Zain: This is a strategist episode 1886. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Shannon Phillips. And look who decided to join us. Does anybody
Carter: anybody ever eat the white bread buns? Like they put them out. The
Zain: ever eat the white bread
Carter: The rolls you mean? Yeah. Like does anybody eat the rolls at Thanksgiving dinner? They're
Carter: They're for the next day. It just seems to me to be a waste.
Shannon: They're for the next day. It just seems to me to be a
Shannon: Yeah, they're
Carter: Yeah, they're for the next day when you build a turkey sandwich. That's
Shannon: That's right. With
Carter: With the cranberry sauce and the stuffing, which
Carter: which is just bread on bread. Bread and bread. Yeah.
Zain: just bread
Shannon: Bread and bread. Yeah.
Carter: Yeah. Best
Shannon: Yeah.
Shannon: Yeah.
Shannon: Best kind. Because this
Zain: kind. Because this is the original content people tune in for, Carter. Oh, my God.
Carter: I overate, guys. Did
Zain: Did you? I don't
Carter: I don't know if I can make it through this whole podcast. Did
Zain: podcast. Did you bite off more than you can chew? Oh,
Carter: Oh, no. I chewed it just fine.
Carter: I chewed it all. Is that what 28 campaigns
Zain: chewed it all. Is that what 28 campaigns does to you? Is that too many? 26.
Carter: many? 26. 26. I had two drop.
Zain: drop.
Zain: You've released two. Two are gone. One of the orifices.
Carter: are gone.
Carter: Yeah. I shat them out.
Zain: shat them out. Okay.
Carter: Okay.
Shannon: Okay.
Carter: Okay.
Zain: Okay, Carter. Okay.
Carter: Carter. Okay.
Shannon: This is going to make it harder, though, for me to win the bet against- By
Carter: is going
Zain: going to make it harder,
Zain: By the way, excellent Patreon, which Shannon and I, a few days ago, where we talked ATA stuff. I saw a bump
Carter: By
Shannon: By
Carter: By
Shannon: By
Carter: I saw a bump in the patrons. That's
Zain: That's good. Yeah, well, because we recorded. I don't know if it was- It wasn't a good thing. It
Carter: if it was- It wasn't a good thing. It was, they went down. I was wondering what happened.
Zain: was wondering what happened. Oh, they went down. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. That's not what a bump is.
Carter: Oh, yeah. That's
Zain: I don't think that's- No, it's the opposite. Carter. Oh, it's a bump. Jesus Christ. It's a dump. Up is down. Carter. Yeah. You've decided to join us from the trail of 28 campaigns. 26. campaign. Sorry, I forgot that two of them disowned you.
Carter: No, it's
Shannon: it's
Carter: it's
Shannon: Oh,
Carter: Oh, it's
Shannon: it's
Shannon: that two of them disowned you.
Zain: We
Zain: also made bets in terms of what that would look like for you. Really? In terms of outcome.
Zain: Do you want to throw a number out? Because we want to let you in on the action. We want to let you in on some of the action. I don't think that
Shannon: you in on some of the action. I don't think that he can do that right now. No, no, no. Don't
Zain: now. No, no, no. Don't stop him. He has done much more egregious things on this podcast than bet how many of his campaigns. You don't have to tell us which ones. Is
Carter: You don't have to tell us which ones. Is this a patron episode? This part can be.
Zain: This part can be. This part can. No, if it's
Carter: part can. No, if it's not for a Patreon episode, I'm not going to do it. We
Zain: not for
Zain: We could paywall your number, Carter. Okay, if
Carter: Okay, if you're going to paywall it, then what it is is... Wow,
Zain: then what
Zain: really?
Carter: really?
Zain: really?
Carter: Yeah, there you go. Oh,
Zain: Oh, my God.
Carter: Wow. Okay, if you
Zain: Okay, if you are not a patron, you have to subscribe for that. Exactly. If you're one of the campaigns competing against Stephen Carter, put down your six bucks, get the answer.
Carter: Exactly. If
Carter: Yeah, exactly. And then
Zain: Yeah,
Zain: Yeah, exactly. And then start thinking. Here's what I want to do. I actually want to talk about the weekend that was. Stephen Carter, this
Zain: this is a very important weekend as ordained by Stephen Carter. By
Zain: By Stephen Carter,
Carter: By Stephen Carter, yeah. So
Zain: So I want to talk about Thanksgiving weekend. Okay.
Carter: Okay.
Zain: It's importance in politics. Carter, you've got a theory about this. I want to revisit that theory. Shannon, if you have not heard of the Stephen Carter theory, it's not very complicated, but he will talk to you about it. And then I want to talk about three
Carter: want to
Shannon: to revisit that
Zain: movements in Alberta. Carter, we've got municipal elections. That might be the most obvious. I'm familiar with
Carter: be the most obvious.
Carter: familiar with those, yes. We've
Zain: We've got the ATA and
Carter: and their
Zain: and their strike, and we have got this
Zain: forever Canadian referendum, which, by the way, their signature collection deadline, correct me if I'm wrong, end of this month, I believe. I believe, yeah. So I want to talk about this Thanksgiving weekend in terms of the conversations at the table. Did they happen about any of these three topics? What they needed to look like for any of these three topics in terms of the municipal? We can dive into in and out of these as we wish, but I really want to kind of do a bit bit of a retrospective. And I'll start with you, Carter, which is a very simple question. You have ordained the principle that Thanksgiving weekend in a fall election is the most critical weekend of the year. Do you believe that more, less, or the same, given our new political environment that you have been certainly welcome to over the course of the last year and a half, but I think we've all experienced in the last little bit. So start us
Carter: yeah. So I want to talk about
Zain: us off there.
Carter: I think it might be the most important. This might be the most important Thanksgiving weekend in history for our municipal politics. Okay.
Shannon: our municipal
Shannon: Okay.
Carter: Because we've lost mainstream media. I'm not sure if you're aware, Zane, but we used to have this thing called mainstream media. People would tune in, they'd read the newspaper, and they'd talk about it. In 2007, when I was running the Al Noor Kassam campaign, the mainstream media put out a four-page expose on Al Noor Kassam.
Carter: Killed us dead, as we deserve to be. But,
Shannon: But,
Zain: But,
Carter: But, you know, the mainstream media ended us, not thanksgiving weekend but now mainstream media is a shadow of itself right
Shannon: But,
Carter: right and then we had the nenshi movement right the nenshi move was was uh in part orchestrated with social media well i'm not sure if you two have been on social media lately but there are no social media campaigns that are happening for the municipal campaigns right now there's
Carter: there's some bought and paid for advertising but there's nothing that's happening organically so
SPEAKER_00: so the
Carter: so the there is no social media Any more either. So the only thing that we're left with is friends and family getting together and discussing it amongst themselves. That is all we have left in terms of communication networks. Everything else is collapsing around us. And the Thanksgiving weekend is the opportunity for those groups to come together and to talk about the three things that you're talking about. Plus, whether or not Stephen Carter eats too many mashed potatoes. And
Carter: he does. He ate too many mashed potatoes. I
Zain: have a question for you that might be bordering on a bit professional, a bit personal, which is as
Carter: which is as
Zain: politics has become part of culture now, if you accept that premise, that politics and we all follow politics like it's another cultural activity, kind of like sports, more of us are following it than ever before. The data bears that out. Are we more or less comfortable talking about politics, advocating for our positions in front of friends and family? And Shannon, I want to just get your take on this in light of this Thanksgiving weekend. And of course, if you have a take on this weekend as well, please feel free to chime in on that before we get into like the three sort of campaigns that I want to talk about. I want
Carter: more
SPEAKER_00: more of
Shannon: want
Zain: want
Carter: want to pause it. Okay, well, I'll wait for Shannon.
Shannon: Shannon.
Shannon: No, no, go ahead, Carter. I want to hear what you have to say. I
Carter: want to pause at something that I want your input on, Shannon. Okay? That's what my question was. That's what they said. Yeah, but this is my theory. Is it better? Is it going to be better? Oh, you have a theory. Maybe it's better. My
Zain: That's what my question was. That's what they said. Yeah, but this is my theory. Is it better? Is it going to be better? Oh, you have a theory. Maybe it's better. My
Shannon: My
Carter: theory is that men talk the way I'm talking right now. And men will say in the Thanksgiving dinner, I'm voting for Nahid Nenshi, I'm voting for Brian Thiessen, I'm voting for Corey Hogan. It's lunatics.
Carter: All the men, right, will just say exactly what's going to happen. Whereas I think that women take a more delicate and more kind of
Carter: seasoned approach where they kind of come in and they say, and the example I use is, have you heard of this Nenshi guy?
