Zain: This is a strategist episode 1847. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Carter, it's
Zain: it's looking beautiful where you are. Is that a Mexican
Zain: Mexican
Zain: Mexican buffet behind you? Is that Mar-a-Lago? Are you hanging out? Oh, sorry. That was a different bald guy. Sorry. Sorry. That was sorry. Exact
Carter: Exact look. Same exact look. Yeah,
Zain: Exact look.
Zain: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, did you get fleeced out a bunch of money on FTX too? Oh,
Carter: yeah, I did. Yeah, but it's turned out okay. It's coming back in at 118%, so I'm pretty happy.
Corey: but it's
Zain: it's
Zain: You may not be right. Stephen Carter, one fact, Corey. He's coming back at 118%, but he's not wrong about FTX potentially recouping a lot of its investment for its investors. Of course, I'm talking about Kevin O'Leary, who is not Stephen Carter.
Carter: He's
Corey: He's coming back at 118%,
Corey: course, I'm talking about Kevin O'Leary, who
Corey: Stephen Carter.
Zain: I just want to put that out there. There is a lot of confusion, but there's a lot of similarities.
Carter: there's a lot of similarities. A lot of people call me Mr. Wonderful, so.
Carter: so.
Zain: so.
Zain: You are the Flair Airlines version of a Kevin O'Leary, is what I'm saying. Thank you very much. Yeah, no problem. Corey, you've been well? You haven't been traveling?
Carter: I'm saying. Thank you very much.
Corey: I haven't been well. I mean, I have been well. I
Corey: haven't been traveling. Haven't been well looking at social media, seeing everything going on, I guess. I guess maybe I was a bit Freudian. What was the, okay, so you
Zain: on, I guess.
Zain: What was the, okay, so you guys, or at least one of you, I don't remember how long ago this was, was telling me that you were wanting to get off social media. But now you've added this blue sky to your diet. What's going on here?
Carter: There's a lot of questions being asked. I mean, I think that we have to figure out what's wrong with us. We should do this session lying down, asking questions. I'm not sure what happened. I was happy off Twitter. I was happy not participating. And then Corey dragged me back in. Into
Carter: Into
Zain: Into blue sky? Into blue
Carter: sky? Into blue sky.
Zain: How has it been? Is it a replacement? replacement is it a left-wing uh what is it like what's going on here well
Corey: well i i think that it generally does skew a little bit left because the big surge of blue sky happened when everybody um everybody left x yeah slash twitter after the election right um but that said you know you you get to pick who you're following and so you can find right-wing voices if you want you can create a balanced media diet if that's your particular thing it's not um you
Zain: yeah slash
Zain: right
Corey: know what's interesting about it is i have i don't know like 10 000 fewer followers on blue sky than i did on twitter when i left twitter but i would say the engagement with like 3 000 followers less than that is is more than it was on twitter when i left twitter so it feels a little bit like twitter of old i think you could make an argument nobody really needs to go back to 2010 but it it certainly has a bit more of that feel kind of like if you uh you know if you bought an ev early like you You couldn't go to a charging station without the person there trying to talk to you. And I was like, you don't see that at a gas station, right? But it's the sense you're like early in and you're in a community. And it's got a little bit of that, Zane, to answer your question. Carter,
Zain: Carter, let's use Corey's 2010 analogy and let's talk about politicians who may have had their peak in 2010, but are resurging. Stephen
Zain: Carter, the West wants in. That's our first segment. We've got two women I want to discuss from the West, one Danielle Smith and one Christy Clark. Two very different topics connected-ish.
Carter: Christy
Corey: Christy
Zain: Where do you want to go first, Carter? Do you want to go Danielle Smith meeting with Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago? Or do you want to go Christy Clark not fessing up to the fact that she was a conservative member to vote for Jean Charest? What is more interesting? We will hit both, but I will give you a dealer's choice. I
Corey: you want to
Carter: I am personally very excited about Danielle Smith going to Florida. It's the same as Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Exact same. Isn't it, Corey?
Corey: I think so. I think she did go there to fight for the Boy Scouts. Yeah, I think so. If I remember correctly. Okay,
Carter: Yeah,
Zain: Yeah, I think so. If I remember correctly.
Zain: Okay,
Zain: Okay, let's talk about this. So in social media posts that initially did not include Daniel Smith's own post, which it eventually did, it was indicated that Daniel Smith was at Mar-a-Lago, which was a bit of a surprise picture. Kevin O'Leary, Stephen Carter, Jordan Peterson, and others. I added Stephen Carter as part of the list.
Carter: Yeah, no. It was in brackets, right? We saw it, yeah. Auto-medium,
Zain: Yeah,
Zain: It was in brackets, right? We saw it, yeah.
Zain: Auto-medium, but I needed people to know that in brackets. That could also be you. and
Zain: and then she posted pictures of her and and donald trump shaking hands talking uh and had a very long social media post about the type of discussion that she had cory here's was
Zain: this good strategy on her part
Corey: no um you know what i think that if we would have thought it was good strategy a couple of months ago what happened with the justin trudeau's visit should probably have shaken that out of us right the idea that you're going to go down there and kiss the ring and have any control of the situation afterwards is ridiculous. It's foolish. And we often talk about these ideas of high risk, low reward. This is what I would call high risk, high reward. If she somehow came out of it with exempting Canadian oil from any kind of tariffs, that obviously would be pretty meaningful to the province of Alberta. But one of the complications here is even if she does that, she's kind of fucked up things in other ways here too. And it is a bit of a small, selfish view of canada that we should be on the watch for uh as as the man is actively talking about annexing us and you know i mean that's probably where to start it's it's tough for me as a canadian to swallow her
Corey: her going down with kevin o'leary a man who said he wanted to broker the economic surrender of canada yes donald trump yes in
Zain: yes donald
Corey: in mar-a-lago like he's going to go down to do that so he's now there
Corey: the premier goes down there and meets with donald trump a man who says he wants to to economically conquer Canada. And so, leaves
Corey: leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Also, I don't think that Danielle Smith would take such an approach if, say, Justin Trudeau was going to economically conquer Alberta, right? In fact, I can think of a number of situations where Justin Trudeau went far short of that, and that would not have been Danielle Smith's preferred tactic. tactic i don't know how a woman who's made a career of saying uh no alberta uses strength and does not negotiate with ottawa says oh there's donald trump we're
Carter: In
Corey: we're going to negotiate with him like it just doesn't actually track for me and i guess a really long walk here to say she's no longer in control of this situation she's done things that are contradictory to her own message she's jeopardized the team canada approach i know that everyone around her will pretend she didn't and say oh this is just the premier working the contacts including like other premiers maybe the prime minister but also she's one tweet away from disaster we don't know what donald trump does next but
Corey: we have reason to believe based on past performance it won't be good
Zain: carter strategic
Zain: i
Corey: know
Zain: know
Corey: know well
Zain: well
Zain: well listen
Corey: listen i i i get
Zain: i i get what cory's saying but i'm also here's what i'm struggling maybe i'll put this out on the table for both of you i'm
Zain: struggling with what what else should she be doing right as as a core construct so carter answer the question of whether this is strategic or or not uh and then i'll kind of follow it up from there i
Carter: mean short answer it's it's not strategic it's not strategic in any way shape or form um and the reason what she should be doing is wrapping herself in the canadian flag what she should be doing is saying how can i be a part of team canada uh that's what she should be doing because team canada needs all the allies that we can get at this particular moment we don't uh want to be going at this uh with a a split force if you will um and yeah i'm using some kind of military type terminology of split forces and and the like on a campaign
Corey: should be doing
Zain: on a campaign and political podcast no i know what someone
Carter: what someone someone has has threatened to take over the country right like this is as real as it gets in politics um sometimes i think we pretend that politics doesn't really matter. Politics and diplomacy are everything. They're what keep us free. And this is just the case of someone going to appease Donald Trump. And the worst part about it is, when has anybody ever gotten the best of Donald Trump? And I don't mean intellectually. I think any of us could get the best of Donald Trump in any intellectual discussion. discussion um and and danielle smith probably comes away thinking to herself you know i did pretty well in that but
Carter: but he's a duplicitous fuck and
Carter: and he's going to fuck her in some fashion because every single person who bends a knee to donald trump gets fucked that's what happens that's how he treats people period he does not say well she came down here and had a rational argument about about oil prices i
Zain: about oil
Zain: i want i want to get to that in in a second cory you've got something to add as well but can i throw this at you guys too sure my first reaction when i saw those photos
Zain: taking out like and not necessarily being able to process whether this was strategically it's kind of why i'm asking you guys a good thing or a bad thing per se because i'm a bit mixed on it although i lean towards where both of you are at if i'm being honest i
Zain: was kind of impressed cory like she got access to donald trump and i know we've done an episode like a couple months ago where we were the three of us that were debating whether he'd know who she was and Whether a subnational political figure would be able – she got to see Donald Trump. She was posing with Donald Trump. I thought that was my first reaction, if I'm being absolutely honest with you. So I just want to throw that into the mix. I really don't have a question other than to say that was how I first perceived it.
Corey: Yeah, I understand that. But that's actually a little bit what scares the shit out of me. Right. Because I understand entirely why she wants to meet with him.
Zain: Because I
Zain: Me too. When we were making
Corey: Me too. When we were making those comments, that was in the context of 25% tariffs, right? And it's like, why the fuck would Donald Trump meet with her was my point of view. It doesn't make any sense. You'd be talking slash negotiating with a subnational leader. You're diminishing yourself. You're not elevating the conversation.
