Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is the Strategists episode 528. I'm Zain Velji with me Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you doing? Doing well. So episode 527, I have to say the fourth most popular episode we have had.
Zain
0:14
The reviews are in and they're fantastic. Let me just read you a few reviews about myself.
Zain
0:17
Brilliant, a force to be reckoned with, the brown Charlie Rose. It is overwhelmingly clear
Zain
0:22
clear that you guys need to be better.
Zain
0:25
But let's kick it off. The final 10 days of
Zain
0:30
I want your thoughts. Off the top, how do you think the next 10 days play out? Give me your top line summary. Corey.
Corey
0:36
Well, you know, I think in the last week, campaigns run against themselves. You can keep it together for the first three weeks pretty easily. You can put a message together. You
Corey
0:44
You start to get that sense of dread. You can convince yourself until the final week that things will turn. The plan will actually come to conclusion. But this is when people start to panic. Stephen. Well,
Carter
0:54
Well, this is when people are actually starting to wake up to the fact that there's an election.
Carter
1:00
People who are listening to this podcast will get mad at me for saying that because they're politically
Carter
1:05
politically engaged. They're paying attention to these things. It's the same thing as all of Calgary is now paying attention to the NHL flames because they're in the playoffs. Well,
Carter
1:13
Well, where were they on game 42?
Corey
1:16
people on those NHL flames? I
Corey
1:20
You're a big hockey fan,
Carter
1:22
Yeah, I mean, they won or something. And
Zain
1:24
And the Puck Bowl. Yeah, that's great.
Carter
1:25
You know, I mean, there's forums for that stuff. I don't know if you know Calgary Puck. Go there.
Carter
1:31
People talk. You're losing
Carter
1:32
Well, anyways, what happens, I mean, so people aren't paying attention until the last week. And now that they're doing that, people are going to start questioning on a totally different level. And they're not going to be making their minds up in a rational format. I mean, I thought Corey's blog the other day about this being an irrational action was an excellent blog post because now is when things really start to get irrational. irrational okay
Zain
1:53
okay so let's talk about that things start to get irrational campaigns
Zain
1:56
campaigns start to get a little bit wonky we have segments in the show so let's go to our first one it's called bold brilliant or boneheaded and
Zain
2:04
and and the first thing i want to talk about is
Carter
2:06
is he talking about the three of us i am brilliant
Carter
2:09
i got bold i got bold you do have to take boneheaded okay
Zain
2:13
so the first thing i want to talk about i will be both brilliant and bold um rachel notley and her comments around around pipelines, more specifically Northern Gateway.
Corey
2:24
You know, I have a lot of clients in oil and gas, and I always like to disclose that up front, but that's almost the point. You know, there's a lot
Corey
2:30
lot of us in Alberta tied up in this industry, and there's a big risk that she's going to alienate a lot of people who are otherwise kind of cruising towards an NDP victory.
Carter
2:39
Well, I don't think this is the first time I've said this, but you can't start talking about pipelines that don't exist as though they're going to carry oil. So you can't say, well, we We didn't get Keystone XL, so Northern Gateway will happen. Or we didn't get Northern Gateway, so Kinder Morgan or the Eastern Pipeline will happen.
Carter
2:56
The pipelines that can happen are the ones that are proposed and approved by government. That's it. And I don't remember. Do you guys remember which episode that was that I said that before? I
Zain
3:04
I think it was 286. I'm sure we've got a clip somewhere. We'll pull it up right now. Okay, great.
Corey
3:11
Well, yeah, I mean, and that's a really good point. What do you think of the fact that Harper's saying we can take our oil straight to China? I
Carter
3:16
I think that Harper's forgetting that we have to put pipelines from here to there. I mean, you can't just simply take the oil from
Carter
3:22
from Alberta and take it to China. We have no approved pipelines, no pipelines even thought about yet. I mean, we've got them on the books, but they haven't even been submitted to the NEB for approval. And until such time as you have an approval from the NEB, you can't even start talking about the potential of putting a pipeline in the ground.