Carter: Right. Have you heard of this Nenshi guy? It has been my ongoing thesis of how women transport, move information from one to the other. Have
Carter: Have you heard of him as such a non in
Carter: your face kind of statement? Have
Carter: Have you heard of what he, you know, have you heard of who he is? And it's a door opening, not a statement being made. It's a door open for everybody to join the same conversation. And I think that around Thanksgiving dinners, women will make sure that the doors open, whereas men may make sure the doors get slammed shut. And so that is my theory
Carter: that I will offer up to Shannon to jump in on and to tell me either how right or wrong I'm in.
Zain: Shannon, we've given you three questions, which means we've given you zero questions. So you can have that in anything here. I
Carter: Shannon,
Shannon: Carter is right, but he may have been righter in the old days than he is now, because I think polarization has taken over everything, women and men, to the point where you're not going to talk about it if, you know, I was just talking before with, just break the fourth wall here with Haxham, who, you know, was just up in Westlock. I grew up outside of Spruce Grove. And I, you know, if I was sitting around with relatives, they don't talk to me anymore, because I'm a new Democrat, quite literally. And like, I don't have extended family, and I used to. Is that like, actually,
Zain: has
Carter: has taken over
Carter: I,
Zain: Is that like, actually, is that a, can I dig in on this for a second? Is
Shannon: is
Shannon: this for a second?
Zain: that a byproduct of you running and getting elected? Getting elected, not running.
Shannon: and getting elected?
Shannon: Getting elected, not running. Running was okay, as long as we didn't have power, as soon as we did. So
Zain: okay, as long as we didn't
Zain: So this was a 2015 sort of thing, like post-2015. Oh, interesting. Yeah,
Shannon: 2015 sort
Shannon: Yeah, it's been a decade since I've seen these people. I'd see them blow by on my mother's Facebook where they, you know, talk about lynching me if I go to the family reunion.
Shannon: Seriously?
Carter: Seriously?
Carter: Yeah. But so,
Carter: you
Shannon: you
Carter: you
Shannon: you know, but if I was, if they were like half normal, I would probably just not talk about it. Right. But I think, you know, the man in my life and even my kids wouldn't either. Right.
Carter: but
Carter: think, you know,
Shannon: Right. And I think that that happens more if you're in mixed company. Now, if you're not and you're just among a bunch of just sort of lumpen, sort of vaguely center right, some progressives, some kind of chamber of commerce, state conservative, you know, sort of poly political family. I think at that point, Carter is right that women are more likely to be less definitive, except for when things get quite spicy. And since COVID, things have gotten really spicy where everybody knows where everyone stands. Right. And, you know, we are at another one of these moments. It's not the municipal campaign that is making people feel polarized, but the teacher's strike might. Right.
Carter: you know, sort
Carter: really
SPEAKER_00: really spicy where
Zain: Right.
Shannon: Right. And so you're going to get a little bit more tentativeness sometimes in mixed company. But I think overall, people
Zain: Right. And so
Shannon: people are just not like in mixed company. They're not talking about it. They'll talk about anything else. See,
Zain: See, I tend to agree with a lot of what both of you have said. And this is I was thinking about this earlier today. So let me tell you where I'm at. If this if this is helpful, Carter, in terms of you trying to refine this theory for the modern age. And I know we're looking back because the weekend has happened. But I mean, I wanted to talk about it so you can tell me what you're trying to do this weekend in some ways, which is why today, this evening is a good time to talk about it. I agree with you in terms of the importance of this Thanksgiving in terms of politics huddling together might actually be a banner year for a political Thanksgiving, at least from the confines of this province, at least three movements, campaigns, whatever's happening. Like there's no shortage of fodder. And then you could go down south if you wanted to talk politics. But I also agree largely with what Shannon said, which is that I
Zain: don't know if and I'm going to paraphrase a bit and maybe extend on what Shannon said. I don't know if any of us are persuaders anymore. I don't know if these conversations are happening to persuade in a sense that as much as people are like, well, if I know where someone stands because they've been broadcasting it on Facebook or I have an inkling or I've heard it and I know where I stand. And
Zain: movement and bringing one along does not seem to be the point of Thanksgiving, does not seem to be the point of gathering anymore. I still think there's
Shannon: still think there's persuasion, Zwayne. I really do. Because there's so much lack of knowledge to Carter's first point.
Zain: to Carter's
Zain: Let me bring that in. So I don't know if people are persuading as much as they are simply, and we might be heading like forwards by heading backwards, filling the void of what's happening. And
Zain: this is the second level of my question to you guys, which is, if people are kind of sitting there where they're Carter, there's not just a give a fuck factor, but there's a knowledge delta, which maybe was less the case before. How does that complicate or create a unique scenario when people are gathering on weekends like this one? Well,
Carter: I don't know. I mean, I think that I
Carter: still think that people gather to share experience together. Right. And and we're we gather to share stories. I mean, we gathered with friends tonight and we shared stories and some of those stories were political stories and some of those stories weren't political stories. stories um most of them were deeply personal stories right because ultimately you know some of the story you know how did everybody meet came up right like um not personal in the sense of uh you know threatening right i don't want to be threatened by telling a story i don't want carter
SPEAKER_00: and we're
Zain: carter take take me into this dinner a bit more is this friends this family is this a combination how well do you guys know each other like take me into like bring me into the story uh
Carter: uh it was mostly friends my daughter and her boyfriend were there uh so a little bit of fun but mostly friends okay and uh you know listeners of the podcast let's just say
Zain: uh
Shannon: uh so
Shannon: okay and
Shannon: and
Shannon: and
Carter: let's just say that you can have steven carter at your thanksgiving dinner next year for the low low price of 1500 a month in our uh super duper sponsorship uh anyways um strategist listeners and uh we had a a lovely chat and uh talked about all kinds of things um but
Shannon: um but
Carter: but we also talked about politics and we did talk about the polarization but because it was a gathering of friends and maybe because it was a gathering of friends it
Carter: was a gathering of all the same side of the same of the spectrum oh
Zain: oh interesting right yeah so there was
Carter: right yeah so there was no um there was no argumentation of oh you support this person and frankly with all
Carter: of us being deeply half the people at the table are working on the campaigns right
Carter: right like this is not i wasn't in in a i wasn't in the comparable situation that most people would be in on their thanksgiving but
Shannon: but i do
Carter: i do think that we do we did still go through the exercise of sharing personal discussion points and what we're going to do um why politics matters to us not everybody at the table had the same political experience um and
Carter: they were interested in what what we were doing and how it was happening there was a lot of interest in things like signs being stolen and and um literature
Carter: being pulled out of mailboxes and things like that uh that was you know kind of the the stories from the trail that uh we were able to share that were different it's
Carter: it's kind of like talking to all of us kind of like a mini podcast rather than rather than a um a traditional family dinner but
Zain: rather than
Shannon: than
Carter: but i still think that people want to share something that's deeply personal and that they want to share what
Carter: they're going to do they want to be leaders within those groups yeah
Zain: shannon i took i'm gonna let you in here because i also want to summarize where i I took your argument to a logical end. You disagree with that. And I think it's important because you pretty much were saying that that
Zain: that people gather. But if they know where they're going to stand, they might stay shut. And I said, well, I don't think we're being persuaders anymore. Where do you disagree with me in terms of my thinking here? I think
Shannon: I think we're filling in blanks for people. Right. I mean, and maybe I'm just importing my own experience because that's the point. Yeah. Who is called upon to fill in the blanks for people, even if it's like a municipal campaign or school board or whatever. ever you know at uh various gatherings um i'm people are like well what you know do you know this person have you worked with them that kind of stuff right sure but we are all doing a a version of that even if you know you haven't been the mla for the region um you were all we're all like those of
Zain: Right. I mean,
Zain: that's the point. Yeah. Who
Zain: like a
Carter: a municipal campaign
Zain: or
Carter: or school
Zain: school
Carter: school
Zain: school
Zain: sure but we
Carter: like those
Carter: of us
Shannon: us who
Carter: who are a
Shannon: a little bit most people listening on
Zain: a little bit most people listening on this podcast may be that person in their orbit people right
Shannon: in their orbit people right
Zain: right
Zain: right and and
Shannon: and and that's where you can you can use thanksgiving weekend and easter to a certain extent as well, I think. And I think we saw this during COVID over Christmas and into New Year's when, you know, Jason Kenney had to eat shit over those Hawaii vacations and everything. Remember all that? I
Carter: I mean, that
Shannon: mean, that was also a time when we were talking to people a lot and we were filling in blanks for people, right? And I saw that the New Democrats did a good one. And you see this often over Thanksgiving and Easter weekends, like, here's what to talk about over the dinner table, right? Or here's some facts for you, right? Here's
Zain: here's some facts
Zain: Here's your guide or whatever. Yeah,
Shannon: your guide or whatever. Yeah, here's your little guide to, you know, here's the background, here's the FAQ on this particular topic. I think that's how information is shared among and probably among people who are more likely to agree with each other, or at least be in the same sort of timeline, right, in the reality based community. because
Shannon: because but sometimes you can even reach people who are not in the reality-based community right with uh especially the more local the politics uh depending on how like terminally online they are uh
Carter: uh depending on
Shannon: uh you can usually kind of you
Shannon: you know break through and go okay but this person was a community leader at x or whatever and bring things down from you
Shannon: you know what's in the uh what's what's in the what's in the air right uh and uh the the big wheels that maybe don't matter to a school board election election. I
Shannon: I still think that's pretty rare, because of just straight polarization.
