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Zain: is the strategist episode 1844 my name is zane velgey with me as always almost tripped over always carter well you want to do that again no i don't should we restart for the patron in
Carter: you want to do that again
Carter: no i don't
Carter: for the patron in
Carter: in fact
Zain: in fact i want to fuck it up even more you want to
Carter: to make something quality for the patrons this time no we just screw them we want to
Zain: make something
Zain: time no we just screw them we want to give it a shot i don't i don't think they i don't think they deserve anything if they're listening to this right now um they probably they're not they have they have okay well whenever they're listening to this so
Corey: they're not they have they
Zain: so
Corey: so if they're listening to this
Zain: this whenever
Corey: whenever they're listening to this yeah
Zain: yeah go on yeah okay
Zain: carter
Zain: carter does it annoy you that he he feels like he's better than us does
Carter: it annoy well
Carter: no because i know that he's at least better than one of us right
Carter: right so this
Zain: this is a feeling he's really just extending
Carter: feeling he's really just extending it beyond one um
Zain: um thank you i'm just gonna cough throughout the entire episode because you know why that's
Zain: the quality that the patient you've been you've been not
Carter: patient you've been you've been not feeling well the the no
Zain: no i actually feel i feel i feel great i've been trying to get a cold so i can cough on this episode okay
Carter: i
Carter: okay i've been feeling great yeah
Zain: okay
Zain: i've been feeling great yeah people have noticed
Carter: people have noticed that you've had some nasal issues no
Corey: no i've been feeling yeah i mean it comes up a lot are you um are you gonna intro us no or is this like what the fuck who cares people know who you are hey
Zain: hey
Carter: hey cory you're cory hogan and i'm stephen carter speaking
Zain: of intros that suck when you guys do your episodes together oh my god i
Carter: i mean i
Zain: mean i think the bit died 20 episodes ago the
Carter: the bit was never good it
Zain: it was never good okay well thank you for acknowledging that in the first place we commit Commit to the bit. Commit to the bit.
Carter: was never good okay well thank you for acknowledging that in the first
Carter: we commit Commit to the bit. Commit
Corey: Commit to the
Corey: Yeah.
Corey: Yeah. No,
Zain: No,
Corey: No,
Zain: No,
Carter: No,
Zain: No, that's not, that doesn't, commit
Zain: commit to the bit doesn't mean you keep doing it if it's not funny. I
Zain: I mean, it does. Do you think they say commit to the bit at Conan when it's not funny?
Carter: does. Do you think they say
Carter: Yes, I think they do. I do, yeah. No, I
Zain: do. I do, yeah. No, I don't. I think because he's Conan. First
Carter: I think because
Carter: of all, we're
Carter: funnier than Conan.
Zain: Oh my God. This is, this is, this is insane. We are funnier than Conan. This is insane. We've got Anthony
Carter: We are funnier than Conan.
Carter: We've got Anthony Jeselnik kind of humor going on here.
Zain: Go ahead. Show it to us, Carter. Yeah.
Zain: What do you got? What do I got? What do you got? I
Carter: you got? I
Carter: I boxed myself in, Corey. You did. I boxed myself in.
Zain: You did. I boxed myself in. I asked him for one example, Corey, and he couldn't do it. He couldn't deliver.
Carter: He couldn't deliver.
Carter: Immediately, the stuff popped into my head. I didn't have the skill to play. Just another example
Zain: popped into
Zain: didn't have the skill to play. 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 uh specifically
Carter: And then you're
Corey: specifically for it so I don't care that's fair yeah yeah
Zain: yeah yeah uh what do you want to talk about do you want to talk about America uh wanting Canada uh do you want to do you want to go there
Corey: yeah I mean after we give a little bit of time to when Jesselnik was dating Amy Schumer and what you think that was yeah what
Zain: yeah what do you think that was like Carter what
Carter: what do I think that was like yeah
Corey: yeah I think it was
Carter: I think it was hilarious I think it was hilarious because Anthony is hilarious and And Schumer is not. And
Zain: was hilarious
Zain: Schumer is not. And she is not. Okay, good. She'd be a great audience.
Carter: She'd be a great audience.
