Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is a strategist episode 1287. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, we have no time because we, Corey, have done it again. Another low budget airline six feet under. We have done it. The strategist bum. Oh, man. Swoop. They got fucked. Now, Lynx. They're done. They're done. They're gone. Is there anyone
Corey
0:24
anyone who's still standing? Is there
Zain
0:26
there anyone left in the game? There is
Zain
0:27
left. There's just us in
Corey
0:28
in the game. There
Corey
0:28
is one left in
Zain
0:29
in the game. What else was left in the game outside our homies at Flair? No, it's just Flair. Oh, it's just us, Carter. I'm counting Flair. Okay, let me tell you something. We chose
Carter
0:36
chose good sponsors, man. That was touch and go.
Zain
0:39
Yeah, well, touch and go is definitely Flair's. I mean, Flair was going to merge with Lynx. For those that are not familiar with the development of the past week. No, no, no, Zane. Zane? Yeah,
Corey
0:50
Yeah, okay. Corey, please, NBA. There
Zain
0:51
There was some bad
Corey
0:51
bad reporting on that. Corey Hogan, NBA, please. Yeah, go ahead. They were going to merge with Lynx Body Spray, which is what they call Axe in the United Kingdom. yeah so a little confusion there uh it's the new scent on all flare airlines flights
Carter
1:06
know what that would not surprise me at all that actually sounds true that sounds very true i
Zain
1:11
i mean it is it is 8 20 in the morning that's why my voice sounds like this because i got up at around 8 50 in
Zain
1:17
in the morning we
Corey
1:17
we got some nice i'm sure you rolled over to the text of is this happening
Zain
1:23
now this is because i i canceled yesterday uh
Zain
1:26
uh and i've rescheduled to today hoping that a better version of myself would be making an appearance this morning also
Corey
1:32
also zane i gotta tell you the the fact that 8 15 to you is like wake up
Carter
1:36
up oh my god i've been up since 5 30 how old are you it
Zain
1:39
is re-wake up time i've been i was up early and i was bad it's it's been a night cory um carter
Zain
1:47
carter do we have anything to talk about you have a hard out which i like you've given us a hard out in like 57
Carter
1:53
minutes yeah 57 minutes that's good so
Zain
1:55
so this episode will only be an hour and 30 yeah
Carter
1:58
yeah we can keep
Carter
1:59
you know cory and you can continue without me uh which actually is pretty much last episode so you know just keep going as you as you will you
Zain
2:08
you know did you did you feel short-trifted on your speaking time last episode seems like there's something to air seems like there's no air listen
Carter
2:14
listen my 16 minutes to cory's 29 that's fine that's all good that's
Zain
2:22
literally he literally pulled the numbers
Carter
2:24
numbers yeah i pulled the numbers why are
Zain
2:26
so sensitive and secret why
Zain
2:29
are sensitive and then you and then you never bring it up until
Carter
2:33
until you bring it up you just brought it up you brought it up zane you asked me if i was sensitive to it zane 24 minutes don't wake it up here 24
Carter
2:43
24 minutes from the zane this
Zain
2:44
this is not how i want
Carter
2:45
want to start my
Zain
2:45
my day this is not how i want
Zain
2:47
to restart my day this
Carter
2:48
this is not what the people signed up for when they signed up for patreon okay that's what i'm telling you that's
Carter
2:53
that's all i'm telling you this
Corey
2:54
this has got some real like uh real talk with ryan jesperson energy oh
Carter
2:58
oh i know right holy smokes
Corey
3:00
talk about sponsors we're drinking coffee so prime minister yelling at each other prime minister i
Zain
3:05
can't do the jespo voice that's
Corey
3:07
that's the worst that's not a good jespo
Zain
3:08
jespo okay let's just all do our own jespos and then we'll move on okay we'll all do it i'm gonna i'm gonna loosen up here but i'll let the two of you go first all right now
Corey
3:20
there was this tweet and it really seemed to get the internet on fire the kind of fire you only get from the sponsor medfire medfire in the sherwood park area selling cookies and cakes for 22 years medfire let
Carter
3:33
let me interrupt let me interrupt because i've just got some breaking news here ryan ryan some breaking news i'm sorry i've got enormous wood i've got enormous wood tables for sale ryan enormous wood tables for sale all you have to do is go to my enormous wood table.com uh website and you too can buy it from these guys are great i love these guys they're my favorite guys in the whole fucking world i love these guys enormous
Carter
4:01
enormous can we pull up
SPEAKER_01
4:02
up a picture of that uh
Carter
4:04
uh table there not
SPEAKER_01
4:04
not everyone can see this but holy fuck I'd fuck that table right now if this was not a six cam set up right now I would be fucking that table I mean that's how good these tables are my producer slash DJ slash everything guy that guy's a real talent I'm Ryan Chespo okay that's good we love you Chespo let's
Zain
4:22
let's move on to our first segment our first segment Corey look in the mirror it wasn't nasty okay listen when we choose to back someone Ryan
Zain
4:32
Ryan just got more
Carter
4:32
more time than I did in the last episode That's what we have just
Zain
4:35
just guaranteed that a show will survive all the other shows. Every time we sponsor someone, Corey, we give them a life and we continue to give them. Speaking of giving life, Corey, Danielle Smith is giving life to something that we have not heard of before. She had a televised address earlier this week. She paid for this spot roughly about 10 minutes or so on CTV and Global. It was also covered by by CBC. I know this because I was on an hour long panel in which they kind of played clips of her speech. An interesting address, Corey, in advance of budget. She talked about a few key things. I call this segment the look in the mirror segment, referencing the 2015 Jim Prentice phrase that that ultimately was the beginning of the end. Of course, we didn't know that at the moment, but it clearly painted that picture. Corey, there was a lot to talk about. out. She said she's delaying the tax cut that was promised in the election. She talked about the end of oil. Of course, those are my words, not her words, but talking about the transition that's necessary, talking about how we have to get off the energy roller coaster, and then talking about how she wants to massively balloon the Heritage Savings Fund to the tune of $400 billion by 2050, 50 if i'm not mistaken i'm just looking for that number in front of me you're
Zain
5:59