Carter: I still think
Zain: Carter, I want to talk, okay, this is very helpful. And I also don't want to lose sight of Carter's point around personal stories, personal narratives, sometimes those tend to kind of communicate a lot more of the underlying politics and the value systems than the actual state it, here's what I'm doing, let's talk about the election sort of thing. But on that front, Carter, there was three streams I wanted to introduce. Let's start with the municipal elections and one of the reasons we're recording tonight and i'm glad we are is i can ask you did
Carter: But on
Shannon: on
Zain: did you have marching orders for your two parties around what your candidates and their surrogates and their volunteers should try to do thanks this thanksgiving now that it's over can you walk us through what that was what that looks like were there any orders or what you hoped would happen even if there weren't like walk me through a bit of that if you're able well
Carter: well certainly we we wanted everybody in our orbits to be talking politics this thanksgiving weekend right um so our messaging was talk to your friends and family uh talk to them about politics talk to them about why this election matters in both calgary and edmonton uh undecided is kicking everybody's ass um especially in edmonton uh it's like no one wants any of the candidates to win so you know we wanted people who had made up their mind to support tim cartmel or to support brian teason to be explaining to people why they they want they'd made up their minds um so that was our primary message um you know this comes right hot on the heels of of six days of go tv trying to get people to vote in the advance polls so you're you're you're trying to get everybody to lock their vote in and then explain to people why they voted the way that they did. So it's kind of a one-two punch. And then we have this weird week where we sit on our high knees and wait to see if anything, if everybody actually talked about it over Thanksgiving. You mean this week,
Shannon: so you're
Zain: Thanksgiving. You mean this week, like starting tomorrow, as in this week, yeah. Yeah,
Carter: tomorrow, as
Carter: Yeah, we don't, I
Carter: mean, as much as I'd like to tell you, I mean, we used to have different barometers, right, where
Carter: you could put a barometer on like Facebook and see what people were talking about, a barometer on Twitter and see what people are talking about. I chatted with my uncle. My uncle doesn't want to vote for for ryan t's and my uncle wants to vote for sonja sharp i don't see any
Zain: and see what people
Zain: sonja
Zain: any of that i'm so interested in this can i dig i'm gonna keep digging and just to kind of find out not to like fuck your campaign up by any stretch but just to get a sense of where are you that by myself
Carter: are you that by myself yeah
Zain: yeah well two of them have gone we'll see where this thing ends up next monday exactly where are you going to these days for that for that trial balloon like i have i i don't i'm am trying to figure this out myself right like let's talk about our experience here in calgary um trying to figure out viability what the herd is doing what people are feeling how people are doing things i'm seeing a lot of i'm seeing a few boomer facebook posts or a few comments on some friends facebook posts but there's no longer the drum
Carter: monday exactly where
Zain: beat like chatter there's no longer the this person this person this person i keep hearing it i keep seeing it i keep seeing paid i keep I keep seeing it on my graph. Of course, we're no longer in a graph social media environment. We talked about this last week, Shannon and I. We're now in an algorithmic social media environment, so you could be on an entirely different plane than I. You could never hear about politics. So we're no longer on the social graph. What are you doing to, like, who cares about how you're advertising? Like, that's tomorrow, yesterday's business, and one week that's already locked in. What are you doing to even get a sense of if anything is resonating?
Carter: Casting a vote like a fucking madman. Is that your biggest struggle right now?
Zain: Is that your biggest struggle right now?
Carter: Where would you find data? like i've looked on reddit seems like
Zain: reddit seems like it's reinforcing but i don't know if it's telling right yeah
Carter: telling right yeah
Carter: yeah reddit makes me feel better i go to reddit and feel better i go to our discord page and feel worse our discord fucking discord patrons you know make me feel worse um i go to uh google trends i go to my website statistics and i compare them to the website isn't it ironic though
Zain: our discord page
Zain: website isn't it ironic though like and maybe this is exactly how it was designed that we've got more information than ever before but literally no knowledge and even less wisdom it's
Shannon: it's almost like you need to go knock on some fucking doors we're
Carter: we're
Carter: we're
Shannon: we're going
Carter: going with that too shannon we've got like and identify
Shannon: like and identify your supporters it's almost like i i mean i don't know like there's only so many tools right and so i kind of data doesn't none
Carter: don't know like there's
Carter: kind of data doesn't none of the fucking data but everybody just tells you if they're undecided
Shannon: data but everybody just tells you if they're undecided
Carter: undecided
Shannon: undecided in
Carter: in a
Shannon: a municipal yeah i mean that's where you need it matters i
Carter: that's where you need it matters i can tell you right now it took us three months to identify our first jody gondek voter last
Zain: election yeah
Carter: election yeah
Carter: yeah this election oh
Zain: this election oh this election we're
Carter: election we're going around we're you know we're identifying votes for both the mayoralty race as well as for the council races right yeah it took us three months to identify our first jody gondek elector and yet jody gondek in the polls is second
Zain: yeah
Zain: second or first completely
Carter: completely unrelated to what we're seeing at the doors like forget about our candidates like our grassroots candidates yeah
Zain: yeah right
Carter: right our grassroots candidates i know what their numbers are and i know exactly where they are right but the the
Carter: mayoralty candidates where it's more kind of
Carter: anecdata right we've got some data but
Shannon: got
SPEAKER_00: got some
Carter: it's not enough and then when the data comes in the data doesn't match the data doesn't match it at all I can tell you our web stats are absolutely in line with what Jyoti Gondek's web stats were in 2021. In that
Zain: In that successful campaign. In that very successful
Carter: In that very successful campaign. Yes. And I don't think we're going to need 46% to win, right?
Zain: Yes. And
Carter: right? So I'm like... There's too many candidates. The winner
Zain: candidates. The winner in Calgary might start with the two.
Carter: Yeah.
Carter: Realistically, yeah.
Zain: It might start in 20-something percent,
Zain: percent, to be clear. 28, 29?
Shannon: percent, to be clear. 28, 29? I
Shannon: I think if I were to build a campaign now, like let's say the election is in October of 2026, and my friend wanted to run for mayor, I
Shannon: I might take a bit of a different tack
Shannon: at it, just knowing what we know about social media now. And knowing what we know about, I mean, even in the last two years, what has happened to the media environment. environment um and
Carter: And knowing
Shannon: and uh and i and i would definitely do what carter did with with gondek and hitch it to some larger uh topics larger uh political forces uh and then just ride that at the door right
Shannon: and and you could you could pull it off for a mayoral campaign i think to get the name recognition to go into you know like the good spots for the new democrats to start off with all the good neighborhoods there's plenty of them the same places that were cory till the soil as well uh
Shannon: uh these are the same uh spots and there's lots of voters up in there and they vote too that's the other thing in your kensington's varsity village all these uh kind of areas like folks will go go get their vote on uh as opposed to other places and i might build it from there i um because i i don't see an alternative at this point you're not building it on social media anymore not in the first instance if
Carter: your kensington's
Zain: kensington's
Shannon: you don't have any pre-existing name recognition or whatever but what you're saying is
Carter: what you're saying is you wouldn't form a party
Carter: interesting uh
Shannon: uh i don't know if i i like i'm not sure if that matters i i mean you can uh tell me if that matters i i think it's it's good for fundraising purposes and those are the rules of the game so carter
Zain: the rules of the game so carter what you're saying is you wouldn't form a party i
Carter: i think the venn diagram of people who support housing and support parties are two separate circles okay
Carter: okay i mean your opportunity is
Zain: okay i mean your opportunity is you could mobilize two very separate groups of people uh is it working oh
Carter: oh my god these uh the these fucking progressives i will oh yeah they're too they're too smart for it i will fucking end progressives by the end of this i am so fucking done with progressives are you not one i thought i was i thought i was i am apparently not um the progressives have their own blood tests i think shannon's probably familiar with them um yeah you know i don't know that shannon as a the former NDP cabinet minister would reach the purity levels required and certain rewards in Calgary.