Zain: good.
Zain: Him and I are aligned. Him and I are absolutely aligned. She's fine. She's fine. You guys are bad guys. She's fine? She's not fine. She's terrible.
Carter: aligned. She's fine.
Corey: She's
Carter: She's
Corey: She's fine?
Carter: Oh, yeah.
Zain: 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 think
Carter: I think you misunderstand who gets canceled in this relationship. Yeah,
Zain: you misunderstand who gets
Zain: Yeah, which is? Ultimately,
Carter: Ultimately, it all boils down to Corey.
Zain: I think Corey has something to lose. That's right. I forget the whole fact that he's the only one that has something to lose here.
Carter: to
Carter: That's right. I forget
Zain: And
Corey: And he could lose that hoodie. It's great doing a podcast with two men on fire. That's what I'm doing. Okay. Well, he's trying to tame
Zain: hoodie. It's
Zain: tame
Zain: 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. And 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. But, Corey, there seems to be something interesting happening.
Corey: tame the
Zain: 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: You know, when we record off cycle, I get very confused. Right,
Zain: very
Zain: Right, because you're very much about cycles being a line. Yeah,
Carter: 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 7 o'clock at night, I'm not popular.
Zain: What do you think that could be, Carter? I'm happy to park the 51 Shades of Grey. Do you think that could be people asking you about something else?
Carter: I'm
Carter: I'm pretty sure I know what that's about, actually.
Zain: I'm happy for you to share it with us.
Carter: No, I'm probably not going to talk about it.
Corey: Corey,
Zain: Corey, you want to talk about it?
Corey: it?
Zain: it?
Corey: So are we moving on to the PMO troubles? Yeah,
Zain: Yeah, Carter, what's going on there? What's that phone call about?
Corey: Carter,
Carter: what's
Carter: what's going
Corey: going
Carter: I certainly would have no comment if it was about the PMO problems.
Carter: You know, I probably don't know anything about it.
Zain: What's your take on writing letters with a lot of adjectives?
Carter: I'm a good fan of adjectives, Zane. I think that adjectives—
Zain: adjectives— I can tell. I can tell when I read it. I'm like, oh, yeah.
Carter: adjectives— I can tell. I
Carter: See, you're making assumptions. You're jumping to conclusions. You're going to hurt yourself if you do that.
Zain: if
Corey: This was always the big conflict between me and Steve. You're
Carter: You're
Zain: You're
Zain: You're going to sue the whole podcast that we are on? I'm
Corey: I'm an adjective minimalist, and he's an adjective maximalist. And it shows when the word product is available
Carter: maximalist. And
Zain: And it shows
Carter: shows when the word product is
Zain: available in public
Corey: public
Zain: public format.
Corey: format. That's what I think. There
Carter: I think. There is no evidence
Zain: There
Carter: evidence that indicates that I've been involved in anything, anything at all.
Zain: Okay.
Carter: Okay.
Zain: Okay. Anything
Carter: Anything at all. All
Zain: 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: The
Zain: The timing is so atrociously dumb. Do we need to vet? Nobody is going to get
Corey: atrociously
Corey: get this. Nobody
Zain: Nobody
Corey: Nobody
Zain: Nobody gets it. Even by our standards, this is – They subscribe. So basically,
Corey: gets it. Even by our standards, this is – They
Corey: basically,
Zain: basically,
Corey: basically,
Zain: basically, you want to tell them what's going on, Corey,
Corey: and then we'll
Zain: we'll get to the – Well, I think we should at least
Corey: we'll get to the – Well, I think we should at least mention that a letter went from one of the liberal MPs to, I guess, the rest of the liberal caucus saying, hey, this guy doesn't need time to think about it. This guy being Trudeau. Yes. This guy being Trudeau. This guy has 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 – or a George Chahal URL
Zain: URL if I'm not mistaken. Something about his basketball. Yeah,
Corey: Yeah, Chahal Cabal, which I
Zain: which I think is reusable now in this particular situation. Literally the headline of this article actually uses the term Cabal. 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. We're so ahead of the curve. Sitting with shahalkabal.com and .ca, I imagine, because we don't cut corners. Yeah, we get two when we get one, for sure. Absolutely. Carter, any comment?