Zain
3:41
But I want to challenge you guys a little bit on that. Was your position extremist? I mean, you had people like Danielle Smith on Twitter defending her position. You had Jim Prentiss himself exploring doubts around Northern
Zain
3:53
Northern Gateway. Was her position extremist in any way, or was it just not a time for nuance 10 days in the campaign? I
Corey
3:59
extreme misses the point. You gave ammunition to your opponents. This is the first thing that the Conservatives have now that they're really able to hammer Rachel Notley with. This reinforces what is pretty clearly going to be their main message over the next 10 days, which is, you
Corey
4:14
you can't trust these guys. Is it out of context? Maybe.
Corey
4:17
You know, it doesn't matter.
Carter
4:19
People have been all over my Twitter stream attacking me
Carter
4:21
me and my comments yesterday, saying that, you know, I didn't understand what she was trying to say.
Carter
4:27
That's her problem. Her problem is to try and get across exactly what she means every time she goes out to say it. And on top of that, you don't play politics with something that's this process-oriented. The best politicians recognize the things that they don't want to touch, and this is one of those things you do not want to touch. Adrian Dix, same
Carter
4:47
same situation. Goes out and says no to the Kinder Morgan pipeline as well as the Northern Gateway pipeline, and he loses the election he was bound to win. Is this going to be Rachel Notley's Adrian Dix moment? Boneheaded.
Zain
5:01
Okay, next one here. Here. The PCs and their one-front war. First of all, do we think they have a one-front war right now with the NDP? And if they do, is that bold, brilliant, or boneheaded?
Corey
5:11
It's bold to think that they have the ability to define what the election is still when they're in third place in the polls.
Carter
5:17
Well, I think it's boneheaded because, I mean, I know that they needed to do this. They needed to get themselves to a one-front war. Unfortunately for them, Brian
Carter
5:26
Brian Jean's dismal performance in the debates did not seem to resonate with his voters. They still want to vote for him. So you can pretend that you have a one front war. You can pretend that you've only got the Eastern Front. But in fact, you've got the East and the West, and they're now in real trouble. Okay,
Zain
5:43
Okay, so we've seen this grassroots movement around life with the NDP.
Corey
5:50
boneheaded. I think this is one where we really benefit from hindsight but boneheaded that that hashtag had I don't know four to one five to one in favor of the NDP there were a couple of very
Corey
6:01
very grim almost ad hominem attacks by the PCs but if
Corey
6:05
if you're gonna do something like this I
Corey
6:07
I mean you better have the pieces in place first and they had none of the pieces they should have had pre-canned infographics they should have had people ready to tweet on it they just got killed so
Zain
6:15
so I want I want to follow up on that and I don't seem you want to get in here Do you think that is the PCs throwing out the playbook a little bit? It was constructed as a little bit of a grassroots movement,
Zain
6:23
movement, but they've adopted it regardless as being part of their general
Zain
6:27
general messaging in the last couple of days. Do you think they've thrown out the playbook?
Corey
6:31
I don't know. I don't have their playbook, but I'll tell you when the best argument you have is 250,000 people have left Manitoba since 1999, ergo life with NDP is terrible.
Corey
6:43
I could go on about how much that was a torquing of facts. that was just out migrants it didn't look at in migrants for starters oh
Corey
6:49
that was a bad bad well
Carter
6:51
well i mean i went and pulled up the uh life with the pcs uh from the the new brunswick government where the income tax rates are significantly higher and
Carter
7:00
and you've got an eight percent pst so clearly the pcs will be bringing a similar type of tax regime to alberta i
Carter
7:07
i mean it was it was boneheaded it didn't have any strategic thought behind it and on top of that it didn't even have the slick graphics that we now anticipate and require for
Carter
7:19
for social media sharing yeah
Corey
7:20
yeah if I can just build on that I think that whoever was behind that whether it was a PC strategist or a grassroots member either
Corey
7:27
either way they made the same mistake and that was assuming that everybody feels about your opponent the way you do they just took for granted that people thought the NDP were socialist job killers and they didn't have any of the stuff they needed to back that up okay
Zain
7:39
okay so last one on this segment Brian Jean ignoring Calgary
Carter
7:47
If I was writing a strategy four weeks ago, five weeks ago, I would have written a rural-only strategy. Then he got some lift in Calgary, and it would have been very easy to just simply throw away the first strategy and move to an urban focus. But I think that actually being disciplined and sticking to his guns, staying in rural Alberta, is going to be a very successful strategy for him.
