Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is a strategist episode 1908. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Shannon Phillips.
Zain
0:10
How are you? Hola, I should say. I guess we're all speaking Spanish now after the halftime show.
Carter
0:15
Yeah, absolutely. I watched part of it and
Carter
0:17
and I was reminded I don't know who Bad Bunny is.
SPEAKER_01
0:21
I thought you were going to say you
Zain
0:22
you were reminded you don't know who Kid Rock is because I suspected that was more of the show you
Carter
0:25
didn't watch that didn't recognize lady gaga or um what's
Carter
0:30
what's the other guy's name
Carter
0:34
it ricky martin we're
Zain
0:35
we're gonna say enrique iglesias was
Carter
0:37
was i mean they're interchangeable to me oh
SPEAKER_02
0:39
oh my god they are interchangeable
SPEAKER_01
0:44
of them is interchangeable
SPEAKER_01
0:47
interchangeable to me okay
Zain
0:49
skin tone but their vocal Vocal tone.
Carter
0:51
I don't even look at skin tones. I just close my eyes and listen to the music.
Zain
0:57
John Horgan in you that I've always loved, which is a deep cut for a deceased man. Rest in peace. Shannon Phillips, how are you doing?
Shannon
1:03
I'm great. I'm great. I didn't really care about the halftime show, although the girlfriends in my group chat are all saying that Bad Bunny is quite possibly the hottest man alive. So that's the verdict from my cultural space. So, yeah,
SPEAKER_00
1:18
yeah, there we are. same
Zain
1:19
same discussion in my family group chat um yeah instigated by me no
Shannon
1:26
no one's just leaving that one on red hey yeah
Zain
1:29
was like are his are his shoulders that wide or is he wearing a bulletproof vest and i think the answer is yes i
Carter
1:35
i think he's wearing a bulletproof vest and he was wearing short shoulder pads well
Shannon
1:39
well but also the way his grammy suit fit was like like very, I think it was some sort of Versace corset kind of jacket, right? So I think there's also sartorial choices that are being made here.
Carter
1:52
Lots, lots of stuff, lots
Zain
1:56
Speaking of choices being made, my friends, it is time. You know what? I was going to jump into it. I was going to, I actually had a great segue there, but no, I will stop myself because it is time for the Zane Velji weekly checkup on whether the separatists collect their signatures. I am once again checking the, licking my finger, putting it out of the window and figuring out where that is going. I am still on team yes. Stephen Carter, you have historically been on team no. Shannon Phillips, you've also been a co-pilot with one Stephen Carter.
Zain
2:27
Are either of you changing your votes? I'm standing firm. How about the two of you?
Carter
2:31
I'm standing firm for sure. I got a picture sent to me the other day of a lone separatist sitting at a table, a little folding table, just sitting there waiting for people to show up to sign their little separatist piece, and no one came. So I think that this is the problem, is that the people who lined up at the beginning were enthusiastic, but they don't represent a very large starting position.
Shannon
3:00
i mean as usual yep
SPEAKER_00
3:02
i'm gonna i'm gonna vacillate a little just a little bit why
SPEAKER_02
3:06
why are you not as
Zain
3:06
usual i sense a bit of a change coming from i
Shannon
3:10
i don't know i mean i'm just hedging so that i'm not you know i don't have the tape played back to me this
Zain
3:16
this is a very common thing for the for the person who sits in cory hogan's shoes uh which i'm not saying your spot here is temporary. What I am saying, though, is that this is very common for this person to do. I mean, it is temporary. You've seen some of these candidates running against Hogan? He's
Zain
3:32
He's going to get fucked. He's
SPEAKER_02
3:33
He's going to get destroyed.
Zain
3:35
He's going to get totally fucked. Anyways, that's a different podcast called How Hogan Gets Fucked.
Shannon
3:41
we'll leave it up to Corey to put together a strategic plan to wave-proof his seat, which is going to involve a lot more door-knocking and a lot less forestry parl-sacking, in my view. uh but um you were hedging
Zain
3:55
hedging which is what tori and now you're
Shannon
3:56
you're hedging um i think okay it's just coming home to me how much longer they have than forever canada had right
Shannon
4:04
right like that that extra time especially given you know sort of the weather and other things about and and and more group events uh in that extra time right
Shannon
4:15
right from april to may uh there's an Easter long weekend in there. There's some other things that will redound to their benefit. I think there's no question about that.
Shannon
4:27
Where I think they will maybe trip a bit is around validity of signatures, you know, witnessing of, you know, just all of the crossing of T's, dotting of I's will be tough for them because it does require a certain amount of due diligence that I don't see out of the convoy crowd um and so but
Shannon
4:48
but uh and 177 is still high if you're essentially not touching the cities it's
Shannon
4:55
it's still a really high threshold to meet steven
Zain
4:59
steven carter i'm not gonna i'm not gonna redo this on every podcast although i will yeah
Zain
5:04
yeah i'm gonna ask you this i'm gonna set the follow-up question which is i ask you the follow-up question every time which is they collect their signatures have you changed your mind on whether we do something while they do that we've
Zain
5:14
we've historically been lean into Canada a bit. Now that the Olympics are here, we could have the natural lean into Canada elements.
Zain
5:20
Have you changed your strategic thinking on whether we, the flabby majority, do anything while this, the zealous minority, collects their signatures?
Carter
5:29
mean, every once in a while I see someone pop up online saying we should do something and I think, yeah, I don't want to.
