Episode 832: Alberta goes national

SPEAKER_02 0:02

This is Strategists episode 832. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, are you ready for this Sunday?

Corey 0:12

I have no idea. You both have said this is going to be a train wreck as our pre-opening notes here. So you

Corey 0:18

really managed mine and the audience's expectations brilliantly.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

This is going to be the opposite of a Tyreek Hill performance, Corey. Just so you know. Some fantasy football there. uh this is going to i'm trying to emulate the tone of our province with this podcast it's almost like a living microcosm of uh of the alberta that we live in uh at least for our first segment and i know you're in for it i know part of you a small part of each of you uh wants a podcast episode that's a train wreck that we can point fingers at each other uh after it's done for who caused the train wreck but i'll take joy in the fact that it was a train wreck well

Corey 0:56

buckle up i guess i guess that's what we're hearing all

Carter 0:58

right great let's start can i just a

SPEAKER_02 1:01

a fuck don't tell me about the outside jesus christ

Carter 1:04

christ no i just want to apologize because you guys told me that there was such a thing as too much outside and i was like no there's no such thing as too much outside and now i am suffering from too much outside so i just want everybody to know that i'm dumb right right now and

Carter 1:18

it's okay i know i'm dumb we're

Carter 1:21

we're just gonna get through it you

Corey 1:22

you you never heard of like the donner party before or dying of exposure these things never crossed your mind i

Carter 1:28

i never thought it would happen to me is what happened

Corey 1:33

that's really pretty meta for alberta too that's

Carter 1:35

exactly it's perfect it's a meta episode unrelated

SPEAKER_02 1:38

unrelated have you guys seen chernobyl on hbo no

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Let's move it on to our first segment.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Alberta's cases go up, Kenny has a week and Corey gets ratioed. Guys, there's so much to talk about. Let's recap where we were last week. So last week, we left the episode off with some predictions. We did a very long 40 minute deep dive on the front end of last week's episode, talking about why Jason Kenny had not appeared in front of a mic for, how long was it at that point, nine or 10 days? Well, he certainly appeared this week. Perhaps we had an overexposure of Jason Keddie in all the wrong ways in Alberta this week because he showed up on Monday, he made an announcement, and here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go through the week chronologically, try to capture as much as we can. Invariably, I will miss something, but I'm going to try to go Monday to Sunday, i.e. today, and try to tackle each of the things that we saw in our province and get your guys' analysis and strategic take. And let's start here. Monday, 3

SPEAKER_02 2:41

3 p.m. in the afternoon, I believe 4.30 in the afternoon, somewhere around then, new COVID restrictions, not a lockdown, a mandatory mask sort of appeal for places that already had a mandatory mask bylaw, Calgary and Edmonton. Carter, you said that there would not be a lockdown. This is the first time in our 832 episode history that you were right. I will let you go first. First

Carter 3:04

First of all, it happened on Tuesday. i was doubly right nothing happened on monday i was right two times because i said nothing would happen on monday and then i said there wouldn't be a lockdown i was right two times you can both celebrate how right i was because i'm super right all the time celebrate we'll

SPEAKER_02 3:24

in a second yeah no that's fantastic cory what did you make of what you saw on tuesday was it let's go with Was it what you expected? And secondly, was it far enough?

Corey 3:33

Well, it was a little more than I expected. It might not have been anywhere near far enough. But I think that in many ways, especially after the conversation we had on Sunday, I was prepared for less. I was prepared for the government to essentially wrap nothing in a bow and tell us here's your present. It's an imaginary Christmas this year, and we'd all move on with our lives. But in fact, there were a few things within there that had some consequence that a couple

Corey 4:00

couple of things I will say. One is like the mask mandate for just Calgary

Corey 4:05

Calgary and Edmonton sure looks and feels an awful lot like nothing. And so that definitely made it feel like a comms exercise. And I think that's part of why everybody was lashing out. It felt more like you were trying to bundle nothing as something. And those very, very

Corey 4:22

initiatives that don't actually move this meter at all really fed into that sense of you're trying to bundle nothing as something. But there were a few concrete items within. The most significant, in my opinion, was the prohibition on having people over, you know, effectively not allowing you to intermingle outside of your household unless

Corey 4:39

unless you want to go for a beer.