there's a lot there start with your basics in terms of what you made of the content and then we'll kind of talk about the politics there on after what did you think of what was in this package and then i want to talk about the politics of why she did it and then what could follow which i think is perhaps even more interesting than what was in this video yeah
Corey
6:17
yeah well the big piece of content that you didn't quite get to yet was how we're going to get the heritage fund to 400 billion dollars and that was by
Corey
6:26
by keeping spending in the province below growth
Corey
6:29
growth plus inflation so that really does mean in real terms we are going to reduce the quality or scope of services for
Corey
6:37
for the next 30 years like for the next 26 years
Corey
6:41
years that's pretty wild and that was a commitment by the premier that i think is going to have massive long-term consequences and you know actually it was rocky pancholi yesterday who tweeted out like the cbe funding per capita even in just the past few years how it's down so significantly and that's just going to continue uh at this particular rate and so i i guess the thing i want to say sort of the
Corey
7:05
the thing that i think is most interesting about this speech when you step back and look at it all is where
Corey
7:13
we had an election last year right and on that election we had a
Corey
7:18
a government running for re-election on a tax cut saying things like they wouldn't touch the cpp not mentioning things like renewables bans not mentioning things like we are going to starve services like this in fact saying quite the opposite like that we're spending more on services than ever and leaving exactly the opposite impression if not explicitly saying in some cases, that they were going to continue to invest in these areas, you know, not disinvest as they're currently doing here. And
Corey
7:44
And I just really struggle with this idea that the election and governing are so, so fundamentally detached from each other. Like it's fucking wild. Like there was this one line in the speech by the premier where she talked about last year's budget and how last year's budget relied so heavily on renewables and how it wasn't sustainable. I can't remember the exact phrasing i'll maybe look at the cards talking that
Corey
8:08
that was her budget like
Corey
8:09
like like you know that was her budget and so kind of the disconnect across the board i i can't help but wonder like a lot of albertans will like the idea of saving right but a lot of albertans will probably also be saying will the real danielle smith please stand up right is it is it the person who says we are kind of never getting off oil and gas is the person who as she did two nights ago go say this
Corey
8:32
is probably our last boom i can't recall her ever saying that certainly not in such a public setting so
Corey
8:37
so i think that um it's
Corey
8:40
it's a lot to process it's a lot to process because it's not the story she's been telling to date carter give me what you processed and then answer this
Zain
8:51
do do albertans want to save in the way she is suggesting we want to save
Carter
8:59
uh it's it's proven to be elusive um you know i i struggled with the name checks right danielle smith name checked uh premieres ernest manning uh peter laheed and ralph klein only one of those three premiers actually put together a savings program right uh the savings program that was created under premier laheed was what generated the then 16 billion dollar heritage savings trust fund and that was immediately undone by ralph klein when he got to the spend phase of his of his premiership where he just started to grab all the oil and gas revenues reduce taxes give us the fixed or you know the flat tax and uh really kind of changed the overall revenue structure so
Carter
9:45
so putting ralph klein in the same breath as premier laheed makes no sense at all And where the fuck did Ernest Manning come from? Since when are we blowing up that guy? It doesn't feel like that's the, why don't I throw in Eberhardt at the same time? Like, honest to God, why are we blowing up some of these old, you know, that was not a premier that we look back at with any real high degree of happiness. But I think that Corey's right. I mean, the idea that we're going to spend less 20 years into the future, 25 years into the future, right? right? 25 years of capping spending below inflation and population growth. What's it going to look like 25 years from now, right? Just 1%. And it just compounds every year, right? 1% spending cut every year. It's just going to compound. We're going to have terrible services. Sure, we'll have 250 billion in the bank, maybe even 400 billion in the bank. But the service cut to get there is the exact wrong thing. What we should do, of course we won't, But what we should be doing is talking about what are the taxes that we should be spending to have the level of service, to support the level of services that we demand, because we demand good services in Alberta. This is not a population that wants sub-tier, sub-par services along the lines of what Danielle Smith is promising.
Zain
11:07
Corey, your thoughts here? And also to Carter's point, this population, this mythology of who Albertans are, I think has an added layer. You know, it's not just that we're not fiscally conservative, as proven by our track record in many ways, but many Albertans have not been Albertans before. And like, you know, they're new Albertans. They've come here. They haven't had preconceived notions of fiscal conservatism or even the deep cuts of Ernest Manning, let alone, you know, other other premiers mentioned on that list. Corey, your take on Carter's response here. And then I want to challenge you guys a bit around the strategy here that Smith is trying to take on.
Corey
11:46
Yeah, I think another thing I want to throw on the table is it was only, I think, in October or November, Daniel Smith was talking about the population of Alberta growing to 10 million in 2015. We're at about 4.8 million right now. So we're talking about a doubling of the population.
Corey
12:03
And so with that kind of explosive population growth and actively, intentionally, as policy of government saying we're not going to fully cover population growth and inflation, like
Corey
12:14
like I really want to underline, we're already in some pretty dire straits on some pretty dire investment metrics for education. And we are saying we're going to go lower. And that's wild. And I also think ultimately, and it's a really narrow view of investment, right? right? The idea that we're going to save $400 billion and that investment is what matters, but we're going to fail to invest in our children.
