Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is The Strategist, episode 570. My name is Zain Velji, with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, how are you? Oh,
Corey
0:10
Oh, Zain, I'm a little fired up over the weekend. Oh,
Zain
0:12
Oh, man. Carter, you? I'm excited. Yeah, you usually start the episode by describing what you're eating. I'm eating
Carter
0:20
You're going to get a little bit crunching. It's also some nuts, but I've got a nice glass of water.
Corey
0:25
This podcast brought to you by legumes, so that's good.
Corey
0:31
you're gonna leave it there yeah
Zain
0:32
yeah i don't know okay oh listen emergency
Zain
0:34
emergency episode can i call it that i think it is we we listen we're back on regular analysis an emergency episode our schedule is once every four weeks okay and
Zain
0:44
and then everything in between is
Corey
0:45
is an emergency episode there's a lot of emergencies that's
Zain
0:47
that's true well we've got some legitimate stuff to talk about with the ndp convention this weekend is that what you're fired up about cory is that fair to say or is it the the Warriors' 73-win season on the verge.
Corey
0:57
verge. The Warriors have taken this to the most dramatic point they can. They are going to get the 73rd win as the literal last game of the season. So this is not only the last game of the regular season in the NBA, but it's like the latest. It's the late game. This is so exciting. Like literally the last game played this year. Oh, it's incredible. You know what? And you contrast that with the Sixers who let go of Hinckley. The process is dead. Hey, guys, speaking of the process being dead, Tom Mulcair. Oh, yes.
Zain
1:22
yes. Great. Let's just talk about it. the leap to the front cory that's a segment i just made it up on the spot i've got literally zero questions written this is an emergency episode because of your ranting and raving in the car you're all the way here your lack
Zain
1:36
planning is not that's fine i'm understanding now
Corey
1:38
now why this was billed as an emergency it's
Zain
1:39
it's gonna go just as fine it's gonna go just as fine talk to me about this first of all let's just give everyone a synopsis of what happened over the weekend for those who were not glued to twitter i know you were over this convention Give us a synopsis of what was expected going in and what ultimately happened this weekend in Edmonton when the NDP met. Well,
Corey
1:58
Well, I think that expectations going into a convention are always a bit of a fool's game because those in the know don't know, right? I think the problem is we assume that everybody is going to be bringing into it the same sensitivities
Corey
2:10
sensitivities and sentimentalities and concerns and thoughts about the future that strategists do. But the reality is when the rank and file get together, crazy
Corey
2:19
crazy beget crazy and things get a little out of control. And by rank
Zain
2:21
rank and file, you mean effectively the membership of this party? Well,
Corey
2:24
Well, no, I don't mean the membership. I mean the next level up. I mean the people who would actually go and be delegates at a convention during an off year after they lost an election are at 12% in the polls, right? That's a particular type of person.
Carter
2:35
person. That's always a particular type of member. Yeah, it's very different than your average person. I mean an average person just does not go to a political convention. Average person may get sold a membership through the course of a year. Yeah.
Carter
2:45
Right? For a leadership or for some sort of candidate selection or whatever. But
Carter
2:50
But to go to a convention for a political party requires a certain level of insanity that very, very few people possess in the general public. An average
Corey
2:57
average person does not fly across the country to go to a convention. On
Zain
3:01
On their own time to go to effectively cast a vote or a couple of votes.
Corey
3:04
votes. A couple of – a lot of votes. Yeah. They were a lot of things. A few big ones. And obviously the big ones we're going to be talking about are the Leap Manifesto Resolution and the
Corey
3:12
the Leadership Review of Tom Mulcair. Certainly.
Zain
3:13
Certainly. So is it fair to say, before we move forward, Corey, that what I'm hearing you say, was there a self-selection bias in terms of who was present in Edmonton this weekend? There
Corey
3:25
remember when I was executive director of the Alberta Liberal Party, there was a resolution known as the cooperation resolution, which was that the party should cooperate with other progressive parties. And I remember looking at it as part of the review of policies going in because you aggregate them, you combine them, you do all of those things, make sure they're not duplicates. And there was discussion around the table on a lot of policies, a lot of in-depth being like, where should this go in the order? How should this be set up? How can we merge it with these other ones? Are these similar?
Corey
3:53
This resolution came up, we should cooperate with other progressive parties. And I remember everyone around the table was like, oh, that's going nowhere. And we just moved on. And of course, for those of you familiar with the Alberta Liberal Party's history, all three of you who
Corey
4:05
who are left, I think, that resolution passed and it just shocked the hell out of everybody and by a lot. My point is simply, it's
Corey
4:13
it's tough to read what the delegation is going to do. They are a Roman mob in all parties. They are whipped up by one speech and then whipped the other way by the next speech. and uh yes there is also the fact that they are a certain type of party member who would go and spend their weekend to a convention particularly a convention after you lost which brings
Corey
4:32
a different group still you know the people who are angry about the loss are more likely to show up there's
Corey
4:37
there's a group of politicians and uh political supporters in all parties who are not fair weather but they're like i'm not going to go to a giant downer and i'm not going to subject myself to that right because i'm closer to being a normal human being than these so
Zain
4:50
so i think the point here and thanks for that that synopsis cory this is a sub segment of a sub segment that was present here in edmonton well
Corey
4:57
you want to caveat that or let's not no i want to do the opposite let's not minimize it okay because i think there is actually something that says about the ndp that we need to talk about okay
Zain
5:05
okay so let's get right into that and let's start it through the first part of it which and i want to break this down into three separate parts the first one let's talk about the leap Leap Manifesto, the vote on that. This was something that was introduced during the election, if I'm not mistaken. Is that
Corey
5:19
Yeah, it came out during the election.
Zain
5:21
And it found legs to stand and make itself a big deal this weekend in Edmonton. Corey, do you want to give us a quick primer on that? And I'll go to you, Carter. I
Corey
5:28
I don't know. Give
Zain
5:29
Give us a primer on what the Leap Manifesto is, and then we'll have a conversation about
Corey
5:33
about it. People are going to immediately disagree with me. But fundamentally, the Leap Manifesto is about a dramatic overhaul of our economy and And of our social system to address the challenges of climate change. And it's about taking that leap. And the long and the short of it is, and what everybody knows about it is, that means eliminating the use of, you know, reducing our carbon, eliminating the use of fossil fuels. They want to eliminate the use of fossil fuels entirely by 2050. Now,
Corey
6:00
another thing everybody knows about it after this weekend is it means no more pipelines being built. So, infrastructure for oil is specifically called out as something not to be built in the Leap Manifesto. right what
Corey
6:09
what people are less aware of are some of the other components such as the nationalization of the energy sector energy controlled instead of you know money-hungry corporations or whatever words they use there but by the people i always by the way as an aside think it's hilarious that corporations can be attributed with like you know greediness and grubbiness but never the people right who have never acted in a right fashion and then greedy
Corey
6:33
and then also there is some talk about about trade deals, about regulation. It is radical. It is very dramatic, but
Corey
6:41
but it's not precise. But also not officially
Zain
6:43
officially a party document. This is an outside document that has found legs within this party. Is that correct to say?
