Episode 1844: What The Liberals Should Do

Zain 0:01

This is the Strategist episode 1844. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, almost tripped over always, Carter. Do you want to do that again? No, I don't. Should we restart for the patrons? Do you want to restart?

Carter 0:11

you want to record?

Zain 0:11

record? In fact, I want to fuck it up even more. Do you want to make

Carter 0:14

make something quality for the patrons this time? No, I don't. Or are we just

Zain 0:17

just going to screw them

Zain 0:17

again? Do you want to give it a shot? I don't. I don't think they deserve anything. If they're listening to this right now, they probably... Well, they're not. Okay, well, whenever they're listening to this.

Corey 0:28

So if they're listening to this, whenever they're listening to this, go

Zain 0:32

Carter, does it annoy you that he feels like he's better than us?

Carter 0:39

Well, no, because I know that he's at least better than one of us.

Carter 0:44

he's really just extending it beyond one.

Zain 0:47

Thank you. I'm just going to cough throughout the entire episode. Because you know why?

Zain 0:51

That's the quality that the patrons deserve.

Carter 0:53

deserve. You've been not feeling well. No,

Zain 0:55

I actually feel great. great i've been trying to get a cold so i can cough on this episode oh

Carter 0:59

oh okay i've been feeling great people

Carter 1:00

people have noticed that you've had some nasal issues no

Corey 1:03

no i've been feeling yeah it comes up a lot are you um are you gonna intro us no or is this like the fuck who cares people know who you are hey

Carter 1:11

hey cory you're cory hogan and i'm stephen carter speaking

Zain 1:15

speaking of intros that suck when you guys do your episodes together oh my god i

Zain 1:20

mean i think the bit died 20 episodes ago the

Carter 1:23

the bit was never never good it

Zain 1:24

it was never good okay well thank you for acknowledging that in the first place we commit to the bit yeah

Zain 1:30

that's not that doesn't commit

Zain 1:31

to the bit doesn't mean you keep doing it if it's not funny i

Zain 1:35

i mean it does you think they say commit to the bit at conan when it's not funny yes

Carter 1:39

yes i think they do yeah yeah no i

Zain 1:40

i don't i think because he's because he's conan

Carter 1:44

first of all we're

Carter 1:45

we're funnier than conan oh

Zain 1:47

oh my god this is this is this is insane we

Carter 1:50

we are funnier than Conan.

Zain 1:51

This is insane. We've

Carter 1:52

We've got Anthony Jeselnik kind of humor going on here.

Zain 1:57

Go ahead. Show it to us, Carter. Yeah. What do you got? What do I got? What do you got? I

Carter 2:03

I boxed myself in, Corey. You

Carter 2:05

did. Yeah, you really

Zain 2:06

I asked him for one example, Corey, and he couldn't do it. He

Carter 2:12

Immediately the stuff popped into my head. I didn't have

Zain 2:14

have the skill to do it. Just another example of how excellent it is to be white, where most people don't call you out on anything. And then you're just like, yeah, you know what? This is great. Corey, what do we want to talk about today? Because this is not the holiday spectacular because this is only for the patrons. This is why I tripped over the beginning and I don't care. I didn't introduce the two of you and I don't care. And I've developed a cold for this episode specifically

Corey 2:34

specifically for it. So I don't care. That's fair. Yeah.

Zain 2:36

Yeah. What do you want to talk about? Do you want to talk about America wanting Canada? Do you want to go there?

Corey 2:44

Yeah. I mean, after we give a little bit of time to when Jesselnik was dating Amy Schumer and what you think that was like. Yeah,

Zain 2:49

Yeah, what do you think that was like, Carter?

Carter 2:50

What do I think that was like? Yeah,

Carter 2:52

yeah, yeah. I think it was hilarious. I think it was hilarious because Anthony is hilarious and Schumer is not. She

Zain 2:58

She is not. Okay, good. She'd

Carter 2:59

She'd be a great audience.

Zain 3:03

Him and I are aligned. Him and I are absolutely aligned. She's fine. She's

Corey 3:06

You guys are bad guys. She's

Zain 3:07

She's fine? She's not fine. She's terrible.

Zain 3:12

Yeah. No, Carter and I are aligned on this. Carter, we're willing to get canceled over this together. I'll actually wear all your other sins. I

Carter 3:18

I think you misunderstand who gets cancelled in this relationship. Yeah,

Zain 3:22

Yeah, which is? Ultimately,

Carter 3:23

Ultimately, it all boils down to Corey.

Zain 3:25

I think Corey has something to lose. That's right. Forget the whole fact that he's the only one that has something to lose here.

Corey 3:32

And he could lose that hoodie.

Corey 3:33

It's great doing a podcast with two men on fire. That's what I'm doing. Okay. Well, he's

Zain 3:39

he's trying to tame

Zain 3:40

tame the situation. I don't think it's working. Okay, let's move it on to our first segment, our first segment, 51 Shades of Grey. Corey, Donald Trump, he's thirst trapping after us again. This is, of course, after he was distracted with Panama and Greenland, he comes back to Canada talking about how the bounty of it would be amazing of joining the United States, how he talks about Wayne Gretzky, who met with him over the course of this past week in discussions with Donald Trump and how he'd be a great leader for the country. Trump seems to be obsessed with Canada. Trump seems to be trolling Canada. Canada. But, Corey, there seems to be something interesting happening.

Zain 4:17

Canadians seem to be, oh, Carter, is that what's interesting, that phone ringing right there? Is that a call that you're getting? You know, when

Carter 4:22

when we record off cycle, I get very confused. Right,

Zain 4:26

Right, because you're very much about cycles being a line, for sure.

Carter 4:28

sure. Yeah, I'm, you know, we're recording in the middle of the day, and I'm popular in the middle of the day. After seven o'clock at night, I'm not popular.

Zain 4:36

What do you think that could be, Carter? I'm happy to park the 51 Shades of Grey. Do you You think that could be people asking you about something else?

Carter 4:44

pretty sure I know what that's about, actually.

Zain 4:46

I'm happy for you to share it with us.

Carter 4:48

No, I'm probably not going to talk about it.

Zain 4:51

Corey, you want to talk about it?

Corey 4:53

So are we moving on to the PMO troubles?

Zain 4:55

Yeah, Carter, what's going on there? What's that phone call about?

Carter 4:58

I certainly would have no comment if it was about the PMO problems.

Carter 5:04

You know, I probably don't know anything about it.

Zain 5:06

What's your take on writing letters with a lot of adjectives?

Carter 5:10

I'm a big fan of adjectives, Zane. I can tell.

Zain 5:13

I can tell when I read it. I'm like, oh, yeah.

Carter 5:15

See, you're making assumptions. You're jumping to conclusions. You're going to hurt yourself if you do that.

Corey 5:20

This was always the big conflict between me and Steve when we worked together. You're

Zain 5:23

You're going to sue the whole podcast that we are on? I'm

Corey 5:26

I'm an adjective minimalist, and he's an adjective maximalist. And it shows when the word

Carter 5:33

I think. That's right. There is no evidence

Carter 5:35

evidence that indicates that I've been involved in anything, anything at all.

Carter 5:40

Anything at all. All

Zain 5:40

All right. Okay. Yeah, no, no. I believe you because the timing is so poor, I wouldn't think that you'd be involved at all.