Zain
12:37
We're going to fail to invest in our healthcare
Corey
12:39
healthcare system. We're going to fail to invest in those in the greatest needs, those on AISH. We're going to just fail to invest in roads and schools and hospitals. That is so troubling to me because at the end of the day, look, I would be thrilled if we had a massive heritage fund and that we actually saved our non-renewable resource revenue but i'm not going to do it at the expense of my children yeah and that's what they're asking me to do right now 25 years from now my kids will have you know they will have gone through all of the major milestones the government generally helps you with except the ones at the very end in
Corey
13:14
don't want that for them i i want them to have all of the chances in the world now i don't want them to be like well you're kind of fucked. You're going to be in a class of 40 people. You're going to have to wait 10 months for any kind of minor surgery. But your kids, your kids are going to have it pretty good. Their taxes are going to be pretty low. Like that sucks. That's not what anybody wants for themselves and their children. So yeah, I'm a little annoyed by it. And I think that what's interesting now is there'll be a wrestling over that frame. And
Corey
13:42
And in my opinion, Danielle Smith, and I think this is why you named your kind of, you know, section this has skated onto some very thin ice, because I think the idea of, hey,
Corey
13:53
hey, in 25 years, we'll have a really big number in our bank account
Corey
13:58
is not really compelling when the rubber hits the road. It's
Corey
14:01
It's not. When you go to those student teacher conferences, and you realize, oh, my God, there's 40 chairs in this classroom. When you go to the doctor, and you're referred to a specialist, and that takes you 24 months, those things are going to hit people's lives a lot harder and a lot faster than this notion that we're going to have a big bank account in the future. If you want a big bank account, I'm
Corey
14:22
I'm all for that. But I agree with Stephen. Start talking about the revenue options. We have by far the lowest taxes. We've got to stop patting ourselves on the back for that alone. We've got to talk about what we do with that or maybe if we use that space to invest in our people. And it's an interesting space she's gone to i think it's a dangerous one for her carter carter there's a couple of ways to look at this at
Zain
14:43
at least and i'm going to be very like simplistic about it number one she did this address she paid for this spot these 10 minutes to trial balloon to telegraph what's going to happen next week in the budget yeah
Zain
14:56
the other way to look at it is
Zain
14:58
is she's done this so that there there could be something bigger in the budget that is a a a chapter two of this do you anticipate let me use the budget as an anchor but a very loose anchor do you anticipate what both of you are suggesting on the revenue side that she could be bold enough to suggest any sort of tax
Zain
15:23
yeah okay i just want to make sure we're absolutely clear on
Carter
15:25
on this no she's articulated two ways that she's going to save this money. First way is through spending cuts, spending initiatives. The second way is through excess oil and gas revenues. Those are the two ways that she's saving this money. You know, to replace volatile oil and gas revenues with volatile oil and gas revenues strikes me as a recipe for disaster. I mean, it's what we've been trying to to do uh for the last 50 years um we've only you know the only there was only one premier that was successful at it and that was law heat no other premier has been successful at saving the excess oil and gas revenue um the second thing is you
Carter
16:08
you can have a great big savings account like i think that this is so easily translated into human into our regular human lives right zane you could have a great big bank account in 25 years all that's going to happen is that we're not ever going to to invest in your own children and your own house right your
Carter
16:26
your house is going to fall down around you right we'll put a little bit in but we're not going to really spend a lot your kids aren't going to get tremendous opportunities but look what's going to happen in 25 years when you die
Carter
16:38
when you die you'll be able to hand down to them a very nice and substantial bank account which then they'll have to tear down their entire house and rebuild it again right like it applies itself very nicely to this personal like cory and i know the government budget is not like a household budget it doesn't matter this applies itself so easily right your kids school for the next 25 years is going to fall down around it but don't worry there'll be a bank account yeah
Carter
17:09
that bank account is all you know one of the things that we don't understand is all of these investments in infrastructure all of these investments in in in the future those are investments too the bank account is just an investment the investment in our population 10 billion people in alberta in by 2050 that
Carter
17:28
that population is able to support itself believe me can
Corey
17:31
can i say cory jump in that is one of the things that i think is a bit troubling about this like that is so hell-bent on like this big big milestone Norway-style sovereign fund. If I thought this was actually about fiscal prudence, I might even feel a little bit differently about it, but it feels like the pursuit of glory. It feels like I'm going to be the premier who creates this massive thing that will be called the Daniel Smith Fund forever or something like that. We have here and now problems. We have here and now problems with affordability. It's very difficult to purchase homes. We have here and now problems in terms of education and accessibility of education.
Corey
18:06
And we just heard a premier say,
Corey
18:09
don't care i'm going for the big throw so that in 2050 i'm a fucking legend and i think that albertans are going to have a problem with that it
Zain
18:17
it is interesting you know when when i was giving that some of that instant analysis on cbc one of the things i said was without you will you text him steven at least to get no no these are original thoughts oh
Corey
18:30
very good most of them most
Zain
18:31
most of them not age well yeah you're welcome um but i'll still collect the check in the mail That's fine. And I'll still cash it because it's all about how big my savings account is.
Zain
18:43
Hey, Carter, one of the things I said was to
Zain
18:46
to me, if you kind of and she's a great communicator, right? Like she could sell this. She pitched it, I
Zain
18:52
I think, quite persuasively. I'll ask you guys about that. But that's my take.
Zain
18:57
But if you if you if you, you know, take away the veneer, it was almost like a hey, guys, this is as good as it gets right now. Now, this moment, like this is as good as it gets. This is this is we're maxed out right now. Totally like like the and she she said that despite the rhetoric and how she molded it in no uncertain terms.
Zain
19:18
It also seems like she is going for this ambitious big throw. Talk to me about what you think the strategy here is. But while telling Albertans, folks, you know, we have problems and this is as good as it gets while simultaneously being like, but you're going to get this massive big bank account at the end. And isn't that what you want? What's the calculus? What's the strategy? I
Carter
19:38
I mean, I'm not entirely sure what the calculus and the strategy for her is. The calculus and the strategy for other Alberta premiers has been, how do we create and sustain this, you know, what Ralph Klein dubbed the Alberta advantage? And it is an advantage. It is an advantage to pay fewer taxes. It is an advantage to have a big bank account that you can rely on or these resource revenues that you can count on every single year and it keeps all of our taxes low. That is an advantage that does build our economy. We would like to be able to project that forward forever. but the truth of the matter is that when we're in a boom we piss away the money and when we're not in a boom we um the
Carter
20:27
the money just kind of you know is is sapped away we go straight into debt because we do not have the best structures or the best systems financially our income structure is different than every other province that's an issue every other province has needed a pst every Every other province has at least two or three more taxes than we do. You know, home transfer tax or whatever other taxes that you will see in British Columbia. Yeah.