Corey
8:13
going to say boneheaded. I think the only reason I can expect him still to be avoiding Calgary is he can't fund it on a map, frankly, because nothing else. No
Corey
8:22
No one is going to listen to his message in Calgary. I think the polls are showing him in first in Calgary. Only
Carter
8:27
Only because they haven't met him. If they meet him, then his vote will go away.
Corey
8:33
If that's his problem, I'm not sure that squirreling away in Edmonton or rural Alberta is going to help him too much.
Zain
8:40
Okay, I want to move to the next segment. you guys are strategists by trade and by profession so let's take you inside the war room you're
Zain
8:46
you're inside the ndp war room right now and and what do you think with the most recent media narrative that that rachel has gotten herself in you
Zain
8:54
you do to counter that what would you suggest or what would you do
Zain
8:58
do to counter this this little firestorm that she's in right now especially as it relates to the oil and gas sector well
Corey
9:04
well i think they're doing everything right on the cleanup their reality check they pushed out though the way that they've kept focused on that she does support certain pipelines no question there the
Corey
9:14
problem is that they got it in there in the first place and they I said last time and I'll say again they need to have some relatively error-free ball and that was a day where Jonathan Dennis had to resign as energy minister this should have been a justice minister I'm sorry justice minister this should have been a bad news day for the PC it wasn't it ended up being a bad news day for the New Democrats yeah
Carter
9:33
yeah I mean I if I was sitting in the war room I would have an oppo team sitting across from me and
Carter
9:38
and I'd say exactly okay guys it is now oppo team what
Carter
9:42
what are they going to throw at us every single day and
Carter
9:45
and the oppo team would be the ones who are actually running
Carter
9:48
running the show because at this stage it's not about what you say it's about how you respond like you don't want to say anything that's going to step into a trap and all they did with the northern gateway is step into a trap it
Carter
10:00
it is the easiest thing in the world to stay out of traps stay on your primary message there the The primary message has been and should remain, the PCs are bad.
Zain
10:10
So let's flip that a little bit. You know, you're talking about upper research. You're talking about it
Zain
10:14
it being a time where you defend it. If you're the PCs right now, what are you doing to
Zain
10:18
to define Rachel Notley in these final 10 days?
Corey
10:21
I'm looking at 86 candidates other than Rachel Notley, and I'm trying to find everything that will prove my thesis, which is the New Democrats are extremists. yeah
Carter
10:30
yeah i mean 86 there's got to be 86 people in there that are going to be liabilities in some fashion although i will say that some of the people that i expected to be liabilities when they started to announce candidates at the beginning a couple of them disappeared from the ballots well
Carter
10:45
so it's interesting to see that i think that this team is actually the ndp team uh has been far more professional for a uh you know the fourth place party in the legislature legislature uh far more professional than i would have expected well
Corey
11:00
well there is the problem though of their slate still you have young candidates you have candidates who are maybe more likely to go and say something extreme if a microphone's put in their face has a microphone
Corey
11:11
microphone been put in
Zain
11:13
face yet i think you're about to see that i think it's about to happen okay so let's that's a great point let's let's hit on that the
Zain
11:19
the the the battleground for this election will most likely be Calgary and
Zain
11:23
if you're the NDP right now your slate in Calgary is a little bit light so
Zain
11:28
so with that in mind what does Rachel Notley have to do to
Zain
11:31
to win Calgary or to make any sort of progress in Calgary and
Zain
11:34
and moreover I guess the question is how does she calcify that progressive vote or that centrist vote that may alternatively stay at home and not show up for her how does she become the progressive solution in this city well
Corey
11:45
well she's got to make it about her and she's got to make it very clear that frankly
Corey
11:48
frankly the adults are going to be in charge at the end of this regardless of who you elect on the local level there
Corey
11:53
there are talented new democrats who you could bring inside um a cac or a cabinet you've
Corey
12:00
you've got brian mason and billis and agan who of course were there previously but on top of that you've got a young lawyer stephanie mclean who's in calgary varsity you've got a number of shannon
Carter
12:11
shannon phillips is an excellent candidate in
Corey
12:14
in lethbridge exceptional she could be the next leader of that party honest
Carter
12:16
honest to god i i go back back to my comment about the wild rose i if i was rachel notley i'd say okay where are the two seats i can win in calgary uh
Carter
12:25
uh it looks like it's forced varsity she'll need more than two i know the question no no does she not explain that to me explain
Carter
12:31
me i don't think she wants to if i were rachel notley i wouldn't want to win a majority i
Carter
12:36
know it's crazy i
Zain
12:37
i wouldn't want that is a little bit that is a little bit audacious i
Carter
12:41
i give me six months and i can return with a better better set of candidates, a better group of people, and I can put together a much stronger narrative. And I'm not going to be nearly as scary as I am today.
