There are no shortcuts in politics. Politics is about hard work and changing your relationship with the electorate. So whenever someone proposes some sort of a get-rich-quick scheme of how you can gain electoral success without having to put in the effort, be skeptical, because the reality is you're not going to be able to just change your relationship with the voters. As Corey said in the very first sentence that he spoke in this episode, You don't change the relationship with the voters simply by changing your name. Give the voters more credit. They're not just looking down and saying, well, I don't like that. That's the reason they're giving. That's not the reason why they're not voting for you.

Zain 1:00:34

Corey, cautionary note, any sort of like footnotes you'd want to add to the memo? Any sort of additional context you want to add?

Corey 1:00:43

Well, I couldn't agree more with every word Stephen said, mostly because it was referencing my words but still very good packaging it was very good packaging of it all i

Corey 1:00:53

i think the other thing though i would say is like don't

Corey 1:00:56

don't forget if you are committed to the idea of a name change for this organization again like if that's your okay whatever right yeah yeah

Corey 1:01:05

that that is a means to an end it is not an end in its own right you've got to actually be live to the situation as it unfolds and if you find at that seven months before election that hey actually things are going pretty good we're up 10 points in the polls here the whole idea was we wanted to do this to win an election why

Corey 1:01:22

why would you shoot yourself in the foot by proceeding with this particular plan right if the thesis was you need to change the brand to win well then your thesis has been disproven so make sure you're actually reacting to the facts on the on the ground here and not just doing things because you would always plan to do things create optionality create paths for yourself that's always a good idea in political strategy and by the way lest

Corey 1:01:44

lest we forget the ndp He led in the polls for most of the four years between the last two elections. So, you know, I think that this is kind of a ridiculous project on its face.

Zain 1:01:55

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1268 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velge. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

Zain 1:02:11

Okay, so Carter's late. late. We were supposed to record 12 minutes ago, but I know exactly why he's late. Number one, Corey, I think he's in a different time zone, okay?

Corey 1:02:18

Yeah, that's a reasonable theory. He's working, doing

Zain 1:02:21

doing some work in Toronto. But there's more, because we were supposed to record yesterday, and then he backed out when he said, listen, they haven't even started the main course, which to me, there's a couple things. He's in a different time zone. That's my first prediction. He is in a different time zone where he had dinner with people who were very casual about the timing of dinner, which, by the way, is a very roundabout way of saying he was with brown people. And thirdly, he estimated, he said, listen, it's 10.30, I'm going to definitely make it. That's when we record 10.30 p

Zain 1:02:51

.m. Yeah, I'll be done dinner by 10

Corey 1:02:51

10.30. Oh my god,

Zain 1:02:52

I'll have digested my dinner by 10.30.

Zain 1:02:56

made a mistake. Yeah, he made a huge mistake. So we're going to wait for him to come on, and we're going to ask him what happened, because he hasn't shown up yet. This is a reschedule. I'm going to ask him what... Yeah, he's supposed to be here 13 minutes ago. I bet he thinks he's in a different time zone right now. I bet he got caught up.

Zain 1:03:10

I mean, what time is it right now? He's in a late lunch. He's doing...

Corey 1:03:17

went to go have dinner last night. Yeah. And there was going to be just two stops along the way. And then they were going to get there. And at both of the stops and at the actual place of dinner, there were two hour delays.

Zain 1:03:28

true. That's my theory.

Zain 1:03:30

Yeah. Also, you can't say no. You can't say no to food. You can't say no. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you want to be a white man serving brown people, you got to let the brown people serve of you, okay? It's going to be part of my book of idioms that I produce eventually. Is that an idiom? Yeah, I don't know about that one.

Corey 1:03:47

more of a maxim.

Corey 1:03:49

It's more of a maxim than an idiom, I think.

Zain 1:03:50

think. Yeah, it's more of a maxim. But if you want to serve brown people, let brown people serve you, okay? It's pretty good.

Zain 1:03:58

pretty good. Good political advice. I mean, we've got a lot of brown people in politics now, so all you whites will probably eventually, eventually you know start working for us so you know it's pretty good advice in fact i should probably write a entire book on how to deal with uh brown politicians cory i feel like there's a lot of them coming going running yeah

Corey 1:04:20

yeah so give me like the the play-by-play here yeah stephen carter

Corey 1:04:24

when do you think that dinner was originally scheduled for okay

Zain 1:04:27

okay so i bet

Zain 1:04:27

was eight o'clock at night eight eight to eight thirty okay

Zain 1:04:31

like 10 30 yeah yeah absolutely

Corey 1:04:35

yeah we can easily that's two hours after

Zain 1:04:37

now carter would also underestimate mississauga traffic right um oh that's true right so every person mississauga is legally bound to have their own car um which is why traffic is terrible right um and

Corey 1:04:51

and so i gotta get to and from cactus club yeah Yeah,

Zain 1:04:53

Yeah, underestimated, underestimated the traffic. Dinner was supposed to be 7.30 or 8. He thought he had his dinner. Here's actually what happened. He thought he had his dinner when he had the appetizers, because Carter is pale white. He doesn't understand what an Indian appetizer would be. So he's like, he went hard in the paint on the appetizers. He's full, okay? It's about 9.10 and he's full.