Carter
20:53
You know, those decisions that we made is an advantage. She is trying to figure out how to sustain that advantage. So did Alison Redford. So did Jim Prentiss. So did Ed Stelmack.
Carter
21:05
So did Rachel Notley. You know, what do they all have in common? One and done. One
Carter
21:09
One and done. done because we have not been able to balance our desire to have low income and this advantage forever with our demands to have the services at the same level as everybody else in this country.
Zain
21:22
Corey, your thoughts on this as it relates to like the strategy here, what do you think she was going for outside of maybe the big legacy throw legend making stuff? What do you think she was going for in the short tenure, like the three and a half years she's got left as premier? What do you think she's trying to do in this short timeline?
Corey
21:41
It's so interesting, because of course, we'll be the first to criticize politicians for being cycle driven, right? I mean, we'll criticize them and not we'll be like, that's the reality of it. But we'll, we'll usually say it in a way that's not particularly flattering. But I
Corey
21:55
I think that's a really tough question. Because when I think about what she will actually be dealing with in this election cycle, it's not good, right? It's not good. Like if you're talking about reducing the quality of services over the next four years, you're going to face an angry electorate. my suspicion is she
Corey
22:11
she will crumble in that last year and we'll get like the mother of all good news budgets and it will sure you know be massive investments relative to where we are but not relative to where we should be that's that's sort of my feeling here um
Corey
22:23
um but yeah like i don't i don't think that there is a lot of short-term political upside here but can we talk long-term a minute because i also don't want to suggest that i think this is a particularly compelling compelling long-term vision. Like there's
Zain
22:35
there's a slam dunk? Yeah, talk about it.
Corey
22:36
Yeah. If this is the last oil boom, as she implied, if this is kind of the energy transitions taking hold by 2050, so this is why we need to build the bank account, this
Corey
22:48
this is exactly when we need those investments in education, the bets on the different industries that we've got to help prop up and create here. This is when we need all of our systems to be humming here. This is when we need to be building roads. This is when we need to be making sure our municipalities can provide those things because, you
Corey
23:06
know, otherwise, like, let
Corey
23:08
let me paint you a picture that
Corey
23:11
that the premier herself painted two thirds of two
Corey
23:13
two nights ago. It is 2050.
Corey
23:18
Our services are the worst in the country by far. And
Corey
23:22
And we have a big bank account. Right. Does that actually sound like the place
Corey
23:26
place you want to live?
Zain
23:26
live? no and a bunch of people perhaps not ready for the transition that's it nobody is ready for the transition in this scenario yeah yeah yeah i
Corey
23:35
i mean there's a certain we live in a country people will come from elsewhere with education our kids will go elsewhere for education yeah a lot of them will stay they won't come back a lot of people who have come here because they wanted oil and gas jobs or the just general prosperity oil and gas provides will find that that's not there anymore but they will still be here you
Corey
23:53
you just have to look at the flint michigans of the world to see how that That formula plays out, right?
Corey
23:59
So, you know, I just, I caution people here. Like, it is not just about the money you have in your bank account. And even though $250 billion, which was kind of the low end of the horizon, sounds fucking
Corey
24:09
fucking awesome. That's probably going to be like one
Corey
24:12
one year of government revenue by the time we hit 2050. If even that, right? In terms of what
Corey
24:18
what that could pay up. Yeah.
Zain
24:20
talk to me about, like, let's stay on the strategy side of it.
Zain
24:23
Talk to me about, like, two things. Number one, the strategy of having this look in the mirror moment. And I
Zain
24:30
know that to say
Corey
24:30
say three years, by the way, but oh,
Zain
24:32
oh, that's and that's fine. And I meant to say her three and a half years as premier until she faces reelection. So, you know, we all make mistakes. Yeah. Except Stephen. Stephen's perfect. Stephen's perfect.
Corey
24:41
That's why he needs less speaking
Zain
24:42
speaking time. 16 minutes.
Zain
24:43
All you need. Piddy. Yeah. I mean, it's a Carter.
Zain
24:48
This is her look in the mirror moment. Not a perfect comparison, but an OK one. one, let's give her this opportunity to, let's give her the advantage of saying she did this in frothy times, not when she was six to eight months away from facing an electorate. Do you give her any strategic credit for that? And my follow-up question, and take both together if you'd like, is, is
Zain
25:10
is it clear to you now that this is what she's spending her early political capital on?