Corey
6:51
Yeah, although there are parties who are certainly cozier to it. Elizabeth May is on the advice. By the way, as a total aside, when this thing passed, and we should talk about what passed because it wasn't the leap month. Right,
Zain
7:03
Right, and we'll get into that in a second. But when this
Corey
7:04
this thing passed, the group sent out like a press advisory about it having passed. And for media comment, please contact, among other people, Elizabeth May. I'm sure the NDP.
Zain
7:16
Oh, my God. Stephen Carter, we talked about the what. How does this thing get
Zain
7:22
get legs within a party that it's not affiliated with, with a party that clearly has a divide with it? And let's talk about that in a second. How does this make it onto the convention floor and actually have a resolution? Explain to me the process that gets us there, because you and I, and I think the three of us, it's fair to say, are boggled about this a little bit.
Carter
7:40
Well, I mean, every party has almost the exact same process to bring a motion to the floor. I mean, you just have to have a number of constituencies that want to bring a certain idea
Carter
7:48
idea forward, and then you debate it as a group, and
Carter
7:51
and you decide whether or not it's a good idea.
Carter
7:53
Those thresholds are typically very low, the thinking being that the wisdom of the crowd will ultimately reject bad ideas. is.
Carter
8:04
the NDP, the ideological parties, okay? So I don't want to pick just solely on the NDP here.
Carter
8:10
But the parties that are ideological, I think, are far more susceptible to small subsegments of their ideological cohort, right? So they've got an ideological cohort on the quote-unquote left that
Carter
8:25
is as diverse as the center, right? There is as many people to the far left as there is to the center left they've got a whole group of people and what happened with this particular case is that abby lewis and naomi klein who i think are described you know are viewed as social crusaders not politicians okay but but
Carter
8:42
but they're the ones who who wrote the document and allow that and then the document gets picked up by their supporters right
Carter
8:49
their supporters not the ndp supporters they happen to be members of the party and
Carter
8:54
and they carry it well there
Corey
8:55
there are connections all over the place the most obvious being that abby lewis's father is stephen lewis who was the head of the ontario and yeah right
Corey
9:02
right i mean let's not pretend this document is totally removed who spoke
Corey
9:06
immediately before yeah very powerfully by the way i mean there's there would be a lot of heads nodding be like hell yeah along the way but the problem is it's a bromide fundamentally that's my problem with leaf it's what do you mean that doesn't solve problems it's
Zain
9:19
it's just like yeah we get
Corey
9:20
get it right this is a shitty situation we're in and there are people like me who believe that climate Climate change is the biggest problem facing us right now. But this document tells me nothing about how to solve the problem. It tells me nothing. No, this
Carter
9:32
this is the same as when I was a little kid and
Carter
9:35
and I wanted to be in a position where I could make change. My initial thought was, can I be a superhero?
Carter
9:41
This is a superhero style of solution that has no basis in reality because it's not real. If we want to actually tackle climate change, we have to tackle not just our nation either. either. We need to talk about the whole freaking
Carter
9:55
thing. Let's get there.
Zain
9:56
there. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay, so you're telling, I want to ensure that the key points of this are effectively entrenched, right? A document outside of the party, certain connections were made. But Stephen, you mentioned something that I think is worth exploring at this junction, which is the whole concept of when you talk about the left, there are several different segments to the left. It's not not just one, you know, one monolith. Corey, let's talk about that. What are these segments? Because I don't think our listeners entirely know. And I don't think Canadians know that the left is not just one clump to the left of the center, right? All
Corey
10:30
All right, from a distance, everything looks more clumped together than it is. People say to me all the time, like, Oh, yeah, you live downtown. I go, No, I don't. I don't even live on the same side of the river. I live in Crescent Heights. But you know, that's on the other, that's one community over from downtown. You ask somebody who's a little further out and they're going to say you live in the inner city you you ask somebody who's right there and they're going to start talking about east crescent heights versus west crescent heights right i mean those distinctions just get blurred from a distance and that's true i think of other political parties and it's easy to just sort of paint that as oh that's the left but
Corey
11:02
but the reality is the new democrats like other political parties have factions right uh you know there's and this has been going back since the dawn of the party it's called the ndp because it was the merger of the new party and other things there was the waffle manifest i'm not going to go through the whole history of the ndp but let's talk right now among other powerful factions in the new democrats are labor and environment as
Corey
11:26
two factions that don't always have the same interest is what i will say often they align on
Corey
11:32
on issues like this they most assuredly do not and and i think what you have to keep in mind is that the environment wing of the ndp has never been anywhere near power in this country when you talk about interesting point governments that we've had they generally have come from the labor wing or kind of the new left wing and
Zain
11:50
and is it fair to say that the labor wing is a little bit more pragmatic in its approach or is
Corey
11:55
is that they have broader based interests okay and i think that ultimately that uh manifests as pragmatism but i would think it would be a mistake to say they're more we were doing
Carter
12:04
doing some measurements in the 2012 election in uh not 2012 20 yeah
Carter
12:09
yeah 2012 election in british columbia 2013
Carter
12:13
and uh so So over the course of that year, we were looking into who
Carter
12:16
who are these people. And when you started to see a break between
Carter
12:19
between the labor side
Carter
12:21
side of the NDP, the F-150 driving NDP
Carter
12:31
it came to a head when Adrian Dix was asked about pipelines. Yeah.
Carter
12:35
And he said, you know what, I do not support the
Carter
12:39
Kinder Morgan or the Northern Gateway pipeline. point. And at that particular moment, the F-150 drive-in NDP said,
Carter
12:45
said, fuck you, I like my job,
Carter
12:48
I'm voting against you, or I'm staying home. I'm not sure which they chose, but we know that they were no longer willing to stay.