Carter
5:35
So I just don't see the flabby majority getting out of their seats. You You know, I watched Women's Luge this morning instead of
Carter
5:44
of making phone calls telling people to do something. I
Carter
5:47
I don't even know what we would do. What are we going to do? Go yell at them? I think that I would only energize them. I think that the best bet right now is to take photographs of lonely separatists at tables and make that, you know, send that to all of us to boister our confidence.
Carter
6:05
confidence. I just don't see this being a long-term thing. And to Shannon's point about the length of time, I don't care how long you have,
Carter
6:14
you know, most things are done in the first week and the last week.
Carter
6:17
So I just don't think that this is going to get to where they need to go because, you know, deadlines being the nature of what they are, you do really well at the beginning and you do very poor, you know, very well at the end, but you do very poorly in the middle.
Zain
6:32
Shannon Phillips, Chris, Stephen Carter suggests that we should be doing nothing because he doesn't want to. And I recognize the inflammatory nature of this next statement. But in a world of Stephen Carter's, should we be Jason Kenney's?
Shannon
6:45
Well, kind of. I'm actually, I'm getting increasingly worried about this. Because I think regardless of whether they make the signature threshold, I think we're having a referendum anyway. Anyway, I think Danielle Smith's been pretty clear that she doesn't care how many signatures they get. She's convinced that 30% of people, because, you know, 60% of her caucus are fucking separatists. So she's convinced that she needs to do something about this. So I am not convinced that we are not going
Shannon
7:14
going to some sort of referendum exercise in the fall anyway. Which brings me to my second point, which over the weekend I saw, you know, Stéphane Dion had a think piece on the Clarity Act and so on. and my after reading it i thought yeah this is a very smart you know a helpful take and then my second immediate thought was holy shit are we ever up the creek without a paddle if our main interventions on this thing are coming from a quebecer liberal like
Shannon
7:40
like holy shit guys i think it's probably time to start you know punching out constant economic uh arguments about how this is bad for the economy. I noticed Herbert Toome had a thing out last week. There should be others. I think there should be a constant drumbeat. It needs to come from business, culture, others. This morning, I also saw Lisa Young did a little substack post on like, is it time to move? It is time to talk about how this is going to be a break on people renovating their houses, on making new business investments until we have a strong political leadership that kicks it to the curb. It is time to make, to force Danielle Smith, because she's the government we have right now, to do that. It can be done, but somebody needs to get up off their ass. And it's obviously not going to be Carter, but I do think it needs to be a broad coalition of the rest of us, and Carter can come later.
Carter
8:46
Yeah, I would, except there's hockey this afternoon.
Shannon
8:48
Yeah, well, after the luge and the hockey and the other things. Yeah, yeah.
Zain
8:53
I wanted to get into the Giovanni talk, which fascinates me on a few different levels. However, let me ask you guys this in the meantime while we're on the weekly separatist check. New Angus Reid polling coming out this morning. Net approval of how the following Albertans have approached the issue of separatism.
Zain
9:10
Smith, Pauliev, Sylvester, and Rath, all in the negatives. negatives paulie of negative 8 smith minus 17 wrath and and sylvester obviously negatives in their 20s what i'm more interested in than who's on the plus side carney plus 7 kenny plus 3 lukaszek plus 3 denshi plus 1 what interests you or intrigues you about these numbers do these overlap do these aggregate are these low are these high are you carter i know you're you know you're i'm being tongue-in-cheek you feel like we shouldn't act now what should we do i think it's It's a core, interesting question.
Zain
9:45
Talk to me about these numbers. Anything interesting stick out with you with these numbers, especially in the light of what Shannon's just said around getting
Zain
9:53
getting up off asses, plural?
Carter
9:55
I mean, I think that the numbers are a little bit, you
Carter
9:59
you know, I think that plus one for Nenshi is particularly disappointing. Plus seven for Carney. I'm trying to figure out what he's done to fight separatism. I think that these are kind of hangovers from how people actually feel. about these politicians um except for uh rath and the uh sylvester um you know the everything else to me is is just uh you know a reflection of where these politicians are at this particular moment in time jason
Carter
10:27
jason kenney is more popular he
Carter
10:30
taking you know and and taking a stand against separatism and i think that it is playing but i don't think that uh you
Carter
10:37
you know i just don't think that it it is the right path to do other than posting you know what's he doing twitter um
Carter
10:48
twitter and some think pieces fallen
SPEAKER_01
10:51
he was doing an
Zain
10:52
an ama yesterday when we were both on on cross-country checkup like he's
Zain
10:56
he's doing things i guess in the sense that you
Zain
10:59
you may want and this is my thinking on kenny which is you could go one of two ways you could totally tear a strip off the motherfucker for for getting us to this point he paved the road that has led us here i think that is objective fact in many ways i
Zain
11:12
i would say or you could be like maybe jason kenney needs to just do what he needs to do in order to convince that's that that group of conservatives that that
Zain
11:23
that this is not that that that federalism is the path to still stick by similar to harper so you could go one of two ways on kenny you could continue to take swipes out and be like how how rich is it is that this is the same guy who pretty much paved the road for us to get here.
Zain
11:39
Or you could just let him, you know, maybe
Zain
11:41
maybe for his own political end, as an upshot to all of this, let
Zain
11:45
let him do what he needs to in terms of giving him the airtime to speak to conservatives. I'm conflicted, but lean more towards the latter. That's just my internal thinking right now.
Carter
11:54
let him do what he's doing.
