Episode 1884: Labour Pains

Zain 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 1884. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Shannon Phillips, Stephen Carter.

Carter 0:10

I feel like I never left.

Carter 0:13

in the same room I've always been in, doing the same thing I've always done.

Carter 0:17

Shannon may have felt like there was a break, but not me. I feel like it just continued all the way through.

Zain 0:24

Stephen records every night, The Diary of Stephen Carter. The Diary

Carter 0:27

Diary of Stephen Carter.

Zain 0:27

Carter. It actually explains the emotions, not the progress, the emotions he's feeling over 28 campaigns, Carter. And I've heard you've broken your back now managing 28 campaigns. I

Carter 0:38

I hurt myself. I was lifting too much stuff, pounding too many posts. It

Carter 0:42

It was a lot of work.

Zain 0:44

Have you structured this thing correctly if you are pounding posts?

Carter 0:47

No, but you've got to lead by example, right? There's leadership by example, which means every once in a while you've got to go pound some posts and plant

Carter 0:57

plant some signs and deliver some flyers. I think that's

Zain 1:00

that's wrong, Shannon. Is that wrong? I think at a certain point, you don't have to do that. Yeah,

Shannon 1:03

Yeah, no. No, you're not supposed to be doing that if you're actually running. Now can't.

Carter 1:08

Well, thank you. I mean, you guys being the experts and everything, that makes me feel bad. I

Zain 1:14

I think Shannon Philips' batting record in politics might be a little bit higher than yours.

Carter 1:18

She's run like two campaigns.

Shannon 1:23

won three with my name on the sign, but I've been involved in a lot more.

Zain 1:27

Why would you not just take the gift to pound Stephen a little bit more? Yeah, I'm just saying. She

Shannon 1:34

do want to mention... Just wondering if Stephen would win any with his name on the sign. Oh,

Shannon 1:39

Oh, yeah. Actually, my name

Carter 1:41

name recognition's a staggering number. It's a little too high. I would argue

Shannon 1:45

it's a bit too high in this election. There'd be some negative partisanship that would rear up if Carter's name was on the sign. Can you imagine? What's

Carter 1:55

What's this I hear that we're doing two episodes today, Velji? Well, we're not doing two

Zain 1:58

two episodes. In fact, you guys have set me up perfectly. I do want to do a couple of segments that will only be for our friends who subscribe to the Patreon at strategypatreon.com. That's a thing that we are doing now to, I don't know, keep the money that people give us, Carter. And also shame

Shannon 2:16

shame people. I think we're doing it to shame the schistless losers who are not subscribers on Patreon. Oh my gosh, she

Zain 2:22

she gets it so much better than Corey did. What

Carter 2:24

What are some of the shiftless losers that are our patrons? What do we do with them? No,

Zain 2:28

No, we give them what I'm going to call B-level content. Okay,

Carter 2:32

Okay, there we go.

Zain 2:34

But we have shit to talk about in the Patreon segment, I will say. Not much planning goes in the show, but we have done a bit of planning, which is I'm going to get Shannon's take on the NDP leadership, federal NDP leadership. She's got shit to share. And Carter is going to explain to me the theory of the race race for 28 races municipally in calgary and edmonton how he thinks this thing is going to go how he thinks he has a chance to win let's say more than half of them i'm

Carter 3:00

i'm going to start

Carter 3:01

on my edmonton ward name pronunciations then because yeah

Zain 3:04

yeah for sure yeah 28

Carter 3:06

28 ward names i can i can't pronounce 12 of them yeah

Zain 3:08

yeah i think you're i think you're in trouble for more than that reason uh carter thank you we'll get we'll get to the theory of the race municipally we'll get to shannon uh and her thoughts on the federal ndp leadership race now that we officially have two two candidates, Anavi Lewis and Heather McPherson. But before we get into all of that, let's move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, not all labor is created equal. Guys, I want to talk about two strikes.

Zain 3:34

We talked at length about the CUPE strike with flight attendants, but we've got this potential strike with the Alberta Teachers Association here in Alberta. And then the postal workers, in their response to the government, have now gone on strike.

Zain 3:50

And I want to start with a very top-line question. We can get into the details of both of these. For example, as we record today on Monday, teachers are voting right now. Shannon, correct me if I'm wrong. Carter, correct me if I'm wrong. I believe we should have a sense of that by today, tomorrow, in terms of what the results of the teachers' vote on their potential strike looks like, which is scheduled for later on, first week of October, i.e. next week. and we can talk about the details of the government and their plans on the COPW strike that is now active with postal workers. However, I want to start with a very top-line question. And let me start with you, Shannon.

Zain 4:24

And it's more of an observation than a question that I get you to respond on.

Zain 4:27

For neither of these groups, the teachers in Alberta or the postal workers federally, this doesn't feel like the same level of sympathy and energy that flight attendants had.

Shannon 4:37

Am I wrong? No, you're

Shannon 4:38

you're not. It isn't.

Shannon 4:41

Uh, and, uh, you know, flight attendants hit, uh, just a moment in time and a certain, uh, uh, issue set that, that, uh, allowed them tremendous public sympathy and that everybody understands the concept of sitting on the tarmac, twiddling your thumbs and the idea that the people sitting in the aircraft with you, uh,

Shannon 5:00

uh, aren't being paid for that time struck people, I think, uh, uh, as, uh, being a little off. and um and i think also people learning how little uh flight attendants actually make where they were like what because you know back in the day it used to be a fancy job uh

Shannon 5:17

uh and i think people were shocked to learn like they have learned with pilots as well that it's not that fancy anymore and

Shannon 5:24

and the wages are not that great um

Shannon 5:28

think with teachers you're gonna see it start with about you You know, it'll fall on partisan lines, let's say 50-50, with public sympathy, and it'll go down over time.

Shannon 5:38

Because that's just what it is, right? I mean, the government will take a hit, too, for sure.

Shannon 5:45

employers always take a hit in terms of, like, brand reputation and all of that.

Shannon 5:49

But it will essentially probably bounce out on the lines of partisanship here in Alberta.

Zain 5:58

Carter, this doesn't feel like the same. Is my premise correct? correct shannon seems to agree with that she's given me some reasons why i'm curious if you agree and give me some reasons in terms of why if you do i'm

Carter 6:06

i'm not sure i agree yet i

Carter 6:07

i think i agree on cop w i don't think that there's public sentiment in favor of the postal union um but i i think that the teachers association will have will do better once they actually reach the strike function they have an awful lot of messaging to do uh between now and then um you know taking a deal and and turning it down um you know it's it's going to require some actual messaging and i'm not sure the ata has nailed their messaging to this point um but as they they move through the first week or so of this imagined strike because that's all it is at this particular moment is an imagined strike that's why i take a little bit of a difference it may work out to be exactly as shannon said but right now i still think that because it's in the land of the imaginary stationary the ata still has the opportunity to kind of go 60 40 70 30 in

Carter 7:03

in support and then it will drop as as it continues on you

Zain 7:07

you guys both agree on the drop but you don't agree or where the where the current sort of peak might like shannon jumping i think

Shannon 7:11

think the reason why i'm a little less bullish than i might otherwise be is there's been disturbance in the force internally with the ata right

Shannon 7:17

right like the chair of the bargaining committee like

Shannon 7:20

you know i i quit in a fifth peak on Facebook you know like things are not well in that particular universe and it always gets dicey when you're putting an agreement before the membership but you're not recommending that agreement you know like there's all this sort of storm and drang within the teachers association that is going to undermine their ability to push that message that Carter is talking about and he's right I'm not sure if they've quite landed it yet with the coherence that it needs to be but also Also, like, stay on it and not allow those spots where the government can, like, come in, drive wedges between, you know, union and membership, all of these things that are just tried and true tactics at a straight time.

Zain 8:03

I want to break down both of these. And let's start with the provincial one because we haven't spent a lot of time on this pod recently talking about the province. So let's dig in deeper into the teachers and their conditions because both of you mentioned this, which is the concept of bringing an agreement to membership and having not recommending it and having them turn that down. What is the public opinion sort of world there? But before we get there, let me just kind of lay out some of the facts, right? Right. So teachers voted over across the weekend. They're voting as we speak right now. By the time we record, I don't know when results will come out, but you should expect to hear them relatively soon. So they're they're voting right now. This is a vote on a 12 percent pay rise over four years. Three thousand additional teachers and coverage for the covid-19 vaccine. Those three things seem to be the headline, which you can get the whole back stuff in a moment in a different segment. If they just if they if they turn this deal down, Carter, their strike begins on the sixth. This affects 50,000 plus teachers, 51,000, oddly, nearly 750,000 students. And there is no, materially, I think this is important, they do not receive strike pay and time spent during the strike would affect pensionable income as well, which I think is just worthy of mentioning as factors. But I want to get to the core of this, which is as strategists, as folks who kind of run and understand the political situation. Stephen, let me start with you.

