SPEAKER_00: Hey, everyone. It's your trusty strategist intern here. Unfortunately, no one was available to record today. So instead, enjoy this teaser from our most recent Patreon episode. It's full of insight and commentary that 100% isn't stale already. Thanks.
Zain: This is a strategist episode 1883. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter. And of course, the show for CBC, Shannon Phillips. My shirt.
Shannon: Thanks.
Shannon: Gotta
Shannon: rep your public broadcaster. Can
Carter: we all identify ourselves so that we can be properly represented for the NDP?
Zain: Yeah.
Carter: Yeah. So what are you? You are identifying as a?
Zain: Which one of my several identities do you want me to choose? I mean, you
Carter: I mean, you can choose whatever one you want. I'm identifying as a cis white male.
Zain: I'm identifying
Zain: Okay. Wow. So there's a cap on you.
Carter: Yeah. Yeah. There's only one of me allowed. Shannon, what are you going to be identifying for the duration of this podcast as?
Shannon: Pronouns are she, her. Identify as a woman. I don't really see a problem with having to say it out loud. And I don't know why you guys are triggered by the National Post. I guess the culture wars of the right are working on you.
Carter: I'm not triggered at all by the National Post. I'm triggered by the contents of what was in the National Post. I'm triggered. I'm triggered by the NDP. And then I thought to myself, why am I being triggered? I shouldn't be triggered. Because you're a white guy. I wouldn't be triggered if this was being done by the Green Party or the Marijuana Party or the Rhinoceros Party. party why am i worried about it happening with the ndp so i'm not triggered uh
Shannon: be triggered. Because you're a white guy.
Zain: uh i'm just gonna clarify aspirational cis white male is what i'm going for i i would love love to love to be you one day carter not
Carter: would love love
Zain: not
Carter: not you not
Zain: not you not you exactly not me no
Carter: not me no far from that my try but
Zain: far from that my
Zain: my
Zain: my try but but everything that comes with it socioeconomically uh i am also aspirational
Carter: i am also aspirational i want to be ken bosinkul when i i grow up that's my new goal don't
Zain: ken bosinkul
Carter: don't
Shannon: don't we all yeah
Carter: yeah i mean that's my new goal uh
Shannon: uh
Zain: uh carter we should give people some context about what you're uh blathering on about and we will in a in a in mere moments when
Carter: when we get to it let's let's see how shannon's doing today okay
Zain: okay yeah shannon how are you doing today i'm
Shannon: i'm great i'm great look at all these flowers behind me they
Shannon: they were all said to me not by carter carter
Shannon: carter sent me no flowers do
Zain: do you have a birthday which yeah
Shannon: birthday which yeah
Shannon: yeah tomorrow tomorrow's
Zain: tomorrow's your birthday and you get flowers in advance of your birthday i know that's ridiculous i
Shannon: know
Shannon: ridiculous i
Shannon: i got a bunch of different sets of flowers in advance of my birthday who
Zain: i got a
Zain: who gets flowers in advance of their birthday who even gets flowers on their birthday yeah
Shannon: even gets flowers on their
Carter: their birthday yeah
Carter: yeah
Shannon: yeah yeah
Zain: yeah well people
Carter: yeah well
Shannon: well people who know me know that i like flowers and if they come in advance then they do the job of making the children feel guilty that they have done nothing for my birthday so
Shannon: so oh
Zain: oh do a purpose it's a manipulative tool carter um how How are you? Shannon's clearly getting flowers. It's a big day for her tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: do a purpose
Shannon: purpose it's
SPEAKER_00: it's
Shannon: it's a manipulative
SPEAKER_00: manipulative
Shannon: manipulative
SPEAKER_00: manipulative tool
Shannon: tool carter
Shannon: carter um how
Zain: Any news on your front, Stephen Carter?
Carter: I'm apparently triggered.
Zain: No, you are apparently triggered. I also hear you're running 57 campaigns. I'm
Carter: I'm not going to lie to you. It's starting to catch up with me now. Yeah, it is. Did you think September
Zain: I'm not
Zain: Yeah, it is. Did you think September would suck for you? October's also going to suck. I just want to let you know. I'm so tired.
Carter: I just want to let you know. I'm so tired.
Zain: I
Carter: I
Carter: I am so tired right now. Why are you
Zain: Why
Shannon: Why are you saying you're
Carter: you saying
Carter: you're running,
Zain: you're running, like, what is it, 28?
Shannon: running, like,
Carter: like, what
Zain: 28, yeah.
Carter: yeah.
Zain: Why
Carter: Why is it not two?
Zain: two? Because
Carter: Because
Zain: Because
Zain: it's not two.