Shannon
11:56
Let him do what he's doing. I mean, what you're describing, Zane, is an internal conversation and then what an external strategy is. yeah
Shannon
12:03
for for progressives right my internal conversation is a thousand people died during the best summer ever and i don't know if i will ever forgive that man as an individual for the part that he played in it uh separate and apart for all of the the separatism talk but if it comes time to defend this country uh there there is a strategic reason to make common cause for for common purpose with him and with others, with Stephen Harper, with any of these other people. If it means that there is a bulwark, and I use that word advisedly because they've done this in the States, a bulwark against the sort of clown car of spread necks and assorted conspiracitizers that makes up the Convoy 2.0, which is the separatist movement.
Zain
12:49
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the right way to look at it. Carter, you're disappointed in the numbers. You're wondering what they've done. Shannon, when you see those numbers, I'll let you take a shot at this. Plus one Nenshi, plus three Lukasik, and Kenny, plus seven Carney, Smith, minus 17.
Zain
13:07
She is getting blamed for this in some ways. Her numbers are close to the separatists themselves in terms of her net approval on how she's approached this issue.
Zain
13:17
What sticks out to you, if anything, in this data set? that
Shannon
13:21
uh those are her same numbers that you know on a general uh approval she always uh trails the party and so like you know it's it's within margin of error within you know kind of striking distance it does show that this is one of their more unpopular issues and so that points to a strategic plan for uh the opposition for for poking away at her that and you can you can marry her to this issue in ways that you might not be able to marry her otherwise right economy tanks you might not be able to to pin it on her as much right just because people naturally think that conservatives are better at running the economy um even health care you might be less likely to be able to pin it on her directly although she has done a lot in terms of tagging her own personal uh brand to health care restructuring but on on on separatism there is a straight line because she ran on the free alberta strategy the author of it is her chief of staff her first item of business was the sovereignty act she has been hammering at home to us since day one uh this is her agenda it's not a distraction this is who she is uh and so what it tells me is that it is uh it's probably the best through line of attack on the ucp uh for the opposition and its uh associated you know you know, friends in civil society, enforcers, reinforcers.
Zain
14:45
But if you see these numbers, plus one Nenshi, minus 17 Smith, where are you putting your efforts, making that Nenshi number larger in the positive direction or bringing her closer to the minus mid-20s as the separatists themselves and Rath and others have?
Zain
15:00
You know, the answer is yes. The answer is both. But I'm kind of curious where you start first, wrapping Nenshi in the flag or getting Smith in a deeper hole? What
Carter
15:09
prioritize? wrapping nancy in the flag puts smith in a bigger hole it
Carter
15:12
it forces her every day to wrap herself in the flag and she just simply won't do it i haven't seen she has
Zain
15:18
has not she's not been clear on this to be to be
SPEAKER_01
15:21
be she's not been clear
Carter
15:22
the captain canada that we often even just see at some you know for the olympics for example um you know she's just not not
Carter
15:31
not there she's not taking that captain canada role that we would we would normally see with a premier um you know who
Carter
15:42
you know is is trying to be a part of canada um what is it she wants to be a strong sovereign alberta in a in a strong canada um she doesn't seem to be acting that way so i would wrap nancy in the flag because i think that he
Carter
15:57
he needs to be closer to plus 10 and she needs to be closer to apply to minus 20 and
Carter
16:02
i think that both of those things are achievable through
Carter
16:04
through um through a stronger structure
Carter
16:07
structure of of criticism and critique and it doesn't even need to be direct critique it can simply be you
Carter
16:15
know nancy standing with uh
Carter
16:17
uh with canada as we go through an olympic cycle and as we go through uh our regular our regular uh communications opportunities that that arise
Zain
16:28
Yeah, yeah, that subsequently followed the next two weeks. Shannon, last question on this topic to you. Would you focus on the Nancy positives or the Smith negatives if you're prioritizing strategy for the Alberta NDP right now?
Shannon
16:39
Well, kind of at the risk of going back and doing the thing that everybody was super critical of the NDP on in 19 and in 23, in terms of, you know, demonizing the opponent, but not really putting forward a positive vision. And I take all that under advisement, but I still think it's easier to start a war than it is to finish one. In other words, it's easier to go negative than to be positive. And I've also seen over the last little while, it has been tough for Niche and the NDP to break through with the pro-Canada message. They are doing so to the base, but it doesn't look to me like they are doing so beyond that. It is easier to just go absolutely crazy, braveheart, knife between the teeth at Smith. uh
Shannon
17:24
uh and uh you know like has she even um been congratulatory about our alberta-based athletes going to compete for canada i didn't do a social media scan but i i haven't seen it i follow her channels maybe i missed it but
SPEAKER_01
17:40
but i just looked not
Shannon
17:42
not a not a goddamn thing these are people who have given these these are young people that you should be uh that are in in pursuit of excellence on behalf of our country uh that you should be so goddamn proud of that you know you can't uh there's nothing that'll get between you and a camera uh in terms of of of upholding them and and you know i i i showing showing how proud you are and nothing crickets from this woman like would you politicize
Zain
18:08
politicize the olympics shannon like if you're i
SPEAKER_00
18:09
i would politicize fucking everything right now everything yeah everything every another because you know the So
Shannon
18:17
question of the unity of our country, of our liberal democratic values, of the rule of law, everything comes back to do you have a strong, stable federation? And so everything is up for debate. And I think there is a through line of attack on her and her care and feeding and coddling of separatists over and over again. Again, we know that it's not popular. Just go. Enough, you know, sort of worrying about it. And, like, just put that knife between your teeth and fucking go into battle. Like, I think that's what you have to do.