Corey: situation.
Corey: Here we are. We're so ahead of the curve.
Zain: Nope.
Carter: Nope.
Carter: Thank you for asking.
Zain: Corey, 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. it um but now that we're on it this letter thanks a lot by one of us maybe um at least aid it helps push i mean it reads
Carter: thanks a lot by one
Carter: mean it
Corey: it
Corey: reads it reads like one of us yeah sorry it reads like we would read like
Carter: us yeah sorry it reads like we would read like any one of us we we
Corey: we
Carter: we
Corey: we can't say that it reads like
Carter: can't say that it reads like someone else wrote it well
Corey: someone other than george for sure and
Zain: george for sure
Carter: sure
Zain: sure
Carter: sure
Zain: sure
Carter: sure
Zain: sure
Zain: and
Corey: and
Corey: and
Zain: and
Corey: and george
Zain: george george
Corey: george wrote
Carter: george wrote it that's what i'm told okay
Zain: wrote
Zain: okay wow took you a long time to To come up with the excuse that George wrote his own letter. Seven
Zain: minutes, Carter. I'm
Carter: I'm out of cycle. This is the time when I'm at my sharpest. You should see me in the evening. I
Zain: This is the time when
Zain: see me in the evening. I like that it took you seven minutes to be like, oh, no, the guy who wrote the letter wrote the letter. Yeah.
Zain: this is also coinciding, if I can call it that, with Jerry Butt's piece today, Corey, where 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: 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. Yeah,
Corey: 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. there.
Corey: 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, we've
Corey: 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 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 again. But
Corey: you could easily see caucus coming united behind one candidate, and then it's kind of over already, right? And
Corey: And to be clear, it seems like
Zain: And to be clear, it seems like at this current moment, that is very much a Christopher 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.
Zain: Well, for sure.
Corey: sure. I
Zain: I mean,
Corey: mean,
Zain: mean, I
Corey: I think everybody is now worried about the Harris example, right? Yes,
Zain: Yes,
Corey: Yes,
Zain: Yes,
Corey: Yes,
Zain: Yes, yes.
Corey: yes.
Zain: yes. So
Corey: 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
Zain: do full
Corey: -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 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 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 election that we're all coming to here. So within that confines, how are you studying it? Who gets to vote? 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 i have been like a member of like the
Carter: contestants, that's
Carter: spring election
Carter: to here.
Corey: the liberal party what was called like i think the president's counselor 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 the butts uh 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 so so
Zain: yes it's
Zain: justin so so so intimately yes yes yeah
Corey: so intimately
Corey: 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 right if you want to see if someone's good at politics get it get them out in the political arena 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: he's allowed to and wants to yeah
Zain: yeah 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 Both of these pieces, in some degree, almost seem to argue against that reality. But even before we address 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: The scope of the threat, it must be real.
Carter: And the reason that it must be real is because there's activity pushing against it.
Carter: So the activity pushing against the idea that someone would just be appointed leader or that there would be some sort of coronation. Keep in mind, last week there was articles about, you know, it's easy to get lost in the Christmas break, but there were articles about, well, you know, Freeland did this, let's make this her problem now, or let's give her the opportunity to run this. There will be just as many pieces occurring in the next three days that argue both sides of this issue. you um so you know the fact that jerry and george are out at the same time making essentially the same points um you
Carter: you know with fewer adjectives in one of them uh is is to me just you know proof that there is a real threat to this um and it's not specific to the liberals in this time any
Carter: any party that would be facing a potential election within four or five months is going to have uh
Carter: uh a pressure 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: 338 writings, I think. I don't think they've gone to the new number.
Zain: And sorry, when you mean as it stands, you mean as it indicates in the liberal constitution how a leadership should be run. You've
Carter: a leadership should be run. 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 what people are arguing about is whether or not this this
Carter: this update is required needs to be actually put in place right
Carter: right yeah
Zain: 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 no i appreciate that
Carter: want to discuss it no i appreciate that no no i'm really happy thank you i'm
Zain: i'm gonna i'm just gonna find you at your worst in the middle of the day when it's It's usually nap time and make you record and just reveal things like one rather than we, which may have happened a few seconds ago.