Corey: I think I said then, I'm not knocking Alberta. I love Alberta. I'm an Albertan, but we're the fourth largest province in Canada. It doesn't make any sense for him to talk the tariff deal with her. And unfortunately, I think that's still true. And I guess this is what wigs me out, right? Like, what is the benefit of Donald Trump meeting with a Canadian premier? I mean, there's absolutely none on the tariff deal, because now, if anything, like if he were to change his mind, it looks like a premier managed to get him to change his mind. It looks like somebody that's not really in the mix of American politics got him to change his mind. So why would you do it? But, well, one
Corey: one option is, of course, I just did it because Jordan Peterson and Kevin O'Leary wanted me to meet with her. Right.
Zain: Right. And
Corey: And I'm sure that there's just a revolving door in Mar-a-Lago of people showing up, shaking hands, getting a picture taken, moving on to the next one, especially right now as everyone goes to kiss the ring. And
Corey: that, in my mind, is the best case scenario, that it was a meaningless trip. but if he actually wanted to talk to her if it was actually true yeah that he made a beeline for her that should scare every and has that sorry has that been reported are you just like hypothetically she said that oh sure okay right yeah and
Corey: and it was uh i guess the rick bell column right um if
Corey: if that's true it's a big problem because there's not a lot of reason why he would want to deal with her or have a relationship with on the terror issue right but i understand entirely entirely why somebody who was serious about annexing Canada might want to start talking to leaders at the subnational level and trying to pull apart what right now looks like a consensus of the leadership. That's what's fucking scary. Like, if Donald Trump is thinking about this, if Donald Trump is being strategic, that is what's scary. Carter,
Carter: right but
Zain: Carter,
Zain: Carter,
Zain: Carter, from like a strategic posture, do you feel like it's, do you feel like this statement is accurate? She may have given up more than she gained, even if she thought she she gained something?
Carter: Absolutely. I mean, first of all, what do we even know about the meeting and how it occurred? We have her report. Whatever she's told
Zain: report. Whatever she's told us, really. Exactly.
Carter: Exactly. There's no TikTok on this, and not TikTok the video, but TikTok the minute-by-minute conversation recording that is released oftentimes with interactions between real world leaders. You know, I ran into Danielle Smith this summer, and I had a nice chat with her about healthcare. I didn't tweet. I've had a nice conversation with danielle smith about health care um she sees my point of view and everything's going to be fine i mean did she sit down in a room with donald trump did
Corey: recording that
Carter: or did she run into him at the poolside which is what it appears and what's
Zain: appears and what's interesting yeah well it's interesting right because it seems like one's more of like an evening dinner sort of thing and another is like more of a poolside so it's hard to kind of know the context we're piecing it together and and it's almost not a real conspiratorial no right it sounds conspiratorial on our part but But it matters based on the stakes that both you and Corey have outlined here in terms of what the heck was she doing, what the heck was said.
Carter: another is like more
Corey: more
Corey: it's almost not a real conspiratorial
Carter: conspiratorial no right
Corey: right it sounds
Carter: sounds conspiratorial
Corey: conspiratorial
Carter: what the
Carter: She wasn't doing what she should have been doing, right? Which is, I maintain that a subnational leader, even fucking a national leader, everybody needs to be pulling at the same
Carter: levers here. Because this is a guy, when someone talks about taking over your state economically, it is one half of a step away from declaration of war, in my mind.
Carter: call me crazy call me crazy but you don't you know you don't hear an awful lot of uh european leaders walking around talking about taking over the their adjacent countries by economic force you know why you don't hear people talking about taking over their adjacent companies with economic force because it's very close to a declaration of fucking war and i'd love to make it less than that i'd love to make it just the ramblings of an orange-faced lunatic but this is the ramblings of of an orange-faced lunatic that won the fucking election he gets to do what he wants to do let
Zain: let me come back to cory what he said and cory i suspect you stand by this high risk high reward is what you said it's
Zain: not high risk no reward there's actually you actually position it as high reward and to me i think that part might be her political strategic saving grace no well
Corey: actually you
Corey: for her okay let me maybe put it a different way i think obviously she'll look like an absolute legend to a lot of people if she comes out with this but what there is a reason to think that But the best case scenario for Smith would also be the worst case scenario for Canada, right? First
Carter: First of
Corey: First
Corey: of all, it will really pull at the fabric of the country if all of a sudden Alberta is really exempt. You mean energy exemption sort of thing? Yeah, like just imagine this. Just imagine he goes on to Truth Social and he exempts oil and gas from the 25% tariff, implementing 25% tariff. Oil and gas is exempt because I just met the brilliant Premier Smith in Alberta. Alberta is a place that really has got it together. They get us
Carter: mean
Zain: mean energy exemption
Zain: They get us sort of thing, yeah. Yeah, that's
Corey: yeah.
Corey: that's the worst. That's the worst, right? Because at that point, it's pretty clear to me that what he's trying to do is divide and conquer. He is trying to pick off different parts of Confederation and start playing leaders against each other as he moves towards his ambitions of annexation, frankly. So when I say it's the best case scenario for Smith, I mean, given the goals that she said, like when I talk about high risk, high reward, the reward is the reward she's after. It
Corey: It
Carter: It
Corey: It shouldn't necessarily be considered the reward that we're all after, certainly as Canadians, but even as Albertans, because of some of the downstream consequences of it there.
Carter: It shouldn't
Zain: shouldn't
Corey: Carter strategized
Zain: strategized for her. She puts out a very long message today. You read some of the reaction. Of course, there's a ton
Zain: of political bias to any social media post these days. But being celebrated by some, looking like a legend already to many, spin this for her, like make this evergreen positive for her despite what Trump does. How would you start setting up that communication on her behalf to Trump-proof it in some ways? And I'm asking you to do work that I know you hate doing, but welcome to the show. Thanks
Carter: welcome to
Carter: Thanks a lot.
Carter: Thanks for
Carter: this. Here's the thing.
Carter: only way to achieve something is to actually go and talk. I mean, diplomacy and politics, I talked about it right off the bat.
Carter: Diplomacy is actually going and talking to your adversary.
Carter: And Daniel Smith is the only one who's been given this type of access. I mean, Justin Trudeau is not going to do it by going on, you know, PBS television stations and doing interviews. And that's really all that's left that's talking to him they're not he's not able to win over the american people the way that daniel smith uh can win over the american people because sometimes it means going in putting your head into the into the mouth of the lion and making sure that the the lion understands that um you're
Carter: not food and daniel smith knows that what we have with oil is the most important piece of uh of this economic tariff if you exempted oil um
Carter: then
Carter: you're automatically in a much better place if you're in the united states the united states of america
Zain: cory
Carter: cory you
Zain: you want to jump in here yeah
Corey: i mean put your head in the mouth of a lion and the lion understands you're not food was uh was really interesting i mean so so steve said something yeah that's very good
Zain: lion understands
Zain: said something yeah that's very good that wasn't so dissimilar
Corey: that wasn't so dissimilar from uh from what rob anderson said right so he got in a bit of a twitter back and forth with mark Mark Miller, who, you know, was saying Canada's not for sale, never will be, viva Canada. Rob responds with, someone has to advocate for Canada, Mark. Your utterly useless government clearly isn't. You know, suggesting, you know, Daniel Smith is now doing the thing that the Trudeau government can't. But he did this two months ago, right? He did this. He was the first guy to do this. He did this in November. And I would argue that it's quite possible that has precipitated this current moment of Trump's musings. You know, he goes down, 51st governor jokes become a little more real, a little more real, a little more real. Now he is saying, shouldn't be a real country, arbitrary border. I mean, frankly, lines that Germany used talking about the Sudetenland, lines that Russia used talking about Ukraine and the Donbass, like this is the textbook play of people who are looking to take shit from their neighbors. And, you know, I just, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, like, I think that memories are pretty short. If we can't remember literally less than two months ago, this
Zain: the Trudeau government
Corey: is what Justin Trudeau did. And it didn't seem to work that great for us. So this is the cautionary tale. We said at the time that Justin Trudeau went down, that seems okay. What's the next shoe to drop? Well, a pretty big fucking shoe dropped. And if I were Danielle Smith, I would be a little bit worried about what shoes might drop on my head, too. Could
Zain: Could you help her
Zain: age this statement well, Corey? Yeah, absolutely. Age this visit. What would you do in addition to what Carter suggested? Well,
Corey: age this
Corey: Yeah, absolutely. Age this visit.
Corey: I think that Rob Anderson has given kind of a more bellicose version of the argument that needs to be made, which is, listen, you could say that, and I can understand why you would be concerned, but this is the Team Canada approach. This is what we've talked about as First Ministers, including the Prime Minister. We will all work our contacts to advance the conversation through our particular channels. Justin Trudeau himself said that, right? And I exercise my context as a leader of the conservative movement to go down to Mar-a-Lago and talk directly in terms that the president would understand about the benefit of Canada and Canada's economic ties. I was very clear we're an independent nation, but that we're an independent nation that greatly benefits from the trading relationship that we have with the United States, just as they're an independent nation that greatly benefits from the trade relationship they have with us. And yes, I understand that sometimes he can be a mercurial fellow, but we're not going to solve this problem by burying our head in the sand. And what come will come, but we're not just going to sit there and do nothing. We're going to do something, because that's the only choice a responsible government has. Carter,
Zain: Carter, how are you thinking about this if you're some of the other premiers? And I know it's a broad question given their political context, but if they're on the Team Canada page, how
Zain: how are they thinking about this? What are they considering when they see this happen this weekend? I
Carter: I think they're thinking that bitch. I
Carter: remember going to a first minister's conference and every single premier
Carter: premier came up to me and said, it didn't matter what their political stripe was. They were all pissed with Alberta because Alberta takes this position that we are a nation within the country. We always point the fingers at Quebec, right? Oh, Quebec, Quebec, Quebec, Quebec, Quebec. But we're just as bad. We're out there doing, you know, spending all the money. We're flashing around our oil money and buying doctors and buying nurses. And now we're down in Mar-a-Lago trying to buy our way out of a trade embargo, our trade sanctions. This is ridiculous. If I was one of the other premiers, it doesn't matter if I share the word conservative in the title, I'd be absolutely furious. You cannot put the needs of one province ahead of the Confederation. And Danielle Smith is doing that. She is desperately, desperately trying to keep oil out of this trade sanction. And I think, number one, that's just a huge mistake. It's the only Trump card we have, forgive the phrase, and for Danielle Smith to wield it is just an
Carter: an abomination. And I'm sure the other premiers are very, very angry.