Zain 9:14

Actually having an agreement that you turn down, does that change the PR game? Does that change the public opinion game versus trying to reach a deal and having a participant in government not not budging at all? In this case, you could argue government has budged, even though this deal is virtually identical to what was initially offered that they've turned down before. But the government's playing ball, which is slightly different than at least from a public opinion perspective, in my mind. Am I right? Yeah,

Carter 9:37

I think this is mostly an internal exercise, right? Before you go on strike, go back to your membership and just say, hey, I just wanted to clarify, this is what we're being offered and we're all against this, right? So when they get a, what one would expect would be a fairly significant rejection, then they get to walk back into the negotiating room prior to the strike date and say, listen, our membership knows what's at stake here. that's this or strike they've chosen strike so you best get yourself ready for it um that to me uh strengthens the bargaining position uh i'm still you know not a great big fan of recommending something to the or of not recommending something to be signed but i got it i understand what's going on so um it's it's about pulling together everybody and making sure that uh everybody's on on the same team and i suspect um 80 plus percentage will be on the same team what

Zain 10:35

what do you think shin is this is this different or is this just a step in the process and the public doesn't necessarily take this into account in either positive or negative white i

Shannon 10:44

i think i mean really the argument on the part of the the government at the end of the day will be the same which is we offered you uh 12 and you're not taking it because you're a bunch of greedy teachers right that is going to be the government argument regardless it doesn't matter how many steps they take to get get there or what kind of circuitous route they get to that they that

Shannon 11:02

that is where they will end up greedy teachers uh who have a nice pension that you don't have and uh they're lazy public sector workers that are asking for something that you don't have joe public uh

Shannon 11:12

uh and in the meantime there's no place for your kids to go during the day that's

Shannon 11:15

that's what they're going to do they'll put millions of dollars behind it this government that's shown they've

Zain 11:18

already started they've already started with the man campaign yep yep

Shannon 11:21

yep and so you know they're just gonna push those messages and that's where the ata needs like and i've said this before like some of their messages in the past have been pretty milquetoast, right? About like, send a message on classroom conditions. And it's a little bit soft. And so they need to toughen up. And, you know, as I've said before, somebody in this country needs to get their elbows up. So maybe it can be their turn now.

Zain 11:45

Just for those listening and wondering, Shannon is available for voiceover work. And she does do that voice on demand for any labor union seeking to use it. The whimsical, ineffective voice, as she calls it.

Zain 11:58

Carter, here's the thing. The government, Shannon's brought this up, the government is pushing their side of the story actively. They've got an ad campaign right now. I've seen it, I believe, on television, a 30-second spot that they're running. Horner's mentioned that they're putting money behind it. Their campaign focuses on classroom investment, teacher pay raise, and the commitment to labor stability. They haven't gone down the... I mean, there's obviously a subtext to what Shannon is saying around lazy teachers, public sector workers. They haven't explicitly gone there, but they're starting to shape public opinion. So what is the scope of the challenge for the ATA here? And how would you kind of anticipate the government's next move as a strategist? And like, what would you start thinking about in terms of message on your end?

Zain 12:36

And Shannon, I'll come to you with that same question in a second. Well,

Carter 12:38

Well, I think that when you're dealing with the government, you do have to win the public relations war. You know, it's not a private corporation that you can just keep your workers solidarity together and hope for the best. This is a PR war as much as it's anything else. And the ATA needs to come equipped, recognizing that most of the families that you are impacting are going to be pretty steamed. There are not many families that can accommodate a teacher strike with ease. Especially families of lesser means are really going to be struggling with this teacher strike. And there's going to be some bitterness towards teachers. So you must make sure that there is a very solid communication strategy. And I'm waiting to see it from the ATA. I haven't yet seen the ATA's communications work. Before

Zain 13:30

I get to you, Shannon, when does it need to go out, Carter? The government's out there. The vote is concluding today. Does this 5 p.m. today, tomorrow's a major ad campaign? I know we don't work in that very binary world, but for lack of a better term, do you turn the switch on tomorrow aggressively? How do you get into the game here? I think timing is just as important as message, which is why I ask. I'd

Carter 13:55

I'd have done it two weeks ago, but it's time to go. So tomorrow, do your major news hits and then start putting out your primary messaging. I would imagine that teachers protecting children has always been a big part of it. There's lots of different ways that the Alberta government is not protecting children. There's lots of hay to be made with the reason we're standing up is for you and your family.

Zain 14:23

Shannon, how do you combat what you've put on the table? Lazy public sector workers, 12% raises, double digits. How do you combat some of that if you're the ATA and if you're teachers in this moment?

Shannon 14:36

Vertical video, TikTok of teachers straight to camera and parents straight to camera.

Shannon 14:42

Actually telling the story of what teachers are working with, but doing it in a way that that looks organic but isn't, is pushed out much more thoughtfully than that. Plus, a big ad buy in all the traditional places and spaces where the government buys. In the display ads and banners when you're trying to read a Calgary Herald or Globe and Mail story. In the YouTube ads, the whole gamut, right?

Shannon 15:09

It needs to be absolutely everywhere. Of course, the ATA can't start advertising like the government has until they have the results of the vote, right? They're hamstrung in that way. But I sure should hope that they have got their materials ready to go because they have so many different channels and different types of excellent communicators that the government doesn't have. Because the government just has, you know, people like Nate Dorner or Daniel Smith who are at best 50-50 people to

Shannon 15:45

to carry the message. Teachers have teachers and

Shannon 15:49

and parents and validators and stories.

Shannon 15:53

And they've got enthusiasm and real life on their side. So I sure hope they're using it. This

Carter 16:03

goes back, I want to jump in on this. This goes back to some of the research that we've done on voice, you know, what the more effective voices are. And Shannon's completely right. The peer-to-peer voices are way more efficient and effective than any government voice or corporation voice. Even formalized voices like teachers don't perform as well as parents do. So if the ATA is able to put together some super strong communications featuring parents, I think that they'll be in a really strong position, more like my 70-30 than Shannon's 50-50.

Zain 16:37

Dive in a bit deeper with me on here. Kids? Students? Do you use

Zain 16:42

use elementary students? You can't

Shannon 16:46

I mean, there's no reason why you couldn't have

Shannon 16:50

some that are 17, 18, or I've just graduated in

Shannon 16:56

in June, and here's what my grade 12s looked like. That's

Shannon 17:00

That's an avenue that's open to them. I got a kid who's an actor, remember? Bring it in to you. Yeah.

Zain 17:05

Yeah. We're getting into the weeds here, but I think purposely, which is one of the notions that is often used on the teaching side, on the education side, Carter, is child talent, voiceover talent, acting talent. Would you advise that in this moment? Or do you just skip any of the produced spots, any of the produced content, and you say, let's go straight to, even if you're scripting parents, go straight to people who are actually affected by this? i

Carter 17:33

don't think that scripted kids would be like talent kids would be heard i think that um real ones might

Carter 17:41

be real real real parents will be heard more than than scripted children um personally but i mean it'll be interesting to see what tactics they pull out and if there's something that that really works i mean sometimes kids voices work sometimes it really would depend on the the copy choices, and the utilization, right? A child's voiceover that changes from being a child to being an adult and what it means to be educated in this world might be really interesting.

Zain 18:10

Do you play on nostalgia? I know I'm asking you questions without polling and any of these things, but I'm kind of curious where instincts are. Do you play on the fact that many folks in this province have been products of quality teachers, have been products of a system that these teachers teach in, or do you feel like it's acutely about this moment in time? Do you try to bring people in with what their experiences may have been decades ago?

Carter 18:32

I think that people don't think that their education experience is as good right now as it was when they were kids.

Carter 18:38

So I'm not sure that I'm going to go back and do it that way, but I don't know. That would be an interesting data question. One that I'd really

Carter 18:50

be careful with the results too, right? right? Like, we misremember our childhood substantially.

Zain 18:57

think that's one of the reasons nostalgia is so popular, though, is because we misremember so much, we gloss over and we sand over so much that it provides an opportunity. Shannon, over to you. Sorry.

Shannon 19:07

I don't know. I think you're kind of like, I think we're maybe thinking about this too much in the television ad world and how people are consuming things now, which is that, you know, straight to camera kind of stuff. And when you see successful communications campaigns, is they've tried they try

Shannon 19:22

try literally everything they throw everything at the wall and then you know something sticks right so uh that is the new communications normal it's not one message and it's not one platform and it's not one messenger uh it's a whole bunch of different kinds and i i hope that

Shannon 19:39

that that's what we see from

Shannon 19:41

from the ata because uh the government has probably got i mean five $5 million to

Shannon 19:47

to throw at this?

Zain 19:49

Endless amounts, technically, you know, whatever they really want. Yeah, sure, but, like,

Shannon 19:52

like, comparatively, you know, on what they've spent on other campaigns, which is, you know, in the 8, 9, I mean, there's absolutely no break on nobody cares anymore what governments spend on advertising. So that

Shannon 20:05

that is a really big challenge and one that I hope the ETA takes seriously. Yeah,

Zain 20:09

Yeah, Carter, Shannon makes a good point, right? Like, we may have been framing this as a TV ad, but the spend will go everywhere. way. It'll go on social, it'll go on radio, it'll go on out of home.

Zain 20:17

It may even go on, I

Zain 20:18

I was going to say postcards, probably won't, because we'll talk about that in a moment here.

Zain 20:22

Maybe we can talk about your struggles with postcards and literature. But

Zain 20:26

But the government will use every paid media resource possible. They've got literally a division that does this sort of work on behalf of the government, right? Communications division that was once led by

Zain 20:35

a good friend of the podcast,

Zain 20:36

Hogan. So the government's got this resource available. available, what

Zain 20:40

what is a risk that the ATA runs here then? Both in terms of either the spend, the message, the timing, the framework, like what's the biggest risk that they end up, you know, in, let's just say over the span of the next week?

Carter 20:54

Well, I think the biggest risk is that everybody, you

Carter 20:58

you know, is tired of strike actions, right? We're tired, you know, we're tired by the Canada post or Canada, Air Canada strike, strike. We're tired by Canada Post. We're tired by the teachers.

Carter 21:09

teachers. Everybody's going on strike, and what am I getting?