Carter: usually nap
Carter: and make you record and
Zain: Corey, talk to me about this. Carter suggests that this, the fact that these pieces came out suggests that this threat is real. But
Zain: But there's also another school of thought saying that, yes,
Zain: yes, it could be potentially real, but these are preemptive to
Zain: 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: Well, it could be real, could just be a reflection of the anxieties. I do think it behooves all of the players. Hey, 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 rules dictate the outcome, right? And for
Zain: The outcome. The rules dictate the outcome,
Corey: 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. 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, Xander, under the liberal constitution got to be appointed as the new one. 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
Carter: got to be appointed as the
Corey: 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 chretien'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 is
Carter: yeah that
Corey: comparable to the one that existed in say 1997 i
Corey: i just don't very very true and
Corey: so i i think we should all take that with a grain of salt i don't know what's going on with that i could easily see him saying oh i've got opinions about this i'm going to put them out and maybe people in freelance camp saying saying, yeah, why not, Eddie? That's helpful. That's fun.
Corey: But
Corey: if 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 things in a dunk. You know, we should really
Carter: whoever's helping him
Carter: things in a dunk. You know, we should really put to bed this idea that I helped write this letter. We
Carter: We
Zain: We didn't even say that. We didn't even suggest
Carter: suggest that. No, we didn't say that. You're the one who backed
Corey: suggest that. No, we didn't say that. You're the one who 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? I hate
Carter: I hate you.
Carter: Who else? Else, you,
Carter: Zane, could have written it. Correct
Zain: Correct answer is George Chahal, Carter. Once again, you failed.
Zain: 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
Zain: as the process. And Corey, you're going to defend for me
Zain: the snap. What did you say? Like the least democratic version would be the UK-style shortlist, caucus shortlist. Well, and arguably, you could even just say caucus decides, right? Okay. Like you could – that's the most extreme. But I think that the most likely – 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: arguably, you
Corey: extreme. But I think that the most likely – Defend that for me from a strategic
Corey: Yeah. How about – 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 pro-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. 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 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: I know that people look at the Harris example, but I think you can also make the argument, well, Harris did pretty good, all
Corey: 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.
Zain: was
Zain: Yeah.
Carter: Yeah. Right.
Corey: 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 like what is practical is a consideration that's on everybody's mind right now and since the caucus is gonna 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 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: From a caucus shortlist, you mean? Sure. Yeah. I mean, pretty
Corey: From a
Corey: Sure. Yeah.
Zain: pretty reasonable. You've asked me to argue. No, no, no. I'm not actually in favor of it. For sure. 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
Corey: argue. No, no, no. I'm not actually in favor of it. For sure. But
Zain: elongated leadership
Zain: race that the liberals constitutionally should be running. Oh,
Zain: Oh, and try
Corey: try to use different words than were in the George Chahal letter.
Carter: 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. instead of you know polling and trying to figure out you know the
Carter: 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 um 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 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 or adjectives um
SPEAKER_00: um but
Carter: um but still i you know i'm trying to uh to get across what i think would be the and
Carter: and to be clear i'm not advocating for the full you know
Carter: know months long 91 day minimum thing i think it's going to have to be a 45 to 60 day exercise
Carter: exercise um but i think 45 to 60 days going
Carter: across the country is still a viable uh
Carter: uh length of time i
Zain: told him defend the full thing he of course would Would not, Corey, because he's not a follower of rules. No. 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. But
Zain: 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: the polling seems to suggest that whoever they replace Trudeau with, it will not matter. So why should I care? As
Zain: 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.
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Corey: 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: 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 no daylight between them and the new Democratic Party, or they become a little bit more a
Corey: a third-way 1990s style liberalism with a serious bend 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: setting the party up for your philosophical views on the world. Those things matter. And that's why you should care.
Zain: Carter, why should I care? Whichever of these processes you use? Why
Carter: should you care as an individual? And
Zain: individual? And I'm positioning myself as a liberal supporter here. Someone who's liberal, sympathetic liberal supporting what
Zain: 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: Well because the issue the outcome is going to matter like Corey said the outcome is you know it varies from complete annihilation into something vaguely resembling holding Pierre Polyev to a minority government I think that that's the 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.