Zain: Corey, I'm going to ask you the premier question in a second. Would this have happened if Justin Trudeau was still the full
Zain: -on non-lame-duck prime minister? I
Corey: fully believe it would have. Picking up a little bit on what Stephen just said, one of the situations that might be coming at us like a freight train, like just imagine that oil is exempted and otherwise the 25% tariff goes in.
Corey: If you're the Canadian Prime Minister, you're talking to the Premier of Ontario, Premier of Quebec, aren't you, I mean, at least a little tempted to say, too bad, so fucking sad, like we're just ending exports of oil and gas to the United States as our retaliatory measure? I
Carter: measure? I mean,
Corey: and then what the hell are we in? And this goes back to my point of what kind of traps
Zain: point of what kind of traps are
Corey: are we setting for ourselves as a nation? And this goes back to my, the best case scenario for Smith might
Corey: might be the worst case scenario for Canada, because it creates all sorts of little time bombs across this nation of ours. And ultimately, I just firmly believe we hang together or we fall together. And this does not look like hanging together. together so
Zain: so so cory can i stick with you on this zoom into alberta for a second again so so best case scenario for smith how
Zain: does the politics in alberta play out for her especially with the opposition ndp and otherwise right we have an opposition ndp this is the
Carter: we have an opposition ndp
Corey: the first i'm hearing about
Zain: about i'm shocked well talk to me about that both in terms of where the ndp should be on this but also in your in your mind but also what this means for smith because there's many alberns i'm I'm not saying a majority, but we've talked about this many times on this show, that there's many Albertans who pretty much care about the oil and gas issue, and that's it. And that might be a limited sort of worldview, but she'll look like a legend to them. And what does that kind of mean for the politics in this province?
Corey: i'm
Corey: terms of
Corey: Well, of course, she's going to look like a fucking legend if she continues to go unchallenged on this, as she has been for the past month by the official opposition here. This is incredibly frustrating to me for a couple of reasons, but let me throw a couple on the table right now. Now, there seems to be this sense that you are only subject to the weather if you're the Alberta NDP. You're sitting there and saying, is this an issue? Oh, right now the premier looks pretty good on it. I guess I'm not going to swing on it. You've got to make a fucking – you make the swing. You make the weather. You're the official opposition. You've got to go out there and you signal to all of your allies and all of your partners, whether official or not, that this is an issue you're going to stand on. This is an issue you're going to fight on. If you don't do that, of course they're going to fucking win on it. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if you're not willing to stand up and say something. And frankly, if they had stood up and said something two weeks ago and created a little bit of pressure on the premier not to go to the inauguration, I seriously doubt the premier would have gone to Mar-a-Lago, right? So here we are because we have an opposition that's decided to hold their fire until way too fucking late, frankly. The second problem they have is that in politics, things drift towards 50-50. And in December, we know on this issue of Canada and the United States, I'm not saying we're going to get there overnight. I just want to say that before I even say that. But we know 80% of Albertans want to be Canadians. 20%, they're willing to entertain this US offer, right? Right. How often are you handed an 80-20 issue in politics? Like, holy fuck, people. You know, there's one thing to say. We want to have a message track. We want to drive a message. We want to drive a conversation. But when someone offers you a boatload of cotton candy, you don't say no. Right. You go and you say, OK, well, this is a great issue for us to move on. And again, that's going to be diminishing. And if you don't fight for it, it's going to get down to a 50-50 issue faster rather than later. You got to fucking stand up and you got to say something. And then, I mean, I guess the final point here is, is like, do you stand for nothing? Like, are we not a little bit concerned about this? And I don't
Zain: holy fuck, people.
Carter: Like, are
Corey: don't
Corey: don't know. I mean, I find it just incredibly frustrating. Like everybody's going to have to decide their own lines, their own. Is this like, I guess, actually, let me back that up a little bit here. There
Corey: are a lot of times we've said on this podcast, man, I believe in that issue, but it's a total dog. So they can't go there because the greater good, the
Corey: greater good is winning the election.
Corey: This is not one of those issues. This is an 80-20 issue in your favor, in
Carter: in your
Corey: your favor.
Corey: The greater good for Danielle Smith would be to shut up about this. But that's
Corey: that's not going to be the case if you don't hold her to account. Carter, what's
Zain: what's your take on this in terms of how this plays with her from a political perspective in Alberta? If she goes with the Team Alberta approach, what does that kind of look like? Well,
Carter: Well, it means that she's going to continue to appeal to a small group of people, and that small group of people are going to be those heavily invested in the oil and gas industry.
Carter: You know, it sounds sometimes like it's the largest issue, the largest group, but as Corey's pointed out a number of times, the number of people actually employed in that area actually continues to drop. And
Carter: we should be playing for the entire country, not for one specific interest group. and i just don't understand how that's not uh seen and where where the opposition is when they have the opportunity to uh stand up and be heard on an 80 20 issue i mean that's just cory's
Carter: cory's completely right how many 80 20 issues do we get you
Carter: know very
Carter: very few because most of the time when there's an 80 20 issue i mean even fucking pierre pauliev is saying that this is something that shouldn't be followed right even pierre polyev is saying that canada is not going to be the 51st state but
Carter: but danielle smith's down there doing we don't even know because
Carter: because we're not even sure that she was in a real meeting i'm
Carter: just i don't know what i don't know what else to say zane i'm just absolutely fizzled
Carter: flummoxed frustrated
Zain: flummoxed frustrated
Carter: frustrated fine
Zain: fabulous or fucked i like that and he's just fizzled frustrated flummoxed carter talk to me about help her so i asked you about help her age her meeting well, help her age her meeting well, meeting in
Carter: fabulous
Carter: and
Zain: the Alberta context, what would she need to do? So that if the NDP get active on this, there, there, there is a path for her to still look good and maintain political support. The
Carter: The NDP has never understood the economics of Canada, right, the economics of this province. That's what I would say if I was, if I was working for her. But
Carter: But the NDP needs to stand up and say, sometimes, you know, this isn't about economics, The economics of this are actually going to be tragic for all Albertans because if this continues, the entire country starts to fall apart. And the economic disaster that would be the Canadian Confederation falling apart is heads and tails above the disaster of losing just the oil and gas. And we're not going to lose the oil and gas industry either. there we if we think we're going to export less we might export less but we're going to get a much you know the higher price even if the vast vast
Zain: even if the vast vast majority of our exports go to the u.s of
Carter: course they're still going to buy they're
Carter: they're the
Carter: united states is going to find out that supply and demand works right and as long as the demand is there the supply will find them the 25 tariff it's still going to be our product is still going to be a lot cheaper than a lot of other products and these oil oil and gas the oil and gas economy will continue
Zain: cory help me help me craft the ndp pathway here the albert ndp pathway i should say um without looking like you're against oil and gas and and and giving her the the easy sort of mantle of defender of the sector yeah
Corey: i mean this is like the marshmallow test you familiar with the marshmallow test no i'm not okay you put a marshmallow in front of a kid and you tell them hey if they don't eat it for what is it five minutes even then you get two marshmallows and and it's really supposed to talk about whether they have the impulse control in order to get something bigger
Zain: even then
Zain: bigger in
Corey: in a not too distant time frame while they're we're failing the marshmallow test because yes if we manage to avoid tariffs in this short term a we've created that tension within confederation but b we have trained donald trump that when he says jump we say how high i mean that was already my concern when we were talking about defending the border against the thing that wasn't happening that wasn't yeah you know But my God, I just, I yearn for those days at this particular moment, you know, before economic annexation was the thing that was on the table here. Yeah.
Zain: i mean that
Zain: that was on the table here. Yeah.
Carter: Yeah. Yeah.
Carter: Yeah.
Corey: Yeah. And, you know, I think if I'm the opposition NDP, I say, you
Corey: you know, you win through strength. And I find it unbelievable that Danielle Smith, who would be the first to say that and acknowledge that when we're talking about, you know, within Canada relationships, cannot see that when dealing with a man like Donald Trump. And you have to ask yourself why. And you have to ask her, whose side is she on at this particular moment? And frankly, I would. I'd throw that dust up. And I would say, you know, are you on Team Canada, Danielle? Because it seems to me, Team Canada is called Team Canada, not Team Alberta within a Canada that can sink or float. I don't really care. And I, you know, I would just really go pretty hard on that. Because what she's going to say, and you started with saying, how do you kind of protect this against NDP assaults, is she's going to say, no, I've always said we're an independent nation. I've always said we're a strong economy, we've got to be respected in that sense, but I'm going to fight for Canadian oil and gas. And, you know, and I just, I think that that is where she's going to try to go. And you get ahead of that. I do also want to say another thing that Stephen is not wrong about, like, we shouldn't be like, indifferent about, but there is, there is maybe a little bit more time in some senses than people, you know, realize or appreciate, because even if a 25% tariff was thrown on Canadian oil, Canadian oil is very heavy. Like Western Canadian Select, you know, is a heavy oil. It's got a high sulfur content. Oil is not really a fungible good in the sense that I can just send heavy oil to a light refinery or light oil to a heavy refinery. And there are only so many sources of oil like ours in the world. It's basically, it's
Zain: Stephen is
Corey: it's like us in South America, but you know, you can't tool things that quickly. and
Corey: and so they're going to need that oil still because you can't you can't fix a refinery to use a different type of input that rapidly so we've got a little bit of time on this and in the meantime it'll
Corey: it'll be really disruptive to the u.s market so my suspicion is they'll still have to buy there'll be a bit of chaos we'll lose a bit of money there but you know it's going to have to end up somewhere in between and ultimately that will put an awful lot of pressure on it so let's let's not be loose about it.
