Episode 1891: Matt Has Left the Chat

January 17, 2026

Zain: This is a strategist episode 1891. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Shannon Phillips and two-time Reed Award winner Stephen Carter. You

Carter: can see them in the background.

Zain: You know how many I have?

Carter: how many I have?

Zain: Five. Zero.

Carter: You're a liar.

Carter: Come

Zain: Come to my house.

Carter: house. I have five.

Carter: You have five Reed Awards? I do.

Carter: I do.

Zain: do. I

Carter: I don't

Zain: I don't like to brag, but I just saw it off your shoulder and I thought I'd let you know. I've got three more. I think after 10, I can trade one for a daytime Emmy.

Carter: I think so. I think so. I mean, right now, we should put ours together and maybe we can get a daytime Emmy. Shannon, you know what a read award is?

Zain: we can get a daytime Emmy. Shannon, you know what a read award is? It's a pay-to-play political campaign award, where if you pay a fee, more than likely you're a finalist, and one in three chance you're going to win the award.

Carter: pay a

Carter: In fact, you're probably going to win the award if

Carter: you put the money in.

Carter: But you know what? Like all things, they cost money.

Carter: Oh, it's America. You know what else costs money, Zane?

Zain: Oh, it's America. You know what else costs

Carter: This show. This show costs money. It's good.

Zain: good. So that's why our patrons have

Carter: So that's why our patrons have been fantastic. I love our patrons, except when it comes to the live show. you

Zain: you know what they'd rather do is they'd twiddle their dicks on discord

Zain: I'm

Carter: I'm convinced they're not actually even on discord I think the group of people on discord aren't even patrons I've been going through the lists I've had some extra time on my hands are you going to ice purge people I've

Zain: you going to

Zain: to

Zain: ice purge people I've

Carter: I've

Zain: I've

Carter: I've gone through the lists I'm going to just ice level purge these guys unless they buy more tickets to the live show my thinking is is if i'm busy on the live show can't do an ice level purge right can't purge everybody on the discord so our

Zain: I've gone through the lists

Shannon: I'm going to just ice

Shannon: more tickets

Zain: tickets

Shannon: tickets

Zain: can't purge everybody

Carter: patrons need to step it up buy more tickets especially the vip tickets because that's where we're making some money buy more or buy any tickets buy

Carter: buy any really i mean there was a there was a moment where uh we sold a lot of tickets at the beginning yeah and then uh cory is is saying it's because he's not going to be there but i have it on high authority that he's He's been invited.

Shannon: mean there was a there

Shannon: and

Shannon: and

Shannon: and then

Carter: The show is next Wednesday.

Zain: The show is next Wednesday. Let's get some of the details. This is what Shannon is good at. She's the details person. You want to do the details? She also doesn't like my description of our patrons' extracurricular activities, but that's a different point. No, I do not. It's next Wednesday, November 12th, Knox United Church, 730. Shannon, you had a great nickname for Mr. Scaldy here.

Carter: She's the details person. You want to do the details? She also doesn't like

Carter: No, I do not. It's

Shannon: It's next

Shannon: Well, I mean, Carter

Shannon: Carter is rightfully

Shannon: scolding our itinerant Patreon subscribers who have not yet bought tickets. Those of you who have bought tickets, we will uphold your honor for the rest of time, or at least the next live show. But those of you who have not, come

Carter: scolding

Zain: scolding

Carter: scolding our

Shannon: come on. And so I was calling, I was saying to Carter, you know, it's time for Scoldy. It's time for Scoldy Han to come out and start yelling at people. I mean, really, Patreon subscribers. Like, we do appreciate that you are not the itinerant losers that the people who don't subscribe to this show clearly are.

Carter: to come out and start yelling

Shannon: We appreciate that. But

Carter: We appreciate that.

Shannon: But there's one more step we've got to take here. And that is to come to the live show on Wednesday, November

Carter: on Wednesday,

Shannon: 12th at

Shannon: Knox United at

Shannon: at 6.30 for the VIP, which we would prefer. 6.30 for

Zain: prefer. 6.30 for the VIP. That's true. And 7.30

Shannon: And 7.30 for the main show. But we know that the Patreon people are probably not going to settle for

Shannon: for the 7.30 Normie show. they're going to want to come and actually talk to us at 6.30 and participate in the full funeral experience for the Calgary Party.