Carter
12:53
So a minority situation where she can behave like the grown-up in what is going to be an
Carter
13:01
legislative session, should the PCs
Carter
13:04
PCs and the Wild Rose wind up doing a three-way split with the NDs, it's going to be gong show fun. And I think the only person who comes out of that looking good Is Rachel not? Looking better. Interesting. Corey?
Corey
13:16
Corey? I agree with your big picture, Stephen. That would be great for her, but she won't even get to a minority unless she does significantly better than two or three seats in Calgary. I
Carter
13:24
I don't know. Rural North is looking wild right now. Rural North. Wild enough to go NDP? I think it's pretty clear she wants
Zain
13:31
more than two seats here.
Carter
13:32
No, no. I think that, I think that, I mean, I've been running numbers because, you know, level
Carter
13:36
level A geek, right? Yeah, Sunday. Anything else would you be doing? Running numbers,
Carter
13:40
and I'm looking at Rural North, and I'm going, holy crap. Brian Jean's winning probably four to six rural north and then the NDP are in the Edmonton suburbs and they are in those ridings that are just that are close that have big towns I
Carter
13:55
think that the NDP if I was Rachel Notley was sitting in a warm room I
Carter
13:58
I go in a north tour to counter the north tour that Jim Prentice is going on right now Jim Prentice is going to Grand Prairie what
Carter
14:07
what what do we think kids what do
Carter
14:09
do we think I'll tell you what I think getting your Get your ass kicked, is what I think.
Corey
14:15
Anything, Corey? Well, I mean, nothing new. I think Stephen's wrong. I think you do need to have a few people in Calgary. Two. Listen, if you only have two, it becomes Calgary versus Edmonton until the end of time. The Indies don't know.
Corey
14:30
Well, they know enough to know that's not the course to victory in the long term. You've got to have a base in Calgary.
Carter
14:34
Calgary. You don't have to hit the home run every time. Okay, I
Zain
14:36
to move this along. So, Stephen,
Zain
14:38
Stephen, you referenced this earlier. Earlier, Brian
Zain
14:40
Brian Jean's poor performance did not really
Zain
14:43
really take away from his base. If I am the Wild Rose right now, who
Zain
14:46
who am I putting in front of the camera? Obviously, it's Brian Jean as your leader, but am I having a subplot where this is a grassroots movement bigger than him, or am I still going leader first? What am I doing if I'm the Wild Rose right now?
Carter
14:58
Well, I mean, Derek, Phil DeBrandt has been the stand-in for the leader from the— I mean, we saw him stand there the first time, really, when Brian Jean's son tragically passed about a month and a half ago.
Carter
15:10
And Phil DeBrandt is a very capable public speaker, very capable with the media. And he's more Southern Alberta than Brian Jean is. And so if I were running that shop,
Carter
15:22
my thought was always that it was going to be the Derek Phil DeBrandt tour as
Carter
15:26
as well as the Brian Jean tour.
Corey
15:28
Well, I just reject the premise. I think he actually did pretty well in debates, as I said last time. I
Zain
15:32
I think you're one of the few. I think after listening to this and other narratives, I think you're one of the few who thought he did well. Well, and Corey
Carter
15:38
Corey is wrong. I
Zain
15:40
I just wanted to get that back
Corey
15:40
back in. Everybody's surprised that his vote hasn't collapsed because he did so poorly. Maybe he didn't do so poorly. That seems way too simple
Zain
15:48
simple to be true. Oh, yeah.
Zain
15:50
I point granted, right? But I think at the same time, last time, we acknowledged that there was a huge grassroots following that does not care if it's Brian Jean or a brick that's leading the wild. Well,
Corey
16:01
Well, sure. Sure. And so as far as surrogates go, Stephen's named the most obvious one, Derek Filderbrand. There are others. I
Corey
16:06
I couldn't name them if you gave me all the time in the universe, but there are others.