Corey: But Stephen's not wrong. The Americans will likely still have to buy our oil for quite some time into the future simply because of the mechanics of the oil and gas industry.
Zain: Carter, two other groups that I want to assess very quickly on the Danielle Smith visit before we move on to the other person in the West, Christy Clark, that we wanted to talk about in this segment. Carter, Doug Ford. We talked about on our previous episode that Doug Ford could be triggering an election. He's, of course, the head of this premier's group. He's He's kind of been their spokesperson and is the chair of this group. When I'm Doug Ford and I see what happened in Mar-a-Lago this weekend, does this give me any strategic fodder to help my own political cause at all or
Zain: no?
Carter: I don't think so. I
Carter: I don't think so. I think that this is one of those things where someone just pissed on your shoes. And when someone pisses on your shoes, it's pretty hard to create a positive political outcome from it. Or
Carter: Or
Zain: Or use it as a proof point of a necessity of something, right? This is a communications
Carter: use it
Carter: proof point of
Carter: This is a communications vehicle for Nahed Nenshi and the NDP in Alberta. It is not a communications vehicle for the federal liberals or the federal— That was my second
Zain: That was my second question here. Yeah. I
Carter: here. Yeah. I think that this is pissing on Trudeau's feet. It's pissing on Doug Ford's feet. It's pissing on the rest of the premier's feet.
Carter: it's super hard to take someone pissing on you and turning it into a positive
Carter: unless you're really watching the first episode of Billions.
Zain: Do you want
Zain: to explain that to people?
Carter: just started watching Billions. Fantastic. You just started watching Billions? You just started?
Zain: You just started watching Billions? You just started? Yeah, I just
Corey: started?
Corey: started?
Carter: Yeah, I just started. Can you believe Damien Lewis
Zain: Can you believe Damien Lewis is British? Can't
Carter: Can't even believe it. Unbelievable. He's got the most
Zain: He's got the most New Yorker everything about him and then you're like, oh wait this is a guy from... Loved him in Band
Carter: from... Loved him in Band of Brothers too. Loved him. Yeah.
Zain: Brothers too.
Zain: him. Yeah. Also, season one of Homeland. You might be asking, why not season two? Season one of Homeland.
Carter: Also, season one of Homeland. You
Carter: be asking, why not season two? Season one of Homeland. Certainly not season two.
Zain: Certainly not
Carter: There's
Zain: There's an obvious reason for that. Yeah.
Carter: Yeah. If
Zain: If you watched Homeland.
Carter: Okay.
Zain: Hey,
Zain: Hey, Corey, same question as Carter. Yeah.
Zain: Yeah. Ford and his election and
Zain: the liberal candidates, which we'll get to in a second, and their
Zain: leadership,
Zain: any strategic value for any of them to make hay directly,
Zain: indirectly out of what Smith did this weekend?
Corey: No, I think this is a bit of a shield issue for them rather than a sword one. If I'm the NDP or the Liberals in Ontario, I'm saying, what are you doing there? And maybe needling him a bit during the election. Sorry, what are you doing there, Doug
Zain: what are you doing there, Doug Ford? Yeah, you've
Corey: Yeah, you've got to talk to Daniel Smith. You've got to get everybody on the same team.
Zain: got to talk
Zain: to
Corey: But even that is, I think, somewhat limited. It's hard to imagine a provincial election hinging on Doug Ford. I
Corey: I
Corey: don't know. I mean, Doug Ford not taking Daniel Smith to a task on that, that's in some ways you'd say that's the prime minister's job.
Zain: you'd say that's
Zain: Go coordinate that. The reason I threw Ford into there is he's been trying to seek a mandate amidst a lack of leadership. Yeah. Right? And so to me, this is kind of another proof point of like, shit's hit the fan. We need an election. I need a mandate to fucking run the show, and we can't have shit like this. That's kind of what I was thinking in the broadest sense to even use Daniel Smith as a domestic Ontario-based proof point. I don't know if it's a good idea. Clearly, neither of you think it is or has a
Corey: Go coordinate that. The
Corey: a strict future. No, actually, understanding that's what you're saying, I don't think it even needs to be explicit. I think you've created an environment, if you're Danielle Smith, that it starts to look a little bit more like everybody's for themselves. And so it
Zain: strict future.
Zain: it
Zain: it just
Corey: just increases that urgency in Ontario saying, you know, we need a plan. We need to be able to stand up for Ontario industries. We can't rely on the federal government to stand up for us alone. Obviously, I'll continue to work with whoever the next prime minister is, but we're, you know, I'm here to defend Ontario. And I need a mandate for the tens of billions of dollars in retaliation that I might need to do.
Zain: Carter, finish us off on this, and you may have already answered this, but going unchallenging, I started the segment saying, I'm a bit mixed on what I saw with Daniel Smith, because, you know, after the segment, I'm convinced that, you know, we're all on the same page. But starting the segment, I was a bit mixed. I'm like, I was kind of impressed that she got to meet the President of the United States. I'm like, what else should she be doing? No, no, like, let me get to the question.
Zain: Where do you think this lands with people unchallenged? does it land in like the world where i was at being like oh like a bit like wishy-washy on it but like i think i know where i'm at but where do you think this kind of lands with with the alberta uh sort of electric well
Carter: i think this lands like someone who goes down to la and takes a picture of themselves in a restaurant with a famous star behind them and it says i met kevin spacey uh today probably a bad example yeah probably not the world's making a comeback you meant no it's It's actually the perfect example. And use
Zain: a bad example yeah probably not the world's making a comeback you meant no it's It's actually the perfect example. And use Armie Hammer this time.
Carter: I'm not, you know, I'm taking a picture and it's Justin Baldoni. No, that's probably not the right. Anyways, what my point is, is that there's a there's a star behind you. And you say Maxwell, who actually introduced Premier Smith to Donald Trump? It appears to be and it may not be, but it appears to be Kevin O'Leary, who introduced Daniel Smith to Premier Trump. this is the equivalent of going to your best friend's house and having him introduce you to that cool boy across the street this is bullshit if that's how you genuinely and if
Zain: say Maxwell, who actually
Zain: is bullshit if that's how you genuinely and
Zain: if total
Carter: total i
Zain: i
Carter: i understand
Zain: i understand that if that's how you genuinely feel most albertans will receive this if they see it if the
Carter: see it if the
Carter: the
Zain: the
Carter: the ndp chose to fucking message it that way it would even be better cory
Corey: what do you think i
Corey: think unchallenged you're gonna have two groups of people you're gonna have you're gonna have three groups of people but you're gonna have two big groups of people one is gonna say yeah premier's doing stuff for us that's awesome and they're going to be really really happy that she did it and i think that's going to be a pretty good chunk of the population because again it's not like she went down there to say i'd like to be the 51st state she went down there arguably to defend alberta's interests one with one would think but i carter makes a good that's all of the i mean i don't know i mean that's that's certainly the vibe and um and then there's another group who's going to be like i don't know how i feel about this this doesn't feel great like it's a premier meeting with a guy that we don't like because albertans even they don't like donald trump like his
Zain: interests
Zain: that's
Zain: like his
Zain: his past transgressions we haven't mentioned one six we haven't mentioned all those other things that like you know this is not just about a guy who wants to annex us there's like a bunch of like other things that um i mean many people disqualify absolutely for legitimacy that's a good
Corey: things that
Corey: many people disqualify
Corey: absolutely for legitimacy that's a good yeah i don't feel good about it i'm not sure he's there i'm not sure she should be there They're talking to him. This doesn't feel quite right. Is this allowed? Should we have premiers doing this? And I don't think that group's going to take much to tip them into active opponent group. But I do think that those two groups are bigger than the third group, which is people who are going to say, this is improper. I think this opens the door to a really dangerous hallway
Corey: hallway for Canada to go into. People like me on that sense, I guess, right? I don't know that that's going to be the – I actually think your reaction is more, if anything, it's probably underselling how popular it is with Albertans. I think unchallenged, it'll be popular. But I think it is one of those things that wouldn't take too much challenging to make unpopular. I think there's a huge group of people sitting there waiting to be told what the problem with it is. Could the NDP do something today? You mean like a week ago?
Zain: think there's a huge
Zain: there waiting to be told what the problem with it is. Could
Carter: like a week ago? Like
Corey: Like two weeks ago? They could have. It's now 9-19 at night. We haven't seen it yet, you know, but they could have and they should have. And I think they should. i mean the problem is always i mean today in like the go forward sense i
Carter: weeks ago? They could have. It's
Zain: i
Corey: i get what you're saying but i you know the problem always with this is if you wait a week before you look like you've got a principled emotional response it looks like a calculating bloodless response and so the longer they wait on this and i think they've already waited up an amount that's damaging their response the worse it is like they should have hit the they should have hit the register the minute this came came out and said, this is, this is nuts. Okay, we've just all got to calm down. You know, this is not how we we manage things. And frankly, this is not how Danielle Smith has ever shown that she's managed things in the past. What is so different and special about Donald Trump that she's willing to take economic threats and respond with groveling? You know, I mean, I think there are ways you could do that as the NDP.
Zain: i get what you're
Corey: But your ability to do that diminishes with every hour that passes from the act to when you actually say something.
Zain: Carter, let's move on to Christy Clark. Can we do that? Can we take a hard pivot to the liberal leadership race?
Carter: Well, I didn't vote in the conservative leadership.
Zain: Oh, well, thank you for letting us know. You didn't vote for Jean Charest. You weren't one of the 10 people to vote for Jean Charest. I wasn't voted for one
Carter: vote for Jean Charest. I wasn't voted for one of the 10 people who voted for Jean Charest.