Carter 21:12

Nothing. Nothing, right? Everybody wants more, but I'm not getting anything. So I think that there's always a risk that when there's significant labor movements that move together, not necessarily together in coordination, but together just in time, uh that there's there can be some pushback and i think that the uh alberta is not noted for its uh you know support of organized labor i would argue erroneously but nonetheless it it it still could backfire very carefully like people could be very angry with the ata and that anger could uh manifest itself in some different ways in a way that i don't think that they're going to be angry with cup w right

Carter 21:58

right um which is interesting because i think that it has more to do with how much are you fucking my life over and there's going to be what 50 of the population whose life is going to be impacted directly by this it's going to be a significant uh challenge for well for you zane uh just for you not just for me the

Zain 22:21

the voter that needs that needs important municipal election Yes, that's right, Carter. Let's talk about the cup double in a second.

Zain 22:29

But Carter brings up an interesting point, Shannon, that I'd like you to opine on first, which is labor solidarity here, I think will be really interesting to watch, at least for me, which is, do you suspect that on the teacher's front, we will see broader solidarity amongst other public sector unions? And what could that and should that look like? because there is a timing thing here, which is like if you go in and even though we're different unions, if you go at it like this will affect us, like, you know, this push, we want to help you be successful so that eventually when we come to the strike, you know, position that we could be successful. How do you kind of see labor solidarity playing out here in the province with the teachers should and all of our conversation today is presuming that by five o'clock today, this teacher's vote to go on strike, right? But like, how do you think labor solidarity plays out?

Shannon 23:17

i don't know if it matters too much beyond what is the usual thing which is you know the other unions show up to the big rallies and they wave their flags and they are you know quote unquote in solidarity what does that mean well sometimes it can mean helping out shoring up strike funds or other legal defense funds this kind of stuff because sometimes things can get spicy either in the courtroom or on the picket line uh and you need lawyers and that's what the house of labor is for and that's what labor solidarity is for now eta are not uh formally affiliated to the federation of labor or

Shannon 23:49

or to the zlc but i don't think you're going to see uh

Shannon 23:52

uh the broader host of labor absent themselves from the picket line i think they will be there uh in solidarity and uh similarly if a up had the government of alberta workers had rejected that deal that they In fact, you know, accepted the 51 percent.

Shannon 24:09

If they were on strike, you would have seen a similar thing coming from the ATA or the broader labor movement. What does it mean in practice? Not a whole hell of a lot unless things get really bad.

Shannon 24:20

And then you will see some of the financial pieces come together and or donations to strike fund, that kind of thing. Okay. Carter,

Zain 24:32

final sort of strain of thinking here, which is help me develop the government's escalation plan here from a comms perspective, right? From a labor negotiation perspective, we can leave that aside for a moment. But from a comms perspective, I mentioned earlier, they've gone with this investment in classrooms, teacher pay raise, commitment to labor stability, a strong classroom investment as like their broader sort of theme. they've got 50,000 teachers in some ways you know you could look at the teachers that shannon mentioned in two ways that's 50,000 incredible spokespeople for the teacher's cause but you only need to peel off a few of them after they don't get you know there's no strike pay here there's no there's no sort of like this can impact pensionable income does the government try to poach teachers on the other side of this argument does the government not do that how does the government escalate this meaningfully in their public opinion war that we anticipate that they probably will in some way?

Carter 25:27

I would imagine more poaching parents than poaching teachers. I think that the parent is going to be a very, very powerful vehicle. And there's going to be a lot of parents who are outraged. And it won't be the government saying, okay, let's put you in our ads. What it's going to be is the government connecting them to media, right? You know, the government will just

Zain 25:48

just be loud on social or do something oh yeah just

Carter 25:50

just you know just they'll find a loud voice and push them off to media and media will cover them and that's probably the way that the government will wind up doing it i i don't think that teachers will necessarily be valued spokespeople for the government um you know i i don't see a teacher standing up and saying i'm getting i know i'd be happy with 12 not because not because there wouldn't be a lot of teachers who will be happy with 12%, but because I just think that it's just not the spokesperson that's going to drive the government message the best. So

Zain 26:19

So you anticipate this being a parent tug-of-war, in a sense, this next couple of weeks. Channing, do you agree with that? And then give me your thoughts on what the government escalation should or could look like here.

Shannon 26:29

Yes, I agree. And the reason for it is that the government already has parent spokespeople in the form of these people who have been super doing agita on the trans issues of, You

Shannon 26:40

know, people playing sports and the book bands and all this other, you know, they have these groups that are already activated and more activatable. Right. So you're going to get a bunch of different sort of maybe not entirely above board actors that are going to all of a sudden be, you know, anti-union spokespeople. you also have school

Shannon 27:05

school board election at

Zain 27:09

advantage who on that parents

Zain 27:11

i don't i think it depends

Shannon 27:12

depends i think it depends on the local politics frankly and whether you have a bunch of incumbents whether you actually do have some uh energy coming from that far right uh

Shannon 27:23

uh a anti-trans super uh uh you know amped up you know gender and sex ideology people who would come and scream at me in electoral forums in 2023 um

Shannon 27:34

it those people like in some areas are like storming the ballot box and are going to have a presence on uh school boards in other places they're not a factor so

Shannon 27:46

so but that whole issue of being in the the latter two weeks essentially of school board uh campaigns is also going to have an effect even though this is centralized less bargaining carter

Zain 27:57

carter shannon brings up a very fascinating point which is a municipal angle here oh

Zain 28:01

oh yeah um what's

Zain 28:02

what's the pathway for someone running for municipal office to take advantage not yeah actually let me just use that term because we are talking you know political strategy or to take advantage of this situation for their own candidacy how

Zain 28:14

how do they do that and how do they risk um doing that poorly in your mind well

Carter 28:19

well i mean i would declare myself for one of the sides right you

Carter 28:23

Yeah, which side do you think is going to be the most powerful side? I'm with teachers, right? I'm with the government, you know, 12%. It would be enough for me. Would

Zain 28:32

Would you get loud on this as a municipal sort of, it doesn't even have to be school board trustee, maybe this is hitting too close to home for you, but like, would you get loud as a mayoral candidate

Carter 28:40

candidate on this? I wouldn't play in the mayoral race, but it would totally play for the council race. You know, I would stand up at every forum for school counselor and say, I'm, you know, I'm running for the teachers. I'm with the teachers or I'm with the government. 12% would be enough for me. It should be enough for teachers. Walk

Zain 28:57

through your thinking on why this does not play at the mayoral. Obviously the issue set, but is this not a proxy for taking on the Smith government in some way? Why do you not think this plays on a municipal mayoral level for either of our two major cities, for example?

Carter 29:10

I think that it just confuses things too much with the fact that there's a provincial election for school trustees, right? Like the school trustees are being elected at the same time that you're being elected. Are you running for school trustee or are you running to be the mayor of Calgary or the mayor of Edmonton? And I would probably say that, you know, you can take a punch at Danielle Smith on this, but it's going to look totally different than, you know, I'm for the teachers or I'm for the union. I would imagine it would be I'm for order, right? I'm for this being solved. Danielle Smith can't solve problems. She's a problem creator.

Carter 29:49

you know, this is why we're facing a strike situation. So it's a very different, you

Carter 29:53

you know, you could do it that way, Zane, but you wouldn't want to go in it as I'm for the teachers or I'm for the government.

Zain 30:00

Shannon, any final thoughts on what the teachers face? Let's use it between the period of now till when the strike date has been announced, October 6th. Any recommendations, thoughts, final thoughts on this? We'll probably revisit it between now and then, possibly, but I'll let you get a swing at that. And Carter, you too, before we move to COPW.

Shannon 30:18

I would say that given that there are school board trustees on the ballot across the province, and one of the main things that they talk about when they bring together an election platform is, sure, am I going to advocate for this area, this geographic space, this number of students, what have you, I would be putting it to them. And who votes in school board elections? Well, probably old people, generally speaking.

Shannon 30:45

Parents, to a certain extent, but not necessarily. And teachers and school staff, they

Shannon 30:52

they vote for school board trustees. So I would be using this to talk to people via that and definitely

Shannon 31:01

definitely make sure that you've got strong candidates, incumbents saying all the right things and making all the right noises on this. Carter,

Zain 31:10

Carter, let's move it on to the Federal Fight Cup. W. They went on strike four days ago following the government's announcement of major reforms. So the government wants the end of home delivery, closure of rural mail outlets. They want to bring back the Harper era community mailboxes, which were paused. And then, you know, actively the liberal government actively campaigned on that will end the Harper era community mailboxes. Well, the Carney government is saying, bring that shit back to make these major reforms. You guys are effectively insolvent here. This is after two years of negotiations. The union has rejected the 13% wage increase, demanding 19% instead. So we find ourselves here. Carter, give me the top line. Advantage government, advantage Cup W.

Zain 31:54

Who would you give it to? I

Carter 31:55

I think the advantage is government because I just

Carter 31:57

don't think that people check their mailboxes every day. I don't think that people are thinking, oh, today's the day I'm going to get my check. Um, you know, there was a time when, you know, I would run to the mailbox because I wanted to get a check from one of my clients. Now I just check, go online and I check and my bank account went up.