Zain
19:00
I love everything both of you have just said. I think that's very smart advice for the NDP. Can I be
Zain
19:08
be self-serving to the three of us for a second? it mainly because i'm struggling with this topic mightily and i just wanted to present to you guys my struggle if that's if that's okay which
Shannon
19:18
which is we're here for you zane um how much should we charge your blue cross plan yeah
Zain
19:25
yeah the the bare minimum the 15 coverage that comes back and then i have to file it to my secondary that
Shannon
19:30
that fits our professional credentials for both exactly
Zain
19:34
exactly there There you go.
Zain
19:37
The simplest way to ask this question is, what is our role? The more complex way to ask this question is, we
Zain
19:42
we are not politicians, the three of us. One of us was previously a high-profile politician in this province. But we're like three people in this province that have a bit of a voice and a profile. We've got this show, and we've got other things that people listen to us on. And what
Zain
19:57
what is our role here is something I'm really struggling with, right? Because we're analyzing this as a game, and we're obviously very pro-Canada.
Zain
20:05
But if this is the existential moment, what is our role? What do we have to do? I'm struggling with that. Can we continue to be strategists in this particular fire that we are in? And is that our function and our add and our value add? Or do we have to be more than that is something I'm struggling with. So maybe I'll just leave it there without adding more fodder. And just because, Carter, I see an emotional reaction coming from you. So I'll let you go first on this. And give me your take here.
Carter
20:36
this isn't our time.
Carter
20:38
Our time comes when the campaign comes.
Carter
20:41
If there is a referendum, when there is a referendum, we have to make sure that we are doing our campaign better than the anti-Brexit folks did their campaign. We have to make sure that we're doing our campaign better than the Quebec anti-leaving campaign. campaign we
Carter
20:55
need to make sure that we have uh we're going to win 75 80 you know we have to do a better campaign frankly than the campaign i did for the olympics you know in in you know back when we were campaigning for the yes calgary side yeah
SPEAKER_02
21:08
yeah we were both
SPEAKER_02
21:09
right yeah we have
Carter
21:09
have to we have to push really hard to make sure that that's our role shannon's
Carter
21:16
this is going to a referendum man like she doesn't give a shit if if if she explodes the province that's not her issue. Her issue is 60% of her caucus. Her being Herbie Smith.
Carter
21:28
So we have to be ready for the inevitable. The inevitable will be the referendum. That's our job. That's when we are going to be pulling together.
Carter
21:37
You know, that's when we have to stand. And I think it was Shannon who said last time we have to shake hands with
Carter
21:43
or was it Corey who said we had to shake hands? Someone in that seat said
Carter
21:46
said we have to shake hands with Jason Kenney.
Carter
21:49
And yeah, we're going to have to stand and shake hands with Jason Kenney.
Zain
21:52
Stephen Carter, especially. Especially Stephen Carter. Well, actually, the three of us shaking Jason Kenney's head will be quite a
Shannon
21:58
a lot. Which made me say I didn't look forward to shaking his clammy hand again. You know what? Maybe that's
Carter
22:03
that's what's going to cause this problem is calling it a clammy hand. But we have to do what we have to do. Whatever. A thousand people died, man. I have my opinions.
Zain
22:12
You and I too, Shannon. Carter, appreciate the take. Very valid. valid. I
Zain
22:20
don't know if I see myself the same way you see yourself, Carter, which is like campaign strategist first and foremost. And maybe before kind of getting into my thoughts, I'm curious how you're thinking about this, Shannon, which is like, is our time during the campaign, the collective R, or do we have a role now? And not saying we're Jason Kenney or Thomas Lukasik or Nahid Nenshi, but I am curious of like, if there is a slice that every, a very tiny slice that all All of us have to kind of take with whatever profile and influence we may have.
Shannon
22:51
Yes, we do. We have a responsibility as public active citizens who understand politics. And every thoughtful Albertan who has an access to some form of audience has a responsibility and a requirement to put their orc in the water, period. We all do. We have, you know, what everybody likes to refer to as a parasocial relationship with the listenership of this podcast. We have a responsibility to talk to them. We have a responsibility to make sure that when there are ways that citizens can plug in and get involved, that we are signal boosting those things. We have a responsibility to, you know, be saying things like, yes, we do need to be working across, you know, traditional partisan divides. sides, you know, and as much as I po-fun it, Jason Kenney, yeah, put me on a stage, in a room, whatever needs to happen, I will do it. And I expect everyone else to do it too, who is in an analogous position to me, who has had their name on a lawn sign or otherwise in a byline or in a headline or has any kind of relationship between politics and keeping this country together. We all need to be getting our reps in on active citizenship. And we all need to be doing that anyway, as
Shannon
24:19
as we see all the threats to, you know, our basic tenets of democracy, my view. But now more than ever, and now more than ever, it is cynical and it is self-serving to sit back and be mercenary about it and play parlor games, in my view. Let
Zain
24:35
Let you respond to that. To
Carter
24:37
To me, I mean, everything that Shannon says is exactly right. To me, it's just a simple question of timing.
Carter
24:42
Do we do that now during the collection phase? Or do we do that when we get to the inevitable referendum? I would say, get yourself ready for the referendum. Get ready, because we need it. That's when we need it. We don't need to defeat the signature collecting phase, because the signature collecting phase doesn't matter. What matters is the ultimate referendum and the campaign that's going to happen at that particular point.
Zain
25:04
And Carter, we might be talking about the same thing here, but maybe we're not. Like, I'm trying to divorce the outcomes of the work that we do and you do versus Stephen Carter, the person with the profile.