Corey: I feel like you did, though. Didn't
Corey: Didn't you? Don't we have the receipts in the strategist's Discord I can just drop?
Carter: Didn't you?
Zain: Yeah, we have a 1995-looking database that we can screen cap and throw all over Twitter. What's
Carter: What's going on? This is turning very negative for me. Hey,
Zain: on?
Zain: This
Zain: turning
Corey: turning very
Zain: Hey, okay. So, Carter, listen, we now know the rules, $350,000 entry. Let me run through the rules. You guys can jump in on this, too, because I think you've— Didn't
Carter: Didn't we do the rules in advance? Yeah, we were pretty close. Didn't we basically say everything that
Zain: Yeah, we were pretty close. Didn't we basically say
Carter: that was going to happen? Yeah, so you were
Zain: was going to happen? Yeah, so you were close-ish on the entry fee. It's high, but it's not $500,000 high. It's $350,000 high. Still high, right? I kind of said it would be lower than $500,000. I know. Okay, so great. right um carter you didn't win on the uh deadline
Zain: you you got you got shorted by like 15 17 days the the membership cutoff deadline i mean sorry that is coming up uh jan 27 so 15 days 14 days no
Carter: got shorted
Carter: days 14 days no it's a jam so it's gonna be fast 14
Zain: be fast 14 days to sell memberships that's assuming you're in today yeah um right uh which is like nobody is right this is which i don't understand at all okay i'm gonna get to that i'm confused by that too i'm surprised we saw no activity this weekend I'm very surprised we saw no activity this weekend in terms of a launch. Jan 23, you have to announce that you're in by Carter. Everything wraps up by March 9th. Sorry, I don't have it in this morning. March 9th, you're right. You remembered it very well.
Carter: You remembered
Corey: remembered it
Carter: $350
Corey: $350 to
Zain: $350 to enter, I believe. Is it $400 spending cap during the race? I
Carter: to
Zain: don't
Corey: don't
Zain: don't even know.
Corey: know. I
Zain: I didn't see that. I think it's going to be hard to
Corey: I didn't see that. I think it's going to be hard to spend that money in that time.
Zain: time.
Corey: time.
Zain: time.
Corey: Yeah.
Zain: Yeah. So anyways, that's where we're at. Christy Clark, one of the candidates, one of the, what you'd call, what the media at at least seems to be getting their head around the top three. She seems to be one of the top three with Carney and Freeland in the mix. Goes on the House, CBC, pre-records an interview that airs this weekend, but comes out on Friday in which she says, I was never a member of the Conservatives. I never got my ballots, etc. If I did, the Conservatives are manufacturing this. And then, of course, the same interviewer, Catherine Collin, goes on Power and Politics and they read Canadian press articles where she says, says, I've gotten my ballot. I'm ready to vote. I'm excited. Podcast interviews where she says, I've joined to help Jean Charest. She then comes up with some cleanup on Twitter, said, no shit, I fucked that up, paraphrasing. But I'm always going to say, no, I mean, like, pretty much
Carter: always going to say, no, I mean, like, pretty much word for word. Yeah.
Zain: And then ultimately saying, listen, I always stand up against Pierre Polyev. And that's what I'm contemplating doing again, this time joining the Liberals. Carter,
Zain: what's the bigger sin here? Is it that the cleanup wasn't great? Is it the the fact that she's i mean let's
Zain: just give her the moment like i'm not going to try to re-engineer how she does the moment better she fucked up the moment let's go there on after how did you think of the the cleanup and and what do you think this kind of means for her for her chances uh in this extremely truncated race i
Carter: mean i i don't know what impact it's going to have on her chances i there's a school of thought that says oh man when you screw up this badly coming out of the gate I'm not sure how this badly it is. I think that it was absolutely a misstep.
Carter: I think that she'd want a do-over if she was given the opportunity.
Carter: But I'm not sure that people were hinging their
Carter: their support of Christy Clark, who would be, I think, the most right of the liberals. I'm not sure that that's going to be the definitive reason that people will or will not support her. um i'm sure she wishes she hadn't done it i'm sure she just said listen i've been fighting if she'd said i've been fighting against pierre polly f since before he was the liberal before he was the conservative leader and i did that by trying to support my old liberal premier colleague mr jean charret i i think that that would have been fine but instead she fucked it up bad
Zain: the liberals.
Zain: mr
Carter: bad Bad prep work, bad lines,
Carter: lines, whatever, however it was done. I think it's in the past. I don't think it's going to really impact her in the long term.
Zain: So you think she goes still?
Carter: Yeah. Have you met her ego? I mean, it makes Corey's ego look like inconsequential.
Zain: Yeah. Have you
Zain: Corey, she goes. Okay. And we'll get to why she hasn't launched or anyone hasn't launched in the second year. How harmful? And give me an analysis on the cleanup, Corey.
Corey: Like, why she wouldn't have just gone on there and said, yeah, you know, I mean, Stephen, your line would have been perfect, right? I've been fighting Pierre for a while. I supported a former provincial liberal leader for the PC leadership, or the conservative leadership. I'm not sorry about that. Now it's me talking again. I know a lot of liberals who purchased memberships in the CPC to vote for Jean Charest. Obviously not nearly enough to change the outcome, but it wasn't exactly considered this horrible sin. I know a lot of new Democrats who did it, frankly. I don't think she would have lost anything saying, yeah, I bought a membership to vote against Pierre Polyab. Where
Carter: I've been
Zain: been fighting
Carter: I
Corey: do you go from there? Whoa, but like, how do you call yourself a lifelong liberal? When you have to technically
Zain: When you have to technically denounce your liberal membership to get a conservative one, etc, etc, etc.
Corey: Yeah, I, you know, I'm not sorry about that at all. I did what I did to try to stop Pierre Paulyev, and that's what I'm doing today, too. Like, you just own that shit, right? But then to say, like, no, it's not here, I absolutely deny it. There's so much coverage. Jenny Byrne posting this screen grab of their, like you said, Zane's system that looks like it comes with Windows 3.1, you know? It's going to work, whatever it is. It's pretty old. also i mean i know political parties are exempt from a lot of our privacy laws but wow i mean the idea that somebody in the party might just post your party membership lot profile is just pretty gross i think but that's an aside um you know like you just you did that to yourself and then the cleanup to say like you misspoke or whatever just undercuts this idea that you're a competent political organizer and so you've done some damage to your brand and
Zain: then
Zain: whatever it is. It's
Corey: and
Corey: and and that's why it hurts more We've talked about this in the past. Whether a gaffe lands or not depends a lot on whether it undercuts your core proposition or reinforces a big negative that people have about you. And you managed to do both somehow. You look like you were hiding that you were a conservative and maybe not really a liberal. And you ultimately also just didn't look very competent. The only way she could have made it worse is if she tried to do it in French and she fucking butchered that too. So it was a bad day for her. There's no question about that. What do you think of the cleanup, though, Corey?
Zain: about that. What do you think of the cleanup, though, Corey? What do you think of the cleanup?
Corey: I don't think it was cleanup. I think it was like saying, oh, this floor is covered in shit and then sticking a mop in a toilet full of shit and smearing it all over the floor. Like, to suggest that this was like a misspeaking was ridiculous. You just say, I actually don't even know what I would say at that point, but I think you just have to fucking own it and say, yeah, I mean, I don't know what I was thinking. Of course I joined. Like, that was a ridiculous thing for me to say.
Zain: it was like saying,
Corey: and uh would you have done it would you have done it differently
Zain: differently like not a tweet or would you have done a video or something else or no
Carter: no i
Corey: i think a tweet's
Carter: tweet's
Corey: tweet's fine absolutely fine
Carter: tweet's fine absolutely fine
Zain: fine
Carter: fine you
Corey: you don't want to like you want video of you looking like a fool i just the one nice thing about twitter and blue sky is it gives you a really low effort out low yeah
Zain: yeah
Corey: yeah low effort out
Zain: out i guess that's the way to put it so talk to me about this um carter i'll start with you before
Zain: before we get into why no one has launched and you guys can break it down for me in terms of what i heard a
Carter: i heard a
Carter: a rumor that
Carter: that they were waiting to find out if steve mckinnon was in or not oh
Zain: they were
Carter: oh so you
Zain: you want all hell's gonna
Carter: all hell's
Carter: gonna
Zain: gonna break
Carter: break loose
Zain: loose now everyone now yeah mckinnon is uh i'm just gonna break the news on the show he is a liberal mp
Carter: yeah mckinnon
Carter: uh sorry i don't think people knew that no i think the people needed he's actually a minister he's actually a minister okay yeah wow now you broke some news yeah Yeah, later.
Zain: actually a minister he's
Carter: We're just breaking news to each other. This is huge. This is really exciting. This is why people listen.
Zain: is huge.
Corey: huge. This
Zain: This
Corey: This is
Zain: is
Corey: is really exciting.
Zain: This
Zain: Okay, before
Zain: we get to why no one has launched,
Zain: Carter, talk to me about what's actually possible in two weeks. So we know the point system remains, correct? Right, Chance? The point system remains. Yeah, point system. 100 points per riding.
Zain: Registered liberal. They've tightened that up a bit. It's an online process. What can one actually do in two weeks, Carter? starter like in terms of selling like let's say i was in today i was the first one in right and what could as organizers and strategists like this is probably giving you heart palpitations but two weeks is not a lot of time uh would you what can one actually do and i know i'm asking that in the broadest sense but like define for me how you're even thinking about selling memberships with such a short runway cory
Carter: cory will actually have the stats on this but what is there something like 80 of None of your actual memberships come in in the last two weeks in a leadership race. You'll have a buzz at the start and then at the very end, all hell breaks loose. That's the nature of the game. So, I mean, I remember running a nine-month, I think, like we could have had a baby, Alison Redford and I. That came out wrong.