Carter: And whatever is going to give the Liberal Party of Canada the
Carter: the opportunity to remain,
Carter: remain, at the very least, the official opposition, and
Carter: and at the most, a
Carter: a viable party,
Carter: this becomes, you
Carter: you know, like a viable party that has the capacity of forming government again.
Carter: Because keep in mind, when Justin Trudeau came in 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, crapped
Carter: in third place with no real room to grow. He comes in and launches them into a
Carter: a government, primarily after listening to the Liberal Strategy episode of 2015, which patrons have the opportunity to listen to. So, you
Carter: you 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: Gord, what's your preferred system here? What's your preferred set of rules?
Zain: Well,
Corey: 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. And 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 roadshow in the various regions of Canada where you've got a bunch of high energy events that are going to be 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 to be able 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. element 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: 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 want to
Zain: i want to get into that i think that's very interesting i don't talk about that in a second yeah i
Carter: second 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: Corey, can you give us a bit of a background, because 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. And then and then I want to discuss it's sort of, you know, it's
Corey: And then
Zain: it's issues, not issues, per se, but there are considerations with it in this current time and present day.
Corey: Yeah, so longtime listeners will probably be aware that I'm actually the person who created this system. Yes, you are.
Carter: system.
Carter: you are.
Carter: It's your fault.
Zain: And now it's a huge liability for the liberals so okay go ahead cory go
Zain: go ahead cory yeah
Corey: yeah
Carter: yeah continue
Corey: continue
Carter: continue yeah
Corey: 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 of wisdom but uh this all started in alberta right we created this system which was
Corey: 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 for 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: percent
Corey: 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 to have memberships in political parties in part because there was this system this feeder system you'll be very familiar with steven certainly i am too where you would have like the person on your block who was known as the liberal or 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 mostly
Zain: certainly
Carter: that was mostly you but
Corey: uh is there any truth to the rumor that
Carter: any truth to the rumor that you did it because you couldn't sell a Liberal Party membership in Alberta at all, ever? Is that true?
Corey: 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 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 credit at this particular moment. I see what you're
Zain: you know, I do want to give a shout out
Zain: Eric Ampman,
Carter: that credit at this particular moment. I see what you're doing. But
Corey: But they were, you know, they were part of driving this force, too. And so looking at this, looking at the trend, looking at that, yes, 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 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 $5 or $10. 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 Alberta. And Bob Ray was looking at this, and he was interim leader of the Liberals at the time,
Corey: 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, Raj Sherman. This is one of the risks, right? Just basic popularity will get you that leadership a lot of the time.
Carter: Raj Sherman.
Corey: There were people who really did like the system. I was one at the time. You know, I was saying,
Corey: 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: It didn't 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. Sure. And a lot of the logic at the time was Liberal
Corey: Liberal Party specific. If you are going to be a big, broad-based party, if your whole identity is being, we
Corey: 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 riding is the cap. So if you have 30 members, there's 30 points. If you have 3,000, there's 100 points. If you have 100, there's 100 points. But that's what they would normally do at this particular moment. And we'll see what they actually do. Trevor
Zain: Trevor Burrus Carter, you said that this liberal party needs to sell memberships and not rely on this supporter system. Aaron
Zain: Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. Trevor Burrus Why?
Carter: Why? Aaron
Carter: I think I want people who believe that they belong, right? I want people who want
Carter: want to do the work of building a political party.
Carter: I don't want supporters. I want people who are going to be signing up and become immediate members of their constituency. And by members, I don't mean like just
Carter: just – Trevor Burrus But if the liberals keep instituting
Zain: But if the liberals keep instituting this $5, $10 poll tax as Corey calls it.
Carter: Isn't it virtually the same? No, no, no. Okay, walk me through it. You've got to get a smaller number of people with higher commitment. 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: No, no, no. Okay, walk me through it.
Zain: Corey, you said in your initial comments, you're agnostic. I'm happy to, like, go down that path or responding to Carter in terms of, you know, if there's a difference between poll tax registered supporter versus outright traditional OG member, as we're used to it in politics.