Zain 5:49

The timing is so atrociously dumb. Do we need to – nobody is going to get this. Nobody gets

Zain 5:53

gets it. Even by our standards, this is – Please subscribe. So basically, you want to tell them what's

Corey 5:57

Corey, and then we'll

Zain 5:57

we'll get to the – Well, I think we should at least

Corey 5:58

least mention that a letter went from one of the liberal MPs to, I guess, the rest of the liberal caucus saying, hey,

Corey 6:05

hey, this guy doesn't need time to think about it. This guy being Trudeau. Yes. This guy being Trudeau. This guy's got to go. By the way, Liberal Party of Canada, get off your fucking duffs and start getting ready for a leadership contest. That was the letter that we got from one MP, a Calgary MP, a fellow named George Chahal, known to the three of us. Known, friend of the pod, George Chahal. We actually – oh, or a George Chahal URL,

Zain 6:27

URL, if I'm not mistaken. Something about his basketball. Yeah,

Corey 6:30

Yeah, Chahal Cabal, which

Zain 6:31

which I think is reusable now in this particular situation. literally the headline of this article actually uses the term cabal uh liberal mp shahal urges trudeau to stop needless reflection and resign accusing cabal around trudeau of a reckless strategy of mutual political destruction wow here we are the curve sitting with shahal cabal.com ed.ca i imagine because we don't we don't cut corners yeah we get two when we get one for sure absolutely uh carter any comment nope

Carter 7:00

thank you for asking uh

Zain 7:01

uh cory here's the thing i actually do want to discuss this was going to be topic number two and i'll get to the 51st state thing in a second um but now that we're on it this letter thanks

Carter 7:10

thanks a lot by

Zain 7:11

by one of us maybe um at least aided helps push i mean it reads

Corey 7:17

reads it reads like one of us yeah

Carter 7:20

reads like we wouldn't read like any one of us

Carter 7:23

say that it reads like someone else wrote it

Corey 7:26

well someone other than george hall yeah just for sure and

Zain 7:30

and george hall yeah george

Carter 7:31

george george wrote it that's what i'm told okay

Zain 7:33

okay wow took you a long time to come up with the excuse that george wrote his own letter seven

Zain 7:40

seven minutes carter i'm

Carter 7:41

i'm out of cycle this

Carter 7:43

when i'm at my sharpest you should see

Zain 7:45

see me in the evening

Zain 7:46

i like that it took you seven minutes to be like oh no the guy who wrote the letter wrote the letter yeah um listen this

Zain 7:52

this is also uh coinciding if i can call it that with a jerry butts piece today cory where he he suggests that the trudeau prime ministership is seriously destabilized because of the Freeland resignation. Of course, Jerry Bust, the former principal secretary to Justin Trudeau, longtime friend of Justin Trudeau, talking about how he advocates, and I'd say that the majority of the piece is an advocacy, not dissimilar to the Shahal letter, for

Zain 8:20

for having a true, full, contested leadership race. Now, I may have just missed this, but in your mind, was there a threat that we would just go to anointing someone and moving on here if Justin Trudeau were to leave? And let's talk about that threat a bit in terms of what it would look like today, right? And call me naive and call me dumb. Use me as a punching bag for not picking up on this in previous episodes. But talk about what that threat posits and what that might look like and why we're seeing these calls for a true leadership race being put on the table so aggressively.

Corey 8:55

Yeah, well, let's just say there's a spectrum of possibilities here, right? And rarely do these things play out and they're such like a bald, like it's kind of like democracy writ large, right? People don't say, I want to end democracy. People say, well, because of these exigent circumstances, we need to take shortcuts and we need to do things in this way. And yeah, we're still going to have a vote in many cases, but that vote is no longer free or fair.

Corey 9:18

Take that to a party leadership contest and you get a lot of the same concerns and anxieties going in. The way the party leadership contest is constructed, obstructed, we've

Corey 9:25

we've said this 100 times, will have a massive effect on what the result is. And it would be pretty easy for the Liberal Party caucus and for the Liberal Party executive, and even for the PMO, frankly, and the outgoing prime minister, to set the scales in such a way that the outcome comes to their satisfaction and maybe not democracy satisfaction, shall we say that? So let's just throw a couple of options out on the spectrum here. One is, I think, about as as close as you're going to get to the no leadership contest, which is, we decide that caucus is going to choose, maybe caucus narrows it down to two, like they do in the UK Tories, and then there's a quick vote of the leadership or of the membership, and boom, you're off to the races. I think that's about as undemocratic as you're possibly going to get.

Corey 10:09

But you could easily see caucus coming united behind one candidate, and then it's kind of over already, right?

Zain 10:15

be clear, it seems like at this current moment, that is very much a Christa Freeland conversation. If you're supposed to insert a name there, it seems like Freeland's a person that, at least Butts in his piece, is not going after, but highlighting.

Corey 10:28

Well, for sure. I mean, I think everybody is now worried about the Harris example, right? Yes, yes.

Corey 10:32

So that's like one end of the spectrum. Along the spectrum, it could be caucus chooses it, a vote only of existing members, a snap vote done in a couple of weeks. Oh my goodness, we've got no time for an actual contest. And then all the way on the other end of the spectrum, miles down the road i think a pretty unrealistic place frankly with everything going on is the liberals do leadership contests like they usually do full-on full

Corey 10:54

full-on eight months supporter system any canadian can register to vote a lot of a traveling road show where people go around there's these forums of the various leadership content contestants that's on the far other end of the spectrum now i think what people are arguing about is where in between are we going to to be. And I think what's opened up that argument is, I was very quick to say, what the liberals would do if everything was in normal times is not possible. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that they would struggle to get a leader before the scheduled election, let alone the likely spring

Corey 11:26

election that we're all coming to here. So within that confines, how are you studying it? Who gets to vote? Who gets to decide? Is there a winnowing? How does that winnowing work? Going to require rule changes. How are those rule changes going to be enacted? By the way, I have been, like, a member of, like, the

Corey 11:42

the Liberal Party, what was called, like, I think the President's Council then at the time, when they've had to snap change those rules. It's certainly possible. There are mechanisms that allow people to come and do that. But that is what people are now talking about. And what I think is so interesting about the Butts column, not just that it's hard not to read it as a soft confirmation Trudeau's leaving. Yes. It's not just that he knows Justin, it's that he knows everybody around Justin. So intimately,

Corey 12:09

Yeah. But it's also that it is, in my opinion, the first post-Justin Trudeau think piece I've seen. And I mean it. Like, it is not contemplating if. It's like, when this happens, how are we going to organize things? What do we need to consider? Makes a strong case that there needs to be a real contest, avoid a Harris-style coronation. As he puts it, it's a good line, right? If you want to see if someone's good at hockey, play a hockey game. If you want to see if someone's good at politics, get them out in the political arena. you know so so that's where we're sitting right now and i've probably gone on long enough so i'll let carter carter reacted so far as uh he's

Corey 12:44

he's allowed to and wants to yeah well

Zain 12:45

well carter the baseline question here is is talk to me about the scale and the scope of the threat of appointing someone this is the both these pieces in some degree almost seem to argue against that reality but even before we address the uh the the opportunity for that reality and what its likely outcomes would be, should we go down that lane? Talk to me about the scope of the threat. Help me understand that. The

Carter 13:08

The scope of the threat, it must be real.

Carter 13:10

And the reason that it must be real is because there's activity pushing

Carter 13:17

So the activity pushing against the idea that someone would just be appointed leader, or that there'd be some sort of coronation. Keep in mind, last week, there was articles about, you know, it's hard, it's easy to get lost in the Christmas break but there were articles about well you know freeland did this let's make let's make this her problem now or let's give her the opportunity to run this um there will be just as many pieces occurring in the next three days that argue both sides of this issue um so you know the fact that jerry and george are out at the same time making essentially the same points um you know with fewer were adjectives in one of them, is to me just, you know, proof that there is a real threat to this. And it's not specific to the liberals in this time.