Shannon: yeah they're too they're too smart for it i will fucking
Shannon: so fucking done with progressives are
Shannon: thought
Shannon: yeah you
Zain: Calgary.
Carter: Carter,
Zain: can I dig into your Thanksgiving strategy a
Carter: Thanksgiving strategy a bit more?
Zain: a bit more? Sure, sure. I've got three questions for you. Did you send out any written instructions to people? Are you going to follow up with them on the back end? And did you try to encourage anything around viability? I think one of the things your candidates, If I'm just going to make a plain statement, you can, of course, disagree with it. Struggle with is that they might be who people want to vote for, but the viability threshold is hard to read with at least the very few public polls that we have. Have you talked about how do you kind of get that message across? How do you let people talk about personal narrative to your earlier point? Talk about politics, not script them too much. And so how have you thought about this? And are you collecting any sort of anecdata on the back end? I think I'm
Carter: Sure, sure. I've got three
Carter: think I'm wary of talking about viability. As soon as you start talking about viability, you sound not viable. You have to show it, don't you? You have to show viability. And the way that you show viability is to actually be viable.
Zain: You have to show it, don't you? You
Zain: the way that
Carter: Janet Brown helped
Zain: Janet Brown helped
Carter: helped
Carter: helped us a little bit, the smallest of amounts, by saying that any of the top five candidates could win. um she but she didn't get a chance to analyze her own data on the cbc right that she posted a bunch of data on x which was really interesting and i really wanted people i don't think i saw i don't
Zain: i don't think i saw i don't think i saw that myself oh no it's
Carter: oh no it's fucking fantastic second choice is uh people who are open to certain candidates uh numbers fucking fundamentally change uh as soon as you start digging into that data about who's viable and who's not but i can't exactly do a uh
Carter: a beginner's course on statistical understanding um in my emails and it makes me sound completely
Shannon: me sound completely
Carter: completely uh completely completely completely defensive yes
Carter: yes we didn't i agree we didn't we didn't do that we did send out emails and texts of what we wanted people to do um i
Zain: yes we didn't i agree we didn't
Carter: don't think i'll follow up it's interesting I hadn't found a following up until you mentioned it.
Zain: I hadn't either until you said, well, now we just wait for people to sit on their hands and hope something happens, which sparked the question, why do we have to wait? Did you even try to anecdotally be like, hey, did you have convos at least to your top two?
Carter: to
Shannon: to your top
Carter: top two?
Carter: Maybe
Carter: Maybe I'll change mine. The question of viability is for someone else.
Shannon: I'll change mine. The question of viability is for someone else. Good point. It's for an influencer to talk about and, you know, be the guy at the board with the red string, putting it all together, all the stuff that Janet Brown posted and interpreting it for people and pushing it out into a progressive universe. If they had like that Troy Pavlov guy or whatever, what's his last name in Edmonton? Oh, yeah. If they had one of those in Calgary, that, you know, would be a… Yeah, that's working out so
Zain: Good point. It's for
Carter: If they had one of those in Calgary,
Carter: you know, would be a… Yeah, that's working out so well for me in Edmonton. Well, I mean, maybe your candidate
Shannon: Well, I mean, maybe your candidate shouldn't say stupid shit.
Zain: Well, it's also fascinating, though, someone with less than 5,000, and I don't mean this as an insult, because this would include myself and I think all of us, Instagram
Zain: Instagram followers can pretty much be his own media outlet that drives narrative that media outlets are not driving with well-produced, like, influencer videos. Well-produced.
Carter: well-produced,
Zain: They're pretty well-produced.
Carter: Intellectually challenged.
Zain: Okay, we can talk about that. Okay, Carter, we can talk about that. Question, question, question. Another question for you, Carter. Carter,
Carter: talk about that.
Carter: Okay, Carter, we can
Carter: talk
Carter: question, question.
SPEAKER_00: Another
Zain: the likelihood that people talked about, if political conversations happened this weekend, what you and I at least, maybe even Shannon or Branding, one of the more important, if not the most important, Alberta political Thanksgiving, do
Zain: do you think the municipal election was top of the list in terms of political topics? Based
Carter: Based on the information that's available to me at this point, I would say it was probably, it
Carter: might be the most important political topic in
Carter: in Alberta, but I don't think that it's an important political topic. I don't think anybody was,
Shannon: don't think that
Zain: that
Carter: was, I don't think people were chomping at the bit to
Carter: to talk about mayoralty and council elections. The give a fuck factor on this particular election, we had a 32% drop in advanced polls in Calgary. I'm not sure what the percentage was in Edmonton. I think it was also
Zain: talk about mayoralty
Zain: advanced polls in
Zain: in
Zain: in Calgary.
Zain: I think it was also down, if I'm not mistaken. Oh,
Carter: I'm not mistaken. Oh, yeah, it was down, for sure.
Zain: for sure.
Carter: But I just don't know what the percentage drop was. Oh, I see what you're saying.
Zain: was. Oh, I see what you're saying.
Carter: No,
Carter: No, I mean, we're in this place where, because no one has any information,
Carter: it's not important, and
Carter: and they're going to wind up going to the polls with the wrong, for
Carter: me, the wrong poll, the wrong question, right?
Carter: right? Right. The best question for my candidate is who's the best person to be the to be the mayor. And it's going to be I think it's going to, you know, our great fear is it's going to be who can beat Jeremy Farkas, Sondra Sharp or Joe T. Gondek. Who
Zain: Sondra Sharp or
Zain: Who can stop evil, however you define evil. Right.
Carter: stop
Carter: stop
Carter: Right. And my view is, well, the best person to do that is the best person to be mayor. It's
Zain: my view is,
Carter: my guy. But, you know, if they're not if they're not engaged enough, we will see. I mean, we'll know. Probably the only metric that I can actually count on is the number of people on our website at any given time. And
Shannon: is the number
Carter: I will know on Sunday and Monday whether or not we're going to be winning Monday night.
Zain: That's fascinating. Shannon, anything to add on Thanksgiving and municipal before we jump into the teacher strike and what needed to happen there? Well,
Shannon: all I know is it's a good weekend for canvassing, not the Sunday, Monday, but the Friday, Saturday, because people stay home. They're more likely to stay home or be around than they, you know, obviously in the summertime people are gone. It's a long weekend where they're more likely to be around. That's
Carter: be around than
Zain: That's a really interesting point. They're not jetting. Carter, did you take advantage of that? Did your team take advantage
Shannon: interesting point.
Shannon: not jetting.
Carter: jetting.
Shannon: jetting.
Shannon: Did your
Carter: your team take advantage of
Zain: of
Carter: of
Zain: of
Carter: of that?
Zain: that?
Carter: Oh, God, yeah.
Zain: You did?
Carter: Everybody was out pounding the doors as much as humanly possible. Possible. This was one of our biggest weekends, both in terms of lit drops and door knocking that we've had. I mean, obviously, you get more people at the end.
Zain: much as humanly
Shannon: humanly
Zain: obviously, you
Shannon: you
Zain: you
Shannon: you
Zain: Crescendo anyways, but you made use of it on the ground as well.
Zain: Shannon, can I lead you to start us with the teacher strike? How likely, the first question is, how likely do you think this was a topic of political conversation at the Thanksgiving dinner table in terms of like, not all topics, but in terms of political topics, right? With municipal, this, the referendum question, Trump, like all these other things are all in the political orbit. So how likely do you think this was a top tier question? And
Zain: what do you think needed to happen from the teacher standpoint this weekend in terms of that conversation? What do you think that they needed out of this weekend in that regard? Well,
Shannon: I think it was probably more likely to be talked about if there was a child within a two-mile radius of the Thanksgiving dinner table. I think that it was far more likely to be talked about even than the municipal. You'd
Zain: think that it was far more
Zain: You'd rank it above just because of the real world impact.
Shannon: because of the real world impact.