SPEAKER_00
25:16
see what I'm trying
Zain
25:16
trying to say? Does that make sense? Like, you putting all of that energy into the referendum is amazing, and we need a mind like yours doing that. But I'm also thinking of the B side of Stephen Carter, which
Zain
25:25
which is a person that people listen to, gratingly, occasionally, but
Zain
25:29
but for a person who still has got cultural and political influence. So that's, I'm trying to separate those two things, the actions of your work and their subsequent outcomes and who you are.
Carter
25:41
did an interview about
Carter
25:43
about the Olympics being in Calgary. And, you know, one of the lines I didn't use and I wish that I had was, you know, if we'd had the Olympics in Calgary, would we be talking about separation?
Carter
25:55
And I don't think we would.
Carter
25:57
Right? I don't think we would. I think we'd be talking about Canada and our place in Canada a hell of a lot more.
Carter
26:03
You know, a long tail of consequences from Rachel Notley's office deciding to do a referendum.
Shannon
26:10
paying attention to those meetings. I
Zain
26:12
I was on my phone. That's different than not being in the meetings. That's actually worse. Yeah, you were there and
Shannon
26:17
you could have stopped it. I actually wasn't on any of those committees or any of that stuff. But famously, I was doing other things, taxing the province into oblivion. You remember that part? hurt oh yeah
SPEAKER_01
26:28
yeah i remember now yeah
Shannon
26:28
yeah yeah um but no i don't know carter like i think what might be happening here is like i'm much less a strategy gal than i am a tactics gal and you know i've had men over the years tell me that i don't think strategically enough i'm too tactical fine whatever but uh in my view now is the time for you know all tactics to start moving because i'm I'm seeing just this huge chasm of silence, you know, that when all you're getting is Stéphane Dion writing a nice op-ed, like, it's good. And, like, let's not dissuade him. But, like, honestly, it made me a little nervous. But I do think that it is now time to start deploying and to start just moving the conversation on this. And there is a drumbeat to it, Carter, that I think is outside of a campaign structure. infrastructure and and i also think in the attention economy you have to build more of a drumbeat it's not just one campaign it has to be a constant refrain of people talking about the economic social cultural consequences uh of indulging this stuff and it goes beyond just a you know fantasy football of of separation it's what this does how it undermines the social fabric and and all of those other arguments that need to start to be made and in order to punch through they have to be frequent and they have to come on all channels absolutely
Carter
27:48
absolutely i agree when do you start and how do you start do you you like what
Carter
27:54
what is the mechanism that we're using right now are we going and shouting down the separatists at their rallies no we're not what is no
Shannon
28:01
no no we're being much more erudite than that i
Carter
28:04
i think we have to what are we doing like we're just writing some op-eds and shit like what are what are the tactics now you're the tactical genius now what's what
SPEAKER_00
28:11
what are the the tactics that
SPEAKER_01
28:12
that we should be
SPEAKER_00
28:12
be using? I shouldn't have said
SPEAKER_01
28:14
What are the tactics?
Shannon
28:16
Well, I do think that it is time for kind of a drumbeat of economic analyses and business community people and people whose investments are being frustrated in particular, the consequences for people's CPP, the consequences for defense. Yes, those kinds of experts absolutely need to, this is the time. This is the time, because if it gives, you know, a dozen people pause to signing this stupid fucking petition, that's valuable in itself as they start to move into, you know, beyond their like sort of base in like, I don't know, Diddlebuck, Alberta and Kowsney, right?
Zain
28:59
I think I, yeah, this conversation could go on for a while. And I think it's actually quite helpful because we're not just talking about, we're talking about timing, we're talking about strategy, we're talking about tactics. I also will add one additional piece, which is we're talking about capturing the emotional frame as well. And I think one thing that the other side may have, despite it sounding like separatist word salad, is they're using emotionally charged terms like oppression and, you know, corruption and, you know, and we'll be like, this is crazy. But they're expanding their scope of what separatism is about. out.
Zain
29:36
separatism, comma, sending a message, comma, too many immigrants, comma, add a bunch of shit. And I think they're doing that rather effectively and rather unopposed. While the other side, our side, is talking about a status quo Canada, not
Zain
29:50
not selling Canada in any sort of emotional frame that really excites people and makes them feel something. And I think that is part of my ongoing concern. Carter, the more you speak, the less time we have on the great Jamil Javani. So keep going i
Carter
30:04
mean you just you you just brought up the actual reason why they're doing i mean they're using words like oppression they're using words like uh you know these loaded words because all these loaded words come back to one issue and that's immigration right
Carter
30:17
right we are being processed we are being this is all racist this this entire um you know movement created by these separatists The people that they are appealing to, quote unquote, are the old stock Albertans who are the ones that are feeling oppressed by just the mere presence of immigrants. And that, to me, is the the core of all of this argument. And I think we got to get ready for that, because ultimately that's where this discussion is going to be. um you
Carter
30:54
you know our problem is if we let them hedge if we let them make it about like brexit was about health care in in in uh in in great britain it was never about health care it was always about brown people and
Carter
31:08
you know we need to make sure that we're not falling into these traps
SPEAKER_02
31:11
well the way to do
Shannon
31:12
do that is to name it right off the hop because right there then it poisons the well uh for just ordinary uh albertans and it imposes imposes a ceiling i
Zain
31:23
you two go so far as calling this a racist movement is that where you guys i don't
Shannon
31:26
don't know i think that might i essentially like like using that kind of full stop language might actually close off the ability to make the argument in a much more uh nuanced way
Zain
31:38
way that gets the head to agree i tend to agree but i just wanted to check in with carter on that too like carter like are you there like I would probably do it
Carter
31:46
it in a more positive fashion. You
Carter
31:48
You know, this isn't new. We were also angry when the Poles came and when the Ukrainians came and when the Italians
Carter
31:58
Italians came and when the Jews came. You know, we've been angry from the beginning.