Carter 14:02

Any party that would be facing a potential election within four or five months is going to have a

Carter 14:08

a pressure to appoint a leader. They're going to have a pressure to change the process dramatically. And the process as it currently stands is a weighted system across 338

Carter 14:20

338 writings i think i don't think they've gone to the new number and

Zain 14:24

and sorry when you mean when you mean as it stands you mean as it indicates in the liberal constitution how leadership

Carter 14:29

leadership should be right you've

Carter 14:30

you've got a liberal constitution that's very clear on how this is done and then at the bottom and kind of like fine print and the executive can change it as required so what we're arguing about is you know what people are arguing about is whether or or not this this

Carter 14:42

this update is required needs to be actually put in place right

Zain 14:47

yeah cory talk to me about zoom out for a second this this as a strategy question is interesting because carter suggests that and i'm not going to put you in any uncomfortable position here carter but i i want to discuss it yeah no i appreciate that

Carter 14:59

that no no i'm really happy thank you i'm

Zain 15:02

i'm gonna i'm just gonna find you at your worst in the middle of the day when it's usually nap time and

Zain 15:06

and make you record court and just reveal things like one rather than we, which may have happened a few seconds ago.

Zain 15:14

Talk to me about this. Carter suggests that this, the fact that these pieces came out suggests that this threat is real. But there's also another school of thought saying that, yes,

Zain 15:25

yes, it could be potentially real, but these are preemptive to

Zain 15:28

to ensure that something like this doesn't happen to begin with. Now, I almost don't care about what the reality is, but I almost want to discuss the strategy of these preemptive pieces or like thought pieces that are coordinated or not coordinated. That also really doesn't matter to me versus more so I've heard something and I need to get out there and kind of, you know, set the public narrative. What do you kind of think of that in terms of these preemptive versus slightly reactionary pieces?

Corey 15:54

Well, it could be real, could just be a reflection of the anxieties. I do think it behooves all of the players. We've talked about this so many times. We really need to just put a big spotlight on it. You choose the rules, you choose the leader. The outcome. The

Corey 16:08

The rules dictate the outcome, right? And for

Corey 16:11

for that reason, everybody is rightly arguing about the rules. And you would be a fool if you have ambitions in this space or even just an interested stakeholder like any member of the liberal caucus is if you didn't have opinions about how the next leadership race was going to be and if you weren't pushing those opinions at this particular moment. moment because otherwise this is just going to happen to you and you're going to wake up and you're going to say hold on i thought we got rid of justin trudeau i didn't know that what's his son's name zander under the liberal constitution got appointed as as the new one yeah so and

Corey 16:41

and of course we do see some of these things you're referencing a piece by eddie goldenberg last week that basically said yeah just coronate freeland right eddie

Corey 16:51

eddie goldenberg hasn't been central to liberal power circles for a long time i'm not knocking the guy he's a smart guy he's a great guy. But, you know, he was, he was Chrétien's guy. Yeah, that was a long time ago at this particular moment. And I don't think that the Liberal Party of today in any way, shape or form

Corey 17:08

is comparable to the one that existed in say, 1997. I

Corey 17:11

I just don't. Very,

Corey 17:14

And so I think we should all take that with a grain of salt. I don't know what's

Corey 17:18

what's going on with that. I could easily see him saying, I've got opinions about this. I'm going to put them out and maybe people in freelance camp saying, yeah, why not, Eddie? That's helpful. That's fun. But

Corey 17:27

they did actually encourage that, I think it was a big tactical error because it did give people like George Chahal and whoever's helping him write letters like this, the opportunity to now go out and put this.

Carter 17:37

this. You know, we should really put to bed this idea that I helped write this letter. We

Zain 17:41

We didn't even say that.

Corey 17:42

We didn't even suggest

Carter 17:42

suggest that. No, we didn't say that. It's the letter. You're the one who backed

Corey 17:44

backed yourself into the corner. I mean, I just feel like now you're protesting too much, Stephen. I don't know. I don't know. Who else could have written it?

Carter 17:52

You, Zane, could have written it. Correct

Zain 17:54

Correct answer is George Chahal, Carter. Once again, you failed.

Zain 18:00

Jesus Christ, Carter. Okay, Corey, defend for me. And Carter, I'm going to come to you for a second. Carter, you're going to defend for me the months-long liberal leadership as the process. And Corey, you're going to defend for me the

Zain 18:15

the snap. What did you say? Like the least democratic version would be the UK style shortlist, caucus shortlist. Well, and arguably, you

Zain 18:25

you could even just say caucus decides, right? Okay. Like you could, that's the most extreme. But

Zain 18:29

But I think that

Zain 18:30

that the most likely would be the short. Defend that for me from a strategic basis. And Carter, I'll come to you in a second to defend for me the other end of the spectrum, which is the elongated standard leadership.

Corey 18:39

Yeah. How about you got to get your fucking socks on and get ready for the bus? Because this election could occur as soon as early January. This could occur the minute the prime minister goes and says, I'd like to prorogue parliament if the prime, or if the governor general says no dice. So you better at least have a plan B that includes caucus being able to decide if something triggers an election between now and the conclusion of the contest. Like that, they're going to need a mechanism for that regardless, right? And everybody is so aware of the history of this because it was Trudeau the elder who had resigned and then had to be pulled back to run the 1980 election. Now, that was different circumstances. But if

Corey 19:15

if a party gets caught flat footed, they're going to just start reaching for the most immediate leader that's available to them there. And so absent something to allow you to deal with that, you're going to have chaos and it's not going to be chaos to the advantage of the party. So the get your socks on, get ready for the bus argument is really compelling. And I

Corey 19:33

know that people look at the Harris example, but I think you can also make the argument, well, Harris did pretty good, all

Corey 19:40

all things considering. You know, would the Democrats have been in a better position if in July and if in August they had decided, no, we better run a contest and we better pick a candidate before, I don't know, before the middle of August? Like the timeline was so insane for them, too. And the other thing I'd point out is it may turn out that Harris from when she was, that was July 21st, was when Joe Biden stepped down. And Harris was basically the presumptive nominee a week later. Yeah. Right. So let's just call it for easy math.

Corey 20:11

August 1st, she's the presumptive nominee. Right. September, October, November. That's three months and a couple of days. You might have a lot less time than that as the incoming liberal leader. So what is practical is a consideration that's on everybody's mind right now. And since the caucus is going to have to live or die with this person, whoever they are, why not just let the caucus decide and let the membership endorse it with a yeah, thumbs up. You know, good. You've given me two options. I think this option is great. Let's fucking go. Online vote. Existing members. Done in two weeks. Ready to hit Pierre Polyev in the face when need be. From

Zain 20:47

From a caucus shortlist, you mean? Sure. I mean, pretty

Zain 20:51

pretty reasonable. You've asked me to argue.

Zain 20:52

argue. I'm not actually in favor of it, but like pretty reasonable. Why the hell not? I'll ask you about what you're in favor of in a second. Carter, defend for me the standard, elongated

Zain 21:02

leadership race that the liberals constitutionally should be running.

Corey 21:06

Oh, and try to use different words than were in the George Chahal letter.