Shannon: Yeah, because everybody's, you know, and tomorrow morning we have to all figure out what we're doing again. And that's irritating, right? And so for sure, the topic of conversation is going to be, what did you do last week? What are you doing next week? to
Zain: Yeah, because everybody's,
Shannon: to make sure that these people are not burning down the house, right? And so for sure, that is on parents' minds. And
Shannon: I think teachers needed to make sure that people were armed with why they're on strike, because I'm seeing more of that, right? Well, why isn't it good enough? You know, that kind of stuff. So they needed to be able to ask, answer those questions. I think they're starting to with the kind of the comms advice that we gave them a couple of weeks ago. I've seen a lot more teacher voices, paired voices on ATA channels, as well as, you know, teachers pushing things and teachers who are active in their locals and just kind of active in their communities, pushing out content. And I've also seen the New Democrats doing it. So people are doing what they need to do. And I didn't check the Meadow Library. Maybe you guys did on
SPEAKER_00: Well,
Shannon: on the ad spend. But I've seen more show up organically in the old algo. go so i'm going to assume that there's there's some action happening there that's good well
Zain: I've seen
Zain: well i also saw a pretty good produced spot i think maybe a bit too produced but it was a good concept we went to cineplex carter for the ata this was a take your ticket uh wait in line for students as the teacher gets overwhelmed at the front of the the classroom sort of spot that they that they had uh i think it conveyed the point um i don't know i haven't seen it run elsewhere but also not a traditional you know sort of native tv watcher unless it's sports or award shows like most people these days uh but i thought that was pretty good also great movie recommendation house of dynamite is insane and i recommend it to everyone it is an absolute killer movie um great time coming yeah you might you might have some time it comes out on netflix in a few weeks um
Carter: um great time coming yeah you might you might have some time it comes out on netflix
Shannon: netflix
Zain: um
Carter: um
Zain: um carter we didn't actually i'm gonna get your take on on on where you peg the teacher strike above below the municipal election in terms of political conversation in a second um i'm gonna going to actually ask you a question just to take us back because you didn't get a chance at a stab at this which shannon and i were discussing how long this goes i maybe want to just start you there and then take you into this weekend we were kind of debating the merits of the government's back-to-work legislation as potentially being bill one should they should this um last until the 23rd do you think that when house is back do you think this lasts until the ledge sits again oh
Carter: oh i do you
Zain: you
Carter: you do i don't see the provincial government uh stepping
Zain: do i
Carter: stepping away from their existing And I don't see the ATA stepping away from
Carter: their bargaining position. I think this very easily could
Carter: could go to the 23rd.
Carter: And I might argue that perhaps it should, that maybe the teachers do need to be in a position where they strike long and hard for the working conditions that they need.
Shannon: Interesting.
Zain: Shannon, have you changed your mind at all upon our most recent recording or just kind of seeing after we recorded, we got an understanding of when their next sort of loose meeting would be, which is tomorrow, Tuesday? Where's your head on this? And I think this will inform kind of what maybe the Thanksgiving objectives for both sides needed to have been. Well,
Shannon: we'll kind of know a little bit more on Tuesday, Wednesday, what the government's own polling is telling them, right? You can always tell what the polling is saying by how people behave themselves and what they say publicly. And so far, Daniel Smith was out of the province last week. She left it to Horner and Nicolaides. They didn't light up teachers the way I thought they might. I thought that they would, you know, would turn it up to 11. And they didn't. They were pretty quiet. And that tells me that the government polling is telling them that there is actually a public appetite to meet the teachers' demands. And so what the government's going to want to do, at least that was probably what it was telling them last week, because they didn't go, you know, like I had sort of said, well, you know, they'll go full. Defcon partisan as they could have.
SPEAKER_00: the government's going
Zain: full. Defcon partisan as they could have.
Shannon: public sympathy uh out there than i would have given uh that i then i would have guessed at had i not seen the polling um
Shannon: um and uh uh so i think sorry to be clear public
Carter: um
Zain: um and
Carter: and
Zain: sorry to be clear public sympathy for for
Shannon: for teachers for
Zain: for teachers or for public sector workers more more broadly right more
Shannon: for public sector workers more more broadly right more than more than i would have guessed more than i have ever seen in the past uh and so that tells me that normal ordinary run-of-the-mill people working in the public or private sectors are feeling the pinch and they are feeling a sense of yeah everybody's getting a raw deal out there right because their their housing and grocery costs have have uh gone crazy and
Carter: more
Carter: more than i
SPEAKER_00: their their housing
Shannon: and so um i
Shannon: i think we will know what the government's this weekend polling tells them because that's the other thing about a long weekend at the uh uh in a campaign is that you can get you have a bit longer to go get a uh a polling sample and and uh it's
Shannon: it's a normal time to go out into the field uh
Shannon: and i think we'll see what if the government changes their tone because the formal bargaining starts again tomorrow right
Shannon: right and so we'll know uh
Carter: so we'll
Shannon: uh a
Shannon: a little bit more maybe by the end of tomorrow or wednesday if the government's going to change their position uh
Shannon: uh if they're going to go harder if their pollings told them that Albertans are getting sick of this shit and they want the kids to go back to school, or we
Shannon: we will see if the government actually softens and they're actually losing it in public opinion.
Carter: I am less
Shannon: less
Shannon: less dug in on my previous view that it was sort of a 50-50. I think maybe the teachers were starting it better than 50-50. Carter's kind of cued on this as well, and
Carter: maybe the teachers were
Shannon: and I think he might be right about that because Because I think I was just sort of thinking about this in ordinary, run-of-the-mill Albertan terms where, you know, things are just a little bit more center-right than in most places. I don't know if that's the case. So we might see a change of attitude and an attitude adjustment from the government by tomorrow. And then we will know whether they're going to go back or if we're all digging in. Carter,
Zain: to this point, and
Zain: and I appreciate your sentiment on this in terms of what your prediction is, where do you think the teacher strike ranked this weekend in terms of political topics and what do you think the teachers needed to do this weekend? And then I'll ask both of you about the government side on this. It
Carter: was number one with a bullet if you have kids. If you do not, I mean, in the group that I was with tonight, not
Zain: you do not,
Carter: not a single person had a child in school age. Oh,
Zain: Oh, interesting. So did it come up then? Not at all. Really? Because we... You guys were all municipal focused.
Carter: So did
Carter: guys were all municipal focused.
Carter: We didn't care.
Carter: Literally didn't care. Right.
Carter: Right. And it didn't impact our lives at all. But
Zain: Right. And it
Carter: But I suspect that if you had children or have children, it's
Carter: it's
Carter: it's just not going to matter. or it matters so I'm sorry it matters so much whereas it doesn't matter to the rest of us so those
Carter: those who are engaged are highly engaged those who are not engaged are not engaged are completely disengaged what
Zain: do you think the teachers needed to do this weekend what do you think the message needed to have been Shannon lays out it needed to be a rationale of why they're striking reinforce that make sure that is clear so it is not accepted on the government's premise of simply these teachers get paid a lot which is what what the government argument has been at this point they
Carter: they needed to make sure that they appeared to be on on the parents side and
Carter: and the children's side not
Carter: not the government being on the parents side and the children's side at this point it is just it is binary either the government is with you know is is working for the kids and for the and for the parents or the teachers are and right now i think that the teachers are coming across as though they're working more for the uh for the kids and for the parents and therefore i think the teachers are winning god
Shannon: the government
Zain: what do the government need to have happen this weekend? You know, they were aware of the same sort of congealing. Shannon made a great sort of case around even the drumbeat of when polling might occur or has occurred and the response that we have seen from the lectern or podiums by government representatives, ministers and otherwise. What did the government need to have happen this weekend if they wanted to come out on a better side of a Tuesday morning with the current teacher strike?
Carter: They needed to tell a story that says that this government actually cares about children and education. They
Carter: They needed to tell a story that we would believe. It's the same as, you know, getting this government to say, well, I care about health care. First
Carter: of all, do
Carter: we believe that you care about health care? And secondly, can you tell me a story that makes me believe it?
Carter: And so I don't think that the, I don't think they even tried. I don't even think they gave a shit. You
Zain: You don't think they laced up for this weekend?
Carter: Not at all. They weren't, they weren't, they are not in the game. Was that a mistake?
Zain: that a mistake?
Carter: Oh, yeah. I
Carter: mean, it would be fascinating to watch a government that, first of all, I don't think they give a fuck. fuck so you know but it would be fascinating to clarify clarify what
Zain: to clarify clarify what do you mean they don't give a like i want to make sure i'm clear on this they don't give a fuck
Carter: they don't give a fuck about being perceived to be the right they
Carter: they don't group for the parents and the teachers all they give a fuck about all they care about is their base all they have ever cared about is their base the 20 25 percent of albertans that are keeping danielle smith in power that's all she cares about and their kids are all homeschooled You
Carter: know, playing
Carter: with the purple crayon. Yeah, well,
Shannon: crayon. Yeah, well, it's not going to affect her leadership review at the end of November in any way, shape or form. And in fact, if she is more hawkish on teachers, all the better.
Shannon: Carter is right. It's not even her voting base. It's her activist base that she has to pay attention to. And obviously, that
Shannon: means the separatists and their various representative cranks and caucus. That's what matters. And she is in a window of a leadership review as well. And so she knows that if she, that's
Shannon: that's why maybe going, like waiting, going to war with teachers or legislating them back makes her look strong.
Shannon: And it's a nice way to start the session. Carter,
Zain: what would a government that wanted to play over Thanksgiving weekend have looked like?