Carter
12:55
NDP members drive F-150s. Abby Lewis and Naomi Klein may not understand that, but that's ultimately, those members are labor-based. So
Zain
13:05
So Corey, continue us us down this this narrative right we've got these two factions um we've got several others broadly broadly broadly broadly but these two powerful ones that you wanted to create a story of take us down the road as to how they intersect maybe specific to to this weekend in edmonton yeah
Corey
13:22
yeah and and maybe it's not even fair to say it's labor versus environment but it's environment versus at least labor plus right there could be other people there too and the leap manifesto got tied up in a bunch of other things the new democrats are dealing with right now including the question of leadership including the soul searching that goes on post-election where there is a a broadly held feeling that the
Corey
13:45
went to the center and and they lost and i'm not saying they lost because they went to the center but it's really hard to separate those two well
Carter
13:52
well the left wing know
Carter
13:54
know that they lost because they went to the center yeah
Carter
13:56
yeah i think i'm putting no in quotation marks because they they
Carter
14:00
they have no there's no empirical data there's nothing that says this is the reason why they lost right
Carter
14:05
but trudeau went left on some big issues went right yeah
Carter
14:10
um so you you have to look at this and say well maybe there is some sort of correlation here the
Carter
14:14
the ndp there'll be some ndp activists looked at this and said we
Carter
14:18
we we lost to a guy who went to our left that's
Corey
14:22
that's unconscionable by the way credit uh to tom malker because you know i mean and a few people have done it since but this was tom
Corey
14:28
tom mulcair lost and he certainly did not hit the expectations lofty as they were i mean i was one of the people who said i think they can win this thing um but
Corey
14:37
but he gave them their second best showing ever and their best fundraising numbers ever like the abject failure feeling they have is only relative to expectations a few months earlier right but there's these questions coming into it and you saw that play out the week before uh where tom Tom Mulcair was asked by Mansbridge on CBC quite a few times, well, what if they pass this leak manifesto? Right,
Corey
15:01
Right? What if they pass this manifesto we've been talking about? And, you
Corey
15:05
know, he could have easily given an answer along the lines of NDP are too pragmatic to do that. Certainly, the NDP caucus understands. But he could have given the best non-answer ever or the worst non-answer ever.
Corey
15:17
Instead, he gave an answer. And the answer was really pandering. and uh i i it was essentially like well
Corey
15:24
well if uh if the party votes that way then i'll fight for it right because this is a man who's fighting for his political leaders right
Zain
15:30
right and and and classically defined tom tom will care for us cory in terms of where he would stand between this that's
Zain
15:37
divide do we know i
Corey
15:37
i mean he's a complicated man yeah he's from quebec politics where he was a member of the liberal party right yeah but that doesn't have the same he has some ideas from what would be right of ndp orthodoxy and he has some ideas that are very much in line or even left of NDP orthodoxy. Like all of us, he's a complicated individual. But he is not rooted in the NDP. And you know those so-called fights of labor and environment and whatnot? Those were never his fights. Right. You got to keep in mind the guy joined the party under Jack Layton. He was immediately in a leadership position.
Corey
16:07
Different things to consider.
Carter
16:09
consider. Didn't come from the grassroots. It was really important in the NDP.
Zain
16:12
Well, let's get right to that then. You mentioned the concept of these were not his fights. the leap manifesto passes we'll talk about what it passes in a second but is this a continuation of of those two factions effectively at war internally that that led this thing to pass i mean yes and no uh
Corey
16:28
uh it very much is there is an internal tension in the new democrats and it's not new and it's and it's not like it's not an internal tension in left-wing parties in other countries but we we again from a distance sort of look and we blur it and we say it's left but But the fact of the matter is there are some fundamental divides, fundamental divides, which are more threatening than superficial divides. I hope that goes without saying, which are how should we address the problem of resources, which are huge jobs for labor. We're not just talking about oil and gas, by the way. We're talking about forestry. We are talking about infrastructure, you know, building, the building trades in general. And then we have environmental concerns. Sincere though they may be, largely removed from the working class realities that have traditionally been the NDP bread and butter. Interesting.
Zain
17:18
Interesting. Carter, Corey mentions about fundamental substantive divides on the left. You were chief of staff to a premier and you ran elections for a party that had fundamental divides on the right with the PCs here in Alberta. is there is there a market difference to to what the left is battling with right now than what the right had to go through with uh with with their particular factions ultimately
Carter
17:43
was a desire to win so
Carter
17:46
so a desire to win with the pre-season brought everybody together and so everybody was willing to give a little bit because
Carter
17:51
because they knew that if they were going to win they
Carter
17:53
they couldn't just strictly stand by their own ideals right
Zain
17:57
this they all gave a little to be part of the membership there when they
Carter
18:00
they passed the leap manifesto there was a decision that was made and
Carter
18:03
and that decision that was made was i
Carter
18:05
i don't care if we win this idea is more important and that fundamentally yeah
Carter
18:11
is is uh is a different thing than you would see in the progressive conservative party in alberta or
Carter
18:16
or the liberal party in british columbia or
Zain
18:17
or the liberal party
Carter
18:18
party nationally right you have these models where we want to win so we are prepared to go where the people are to
Zain
18:27
to make Make these sacrifices and whatever it may be, yeah. I'm
Carter
18:29
I'm going to credit Corey Hogan with the best quote of our – we just did a speech and the best quote of it is, you have to remember this is a fucking democracy. And if you don't remember that it's a democracy and that the people get to choose, then
Carter
18:43
you are going to go down these idealistic, ideological, unwinnable
Carter
18:48
unwinnable positions like the Leap Manifesto.
Zain
18:51
Manifesto. Unwinnable position, Corey? I mean, maybe I'll trace back. Jack, do you agree with Carter's analysis? Because I think you teased it up very nicely here. Is this a battle of viability versus value? Like this is what we absolutely fundamentally need to believe at our core? Yeah, so more than labor environment. I think that's why I was kind of hedging.
Corey
19:08
I think that the NDP is struggling whether they want to be a conscience or a government in waiting. Okay. I will – I got to put the asterisk on it. You know it's there. I know you know, Stephen, we've talked a lot about this. They didn't pass the Leap Manifesto. They passed that they would – Look at it, yeah. They generally subscribe
Corey
19:23
subscribe to the principles and they would look at it on a writing by writing level and come back in two years. I have such huge problems with that. Yeah, why? I actually think that's worse than passing the Leap Manifesto. Why is it worse? Why is it worse? Let's get to that. In a second, okay. But I think, yes,
Corey
19:37
yes, that is the problem. The New Democrats have made what I can only describe as a
Corey
19:43
a monumentally poor decision to even entertain the Leap Manifesto. And it's not because I disagree with what Leap stands for. I 100% am on board with the direction they're rowing in, right? But the
Corey
19:58
the Leap Manifesto as an outside document was fine. It was aspirational. It was something all political parties could be badgered. you're not going as far as the elite manifesto that's great and that's the job of those outside groups to keep them honest to throw ideas out there but if you are a political party that aspires to govern you can never forget you don't get to do anything unless somebody votes for you right is
Corey
20:19
is that such a complicated concept it
Carter
20:21
it is impossible for most political parties to understand if
Carter
20:25
if you are to take your ideas to the next level you have to win you
Corey
20:28
you have to be in government you need to yeah the ndp is at a crossroads and they have to decide between wanting to do good which means finding a way to government and a way to be righteous which is perpetual opposition that is you know when you run into somebody you're like oh yeah i keep a vegetarian lifestyle they're like well i'm a vegan and you know actually this conversation takes up too much carbon so bye like
Corey
20:54
this obnoxious one-upmanship and holier-than-thou now purity represented by the Leap Manifesto, which is a
Corey
21:02
a concept so half-baked, not again in its goals, but in its executions, its tools it puts on the table, all of that, that it offends me as a political strategist.