Carter
25:14
Well, I'm not sure what she's spending her early political capital on, because I'm not sure that i agree with the premise that this is some sort of uh like if i was doing this i would do this in the first year of a term because in the first year of a term we have the opportunity to you
Carter
25:34
know do some cuts do some messing about but cory's already alluded to this you can do this for three years save some money and then throw throw you know a couple billion a few billion million dollars into into capital spending and and improve schools for a year before your next election um you know people's memories are short right like city council increased taxes by 7.3 they should have done 10 in
Carter
26:00
in the first year if they'd done 10 in the first year they could have done two two two and they've been fine right
Carter
26:05
right but the you know city councils don't think that way provincial
Carter
26:09
politicians do provincial politicians are a much stronger set of political minds and she's doing the hard work at the beginning so she can do easier work at the end um that's pretty standard political strategy uh and i you know i i don't credit them for going beyond standard political strategy cory
Zain
26:30
cory doing this in frothy times and is it clear to you that this is kind of what she's spending political capital on this is going to be tough you've also said that she doesn't necessarily you we may not see the discipline in the final year of sticking with this plan when people expect treats prior to an election or promises that that come with price tags but what do you make of of the play here from her perspective and and and what you kind of think she's spending her her political capital on yeah
Corey
26:58
yeah let's be clear less aggressive versions of this plan have been proposed by basically every premier in my lifetime yeah
Corey
27:05
can think of all sorts of stability funds investments in the heritage like everybody's got this idea right this is a very aggressive version of it certainly this is the only time i've seen somebody say and we're going to starve your health care and education systems to do it okay alberta we all good like that that's pretty wild to me uh maybe it's honest maybe she deserves credit for that pretty
Corey
27:28
pretty wild though and i think albertans aren't going to be particularly enamored with that as they start to see the consequences of that you can
Corey
27:34
can kind of sell yeah more money's going into it we're just less more money only until people have to deal with the consequences of those choices and four years is enough time for you to fucking feel those consequences so so i think that that's a reality she's gonna have to face on
Corey
27:49
on the question of like is this good because she's dealing with it at this particular moment this is the first budget after the election uh
Corey
27:58
you know i don't know i i keep going back to that initial thing i said which is like none of this was in her platform this just starts to feel like a bunch of stuff and i can't even say it feels like she woke up and it was a random thought because paul ferry pulled this article where she basically pitched the same idea 12 years ago when she was leader of the wild roads right kind of feels like a long we should probably be going back through all of her old comments alberta yeah just sort
Corey
28:21
sort of seeing what all the she wanted to do
Zain
28:23
do yeah yeah versus any sort of 2023 ucp platform yeah
Corey
28:26
yeah that feels like like she's just going to bring out all
Corey
28:28
all of the old hits like the ahs stuff that's from the wild rose in 2012 this is apparently from wild rose in 2012 the hating of like infrastructure and renewables is basically from 2012 like she's just implementing that platform at this point but i
Corey
28:42
don't i don't know because it's
Corey
28:46
it's so disconnected from what she ran on at
Corey
28:49
at a certain point aren't albertans just going to say well
Corey
28:53
well here's where i'm going people
Corey
28:55
people to this day talk about how the ndp and their 2015 platform didn't mention the carbon tax and they're mad about it right like oh you didn't even run on it you put it in i
Corey
29:05
i think i would make the argument we're going to do something big on climate which was not quite the wording but the wording in the in the plan and then them doing something big on climate is not crazy and is arguably in the platform yep but
Corey
29:17
but if that is bothering people how are they going to feel about we ran on a tax cut and you immediately did not get the tax cut we said we wouldn't touch cpp we immediately started campaigning against it we didn't say anything about a renewables ban we banned it we started picking all of these fights uh we brought in these things that were clearly in our mind because i talked about them 12 years earlier like
Zain
29:39
like is there not going to be
Corey
29:40
be a consequence at a certain
Corey
29:41
i guess the thing i'm trying to say is it's one thing to do the tough stuff at the part of at the start of your uh of your like like four years but this is stuff that she basically misled us all to get here right and i actually think that that's a lot more hazardous than the standard let's do the difficult parts of our platform early carter
Zain
30:00
carter what's the charge if you're the opposition what's the charge that this is missile this is part of a narrative of things that are or a series of things that are misaligned with what she promised or is the charge here on the materiality of what she's trying to do on on the on the spending cut or the investment cuts as you'd probably say them and i think the usage of word the word spending versus investment is also quite interesting in terms of even how this conversation has gone on but carter as a strategist if you had to pick the lane what's the charge for you i
Carter
30:31
i mean i think that it's broken promises i mean she didn't campaign on trans children's rights she didn't campaign on tax cut or she did campaign on a tax cut she isn't going to be able to deliver it. She didn't campaign on renewables. She didn't campaign on cutting spending. I mean, all of the things that she is doing, the Alberta pension plan, she told us it wasn't going to happen. Straight up liar. I mean, this is a, at the end of the day, will we remember the lies? Will we remember that? And that's where I was kind of laughing at Corey as he's going through this, right? I'm not sure that we will remember conservative lies. We remember the NDP lies because they're the anomaly they're the they're the other they're the different but we've not i mean 2012 we campaigned on uh no tax increases no spending cuts and we'll balance the budget right
Corey
31:23
right we all know that very well
Carter
31:25
well right so those are the three things now one of those was not true uh you can pick any one right but there was no way that we would be able to do all three of those things concurrently so would
Carter
31:37
would we have been punished for that lie well allison was punished but not for that lie not for that lie she was punished for other things will danielle smith be punished for other things probably
Carter
31:50
probably given the history of our premieres every you know getting a three to four year cycle and that's it i mean who knows what's going to happen by november who knows what take back alberta is going to be demanding by then were they demanding this I don't think so. I think this, you know, math is way beyond David Parker's capacity. But, you know, this is this is something that Danielle wanted from the beginning. What other things does she want? What other things will she be bringing in and how will we choose to judge her? I'm not sure, because I don't think Albertans actually judge conservatives the way they judge progressives.