Zain: Because we think of governments as big, unruly, often not very nimble organizations. So you think, OK, the paid spend like that just keeps going. But what what else could a government who actually wanted to lace up for this weekend may have fully recognized that they're in the war that they are may have cared more to both of your points about, you know, the perception of the situation they're in? what would they have done? What would you have advised that government to do?
Carter: Every MLA would have hosted a town hall on education.
Carter: And they would have had talking points about how important education was to this particular government and how important parents are and how making sure that we get the best possible deal with teachers right now will ensure the longevity of this system moving forward. And if we gave them the wrong deal now, the the whole system could fall apart the
Carter: the system it needs to be protected and that's why the city the the province of alberta has decided to uh put
Carter: put draw a line in the sand because if we let the union get everything that they want this will in some fashion hurt our chances of having the system that we need and
Shannon: i mean they are up in the air on on on a paid spend um if
Carter: are
Shannon: if they cared a little more, they would humanize a bit of that advertising and they would put it into different spots. And they would make sure that they advertise their asses off on the 30 bucks a day that people with kids under 12 are getting as well. We care about your kids. We care about how this is leaving you in a lurch. The union doesn't care.
Shannon: So here's your $30 a day. Here's And really beat
Shannon: that drum.
Zain: I am
Carter: right. They
Carter: They will be disqualifying a huge number of those signatures. You just wait. You just wait and watch, my friend. There is no way that Hamas-Lukasik will be successful. I am, instead of doing the three things that you've described, I am doing the classic double
Carter: double down.
Zain: Hinting underneath that, Carter, is that you were hoping that your double down is correct. You're not actually predicting your
Zain: outcome.
Carter: outcome. come jeb bush needs to survive this primary and compete in a general jeb bush is not surviving this primary he's totally surviving this primary mark it down on your calendar okay steven carter said so hold on jeb bush is the guy just
Zain: said so hold on jeb
Zain: to be clear i want to just have some fucking
Carter: i want to just have some fucking cuts in the uh yeah the jeb bush yeah
Zain: yeah the jeb bush yeah yeah he probably has already done it he's probably done it before he's not what he's gonna do he's gonna do it beforehand he's not
Carter: he probably has already done it he's probably done it before he's not what he's gonna do he's gonna do it beforehand he's not gonna do that he's not gonna do it he
Zain: he would not do it he would not do that he
Carter: that he would not do that uh
Zain: uh did you know this shannon uh carter predicted jeb bush would be president i
Carter: i know i know oh you've heard it
Shannon: oh you've
Zain: you've
Shannon: you've
Zain: you've heard
Shannon: heard it
Zain: it okay good you've
Shannon: it okay good
Carter: good
Carter: you've heard
Zain: you've heard it too i wasn't sure if we ever used that clip before no
Shannon: heard it too i wasn't sure if we
Shannon: no but also before we started recording i i was uh needling for carter for being low energy jeb uh
Zain: also
Shannon: uh because you've eaten too many mashed potatoes and such like mashed
Carter: because you've eaten too
Carter: and such like mashed potatoes but i'm getting through a lot of calories
Zain: i'm getting through a lot of calories reference
Shannon: reference uh tonight yeah why are you still down on this
Zain: still down on this okay shane i'm gonna come to you in a a second um it's a bad idea bad
Shannon: bad idea bad
Zain: idea okay i'll let you have another go at this if you want if you actually want to give a sincere another go now that you've seen because we haven't had a chance the three of us to discuss this since lukaszek and co have announced that they've got 230 000 we
Carter: announced that they've got 230 000
Carter: we should not be talking about this topic if you want to get if you want to take an actual topic to referendum do the coal mines do the uh do do uh something opposed to privatization of health care Do something to support teachers for fuck's sake. So it's gone from he
Zain: for fuck's sake. So it's gone from he won't be successful to we shouldn't be talking about it.
Carter: Well, he still won't be successful.
Zain: Do you not think 230,000 signatures, qualified or unqualified, is an impressive feat?
Carter: If they were there.
Carter: What are you doubting? I don't understand. I doubt it all. Gosh.
Zain: I
Zain: Gosh. You really do, hey? I really do.
Zain: That part I can actually, like, are you being genuine about that part? You actually doubt it all. I doubt it all.
Carter: all. I doubt it all.
Carter: Why?
Zain: Why?
Carter: Why?
Carter: Why? Because it's an astronomical feat. And
Zain: Because
Carter: have you not
Zain: not
Carter: not seen
Zain: seen every boomer in your life, in every crevice of this city, trying to get your signature? I have, and I don't go out much. I
Carter: I know. I know. I have. I've seen them everywhere.
Carter: And?
Carter: Not signing.
Carter: No, you're not signing. But they're out there, active, mobilized, doing their thing. Yeah, but now I see, where I used to see lineups of 100 people, I now see someone, you know, vaguely waving a clipboard at people. Have you signed? Have you signed? And everybody walks by saying, I've already signed. I've already signed.
Zain: in 15 days.
Shannon: Yeah, I mean, well, it was quite frankly, knee-slappingly hilarious to hear Daniel Smith talking about how Thomas Lukasik is the problem with separation now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing everything I can to prevent
SPEAKER_00: prevent a vote because Mr. Lukasik's vote is a yes
SPEAKER_00: yes-no question. It is a separatist referendum. He may be trying to characterize it differently.
Shannon: It was just gaslighting of the absolute finest, highest order. Can you explain this to people? Because
Zain: Can you explain this to people? Because I'm not sure how many people caught this.
Shannon: So she was
Shannon: was in some scrum, I think. I don't know exactly what the context was, but I think she was reacting to the news that they had 230,000 signatures. And she essentially said, well, we have to talk about separation now because Thomas Lukasik is forcing us. so
Shannon: so it
Shannon: was so
Shannon: there
Shannon: there was it was just uh and it was one of those moments where you know you feel like the will ferrell character and zoolander really like am i taking crazy pills so um she's gonna do that okay uh i think it's fantastic that he's he's met the the 230 000 i think that carter was right in his initial rants on this that the the
Shannon: last uh segment of of signatures are going to be really really hard uh to get uh but uh there are a lot of people showing up at these teacher rallies and i've seen people with their dutiful clipboards uh at these teacher rallies uh and people are are uh really digging in because they really want to get it done uh and so i am seeing a level of seriousness that there is no way to be clear that the separatist yokels will be able to achieve. There's just no way that they will be able to get those signatures in the proper form and then have them notarized properly in all the different steps. And they are significant to
Shannon: to be able to get their stuff on the ballot. Now that I've seen what the actual process is, because my mother is one of these people, it's a wild process. There's actually a lot to it. And
Carter: to be able to get
Shannon: I don't see the David Parkers of the world being able to pull that off at all, or whoever the latest social media grifters are that have taken this cause. So if anybody's
Shannon: anybody's going to do it, it's going to be them. Oh
Shannon: boy, they've got another 50,000 to go though, right? In like, I
Shannon: don't know, 20 days or whatever. Yeah,
Zain: Yeah, since when since when they announced that.
Shannon: since when they announced
Shannon: Yeah.
Zain: You know, Carter, where
Zain: was this as a topic on this Thanksgiving in terms of the political topics being discussed? Does this get wedged in between the municipal? Is this not a hot button topic? Is this how do you kind of assess it? Shannon, I'm going to come to you on the same thing. And then what did this group need to do this this weekend on on on on
Zain: on this file? Well,
Carter: Well, I'm certain that every single person who's collecting signatures went to their own
Carter: own Thanksgiving dinner and made sure that everybody had signed up.
Carter: But I suspect that everybody in their family had already been hit and
Carter: and that the total number of signatures gathered this weekend was
Carter: was very,
Carter: very, very small. Because the group of people who sign, there's fewer people available to sign at the end. We talked about this before. With
Zain: With the number this high. I think the math, you're correct. correct the
Carter: I think
Shannon: think
Carter: think the math, you're
Carter: you're correct. correct
Carter: the the you know you're going to go to you we had 12 people at our dinner tonight of
Carter: of those 12 people how many people haven't signed right
Carter: right three
Carter: three um
Carter: um you
Carter: you know you're you're just down to fractions now and how many of them will sign you
Carter: you know that
Carter: that have you know if you haven't signed to this point are you going to uh
Carter: uh i know that thomas has an rv now so
Carter: so i mean that's probably going to settle things what
Zain: do you mean he's an rv now i have no idea what you're talking about Oh,
Carter: Oh, he was driving an RV. Oh, he's got like an RV,
Zain: Oh, he's got like an RV, like a branded RV. Yeah, with like banners on it or whatever. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. You know what? You
Carter: branded RV. Yeah, with like banners
Shannon: banners
Carter: banners on
Shannon: on it
Carter: it
Shannon: it
Carter: it or whatever.