Carter 21:10

Number one, I think, is from Jerry's letter. And Jerry's letter says you've got to test whether or not someone actually has the chops to do this, to run politically. Do they have the chops to bring people on side? And I think that that's the number one thing. The number two thing is it actually gives you the opportunity to find out firsthand what people are actually talking about. about instead of you know polling and trying to figure out you know the

Carter 21:37

the issues you're actually on the ground talking to the hyper engaged the people who may not show up in a in a poll learning about what it is that they care about and that will help you in the general election and i think the number three is you got to build a team you got to build teams across the country and and there is no way to build a team except to put the team on the field that's

Carter 21:56

that's the only way to build a team so those are my three reasons they're a little less verbose than cory because i used fewer adjectives um but still i you know i'm trying to uh to get across what i think would be the and

Carter 22:10

and to be clear i'm not advocating for the full you

Carter 22:14

know months long 91 day minimum thing i think it's going to have to be a 45 to 60 day exercise

Carter 22:22

exercise um but i think 45 to 60 days going

Carter 22:26

going across the country is still a viable uh

Carter 22:29

uh length of time i

Zain 22:31

i told him defend the full thing He, of course, would not, Corey, because he's not a follower of rules. Here's the thing. I want to get you guys' take on where you think strategically, as I'm going to put you in the position of liberal supporters here, right? Preservation of party, preservation of the future, where they should land.

Zain 22:48

But there's one hurdle that I'm just not able to get over. And you might find it a simple one to get over yourselves. But all

Zain 22:55

all the polling seems to suggest that whoever they replace Trudeau with, it will not matter. So why should I care?

Zain 23:02

as a supporter of the liberal, why should I care if they do a short list of two or if they fucking push the election a year somehow and do a full eight-month leadership race? Why should I care? None of this is going to matter. Why should I care? Help me get over that hurdle, and then I will ask you about your preferred choice on this spectrum. Corey, you first.

Corey 23:23

Well, because of the same reason that we're talking about the power that Justin Trudeau has in this moment to set the rules and define the outcomes. When you're in that job, you

Corey 23:32

you get to set not just the current state of things, but you have a huge impact on the future state of things. And if you care about not just this leadership contest, but what's to come after it, the leadership contest to come, how the party restructures itself to come, how the party positions itself policy-wise to come, whether it becomes more like, you know, no daylight between them and the new Democratic Party, or they become a little bit more a

Corey 23:55

a third way 1990s style liberalism with a serious band of economic fiscal conservatism, well, you're going to want to have some say there. And then the other thing is, there is furniture to be saved. It is still an open question whether the liberals face a Mulroney style wipeout, a Ignatiev style almost wipeout, or a respectable opposition like John Turner was able to pull in, with the benefit of hindsight, we now think of it as respectable in in the 80s right that is all still on the table for them and so while you might not be winning to play you might victory is contextual in this sense and you're trying to think about what's best for you in terms of positioning the party long term what's best for you in terms of

Corey 24:36

setting the party up for your philosophical views on the world those things matter and that's why you should care carter

Zain 24:42

carter why should i care uh whichever of these processes you use why

Carter 24:47

why should Should you care as an individual? Yeah,

Zain 24:49

Yeah, and I'm positioning myself as a liberal supporter here. Someone who's liberal, sympathetic, liberal supporting.

Zain 24:55

What does it matter? None of this fucking shit. None of these people are going to make a difference. If the people aren't going to make a difference against Polyev, why should I care about the process?

Carter 25:03

Well, because the outcome is going to matter, like Corey said. The outcome varies from complete annihilation into something vaguely resembling holding Pierre Polyev to a minority government. I think that that's the scope of the outcome of this particular leadership race. I think that's why it's important. I think that that's why most people will care about it. And

Carter 25:27

And whatever is going to give the Liberal Party of Canada the

Carter 25:31

the opportunity to remain,

Carter 25:32

remain, at the very least, the official opposition, and

Carter 25:35

and at the most,

Carter 25:37

a viable party, this

Carter 25:41

you know, like a viable party that has the capacity of forming government again. Because

Carter 25:45

keep in mind, when Justin Trudeau came in to rescue the party, and we shouldn't forget about how Justin Trudeau did come in and rescue the party. They were, you know, trapped

Carter 25:57

trapped in third place with no real room to grow. He comes in and launches them into a

Carter 26:03

a government, primarily after listening to the liberal strategy episode of 2015, which

Carter 26:09

which patrons have the opportunity to listen to. So, you

Carter 26:14

know, I think that the strategy of this, the strategy of holding a leadership is the question of do we want to be dropped down to 30 seats or do we want to try and compete in 120?

Zain 26:25

what's your preferred system here? What's your preferred set of rules?

Corey 26:29

Well, my preferred set of rules are actually pretty close to the go fast rules. I don't mind the idea that caucus has to determine what's going on, but I do think you need to extend the party component a little bit longer. I'd maybe make a little bit of a longer list like three being very explicit does not need to be somebody coming from caucus you go to the party you do a traveling road show in the various regions of Canada where you've got a bunch of high energy events that are going to be you know big debates out there you show people what you're able to do you have an actual membership sales component you don't just lock off the membership or you have the supporter system where people can register I'm somewhat agnostic at this particular moment but I think you've got to go out there and you've got got to be able to uh to say that these people ran the crucible in some way shape or form and you do that through january and february you have a prorogued parliament you come back in march introduce a budget fucking right off to the polls i think that's my preferred option at this particular carter what's yours uh

Carter 27:23

uh doesn't vary much from uh from cory's other than i think that the party needs a membership structure instead of the supporter structure i

Zain 27:30

i want to get into that i think that's very interesting i don't talk about that in a second yeah

Carter 27:32

yeah i think they need to sell memberships. Um, they need to put people's addresses and names into databases with money attached to it, not just addresses and names, uh, without actually having the commitment of dollars.

Zain 27:47

Corey, can you give us a bit of a background? Cause I think it'd be most appropriate to do so on the liberal party moving to this open supporter model versus the more traditional membership model. Uh, and then, and then I want to discuss it's sort of, you know, it's

Zain 28:00

it's issues, not issues shoes per se, but there are considerations with it in this current time and present day.

Corey 28:05

Yeah. So longtime listeners will probably be aware that I'm actually the person who created this system. Yes, you are.

Zain 28:13

And now it's a huge liability for the liberals. Okay, go ahead, Corey. Go

Zain 28:15

Go ahead, Corey. Yeah,

Corey 28:16

continue. Yeah, arguably it is. And I'll say just right off the top, I'm not sure that I think it's a very good idea with the benefit of a few more years years of wisdom but this all started in Alberta right we created this system which was in

Corey 28:30

in some ways detailed off of what was going on in France with more open primaries certainly the American influence that was there but it was this idea that you get people in the door not as members but as supporters because people feeling a little funny about party membership they're not necessarily convinced that they want to be party members and if you looked at the broad trend going from like the 1960s to the 2010s, percent

Corey 28:54

percent of Canadians that had party membership was declining. It was declining and it was making... Because we talk about these parties as though they're private clubs, but one of the things that we often skip past is that a lot more people used to be members of these private clubs. A lot of people used to have memberships in political parties, in part because there was this system, this feeder system you'll be very familiar with, Stephen, certainly I am too, where you would have the person on your block who was known as the liberal or the the conservative and would sell you the memberships and every time something was coming up they would get you and they pull you into that so my observation at the time not just i mean i wasn't the only one involved there was a whole team of people that was

Carter 29:29

was mostly you but

Corey 29:31

but uh is yeah is there any truth

Carter 29:32

truth to the rumor that you did it because you couldn't sell a liberal party membership in alberta at all ever is that is that true no