Corey: Yeah. 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 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 we didn't have a French version of it in Alberta. So they had to create a French word and it just felt partisan. And
Zain: And
Corey: And
Zain: And the whole idea was you're like,
Corey: I support.
Zain: It was a lot softer.
Corey: was a lot softer.
Corey: softer.
Zain: softer.
Corey: softer.
Zain: softer.
Corey: Sure.
Zain: Sure.
Corey: Sure.
Zain: Sure. In
Corey: In
Zain: In this time and place and in this particular moment, I support. I support. So I'd like to have a say.
Corey: In this time and
Corey: 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 guess 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: So it
Zain: and I guess I would
Zain: party. But are you talking about more generally, Corey? Are you talking about within the confines of this particular leadership race that the liberals are running? So
Corey: more generally, Corey?
Corey: I'm talking more generally. But to get to your question 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: 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 everybody goes around it. So if I put
Zain: as everybody goes around it. So if I put it in other terms, this is going to be a leadership of the most engaged. Is that a fair –
Corey: terms,
Corey: Yes. It
Carter: Yes.
Zain: Yes. It
Zain: It has to be because of the timeline.
Corey: 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 here's
Carter: And
Zain: 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. Right. But like, what do you think of these groups that are already pretty much mobilized? Do you feel like a membership model prevents them or gives, you know, 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 in the early 2000s? Well,
Carter: 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. Right.
Zain: reasons I'd
Zain: I'd
Zain: Right. You
Carter: You 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: 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 BC Liberal Party. This
Zain: Party. This was the EB election where they had a candidate. This was the BCNDP. The NDP. That's right.
Carter: where they had a candidate. This was the BCNDP. The NDP.
Carter: Don't give them the power to do so. Make sure that their wings are clipped, as it were.
Zain: 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. So
Corey: in defense of the supporter system, it was created in part because of special interest groups, 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? 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
Corey: can show that you've bought a membership
Corey: 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 not 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 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: 14. It's not 18,
Zain: 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
Zain: 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: 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: oh,
Carter: come on. No, Mignadiev, right? He comes in and he's basically coronated and, you know, it stains. It stains the party.
SPEAKER_00: come on. No,
SPEAKER_00: He comes in
Zain: Corey, any long-tail considerations?
Corey: This is an interesting one, right? I think that in some ways – so I've been of the opinion if Chrystia Freeland went to caucus, if –
Corey: imagine Trudeau steps down next week.
Corey: Carter, you're putting your money on January 2nd, I know. Yeah, you
Carter: Yeah, you picked January 2nd and a half from my reading of it.
Corey: reading of it. Yeah. Okay.
Carter: Okay. Yeah,
Corey: Yeah, that's exactly what I picked. Yeah. So in
Carter: in the afternoon, I'm assuming?
Corey: I think so. Okay.
Carter: Okay. Unless
Corey: Unless you're thinking afternoon, then evening. No, I'm thinking morning. Just a little bit after you. I'm
Carter: No, I'm thinking morning. Just a little bit after you. I'm thinking morning. Yeah, so you're doing the Price is Right strategy.
Corey: I am, yeah. Okay, thank you. Any day after that, I get. Okay. I just want you to
Carter: Okay, thank you. Any day
Carter: Okay. I just want you to know.
Corey: if Freeland went to caucus and said, look, I'm
Corey: interested in running. I'll do it.
Corey: 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 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? 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. And
Corey: then the
Corey: the other question I have is,
Corey: is, how much is the party in
Corey: a defensive versus offensive mindset? And I guess I'll throw a – you threw out the example of interest groups coming in, right? Yes, I did.
Zain: Yes, I did. So you
Corey: 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? And
Corey: the one that we haven't talked about, but I'm surprised has not been part of the conversation yet, is will
Corey: will anybody run on a merge with the NDP or electoral cooperation platform?
Carter: And do they care? You think Jagmeet's going to run?
Zain: And do they care?