Shannon: whatever.
Carter: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. You know what? You got to steal back. You got to steal the tactics of the COVID warriors.
Zain: Okay, Carter. Just so negative. Still so negative.
Carter: Still so negative. So negative.
Shannon: Oh, you too. Just raining on every parade possible. Shannon,
Zain: Oh, you too. Just raining on every parade possible.
Zain: Shannon, where did this rank in terms of political topics this weekend? I don't think it did. Did it catch the radar? You don't think it did, right? I
Shannon: I don't think it did. Did it catch the
Shannon: did, right? I think this topic pops up whenever the separatism pops up. But right now, Daniel Smith is playing nice with Mark Carney on topics related to pipelines and other things, pathways, CCUS. And so as a result, this has come down. down uh she wants to set these fake time markers like uh the gray cup uh i was one and then of course uh when they're gonna um apply
Shannon: apply to the regulatory process in may of 2026 uh
Shannon: uh but i i suspect that she wants to set gray cup as a time marker so that she can go into her convention and you know yell about how we're still getting a raw deal yada yada yada he hasn't got the tanker ban And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And
Carter: got the tanker
Shannon: but she's not doing that right now. And so therefore, the push to sign the petition and to seek it out and to be a good patriotic Canadian has kind of come down a little bit as the other steps come up. I'm
Zain: going to leave this segment there, move it on to our over, under, and our lightning round. I want to revisit this with our final question. But, Carter, let me start with a completely different area. Good. Which is Prime Minister Mark Carney. This weekend, this week, I should say, this weekend, not this weekend, this past week, met
Zain: met with Donald Trump.
Zain: There was a lot of praise for Mark Carney from Donald Trump. Praise.
Carter: Praise.
Zain: Carney
Zain: Carney did not come back home with any tariff relief of any kind, no deal of any kind. Give me a letter grade on Carney's week a la Trump. What
Carter: did he say about Trump?
Carter: He was a...
Zain: Generational transformative, something like that? Transformative,
Carter: Transformative, I believe. I think
Zain: I think he said that the first time. Honestly, I don't remember. I
Carter: the first time.
Carter: I think he was damned by faint praise, right?
Carter: right? Transformative isn't necessarily good.
Zain: You
Carter: You know, I think that Mark Carney is very careful with his language with Trump. He chooses words that he won't necessarily understand 100% and that could be interpreted positively, but also could be interpreted negatively. I think that Mark Carney is
Zain: You know, I think
Shannon: think
Carter: is continuing
Carter: to play a very good game with Trump. Unfortunately, we're continuing to play a game with Trump,
Carter: and no
Carter: no one wins playing games with Trump. We need to get this game over with. It needs to be done, and we need to move on. There's a Kuzma review
Zain: need to move on. There's a Kuzma review coming. I think the games have just begun.
Carter: That's right. God, it's a gong show. Would you have
Zain: you have just taken a high price and gotten it off the table? I mean, this is now asking you hindsight quarterback stuff. Okay, so then what do you mean by get the games done? I get the first part, Kearney's playing a good game. Then what's the second part? If this is like get it over with, what do you mean?
Shannon: quarterback stuff.
Carter: I just wish we could be done with it. It's a wishful thing. You wish, okay, okay. It's not a strategy you're trying to... It's not a strategic thing. I don't have a better strategy than Mark Kearney. Mark Kearney's strategy appears to be the best that anybody could come up with at this people. people
Zain: thing. You wish, okay, okay. It's not a strategy you're trying to... It's not a strategic thing. I don't have a
Carter: i think
Zain: think i think you actually may be right there i think one of the reasons the opposition are going so hard is that they've got no alternative um to that point though shannon i'm gonna give you a shake at this um letter grade give me one in terms of his week the praise was back and forth as carter alluded to the deal non-existent um the relief non-existent um
Carter: think i think you
Zain: how are you grading carney's week with trump well
Shannon: they didn't go down there with the expectation uh of getting anything really uh they essentially had to take his uh invitation because you know they'd sort of been sending texts back and forth so it was time to meet irl kind of thing that was literally uh i think how it all went down so okay um
Zain: uh they essentially
Carter: that was
Shannon: um and
Shannon: and uh the good news is is that carney didn't have to make any overt concessions uh while he was there however there has uh there There is a bunch of rumbling about new heavy truck tariffs and a couple of other things in the auto industry that are still very live. The worst thing that came out of it was, of course, Lutnick's Chatham House rules leaked out comments that we're not going to have an auto industry anymore. So that's 106,000 direct jobs and another half a million indirect
Zain: leaked out comments
Shannon: indirect jobs that is going to kick us straight in the teeth. And so the loser for Carney was not the Oval Office visit. He did what he had to do, right? You have to go and, you know, like, just bite down on the whiskey rag and just get through an absolutely horrible, you know, amputation of your dignity when you go into that Oval Office. And that is what it is. And, you know, he makes out better than most and better than anyone else that was on offer at the end of April to Canadians.
SPEAKER_00: have to go and,
Shannon: Carter, I know this is lightning
Zain: Carter, I know this is lightning round. Oh, sorry. Keep going, Shannon. Sorry. Not
Shannon: Shannon. Sorry.
Carter: Sorry. Not
Shannon: Not so
Carter: Not so
Shannon: so
Carter: so
Shannon: so lightning. This is lightning round. Oh,
Carter: lightning. This is lightning round. Oh, sorry, Shannon. I got confused by your answer.
Shannon: Oh, sorry,
Shannon: sorry, Shannon. I got
Shannon: Sorry. I got confused. You mean the first part of her answer. You
Zain: confused. You mean the first part of her answer. You mean the first part because she's just gotten to the butt.
Shannon: So the rest of his week was, frankly, quite shitty. um doug ford is uh getting restive uh and domestically he's gonna have to start to communicate a little bit better on what he's doing to have people's backs but i mean the the external stuff is great the internal is uh gonna start to wear i
Carter: the
Zain: the rest of his
Zain: doug
Zain: tend to agree with you on this shannon but you've brought up a point that i want to ask carter about and you in a second which is shannon brings up this point that he didn't have to make concessions carter how often is it that politicians protect
Zain: protect things but get no credit for them, right? In some ways, Carney has made the situation better. The 51st state comment while being made is not no longer like, I want to grab your state. Like, it's more so like, I want Canada to love us again. I want, like, that is, has been a change of tone. He's protected certain things and in fact, gotten at least a rhetoric to a certain level, but no credit provided for that. Like, we don't look at that as anything to give a grade to. Talk to me about that in terms of your experience in politics, just more overall, or any reflections on what Shannon said there They're around not having to give shit up in a sense. You
Carter: You don't get political credit for things staying the same. You get political credit for change. But then we don't like change, right?
Zain: But
Carter: right? So it's a little bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of situation. But when things are remaining status quo, people always say we want the government to stay out of our lives and just kind of, you know, meander along. Fuck off and yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just leave me alone until such time as we need the government. government and when it comes to dealing with the the tariff monster down in the states we need we need someone to stop the lunacy and unfortunately stopping the lunacy sometimes means not making any progress at all because we're not falling further behind but
Shannon: little bit of a damned
Shannon: meander
Zain: meander along. Fuck off and yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just leave
Zain: because we're
Carter: but that just that just doesn't play it just doesn't play and
Carter: and
Zain: and you can't force it to play can you have you tried to force look at
Carter: you tried to force look at
Carter: at
Zain: at
Carter: at that ladies and gentlemen i bring to you status
Zain: status
Carter: status
Zain: status
Carter: status status
Zain: status
Carter: status quo
Zain: quo who's shannon your reflections on this the political credit or lack thereof i should say on on uh carter summarized it well on status quo or keeping the peace you
Carter: quo who's
Shannon: you don't really get credit in politics you might get recognition you might get respect uh
Carter: respect
Zain: respect uh
Shannon: uh begrudging uh or you'll get blamed but you don't get credit uh it's not a thing and you shouldn't look for it um you might get recognition that uh you did did something, but it's not necessarily, yeah, that, you know, in a certain specific scenario, like I'm thinking here of when Rachel Notley took us through the Fort McMurray fire, right?
Carter: it's not necessarily,
Shannon: right? And
Carter: right? And
Shannon: And she emerged from that crisis with recognition and respect as a leader, but not credit, right? And it wasn't vote determining either at all, right? And so what you need is recognition and respect, and Carney has that on
Zain: respect as a leader, but not credit,
Zain: right? And so
Shannon: on the international stage. But
Shannon: But politics isn't about the international stage.