Corey 29:40

no would you like to hear the actual story and save your quips for the end and then we can but you know i do want to give a shout out to uh personally there there. Eric Ampman, who was president of the Alberta Liberal Party at the time, Karina Gatton, who was one of the staff, they were so instrumental to this too. Maybe they don't want that

Carter 29:55

that credit at this particular

Corey 29:57

they were part of driving this force too. And so looking at this, looking at the trend, looking at that, yes, it was harder in Alberta to get people to join as liberals in particular, but there were people who were receptive as supporters. And knowing that modern politics had gone away from big donors to small donors, like this was a trend we'd observed, we knew that lists were really important. And one of the ways we thought we would fix this is by creating this new level between just somebody who vaguely supports and someone who's a member, which is a registered supporter, where that email address, where that home address, where that communication exists with somebody who, you know, has not taken the commitment of purchasing a party membership. Now, in Alberta, we didn't charge you to be a registered supporter the federal liberals instituted something of a poll tax i think it was five or ten dollars so there was still money that had to come from you during that last contest with justin trudeau but liberals did this it was like a water hose we had tens of thousands of people joining the liberal party in in alberta and bob ray was looking at this and he was interim leader of the liberals at the time federally

Corey 31:00

federally and he's like well that looks really interesting he started sharing content about it and before you knew it it was on the agenda for a national liberal Convention to talk about as part of a suite of reforms that Bob Ray was going to champion through before the leadership contest that Ignatiev had stepped down. Ray was interim leader. There was going to be a leadership contest. That's the one Trudeau ultimately won, right? So we're in Ottawa. We're having these conversations. Obviously, the Alberta contingent has big opinions and big feelings about this. There are people in Alberta who really don't like the system in part because they didn't like the leader that was chosen,

Corey 31:33

Sherman. This is one of the risks, right? Like Like just basic popularity will get you that leadership a lot of the time.

Corey 31:40

There were people who really did like the system. I was one at the time. You know, I was saying, you know, Canadians, they don't want to marry. They want to date, right? Like they want to be able to register as a supporter of a party and then move on. The thing passes.

Corey 31:53

It didn't, you know, pass in the whole suite, which would have seen a true primary system where everybody voted kind of incrementally over time until you had like big votes down the road. But it largely passed in reflection to the Alberta system. And off we were. And a lot of the logic at the time was Liberal

Corey 32:10

Liberal Party specific. If you were going to be a big, broad-based party, if your whole identity is being, we

Corey 32:16

we are the central convening place of Canadians in politics, you know, we're not too far left, not too far right, then a system that just pushes you towards the middle because there's such generalist support, maybe not such a bad one. Now, I'll close by saying we've seen some of the hazards of big generalist systems. certainly as a podcast, we've talked a lot about the risks of those. I've become much more of the opinion that political parties need to be even more like private clubs than they were in 2010 before the supporter system. But that is the journey we've been on. And this is the system the liberals have, which basically says, you can register as a supporter of the liberals, you'll probably have to pay a poll tax, but that gets set by the executive, I believe, unless they've changed the rules in the intervening time. And then you get to vote in this leadership contest. It is a point based system. I think that it's 100 points per writing is the cap. So if you have 30 members, there's 30 points. If you have 3000, there's 100 points. If you have 100, there's 100 points. But that's that's what they would normally do at this particular moment. And we'll see what they actually do. Carter,

Zain 33:14

Carter, you said that this Liberal Party needs to sell memberships and not rely on this supporter system. Yeah.

Carter 33:22

I think I want people who believe that they belong, right i believe i want people who want

Carter 33:27

want to do the work of building a political party i

Carter 33:30

i don't want supporters i want people who are going to be you know signing up and become immediate members of their constituency and and by members i don't mean like just

Zain 33:39

but if the liberals

Zain 33:40

liberals are instituting this this five ten dollar poll tax as cory calls it yeah

Carter 33:44

yeah isn't it virtually the same like are we

Zain 33:46

we not like exactly no okay you're trying

Carter 33:49

trying you got to get the you got to get a smaller number of people with higher commitment. You know, the system that Corey is describing is a system that has a larger number of people with a lower commitment per person. And I think that that's the opposite of what you actually need to put in place. You want to have a smaller number of people with a higher degree of commitment. That's what I would be putting in place. And that's why I'd be selling memberships. That's, you know, all those people who are like, I don't know if I want to be a member. Good. Fuck off. Don't be a member. We don't want you. We want the people who want to be a member, who want to be a part of building this party as quickly as it needs to be built.

Zain 34:27

Corey, you said in your initial comments, you're agnostic. I'm happy to go down that path or responding to Carter in terms of if there's a difference between poll tax registered supporter versus outright traditional OG member as we're used to it in politics.

Corey 34:42

Yeah. Well, first of all, I agree with Stephen. It's not the same. It was specifically designed to bring in the less committed that was that was a design feature of it the language was chosen as a design feature in french it's like the system partisan which i never liked because you know that we didn't have a french version of it in alberta so they had to create a french word and it just it felt partisan you

Zain 35:05

the whole idea was

Corey 35:05

was you're like i support you know it was

Zain 35:07

was a lot softer

Zain 35:08

in this time and place and in this particular moment i support i

Corey 35:12

so i'd like to have a to say. So it was specifically designed to bring in the less committed. So I'm certainly not going to argue now that it doesn't matter. The whole thing with membership is it's a psychological barrier. And what Stephen is arguing, and I

Corey 35:24

I would support, and I might even go further than Stephen is, that's not such a bad barrier to have, you know, people who are actually feeling like they are members and they're committed to the party. But are you talking

Zain 35:33

talking about more generally,

Zain 35:33

Corey? Are you talking about within the confines of this particular leadership race that the liberals are running?

Corey 35:39

So I'm talking more generally, but to get to your question about about why I'm agnostic at this moment is I just don't think there's the time to make a difference. I don't think that the people who are going to be registered supporters are going to be fundamentally a different group than the people who would be members. It's going to be the people in the door and the people who are keyed in enough that they would probably have bought a membership anyhow, plus or minus a few. And I also think it's going to, I don't think there's going to be a 51-49 election where the membership, if

Corey 36:05

if it had been less engaged, is going to change the outcome. I think it's going to be like an 80-20 thing as

Zain 36:09

as everybody goes around.

Zain 36:10

So if I put it in other terms, this is going to be a leadership of the most engaged. Is that a fair – Yes.

Zain 36:16

It has to be because of the timeline.

Corey 36:18

And so that's what I ultimately believe is going to occur. The liberals should look at the system. I think the liberals need to reflect on whether it's the right system armed with everything we've learned over the past decade. But also it's funny. They've never actually run the system in a sense because Trudeau – Fucking cleaned up. That was always a bit of a coronation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's tough to say with 100% certainty. So

Zain 36:40

So here's, Corey makes a good point, and so do you, Carter, but I'm going to come to you, Carter, with this particular question, which is, if this is a leadership race of the most engaged, what concern, anxiety, or straight-up opportunity do you feel like there is for special interest groups, groups that have been active in advocating in the thousands or in the hundreds of thousands, depending on their cause? Let me throw one. Pro-Palestine groups, environmental, labor. These are just a few examples. I'm not adding any connotation to any of them, despite my support for all three. But what do you think of these groups that are already pretty much mobilized? Do you feel like a membership model prevents them or clips their wings a bit? Or do you feel like the supporter model is the right thing to do because lists matter in a 2024 environment even more than what Corey would suggest it did back in the early 2000s?