Zain: Oh, I forgot about that. Yes, it's a full funeral experience. And the B-side of the show is where I read every single Patreon subscriber's name.

Shannon: about that.

Carter: Yes. And their workplace. And their workplace. The B

Shannon: And their workplace.

Shannon: And their workplace.

Shannon: The

Zain: The B

Shannon: B

Zain: B-side of the show is where we dox the Patreons. We have so much other info. We might as well do a church-style reading of their information. phone

Shannon: We might as well

Shannon: a church-style reading

Shannon: phone numbers email addresses so it'll be like

Zain: email

Zain: addresses so it'll be like stephen carter uh phone number email address and then we say thank you at the end so that's kind of the format to expect if you are a patreon subscriber uh we will dox you and thank you uh

Zain: uh as the be part of the show on wednesday night carter anything to add before we get to real shit uh

Carter: just that it's the vip is catered and we have paid for why is it catered why

Zain: for why is it catered why have we we don't even know the numbers that we paid for full cater i haven't even talked to you about the economics of the pod uh the live show which could be its own podcast. Do you want to explain this to me for half a second?

Carter: There's not much in the way of economics, but what he did in this particular case.

Shannon: Carter is like Trudeau. He doesn't spend his time thinking about monetary policy. But it

Carter: like Trudeau. He

Zain: But it takes

Carter: it takes care

Shannon: takes

Zain: takes

Shannon: takes

Zain: takes care

Shannon: care of itself. Or

Carter: care of

Zain: of itself.

Carter: itself.

Zain: itself. Or monetary things. Let's talk about things Carter's spending. So here's

Carter: Or monetary

Shannon: monetary

Carter: monetary things.

Carter: spending. So here's what I did. I

Carter: went through with Annalise. We went through the venue and we came up with all the different things we could do.

Carter: And I just paid for them.

Carter: So everything is paid for. No, that's okay.

Zain: okay. Okay.

Shannon: Okay.

Zain: Okay.

Zain: Sounds

Shannon: Sounds like the Tim Carmel campaign really kind of summed up.

Carter: Sounds like the

Zain: the Tim Carmel campaign

Carter: was hurtful. We should just end it there. That's perfect. That was hurtful. Can

Zain: hurtful. We should just end it there.

Carter: we do a show now? Can

Carter: Can we just do a show? What's the

Zain: Can we just do a show? What's the show?

Carter: The whole show? I attended

Zain: whole show? I attended the show, and

Zain: and it was glorious.

Zain: Fan-fucking-tastic.

Zain: Speaking of fan-fucking-tastic, this is actually good in the way of transition material. Fine, fabulous, or fucked, it is an oldie but a goodie, and for the patrons they love this format as it relates to being able to dissect shit that has gone on there's a few things of note we'll see how many weight make through through the list i want to i want to mainly talk budget and floor crossers so stephen carter let me start here i'll let you guys go wherever you really want on this and we'll take the conversation uh we'll kind of like move it on as it as it dries up fine fabulous for fuck the budget for the liberals as the last 48 hours have gone you and i have talked historically on this podcast and in other places that the budget is a communications exercise um fine fabulous or fucked for the liberals 48 hours into their budget i

Carter: carter let me

Carter: i think it's fine i think that people are uh you know not blown away by it i think that people are saying you know this is this is different than what we were expecting but i don't think that we're seeing a massive uptick of anger i don't think you know the 78 billion dollar deficit Corey and I have talked ad nauseum about how people don't care about deficit. They like to pretend that they care about deficits, but they really don't. As long as they're getting their stuff, they're happy. And right now, they're going to get more stuff. There's stuff coming down the pipe. And I like the shift from operating to capital. I think that that is a strong maneuver by Carney and Champagne. And I think that overall, people are going to be very happy with this budget. um even

Carter: even even the opposition parties don't seem to want to make it go away they just want to uh do the regular level of rabble rousing without any any real significance i think it's a absolutely fine document

Zain: shannon do you agree on the fine fabulous or fox scale of of this budget for the liberals well