Corey
21:14
Carter, what got passed? What
Zain
21:15
What exactly is now going to happen with this manifesto? Because Corey's right. He alluded to it. It wasn't the entirety of the document. Corey, I'll get to you in a second about what your issues are. But tee us up here, here, Carter, what exactly did get passed? And what do you think of what got passed versus what could have?
Carter
21:33
Okay, let me start with the end. Sure.
Carter
21:36
What got passed doesn't matter.
Carter
21:38
What the media reported is all that matters. Yeah.
Carter
21:40
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The lead manifesto passed. The rest of it is bullshit. Okay. It doesn't matter what the NDP think they passed. It's
Zain
21:49
It's a small, it's a fine
Zain
21:50
fine print. it doesn't matter it doesn't matter
Carter
21:52
okay these are politics
Carter
21:55
politics is simple business okay it either makes sense to people the minute they see it or
Carter
21:59
or it doesn't make sense what
Zain
22:00
what do you mean by that what do you mean by that trying
Carter
22:03
trying to understand so i've read you know a number of articles i've read the actual manifesto you know the the amendments to the to the manifesto i have no fucking clue what it means and i read it all imagine
Carter
22:15
imagine if you were just some guy sitting in your downtown coffee shop in downtown toronto picking
Carter
22:19
picking up the newspaper and going oh league manifesto passed you
Carter
22:23
you read the headline maybe you read the lead yeah
Carter
22:28
and and we expect people to try and discern what
Carter
22:30
what this what the the amendments meant you
Carter
22:33
you know like we're going to go back to and allow a democratic process i don't have it here but we're
Carter
22:38
we're going to let the democracy uh
Carter
22:40
uh of our riding associations now work dude
Carter
22:44
dude this was your convention this is your democracy. So
Carter
22:47
So they pass the lead manifesto. They put a couple of caveats on it.
Carter
22:51
But those caveats of going out and consulting and having writing level discussions are meaningless. And in two years, they're going to have the exact same conversation. And if they don't pass it, it will be seen as an enormous reversal of policy, which will be unbelievably damaging.
Corey
23:10
Right. I mean, good take. It's very interesting. Corey, you want to get in there? This is the foundation of my great frustration with it. It is that, A, everybody now thinks they've passed the Leap Manifesto, so that hit's been taken. And
Corey
23:23
internally, the party now has to talk about the Leap Manifesto for the next two fucking years. Every conversation will be through that. There is now a leadership contest, and that leadership contest will be about, are you a Leap candidate or are you a non-Leap candidate? Is this really what we want? on i mean okay let's
Corey
23:41
let's just say in a parallel universe this this compromise didn't happen and leap goes to the floor and let's just say it passes and i'm not sure it does i think the compromise is actually what got leap passed okay if
Corey
23:52
if that happens it's embarrassing they take the hit they move on nobody cares the leadership candidates say things like oh yeah i agree with most of leap or i agree with the direction or whatnot but now it's a purity test between factions of the party it
Corey
24:05
it is such a disaster it's the sword of damocles that's now hanging over Everybody's head. It's the reason why the Alberta NDP are at least going to mutter about potentially disassociated. They shouldn't, by the way, that would be a big overreaction. We'll
Zain
24:17
that in a second here.
Corey
24:19
It's just such a, it's
Corey
24:23
it's the worst case scenario, right? I mean, it's just the worst case scenario because now it leaves an unsettled question to the party, but to the public, it looks settled in a way that hurts them publicly. Okay,
Zain
24:33
Okay, let's move it on. Let's move it on, because I want to talk about going from Leap to talking about Tom Mulcair.
Zain
24:39
Let's talk about him. They got rid of the beard, effectively. He's gone.
Zain
24:43
Told him to take a leap, yeah. Exactly. They told him to take a leap.
Zain
24:46
Stephen Carter, what happened? We were sitting around this table, what is it, about a week ago, throwing numbers like 60, 70. Hope he doesn't get 78, because that's the kiss of death.
Corey
24:56
Turns out 48's the kiss of death.
Zain
24:58
Jesus Christ, what happened here? Well,
Carter
25:00
Well, I think I talked a little bit about what happens when a crowd comes together and tries to make a decision. You
Carter
25:05
don't get a rational decision, right? People don't go, well, let's just try and settle on 70, right? 70 sends the right message. We want to respect Thomas. We don't want to crush him. So we're all going to – everybody's okay with that, right? All 1,400 or I don't know how many votes that were cast.
Carter
25:21
That doesn't work like that.
Carter
25:23
What happens is groups of people decide that they're not going to vote for him. The open campaigning was something that we haven't seen. so i was at the i mentioned last time i was at the convention where klein was voted down with 55 you did mention
Zain
25:34
mention that yeah and
Carter
25:35
and that's the worst showing of anybody thomas
Carter
25:37
thomas mulcair is 48 no one's ever lost outright one of these things right below
Zain
25:42
below 50 in theory
Carter
25:43
theory 50 plus one enables you to stay thomas mulcair was not enabled in any fashion to stay so klein
Carter
25:50
klein was there you know and everybody we whispered there was whisper there was there was buttons on the inside of your lapel right
Carter
25:56
right like you didn't have you didn't wear a button on the outside these guys were handing out pamphlets right like there was a totally different level of organization uh
Corey
26:04
uh leader neutral lanyards right like the ones that said tom ball karen dp replacing them just with orange yeah
Carter
26:08
yeah i mean this is this he was in i
Carter
26:11
mean frankly his advisors should have known how much trouble he was in and told him to step down well so that was gonna be my next question
Zain
26:17
question of course do you want to answer this first and
Corey
26:18
and then i'll let's get into it i think that you know what i i believe that when we were last talking about this he was probably done in the sense that he was going to get below the percents we thought i think greatly overestimated uh the ability of labor to pull the vote for him right
Corey
26:30
right but or i did at least but i will tell you um i
Corey
26:36
i don't necessarily think he would have gotten below 50 until the week before i there was no i think i mentioned last time i didn't think that there was any great like impetus against him right there was no issue that was pissing people off there was nothing i mean there was a general unease and malaise and yes there There were people who were just angry about the last campaign being to the center. But no catalyst. He
Corey
26:56
He gave them a catalyst with that Mansbridge interview. So what happened was he made what is a traditional mistake in politics. He traded a coalition he had for a coalition he wanted. I don't know how many times we've talked about that. He had the so-called new left, the right of the party and all that, right?
Corey
27:13
And he manages to piss them off, including his hosts in Alberta, where you have to know there's an outsized number of delegates in Alberta.
Corey
27:21
To try to get that youth wing and the environmental left and whatnot by saying, I would be your servant. But those guys were never going to help him. Never. They were never going to change their mind and vote for Tom Mulcair. They were never going to do it. Just like for Alison Redford, the right of the party was never going to support her. Just like for Ed Stelmack, the right of the party was never going to support him. Just like Jean Chrétien, the right would. Like, no, that doesn't happen like that. They weren't there for you. You lose supporters. You don't gain supporters as you go through your leadership, okay? He went out and he
Corey
27:49
he pissed off the only people that were in his corner.