Carter: it's not two. Oh,
Zain: my God. Okay, let's get into this. So for those that don't know, Stephen Carter is the brainchild behind the Calgary Party and the, let's call it the Edmonton Accelerants. No, they're Better Edmonton.
Carter: No, they're Better Edmonton.
Zain: Better Edmonton. Actually, they're called the Edmonton Accelerants. Good.
Carter: Actually, they're called the
Carter: That's good. Yeah, no, we tried to get it, but it was already taken by the arson squad.
Zain: it is resembling a bit of a dumpster fire from my perch, but, you know. Oh,
Carter: Oh, nicely
Carter: nicely done.
Carter: Carter,
Zain: Carter, why are you not saying you're just running the campaign for those two parties versus saying you're deep diving into the responsibility for all 20-some-odd-eight?
Zain: Well, I
Carter: I mean, I'm not solely responsible for all 28, for sure. I mean, we have campaign managers on
Zain: campaign managers on each of them.
Carter: on each of them.
Carter: But fuck me, I have 28 neurotic campaign candidates. I mean, not all of them, but all of them. All of them are neurotic. And if you're listening to this and you think maybe I'm talking about you, I'm not. I'm talking about the other ones. Oh, my God. Carter,
Zain: But fuck me,
Zain: if you're listening to this and you think maybe
Zain: the best you could do in this case is accumulate a lot of losses. Oh,
Carter: the best
Carter: Oh, I know, right? I'm looking at the
Zain: I know, right? I'm looking at the
Zain: the math.
Carter: math.
Zain: You're not going to do well from a batting percentage perspective. Well, I
Carter: Well, I mean, if I do, genius.
Carter: genius.
Zain: Yeah. Can I give you two minutes here to set the terms of success for the Calgary Party and the Edmonton Accelerants?
Carter: The Edmonton Accelerants and the Calgary Party both have the same level of success. Which is what?
Zain: Which is what? What is what? Which is what?
Carter: Mayoralty candidate elected a majority of council candidates. Holy
Zain: Holy shit. You're not backing away. Why
Zain: would I back away? We're
Carter: We're not even started.
Zain: So you're not running the forever Canadian strategy here, which is the one that Shannon and I support, which is just collect as many signatures and have a good time.
Carter: No, I'm not. Okay. We're going to hold you
Zain: Okay. We're going to hold you to this then. We're going to hold you to this. Yeah.
Carter: hold you to this. Yeah. I mean, I think you should. I think that the accountability episodes are going to be fantastic. I mean, I'm assuming we'll do 28. Can we just do them right
Zain: right now?
Carter: now?
Zain: now?
Carter: Can we just do it right now? 28 accountability episodes. It's going to be great.
Zain: 28 accountability
Shannon: It's
Zain: It's going to be
Shannon: be great.
Carter: Shannon's never been part of an accountability episode. She doesn't know what it is even.
Zain: Shannon, are you familiar with these?
Shannon: Oh, yeah. I've certainly listened to them. They
Zain: They are our most listened episodes, Stephen Carter, usually by yourself.
Carter: Yeah, I listen to them over and over again. Over and over? And think about what went wrong.
Zain: over again. Over and over?
Shannon: And
Zain: And think about what
Zain: Yeah, as articulated by yourself. Should we get on with it? We've got a shit ton of things to cover. And they cover the
Zain: field geographically across this country. They also are deadly serious, if not, and then some of them are pretty fun. So, Shannon, we're going to put this all into our casing of fine, fabulous, or fucked. I've got a series of stories that are happening in Canada on the political scene.
Zain: I'm going to ask you fine folks whether you think they are fine for the party or the person in question, if they're fabulous or if they're totally fucked from a strategic angle. Shannon, I'll let you decide whether we start federal or we start provincial in this province of Alberta. And then Carter, I'll let you decide subsequently on the next question whether you want serious or fun. fun. So Shannon's going to get us going and then Carter, you're going to get to decide our fun level on our second round.
Shannon: round.
Carter: round.
Carter: Golly. Because I'm the fun one. You're not the fun one, Shannon. I'm
Zain: Because
Shannon: Because I'm
Zain: I'm
Shannon: I'm
Zain: I'm the
Shannon: the fun
Zain: fun
Shannon: fun
Shannon: not. I do play a bit of a scold role on this podcast. I didn't say that.
Carter: play
Carter: didn't say that. I'm going to get in trouble again. Jesus. The
Carter: Discord's already all over me.
Shannon: Discord's already all
Shannon: That's fine. I don't even know how to join it. So I know I accused you of being a boomer last time, Carter, but I think I'm going to take on the boomer mantle on the whole Discord thing.