Carter 32:15

Things are good. My bank account went down. Things are bad. That's, it is, it's all online. There's no need to, um, to run to the mailbox to try and find a check in your mailbox anymore. Um, The only thing that comes in your mail is unaddressed ad mail, which are flyers and brochures and, you know, things that you don't care about. Many of our listeners have probably put no flyers, please, on their mailbox, which actually reduces Canada Post's ability to make a profit. You don't need it. and on top of that so so canada post has redeveloped itself into a flyer delivery service and a parcel delivery service and the parcel delivery service can be extremely profitable take a look at i don't know if you're familiar zane there's this company called amazon they deliver

Carter 33:06

from a to z um it's very very big in the u.s very big um and but there's all kinds of other companies as well that are shipping their stuff directly to you you don't have to go to them anymore and so if you have those things coming directly to you a community mailbox with actual parcel boxes so your your shit doesn't get stolen off of your deck is a super important thing so i i'm i'm i think that most people are going to be on the side of um of uh canada of canada post and the government and i think that the fact that the government stepped in at this moment knowing it was going to cause a strike like there was no way on god's oh yes yes they triggered it and they triggered it now instead of triggering it at christmas i think this is one of carney's best plays and i think it was a do

Carter 33:57

do it now we'll wait we'll wear down the union and they'll be back delivering mail by let's say the beginning of november shannon

Zain 34:06

shannon i'll let you react and then and obviously offer your own, but let me summarize Carter's take here. And Carter, tell me if I'm wrong. Advantage government, brilliant move Carney, and Carter lays out the strategy of why this is a winning move for them in the sense of timing as well.

Zain 34:21

Shannon, any disagreement with what Carter's put on the table? And kind of who do you give the advantage to here?

Shannon 34:26

I think it's advantage government, so I'll agree with him there. I'll disagree on how he got there a little bit, but I'll just add some context here in terms of small business business uh outside of major centers and what we actually use canada post for so

Shannon 34:38

so um small businesses get really pissed off when canada post goes on strike because it is so much cheaper to send their shit uh than uh any of the other big uh peer

Zain 34:50

peer later ups whatever ups

Shannon 34:52

ups uh dhl what have you okay so that's the first thing like it is so much cheaper i just had to send an envelope to to Saskatchewan today, and I took it into UPS because it needs to go. And I don't know, it's like people are going to yell at me for crossing picket lines. I don't fucking care. Anyway,

Zain 35:08

Anyway, it cost me $28.

Shannon 35:12

Instead, that was $2 because it was an envelope.

Shannon 35:16

I have to send another one. I have to send my kid's firearms thing to New Brunswick. It's going to cost me another $30, and it's going to get there by mid-October, so I'm sending it. That is the difference, right? The delta is huge. So that's the first thing. When you have to send things, And a lot of small businesses do. And a lot of small businesses use Canada Post for their shipping because then they can use free shipping. Otherwise, they don't, right? Because it's too expensive to send it with a private courier. The second thing is it's not just the rural and remote. It's also the smaller cities where you're not going to get that last mile or like smaller towns. Right. So it's like they are, you know, out there, but they're there. It's basically outside of the big cities. Oftentimes you need Canada Post for that last mile. And

Shannon 35:59

And that's to say nothing of the actual rural and remote, like up north, right, where they use Canada Post for all kinds of reasons and their community post office for all kinds of reasons. So that's the second thing. And the whole thing is just fucking sad. Can we just admit that this whole story is just so sad? Because ultimately, we don't have a government that gave the Crown a mandate to restructure itself for the current reality, where there's all kinds of business cases for this

Shannon 36:31

this particular publicly owned mail and delivery service. Having someone deliver the mail to my mailbox every day, I'm part of those 4 million Canadians who still has door-to-door mail service. Not particularly certain I need it, quite frankly. But

Shannon 36:47

But there are ways to make sure that this crown service for a massive fucking country with

Shannon 36:54

a lot of rural and remote need and a lot of small business need actually has a service that, you know, is updated for the modern times. And on both sides, and I hate to both sides this, but I mean, come on. Right. It's just been one thing after another. And frankly, I think the voters need to say to the government, like restructure this thing. Don't walk away from it. And but keep this thing as as a crown and a public service. That is the ultimate outcome that that should happen. I don't know so well.

Zain 37:28

I want I want to pick up on that in a second. Carter, do you still get mail to your door?

Zain 37:32

Still get mail to my door, yes. I think all three of us do, because you and I are very close to each other. And Shannon, you just mentioned you did. And I almost feel the same way as Shannon, which is like, what

Zain 37:40

what a luxury, right? Like in some ways, which is, it's kind of crazy, especially when I go visit my mom and she has to, you

Zain 37:47

you know, go across the street every day and it's just across the street. It's fine, right, for the most part. But it is interesting in terms of this, like, snapping back to a new reality, which kind kind of brings me to this carter which is is

Zain 37:57

is there any way for the union to meet the moment

Zain 38:03

from a messaging perspective because as as our friend cory hogan would say all problems manifest as communications problems ultimately but there are more structural problems certainly here right like like i'm you know understating it but is there any way for them to temporarily meet the moment so that they still survive because i don't think people realize that canada post leaving and saying bye-bye is a potential like pathway

Zain 38:28

pathway there is that door that exists here which is canada post says goodbye uh in in some meaningful or fundamental

Zain 38:36

terminus way carter so

Zain 38:38

what can what can the union do here is a simpler way of me asking my question with the the background i've just kind of given i

Carter 38:44

i mean i think the the the way that the the union can make things work is to is to focus on one thing that they're going to get uh if it's going to be wages then they should focus on wages and try and push their wages if it's going to be job security they should focus on job security they're not going to get job security wages and the way things used to be they're going to get a new reality so my view would be those people who are working in canada post um who have you know who are

Carter 39:13

are going to be working in canada post anyways uh the warehouse workers the the The people, you know, the front line mailbox

Carter 39:21

mailbox delivery crew, the poor guy who goes to my door every day, he's going to be delivering to postal boxes or community mailboxes three times a week, not five

Carter 39:38

five times a week. And

Carter 39:40

And this has changed before. I mean, it used to have six day a week delivery. Now it's changed. You know, it's gone to five. People survive. survive people will survive with three days a week they'll survive frankly if it went to one day a week but

Carter 39:52

but they won't survive without is parcel delivery and if i was canada post and cup w i'd be working really hard to make sure that um canada post doesn't become pure later

Carter 40:03

right or what is it pure later what's the yeah that's owned by canada post it's

Carter 40:09

so um you know that's where canada post could be in in two years just pure later you You know, just outside of the normal experience, because, you

Carter 40:21

if you have to mail a letter, maybe you will spend $15 to do it, right?

Carter 40:27

If it has to be done, it has to be done.

Carter 40:30

This subsidized $1 a letter thing isn't something that necessarily is going to be sustained.

Zain 40:37

Shannon, is there a winning argument here for the union? Like, is there a winning argument beyond wages, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And Carter, I appreciate your response here, right? Right. Like the focus on one thing. Yeah, I think that's smart. I think it's strategic.

Zain 40:49

My mind maybe is too ambitious here and maybe it's too late, but I'm going to float this with both of you. But is there a like pro Canada argument here? Is there an anti Amazon argument here? Is there any of the let's not Americanize, let's not privatize, let's like the pride in this institution argument? I don't know how much juice is in that orange to squeeze, but and if it's too late. But I'd like you to just think about that, Shannon, and just give me your sense on that. and in terms of a strategic play here?

Shannon 41:15

think it's a national security issue if you don't have an ability to, you know, send things into the North in this country without using an American company to do it. I think it's an economic development issue if you can't run a business out of Iqaluit because you have no way to ship your stuff south or anywhere else. It would seem to me that there are plenty of arguments that the UN can make. essentially what they should be doing is saying look the steps that the government is taking mean that you are going to lose x y and z and usually that's going to be some combination of any service whatsoever uh on the regular uh in rural and remote you are going to lose uh you know affordable uh uh you know ways to send christmas cards and and those kinds of things because i tell you what i'm not doing it if it costs 28 bucks a pop um and

Shannon 42:09

and uh but But it shouldn't be door-to-door mail delivery. I've seen, you know, people busting out with these arguments. Oh, promise

Shannon 42:16

promise to restore door-to-door in 2015. The Liberals did. They broke a promise. And it's like, I don't care, right? And I don't think Canadians care that much. There are some Canadians who do, in which case they can sign up for home-based delivery.

Shannon 42:32

It would seem to me that your broader arguments are, are you actually going to put holding this country together in the hands of a bunch of American couriers? Two, are you going to charge me at 10 times what it costs right now with Canada Post? And three, are you going to cut off economic development, a vast loss of this country?

Zain 42:51

Carter, do you think the government's going to reject their very conservative approach here?

Carter 42:57

I don't think. Who's very conservative approach? The government's conservative approach? Yes. Sorry, let

Zain 43:02

let me argue. Do you think this liberal government is going to regret their very conservative approach on Canada Post? I

Carter 43:09

don't think so. I think that the fact that Trudeau

Carter 43:12

Trudeau didn't do it in 2015, 16, 17, 18, right down to 2025, that's the actual regret. Because if you actually started addressing this 10 years ago, maybe we'd have a Canada Post that's not profitable. I've seen people saying Canada Post shouldn't be seeking a profit. It's not seeking a profit. It's just seeking not to lose handfuls of money every single day. Right? It is losing a fortune every year, and it is not sustainable. So even the changes that are coming down the pipe are minuscule compared to the size of the overall deficit that has been created by Canada Post's operations. So I think the regret is the 10 years that Trudeau did nothing.