Corey
27:52
Cannot express to you how stupid that was. And it was really stupid. And then he kind of just went with it. And he should have known it was over the minute he did it. And it was ultimately what I think cost him the 50% vote. His leadership was probably done before that though. So,
Zain
28:06
So, Stephen, you have Tom Mulcair making that statement on the Mansbridge interview. Was there anything that he could have done to come back to a point where he looked viable? Or do you agree with Corey that he was done after that?
Carter
28:18
He was done before that. I think he was flying a Hail Mary to try and get things. I mean, he
Carter
28:23
he was in desperate trouble from the day that he lost the election. Everybody expected him to come out the next day and step down. And you can't beat that expectation.
Zain
28:32
Let's say you were his advisor the day after the election. You lose, you go in third place. What would your advice have been long term? Would it have been to resign?
Carter
28:42
Well, look. Oh, boy, I think you'd have to. you
Corey
28:44
you know what i understand what he was trying to do i do and we've talked about this in different contexts leaders resign so quickly these days and the ndp has never actually to your early point turfed a leader before like this uh
Corey
28:56
uh the ndp have moved slowly
Corey
28:59
yeah this is a swift breakup at every convention there
Corey
29:03
there was a lot of reason to believe even though it would have been horribly unhealthy to the party that he could be like maybe i just get two more years and that's where the next one would be the anyways he
Corey
29:12
he he was just looking for an out he was looking for something to hold his fingers on to uh and i i don't know i mean he could have stuck on with 51 but he he antagonized alberta in alberta i mean it was a big mistake that's
Zain
29:24
that's that's my next question there carter what factor did alberta play into this and i want to talk broadly about alberta going forward and not lean what we should do blah blah blah but as it relates to tom okara being defeated what
Zain
29:36
what factor What factor did Alberta play? What factor did it play that this thing was happening in Alberta? We're
Carter
29:40
We're about 10% of the population. I think we probably had about 15
Corey
29:42
15% of the vote. We're way more than 10% of the population. Okay.
Carter
29:46
What are we now?
Carter
29:49
Okay, we're 15% of the population. We had 20% of the vote. Do you think we punched above that or no? No, we didn't punch above that, and I'm going to tell you why. Because at the end of the day, the Leap Manifesto passed, and Thomas Mulcair was killed, right? Right. These two things are incongruent with the idea because the Alberta delegation wouldn't be so powerful that
Carter
30:09
that they would crush Thomas Mulcair and allow Leap to happen.
Corey
30:12
It's a good point. Good point. OK,
Carter
30:13
OK, so it's just this diametrically opposed from one another. And I'll tell you, you have not seen backpedaling from an Alberta from a provincial wing of a party faster than you have seen Rachel Notley, Shannon Phillips and the whole gang back
Carter
30:27
back away from this. And also, the government put out a tweet today that said that Brian Topp and Rachel Notley and –
Carter
30:36
didn't see the tweet. Third person in the premier's office.
Zain
30:41
I didn't see it either. I have no idea what you're talking about. And
Carter
30:43
And McGrath would not be running the leadership.
Carter
30:47
this has impacted the provincial NDP more than most federal conventions ever impacted.
Zain
30:52
Let me get to the provincial in just a second here, honestly. Because I've got one more question. And I think it's a rehash because we've discussed this before, but
Zain
31:01
but I think it has tremendous legs for this discussion. Stephen Carter, you've talked about in the past the notion of leadership foundationally changing within political parties. Usually, if you were Tom Mulcair, you might get two, three, sometimes four kicks at the can to make it happen. Jack Layton
Zain
31:17
it. Jack, multiple kicks at the can.
Zain
31:19
Has something significantly changed with the electorate or with the membership so that leaders are now being one and done? I
Carter
31:27
think that it's changed with the electorate, and I think it's changed with the people in parties as a result.
Carter
31:33
We have no patience anymore. We
Carter
31:35
We want everything right now.
Carter
31:36
And we're incredibly volatile, so that makes parties look like they're going up and down probably more than they actually are. You know, Thomas Mulcair was leading that election for quite some time. Was he really leading it? Did he really lose it as badly as we thought? A couple of days here or there. You know, hold the election a week earlier, a week later. leader Thomas Mulcair might be the opposition leader right now I don't think it'd be government yeah
Carter
31:59
but we have these are enormous swings they're happening very very quickly that
Carter
32:04
that we are punishing leaders for immediately you are in today's society one and done and I'm not sure that's the best choice because
Carter
32:13
I think it does take
Carter
32:14
some leaders time to get better but
Carter
32:17
but uh it's a model that's happening in the U.S. and it's a model that's happening up here. Corey
Zain
32:21
Corey talk to me about that for a second because it seems interesting you passed a leap manifesto which you trump as values over viability electorally but then you're also tired of tom mulcair because you want to win going forward is that is that the weird calculation you
Corey
32:33
you make i think you know i heard a number of people say like maybe the leap manifesto is our bernie sanders moment or maybe now we have the opportunity for our bernie sanders i
Corey
32:42
get that two things one bernie sanders is not currently winning uh even on the left that must pain
Corey
32:47
pain you to say by the way no
Corey
32:49
no it doesn't pain me to say at all i mean That's the reality of the situation. The other thing is, Bernie
Corey
32:55
Bernie Sanders fundamentally, when he talks about revolution, his revolution is going back to the way things were. If you really want to get right down to it, smaller banks, higher taxes. He's not treading new ground. He's talking about an overhaul that looks an awful lot like something that we would just call status quo 40 years ago. Leap is a little bit different than that. You're taking somebody into some uncharted territory uh there is not a clear path to get there it's
Corey
33:20
it's not the same thing and unfortunately the
Corey
33:25
problem is deeper than that because
Corey
33:27
because the problem is not even about the document and can it be polished it's that is
Corey
33:31
is that a document so unserious from a political party standpoint could actually see the light of day it's got to be terrifying to a lot of people who start thinking about what policies could be coming next it's got to be i mean what what happens when When you're the NDP and next time you're within edge of government and you get together and all of a sudden there is some fundamental change to your organization and that's it. It's done. Like there is just not – there's not really a good base there in the most literal sense. Like the base of the party is a little flaky on that one.
Zain
34:03
We talked Leap. We talked Mulcair. I want to move it to Alberta. Carter, you were getting all revved up about this. But maybe before you do, for listeners who haven't been able to understand what the provincial NDP's reaction has been to the Leap Manifesto, to Tom Mulcair saying that he would support it if it was voted in by the party, give us an understanding of that. And then let's talk the strategy that they employed during this weekend and what they should do going forward. So first of all, give us an understanding of what the reaction was by the provincial governor, the provincial NDs, I should say. The
Carter
34:34
The provincial and the Democratic Party has put their entire selves into backpedal mode.