Corey: mean, that would be very funny. It would be quite a move. But
Carter: It would
Corey: maybe someone
Corey: does. Maybe someone says, you know what? We don't like Pierre Polyev. We know we're going to have to work together. It's going to take progressives of all stripes. I
Corey: could see it.
Zain: Okay, so expanding on this, we may have to park the 51st state stuff for a second. No, we may have to. Do you know what? If
Zain: If we do, I got a comment. I want to find out. I'll give it to you very quickly.
Zain: Because this is interesting what you brought up.
Zain: Carter, are
Zain: 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. more. That
Zain: 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: I don't believe in a liberal party that will be robust no matter what. I think that there's a liberal party that
Carter: that has failed prior to 2015. And there's a liberal party that failed right now. I mean,
Zain: mean, historically robust. Even if it's 10 years in the doldrums, you think that they can come back to government. That's kind of what I mean. I do. And the reason I think that
Carter: mean, historically robust.
Carter: of what I mean. I do. And the reason I think that they can can do that is because they reflect the majority of the wills of the people of Canada. I think the problem with the New Democratic Party is occasionally they will represent the
Carter: the views and values of a single province, but
Carter: but that becomes, usually it is a brand that is related to a very strong leader.
Carter: And when
Carter: when you have a weak leader, it doesn't work.
Carter: My view would be taking two very weak parties and smushing them together doesn't create a strong party. It
Carter: It makes a weaker party. So
Carter: So my view would be don't put these things together. Instead, just kind of become
Carter: become what you want to be.
Carter: The NDP will continue to be a
Carter: a rump party. And
Carter: And it's Trudeau taking the party so far to the left that I think has created this challenge for the Liberal Party today. Well,
Zain: 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. I
Corey: 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: still probably going to lose to Pierre Polyev right now. So, like, do you really want to do that at this moment and then try
Carter: now. So,
Corey: 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. But if you are the liberals and if you are a member of the liberal party who actually is probably OK with the idea that 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 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: Someone's phone's ringing? Do we want to – That
Corey: That was – no, we only do that when it's your phone. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
Carter: it's your phone. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
Zain: I'm getting a call from – oh, it's George. It's George Chahal calling the landline. Couldn't get a hold of me.
Corey: the landline.
Corey: I need some edits on a letter.
Corey: 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 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: Hey, Carter, I have a question for you.
Zain: You're running a candidate in this leadership race.
Carter: Okay.
Carter: Do you – Or a statement, whatever.
Zain: Or
Zain: you're getting like 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. Are
Zain: 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 can be more than just someone who carried the water, lost, and then got obviously turfed the very next day, right? Like, are you trying to secure your future in some way? Talk to me about how you game that out. Talk to me how you 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: Well, I think your best case scenario is that you're going to be thinking to yourself, maybe
Carter: maybe I can stop Pierre Poglia from having a majority government. Maybe I can put in a minority
Carter: minority situation for the conservatives. I think that anybody who's
Carter: who's coming into this would be thinking of that that way rather than like,
Zain: than like, I'm
Carter: 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: and carry it back to government until the glory days. Good for them. That's a dream in the back pocket. But I
Carter: I 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: 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
Zain: But you want the opportunity
Carter: I get one more kick in the can because I was carrying Joe Biden's shit. This
Zain: This 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: 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: 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 um 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 things that give you optionality to 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 want to run for two. Yeah, if you were a Christian Freeland, and you're trying to lock up a coronation, your biggest risk is people say, we do it now or we're stuck with her for six years. 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.
SPEAKER_00: more liberal parties in
Zain: Talk to me about this, Carter. Are you an
Zain: advocate for low or high entrance fees?
Zain: Low. Low in this- The last
Carter: Low.
Carter: last thing you want to do is put a 250 or 350- Which we have seen historically,
Zain: Which we have seen historically, by the way. I think we've seen something like that in the CPC, if I'm not mistaken. You
Carter: You throw 250, 350 out there. You
Carter: 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: And the
Carter: the money becomes the driving factor and only one, maybe two candidates can get in. You
Carter: 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
Zain: Low
Corey: Low or high, Corey?
Corey: Low fee, high caucus or candidate support. So I imagine you can
Corey: 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 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? But more likely you're going to have two or
Zain: So
Carter: So
Zain: So
Corey: or something like that. Two is a problem.