Zain 43:57

I'm taken by Shannon's national security frame. I'm taken by her ECDA frame. These have not been adopted by the union. Union. These have not been kind of necessarily broadcast as the reason Canada Post should exist and potentially, to their sort of advantage, exist the way it is, which is partially what they're trying to argue for in terms of how they want to get paid and what the future of the organization looks like. Carter, do you feel like it's too late for some of these arguments? Do you feel like there's room for some of these arguments here? Where do they fit in your mind? I'm taken by them, but

Zain 44:28

but I come with a very different politic than I suspect Joe Public in in in many ways well

Carter 44:33

i think that this is why the movement by the carney government was so strong right like the speed with which it happened and then all of a sudden there's a strike overnight no one was ready for this the union wasn't ready for it you know the union had just rolled out there we're not doing neighborhood ad mail anymore correct that's

Zain 44:49

that's where we were at and you and i were discussing and it

Carter 44:51

it was impacting uh my campaigns dramatically um that

Carter 44:57

that that happened 15 minutes ago and then all of a sudden boom in comes the carney government and they're like oh and by the way all these things that we said we weren't going to do in 2015 now we're doing boom

Carter 45:08

boom and the union said i mean the union had to go on strike i don't think there was any choice but to go on strike when those when that package came down um but still it is a uh it's

Carter 45:21

it's going to be a a hard it's going to be a hard messaging hole to get out of if you're cup w because these don't sound like unreasonable requests by the carny government shannon

Zain 45:31

shannon last question on this um

Zain 45:34

friend of labor pierre

Zain 45:36

pierre poly f a

Zain 45:38

a new friend of labor i don't know if you know this he loves labor he's been so he's so on side uh and it sounds kind of sarcastic but like in some cases private sector he's rhetorically been on side is there a political wedge here for pierre poly ever does Does he escape this very easy? Is this like light handcuffs that he can just rhetorically get out of the fact that he's not voicing and chiming in on the side of labor here?

Shannon 46:01

I don't think it matters. And that's, again, to the point about the sad state of affairs. There's actually a lot at stake here.

Shannon 46:09

This is a pretty serious public policy issue. It's a pretty serious economic development issue.

Shannon 46:13

But he can get away with saying very little at all.

Zain 46:19

he get away with saying very little? who has the ability to hold them into account do you have anyone oh

Carter 46:23

oh no I think the Cup W is on an island

Carter 46:26

think they really are on an island they're going to be

Carter 46:29

and the water is rising

Zain 46:32

this is where we leave it for the normies until we come back for the over under and the lightning round which I think is going to be quite fun because I've got special materials prepared for that don't come

Carter 46:39

come back for that no

Zain 46:40

no I will put that on the Patreon too you know what yeah yeah yeah fuck the normies

Zain 46:44

normies yeah no fuck the normies actually let's this whole episode let's do a Patreon I generate losers

Shannon 46:48

losers as I believe how we are going to characterize.

Zain 46:51

characterize. Oh, my God. They can reverse their fortunes, though. It's strategistpatreon.com where we'll record an episode when we feel like it.

Zain 46:58

it. You know, we'll feel like recording at some point and then we'll do it and it will be gold B- content as the following will be. Let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, Stephen Carter gives us a theory of the race. Stephen. Oh, dear. Here it is. Okay.

Zain 47:11

Okay. Here it is. Okay. I'll give you one chance to back away from the fact that you are running 28 campaigns

Carter 47:20

I'm running 28 campaigns.

Zain 47:21

Carter, okay. He validates that he's running 28 campaigns. Stephen Carter, you've got a better Edmonton, a.k.a. the Edmonton Accelerants. You've got the Calgary Party. Do you want to break it down by city or theory of the race, or do you have a provincial theory of the race here that applies to both?

Zain 47:38

I'm just letting you go here, because I'm just curious how you're thinking about this. Frankly, in an election where a lot of people in our two major cities, and Shannon, let's appreciate it, but people are not paying attention to municipalities. politics is that fair to say like so is that part of your theory give me your state of race give me your theory of the race give me both carter you

Carter 47:56

you know i think i think it was you know so in 2021 we had the federal election that took up half of half or three quarters of september and then

Carter 48:05

that ended everybody just said oh municipal and they switched over to municipal and we did the municipal race and you know of course we were dead during the federal race there was nothing happening there was no nobody moved nobody got hurt well nobody's moving and nobody's getting hurt right now in calgary edmonton i'm not sure what's happening in the smaller centers but calgary and edmonton um this

Carter 48:27

this is a race that no one wants to win and and when i say no one wants to win the people like the people who are making sure that no one wins it are the general population no one has changed their vote no one has thought about it no one has gone from undecided decided they are just limping

Carter 48:43

towards the finish line both

Carter 48:46

both cities especially calgary though um

Carter 48:50

edmonton we are starting to see movement towards a uh a couple of candidates that are breaking out andrew knack and tim cartmel my candidate are

Carter 49:00

starting to break away from uh uh, Jaffer and, and, uh, Michael Walters, um, that's starting to happen. Um, Walters and Jaffer, of course, will, uh, dispute that, but we'll see at the end. All right. You know, everybody, everybody always has their comments about, about polling and the rest of it. And I don't want to get into it, but, um, I do think that we have a very strong path at Edmonton, uh, for, for better edmonton i think that it's well on its way i think that in general parties have been uh a challenge they

Zain 49:37

challenge than you thought they would be parties

Carter 49:39

parties dominate everywhere that there is a party at

Carter 49:42

at every level in every place and but people seem to be battling back and saying no no we're going to vote independent what's interesting though is that that we're going to vote independent seems to be about one one quarter of the audience and they're splitting themselves between three four and five different candidates um so i think that in i think it will be very interesting to see how it ultimately works when when and if the general population wakes up um but we lost mail-in ballots so no one can do a mail-in ballot locally we've uh we

Carter 50:18

we don't have much attention so and the The traditional media and the social media aren't working at all. I would honestly recommend to anybody that they do a quick audit of all the candidates' social media. I did it a couple of nights ago. And I just don't think that anybody's got anything vaguely resembling a social media strategy that's breaking through. People can be paying for advertising, but nothing

Zain 50:44

nothing is... You can argue the same for opposition parties in this province and other places. The dynamic is... Two follow-up questions. Shannon, you want to get into the materiality, but I'm going to ask Carter two follow-up questions very quickly.

Zain 50:56

Carter, are you willing to say parties are more than a challenge? Do you feel like they're a liability at

Zain 51:02

at this point? I'm

Carter 51:03

I'm not willing to say that until after the election. I

Carter 51:05

do think that there could be a Venn diagram that we've drawn that has support of housing and support of parties as two very separate circles, which is impacting us in Calgary. because obviously we're the party that supports housing. We're the only one. And we're really struggling with the quote-unquote progressive audience. They're the ones that are the hardest to reach, but they're the ones who we've developed the policies for. So we'll see whether or not that breaks through and changes as we get closer to election day. Second

Zain 51:44

Second quick follow-up. Has the traditional and social media change, in one case erosion, in another way change, surprised

Zain 51:53

surprised you? Has it actually taken you by surprise a bit in terms of how different it is? Like we know it's been evolving and changing. Has it as a practitioner been like, oh, fuck, this is an environment where I actually, I'm now putting words in your mouth, but like don't really know what to do in certain cases? Well,

Carter 52:09

Well, no, I think I know what to do. do um i've written this stuff down in a chapter of a book that's yet to be published but um because it's only halfway written uh and still halfway written um which is interesting but a huge challenge regardless i mean i've written i've literally written this stuff i i know that social media is broken i know that

Carter 52:32

traditional media is broken i know that the way to get information to flow is by activating social networks i am not sure how to activate a social network when they give a fuck factor is is less than zero no one gives a singular fuck they're trying to get their kids to hockey they're worried about a teacher strike um you know they're you know coaching ringette i

Zain 52:53

i don't know but hasn't that always been the case and

Carter 52:57

and it has always been the case but i mean and and i look back at the data i look back at my notes from the gondek campaign we're in the the same fucking spot but the it just

Carter 53:08

just feels different like sludge

Zain 53:10

sludge like you're moving through sludge in a different way yeah

Carter 53:12

yeah like we knew we were nothing with nothing was going to move nothing was going to happen we knew that prior

Carter 53:19

prior to the um uh

Carter 53:23

uh you know prior to the federal election and during the federal election in 2021 now there is no there is oh there is no end point right right when

Carter 53:34

i look at the social media impacts

Carter 53:37

impacts and i think i've shown you guys these graphs but when i look at the graphs of of how people are looking at our internet content on so on joe t gondek's campaign yeah

Carter 53:47

it's a flat line until it's this yeah

Carter 53:50

right like it is 48

Carter 53:51

48 hours before the election suddenly

Carter 53:55

hundred thousand people look and validate their choice

Carter 53:59

they're not doing it during prior to that election so i don't even have a reference point of like well we've got more web hits than we had in jyoti gandek's campaign i got the same number of web hits in as i had in jyoti gandek's campaign which is to say sweet fuck all right

Carter 54:16

right so how is it going to change when it comes to the end in three weeks that is the fascinating question and i've and i'm dealing with it in two different ways because i've got edmonton cartmel

Carter 54:30

cartmel is is is ahead he's doing well um it's still painful our discord does not much care for uh tim cartmel uh and so reading the discord has become so much more uh painful um and

Carter 54:45

and uh but and then in in calgary i've got a candidate that the discord likes but we're not you know we're still not we're

Carter 54:54

we're not getting that jump you're

Zain 54:56

you're not giving the viability jump sort of and we need

Carter 54:58

we need that uh you

Carter 55:00

you know one percent to nine percent that that uh that move nenshi yeah

Zain 55:04

yeah you need that okay shannon i'll let you get in uh i've got a state of the race i want to go i want to go theory of the race but but shannon please yeah

Shannon 55:11

yeah my big question is because i see the difference between now and 2021 as uh partner you know talks about the federal election kind of ginned people into politics people were like Like, politics, that's a thing that's happening,

Shannon 55:23

right? But we were all kind of glued to our screens back then because we were not sure if we could go to a restaurant or not, right? We were still in COVID-y times in

Carter 55:33

in the fall of 21,

Shannon 55:35

right? And so we were sorting ourselves into our little polarized camps. But you'll recall that that was also the time when everyone hates Jason Kenney, right? And in the fall of 2021 was the, like, everybody hates Jason season season I because it was right after uh the best summer ever when a thousand people died uh and so

Shannon 55:57

and I remember being on the doors then because around September October I was like well you know what I can I can go out and I can do some canvassing and I hadn't been able to because of you know one off and are we allowed to are we not allowed to and

Shannon 56:09

and so I went out during the municipal anyway just to kind of like you know knock on on like kick tires knock on doors kind kind of thing. And it was amazing to me how that was motivating to people. Their municipal vote was motivated by, and you guys have canvassed this well, on that provincial motivator.