Carter
34:40
They have put themselves as much distance as possible to the Leave Manifesto. You've
Carter
34:43
You've got ministers of the crown tweeting that they never have nor will they ever support the Leave Manifesto. You've got individual MLAs whose names escape me because they're non-existent tweeting that they did not accept the Leave Manifesto. This is a significant issue for the NDP. They got hammered on it today in the question period because it's easy pickings.
Carter
35:07
And if I was running the question period prep for the government
Carter
35:13
government today, I would have been running it on defense and defense alone around the Leap Manifesto,
Carter
35:20
which is unbelievable because getting to the first or second part of your question, who can keep track, what did they do in preparation? preparation, I'm
Carter
35:28
I'm convinced that that State of the Union address that was given by Rachel Notley last week had nothing to do with
Carter
35:35
with the budget that's forthcoming and
Carter
35:37
and had everything to do with pre-positioning herself and her party against this Leap Manifesto. It was about oil and gas. It was a rerun of Alison Redford's State of the Union presentation in one of the years, I want to say 2011, 2012? 2013. 2013. This is the second time
Corey
35:52
time it's been a 2013 answer. Who
Carter
35:54
Who can recall? I'm completely
Corey
35:56
right now. It was a hazy year for you. Completely
Carter
35:57
Completely hammered in. It was my, you're no longer welcome here. But this is the frustration of
Carter
36:04
of this is that they
Carter
36:05
they wanted to get out in front of it. Her speech on Saturday was described as one of her best speeches ever because she knew how much was in play and how important it was. And she still lost. This was a major, major defeat to the provincial NDP. The last NDP government standing.
Corey
36:24
As of next week. As of next week. But look, I don't think that the speech was in reaction to that. I don't. Okay,
Zain
36:29
Okay, so that's – I want you to address the question Carter put. Was it a major defeat, first of all? Was it a major defeat? For the government.
Zain
36:37
That they took this
Zain
36:38
position against the manifesto. No,
Corey
36:39
No, look, I think that – are you kidding me? That was the position they absolutely needed to take. I don't know if it's a defeat. In some ways, if you want to look at the silver lining, it did give an opportunity to say like, Like, oh, no, no, no, no, no,
Corey
36:51
no, no. And stand up and actually show that you will defend Alberta's interests against a federal NDP that's not always on side with the NDP.
Corey
36:59
And they certainly went aggressive, right? They both both cabinet ministers and individual MLAs. I saw some comments from the MLA from Lethbridge East. Shannon Phillips made some very strong comments. Sarah
Corey
37:12
Sarah Hoffman made some strong comments. The premier, of course, made her comments.
Corey
37:17
and the and the things that i saw in all of these news articles that i was i was thinking about maybe somebody can correct me but you
Corey
37:23
you know i saw reported as fact in multiple outlets that the alberta delegation voted against this how
Corey
37:28
how would you know that at a convention
Corey
37:30
how would you absolutely how would you know that but it was reported as a fact right and
Corey
37:34
and and yeah it may be seated together but even then like you're counting the hands i find that very hard to believe um and
Corey
37:42
and gil mcgowan from afl of course heard that this morning oh my god his quote which i think is just the winner quote of the entire situation these downtown toronto political dilettantes come to alberta and track their garbage across our front lawn was
Corey
37:57
was amazing unbelievable they are not mincing words about how mad they are about this like
Carter
38:02
like a half a step away from eastern creeping oh it's
Corey
38:04
it's it's it's half a step past in my opinion but But it
Corey
38:08
it was really, really strong language, and people are floating things like maybe the NDP provincially shouldn't be affiliated with the NDP federally. I
Zain
38:16
I think that's going to happen. Okay, so let's talk about that. Before we talk about what you think is going to happen, talk to me about the strategy of whether it should or shouldn't. Actually, no. I'm going to take a step back. Talk to me about the strategy of what the government took as their position heading into this weekend. You thought that video that she put out and that interview from her kitchen table was – Stephen, I'm talking to you about this. was in defense of this or was trying to get ahead of this. Would you have suggested that? What would you have done if you were advising Rachel Notley, knowing that this weekend was going to happen and that leap was going to happen? The only other thing
Carter
38:47
thing I would have added was a meeting with Kat.
Zain
38:50
added a meeting with the energy sector? Yeah, maybe
Carter
38:52
maybe she had it, but I would have publicized it. I would have come up with something for the energy sector, maybe something to stimulate production or something to show resolve at the pipelines. months. I mean, it's one thing to sit in your kitchen table and say that you're going to do it, but putting some traction
Carter
39:10
traction underneath it would have been really nice, something you actually did. So
Zain
39:13
So it's fair to say you gave her pretty high marks for how she performed knowing that this was going to happen this weekend? I
Carter
39:18
I think she came within a hair. I mean, Corey said, and so I'll trust Corey on this because he knows dippers better than I do,
Carter
39:25
but he said that
Carter
39:26
that if they hadn't put those amendments on, it probably wouldn't have passed. passed
Carter
39:30
that means that she did much much of her job to
Carter
39:33
to ensure that it wouldn't pass as it was written um
Carter
39:37
um unfortunately the the good folks in the ndp have no clue about real life politics and passing it in its in its edited form can we talk about just about as bad
Corey
39:46
bad i gotta take an aside on this compromise this is a classic convention move where
Corey
39:50
where you're in a convention you're wrapped up all of a sudden all you're thinking about is how can i bring this room together and you're not thinking about how to bring the party together or the country together or even whether or not this is going to look like a good agreement to you in the future okay you are so temporally and physically like limited in your thinking you're just you're right there and you're like i everyone's been there a dinner party and you it's awkward all of a sudden somebody does something outrageous and you just try to smooth it over yeah and maybe that causes ripples down the road this was one of those classic situations i'm sure it looked really good like oh i still this will bridge the gap yeah
Corey
40:24
This will make it less offensive to our Alberta hosts. This was the worst thing you could do. This made it worse. You made it so bad because now for the next two years, this is all you'll be talking about. And this distinction and this division is all anybody is going to pay any mind to. Corey,
Zain
40:38
Corey, talk to me about the strategy, though. You're advising the Premier. You're heading into this weekend. What would you have done if you were at the reins of her strategy for this NDP convention in Edmonton? Look,
Corey
40:49
Look, they did everything that they should have done. and the premier speech was a total home run. Political opponents of her saying it's a home run. It's really a great speech. That was her opportunity to try to turn the tide. Unfortunately, Roman mob, right? The next speaker is going to then flip them the other way. And
Corey
41:07
there were a lot of ministers who acted as proxies. I don't think that this was about, her televised address was about the NDP. I don't really think that they thought that was going to be a huge deal until mulcair's comments earlier that week i really don't and um maybe
Corey
41:25
maybe i'm wrong but like they did fine and you know if you want to look for the silver lining they now have clearly just you know created a division and a distinction and said no and that was a good strategy to
Zain
41:34
to do that had
Corey
41:35
had to be it
Corey
41:36
was the only play it was the only play if the federal ndp was
Corey
41:40
was going to commit suicide like that don't
Corey
41:42
don't make it a pact right you have to walk away and be like don't
Corey
41:46
don't make it a pact you you know?