Carter 37:35

Well, I would probably not be overly excited about having well-organized groups of people come in at this particular moment to choose the leader of the Liberal Party. that's one of the reasons I'd like to see a membership you

Carter 37:50

know if there's a membership fee you know anybody who pays for their own fee is welcome within the party but a lot of these organizations have in the past engaged in multiple membership purchases where they're buying memberships for their members that type of skullduggery I think would be a problem in this short time frame so if we're going to see a real leadership race. I think the leadership race should be focused on one

Carter 38:21

one member, one vote kind of a feel to it with the point system so that these groups that are like, for example, the Dogwood Initiative in British Columbia that was threatening to take over the B.C. Liberal Party.

Zain 38:34

This was the E.B. election.

Carter 38:40

Don't give them the power hour to do so, make sure that their wings are clipped, as it were.

Zain 38:46

Corey, I guess the other way to ask this question is, how are you thinking about special interest groups in this election if you are part of the Liberal Party? Are you looking at them as pure opportunity, get them on the list, or are they always going to be their own thing trying to co-opt your political enterprise? Give me your sense on this.

Corey 39:02

So in defense of the supporter system, it was created in part because of special interest Right. If the membership of parties is declining broadly, they are much more susceptible to takeover when all of a sudden you've got 10,000 members and an interest group can just come together and say, oh, we're going to do this. Right. We're going to take this over. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I believe we've seen lots of evidence that those interest groups will still buy memberships regardless of the system. And, you know, the EB example was just thrown out. It's a super one. I think you could look at Alberta's most recent leadership race for the UCP. It happens. Right. Right. And so the idea of a broad based system, as much as anything, was defensive. It's if you want to reflect the whole of the country, don't rely on a smaller and smaller special interest driven group. Right. But the other solution and one I think I'm more fond of now is actually going further than what Stephen said there. So I would say, hey, you can be a voter in this particular contest if you're an existing member and or you can show that you've bought or don't. you know uh bought

Corey 40:05

bought a membership in two of the last five years donated in two of the last five years volunteered in two of the last five years maybe something for youth for hey you just turned 14 because that's the other thing you can vote in these contests at 14 it's

Corey 40:17

18 right so hey if you're between 14 and 16 here's two other ways you can do it i would still make it show that you are somehow committed to this organization just so you don't drive a gold rush down to you know, adolescents and teenagers. But the idea would be, no, show me you're actually a member of the party, not that you're willing to buy a party membership on behalf of an interest group. So that's another option you have here. It's a different solution to the same problem we'd identified back in the day. And it's one that I think I've become much more convinced is the better one, frankly, because it's so easy to game these systems. Let

Zain 40:52

Let me leave it on this, Carter. I've got one final sort of question after this, But let me leave it on the rule side with this question, which is any long-tail considerations for the liberals in terms of going with the closed system when they were known as the open party, going with short and less democratic when they're known for being the brokering, more democratic, any sort of long-tail considerations? And I know those are more brand-related that I've given you as examples, but any long-tail considerations for the Liberals as they jump into this, what now seems to be more likely than ever, a leadership race of some sort? And, Corey, same question to you before we end it off.

Carter 41:29

Yeah, I think that the challenge is that if it looks like a coronation, it's very difficult to recover from those coronations. Arguably, that's what happened with, oh,

Carter 41:42

come on, no, Mignadiev. right he comes in and he's he's basically coronated and and uh you know it stains it stains the party cory

Zain 41:53

cory any any long-tail considerations this

Corey 41:56

this is an interesting one right i i think that in some ways so i've been of the opinion if christia freeland went to caucus if imagine

Corey 42:04

imagine trudeau steps down next week carter

Corey 42:06

carter you're putting your money on january 2nd i know Yeah,

Carter 42:09

Yeah, you picked January 2nd and a half from my reading of it.

Corey 42:12

I did, yeah. Okay.

Corey 42:13

Yeah, that's exactly what I picked. So in

Carter 42:15

in the afternoon, I'm assuming?

Corey 42:17

I think so. Okay.

Corey 42:18

Unless you're thinking afternoon, then evening. No,

Carter 42:20

No, I'm thinking morning. Just a little bit after

Carter 42:22

Thinking morning. Yeah, so you're doing the price is right strategy.

Corey 42:25

I am, yeah. Okay, thank

Corey 42:27

Any day after that, I get. Okay.

Carter 42:28

Okay. I just want you to know.

Corey 42:31

So if Freeland went to caucus and said, look, I'm

Corey 42:34

I'm interested in running, I'll do it. And

Corey 42:37

And if we pull off a miracle and I'm your prime minister, well, then I think I've shown I've earned the job. But in the likely event that we lose, we'll

Corey 42:45

we'll do a real contest post-election. These are my commitments for how we're going to make sure there's party democracy, caucus democracy. We're going to get through this election and then we're going to do the real work on ourselves. And I think if she did something like that, she would probably lock up the majority of caucus in very short order. And it would end up being a coronation, even if it's structured in a way that's not. And so for me, one of the questions is, does anybody really want to fight for it right now? You asked me the question, so I'll broaden it to that point. And if the answer is not really except for Freeland, and Freeland's willing to make some conditions on it, like, we know we need a leader. I'm an obvious choice. We'll get through this, and then we'll figure out where it is. Some of the logic we've said earlier, I think that that would be an interesting thing to observe. Does she want it for two elections if she loses is a big question for me.

Corey 43:33

And then the other

Corey 43:34

other question I have is

Corey 43:36

is how much is the party in

Corey 43:40

in a defensive versus offensive mindset? I guess I'll throw a – you threw out the example of interest groups coming in, right? Yes, I did. So

Corey 43:46

you could easily imagine pro-Palestinian groups, pro-Israel groups. You can easily imagine labor. You could easily imagine, I don't know, the CFIB working with Christy Clark to try to sell memberships in areas. Good example. You don't need to limit it to one side of the spectrum or not, right? Are they worried about that? Are they going to put up guardrails to that? And what do those guardrails look like?

Corey 44:09

And the one that we haven't talked about, but I'm surprised has not been part of the conversation yet is, will

Corey 44:14

will anybody run on a merge with the NDP or electoral cooperation platform?

Carter 44:22

And do they care? You think Jugmeet's going to run?

Corey 44:25

mean that would be very funny yeah

Corey 44:27

it would be quite a move but maybe

Corey 44:31

maybe someone does maybe someone says you know what we don't like peter polly if we know we're gonna have to work together it's gonna take progressives of all stripes i

Corey 44:39

i could see it here's

Zain 44:40

here's a okay so expanding on this we may have to park the 51st state stuff for a second ah we may have to do you know what if

Zain 44:47

if we do i got a comment i want to find i'll give it to you very quickly um

Zain 44:50

um because this is is interesting what you brought up. Carter,

Zain 44:54

are the liberals the one that should be actually bringing this forward? Because you could make the argument that their provincial ground game apparatus, as it were in 2015, is fucking nowhere anymore. That

Zain 45:07

That if the liberals are out of the equation, they might be out of the equation for a long time. Versus the new Democrats who on the national level, yes, underperform consistently and don't kill it in the polls. Just looking at where they have built success provincially, from a ground game perspective, there's more there there. Am I wrong to say that the liberals and a potential liberal candidate should be the one, to Corey's hypothetical, bringing this idea up that maybe it's time that we merge with the NDP? And maybe this is what we need to do for our survival. Or do you kind of believe in a liberal party will be robust no matter what? I

Carter 45:45

I don't believe in a liberal party that will will be robust no matter what i think that there's a liberal party that

Carter 45:49

that has failed prior to 2015 and there's a liberal party that failed uh right now i

Zain 45:56

robust even if it's 10 years in the doldrums you think that they can come back to government that's kind of

Carter 46:00

of what i mean i do and the reason i think that they can do that is because they reflect the majority of the wills of the people of the of canada i think the problem with the new democratic party is occasionally they They will represent the

Carter 46:11

the views and values of a single province. But

Carter 46:14

But that becomes, usually it is a brand that is related to a very strong leader.