Zain: It's not necessarily recognition or respect in that sense either, in terms of what's vote-getting. It's
Shannon: It's not necessarily recognition
Shannon: in terms of what's vote-getting. It's
Shannon: It's about what's happening with EI.
Zain: It's an entire
Shannon: It's an entire industry.
Zain: Very insightful from both of you on that. Carter, Carney bringing up Keystone XL. Is
Zain: this a silver bullet A++ grade that many are giving it? Or is this not that in your mind? And just to give people the political context, Smith wants a pipeline. Eby doesn't want a pipeline going to the West. Carney brings up, as has been reported by the CBC, Keystone XL. Maybe this solves an American problem. Maybe this solves a domestic national projects problem, which is why many people have been calling it an A++ silver bullet style thing. Stephen Carter, what strategic grade are you giving it?
Carter: Well, I'll tell you, for a magician, this is a fantastic misdirection. It's
Zain: It's a misdirection. I
Carter: misdirection.
Carter: I think that this is, you know, look over here in
Carter: in this hand. It's completely empty. But this hand has something going through Quebec.
Carter: Huh?
Shannon: Keystone's not Quebec. It goes to the States, Carter. No, I'm saying that's
Carter: not Quebec.
Carter: States, Carter. No, I'm saying that's the one I'm hiding. I don't want anybody talking about a pipeline through Quebec. I don't want anybody talking about a pipeline going through British Columbia. Look at this hand. This is the hand where we're all going to go to Keystone. Keystone's not going to happen. Not going to happen. But this
Carter: is a misdirection. That's all it is.
Zain: Shannon, he does not give me a letter grade. He rarely answers the question. What was the question?
Carter: question. What was the question?
Zain: Letter grade on what this play is for Carney. 86%.
Carter: for Carney. 86%. Okay.
Zain: Okay. Shannon, what is it for you? I'll take percentage form. I'll take letter grade form. I'll take deep dive analysis. All rules are out at this point.
Shannon: Oh, I won't go down the rabbit hole of pipeline economics, but Keystone XL doesn't really help Alberta's bottom line or the federal bottom line. There is less of a proponent, probably, than whatever's happening with the West Coast one, because TC Energy divested all of its assets to a smaller company that isn't a pipeline
SPEAKER_00: is
Zain: is less of a
SPEAKER_00: West
Carter: West Coast one,
Carter: smaller company that
Shannon: pipeline developer in the same way that TC and Enbridge are. Uh,
Shannon: Uh,
Carter: Uh, it,
Shannon: it, uh, may even make the, uh, uh, low cost or, or the low price for bitumen for, uh, Western Canada Select lower, uh,
Shannon: uh, than, and may create more economic problems for us now that we have TMX. Uh, and so that's a problem. Um, and,
Shannon: and, but, uh, it's fantastic for making basically Danielle Smith go vote. And I loved her response. She kind of tried to pour cold water on it, but she can't pour cold water on any pipeline. So she had to hum and haw and do a little dance, which I thought was awesome, because it showed the extent to which pipeline politics is mostly kabuki theater. There are no proponents. No one is paying to do any of this. And even if you do repeal the tanker ban to go to the West Coast, the fact is that you still have Section 35 of the Constitution. That's still a thing that exists. You can repeal every climate-related regulation that you want.
Shannon: And you still will have the Indigenous nations along the route and at Terminus who remain firmly opposed to the West Coast option. So neither is a great option. The good news is we have TMX. It is not quite full. It could take more capacity. The
Shannon: The BCNDP has said that they're supportive of dredging Burrard Inlet to get more boats in and out.
Shannon: You
Shannon: know, I would be shocked if they were not even neutral on expanding TMX again so that we could get more access to Asian markets. kids to my mind uh that's the smart thing but it's not uh a bunch of fucking memes uh and so therefore nobody's interested uh we're just you know busy doing um to carter's point magic tricks with this topic uh rather than understanding what our transportation uh reality is in a carbon constrained world because it remained carbon constrained so there's my rant uh
Shannon: uh i would say It's actually a pretty good one on Carney's part, though. I gave him an A.
Zain: Look at that. She got there. She did get there. Sorry. Do you want me to ask you a more complicated final question? Or do you want to leave it there, Carter? No,
Carter: She got there.
Carter: there. Sorry.
Shannon: Sorry.
Carter: Do you want me to ask you a more complicated
Carter: Or do you want to leave it there, Carter? No, no. Let's do a more complicated final question.
Zain: I'm
Carter: I'm
Zain: I'm going
Carter: going to start
Zain: start with you on this. We talked about Thanksgiving. We started with Thanksgiving. We spent most of the episode on Thanksgiving weekend. Let's end it here, which is I can't help but notice one observation, which is not novel and not unique, but I think is interesting to maybe bring up to finish this off, which which is that all three of the things we discussed could either compete with each other, I'm talking about the municipal elections, I'm
Carter: started
Zain: talking about the teacher strike, and I'm talking about the referendum petition process, could all compete with each other for attention, or they could all complement each other. And
Zain: I'm curious just your general take on that as closing off, Carter, which is as they go forward in the next number of days, and in certain cases number of weeks depending on the process and the outcomes, Do these movements like this, when they're trying to capture limited attention across a media enterprise that is fractured or eroding or has eroded, do these movements that are similar and potentially touch the same people as
Zain: an overlap compete or complement? And how are you as a practitioner or a follower of this stuff thinking about these things today, drifting off one thing versus another, making it your own thing? Do you feel like you're in competition? And Shannon, I'm going to ask that same very open-ended question to you in a second, but I'll let Carter go first. Well,
Carter: I don't think it's any secret that in Calgary, we're trying to connect with anti-Danielle sentiment. That anti-Danielle sentiment comes from the petition and separatism. It comes from the teacher's strike. It comes from a number of different areas. We are trying to tap into that, not doing it as much in Edmonton. um you
Carter: know will those so you get kind of uh a natural experiment will will they work uh will they not work i mean both could fail both could be successful we don't know but i do think that there is an opportunity to tie them together and ultimately um you
Carter: you know i think that with the teacher strike i think that thomas thomas's little train got a little bump uh
Carter: so you know we'll see i mean it'll be interesting to see how it all ends up but i do think that working together would be in everybody's, you know, in the progressive side's best interest. What I think is of note is that we didn't talk about the NDP once this week.
Zain: You mean we as in the collective? We were on this episode. I did.
Carter: I did.
Shannon: did.
Shannon: did.
Carter: Oh,
Carter: fuck, you're expected to talk about the NDP all the time. I mean... I thought they did a really good job. That's why I talked about them. I
Carter: didn't even listen to you, really. I mean, what are we talking about here?
Carter: I mean, realistically, does
Shannon: I mean, realistically,
Carter: the third person matter?
Shannon: had a great time last week, so no. No,
Carter: No, not so much.
Shannon: so much.
Zain: much.
Zain: I
Carter: I
Shannon: I
Carter: I was zinged.
Zain: Shannon,
Zain: Shannon, your thoughts on this, right? Like, and even if you want to broaden them out to like the broader political horizon of like, we are going to see more issue based movements, whether that be labor, whether that be whatever. How do they coordinate with one another? Like, this is maybe an interesting time and point. We've heard even from campaigns in Edmonton, Carter, you can attest to this or not, that certain
Zain: certain mayoral campaigns in Edmonton have had a nice bump themselves based on the teacher strike. and their alignment with them or their natural alignment with them. So how do kind of movements work or not work with each other? And how do you think this compete versus complement piece is playing out, Shannon?
Shannon: Well, I don't think they're competing at all in the progressive universe. And to our very first point, if you're on that side of the ledger, they helped you kind of figure out, OK, who are my municipal candidates? Who's my school board person? You know, are they the person who's showing up in my algorithm saying we have to stand up to Daniel Smith and we need an effective advocate for public education? Okay, now I understand. I'd never heard of this person before, but now they're telling me what I need to know to mark my X, right? And so it's a portal. Any of these things are sort of, you know, they're a gateway. And then they reinforce each other. And unfortunately, we reinforce it.
Shannon: And the algorithm reinforces it. But if you don't play that way and if you're if you're if you're one of these municipal candidates who goes out there and saying, oh, I don't want to, you know, take a stand on Danielle or don't, you know, I want to be not as a, you know, these kinds of people. And I saw them a couple of their campaigns crash on the rocks in 2021 because they refused to do this on
Shannon: on
Zain: on the progressives that didn't win
Shannon: on
Shannon: the progressives that didn't win because they didn't tell the voters, you know, very basic things on what they what they could expect from. right
Zain: basic things
Carter: things
Shannon: right and it is a nice shorthand and i imagine it will uh only continue we
Zain: are going to leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1886 of the strategist my name is zayden velge with me as always stephen carter shannon phillips we shall see you next time