Carter
16:10
We can give you the Google machine. You might have a chance with the Google
Corey
16:15
There's no doubt that the Wild Rose message is almost personality agnostic at this point, in my opinion. We saw Danielle Smith and the majority of the caucus leave. The
Corey
16:24
The message lives on.
Zain
16:26
Interesting. Okay. We talked about this a bit. the pc playbook other than going negative on the ndp and trying to define rachel notley in in the next couple of days what else do they need to do well
Corey
16:38
well i think they've got to really lock down their candidates this is when the last days of rome folks this is when you start to see people say weird things think about when paul martin lost in 06 there were candidates in places that frankly didn't even have a chance and they've
Corey
16:52
they've got to worry about this too if they're the pcs because all of a a sudden there
Corey
16:55
there were places with incumbents who no longer have a chance where they said things like i'm not wearing red today because i'm not proud to be a liberal you
Corey
17:02
you only need a few of those in the pc equivalent
Corey
17:05
equivalent and it's just over federal
Carter
17:06
federal pc is 1993 yeah right uh everybody and their dog running to the microphone to say how bad that ad was the john krechen's face uh that was put up uh in the in the days there of the election and that was just the beginning of everybody trying to save their own hides. You saw Lukaszek do it last week where he took the... You think
Zain
17:28
think there's going to be more of this, Stephen. You said last time you think there's going to be more of these within the PC side.
Carter
17:33
If you're sitting in, well, first of all, Edmonton, you have to decide if it's just written off right now. And if you're a candidate in Edmonton and you're not going to win, maybe you just turtle.
Carter
17:44
But if you're in Calgary or
Carter
17:46
or in rural Alberta and you think you still have a chance, but all you need to do is distance yourself from on the Prentice team. I'm going to be looking for signs that don't have Prentice on them.
Carter
17:56
And I'm going to be looking for candidates to start separating
Carter
17:59
separating themselves from the party.
Corey
18:01
Well, I have no doubt it's happening on a micro level. I was walking down the street in Calgary, Buffalo. I ran into Terry Rock. He doesn't know me from Adam. I said, Terry, you're a great guy by all accounts, but you're running for the wrong party.
Corey
18:12
Bit disenjoyed by me. I don't live in Buffalo. And he says, well, no, send me anyways. I will fix it from the inside. Well, fix it from the inside is loaded, isn't it? It's broken from the inside. It's still broken. If you're saying things like that.
Carter
18:25
that. Yeah. And Terry Rock is one of those candidates who does represent a new PC party and who could fix it from the inside and who may be one of the few guys who gets to rebuild it.
Corey
18:36
Good question. I want to say one more thing about this. Do it, Corey. And that's what the PCs need to do. They need to make sure they don't overreact. This is when they start to have panic set in and they're going to start feeling things about the NDs that they've believed since they were babes in the womb about them being crazy about them just uh having absolutely no business running alberta you already saw jim prentice say this is not an ndp province and i think he just got clobbered by rachel not let's
Zain
19:03
let's talk about that a little bit more because you open up a very interesting conversation about over correcting um
Zain
19:08
um what do you feel like some of the other traps outside of going extreme on the ndp the
Zain
19:14
the pcs might fall into and do you feel like this over correcting might happen on other
Zain
19:18
other sides as well where people may think they need to make a move and they'll just make one because they think they need to make one.
Corey
19:24
Well, last week, right? Let me tell you, well,
Corey
19:27
well, I could tell you a lot of stories about the last week of the last campaign with
Corey
19:31
with Raj Sharma, but I'm going to tell you one in particular.