Corey
41:49
And so they're going to go forward. And the question becomes now, how much of this like disassociation talk, this muttering, is
Corey
41:56
is it going to manifest just as a resolution condemning it? I think that's most likely. Is it at their convention? Is it going to manifest as an actual start of disassociation? I think that's less likely. The bar is higher for starters. And let's face it, there are new Democrats in Alberta who are sympathetic to the Leap Manifesto. So I think that's fraught with peril i think it would be very risky to try to go down that road because if you fail what does that look like uh and
Corey
42:21
and i think ultimately the question becomes what other messages they will send out i want to give some context here though and i'm sure somebody will tell me if
Corey
42:30
if i'm wrong but
Corey
42:31
but to my knowledge only once in the history of the ndp a proud history going back 50 years has
Corey
42:38
has a provincial wing disassociated from the federal party and i That was like a divorce over the issue of separation in Quebec. That's why there's no Quebec NDP, right, to speak of.
Corey
42:51
I mean, provincially. Obviously, there are quite a number of Quebec and New Democrats.
Corey
42:57
The notion that this was such a divide that it's forcing one of the big four, like there are four provinces with a lot of people, and then it drops off precipitously from there.
Corey
43:08
If one of the big four parties disassociates, that means two of the four have now done it. Like the amount of strength the New Democrats would have lost at that point, really.
Corey
43:18
really. I mean, if
Corey
43:20
if the divide's that big, my God, it's bigger than I thought.
Corey
43:24
If it's not that big, don't act rashly. So much of the New Democrats' strength is their coast-to-coast organization.
Zain
43:31
Carter, is the divide that big? Because you just said a moment ago that you think this is going to happen. If I was your advisor, boom, get out. You would. Okay, so this is- You're answering both questions for me. You actually would advise her to do this as such. Get
Carter
43:41
Get out. Two reasons. She can't wave her wand and do this. Sure you can.
Corey
43:47
Okay. All right. All right. I want to hear the rest of this. Yeah, go
Carter
43:51
I mean, sure, there may be rules. There may be policies. There may be all kinds of constitutional problems. It
Carter
43:58
You disassociate yourself publicly and completely, and
Carter
44:02
and then you go from there.
Carter
44:04
And that's the trick. is
Zain
44:07
this is like justin trudeau and the senators yeah
Carter
44:10
it's over now they're still his senators yeah
Carter
44:12
right they're into what are they liberal independents or something like that whatever
Zain
44:15
whatever they've labeled themselves sure you
Carter
44:17
you are out of there because this is a stick i can beat you with if i'm running the next campaign as an opposition
Zain
44:23
opposition you mean i can beat
Carter
44:24
beat her with this because at the end of the day she didn't cause oil to fall but
Carter
44:30
she's a part of a party that wants oil to never recover and
Carter
44:35
if you think i'm not banging that drum for the next three years you're nuts nuts so
Zain
44:41
so number one you would advise that she get out number two do you think it'll actually happen i don't want to get you on the record and i'll get talk to cory do you think she will actually get out i'm
Carter
44:51
every communications that i'm seeing right now every indication is that they're they're trying to find a way out this
Carter
44:57
this may be a temporary thing yeah
Carter
44:59
three weeks from now i may be completely wrong yeah
Carter
45:02
but today that's where i think they're going they're going to be cory
Zain
45:04
cory talk to me first about your strategy do you try to get her out or do you try to get the premier and the provincial ndp out of the pact with your let's
Corey
45:11
let's talk first about mindset and yeah obviously people are very angry about this and tempers are are flaring up
Corey
45:18
now some of it is also going to be optics you really need to send a strong message about how mad you are and so of course you're going to be floating ideas like this and
Corey
45:26
and let's also not forget at as
Corey
45:28
as mentioned this problem doesn't go away it's now hanging over the federal ngp for a long time i can understand the urge to get out let's just talk for a minute about when this will resolve in some way shape or form two
Corey
45:39
two years from now one
Corey
45:41
one year before the alberta election they may or may not adopt the leap manifesto and adopt a leader who adopts the leap manifesto that timing fucking sucks and and it really makes a lot of sense that they would want to step away from it but
Zain
45:55
but totally Here comes the but. Here's the but.
Zain
45:57
Everything before the but doesn't count.
Corey
45:59
count. Here we go.
Corey
46:00
Here's the but. Memories shouldn't be that short. The fact of the matter is the party has
Corey
46:04
has always gotten strength from coordinating with other people in other provinces, bringing them in. And the reason why we have the chief of staff we do and the deputy chief of staff we do and the senior advisors around that we do is because the NDP is an organization. It's a movement. It's something the Liberal Party wishes it were but cannot be. and unfortunately that is rooted in ideology and you're going to have to deal with the downside of it but i believe the upside is stronger you
Zain
46:29
you think the case for having just campaign resources is stronger than
Corey
46:32
than tell you something about the new democrats let me tell you something about our premier and
Corey
46:36
and i don't want to simplify her to one job but the fact is rachel
Corey
46:39
rachel notley cut her teeth working in the bc ndp government right her father was provincial secretary of the alberta ndp before I moved up.
Corey
46:49
Unlike the liberals and unlike the conservatives, there is a feeder system at the New Democrats that moves people through organizer levels, up to elected officials, up to leader. So that does not happen with the liberals and the conservatives.
Carter
47:00
And that value- It's going to be cut off right at the elected part.
Carter
47:03
Because at this particular moment in time,
Carter
47:06
Rachel Notley, if she is saddled with this thing that is going to come back to her in two years, come hell or high water, is
Carter
47:12
is going to be saddled with this idea and she will get
Carter
47:15
pilloried by it time and time again. Yeah. Well,
Corey
47:18
Well, listen, this is the party. This is the party as it is. And the DNA of the Alberta New Democrats did not change overnight. Okay. And I think if you try to fight it, you're probably pushing it too far. You're forgetting part of the reason why you won.
Corey
47:31
And not the only one. I don't want to diminish any of the good local people who did the things they did. And God knows people coming from afar often just piss you off and do things wrong.
Corey
47:39
Right. But this was a well-run campaign that was run by outsiders in small part. Okay. No small part. I
Zain
47:44
I want to leave it there and I want to actually move it on to a total detour for Corey Hogan. Corey Hogan, this is your 45-second rant on Bernie Sanders and his most recent win. Go. Oh, not
Zain
47:55
not a good win. Okay. Talk to me about that because Bernie Sanders is now making the case. I
Corey
47:59
I was really excited about
Corey
48:00
Wisconsin and I looked at it and I thought, oh my God, he's doing so well and this is actually, this is better than I hoped he would do and this really says something about his organization. Probably still could, but now I think I'm just pulling back to New York because Wisconsin was not good. For him to only win a caucus state by 10, I think it says that the Hillary people are awake again. And I think they're sick of losing primaries because it's been a lot of primaries at this point. Carter,
Zain
48:24
Carter, anything you want to add to that comment? That's the only detour on American we're going to take in this episode.