Shannon 56:29

That's forward to 25. People are not as motivated, like they're certainly polarized on Smith, but they're not as motivated by provincial issues, just all told. Except there is a group who is, which is the right. So

Shannon 56:41

So my question for Carter is, are we seeing on the give a fuck factor,

Shannon 56:47

and an ability for parties to reach people that the progressives don't have.

Carter 56:54

Yeah, I mean, I think that we are able to, in

Carter 56:57

in the case of Cartmel, we're doing better with that party structure. Candidates less so, but the candidates are less bought into the party, which is an interesting dichotomy. me um i think that uh the candidates should be more bought in in edmonton and less bought in in calgary not vice versa uh but we're 100 bought in in calgary and maybe 70 bought in edmonton so getting the candidates actually bought in and understanding the value of a party um the cross branding like the stuff that we are doing in calgary with the cross branding trending is super strong. When you're

Carter 57:39

you're driving through Calgary, you see, it doesn't matter which ward you're in, you're seeing the same ad. Brian

Shannon 57:45

Brian and the other person.

Carter 57:47

Yeah. And that same ad is everywhere. And it reinforces everyone. Because people don't stick to their wards. We don't have 15 minute cities in Calgary. So people drive all over Hell's Half Acre and they're seeing a lot of of different signs. Um, and I think that that's good for us, uh, in a way that it's not good for the, for the independence, but I'll tell you, Shannon, it's a open question about parties in the future. Uh, obviously Nenshi wants to, to take them out. I still think that given the,

Carter 58:21

given the rule changes and the ability to fundraise through a party, you had to do a party, but uh we'll we will see uh we will see how this all is there's

Shannon 58:31

there's something about the issue set that maybe advantages more the more right-wing uh parties

Shannon 58:36

parties or is that not like crime you know i don't want uh anyone to have a duplex uh to the points of of issues i require six parking spots for every new uh home build uh whatever the case may be um it

Shannon 58:52

it does that advantage the right-wing parties no

Carter 58:55

no i don't i don't think so i think that politics is so left-wing in municipal politics anyways people don't you know the right wing runs to the left and the the left uh runs further left in municipal politics um everybody's going to solve every issue we're going to solve you know like if you listen to the to the left-wing candidates in calgary they're going to solve housing they're going to solve homelessness they're going to solve mental health issues issues they're going to solve addiction climate

Zain 59:22

climate climate back to the fold sort of yeah and

Carter 59:25

and they're going to do it without raising your taxes so you know it's it's all pretty impressive the work that the independents think they're going to do i think that the party structure does bring a degree of realism because you have to be accountable to one another and it makes it brings a lot of

Carter 59:41

uh a lot of benefit but we'll see how it ends carter

Zain 59:45

carter i want to save a lot of this what you've been talking about right now for our accountability episode which of course we will be doing um I've been pushing for... I'm hoping for

Carter 59:52

for 28 accountability episodes.

Zain 59:53

episodes. We're going to be doing

Shannon 59:55

doing them well into 2029. I

Zain 59:57

I want to do them live, actually. I want to do them all live. I want to exhaust the audience and do it live, Carter. Do it live! So, here's the thing. I want to get to Shannon in a second about the NDP, but this has been helpful. A very honest state of the race. Can I get your theory of the race for the next three weeks? We should almost have a double Patreon where we double paywall this next part. But, Carter, what are you looking for? You've mentioned I'll throw a couple of ingredients you've thrown at me from a state of the race perspective and tell me if these are part of it because Shannon's brought up the campaigning against the province is that your theory of the race the next three weeks you've talked about the last 48 hours is that your theory of the state of the race you don't have to give away something that you feel like could jeopardize your campaign you've talked about polling you haven't moved in the poll do you need a better poll in any of these jurisdictions what is your theory of the race going forward if you'd like to share which I think you're now mandated to well

Carter 1:00:49

i believe so by

Zain 1:00:50

by the governing documents of this podcast by

Carter 1:00:52

by the governing documents of the podcast yeah um polling

Carter 1:00:55

polling drives outcome people like to vote for the winner more than they like to vote for their their choice so we're waiting for a poll in calgary that has a definitive winner uh right now no one wants to win uh 50 undecided well

Zain 1:01:13

that phrase twice and i'm i need need to pick on it what do you mean no one wants to win like no one's the undecideds in the city are not breaking but what do you mean by no one wants to win i need to pick on that joe

Carter 1:01:24

joe tiki gondek is running a campaign as though she's a challenger someone who's brand fucking new to the race um you know she's not uh you know that obviously that was one of her strategic directives but she's she's running

Carter 1:01:39

running one of the worst campaigns i've ever seen in my life and And I think I can say that objectively, as objectively as possible. Sure, we

Zain 1:01:47

we know the history. People will bring me to task.

Zain 1:01:49

But why? People will bring me to task.

Zain 1:01:51

Isn't it smart for her to run as someone who is

Zain 1:01:54

is net new in a certain way, or a V2.0 of Jyoti Gondek?

Carter 1:02:00

I guess. I guess it's fine. But she's stuck at 15% in the polls, and she's not jumping up. 15% in the polls, if you're an incumbent, is an absolute rejection of your incumbency. And Jeremy Farkas is at 14%, and Jeremy Farkas doesn't even seem to have large signs. We can't seem to find a sign. I

Zain 1:02:20

I have not seen one in my neighborhood.

Carter 1:02:22

We can't find a large sign of Jeremy Farkas across the entire city. And believe me, I've got campaigns across the entire city. 28.

Carter 1:02:31

Well, 15 in Calgary. he's

Zain 1:02:33

he's running so many in Calgary that they're competing against each other 15

Carter 1:02:37

15 in Calgary but those two

Carter 1:02:41

two both of them Jeremy's running about $700, $1000 worth of digital every week Jyoti

Carter 1:02:53

Jyoti Gondek's running zero

Carter 1:02:55

Sonia Sharp is running zero Jeff Davison is running about $600 a week um

Zain 1:03:03

three weeks left like what the fuck are you waiting for

Zain 1:03:05

thousands of dollars right like this would be five grand a week 10 or 15 meryl would be 15 to 25 grand a week i would say minimum

Carter 1:03:14

you know and so who's

Carter 1:03:16

who's trying to win it like i um we're putting out a policy a day and a hit piece a day um you'll be shocked to find out that we're hitting on danielle smith right like that we're attacking danielle shocking

Carter 1:03:29

shocking no one in terms of strategy um but you know that's the strategy that's unfolded in front of us you're right you know there is some low-hanging fruit there for the quote-unquote progressive side we're the only ones doing it we're the only ones with a release a day we're the only ones pushing a like we're doing two releases a day and most other campaigns can't be bothered to pull one out um i don't know what's going on when i say that no one wants to win in calgary i

Carter 1:03:59

seems to want to win in calgary we're trying our best um trying

Carter 1:04:03

trying to activate the social network structures trying to get people talking about us um and maybe it happens by the end but right now um no one wants no one wants to win or no one wants anyone to win i

Zain 1:04:18

i got i got enough from that shannon do you have anything following because i want to turn it to you on the on the ndp yeah

Carter 1:04:22

yeah let's turn Let's turn it to her.

Zain 1:04:25

Your best friend Avi Lewis, or Avi Lewis, I should be pronouncing that correctly. I've been corrected on air once already for pronouncing that wrong. So Avi Lewis is running. And Heather McPherson are

Zain 1:04:36

are in for the NDP, the job of being the leader of this party, which probably includes two years of debt clearance as task number one. What do you make thus far? We can get into the specifics, the branding, the color. We'll do a whole sort of, when leaderships happen, we'll do a whole sort of like website site, we'll run through an audit of socials. We'll do that episode. That's not this. I wanted to get your quick hit. Now that two candidates are out there, what are you making of this race? What do you make of the dynamics? How do you kind of see the launches going?

Shannon 1:05:04

Well, it's interesting, you know, it really looks like Heather has launched her campaign with a big event in Strascona at Cité Francophone, right in the middle of her riding, which is a pretty standard place for New Democrats to hold a rally. Rachel was there. The whole thing And, you know, it was very Edmonton Strathcona, right? Bog standard Edmonton Strathcona. That is not to run it down because here is a person who has a seat, who has held on to it, who knows how to win, who knows how to grow membership, who knows how to raise money like Stink, and who knows what the assignment is in terms of being a partisan. and um and so that is good and it's pretty clear to me that she's essentially chosen not to compete with avi on the the launch video right where he did a super slick kind of you know like mamdami uh mamdani adjacent kind of launch videos really good uh he is a filmmaker so i would expect it to be good uh and uh and it was uh and you know when you go and look at his actual media appearances as afterwards, way less good.