Zain
32:23
Corey, Stephen Carter's got a hard out in 30 minutes. So we're going to try to keep this tight, which means less speaking time for Stephen Carter. um yeah cory i've got two questions for you one is dovetailing on what carter said let me ask the first one to both of you in in pretty quick order who was this for
Zain
32:41
when you read it who was this for was it for rob anderson was it for 2012 danielle smith was it for some weird revenge cycle that i now that i have the reins of power i'm gonna live out my my fantasies of what premiership would have looked like a decade ago who was this for
Corey
32:57
for i actually think it's for
Corey
32:59
for albertans i think it's pretty simple it's a gen pop thing we've talked about this in the past no carter's saying no but let me tell you this no
Carter
33:07
no i know who it was for it
Corey
33:09
it when you come to a budget cycle when you come to the throne speech budget that starts a new session of the legislature one of the fundamental flaws of it from the point of view of the premier's office and a premier is that the
Corey
33:20
the throne speech is delivered by the lg your mother-in-law saying you know the budget speech is everyone everyone's mother-in-law everyone's mother-in-law gets to do every day it's a rotating cycle yeah yeah yeah yeah the uh the budget speech is delivered by the finance minister and none of that is actually in the political communicator in chief's voice and and also it's kind of framed with all of this formality and canons and all of this bullshit
Corey
33:48
the premiers of late have kind of seized this idea of let's just do a state of the problem this is not new yeah premiers have been doing this forever we
Zain
33:55
sort of video part
Corey
33:56
part of the reason why we're all so familiar with the allison redford box is that we were consultants but we were hired to help with the premier speech in 20 what 13 or something steven 12 i can't remember now 13
Corey
34:09
this is an opportunity for the premier to kind of frame things out in a way that sort of seizes it and allows them to deal with it in in a way that they think is politically advantageous in a way that's not always available at budget because budget day put
Corey
34:22
put on the media hat for a minute yep you are in a lock-up you are trying to make heads or tails of it you're immediately distrustful of all of the media narrative that's put on top of it all she's provided is the narrative so that's all they can report on and talk about right now and instead you go for the jugular on individual numbers and you're talking to deputy ministers and you're trying to get your stories and you're trying to do them by kind of section area and it's really easy for the story to get consumed i
Corey
34:47
think it's not bad strategy to separate the story from the detail because then they only have the story and
Corey
34:53
and i just think it was that i think it's as simple as that i think she wanted to make sure her frame was out there before we got into the budget cycle and everybody can start getting into the oh my god what does this mean department by department which because it's going to be bad department by department it's as simple as that i
Zain
35:08
i i want to talk about that in a second that's the second part of this conversation i still want to have uh carter her who was this for i
Carter
35:16
think it was for her i think it was for her when she you know when she was deposed from as wild rose leader i think that she she felt like in 2012 she deserved to win that election arguably she did um and she missed out on the chance of doing this type of thing 12 you know 10 years ago 12 years ago so this was for her this was the the miss that she had at that time and she came back with the same policy and i think that we've seen politicians who've been around for long time have these kind of i will get there eventually and i will bring these ideas forward regardless of whether or not it was the time kind of thoughts and that's what she's done this is remarkably like the conversations she and i used to have back when she wasn't batshit crazy um the problem is that this has now been overlaid with batshit crazy so this this spending cuts thing is now really quite
Zain
36:13
carter i'm going to stick with you for a second um
Zain
36:17
name me one group there's
Zain
36:19
there's probably several but name me one group top of mind first one that comes to mind even perhaps that should be the most concerned after seeing the news the last couple of days they could be a department as cory suggested they could be a stakeholder group they could be an association they could be anybody who
Zain
36:35
who who would be most concerned and and what would And what would their path be in terms of trying to understand, take stock of what this could be and what this could mean for them? And I just want to try to get a little bit deeper and we'll have more detail soon. But a lot of this is reactionary. Who's reacting right now? Name me one group that's probably reacting huddled together being like, oh, fuck. I
Carter
37:02
I imagine that every union in the province is scared shitless, but I don't think they're the ones who should be the most scared shitless. I think the group that should be the most scared shitless are parents, right?
Carter
37:13
right? Something happened to parents this week that they're unaware of the implications. Hiding a spending cut in we're going to constrain budget spending to below inflation plus population growth, that
Carter
37:29
that doesn't mean very much to people. People don't have a real sense of what that would mean, but take that over a 25 year period. And we have the worst, I mean, fuck, take that over a five year period. We have the worst services in Canada, right?
Zain
37:43
exaggerating there. You're like, to be totally clear. No,
Carter
37:46
I'm not exaggerating at all. I think that we, you know, you start constraining spending at a time, like, let's say that the inflationary pressures return to a two, three, right? Population growth is staggering right now. What are you going to do? Right? You're going to hold spending to three, four,
Carter
38:05
four, right? Right. Like you could be seeing an essentially a two, three percent spending cut each year for the next five years that compounds. And it just gets worse and worse and worse as it goes forward. You know, good news. We're probably not going to build those second ring roads in Calgary and Edmonton. But we're also not going to build the Green Line North. Right. We're not going to be competing for significant tourism opportunities. This is going to be really bad for, I'm just going to say parents, because it's going to follow generations.
Corey
38:39
Yeah, Stephen stole my answer. I think it's parents, and more specifically, I would say the
Corey
38:46
people who should be most concerned are anybody in
Corey
38:48
in the orbit of public education, K-12 education. I think they are the most screwed, because those compounding hits at a time of massive growth are very problematic. And we have seen kind of underneath the waves here, even the investments that the government has made in education have been pretty torqued towards private education options, right? And we just have to be really mindful that the top line is not even telling us the whole horror show. And the top line ain't great, right? The top line ain't great, but beneath it is even worse. So I think public education is the place that I have the most anxiety. There is kind of
Corey
39:25
of no shortage of anxiety, to Steven's point, those compounding hits can really, really hurt over time, especially at a moment where we're growing so rapidly. That requires big infrastructure investments. It's not just about operating dollars at that point.
Corey
39:39
That requires actually enticing the right kind of talent and education. That requires training the right kind of people. You can see so easily how these problems compound, right? like all of a sudden we're in and this god we've been on this cycle in alberta forever but we've all of a sudden got a teacher and nurse shortage so we're paying massive premiums to get them from out of province which just makes the situation worse you know which just pushes more people away which which which all the way along so this is this is getting us on to this risks getting us on to the most vicious of vicious cycles and we really need to think as a province if this is what we're going to do and
Corey
40:14
and again you want to save money cool but you've got to be able able to pay for the services that we need today. And that means you've got to make some choices.