Zain: leadership race.
Corey: That was a weird phrasing. I did that backward.
Carter: I did that backward.
Carter: Anyways, a baby could
Corey: a
Zain: a baby
Corey: baby
Zain: baby could
Corey: could
Carter: could have been born in the time that we ran the Alison Redford leadership campaign. Bain. And I bet you we sold at least half the memberships in the last 10 days because
Carter: because that's when people will pay attention. So when you say, what can you do? Well, you can do quite a bit and you don't have to do a lot compared
Carter: compared to, you know, like you don't have to have membership numbers of hundreds of thousands. You just need to do better than the other person. Right.
Carter: Right. So if everybody's got the same two weeks, then all you have to do is do better than the other person. You don't have have to worry about whether or not you're, you know, achieving something bigger and better than that. Just beat the other person.
Zain: Corey, what can you get done in two weeks? Like, Carter makes a good point about the last two weeks sprint. We've talked about that on other leadership campaigns. But it's the only two weeks. It's not the last two weeks. It's the only two weeks. So does that change the dynamic at all in terms of how you would be thinking
Corey: two weeks. It's
Corey: thinking about this if you were on a campaign right
Zain: right now?
Corey: right now? 100%. I mean, so yes, there's the buzz at the start, and there's all hell breaks loose at the end this is the one and the same right you have basically 18 days or whatever it was from when these rules were announced correct until the end of the the sign-up period here which i mean i'll just throw it out there right now is why i can't for the life of me understand why all of these people are waiting to announce their campaigns until next week they lose a third of their membership is that what we're hearing that their next
Zain: correct
Zain: until
Zain: is that what we're hearing that their next week is like oh yeah like carter
Corey: oh yeah like carter all of a sudden doesn't want to put gossip out out there but i've i've heard rough dates for everybody's launch if they're going to be in right and they're like they're into the middle of next week you know like this fucking lunacy to me that uh does that
Zain: right and
Zain: does that just imply that they're just relying on existing memberships like that's the core strategy of some of these people i
Zain: i definitely think that that's got
Corey: definitely think that
Corey: got to be part of the thinking but what is an existing member at this point like the way the liberal rules are is yeah they have this registered liberal system is
Zain: this registered liberal system is like not a member just to be clear yeah
Zain: yeah
Corey: yeah well so there's this registered system but there's kind of a two-step registration here and so i don't i don't fully get it myself at this moment but i'll tell you this it's
Zain: yeah well so
Corey: it's it's not you don't want to lose that time and when you only have two weeks every day matters a lot i don't for the life of me understand why on the friday after the rules were announced on the thursday mark
Corey: mark carney didn't walk to a microphone bernie sanders style
Zain: sanders style and just be like i'm in or just say i'm in yeah
Corey: and just be like i'm in or just say i'm in yeah i'm in and we hit the ground now the work starts now because we don't have time we don't have times and we don't have time as a party we don't have time as a country the work starts now so if you want to save this country if you want to save this party you go and you register 10 friends today and you get them to register 10 friends the day after that and you get them to register 10 days the day after that and we go because that is how we win we can't waste time i'm with cory on this
Zain: get them to register 10 days the
Zain: that
Zain: this carter what What could be like – and you and I, Carter, you've sold me increasingly as we've had this show for many years on the low importance of a launch. You've actually been at the school and been like, launch it. Just get it out of the way. What are these candidates waiting for? Is it caucus endorsements? Like what are they lining up for? Is it the money stage gated so they don't need to have 350K to just drop tomorrow? Like that's not a thing to be clear, like despite the fact they need that money. so what could these people be waiting for carter in terms of going i
Carter: gotta be honest why don't you why don't we see no one to be honest with you can
Zain: don't
Corey: don't we see no
Zain: no one to be honest with you can
Carter: can i be honest with you i loved cory's walk to a microphone strategy i
Carter: i may have even i was telling someone to walk to the microphone strategy just
Zain: i was telling someone to walk to the microphone strategy
Zain: just bernie sanders style walk across the the whatever just be like i'm in fuck off i'm fucking microphone
Carter: walk across
Carter: off i'm fucking microphone you know i get it what what are people seeing in the launch i i don't know i don't buy into the the launch strategy idea i don't think that you
Zain: you know
Carter: you know there's there's these huge great launches that foundationally change a race one could argue that this that this two-week race uh to to sign up members uh or supporters or whatever the hell it is uh cory whatever bastardized system cory has laid upon the country uh
Carter: uh welcome
Corey: welcome uh
Carter: uh you know whatever that is i mean why would you wait do Do you actually think that a great launch will change your trajectory? Maybe, maybe. I mean, I'm not in that room, so I don't know how people are thinking. But if it was me, if I was the grand poobah of all things, I think I would have walked to a microphone.
Zain: Corey, I should mention that there are two liberals that have suggested they're going to run, Chandra Arya, the sitting MP, and Frank Bayless, a former MP. If
Zain: you're one of the, what I'm going to use as a shorthand, the top three, the rumored candidates. How concerned are you about them given the compressed timeline for both membership, rules, everything? No idea if these folks can hit the money requirements, etc. But let's just assume they can. How worried are you if you're someone who wants this job desperately as Carney, Freeland, or Clark about these two individuals?
Corey: individuals? Not remotely. I see them as opportunities. There's no way they're going to have national networks. They just don't have the profile and name recognition, and they're not going to build it in a couple of weeks. Frankly, they can't fly to every fucking place in a couple of weeks to build it like this is how compressed this particular time period is but i do see them as an opportunity because they might have strength in montreal for example if you're bailiff i mean that seems like a stretch even if i'm going to be frank when you say strength yeah yes but even if it's just a few more points that you can get and say hey if i can get their supporters to put me as number two when they go out first ballot as they sure as fuck will right
Zain: when you say strength
Corey: right i'll uh i'll pick it up if they're there at all and if they're not then Then their members are up for grabs or their supporters are up for grabs and we can move on. The
Carter: grabs and we
Carter: The numbers on a three-way race, Zane, are fucked.
Carter: Because a three-way race, two and three decide to get together, it's all over for number one. Unless number one wins on the first ballot. But
Corey: But you do a five-way race,
Carter: you do a five-way race, four
Carter: four and five roll up to first, suddenly things may look totally different.
Zain: Wow, we're back to the roll up. We love a good roll up on the strap. Stephen Carter roll up. Hey, listen, Carter, talk to me about this. the points system incentivizes campaigning in liberal wastelands. Fair
Carter: Wow, we're back
Corey: We
Carter: We love
Corey: love
Corey: love a good roll up on the strap. Stephen Carter roll up.
Zain: statement?
Carter: Absolutely. What
Zain: What
Zain: What does that mean if you're, well,
Zain: if you're the West, I think the answer is clear. You're more important, I guess, now than you historically have been in a liberal context. But what does that mean for these candidates as they're contemplating membership sales over the next two weeks? How would you be thinking about it? Or would you say, like, go to where you're strong versus trying to build where there's advantage and upside how do you balance those two things i guess is my question i
Carter: i think that these candidates are going to have telephone surgically implanted in their head and
Carter: and they're just going to be working working the the you know who knows three guys in northern saskatchewan is going to be the uh the the call you know who who's got a guy out in in you know western manitoba that we can go in and and grab and see if they can't find 100 people Some of these ridings, 20, 30, 40 people are going to vote and that's going to give you 100 points. So you're nuts not to make those phone calls. Same as Toronto
Corey: to be the
Zain: calls. Same as Toronto Centre, for example. But they're not going to
Carter: But they're not going to be hopping on a plane to go to Winnipeg. I
Carter: I would suspect you'll see people in the top five cities, and then using a hub and spoke model, where you'll have hubs and, you know, like Calgary will be a hub, and then there'll be spokes out to the rural ridings from Calgary. The hub and spoke model will probably be the one that makes the most sense for organizing. Corey,
Zain: how do you think about it with these point
Zain: systems, the liberal wastelands that don't have many members in them? Are you leaning into that? Are you partially leaning into that and then going to where you think you could be strong and they're already liberals and persuading them? How do you think about this? I'm leaning
Corey: I'm leaning
Zain: leaning hard into
Corey: into that.
Zain: that.
Corey: that. Stephen's absolutely right. You know one person, you give them a call and you get your team to make those preliminary calls first and identify some prospects. And if you end up being one of the four active liberals in Grand Prairie, then, you know, you're Christy Clark, you pick up the phone and you call those four active liberals and you try to turn one of them into an activist for you. You arm them with how they can sign up in a hurry, 20, 30 members out of their neighbors, give them ways they can walk through it and think about who might be available to become registered. And then there you go. Fuck, there's 100 points for you. Congratulations. The race goes on. Or maybe not 100, but 70 of the 100. Yeah. That's incredible. Like you're doing great work. And so the work of the next couple of weeks will be how do you optimize your leader's time and how do you optimize your caller's time? And all of this is going to push people towards areas where the liberals are not particularly strong, because it's less effort per point. And that's the way everybody's going to be thinking about. What is the effort per point over the next bit? And if they're not thinking about this way, they don't deserve to be a leader, frankly. Yeah,
Zain: of the 100. Yeah.
Carter: What
Zain: What
Carter: if they're
Carter: Yeah, like if you're Sukhdali, well, you're going to be working your ass off for the Surrey points. But there's going to be other rural British Columbia points that will be available that maybe a Parm Bains is going to go after. There's multiple ways to... First of all, are
Carter: are you not impressed that I named two visible minorities and pronounced their name properly? I
Corey: name properly? I
Corey: I mean, I would have been if you didn't then turn around and look at the explosion, right? That's so good. So great.
Carter: right?
Carter: That's so good. So great.