Shannon
32:03
The Foreign Party was essentially founded. It was one of the pillars of, you know, too much immigration. when that, we've memory hold that now as we sort of lionize, what's
Shannon
32:15
what's his face, Manning. But the fact is, is that a lot of this, the West wants in, was the West wants more control over immigration. At that time, it was a central pillar of their argument.
Zain
32:26
That was our quick 32 minutes of a five minute subject. Stephen Carter, let's talk about Jamil Jivani going to Washington, DC. He takes a taxpayer funded trip to meet his BFF, J.D. Vance. He sees Marco Rubio. Oh, and by the way, this is not a sanctioned trip from his friends in the Conservative Party. In fact, Pierre Polyev looks like a complete beta on this and has not said jack fuck all about Jamil Javani taking a what seemed like a Jamil Javani party trip. Because if you look at the video, it's all Jamil Javani at the back. No conservative branding. That's interesting to me. And of course, Mark Carney had some choice words about Giovanni in his trip saying LeBlanc briefed him. But this guy is not even the trade critic for his own party, let alone the minister.
Zain
33:09
Carter, give me your assessment on Giovanni's strategy here. Do you like this? Is this an atrocious call on his part? Or is it somewhere in between? What do you kind of think of what he's trying to do? And of course, you can ask the question, what is his goal?
Zain
33:23
I'm going to put in the window his goal is to be the next leader of the conservatives. So I'll hang that out there for you if you don't want to do that yourself. Stephen Carter first, and then I'll go to you, Shannon.
Carter
33:33
His goal was to take advantage of a relationship that he has with the vice president of the United States and to elevate himself as a result of that.
Carter
33:43
there is no place for partisan politics in foreign relations. It is just an absolute disaster waiting to happen. When you present two groups to a negotiation, you are undermining the negotiation foundationally. And to watch Jamil Javani take this step, what's beyond stupid? What is beyond embarrassing? What's beyond audacious? This is a stupid idea with stupid politicians in the United States by a stupid politician in Canada. That, you know, he wants to be leader. Like he's not supporting his leader. He's not supporting Canada.
Carter
34:24
Canada. He's not supporting anything except his own. He's just exploiting his own relationship with
Carter
34:31
one of the worst vice presidents in history who gets booed at the Olympic Games. I mean, this was this was just an absolute own goal by Jamil Javani. He is not getting any positive press from it. No one likes it within his own caucus, within his own his own sphere of influence. If this was a step towards trying to become a leader, this was an absolute disaster. In my ever
Carter
34:59
ever so humble opinion, Shannon
Carter
35:01
Shannon will now agree with me and underline all the reasons why.
Zain
35:05
Shannon, please agree with Stephen Carter and underline all the reasons why.
Shannon
35:09
For some different reasons, but I'll just add to them. Number one, I don't know where the saying comes from, but he who wields the knife does not wear the crown, generally. And so this, from a here I want to be leader perspective, you
Shannon
35:27
you look like you're freelancing. I don't even know who the international trade critic is, but that person must be butthurt. uh it's not a great in my view not a great way to win friends and influence people if your eventual goal is to be a leader um i
Shannon
35:44
i kind of all and then you know then there's the what could possibly go wrong file he's got all these photos of him with all these various assorted you know people who are on the way to the hag uh members of the u.s administration um like
Shannon
35:59
like these people at some point You know, if that photo of him with Rubio could backfire in the next six months when Rubio's standing up and saying, we're going to annex this part of the Arctic, you
Shannon
36:10
you know, what are you going to do about it, Canada? Right? Like, it's not beyond the realm of imagination that those photos become an absolute boat anchor for the Conservative Party of Canada. Just another one. As bad as Jenny Byrne wearing the MAGA hat, right? As bad as all of the, like, and so to me, that's the biggest issue. management risk um and then of course there's the national security risks i mean mr giovanni is probably not smart enough to be a national security risk but holy shit is he flying pretty close to the sun there um
Shannon
36:43
um when you are out there essentially exposing weakness criticizing uh other decisions that have been made by the prime minister of canada vis-a-vis chinese evs or just let
Zain
36:55
let you know that they let me know that the americans are the mexicans are ahead of us in our our trade negotiations kind of putting that out in broad daylight well
Shannon
37:02
well also it's false what he said on uh the uh the piece with um the mexico and critical minerals is false yeah it's
Shannon
37:11
it's it giovanni is like either lying or but he's probably too stupid to be lying because he doesn't know that we've had critical minerals uh arrangements with the united states since at least 2020 that we have a defense production sharing agreement with the united states that allows american companies to to take equity in our critical minerals, mines, and other development opportunities. So what he's saying, like he hasn't been properly briefed. He's not a decision maker on behalf of the government of Canada. He makes us look like fools because he is a fool. It's contrived and it's vacuous and it's full of very significant national security pitfalls. I
Zain
37:51
I don't know. One more round on Giovanni before I go to Polyev, who's the most interesting cuck of this situation. On Giovanni, does
Zain
38:00
does he pay a political price here?