Zain
40:22
Corey, can I stick with you for a second? Let's spend a few minutes talking about
Zain
40:30
memo, standard sort of document, pull off the shelf plan for the NDP leadership contestant right now. What would be in that plan when you're talking about what Danielle Smith is presenting here? You know, strategically, we can get into tactically, but let's keep it but strategic. What would be in that plan for you? Give me a couple things to throw on there, and then Carter will ask you for the same to fill out the rest. I
Corey
40:51
don't actually know if this is advice for a leadership candidate. It's advice for the NDP more generally. But when
Corey
40:57
when you have a government that has so changed the plot from an election so quickly, like there's no intervening fact set that it's like, well, the world's changed, right? It's not like we just had COVID. It's not like there was all of a sudden a big change in the price of oil there was modest changes predictable changes right when
Corey
41:15
when you have a government that has acted in this fashion you
Corey
41:19
know this is a government that lied to people and when people get lied to they get mad and they've basically got an excuse not to vote ucp right now so
Corey
41:28
so don't don't fuck it up right like the ndp need to avoid the classic we were right and you were wrong you know well i told you these guys would be bad that's not helpful that's just going to push them back into the ucp camp right it's got to be more along the lines of yeah um they they uh they lied to all of us right and uh i know you went with them but we're winning your trust back and we're trying to do the right things and you know they've got to take a certain human like this is a chance they have been shaken loose from the tree you can pick them up off the ground but you can only do that if you approach it in a way that is you know not off-putting right like Like it's got to be opening and welcoming and kind of accepting of your own faults, right? And certainly not hectoring, not this idea of, well, we tried to warn you. Those words should never come out of any New Democrats' mouths, any New Democrats' supporters' mouths over the next bit.
Zain
42:20
Carter, what do you want to add to Corey's recommendation here?
Carter
42:23
I would add just don't overpredict what's going to happen, right? Figure out what you think is actually going to happen and focus on that. you don't need to um be chicken little here running around saying the sky is going to fall you've got the strategist podcast to do that um so this is a uh this is something that's definitely going to happen there will be problems but don't go crazy with it uh and build the trust but through not being you know the the doomsayer
Carter
42:56
doomsayer that then doom doesn't happen uh you know there's There's lots of things that are going to go wrong with this. Stick to those things. Don't go too far. And I think that the NDP will look like they're the trustworthy group again. And that these conservatives, these conservatives, they always let us down instead of it being the NDP that always let us down.
Zain
43:21
We're going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our final segment, Stephen Carter, our over, under, and our lightning round. Carter, that first one is an interesting. story. With Ramadan just around the corner, a national Muslim organization and several local congregations are warning MPs that they're not welcome in mosques until they call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, demonstrate restoration of the UN's aid funding, and condemn Israel for their war crimes. As a political strategy and kind of what this kind of means from a broader sort of landscape, as someone who's kind of seen how multicultural politics works, politics within within religious spaces works, overrated or underrated this particular move by this, and this is only a small faction, but this local congregation and this national Muslim organization?
Carter
44:10
Well, I think that the time to call for a ceasefire is upon us. So, you know, getting MPs on side with that is probably a pretty good thing.
Carter
44:20
I think that, you know, if it were up to me, we wouldn't do politics in churches or places of worship. you know mosques temples um you know we wouldn't do politics in those spaces but we do we do do politics in those spaces so using your space um to get what you want makes makes perfect political sense uh and getting a ceasefire in gaza is you know we
Carter
44:46
we are we are well past the time to you know see justin trudeau and the liberals and the conservatives step up and uh start talking about a ceasefire corey
Zain
45:00
corey overrated or underrated this this this move the strategic move you could call it by this national organization and muslim congregations uh
Corey
45:10
uh i think it's an over swing i do i think if the list was shorter they would see more success and more sympathy from people but But ultimately, they've given all of the politicians an out by adding war crimes of Israel on that list.
Corey
45:23
Because the Hague is actually engaged in this matter right now. We, of course, saw the court challenge that was brought forward by South Africa. We saw them say Israel needs to take steps to make sure war crimes aren't happening, but to actually accuse the nation itself of war crimes, like not individuals who have committed war crimes. There is a difference here, right? Right.
Corey
45:44
There's just it's not likely to me, certainly, that anybody in cabinet is going to say, yeah, OK, we're going to accuse Israel of war crimes.
Corey
45:51
Maybe Israel has committed war crimes. That's a big charge that needs to be proven in court. Certainly, that is not something a politician is going to say on the spot. And so by adding that to the list, you've basically been like, well, I I'm not going to be able to do the whole list. So why am I going to bother with the first thing on the list? Yeah, that's why I think it was an over. I
Carter
46:09
I think that the I think the overswing will be matched. I think the overswing will be matched by, you know,
Carter
46:16
know, people just taking the the position that it's time for a ceasefire. And and ultimately, the group will will stand down a little bit. But we'll see. We'll see how how militant and how committed to the cause this this group is. I
Corey
46:31
I think if it had just been ceasefire and
Corey
46:34
aid for Gaza, it
Corey
46:37
would have put the liberals in a much harder box. To be clear,
Zain
46:40
clear, this is really targeted at liberals, right? They're the ones who feel most uncomfortable here, right? But Carter, can I stick on this topic for a second before I move to the next one? And, you know, what I found interesting about this story, even removing the broader sort of, you know, which cultural community or religious community has called for this, is for the longest time, racialized groups, religious groups have felt like having any politician show up to their space. And I can speak this firsthand experience. It's like an honor, huge honor. And what I liked about this, even though it may have been a strategic overswing and may actually be limiting, is that there is a sense of like, no, fuck you. Like we, we actually have the power in this situation. And I think that's a really interesting, I shouldn't say development in our democracy, which makes it sound like a new or novel thing, but it is nice to see more in group groups be like, yeah, you know what? Like we, we like having you here, but we don't need to have you here because if you're going to treat us like a voting block, fuck it, we're a voting block. And there's all these people available to you in that sense. I think there was something really interesting happening here in the, in the undercurrents of like democratic power uh in that sense there
Carter
47:49
there it is interesting but it's it's interesting
Carter
47:54
it's this particular group right like other groups have have said yeah we don't need you at all right and each religious organization each religious group uh brings their own approach to it and uh newcomers have been more open to it because they they you know they access to politicians politicians is unique and it's powerful and it's good. Um, when you, there's other groups that have that take it for granted almost, uh, you know, we can get access whenever we need to. And that shows a certain degree of privilege, I suppose. Um, and I, I think it is probably good that this group feels that they are privileged enough now that they can, uh, they can use their power to, to cut off politicians. I think that that's probably not a bad thing.