Zain
48:29
Bernie Sanders is still
Carter
48:30
still going to lose.
Zain
48:31
Great. Perfect. We're at exactly where we were with you four
Zain
48:36
I was right then and I'm still right now. Let's move it on. Over, under our lightning round or whatever you were looking forward to next week segments. Okay. Leap Manifesto. In the next two years, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is it going to be to the identity of the federal NDP? Carter, 1 to 10. It's
Carter
48:52
It's going to be about a 6. It's going to be something that if, you know, the leadership will take temporarily the eyes and the gaze off of it, but it will come back in two years and be a holy hell. Corey, 1 to 10. What do you think?
Corey
49:06
It's probably a 9. Really? Now it could be a situation where all of the leaders just say the same thing, but it's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma. And if one of them embraces it wholeheartedly, a serious candidate, I mean, right, then
Corey
49:18
then I think you've got a real problem on your hands if you're the federal New Democrats, because that becomes the conversation.
Corey
49:24
I have to say this about LEAP because we didn't really get a chance. sure leap
Corey
49:27
leap is bad for the environment leap
Corey
49:30
leap is bad for the environment because it makes environmental policies look silly and unfortunately even if you got into a position to do it the backlash would be so severe you'd be out of office and we'd not be environmentalists for another 12 years you cannot move people that far that fast they are going to break their necks and it's not like people don't want to do something about this okay here's my here's my my aside i
Corey
49:53
am a vegetarian who lives in the inner city who walks everywhere and drives nowhere and this scares the crap out of me if i'm not part of your coalition you have no coalition you are never going to get anywhere near government new democrats you need to
Corey
50:06
to walk back from this precipice and you need to do it in a forceful way on a riding by riding level
Zain
50:12
carter do you have an akin rant do you have a rant of similar nature that you'd like to lay out there because that was pretty excellent no
Carter
50:17
no i mean i defer to cory has just been dominating anything this podcast give
Zain
50:23
me the yes or no will the provincial ndp split from its big brothers yes or no carter i think i know your answer yes will they they will not same
Zain
50:32
same question should they carter yes no
Zain
50:35
no you don't you don't think they should no
Corey
50:37
mean ultimately that's where you come down someone's got to pick up this project and fix it there is a value to a new democratic party that finds its way away from this madness give
Zain
50:45
me one name of someone we should be considering for this NDP leadership, or someone who's going to make a big splash in the NDP leadership? Corey, I'll go to you first to give Carter some time to think.
Corey
50:54
Well, I think that we can talk about Nathan Cullen, who said no, but I think he can be brought to yes. I think we could talk about Brian Topp, who said no, but I think Brian Topp would be excellent, and he's exactly the tenor of the party needs right now.
Corey
51:07
I don't think he's going to do it, but I hope he does.
Corey
51:11
I think I'm really pretty,
Corey
51:13
my esteem for her dropped a lot, because she was one of the people really pushing the compromise. She doesn't have a seat right now.
Corey
51:20
I think that compromise – She's from the Atlantic province. The Atlantic province, yeah. I mean everybody lost in Atlantic
Corey
51:24
Atlantic Canada. She's very strong and people like her a great deal but I'm really pretty pissed about the weekend.
Corey
51:31
And then there's some names in Quebec that candidly I just don't know. There are celebrities in Quebec but they're not in the rest of the country. That's not the only short list. You could see an outsider, Abby Lewis, which would be wild. But I think at least that would help put the question to bed. Naomi Klein of course but that would be this is an anti-capitalist crusader that would be quite something
Corey
51:54
knows I'm thinking there's a couple of like academic names from Vancouver but I don't want to throw them out because you know they'll probably be pissed and be like hey what are you doing so
Zain
52:03
so he has dominated the podcast Carter I
Carter
52:05
defer to Corey who's been dominating this podcast you
Zain
52:08
you don't have an answer do you he
Zain
52:12
I asked him for one one i it's fair in fairness i i'm honest the only
Zain
52:16
one i had was uh would they call it yeah okay fair enough um cory i'll go to back to you on this one let's just try to make this one a one word answer labor or environment the two broad groups that you mentioned over the course of the next year who kind of wins out in terms of you know calcifying the identity of the ndp oh
Corey
52:33
oh man i think it's gonna i
Corey
52:35
think it's environment really hey yeah i do and it's just because they've shown own that they can mobilize in a way right now that...
Carter
52:43
Carter? First of all, environment doesn't have another home. The Green Party has turned out to be a complete failure. And as long as it keeps Elizabeth May as its leader, it's going exactly nowhere.
Carter
52:52
That leaves only the NDP for the environmental movement to coalesce behind. And
Carter
52:56
And they are there.
Carter
52:58
And I'll tell you something else. The labor movement can go to any number of places. The labor movement is very comfortable moving to the liberals, and they're very comfortable moving to the conservatives. So the labor will move to where they are wanted and where they are needed. And they are not going to be needed with Abby Lewis, who's going to be the next leader of the NDP, because I love that. That just makes me happy. And they
Carter
53:20
they will turn into a new Green Party and they will drop accordingly. Corey, final word. Okay,
Corey
53:25
Okay, I'll just say this. On this particular topic, environment may be bigger, not bigger, but may have an outsized amount of support relative to labor for all the reasons Stephen just said.
Corey
53:36
You know, environment doesn't have a ton of other homes. But I think that new left plus labor plus other branches are bigger than environment. It'll be interesting. Are
Zain
53:44
Are you in or out this week on Rachel Notley and how she handled this weekend in Edmonton, Carter? I got
Carter
53:48
got calls from oil and gas executives were like, wow, that was amazing. Corey,
Corey
53:52
Corey, are you in or out? And it was her strongest moment since. It might have been her strongest
Zain
53:56
strongest political moment ever. Outside of Rachel Notley, who was a big winner within the NDP faction this weekend in Edmonton? Libby
Corey
54:03
Libby Davis, baby. Oh, I think it was Abby Lewis. I think it was the Environmentals.
Zain
54:09
Finally, one last thing. What are you looking forward to next week? It could be related to the NDP politically or otherwise, something you're reading, something you're talking about. What are you looking forward to, Carter? Carter?
Carter
54:20
Oh, boy. Next week's tough because I really am looking forward two weeks from now to the next really big set of –
Carter
54:28
Primaries? Primaries. I guess that is one week from
Zain
54:30
from today. So I guess we're okay. That's what you're looking at. Corey, we've got the budget coming up in Alberta, but it doesn't have to be that. What are you looking forward to?
Corey
54:38
I'm looking forward to finishing the renovations on my mudroom, which I have put off for too long and my wife is going to murder me if they get put off. Yeah,
Carter
54:45
Yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to getting the mountain bikes out. That's going to be great.
Zain
54:47
That's a wrap. We'll leave it there. That's a wrap on Episode 570 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you next time.