Zain 1:06:10

But... You didn't like him on Cochran and PNP? I don't know if you saw that. I thought he was... The

Shannon 1:06:13

The CTV question period was

Zain 1:06:14

was worse. I should see that one. I think in

Shannon 1:06:16

in both of those, he was just peppering the camera, just machine gunning policy at the camera, right? And just like yammering the talking points from the video into camera, right? In a really kind of almost aggressive way. And he was chippy too, you know? I last saw him with Coffin in the CBC, but on CTV he was, and did some really weird stuff with, you know, like attacking Evan Solomon, who used to, you know, host the show. It's just like, why? What are we doing? And so, undisciplined, in other words. This

Zain 1:06:52

This is middle-aged Jewish man versus middle-aged Jewish man war that we probably have some sort of former broadcaster war that they're also going through. Are you sure they

Shannon 1:07:01

they both went to Upper Canada

Shannon 1:07:02

Canada College together or something? We need to

Shannon 1:07:05

out the backstory on that.

Shannon 1:07:07

But it was just like a weird drive-by. It was like, what are you fucking talking about? He was like, oh, Evan Sullivan and his AI propaganda. Your former colleague. And the host is like, yeah, okay, great. We're done here. But he's undisciplined in that way. But his video was really good. I haven't looked at the numbers on YouTube or elsewhere

Shannon 1:07:29

and how much it's traveling. I imagine a fair bit within leftist circles, because when people put it, you know, sent it to me independently or in the various group chats, people were like, oh, this is good. And that is scary because, you know, they are what Avi would dismiss as as establishment New Democrats, meaning that we've held a party card for more than five minutes. and

Shannon 1:07:50

and um you know and so he sees us as the enemy but we don't really think

Shannon 1:07:56

think of him as as uh you know being you

Shannon 1:07:59

you know uh someone that's been with us for more than five minutes time uh

Shannon 1:08:04

uh so that's why you know the the

Shannon 1:08:07

the broad view from my friends was this is a bit scary heather

Shannon 1:08:11

heather on the other hand has chosen not to put out you know flashy video and all about which i think is you know there's time for that she could do some of those set pieces later you can see where she's trying to go though right which is straight to the uh strong membership base in alberta in

Shannon 1:08:28

to a certain extent in manitoba and probably to a certain extent in british columbia and

Shannon 1:08:33

and there'll be you know some riding she'll be able to split in uh in ontario and uh

Shannon 1:08:39

we'll see what happens with nova scotia's pretty small membership

Shannon 1:08:42

membership anyway but the big membership is in alberta and mr lewis has has serially gone to war with us here, so it'll make for an interesting race.

Zain 1:08:51

Yeah, you've got some history there, don't you?

Shannon 1:08:54

Yeah, so I've known him for a long time. I worked with him at the CBC back in the day.

Shannon 1:09:02

And we were friends up until, I think I even have photos of a broadband institute when I was in government, saying in the fall of 15. But by the spring of 16, when they did Leap Manifesto, I was kind of the

Shannon 1:09:16

the person that was deputized to go in and punch back when

Shannon 1:09:20

they came. This is a decade old, so maybe some people won't remember this, but there was a group within that were not

Shannon 1:09:27

not really in the federal party, but were sort of adjacent to the federal party, who

Shannon 1:09:32

came to the 2016 Edmonton Convention within the first year of

Shannon 1:09:37

of the Alberta NDP being in government with essentially a shutdown, the oil sands manifesto. Right.

Zain 1:09:43

Right. And this was the one where Mulcair went down in his leadership as well. This is the same convention. Yeah.

Shannon 1:09:48

Yeah. I mean, it split the membership in all kinds of different ways. It split the caucus. It didn't split the Alberta NDP caucus. We were fine. And it didn't split our government, but it gave both opposition parties a nail bat to hit us with that they have not stopped hitting us with, being anti-development and anti-jobs. And this, of course, maps on to a time, you know, in that previous quarter where WTI had fallen to $28 a barrel and we had rapidly escalating unemployment. And the last thing that any Albertan needed to hear from their government was that they thought that they were elected to hand out pink slips. And so it made for conflict. And as a result, I was sort of, because I was environment minister, it was the nexus of the problem to keep Notley out of it, although she made one of the finest speeches.

Shannon 1:10:37

A New Democrat's ever made on the floor of that convention and people should look it up and watch it.

Shannon 1:10:43

But I was kind of my role to go out and, you

Shannon 1:10:48

you know, punch it up a little bit, which

Shannon 1:10:52

which I did. And, you know, then he just like insulted me in public, you know, because that was his idea of fighting back. So I'm not the biggest fan. It's what I'm trying to say.

Zain 1:11:03

I've got a follow-up for you, Shannon, and then Carter, I want to let you in on this conversation in terms of what you think this race will mean to the broader sort of situation we find ourselves federally.

Zain 1:11:13

Do you think the Mamdani factor is real, though, Shannon, in the sense that the Social Democrat push, the relationship to that side of the party, the exciting sort of like fire-off policy proposal, propositional element? little bit. I

Zain 1:11:28

I don't know Avi Lewis at all, but I can definitely see that he's leaning into that sort of aesthetic. He's leaning into that sort of mold. You could argue one came before the other. I don't think it matters. There is an excitement factor in the US right now that certainly comes over on the other side. Do you think that factor will have a point? You could look up Avi Lewis and video number three is him in AOC having a debate on hope and those sort of things. So he's got those connections. Do you think that will migrate some interest or potentially have an impact in this in this race i

Shannon 1:11:58

don't think migrate some interest but it's not um getting memberships either sold or in the box and that'll be the really interesting piece i mean that what mondani and aoc have in common is that they're new york politicians in safe seats correct

Zain 1:12:10

correct this is different and

Shannon 1:12:12

uh mr lewis has never been elected to shit right

Zain 1:12:14

right and he's trying to be clear right like this and

Shannon 1:12:17

and he's tried i mean and he compares himself to jack layton but i am sorry sir but but Jack Layton was actually elected to things

Shannon 1:12:22

before he became federal leader.

Shannon 1:12:25

And, you know, but like far be it for him to run for, I don't know, parks board or a school board or any of these things. I guess that's women's work. He just wants the big job or nothing at all. The point here is that he's got the vibes and the aesthetic and that can go a long way.

Shannon 1:12:41

He's also got, you know, sort of moving past

Shannon 1:12:45

the policy, like specifics, that he has specific measurable things that you could hold in your hand. That

Shannon 1:12:51

That he wants to do, which I think, you know, I don't care if they're not realistic and they aren't, but that's beside the point. They're real. And so that's really good, like points for that.

Shannon 1:13:01

And we'll see if the vibes and the using playbook from elections that are not, you can't map. Yeah,

Zain 1:13:13

Yeah, there's no jurisdictional mapping here. I agree with, but there might be some tactical sort of an aesthetical sort of elements here. Carter, you look at this, A, give me your thoughts on what you see thus far with the NDP leadership race. And B, Stephen Carter, the strategist, help me field your ideal candidate

Zain 1:13:33

candidate for this race. It doesn't have to be a name, but give me a composite profile of what this race requires. Should you not be impressed with what you're seeing thus far?

Carter 1:13:42

well i mean someone who could be you know performing quebec and ontario would be a a really delightful uh find i think that avi lewis can't perform necessarily in ontario or quebec i'm not sure where he's where he's going to actually perform the best i would imagine in british columbia in the lower mainland but at the same time this is not someone who's who's cultivated a reputation of being uh easy to like he's uh he's something of a polarizing character um i think that he's i mean i would like to see two or three more people come into this race i'd like to see better ideas being discussed because i think that one of heather mcpherson's problems is going to be she's going to have to deal with reality and avi lewis is avi lewis right

Carter 1:14:30

right and and how do

Zain 1:14:32

do you what what do you mean by that despite like just the last name like the the straight up last name no

Carter 1:14:36

no avi's gonna pull shit out of his ass that's completely

Zain 1:14:42

right so you mean we'll be mandating home

Carter 1:14:44

home delivery across the country for every house on

Zain 1:14:47

on every day like leftist progressive like like like visionary visionary i might give

Carter 1:14:52

give it a not Not leftist progressive. Yeah, yeah. Ridiculous bullshit.

Carter 1:14:58

There's a difference between, you know, ridiculous bullshit. You feel like that will not match reality.

Carter 1:15:03

No, leftist progressive is something that's attainable, something that's doable, something that we can, if we put our minds to it, we can achieve. What Albie Lewis is going to be doing is going to be making up stories about what can be achieved that are just simply not true. They don't even belong in fairy tale books. I

Zain 1:15:23

I see both of you nodding to this. So let me pick on this thread for a second, which is what is the 2025 mileage on non-possible, non-executable, but ambitious ideas?

Zain 1:15:39

In Canada. In Canada. In Canada? I think it's very low. Do you feel like progressives are on the mat enough that they would actually buy what Avi is selling? Shannon?

Zain 1:15:48

Avi? I don't know. No, I don't

Shannon 1:15:49

don't think so, because,

Shannon 1:15:51

because, you know, Jeff Meets tried this, too. He tried it for, like, you know, a long time, like eight years, right, to talk about how we're going to, you know, change how the price of groceries goes and stuff. And people were not picking it up, not at all. They were responding to affordability arguments that Pallieva was putting before them, which, I mean, he was overpromising on

Shannon 1:16:13

on many of those things, but it was still identifiable things that could be done, like ending the carbon tax or GSTM loans or what have you. And so I think Canadians are much more pragmatic than that. The good news is for Heather is that it looks like Rob Ashton is going to enter into the race. He might not be a name that's known to folks from the longshoremen. So that'll help with some of the kind of, you know, more down-to-earth blue-collar arguments, pushing back against Debbie that she won't have to do it.