Zain
48:44
uh cory next episode we're going to go through every major religious community in this country and then uh why
Zain
48:49
wait for next episode
Carter
48:49
let's do it right now let's piss off everyone let's do it i thought
Zain
48:52
thought you i i thought you had a heart i thought you had a heart out but i guess i
Zain
48:56
i will gates are hard out yeah
Carter
48:57
yeah for religion come on religious conversation you know i love that
Zain
49:03
cory let me go to another story this is an interesting development here in alberta and this is residents of westlock alberta voted in favor of a bylaw last night quite literally last night that bans certain flags and crosswalks from being displayed on public property including the town's only rainbow crosswalk this was 1300 people participate in this vote 663 or 50.9 percent just a bare minimum in favor according to the town's website there's a few ways to look at this in some ways you'd be like wow okay this is this is you know a massive massive backslide uh for for for rights in another way you'll be like well this is a a small ish largely conservative christian town overrated or underrated what you see and i hate to phrase it that way but i'm going to what you see from the the politics coming out of westlock alberta where they've effectively you know voted in favor of this bylaw banning certain pride displays yeah
Corey
50:00
yeah you know i think i
Corey
50:03
i i quite like your framing like you can take a glass half full glass half empty view of this all i i find it just demoralizing personally that we're still having these conversations and that this is still a matter of contention or debate or even seemingly more contention and more debate as we move on but you're
Corey
50:21
you're not wrong it's not like if i was going to say hey let me tell you about a town in alberta called westlock this is its basic demographic composition you think they're going to be for or against pride crosswalks and if you know i think if you asked a lot of Canadians, would they be like, ah, 50-50? I don't know if they would. I think they would probably think it was a different number, but results matter and the result hurts. And the result is kind of bad for anybody who wants to support a kind of a more inclusive society here.
Corey
50:48
It's also problematic because so many people in the town stood up and opposed this particular measure. Including town council and the mayor. You're right. Exactly. And so basically, despite establishment saying, don't do this and saying things like, it'll make us look bad right which is not that's not the problem here folks that's that's kind of a downstream consequence um but despite that it's still past this ballot measure and that that kind of hurts too which means there's a lot more people who are holding these views kind of ready
Corey
51:20
ready to act on them when given the opportunity than you you often want to think and so hard
Corey
51:25
hard for me to get very excited about the all of the people who voted no i appreciate it does show that the town of westlock like many alberta towns is not the stereotype that people think but because you know like half the town was like no this should be fine we should be allowed to have pride crosswalks we should be able to have the pride flag run on on municipal property but i
Corey
51:46
don't know you know it it's
Corey
51:48
it's something to digest something to look at and part of a broader sadder story that's happening not just in alberta not just in canada but globally about this backsliding of lgbtq rights carter
Zain
52:00
carter It was a 50-50 proposition. Westlock, you might say, well, OK, if that's the case in Westlock, well, we're safe in the big cities, right? There's no way that we're going to be able to have a binding plebiscite override that. That's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is just on the facts that, God damn it, we still have to fight for these rights. As a story to kind of take any sort of lessons from, overrated or underrated in your mind, Carter? Oh,
Carter
52:23
Oh, I think it's underrated. I think that this is this backsliding that Corey's talked about. It's real and it's going to continue for some time. And we're seeing it through the election of far right governments around the world. So this is just one one step in that continued backsliding. And we need to fight against it on a number of fronts, even if it's something like, you
Carter
52:48
you know, the transgender legislation that's coming through in Calgary in Alberta. You know, Daniel Smith's floating the idea that we have to opt back, you know, you have to opt your kid into sex education. You know, this is, you know, we are seeing a backsliding in terms of what a progressive society looks like. And it's a backslide that's happening around the world. Is it a normal backslide? Yeah, I think you do to go forward and then you go backwards. The world is a pendulum and we're on a really shitty side of the pendulum right now. Now, hopefully it starts to swing back to, you know, what we would have considered in the early 2010s, our norm, right? But right now the norm is on the other side of the pendulum.
Corey
53:32
I, you know, I say this in a lot of contexts and I really mean it. Progress is not time zero. There's not like this inevitable march forward. We're not destined to get to a more egalitarian, a more inclusive place. If you want these things, you got to fight like hell for them. And you've got to keep the fight going on and change is tough and change takes generations. And hopefully
Corey
53:52
hopefully we can get out of these darker times and start moving to brighter times. But now
Corey
53:57
now is the time for all people who really want to have that change to
Corey
54:01
to take up, you know, I was going to say arms, but that sounds way too militaristic, to stand up and to do the things that they want to do to support the kind of society they want to have. have.
Zain
54:11
Corey, I'm going to start with you for our final question over under our lightning round. Does the premier's address this week, does it pave the way for something new in budget 2024? Or was it the news of budget 2024? Give me a bit of a prediction as we head into the budget next Thursday. I
Corey
54:31
I predict we will get some palate cleansers. We will get some surprise where we're like, oh, wasn't expecting that. Nice big investment in Area X, nice big infrastructure project. I could easily see them doing something like high-speed rail to Banff. I don't know that that's on the table or not, but because you can spend $100 million to get deeper into planning, it looks like you care about the future. I could easily see a project like that coming out of budget carter
Zain
54:58
carter was the address the news or do you expect something new uh in in budget 2024 that makes makes makes news as significant as this i
Carter
55:08
i think that the news is out that's the ball game i don't see and i don't think it would be high speed train to banff it'd be a regular train uh anyways but it would be maybe high speed train to edmonton yeah we you know it's easy to throw another 50 million dollars into that uh and then you know we've been talking about it for 40 years too so um continuing to talk about something but nothing that's real nothing real comes out of this budget that
Carter
55:33
that mark it down guys if
Zain
55:34
if the government of alberta
Zain
55:36
yeah i don't know it's good if it's a it's good it's a stephen carter prediction if the government of alberta is looking for a name for their high speed or regular speed rail between edmonton and calgary or calgary and baff the name links is available it
Zain
55:51
we're gonna leave it there yes newly available we're We're going to leave it there. That is a wrap on episode 1287 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter with the hard out, and we'll see you next time.