Carter 46:20

when you have a weak leader, it doesn't work.

Carter 46:22

My view would be taking two very weak parties and smushing them together doesn't create a strong party. It

Carter 46:28

It makes a weaker party.

Carter 46:30

So my view would be don't put these things together. Instead, just kind of, you

Carter 46:35

you know, become what you want to be.

Carter 46:37

The NDP will continue to be a

Carter 46:42

And it's Trudeau taking the party so far to the left that I think has created this challenge for the Liberal Party today.

Zain 46:52

Well, to be clear, if a candidate were to get up on some stage and say, this is what we need to do for the Liberals, this would be taking it even further to the left. Corey, do you feel like this is a move that the Liberals need in some ways, given where they're at with provincial ground game organizing? And I know that's not a clean, perfect metric, but it is something to comment on.

Corey 47:12

don't know. I think that desperate times call for desperate measures. The liberals and the NDP are obviously looking down the barrel of a gun here. But let's be really honest with ourselves. Liberal plus NDP, even if you could get 100% of that vote to all stick together, still

Corey 47:27

still probably going to lose to Pierre Polyev right now. Yeah,

Corey 47:29

So, like, do you really want to do that at this moment and then try

Corey 47:34

try to pick up the pieces together? Or like, what does that look like? So I'm not convinced that anybody is going to seriously put this forward simply because they're in such a deep hole. Carter's comment about like two weak parties together. People in the parties know that too. too. But if you are the Liberals, and if you are a member of the Liberal Party who actually is probably okay with the idea that, you know, United Front is a long-term solution, and let's be really frank, there are a lot of Liberals who feel that way. There's a lot of Liberals going back even to Chrétien's day who thought they should push for a merger of the NDP when the Liberals were the majority because they couldn't keep fighting this leftward-flank-rightward-flank thing forever. The tea leaves were moving in different directions, and the Liberal Party would would eventually be squeezed out. If you believe that, you might be saying, hmm, huh, interesting here. Do we really want to have an election where... Someone's

Carter 48:23

Someone's phone's ringing? Do we want to... That

Corey 48:25

That was... No, we only do that when it's

Carter 48:26

it's your phone's ringing. Yeah, sorry. I'm

Zain 48:28

I'm sorry. I'm getting a call from... Oh, it's George. It's George Chahal calling the

Zain 48:31

the landline. Couldn't get a hold of me.

Corey 48:32

need some edits on a letter.

Corey 48:34

Well, look, you might be saying after the election, our hand is so weakened. If the NDP ends up with more seats than us not not probable but possible we could be in a lot of trouble here we're the government right now we've got a lot of things we can offer we've got a lot of strength maybe this is the time to make a play hey

Zain 48:50

hey carter i have a question for you you're

Zain 48:52

you're running a candidate in this leadership race okay

Zain 49:00

you're getting like uh coronated as leader. Are you negotiating a two-race minimum somehow? This one, I'm wearing Trudeau's bullshit. Next one will be my own.

Zain 49:12

Are you somehow negotiating that or even broadcasting that as part of your thing so that you can be more than a Kim Campbell, so that you could be more than just someone who carried the water, lost, and then got obviously turfed the very next day? Are you trying to secure your future in some way? Talk to me about how you game that out. Talk to me how you you about broadcast that? And is it even a good idea to be thinking about it that way? Because Corey makes a good point. Do you even want to be taken on this rump of a party for four years to have another shot at it again? So take it away, Carter. Well,

Carter 49:44

Well, I think your best case scenario is that you're going to be thinking to yourself, maybe

Carter 49:48

maybe I can stop Pierre Poglia from having a majority government. Maybe

Carter 49:52

Maybe I can put in a minority

Carter 49:53

minority situation for the conservatives. I think that That anybody

Carter 49:58

anybody who's coming into this would be thinking of that that way rather than in this election.

Carter 50:02

I'm going to be I'm going to resurrect the party. I mean, maybe they have this dream in the back of their mind that they're going to resurrect the party and

Carter 50:08

and and carry it back to government. And so the glory days. Good for them. That's a dream in the back pocket. But I

Carter 50:15

think that anybody who's realistic about this is going to be asked the question or going to have their own team ask the question, will you serve for another term? Will you carry the mantle for another term? And I think that that should

Carter 50:30

should be a question that you're setting up for yourself because you don't want the immediate boo birds to come out and say you won and lost or you ran and lost. Ergo, you're out. I would be like if even if you were Kamala Harris, do you want that to be your last act of political in the political stage? But you want the opportunity to come back and say, I

Carter 50:51

I get one more kick of the can because I was carrying Joe Biden's shit. This

Zain 50:54

is actually at the heart of my question, though, Corey, right? Like, how do you, if you're running, ensure you have that opportunity, that you're not just thrown out the very next day, and that's the end of your political time and legacy? And yeah, you may get a portrait for it, but that'll be it.

Corey 51:09

Yeah, the call always comes from inside the House on those things. It's usually the caucus that deposes you. So you don't need to do a big public show of it, but you need to have frank conversations with the caucus and the candidates who might be elected to replace some of the members.

Corey 51:21

Don't know that there's a lot that fit in that category anymore. more liberal parties in pretty rough straits. But you have to say, look, I'm doing this because the party needs strong leadership in these areas, because I can be a conduit for ideas from people like you. But I think we all need to acknowledge that hill that we've got to climb here. And victory in this sense is there is a liberal party still after this election. And I'm going to do my best. And I hope we can surprise people. But let's be realists here. That's always been a strength of this party, realism. And I do think you could actually couple that with a couple of things that give you optionality too. Like one of the things I think if I were a leadership contestant in the liberals, I would say is, okay, I'm committing regardless to a leadership contest occurring after this election. I may run again in it, TBD, but I commit to another leadership contest. Because again, you might then have people say, well, this is not my only chance. Because the thing you're talking about, like I wanna run for two. If you were a Christian Freeland and you're trying to like lock up a coronation, your biggest risk is people say, We do it now or we're stuck with her for six years, right? So even if you start walking back some of these things, you give yourself some optionality, you do something like that and you've got a stronger hand down the road. Talk

Zain 52:32

Talk to me about this, Carter. Are you an

Zain 52:35

an advocate for low or high entrance fees?

Zain 52:39

Low. Low in this – The last

Carter 52:41

last thing you want to do is put a 250 or 350. Which we have seen

Zain 52:45

seen historically, but I think we've seen something like that in the CPC, if I'm not mistaken. You

Carter 52:49

You throw $250, $350 out there. You

Carter 52:51

You have a limited amount of time to raise it. Everybody's focused on that. They don't actually get to run their campaigns.

Carter 52:58

the money becomes the driving factor and only one, maybe two candidates can get in. You want at least four to six candidates into this. I mean, even a short period piece, there are people who want to be the leader of the Liberal Party, who believe that they are the saviour. Let them in the race. It is a much better race for the Liberal Party of Canada if they have multiple candidates. Low

Corey 53:22

Low or high, Corey?