Zain
38:02
And it may be related to the Polyev question, because the price might be paid by his own party that might be waging that toll on him. But does he pay a political price here? I'll ask that to you in the broadest sense. These
Carter
38:15
These photos are going to be used for years to come to define what the term useful idiot looks like. He has put
Carter
38:25
put himself in a tremendously negative position. These people that he is meeting with are not going up. They're on their way down and out. And Canadians resent this administration. We're supposed to be elbows up. up. You know, Carney has struggled with the relationship with the United States in no small part because it's, you
Carter
38:51
you know, realistically, we have to have our trade relationship with the United States. And
Carter
38:57
And Giovanni just made it worse. And that is going to be easily seen by the population of Canada. And you can see that immediately, both in terms of social media and regular media as well.
Zain
39:10
Shannon, I'll come to you in a second. Carter, I'll stick with you.
Zain
39:12
What do you think Jameel was trying to do here? Like, I go in, like, I'm going to give you a hypothetical. I haven't even thought this through. But I go in, I've got this unique relationship.
Zain
39:21
I'll get these meetings.
Zain
39:23
I'll set the course of the direction. I'll bring back useful intel. I'll course correct the PM and others and we'll be closer to a deal. And I'll be a footnote in history or a comma in who got this. Like, walk me through what you think the game time. You know, suspending for the fact that Shannon thinks he's stupid, let's assume he's not. What do you think he's trying? What do you think the completion of this play was? This is what I'm trying to figure out. And I'm curious if you have a beat on it.
Carter
39:51
I think the completion of the play was to come back and say, Donald Trump says hi.
Carter
39:56
You know, that was- To get in a tweet.
Carter
39:58
Right. That was the- It
Zain
40:02
It was an aura thing, as the
SPEAKER_01
40:04
the kids would say. That's the
SPEAKER_02
40:05
the end of the play. It
Carter
40:08
people don't think all the way through to what is the best possible outcome and i would put for giovanni in that set his best possible outcome was
Carter
40:17
was to come back and say you know what the cpc could get a deal done the liberals can't and i don't even see i don't fucking see that in the messaging right
Zain
40:26
right this is a i see no mention of
Zain
40:28
of the fact that he's a conservative member of parliament other than the
Zain
40:31
that he's mentioned it that he's you know this is for the auto sector blah blah blah like very
Carter
40:35
little easiest the easiest messaging of all would be to simply come back and say here's what i heard the cpc and our attitude towards the united states would get us a deal and
Carter
40:48
and you know yeah but and the and the liberal party is a is a uh anvil around canada's neck and i just don't even see him doing that i don't even see that happening i'll
Zain
40:59
i'll let you take a swing at this question which which is what do you think Giovanni was trying to do? What was the completed play in his mind from what you think? And then let's merge that with the Polyev question because that guy has been invisible on this, has not called him out.
Zain
41:12
What do you think is happening there? And go forward. What does Polyev need to do to
Zain
41:17
to Giovanni? What does he need to do to kind of regain status? Is this like a public sort of thing that he needs to reprimand him? Would you go privately? Would you bench him? I'm not saying Giovanni's rogue here, but there are elements that do look rogue.
Shannon
41:31
Well, his point was to be able to come back and in some way, shape or form, be able to make the argument that Carney is doing it wrong, whatever it is, whether it's challenges to our sovereignty, the negotiation of Kuzma, in particular, some of the retaliatory or other, you know, negotiating plays. And that's where it becomes quite risky, right, of him essentially handing over to the Americans some lines of attack on Canada as we are in a sort of will they or won't they phase of actually negotiating COSMA. So that's why he did it. He wanted to be able to at some point now or in the short term future be able to make the argument you are doing it wrong. And here's how I know, because J.D. Vance told me X, because Marco Rubio told me Y. etc right um but
Shannon
42:22
but i mean contrast this with what harper said in his speech last week when he took direct aim at the business community and said essentially your strategy of appeasement is not going to work in the long term it's not going to work in the short term we must do everything possible to uh maintain our sovereignty that is a stark contrast to polyamorous leadership who neither is maintaining discipline within his own caucus or the argument of sovereignty externally facing, right? Which shows you just how much the polyamorous version of conservatism has changed, has changed that party over the years. Very
Shannon
43:01
But also how brittle it is, right? Because that will, Harper's version will withstand some of the, you know, the push and pull of politics. politics polyamorous won't because it's way too pro-trump uh and he's got too much within his own caucus and within his own base that can destabilize him whereas harper uh you know say what you like about him and certainly i have a person who has i but i i am trying to imagine a scenario where some rando and his caucus beetled down to the united states to have some meetings in dc it It would never have fucking happened because Harper knew exactly what his leadership of this country was and he articulated it again last week. So I think this just shows once again the weakness of Polly Everett's leadership. Does he do anything? No, because he can't.
Shannon
43:56
Again, because he stuck himself between the rock and the hard place.
Shannon
44:00
He's like literally been like, I'm just going to follow this path straight between the rock and the hard place and every possible opportunity, I'm going to move the rock closer to myself.
Zain
44:08
think that's very cogent analysis, Shannon. I tend to agree with that. Carter, is there something Polyev can do? And if so, what? Help me strategize Polyev out of this hole. I'm not sure it's going to be a thing for him. It might. The Giovanni news still is piping a bit and people are still talking about it. Does he have to show ultimately that he's the leader here? Because this is not even like someone going rogue. It's someone going rogue without the leader physically and without the leader's permission. There's some real issues
Zain
44:40
issues with that, especially as it relates to his leadership, which has just been reaffirmed by his membership.