Corey: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Zain: yeah. Like they did in Dave.
Carter: Oh, yeah.
Carter: The best.
Zain: Great third act in Dave. Corey,
Zain: like, so you work that through. You've got two weeks to do it. Do you also, like Carter, feel like this is going to be a largely, can I use the term virtual campaign? campaign like a largely leaders hunkered down and doing like phone calls how do you like i'm almost trying to get a flavor of what this looks like is it videos and virtual and maybe a debate or two yeah like that's about it are we gonna am i gonna see mark carney in my neighborhood like give me a sense of like what canadians might expect here at least what you think and how you'd strategize in terms of and then then triangulate that in terms of what canadians I'd expect here.
Corey: Yeah. So let me just say, I actually think that right
Corey: now the signs are that they're going to go through the regular leadership pageantry in a truncated fashion. We get that even just from the sense that they want to do the launches and they'll have debates and maybe they'll do the- Caucus endorsements
Zain: they'll have debates
Zain: they'll do the- Caucus endorsements maybe, like lined up behind them. Caucus endorsements.
Corey: up behind them. Caucus endorsements. Well, we're already hearing Mark Carney will have, like there was reported 30, I think. Right, right, right. Standing behind him and
Zain: right, right. Standing behind him and being like, this guy. Maybe fewer,
Corey: being like, this guy. Maybe fewer, maybe more. Maybe it doesn't matter because maybe caucus doesn't matter for leadership. Maybe the days mattered more
Zain: Maybe the days mattered more than the number of caucus endorsements. Maybe the days
Corey: endorsements. Maybe the days matter more than the caucus meetings. But then, you know, the debates and the showing up in the various cities to say, I've gone from Vancouver to Calgary to Winnipeg and, you know, the bullshit that they always do during a leadership review. And maybe they're going to do all of that. And maybe that's a deeply suboptimal strategy. And I think back on my own experience here. And in 2008, I ran a leadership campaign for a fellow named Dave Taylor. Actually, that's when I first really got to know Stephen in any meaningful way. Yeah. And, um, I was, uh, you know, I was the guy who had come from the federal liberal party and I had built a fair bit of this liberal infrastructure in terms of communications and fundraising. And it was all, you know, I think it was built for a national party. Right. And so then I tried to apply this to a party that had a much smaller membership base. And, you know, we were doing things that were, I, you know, I would argue actually quite ahead of our time. we were innovative we're doing interesting innovative custom mailouts where based on what we knew about you you're getting like totally different bundles of why you should vote for the guy we were identifying all of these like you know caucus support you know we were doing everything that you're supposed to do and then uh we lost because you know what happened david swan picked up the fucking phone and he called everybody in the party like four times and the party was not that big and over the course of many months that was pretty easy to do right
Zain: days matter
Carter: in any meaningful
Zain: right so
Corey: so i could be
Zain: so i could be entering entering that era where someone could become prime minister from a cubicle somewhere this
Zain: this is my point and so i i think that people
Corey: is my point and so
Corey: people need to ask themselves always whether this is getting them the outcome that they want and in my opinion the optimal strategy for a campaign of this nature with such a short membership cut off and actually such a short period is that virtual campaign it's saying my time is not well spent on an airplane my time is not well spent showing up at a hall in like Like Northeast Calgary, we've all seen the fly in, fly out, right? Of course, yeah. Where, you know, we're going to meet 300 people who probably I could have gotten my lieutenants to organize and I could have called like a good chunk of them directly over the course of the time anyhow, right?
Zain: right? Of course, yeah. Where,
Zain: over the
Corey: My sense is that. My sense is that the candidate who understands that is probably going to do better than the candidate that doesn't. But the draw and the desire, especially when you're running for prime minister, is going to be very strong to put on a prime ministerial campaign. To peacock a bit too. And how
Zain: how
Corey: how
Zain: how
Corey: how
Zain: how does that impact Carter from your perspective, then? How does that impact the best campaigner in the race? And I believe this is a consensus amongst the three of us and Christy Clark, someone who and maybe that's not a consensus. I don't speak for you. I mean, it might have been last week. Yeah, I mean, sure, sure, sure, fair enough. Last week,
Carter: week. Yeah, I mean, sure, sure, sure, fair enough. Last week, it looks a little different. How
Zain: does this impact someone like her, right? Like, where she's maybe, you know, and we've talked about this before, the person that's good one-to-one versus one-to-ten versus one-to-a-thousand, one-to-a-hundred, right? Like, which political athleticism will be best applied here, Carter, amongst those three lanes I've just identified? And I'm using some of your examples that you've mentioned in the past. Christy Clark, to me, kind of seems like a good one-to-a-thousand person. I could be wrong. But which sort of political athleticism do you feel like is going to be most valued here?
Carter: Well, I don't think we're going to see any 3,000-person rallies in this campaign. It's all going to be 200-person events and small things like that. So you still
Zain: So you still think we're going to still see 200-person events, eh? I
Zain: I think you'll see a few 200
Carter: 200-person events. Well, I think you'll
Corey: 200-person events. Well, I think you'll see a 3,000-person rally because, again, I don't think people are going to— Who will waste the time putting
Carter: again, I don't think people are going to— Who will waste the time putting together a 3,000-person rally? I'm curious about both of these things. I'll bet you more than one
Corey: curious about both of these things. I'll bet you more than one of them does. I'll bet you more than one of them does. But
Zain: But because it's strategic or because that's just what they think they should and need to do?
Corey: Because
Zain: Because
Corey: Because they will say, that's
Corey: that's how we win. They'll say, we don't have a good command. Because, like, look at the infrastructure. They've already lost so many days. It's not going to be set up. They're not going to well understand the membership base. They're going to believe that the existing members will need to be persuaded by shows of force. And, yeah, they're going to do that. I absolutely believe they're going to do that. Carter,
Zain: Carter, defend that. Do you feel like you'd be surprised if you saw a 3,000 person? And, Corey, I'll come to you in a second on the couple hundred people. You feel like that's going to happen too, don't you, Corey? Oh,
Corey: Oh,
Zain: Oh, yeah,
Corey: yeah, most certainly. And I'm not even saying I think it should.
Corey: Right, right. I'm saying it will.
Zain: Okay, so it's interesting. Carter, do you feel like, if
Zain: I summarize it this way, this might be a standard liberal seven-month presented
Carter: presented
Zain: presented in five weeks? Or do you feel like that's actually going to fundamentally feel different?
Carter: I think it has to fundamentally feel different. anybody who's playing it has to or it will
Zain: playing it has to or it
Zain: will i get the has to right like and i get the strategist angle of has to but will it that's what i'm more interested in like surely to god there
Carter: surely to god there are going to be enough smart people around these campaigns to run this thing the way it needs to be run i'm
Carter: quite confident that we're going to see huge um huge
Carter: huge plays by people who know what this campaign looks like and and when i say huge plays we may never even see them because
Carter: the huge play that we're going to see right now is a surrogate doing a tour that
Carter: is a huge play in this campaign explain
Zain: that what do you mean by surrogate doing a tour and cory reacted but let carter define it and then i'll let you take that ball from there uh
Carter: what do you mean by
Carter: carter define it
Carter: uh literally a surrogate uh someone deciding that they've got a uh a pathway in northern ontario and they hop in their car and they drive they're making telephone calls through northern ontario wherever they've got cell service and they're They're calling everybody. They're meeting with them and doing coffee shops. And they've met 20 people in this riding and 20 people in that riding and 20 people in the other riding. And they just keep going 20
Carter: 20 by 20 by 20 on your behalf because it's not going to be, you know. Yeah.
Zain: by 20 by 20 on your behalf because
Corey: And identifying the five that you need to call and then really lock up.
Carter: Yeah. And
Carter: And that becomes your primary campaign. And
Carter: And we'll never see that. We're not going to see the guy in the pickup truck driving across northern Saskatchewan to try and get that one riding. But that's 100 points.
Carter: You know, this thing is going to boil down to where can you get those 100 points cheap and easy. And cheap and easy includes using surrogates.
Corey: I'd like to react to this. Yeah, I mean, so I think that's super smart because you still have people on the ground who are going to have the jam that they're going to get people out to those coffee shops and identify it. But then you are going to find them and you're going to make sure that those follow-up calls are happening from the candidate or from the candidate's inner circle, whatever needs to occur in order to kind of lock up the sale and then push the further registrations or the further conversions as necessary here. And one of the things that became really clear, I think, in the course of this conversation to me, and especially when Stephen was just talking right now, the
Zain: like
Carter: and identify
Corey: good campaigns are going to look like bad campaigns and vice versa, right? Because the people who are investing in that peacocking, as you say, that's – peacocking is a great metaphor because peacocks have these big feathers because they're an ostentatious show of wasting energy, you know? They are. They're saying, I am so healthy, I've got extra energy to burn on this, right? That's really dangerous if you actually don't have that energy to burn. And it's really fascinating, because we'll have to see how the dynamic unfolds with the existing supporters and the kind of the core liberal base that's there, because they might expect and want that Peacock. This is, I'm so glad
Zain: base
Zain: is, I'm so glad you mentioned that. I wanted to go here, which is like, there's a question written here, and I've written three words for this entire episode, just so people can be impressed by how good I am at this. Very good, yeah,
Carter: Very good, yeah,
Carter: yeah, very good.
Zain: Persuasion, Corey.