Corey
19:34
We always knew what our message was going to be each week of the campaign and even each day of the campaign prior to it. Now,
Corey
19:40
we ended up with five seats. That was a contextual victory for a party that was expected to get one or two we were disciplined but discipline breaks in the last week and
Corey
19:48
and you started to see um this
Corey
19:50
this sense oh my god the poles aren't moving 11 ross sherman saying i want to be out there in front of a refinery pouring bitumen from one beaker to another and i said well rosh it's bitumen you can't pour it you know it's effectively a solid by the way it's
Corey
20:05
it's very concerning in its own right and then you say well but they move it in pipelines yes they put condensate in it very very toxic at that point you probably don't want to put your hands in it that kind of thing might have to go to the emergency room and you're not going to be there to help you raj you're the greatest doctor yeah um no very problematic swan
Carter
20:25
swan was the greatest doctor oh
Corey
20:26
oh we'll have a fight about that later i'm sure in the caucus but the
Zain
20:29
the point is that
Zain
20:30
was bob turner okay uh
Corey
20:31
uh the point is you start you start acting a little crazy you you start hearing from the random in your party who says you gotta be doing x and you pitch x to your campaign manager everybody's
Carter
20:40
everybody's calling it this particular moment in time i mean we ran the most lurchy campaign in in the history of mankind in 2012 we lurched left we lurched right we lurched everywhere we had uh contradictory promises on it on consecutive days you know it was just it was ridiculous and the reason we were doing that is we were we were absolutely flailing right now in in terms of uh the pc campaign today they're not flailing they haven't been making those contradictory promises promises they've been sticking exactly to their knitting and doing the
Carter
21:13
the campaign that they promised to do which is essentially uh the
Carter
21:17
the seinfeldian campaign we're going to make this a campaign about nothing because we have no opposition um
Carter
21:22
i don't know but with with eight days to go maybe they wake up and go maybe
Carter
21:26
maybe we should make this campaign about something and honest to god today
Carter
21:30
today if i was paid a million dollars to sit inside the pc war room i
Carter
21:34
don't know that i could come up with the thing interesting
Zain
21:37
interesting i want to ask you one quick question around this last segment good
Zain
21:40
good opposition research is it left as a variable in the 11th hour or is it built into the plan the whole way through oh
Corey
21:46
oh i i think that they probably all the way along thought they'd be following these things particularly the pcs who have the resources to do so but you know now that's happening on an hourly basis the manager is saying you got anything you got anything and they're looking for something because frankly they got to build a case and it doesn't need to be a sincere case it needs to be this one lone candidate said something crazy see now we can and build that in 2012. You saw that in 2012, Stephen?
Carter
22:11
Stephen? Well, I mean, Corey didn't put up his Tories or Wild Rose website in the last 11 days, right? It was put up well in advance of the Allen Hunsberger stuff coming out. This Allen Hunsberger stuff did not come out of our worm room. Blake Roberts found it, put it up. Paula Simons jumped on it and turned it into a bigger story because she figured out Lake of Fire. And she, you know, mainstream media made that, and we we gleefully went along with it but
Carter
22:40
but that was a narrative that we had been putting forward for months trying to make sure that that was the narrative that we were winning on and so it looks like it emerges in the last days but it's a narrative that is just catching fire at the right time okay
Zain
22:55
okay I want to move to our next segment I want to it's called a looking glass I want to take a look at some of the
Zain
23:02
the ramifications of if if the vote goes this way or if some of the current
Zain
23:06
current polls go another way.
Zain
23:09
And the first one I want to talk about is what do you guys make if we have a split between
Zain
23:14
between dominant political parties controlling Edmonton and Calgary? What does that look like? And what does that mean? And what are some of the ramifications that flow from that?
Corey
23:21
Well, the risk for both parties in that situation is that the status quo there becomes ossified. I'm thinking about the history of our entire country. You know, Alberta is not anti-liberal because it's been anti, you know, it's anti-oil. It has nothing to do with oil and gas this province has been anti-liberal since times immemorial because the liberals were the party of the establishment had power
Corey
23:41
for 70 of the last hundred years and we were the anti-establishment province those
Corey
23:45
those things can become a part of the dna of a region surprisingly quickly and if we get the sense that edmonton always votes new democrat calgary always votes pc and
Corey
23:56
that becomes the norm well first of all i like calgary's odds better we're growing faster but that's that's going to be a problem for both parties because it makes getting the majority that much harder when you've essentially written off a third of the province well
Carter
24:08
well i mean we've always approached politics as this three-legged stool in alberta and
Carter
24:12
and if you do you know you win two and
Carter
24:14
and you can win and
Carter
24:15
and the way to changing government has been to win the cities or it was you know when lockheed changed government last time 1971 you won the cities uh now what we're seeing is is the cities in rural or edmonton and rural are preparing to change the government and calgary is not along long for the ride.