Carter
44:47
Yeah, I mean, it would be an interesting play to kick him
Carter
44:50
him out of caucus.
Carter
44:52
I don't think he has, I don't think that Pierre Polyev has the strength to do that. I don't think that he has the strength within his own caucus. I mean, he wins his leadership review, 87%. He's doing great. Everything is fantastic, except it's not. It's not fantastic. We see him in the negatives with the Alberta separation referendum. We see him, you know, struggling across Canada with GenPOP. uh we see him falling behind in in in best um uh
Carter
45:19
uh you know best prime minister polling he
Carter
45:23
he is in desperate trouble and when you're in desperate trouble you don't get to deal with your rogues you don't get to deal with them and and and that means that he doesn't have the opportunity to take drastic action his best play right now is to hope it goes away to
Carter
45:39
to hope it goes away that Between the rock and the hard place, he
Carter
45:43
he walks down the middle of it, and ultimately it opens up to a giant, you know, meadow of flowers in the spring. That's his only hope, because he has no power and no capacity. He has no strength, no leadership capacity to make a move on Jamil Javani.
Zain
46:04
Yeah, and does this change at all in your mind if Giovanni's intent, which we will never really fully know, was just pure? I
Zain
46:13
I have these relationships. I'm sitting on the sidelines. My guy isn't using me all that much. I could probably go help, right? And I sound earnest to try to add a bit of twang to this, right? Right. And just to be like, hey, like I can go help. Right. And I'll go find out what's going on and I'll come back and I'll debrief the government. And it's not a partisan thing. It's not a conservative thing. I'm not going to do it as a conservative. I'm just going to do it as a guy that's got a very unique situation granted to him with his past relationships. Does it change anything in your mind if Giovanni was doing this earnestly, perhaps
Zain
46:46
perhaps even a bit naively to add to the mix? right? Does that change anything, the intent here, in terms of what the penalties he might face and or the political realities he might face on the back end now that he's back in Canada?
Shannon
46:59
I think it's cute that you've even imagined a world in which the intent had to steer. And
Zain
47:04
And maybe it's because I know the guy. Maybe it's because that, and I'm certainly not defending his actions here, but I'm curious if that actually factors in. I just think it's an interesting academic exercise. Well,
Shannon
47:13
it's replete with political and national security risk. And,
Shannon
47:18
And, you know, it has the potential, especially given that, you know, I think that it's a bit bumbling in the first place to open up cracks in the trading negotiations, even if they're inadvertent. And I don't like the idea of essentially showing weakness to a hostile counterparty in both Kuzma and in just general, like, going about our business as a nation. And so that's the first thing. But, you know, even if the intent is pure, I don't know, but okay. Let's
Zain
48:00
intent is naive and productive. Let's just put it that. Let's use those words.
Shannon
48:04
words. Well, productive for what? But I would say it's probably fundraising in southern Ontario, because
Shannon
48:10
because the arguments that he was making are arguments that resonate in southern Ontario, which is that we've given away the store and we're not protecting auto and we're doing the deals with China and so on. And when you read what he has actually said and what was actually said to the Americans, it was really zeroing in on the fact that Carney has opened up or
Shannon
48:32
or at least reduced some of the trade barriers and further cemented our trading relationship with or normalization of our trading relationship with China with respect to some of our exports and so on. So, I think that's what he is driving at, and that's the electoral path that he sees through blue-collar southern Ontario. And it is, frankly, a path that has been left open by the Liberals.
Shannon
49:01
And so, if his intent is more pure, it is because he's actually quite smart on
Shannon
49:07
on that and where he sees the political openings in southern Ontario. you um and uh purity you know being electoral advantage at home i would say that and maybe fundraising for
Shannon
49:20
for his own purposes arthur
Zain
49:23
arthur let's finish this off here um jameel
Zain
49:25
jameel javani calls you he says stephen carter i've heard you're amazing i've heard you're great help
Zain
49:30
help me salvage the situation i'm in what advice are you giving him start
Carter
49:34
start crediting the party uh
Carter
49:36
uh make this bigger Right now, you're coming across as though Jamil Javani is the person who is able to create this opportunity. I would start saying that the Conservative Party of Canada is the only organization that's going to be able to put a true free trade deal together with the United
Carter
49:57
United States of America. America, you know, there
Carter
50:01
there is a shared vocabulary and a shared understanding of what is important to North Americans that the conservative party has with the Trump administration.
Carter
50:11
And they can get it done without giving away the farm.
Zain
50:14
Bannon, same question to you. Any advice for Giovanni as he tries to salvage?
Zain
50:18
Let's just say he's in salvage mode. He may not be right now. That may not be his actual headspace. But let's say he is. What advice would you give him? stay
Shannon
50:25
stay away from these americans and make it about uh the domestic as i was just saying there's a lane there uh even the auto strategy has proven you know fairly disappointing to a lot of people uh you know you're an mp for a one of the jurisdictions that makes the most uh uh vehicles and also a vehicle and parts manufacturing hub so focus on that um enough with these you know know, like it is attention getting and so therefore probably like somewhat good. But I mean, I'm pretty sure that there are people in laid off auto workers in this country that are thinking that it's, you know, exciting to go talk to Americans. They fucking hate them for good reason. So focus on the people that elected you. If that's the path that you're building towards an eventual leadership, which it has to be. We're
Zain
51:17
going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1908 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me as always, Shannon Phillips, Stephen Carter, and we shall see you all next time.