Zain: Yeah. How does the persuasions, if they don't do that, how do you persuade? Do you do the David Swan, call the list? And that's your persuasion, and you're not doing the big, watch me debate, watch me debate really well, and I should
Corey: should like, how do you do that part of the job? Well, so again, like, I'm going to go back to that campaign, because I think it might be more illustrative than people will want in this particular matter. But one of the things we did is like Dave Taylor's campaign is we had like this big, like, super long and elaborate, like thought piece about all of the changes that were going to be done to the party, right? We were by far the most polished of it, we definitely tried to show, like, our whole strategy was, we're going to show what a winning campaign looks like. And they're going to say, that's a winning campaign that's going to take on the PCs. That's what we want. didn't fucking work. You know why? Because David Swan worked the phones and he called everybody. And sometimes that's all that's required. But there's going to be that argument and that push. And I'm not going to say that that campaign is going to be an entire repeat
Zain: That's what we want. didn't
Corey: repeat in this campaign here. So people are going to need to watch that. But I do wonder whether there's not going to be this seductive and overestimation of how much people care about that stuff. Well,
Zain: this campaign here.
Zain: Well, what's also interesting, Carter, to get your reaction to this is that Part of it could be seductive, but the other part you could argue to yourself is strategic, because in mere minutes, we're going to have to fight a general election. So might as well get started on that and flex some of those skills. Can Mark Carney fucking debate? Can Christy Clark have command of French? These are just throwing examples out there, right? Right. Like, well, if we don't test some of those peacocking things in this race, even though that's not strategic, we're in mere minutes, we're going to have a general election against Peter Polyev. And then all of a sudden you realize, oh, shit, this guy was really good at making phone calls from a cubicle and not necessarily having the political. Not running a campaign. No. I mean, you're totally right.
Corey: Not running a campaign. No. I mean, you're totally right.
Corey: right.
Zain: right. You're totally
Corey: totally right. We don't have
Zain: right. We don't have any time to get to know that. Like, literally, we might have days, Carter.
Carter: Yeah. But that's the way this is. This cookie is going to crumble. Right. Like, that's just the way it's going to go. What do you want from us? You want us to try and create a different campaign? This is the campaign that the liberals have chosen. This is the campaign that Justin Trudeau has foisted upon the party. Let
Zain: upon the party. Let me ask you this this way. You are running a campaign. Are you fine winning however you need to win, even if that means you haven't stress tested any of the things that your candidate will need in a couple of weeks for a general election?
Carter: I'm sorry, did you just say that you still win? Yeah, fair.
Carter: are
Corey: are
Corey: are you in the same boat?
Corey: You're in the same boat, man. I am in the same boat. Like, there's no way you're not. I am in the same boat. But I'm curious to see if there's any nuance that any of the three of us have. Yeah, but I'll say this. Here's
Zain: I am in
Zain: in the same boat. Like,
Zain: am in
Zain: there's any
Zain: Here's the nuance. Here's a thoughtful nuance.
Corey: nuance. No, there's no nuance. It's more like there is a reason why parties don't have contests this short.
Corey: They want to do the things you're talking about. And at this point, with just a couple of months, and even that feeling long, given the stakes that we talked about at the start of this episode for the country, you know, they just don't have the time. And so sacrifices have to be made. And I don't know what the nature of those sacrifices are at this point. Are people going to say, oh, no, no, we are not going to do normal liberal leadership things. We're actually going to keep open minds and look at who can best win the election. I doubt that's 100% true. Are they going to say, well, we're going to do the classic sign up thing? Because if that's the case, then that's going to push you to a different strategy. I don't know. I mean, nobody has done this before, right? And so I guess as much as we've made statements about what should be right now, I guess that the major, major advice maybe to wrap on here is people are going to need to be fucking alive to a situation that is very different and not actually just rely on how they did things in the past. They're going to need to really invest in data. They're going to need to be really thoughtful. They're going to need to bring good ideas, new ideas, and they've got to have some humility.
Zain: to have some humility.
Corey: humility. Nobody
Zain: Nobody
Corey: Nobody
Zain: Nobody
Corey: Nobody has done this before. There is no old wise man in the room. There is no old wise woman in the room. Nobody's fucking done this before. So let's see what they do. I
Zain: I think it's so fascinating that the most successful campaign ultimately could look like the one that doesn't have their shit together from all the conventional campaign metrics. and and and it's just a bunch of people doing the groundwork without any of the sexy air war the
Carter: the one who puts 3 000 people in a room loses that's
Zain: so interesting to me fuck that's crazy that is so interesting to me carter let's let's leave that segment they're moving on to our over under our lightning round it is almost your bedtime and we want to leave you on way past my
Carter: past my bedtime steven
Zain: steven carter are you in or out if the liberals end up with three candidates in this race if you're a liberal if you're a liberal organizer if you're someone who's uh partial to this party. Are you in or out if the liberals end up ultimately with the Carney-Freeland-Clark trio running in this race? I
Carter: got my foot between the door and the doorstop. I'm neither in nor out. I'm disappointed because I think that 4-5 makes a lot more sense than 3-2. But it appears that with the $350,000 and the membership cutoff being in two weeks, I think that the musing of the the also-rans is going to lead to a three-person race.
Zain: Corey, are your partials of the Liberals in this case, in or out, on three, ultimately be the number of candidates that run for the Liberals? I
Corey: I think that's the right number. I'm actually fine with it. It
Corey: It would have probably been nice if there was somebody who was considered more like this new up-and-comer in the party, and you might still get that, right? I shouldn't say otherwise. You might end up with four, maybe, or maybe some weird splits, maybe some last-minute decisions go on here. But, look,
Corey: look, you have too many with this little time. We're not even going to – it's like when you pick up a book with too many characters. Canadians will just be like, who the fuck are all of these people? I don't fucking know, right? You've got to get it down to a reasonable amount. If only so the story that you try to tell as a party makes
Corey: makes any sense to the audience. Thanks
Carter: Thanks a lot, George R.R. Martin. What a dick.
Corey: many characters, I would argue, Carter. Too
Carter: Too many characters.
Corey: Too many characters.
Corey: Yeah, well, did you have a clue who any of them were before season two? like
Corey: i i knew like ned and he got killed spoilers for season one of game of thrones i
Carter: think it's okay it's 10 years ago now okay
Corey: damien lewis does not fare
Zain: fare well in homeland no
Carter: he does not just
Zain: for people on that train thank
Zain: thank you very much yeah no problem carter
Zain: carter overrated underrated if
Zain: the liberals end up with no francophone candidate oh
Carter: that's interesting i think it might be underrated i think that you know this idea that they swap back and forth between anglophone and francophone phone um that may happen um but i don't think that that's a practice that one wants to encourage and by not having a francophone uh candidate
Carter: candidate it's going to be really interesting to see how the i don't know how many writings there are left in quebec is it 77 um but however like that's a lot of points and how those points are distributed is uh is going to be very challenging if you don't have a francophone candidate carter
Zain: melanie uh cory i should say melanie jolie has said she's out yeah champagne has not said anything just yet if i'm not mistaken although rumors are that he might go back liberal side of things yeah
Carter: are
Corey: are that he
Carter: he might
Corey: go
Carter: go
Corey: go back
Carter: back liberal
Carter: liberal
Corey: liberal side
Carter: side
Corey: side of things
Carter: things
Corey: things yeah
Carter: yeah
Corey: yeah overrated
Zain: overrated underrated if the liberals don't end up with a francophone candidate um
Corey: you know i don't know i go back and forth on this it really has been the convention and so i think if you're a quebec candidate you're staring down this idea that you
Corey: You know, you're very unlikely to win just because there's this sense it's not your quote unquote turn. But on the other hand, it does feel, especially if Christy Clark were to become leader, like you might have a really big Quebec problem if there's this sense that the party is just gone in Quebec. And, you know, on the flip side, I know that I know Christy Clark's trying hard to court Melanie Jolie. jolie but like if you are somebody like a melanie jolie or a champagne and you endorse a christy clark you might immediately be the number two in the party so you know don't count never count quebec out like quebec politicians quebecers are so good at making themselves relevant to a contest but um you know i
Carter: And, you
Corey: do think it will be it will feel weird especially with a you know with a candidate like christy clark who doesn't well
Corey: well we all need to see her french don't we like i i still I still haven't really seen that.
Zain: Yeah. I mean, I need to see it too now. I don't speak French, so I'll be easily impressed, but I also want to see it. Carter, overrated, underrated, Anita Nunn saying she's out as a candidate for the liberal leadership race, but also saying she's out as running again.
Zain: Overall. Who's that? Corey,
Carter: Overall. Who's that?
Zain: over to you.
Zain: Wow,
Zain: Wow,
Zain: Wow, that's pretty
Zain: harsh. I don't know
Corey: harsh. I don't know why it's over to me, but.
Zain: Overrated, underrated, Anita Nunn not running and not running.
Zain: Sorry, who's Anita Nunn again? Okay. Okay. Corey, and I'm going to end this with you.
Zain: Everything we know thus far, 14 days membership deadline, a few more days after, a few days before that to declare the candidacy, March 9th, it all wraps up.
Zain: Who does this leadership race thus far, from everything you could read, put all the pieces that you have taken,
Zain: taken, triangulate them together, who does it favor? And who's best, most best position for it?
Corey: I think the default resting position of the party favored Freeland. I
Corey: think she knew that, which is why you know freeland's team was pushing pretty hard for something that most looked like the default resting state of the party i think the current state of rules favor clark and the reason i think that they favor clark is she's the only one who's been actively campaigning for months for the job and with so little time um it
Corey: will be tough for the others now i want to be really clear like a massive asterisk on that i think the rules favor clark i don't think that means clark's necessarily the one most likely to win right
Zain: right carter the question is about the rules because those are the newest things to be rolled out and just frankly what we've seen in terms of who else is out who else is not going uh the dynamics is that we've kind of experienced thus far and absorbed who who does the the most recent developments favor um
Carter: actually dark horse candidate uh cory hogan uh it's gonna be massive it's gonna be epic oh
Zain: it's gonna be massive it's gonna
Corey: did you just soft launch my campaign right here the
Carter: the only launch you've had in the last 12 years has been soft launched
Zain: we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1847 of the strategist my name is with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we shall see you next time