Carter
24:33
It's an interesting dynamic. Is Calgary that different from Edmonton? And I know that we like to play that. Yes, we are so different. Look at the way we love our sports teams. Yeah,
Carter
24:43
Yeah, look at our hockey team. Oh, yeah. Sorry, Edmonton. Didn't mean to bring up your hockey team. But really,
Carter
24:50
really, we're not that different. That's what makes us, you know, that's what makes the rivalry so much fun. We're very similar. We have the similar values. We have very similar similar things that we care about. So when we start to see these cities going in different directions, it is disconcerting because it just tells me that we have not got a political narrative that we are able to sell to all Albertans. We are, Albertans are still casting about trying to find someone who will capture them.
Carter
25:19
Okay, so the other question I want to ask
Zain
25:20
ask is, you know, with the NDP doing well right now, let's take the election aside, is there a chance they can can become the progressive solution the centrist progressive solution well
Zain
25:31
well they could if they chose
Carter
25:32
chose to be the centrist progressive solution unpack
Zain
25:34
unpack that a bit more okay
Carter
25:35
okay so um rachel notley is rachel notley a traditional new democrat or is rachel notley a progressive cent you know a centered left uh politician i think today yeah both
Carter
25:48
of those uh questions aren't answered yet because we're seeing a person who is is has yet to be defined really we haven't seen much in the the way of policy from her. We haven't seen much in the way of her pushing forward. What is our oil and gas industry going to look like? We saw our first taste of that this week. It wasn't a very particularly good taste. I think that if she chose to become the progressive, she could become a centre-left progressive. They could redefine the NDP in Alberta the way the NDP have been redefined in other provinces. However, she does have the risk of being defined to the far left if she does not move consciously
Carter
26:28
consciously make the choice to be center-left Corey
Corey
26:30
Corey I don't know why we're talking about this future tense they have I mean they have because there's
Carter
26:36
there's no other set by default
Zain
26:39
default I I think they've just there's
Carter
26:41
there's no other Center
Zain
26:42
Center but that's not that coalescing has not been on purpose Wow the outrage
Carter
26:45
outrage at this how
Corey
26:50
itself I'd be happy to there is no liberal rule party anymore if greg clark wins maybe there will be an alberta party but that's a longer term project at this point there is frankly no option especially when the pcs have decided and made it very clear through the course of their messaging since the debate at the very least that they are trying to make this about being right versus left so yeah the question
Zain
27:10
question the question does become is the ndp to ndp for the centers and the progressives i think the answer for a lot of people is yes they they are well
Carter
27:18
but here's the here's here's my unprovable hypothesis if greg clark and david swan had taken the the opportunity of working together in this election the the momentum that we are seeing today with rachel notley ndp exists in the center uh and that center was looking it was just it's going to a place where they
Carter
27:40
they had no other choice but to go to rachel notley and there, going there. Well,
Carter
27:45
go ahead, closet NDP-er. Go
Zain
27:50
commie. I think it's interesting that you think they've already become the de facto progressive such centrist solution. I
Corey
27:56
really hard time finding any proof points to the contrary at this point.
Zain
28:00
Well, and one of them, I think, is the fact that the NDP has been probably, well, not even outside of David's one, has been the party on the left that has been the most against cooperation. They've got a brand that filters filters down nationally, that has resources nationally, why would they be interested in any sort of cooperation? And moreover, do they represent people in the center and center-left?
Corey
28:21
-left? You're conflating cooperation with progressivism, and I think that's a mistake. The New Democrats are tacticians who have a very long view of things. They want the cause to ultimately win. And I think that there's been a little bit of water put in that cause over the years. Well,
Carter
28:36
Well, I think you just brought up the absolute point that makes sense, It's why the wild rose didn't resonate and why ultimately I think the NDP will fail. Their
Carter
28:43
Their idealism will get in the way of being pragmatic. They've got baggage. Does that not come with them?
Corey
28:48
them? Guys, the New Democrats
Corey
28:49
are like any other movement. They lose their purity along the way and they become about the movement itself. And they have made a pretty clear stand for the center during this election. I would say that started well before this election. In 2012, objectively
Corey
29:02
objectively looking at the liberal platforms and New Democrat platforms, take the labels off. off you would think the liberal platform was the the new democrat one it has
Zain
29:09
has been done because you wrote it in your closet okay okay i want to get to this and i have to this next question i have to laugh away we're talking serious business guys looking forward okay i have to give a hat tip to duane brad who talked about this question today at a forum i was at um
Zain
29:26
if there is a pc minority government how the heck do they pass the budget that they've tabled oh
Carter
29:31
Come on. That's not even a question. It is a question. It can't be done.