SPEAKER_00: think I'm going to
Shannon: Okay. OK, I think we should start with federal because there's a lot going on federally. There is provincially, too. But right now, as we speak, there's quite a bit going on federally. So it's done
Zain: done and done. Let's start federal and let's start very breaking news hot off the press. Kevin Roberts, the Heritage Foundation president and architect of Project 2025. That's a name that you probably don't know, but Project 2025 probably is. Well, he is addressing Carney's cabinet. cabinet. Carney and team say he was invited to share his U.S. trade policy insights ahead of next year's Cosmo review. But Project 2025, for those that are not in the know, initially Trump distanced himself from it and then now has almost wholly embraced it, elevating traditional family values, restricting abortion, dismantling federal departments. That's just a couple of things in their paving of the authoritarian and Christo-fascist agenda that they're implementing in the United States.
Zain: I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that. Shannon Phillips, for
Zain: the carny liberals, that's all I care about our domestic politics. Is this fine? They can weather this. Is this fabulous? This is a masterstroke to invite this guy. Or is this totally fucked from a strategic angle, fine, fabulous, or fucked for the carny government?
Shannon: It's really hard, I think, to separate the moral piece
Shannon: from the strategic piece. You know, for some things, right? Like we
Shannon: we sometimes get worked up over public health and vaccination policy or the convoy and you know the respect for the rule of law this for me falls in that category of it is hard for me to see the forest for the trees on the strategy part i think it's fucked though because what is to be gained from hearing from these people at the end of the day trump's going to do whatever the fuck he wants on on trade and
Zain: for the rule
Shannon: and so none of these far catchers out there whether it's howard lutnick uh or anyone else you know out there interpreting Trump and doing the Kremlinology of what's going on in his head, none of that matters. None of it matters. So I don't know what we're doing, you know, rolling out the red carpet for this guy. His views are putrid, to
Shannon: to say the least.
Shannon: And I mean, I'm sure that there's been some conversations, you know, with Letnick or others, with our prime minister's office, and relationships have been made. So maybe this is a bit of an olive branch, but Christ,
Shannon: Christ, how many olive branches do we need to these fucking fascists?
Zain: Carter, you are a king of separating the moral from the strategic. In fact, I could argue that is your role on this podcast is parking the moral and heading into the strategic. I'll tell, we'll talk about the moral outrage in a second because there's a ton of shit, right? Like this guy's also the author of the quote, this is a second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be. which is an insane quote by this author of the or this author of the 900 page manifesto known as Project 2025. But Carter, do the hard work for me.
Zain: Separate the moral from the strategic. Fine, fabulous or fucked from
Zain: from the Carney government.
Carter: Nothing I want to do more than say this is fine. Absolutely not. Nothing I want to do more than say, you know what, this is just getting a point of view from someone who has the year of the American president, who has who who can set the direction who can tell us what the direction is what he's thinking how he's thinking it and then that it may in fact arm our cabinet to be more prepared to deal with the lunacy that is trump it would be it would be a perfect
Zain: it would be it would be a perfect stephen carter take it would be totally expected by everybody expected
Carter: be totally expected
Carter: everybody expected that is what i want to say but it's fucked it
Carter: it is just fucked these people i mean i don't want to use the f word but you guys have used it twice twice shannon's used the f word you've used the f word the the the crystal fascist uh you know point
Carter: of view and there i've used it um you know like i i share that i think that the united states is a seriously challenged area and i do struggle with mark carney's kind of desire and perhaps it's it's a it's a logic uh you know a spock like connection to logic that that alludes me a little little bit. But he's he is determined to figure out what makes this particular president work and find a logical way to deal with him when we I think the rest of us have reached the conclusion that there is no logical way to deal with this American government. It is going to be illogical until such time as, you know, the rumors come true. Eventually, the rumors will come true and and Trump will pass. But until then, I
Carter: don't think there's any predicting how this government's going to behave.
Zain: So I tend to agree with you both. The question I have beyond how, you know, you both have said fucked, Shannon, give me, I'm asking you to predict a bit into the future, but how much pain does the Carney government feel because of this move?
Shannon: Well, it's another one of those things like throw another log on the fire on things that piss people off that you didn't really have to do to piss them off you didn't really have to piss them off right he didn't really have to uh
Shannon: uh piss off a large number of people uh who came here from india by uh cozying up to narendra modi he didn't have to uh piss off even labor or the women's movement or other people uh with this invitation or with some other decisions that have been made so once again i i just wonder as to you know i can see where they're kind of doing they're like great man of history you know strategery up there and thinking, oh, you know, I can change him. And I can have a good relationship with him. You know, I can see where they're, they're trying to track towards that. And
Shannon: the question is how the domestic politics roll out from that, and whether you're taking hits that you don't need to take domestically. And it's not going to, especially in this day and age, it's not going to be today. And it's not going to be tomorrow, it's going to be cumulative. And it's going to be a vibe, right, especially in this information environment. But we
Shannon: we just saw the GDP numbers, they are shit. The employment numbers are going to be similar when they come up. Look, we are going into the rhubarb here as an economy, and people are going to have less and less patience for some of this sort of, you know, performance out there on the international stage, that
Carter: employment numbers
Shannon: that feels like it's just sucking up to somebody who's kicking the shit out of our economy.