Corey 1:05:18

He's had, yeah, he's had, yeah, I can see this now.

Zain 1:05:22

No, no, he went hard in the paint. He's like, this is amazing, whatever this is on a stick. This is so good. That's

Zain 1:05:27

good. Oh, yeah, yeah, he gets all his

Corey 1:05:29

I've never had such good Pecora. Yeah. These are amazing samosas. Yeah, no,

Corey 1:05:35

mistake. And by rookie,

Zain 1:05:35

rookie, I mean he should know better. And then he eventually fucks up because the main courses haven't arrived. and if you don't know um dessert and tea is his own 90 minute operation at any dinner i mean this guy is fucked and he's pretty much he i i

Zain 1:05:53

think he was at an indian wedding i think he i think they probably crashed a wedding last night he

Corey 1:05:57

he might still be there that might be why he's not here right now well

Zain 1:05:59

well i mean listen um at the very least we should probably release this and we should probably mention our sponsors at canva now canva cory you

Zain 1:06:09

can use yeah i'm recording this entire thing on canva right it's not one of their features but i mean it eventually probably will be because they're developing features like it's no one's business cory they've got ai that's the thing that they do now oh

Corey 1:06:23

tell me about this what does ai stand for

Zain 1:06:25

it stands for applied interstellar and i don't know what that exactly means but

Corey 1:06:31

but it sounds really fast sounds

Corey 1:06:32

sounds very futuristic yeah

Zain 1:06:33

yeah it sounds extremely futuristic uh they've got canva for teams okay so imagine imagine yourself as one person now imagine many of you that's

Zain 1:06:42

that's a team okay you

Zain 1:06:45

you can use you can use i

Corey 1:06:46

i don't even know why i would here's what i do i don't know why i would need teammates if i use canva because they do all canva does all the work it's

Zain 1:06:52

it's and i think that's the that's the hole they wanted us to find in the logic right why would you have ai and canva for teams when you could do everything with ai and canva right so here's what i'd say fuck canva for teams it's a feature that's probably going to die um but they're our sponsor and you can get a 45-day trial cory at canva.me slash day 45 um yeah that's our only sponsor for now um they've been contemplating giving us another sponsor cory um there's been

Corey 1:07:21

been there's been a long

Zain 1:07:23

long-standing conversation on on one of us receiving a douglas mattress now now i thought we were sharing the douglas

Zain 1:07:30

one of us receiving so here's here's the question now i i've asked for three douglas mattresses uh and they have said uh no uh and then i asked for one frederick douglas mattress and then they they ghosted me um so i don't know what douglas mattresses are we might get one and apparently based on how we like it we have to read some ad copy for them but uh i suspect if you go to douglas.whateverca i imagine slash uh day 45 eventually you'll probably be able to get that one

Zain 1:08:02

one of the mattresses... Now, I think the way it works, Corey, is that they send us a mattress, and we test that mattress out, and

Zain 1:08:10

and we get to give it away to one of our listeners. I think that is how the

Corey 1:08:14

the Duckwood... So, like, yeah, okay, that makes sense. Now,

Zain 1:08:16

Now, I don't think

Zain 1:08:17

we can get it back in the box, so we have to pay exorbitant freight to

Corey 1:08:22

to get this mattress out.

Corey 1:08:27

draw straws to see who gets the mattress first? Okay,

Zain 1:08:29

Okay, so here's my proposal. We draw straws to see who gets the mattress first. And then we sell the mattress on the strategist.ca afterwards, okay? We're in the hole for domain names significantly.

Zain 1:08:42

recuperate some of those

Corey 1:08:43

those costs there. Here

Zain 1:08:43

Here he is, Stephen Carter. Stephen Carter. Stephen Carter, we've

Corey 1:08:45

we've been recording for the last several

Zain 1:08:47

several minutes now. Here's what we need to know. Carter, what happened last

Zain 1:08:52

last night? Where were you? Are you in this time zone? Are you in a different time zone?

Corey 1:08:58

Okay, where are you? Where were you yesterday?

Corey 1:09:01

Yeah, what happened yesterday? I

Carter 1:09:02

I went to the Ranchman's Club for dinner. Oh,

Corey 1:09:08

It's like the opposite.

Corey 1:09:11

farther from what you guessed.

Corey 1:09:19

Amazing. We're going to have to listen and find out.

Carter 1:09:23

Oh, this is great. Let's do a show.

Transcript