Corey 53:24

Low fee, high caucus or candidate support. So I imagine being, you

Corey 53:28

you can enter the contest for, I don't know, nominal fee, right? But then you also need to give paperwork, and each person can only sign it once. Imagine a pool that's existing caucus plus nominated candidates in the areas where there is not an elected member slash the past candidate where there's not a nominated candidate yet. So

Corey 53:47

So you've got the 330 whatever the new writing number is, right? And you have to have 75 nominees in order to go on to the next stage. In theory, then you can imagine there could be as many as five, right? Right. But more likely you're going to have two or

Corey 54:03

or something like that. Two's a problem.

Carter 54:06

think two's fine. Two's a problem.

Zain 54:07

Oh, let's talk about this. Why is two a problem and why is two fine? Well, let's just, before we

Corey 54:11

we get there, just

Corey 54:12

just say, I think that's the level, that's what you need right now. It's not about showing you can fundraise. It's about showing that you can hold this thing together. Corey

Zain 54:20

Corey makes an interesting point there, Carter, because my mind was going to, if you go low, could you not just have the special interests group just run a candidate, right? Right. Just be like and get time, air, whatever, turn every question into something about the

Zain 54:34

the climate or labor or CFIB related independent business issues. Right. That concern could could rise. But I'm now more interested in two's a problem versus two is just fine. Why is two a problem? Stephen Carter first.

Carter 54:46

Two's a problem because it looks like it could be a coronation. Like if you get two people in that are super strong, then that's one thing. but

Carter 54:52

but one person winning 80 to 20 isn't

Carter 54:54

isn't going to rescue you isn't going to create any opportunities for the party in the long term what

Carter 54:58

what you want is as many people to run as possible and if it works out that it's still 80 to 20 and the 20 splits four

Carter 55:04

four ways then that's the way it goes but you want to show that you've got a party that is vital and viable and

Carter 55:10

and the vitality is going to be in the number of people who choose who believe that it's resurrectable who

Carter 55:15

who believe that it's got a future And

Carter 55:17

And they believe that, and they are putting their money where their mouth is and actually showing instead of talking about it. So I don't actually mind Corey's idea that X number of signatures from across the country to show that you've got broad-based support. I don't mind that. Just open it up and include party executives. Open it up and include people, you know, riding presidents. Open it up a little bit beyond what he was proposing. opposing and suddenly that becomes a really good second metric that goes beyond just straight cash

Corey 55:51

do you think i'm

Corey 55:53

i'm going to pitch right now the liberals should run this all of the nominated candidates um this becomes almost the first round of the leadership contest because not all of them are nominated right now but that will then force everybody to get on election footing as well and that fight can fight out locally here so the nominated candidate in each of the soon to be 343 seats can um can

Corey 56:15

can sign the nomination papers you need to have 50 nominees maybe you've got to have 10 from each of like four different regions that you define right broadly and that determines who goes to the next round which is an open vote of the membership membership being frozen at a certain moment or maybe even not because maybe your guardrail is that you've got to have the The nominees, the party interests actually get you to that particular point. So do something like that, right, which brings in this sense of kind

Corey 56:45

kind of elite filter, but then allows you to run a rapid contest after there.

Zain 56:49

Carter, final question on here.

Zain 56:52

Are you a fan of an interim PM or no?

Carter 56:55

Am I a fan of an interim PM? Yes,

Zain 56:57

Yes, as this leadership race goes on. Do you want Trudeau out of the picture?

Zain 57:02

And I'm asking you for – let me give you a hat to wear as a party. You're the party. You're the party. Do you want Trudeau out of the picture completely in an interim PM? Or do you want Trudeau to stay until this new person is elected?

Carter 57:14

Chahal talked about an interim PM. I'm not a big fan of the interim PM.

Carter 57:19

I think that it should just stay with Trudeau, stay with his cabinet that he's selected. And anybody who wants to run for the leadership just has to resign from cabinet.

Corey 57:30

are you a fan of an interim PM or no? No, no,

Corey 57:32

no, absolutely not. And this maybe leads into the episode we didn't end up having because Stephen Carter's phone rang about the 51st state. But look,

Corey 57:43

look, I'm just gonna get into it right now. We are so fucking distracted as a nation and the political class even doubly so with everything that's going on right now. This is insane. This is absolutely insane. I don't think we appreciate the threats we are being faced with as a nation here with Donald Trump. Trump. It's not just the 51st state stuff. It's for sure the 51st state stuff, but it's not just the 51st

Corey 58:05

51st state stuff. We seem to have forgotten the 25% tariff that's coming down the barrel. We seem to have forgotten all of his bellicose actions and what they might mean. Even we've talked about it in passing. If he does evict from the country, people who are there, they're not all just going to go back to the border on the South. Many of them are going to come to the the border on the north we have shit to do we have shit to do and it's serious shit and we can't be sitting here arguing about the prime minister and the leadership rules of the fucking liberal party and we can't have a prorogued parliament for the next six months either here and it's i'm just i'm so out of my mind about this and it's funny because now we have just absolutely become part of the problem here too we need a fucking election we need a prime minister with a mandate from the the population i don't know i don't care what you think about pierre pauliev the

Corey 58:54

fact that jester trudeau is a dead man walking is doing us no favors as a country right now and if he manages to pull off some sort of fucking miracle or his successor pulls off a fucking miracle and becomes prime minister that's super but you know what's super about it that will mean that we have somebody with a mandate from the people to stand up to this lunatic at such an immensely dangerous time when our the very basic concept of sovereignty is being eroded in this country nature

Carter 59:19

nature is something I'm assuming that the winner will actually stand up to him, and I'm not sure that's true. Yeah, I am, Stephen. You know what? That's not an assumption that I'm prepared to make when it comes to Pierre Pelletier.

Corey 59:27

Fuckin' shelve that nonsense, okay?

Corey 59:29

how dare you, sir? No, we are— How

Corey 59:31

dare you, sir? We are in way too serious of times for that nonsense.

Carter 59:35

We are in way too serious. We're watching him acquiesce on every issue that he possibly can. This is not a strong leader for the government of Canada. We need actual options so that we can actually choose a strong leader for the government of Canada.

Corey 59:48

No, that's nonsense. And you know what? That is the kind of small ball partisan nonsense.

Carter 59:53

It's not partisan. It's reality.

Corey 59:55

We are not going to be judged well as a country if we're sitting there saying, oh, Pierre Palliev, I don't like the guy. He has not done anything that makes me think that he's not Canadian first. You show me something that makes me think that he's not Canadian

Carter 1:00:07

Canadian first. I'll start sending you some stuff. Go for it. I'll pull it right up right now. I'm putting it in a chat GPT. why would Pierre Polyev be the best governor of the 51st state definitely

Carter 1:00:19

going to come up

Corey 1:00:21

we're sitting here dying days of the Weimar Republic arguing about bullshit we need to put on our big boy pants and we need to be a serious nation and there's a lot

Carter 1:00:31

lot of steps there big and small in an unchecked government

Corey 1:00:36

that's ridiculous you know what Pierre Polyev should do when he wins this election he should put together a unity government government, if

Corey 1:00:45

I could deal with these lunatics...

Carter 1:00:46

lunatics... I don't argue that point at all. If he had a unity government, I'd have a lot more confidence in him.

Zain 1:00:51

Just a quick follow-up question for you, Corey. You didn't give me an exact dollar amount about the entrance fee.

Corey 1:00:58

hate you, Zane. We're

Zain 1:00:59

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1844 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we shall see you next time.

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