Shannon 1:16:42

Potentially that somebody out of BC will

Shannon 1:16:45

will be able to do it, to Carter's point, that, you know, his strength will come out of the lower mainland and downtown Toronto, let's put it.

Zain 1:16:52

A final question here, Shannon, I'm going to follow up with you on this, which is we've talked about the first two candidates in the race. We'll keep talking about the race.

Zain 1:16:59

Let's talk about the party as we close up. What does the party need this race to be between now and March? Now that we've seen the first two candidates, if you're the party, I know I'm asking that in such a genericized way, are you happy with what you're seeing thus far? You've got a a couple of candidates. So like that's good in some ways, right? Like this is, let's be clear, this is the NDP, but this is also a party that doesn't have official status right now. So this is two things at the same time. What do you need to see if you're the party and what would be successful for you? At least let's give it a time frame of the next couple of months.

Shannon 1:17:33

Well, in the next couple of months, you want to finish Q4 with a decent fundraising person. It's hard to do during a leadership race, which is why this six month timeline is bananas. And, you know, know the kind of the far left got what they wanted out of the structure of it and it's too bad because it will hamstring the party but you want to see some some energy and some excitement and some of these you know uh membership

Shannon 1:17:56

membership drives actually meaning a longer term financial health for the party uh just things are really not in good shape uh yeah i mean honestly if you're the party you want people to be putting forward things that are relevant uh

Shannon 1:18:10

uh because the the enemy is not not each other. You know, Heather's opponent is not Avi, and Avi's opponent is not Feather. Both of their opponents is irrelevance.

Shannon 1:18:21

And so finding ways to, you know, use the House of Commons if you're Heather, if you're the party, broadly, to use these brinksmanship moments of budget votes and stuff to actually have the relevance would be good.

Zain 1:18:36

We're going to leave that segment there. Let's move it on to our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, Shannon Phillips, we have made it. This

Zain 1:18:44

This is my favorite part.

Zain 1:18:45

part. This is not just an Alberta-specific Over, Under, and Lightning round. This is a Danielle Smith-specific

Zain 1:18:50

-specific Over, Under, and Lightning round. Here's what I want to do. I'm going to give you four things our premier has done over the last two weeks or is going to do based on documents and sources. And I want you to talk about which one of these four is the silliest and

Zain 1:19:06

which one of these four is the most strategic. strategic. These are all things that we will, between the three of us, will hate in the sense of what is going on. But I want to talk about the silliest and the most strategic. So, Carter, let me start with you first, okay?

Zain 1:19:19

Danielle Smith won citizenship status on driver's licenses, announcing that starting in late 2026, Alberta will require all new and renewed licenses and provincial ID cards to include a citizenship marker.

Zain 1:19:32

She's charging, this one is a little bit bit old, but it's coming to light now. There is a

Zain 1:19:37

a $100 per dose fee on the COVID-19 vaccine, except for healthcare workers, some seniors and certain vulnerable groups. The premier has defended this move as a response to the federal government no longer covering the vaccine and as a way to prevent waste, nothing to do with some ideology related to it whatsoever. So you got thing number one, citizenship status. Thing number two, the vaccine admin fee.

Zain 1:20:00

Thing number three, leaked memo suggests she's going to use a preemptive use of the not with withstanding clause against the anti-trans legislation um that she has the suite the basket of legislation that she has on the anti-trans um a piece coming up in the next session and finally leaked documents that daniel smith is preparing legislation that would allow alberta to ignore or opt out of international agreements signed by ottawa if they're deemed to intrude on provincial jurisdiction stephen carter do you have the four listed i

Carter 1:20:31

i do have the four listed

Zain 1:20:32

listed give me your silliest and then give me your most strategic um

Carter 1:20:37

the silliest it's interesting because the two i'm going to put in the middle that we're not going to talk about are uh the notwithstanding clause for trans people which i find abhorrent um but it's neither the most strategic nor is it the most the silliest um is abhorrent uh but there is an audience for it and it has some strategic value and but it is not the most strategic um the the the covet 19 vaccine is neither the most strategic nor the the silliest it is uh entirely in keeping with her uh philosophy i'm sure she thinks it's part of fiscal uh fiscal

Carter 1:21:17

fiscal uh responsibility until you have all the people with covet 19 in your hospitals instead of uh vaccinated but the the silliest is the the citizenship requirement on our uh id what does that tell us um do we have

Carter 1:21:37

know uh are you not going to be allowed to drive a car if you're not a citizen of the united states and have an alberta driver's license like what is it exactly

Zain 1:21:45

exactly i'll give you her quote which is uh or her paraphrase quote which is this will streamline access to services and increase security that is the government's line on this what

Carter 1:21:54

what the fuck does that even mean that's why why it's the silliest it's absolute bullshit you know it's absolute bullshit and it's silly there is no audience for this there is no strategic group that she goes to and says oh look what i'm doing this has got strategic value there is nothing that makes this valuable for her and uh the uh the the the most strategic value therefore is the uh inter you know the international international agreements uh you know pushing back on those uh is just another way of fighting with mark kearney and this is a new way that she gets to try and uh define the uh opposition as uh the federal liberals okay

Carter 1:22:36

okay so i i guess it's good i'll

Zain 1:22:38

i'll i'll come back to both of you with a follow up to this but shan i want to give you the same shot here the silliest from the bucket and the most strategic from the bucket carter's put notwithstanding and covid as as the middle two The silliest for him is a citizenship on the driver's licenses and the most strategic, I think he's saying by default then, is the refusal to accept the federal agreements. What say you, Shannon Phillips?

Shannon 1:23:01

I think it's probably the most strategic because it has the least outcome. There's the least downside, the treaty thing.

Shannon 1:23:06

Klein tried to do this. I was just looking it up and I couldn't find how Klein dealt with this when the federal government went in to ratify the Kyoto Protocol back in the early 90s. But there was a Supreme Court decision, I think before we were a country, I think it was the UK, out of the UK Supreme Court back in the 20s, that essentially said, yes, Canada can ratify treaties.

Shannon 1:23:29

treaties. It was an international labor organization treaty that are in, you

Shannon 1:23:34

some form of provincial jurisdiction. So this is well-trodden territory. There's no real downside for her

Zain 1:23:41

her going into the House with

Shannon 1:23:42

with this. It's just another, you know, bullshit way to waste time. in the legislature this fall. So points for that, I guess. And she can get up and make a 45-minute speech about how she's, you know, the queen of standing up to Ottawa and we need somebody to do that. And those are good talking points for her, so great for her.

Shannon 1:24:04

I think in the same vein, though I'd be strategically silly, as in strategically stupid, is the driver's license thing.

Shannon 1:24:14

Because, first of all, I think it's going to be a boondoggle with the privatized registries. I think I can hear the whining from here, from the registries on, you know, the cost, you know, how the implementation goes, all of that. You know, they are a bit of a whining sector anyway.

Shannon 1:24:33

So they will whine, absolutely. Number two, it's not clear to me if you can opt out because sign me up, I'll be opting out, right? If I need to prove my citizenship, I've got documents for that. Yeah.

Shannon 1:24:46

Um, and, uh, so I think it'll just piss people off and,

Shannon 1:24:50

and, uh, uh, it will be one of those things that can't, could be used as a very good wedge, uh, by the opposition and going into an area that's not strategically smart. It's not at all clear to me that, uh, you know, there's been some, some, uh, uh, talk about how the, the consensus around immigration is unraveling. It's not at all clear to me that that is in fact the case in public opinion. And in particular, a few press people, like you could say to people in any group, oh, have there been too many temporary forward workers or too many international students or even, you know, were our immigration levels too high for the last couple of years and probably get, you know, at least a 50-50 head nod on that wherever

Shannon 1:25:29

wherever in the country.

Shannon 1:25:31

It's not clear to me that that then goes to we should withhold services from certain kinds of people, depending on how long they've lived here. I don't think the polling on that's probably very good. So that is dumb. I think that notwithstanding stuff on the trans issues, I mean, she's got a constituency for this. So as much as it pains me because it's a horrible

Shannon 1:25:51

thing to have 14 different sets of human rights in this country.

Shannon 1:25:54

The fact is, is that she's got a constituency for this and she has to keep them together through her own leadership exercise. And the COVID thing is just, I mean, those of us who want it will pay for it. uh unfortunately that will be too few uh people to arrest

Shannon 1:26:11

arrest the spread of the of a new variant and so and uh you know people uh like me will continue to suffer if we get more covet out there shannon

Zain 1:26:20

shannon let me stick with you for this for last last question here which is does

Zain 1:26:23

does she repeal any of these yes or no question essentially does she walk back on any of these i guess is a better way uh

Zain 1:26:34

and give me a grade on the suite uh the strategic suite of things that that she's put out here. What do you kind of think in terms of a letter grade for these four things in the last couple of weeks that Danielle Smith has done?

Shannon 1:26:46

Two of them are stupid and two of them are designed to shore up a base, so I would give it about a B.

Zain 1:26:51

Carter, does she walk back any of these and give me a grade?

Carter 1:26:55

No, she doesn't walk back anything. I give her an F because I always give her an F.

Zain 1:27:00

Stephen Carter, consistent if nothing else. That's a wrap on episode 1884 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Shannon Phillips and young Stephen Carter, shouldering 28 campaigns, breaking his back. And we shall see you next time.

Transcript