Zain
29:36
that's being proposed. I feel like my nuance may have passed you by. What does that mean politically? What are the ramifications? What happens then? They
Corey
29:44
They just don't pass the budget. It's as simple as that. Do they remedy it? Do they do a different one? What do they do? They bring in a new budget. It's a minority government. Go. They
Carter
29:52
They have to put someone from the other parties into their cabinet and allow those people See, that's interesting right there. To define a budget that will get passed with two-party support. And right now, how do you choose?
Carter
30:08
Because right now, it's funny, because a vote for the wild, it used to be a vote for the PCs, or a vote for the wild roses, a vote for the PCs, or all these different things you've said. A vote for
Carter
30:25
may give unbelievable power to whomever the PCs choose to govern with and
Carter
30:29
and if I were Jim if I were a betting man Jim
Carter
30:32
Jim Prentice is calling Brian Jean before
Carter
30:34
before he's calling Rachel see I
Zain
30:36
I knew there was something impact unpacking that question court
Corey
30:38
court I'll tell you why he's calling Brian Jean because Rachel Notley is a much stronger personality and Brian Jean will be pushed around in a way Rachel not he won't be which is frankly why we should all be voting for Rachel Motley are
Carter
30:48
are you really gonna do that show
Corey
30:50
show on this okay that's fine okay
Carter
30:51
okay what happened I want I want to go to the last segment
Zain
30:53
segment the over-under the lightning round what we We always do. There we go. Lightning. Okay, first question. Did the Flames win more games in the next round, or did the Liberals win more seats?
Zain
31:06
Double down or remedy? What does Notley need to do about her current situation on Pipelines? Double down or remedy it? Remedy. Remedy.
Zain
31:14
In the last four days, which party has had the best week?
Carter
31:20
Indies. I think the Wild Rose might have, just because they didn't lose anything, and they're the only ones not dragging baggage this week.
Zain
31:28
What number of seats does the NDP need to win in Calgary to realize their search?
Zain
31:34
Interesting. I'm with Corey on that one.
Carter
31:36
Oh, now you're picking size. Over,
Zain
31:39
pick size. I have never said I'm a neutral moderator. The brown Charlie Rose has some opinions. Let's leave it there.
Zain
31:46
Is it too early to label myself? Yeah, it's pretty early. Over, under. PC chance of victory? Above 40%.
Carter
31:55
um under if we're not defining if we exclude minorities from that so victory being a majority i'm
Zain
32:01
i'm going to take that as a non-sequitur if we exclude minorities um
Zain
32:11
which mayor has had the most impact on this election nenshi or ivison nenshi nenshi
Carter
32:14
nenshi ivison hasn't been seen does
Zain
32:16
does david swan regret not accepting the olive branch that could have united the liberals in the alberta party no
Zain
32:22
i doubt he even remembers what was given He
Carter
32:24
He is so fixated on himself that he won't even notice that there's an election.
Zain
32:28
Which party, if any, needs to throw out their current playbook? Liberals.
Zain
32:36
think we've established that. No offense to liberals listening. Which of the three contending parties need to throw out their playbook, if any?
Carter
32:42
None of them. They have to stick to their playbook now. They
Zain
32:45
They just all have to execute.
Zain
32:47
Is the NDP defined as too far left already?
Carter
32:51
They may have this weekend. Are we
Zain
32:53
we going to have a minority government?
Zain
32:58
Does the Alberta Party win a seat?
Corey
33:05
Who wins this election?
Corey
33:07
I think whoever wins this election, we're back in the polls in two months.
Carter
33:11
Yeah, me too. But I think it's going to ultimately be the winner will be Rachel Notley.
Corey
33:16
Corey, do you want to give something more definitive? Well,
Zain
33:18
Well, I think Rachel Notley's party will have the most seats. that's a wrap episode 528 of the strategists
Zain
33:26
i'm zayn velji with me corey hogan stephen carter we'll see you next time