Shannon: i think it's fine from a macroeconomic perspective because it's a macro economic document it was written by a macroeconomist uh and it shows um but politics happens in the the micro uh so it's fine asterisk right it is if you and even if you're a leftist and you are looking for good solid industrial policy you will find it in this document if

Carter: by a macroeconomist

Carter: and it shows

Shannon: if you are looking for leaving social policy kind of where it was at there's going to be some some reductions in grants and contributions for a number of organizations fine whatever right well not fine whatever but there there will be politics to be done but that is not gone

Carter: looking for leaving

Zain: but that is not gone for example but no none

Shannon: example but no none of the transfers to to provinces or individuals have been touched uh and so therefore Therefore, most of the things that affect me most, that is to say the things that land in my bank account once a month, those things are still there.

Zain: of the transfers

Zain: to to

Shannon: Now, there is lots of, depending on what happens with the public sector employment

Shannon: employment losses, you

Shannon: you might see some reductions in services. Certainly the New Democrats and the Public Service Alliance are going to claim that. I'm going to take them at their word on that. But right now, the micro is that I have status quo on all of my transfer programs. And I, you know, despite the fact that the government has not taken a victory lap on it, I'm getting a two income family, I'm going to get an $800 a year tax cut, which

Shannon: which is not I mean, it's a huge fiscal lift for the for these guys. um but

Shannon: but uh other than that i'm seeing status quo in my micro which is kind of the problem right if everything goes to shit in the economy uh

Shannon: uh there's nothing really in this document as contingency i think you're going to see um carney kind of govern uh uh sort of off the side of his desk if there is uh uh like a a really big economic crisis because he can right but uh we're not seeing a lot of the the signals on you know ei reform and those kinds of things but what what you are seeing is sectoral supports to the economy you are seeing uh you know obviously a major uh focus on infrastructure defense things that put people to work you've seen language in there around unionized labor so if you're a building trades member uh today or yesterday you're pretty happy with this document because the first time the government of canada has really embedded that beyond the you know some of the boutique ways that christian freeland tried to So that's really good. But there's huge planks

Zain: but what what you are

Shannon: of this that they've just left, right,

Shannon: in their voting coalition. A lot of progressives stampeded to vote for them. At least two of them are probably on this podcast. And yet, they're jettisoning some of those progressive bona fides that A, got them elected and B,

Shannon: are part of their internal coalition

Carter: coalition of

Shannon: of

Shannon: of their caucus, right? Right. So there's no language in here around their conservation commitments that they made a big deal of in their platform of 30 percent conservation by 30. They've dumped a lot of the way they frame Indigenous issues in the in the document, even though they kept a lot of the women and gender equality money in place or at least some of it. You know, they're certainly, you know, not talking about it. And I don't think you're going to see a lot of knock on announcements. So

Carter: there's there's weaknesses

Shannon: weaknesses there. And we'll see that will be subject to politics. But macroeconomic wise, you can tell we've got an economist in charge. And you can also tell that there are big

Shannon: big contingencies for supporting

Shannon: supporting the economy in a sectoral way. Steel, aluminum, auto, forestry.

Zain: carter how do you want to deal with this we've received some weird breaking news breaking

Carter: breaking news check your phone cast like

Zain: news check your phone cast like this is this is almost like i feel like cronkite i feel

Zain: feel like cronkite level this is not cronkite level of breaking news it's weird though it's weird right well it

Carter: it's weird though

Carter: well it isn't it isn't weird i think that no it's not weird i

Zain: weird i think that no it's not weird i

Zain: i know what that says oh

Shannon: i know

Carter: know what that says oh

Zain: no look at that that's what we call a cliffhanger and

Zain: if you wanted to know what we're talking about well you've probably figured it out let me give you that much it's It's Matt Jenner. He is no longer not just a conservative. He's no longer a member of parliament.

Zain: And if you want to know more about the strategy, the breakdown, what the conservatives need to do next, how fuck they are because of this, what this means for Matt Jenner, you got to subscribe to the strategist Patreon strategist, patreon.com. And of course, attend the live show, the strategist live show. We'll

Zain: see you soon.