Carter: Two is a problem.
Zain: I think
Corey: think two
Zain: two is fine. Two is a problem. Oh, let's talk about this. Why is two a problem and why is two fine? Well, let's just – before we get there, just
Corey: before we get there, 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.
Zain: 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? Just be like and get time, air, whatever, turn every question into something about the
Zain: the climate or labor or CFIB related independent business issues, right? That concern could rise. But I'm now more interested in two is a problem versus two is just fine. Why is two a problem, Stephen Carter, first?
Carter: Two is 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: but one person winning 80 to 20 isn't
Carter: isn't going to rescue you isn't going to create any opportunities for the party in the long term what
Carter: 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 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: and the vitality is going to be in the number of people who choose who believe that it's resurrectable who
Carter: who believe that it's got got a future. And
Carter: 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, you know, 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. And suddenly that becomes a really good second metric that goes beyond just straight cash.
Corey: Corey,
Corey: what do you think?
Corey: 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 nominees, the party interests actually get you to that particular point. So do something like that, which brings in this sense of kind
Corey: kind of elite filter, but then allows you to run a rapid contest after there carter
Zain: carter final question on here are
Zain: you fan of an interim pm or no am
Carter: i a fan of an interim pm yes as
Zain: yes as this leadership race goes on do you want trudeau out of the picture and
Zain: i'm asking you for let me give you a hat to wear as a party you're the party do you want trudeau out of the picture completely in an interim pm or or do you want trudeau to stay until this this this new person is is um shahal
Carter: talked about an interim pm i i'm not a big fan of the interim pm
Zain: about
SPEAKER_00: pm
Carter: pm
SPEAKER_00: pm i
Carter: i think I think that it should just stay with Trudeau, stay with his cabinet that he's selected. And
Carter: And anybody who wants to run for the leadership just has to resign from cabinet. it.
Zain: Corey,
Corey: Corey,
Carter: Corey, are
Corey: Corey, are
Zain: are you a fan of New interim PM or
Corey: or no?
Corey: 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
Corey: look, I'm just gonna get into it right now. We are so fucking distracted as a nation and at 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 it's not just the 51st state stuff it's for sure the 51st state stuff but it's not just the 51st state stuff yeah 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 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 population i don't know i don't care what you think about pierre poliev the
Carter: 51st
Zain: 51st
Corey: 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 you're assuming that the winner will
Carter: you're assuming that the winner will actually stand up to him and i'm not sure that Yeah, I am, Stephen. You know what? That's not an assumption that I'm prepared to make when it comes to PRPLDF.
Corey: that Yeah, I am, Stephen. You
Corey: PRPLDF.
Corey: I could shelve that nonsense. Oh, how dare you, sir? No, we are— How dare you, sir? We are in way too serious of times for that nonsense. It's not— We
Carter: Oh, how dare
Carter: we are— How dare you,
Carter: nonsense. It's not— We
Corey: We are in way too serious. We're watching
Carter: 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: possibly can.
Corey: This
Corey: This is not
Corey: government of Canada.
Corey: need actual options so
Corey: No, that's nonsense. And you know what? But that is the kind of small ball, partisan nonsense. It's not partisan. It's
Carter: It's not partisan. It's reality.
Corey: We are not going to be judged well as a country if we're sitting there saying, oh, Pierre Pauliev, 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 first. I'll
Carter: think that he's not 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 Pauliev be the best governor of the 51st state?
Corey: Go for it. I'll
Corey: Yeah. We're sitting here,
Carter: We're sitting here,
Corey: 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 of steps there. You can't be a serious
Carter: lot of steps there. You can't be a serious nation with Pierre Polyev in an unchecked government. Do
Corey: nation with Pierre Polyev
Corey: Do you know what? That's ridiculous. You know what Pierre Polyev should do when he wins this election? He should put together a unity government to
Corey: fucking deal with these lunatics. I don't argue
Carter: 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: Just a quick follow-up question for you, Corey. You didn't give me an exact dollar amount about the entrance fee.
Corey: hate you, Zane. We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on
Zain: 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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