Zain: Carter, liberals have historically been criticized for not being able to read the room, perhaps for different reasons than Carney right now. But do you feel like this particular story could become a talisman of Carney in particular not being able to read the room? You called it like Spock-like. I like what Shannon also said with like bro strategy, right? Like there is something to be said about a bunch of dudes who kind of have a similar sort of background and sort of historical trajectory kind of all coming up with these ideas is, at least as far as we understand the current PMO to be structured.
Zain: Do you think this could be a talisman of something more? And it's an extension of my question of how much pain do you feel like this government's going to feel on this?
Carter: Well, I think that
Carter: there's an amount of pain that's kind of directly related to the amount of arrogance that the prime minister's office has at any given point in time, right? And I think that if you are a confident prime minister's office, you'll feel some pain. But I think if you're an arrogant prime minister's office, is you'll feel more pain because you'll just go running headfirst into the wall and not even look to see that it's there. And I feel that this one might fall into the arrogant category. We can get away with anything because what we're trying to achieve is in the common good. It is where I fell off on my fine, right? I just think that that's arrogance that makes me go to a position where where I can't say that it's fine. I want to be able to say it, but I can't because this is just so rough. And I think that it's born in hubris. And the hubris of the Carney government at this point, I mean, in fairness, they're not going to suffer that much because there's no one really to force them to suffer. I don't think Polyev's going to force them to suffer. And the federal NDP isn't there. So the suffering is probably going to be fairly minimal. But this type of self-inflicted wound does have the ability to fester.
SPEAKER_00: right?
Zain: right?
SPEAKER_00: right? And
SPEAKER_00: think Polyev's
Shannon: It'll be the economy that makes them suffer over time, right? That'll be what kind of
Carter: over
Zain: over
Shannon: of delivers the results as opposed to the opposition. But
Zain: But to that point, Shannon, though, I think you both make interesting points around like when the pain will be felt around an action like this and if it will be. My question is, you know, the
Zain: suffering could be felt sooner. And my point is potentially that the suffering could be felt sooner if this is a well-known trope of the liberals. Arrogance, as you've just said, this is a well-known trope of this party. It's not a well-known trope of this leader in particular, but he's an appendage of this party as much as he's been defining it as a Mark Carney show. He's a liberal. These are liberals at the end of the day. So how much of an issue is it that this is something that's on well-treaded ground rather than a one-off scandal that Carney faced that started to take down his government? I guess that's the heart of my question here. Well,
SPEAKER_00: at the
Shannon: you're right that arrogance is the Achilles heel of the Liberal Party of Canada with a bit of a dollop of corruption over the last century or so. Those are usually the things that take them down.
Shannon: But the thing that, you know, took
Shannon: took down Trudeau in terms of his popularity was, you know, he doesn't, he's focused on things that are kind of like in the clouds, right? Like they say in French, dans la lune, in the moon, right? Like you've got your head in the clouds. And remember his first cabinet retreat, they had that deliverology presentation or whatever it was. Here we are a decade later, and we're still making fun of it, right? Because it was emblematic and symbolic of kind of where that government lost their minds. uh and you know that they were focused on things that were not you know down here on the ground and uh this could be a similar thing for for mr carney as it uh there there seems he just seems to be giving us on the weekly another proof point that's the problem like slow down here buddy uh it took trudeau two years uh to shed his honeymoon so um you know you got some time you don't need to give us all these proof points quite yet carter
SPEAKER_00: right? Like you've got your head in the clouds. And
Zain: carter liberal arrogance proof point As Shannon has mentioned, treaded ground, is this a bigger issue than potentially any of us are suggesting at this moment?
Carter: No, I think that the reason is timing. I think they're going to be rescued by the fact that this is back to school week and most of us are still trying to figure out why Doug Ford's pouring out a bottle of Crown Royal. So I think that he's going to be saved by the timing more than anything. thing but uh i don't i i think that they'd be wise to take a lesson from this even if they don't feel the pain
Zain: carter i told you you could you could do the number two topic do you want to i am doing number two right now do you want to go with deadly serious it is absolutely your call right now deadly
Carter: to i am doing number two right now do you
Carter: deadly serious matches my mood does a deadly
Zain: deadly serious match your mood deadly
Carter: deadly serious matches my mood yeah it's
Zain: yeah it's not all that serious i feel like i may have oversold deadly serious okay
Carter: okay