Corey 4:42

no, no. know but even that like i'm being flipped because even that you're only allowed to sit with your family or if you're if you're you know single then just with the same two people that you're allowed to sit with otherwise so these it's not nothing the question is is it enough and i think that there's an awful lot to suggest it's not enough but it's obviously more than jason kenney wanted to do or felt comfortable doing and when you think about the what

Corey 5:05

what we were um subjected to on Tuesday in the province of Alberta where Jason Kenney and then you

Corey 5:12

know Dina Hinshaw our chief medical officer of health and then Tyler Shandro our minister of health all came up one after the other I don't know if it was in that order I can't remember now and

Corey 5:23

and um told us a lot of things uh that ultimately didn't

Corey 5:29

didn't say an awful lot so it was it was interesting it was something they were clearly uncomfortable about it's not where they wanted to be but here we are carter

SPEAKER_02 5:37

carter same question to you by the way you and i are going to the casino afterwards because we can also hang out there yeah

SPEAKER_02 5:42

yeah at the slots

SPEAKER_02 5:43

slots only though no table games yeah

Carter 5:44

yeah and i'm imagining that every second slot is closed so the winning slots are closed just the losers are open okay

SPEAKER_02 5:51

okay cory carter does not have the intellectual horsepower to understand the table games uh coin

SPEAKER_02 5:56

coin coin lever Whatever is pretty much as far as it goes. Stephen, what did you make of what you saw? Did it go far enough? And let's quickly transition to the communications. How do you think or how would you rate the government and specifically Premier Kenny for a long absence showing up 4.30 on a Tuesday? Thank you for both correcting me, not the Monday because we expected Monday in some cases. So the Tuesday, what did you make of the extent of the policy? What did you make of the communications staging of what you saw as well?

Carter 6:25

Well, I mean, it was a mixed bag. And by that, I mean that for every step forward, there's a step backwards, right? And some of the steps forward may have been backwards. We don't really know, and we won't know until afterwards. So I'm really mixed, for example, on closing junior highs and high schools. We talked about how important it was to ensure that children have access to learning. You know, this idea that everything's just going to go to online learning, interesting, but it's probably not going to work for everybody. On top of that, there's a lot of costs involved with having schools closed. And this idea that half of them will close concerns me. I'm also concerned about the contrary measures, right? We only need masks in certain places. OK, OK, let's Calgary and Edmonton. And to expand it, it was the Calgary and Edmonton health regions. Corey, just out of curiosity, how familiar are you with the Calgary and Edmonton health region? I'm assuming you could probably draw me a fairly effective map.

Carter 7:26

Okay, I'll take your silence to mean he has no fucking clue. No one knows the Calgary and Edmonton health regions. That's okay. That's fine. But then we have areas in the province that actually have the highest per capita outbreaks of COVID that aren't impacted by the masks, right? So Ponoka is not impacted by the masks. You're not having to wear a mask there. That's insane. insane why not just make it a province-wide mask mandate no one's suffering when they put a mask on no one's being put onto a ventilator when they have to put a mask on and then everything is contradicted by the idea that you know the the enforcement isn't there right so you know 600 people gather in downtown calgary on on sunday or

Carter 8:10

or i'm sorry on saturday no one's getting a ticket there's no enforcement there's no consequence um chinook mall is overrun no

Carter 8:18

no one's getting to get enforced uh restaurants are on an honor system for that whole you know we could go to a restaurant and just say we're from the same household who's going to question us you know mom dad zane you know it all comes together right

Carter 8:32

so how how is this supposed to work if we don't have consequences and it's not working now i don't expect i didn't expect that they would announce on tuesday start enforcing it on friday and we'd see results on sunday that's not my expectation but my expectation was we'd start to see a change in behavior at some point along that timeline and i haven't seen a change in behavior at any point along that that timeline and maybe it's just me maybe maybe i'm just in the world's weirdest circles but you know today like louise people are still being told put on your damn mask and because they don't care they don't believe it's real by

SPEAKER_02 9:10

by the way uh mom dad and zane are the new version of a nuclear family just so you know know that is the new model uh every household is going to get his name very shortly cory respond to what you heard from carter i saw your hand go up particularly around why the province may not have done a province-wide mask mandate so if you've got any comments on that um and you also have by the way if i'll just throw this in there as part of the timeline on wednesday premier kenny went on a facebook live answering the fact that you know the reason he didn't want to do a rural mask uh mandate was there they weren't going to enforce it they're like these were a couple of people in a barn working they weren't going to wear a mask anyway so it'd be counterproductive so i wanted to throw that piece of context in there as well but anything you want to respond to go ahead why

Corey 9:52

didn't they do a province-wide mask mandate i think there is some truth to the fact it's unenforceable in a lot of those areas but that is actually kind of a second order thing it's because they were scared to they

Corey 10:02

they were scared that there would be a big backlash there would be no compliance in rural alberta they did not want to crack down on a lack of compliance in rural all Alberta. And they were just scared. They

Corey 10:11

They were scared what it meant for their base. They were scared what it meant for the authority of government. So they did not do it. And these, shall we charitably call idiosyncrasies in the policy, are why it looks like politics and not public health. It's why people can look at this and say, what

Corey 10:26

what the F are you doing, government of Alberta? And that's really, you know, I honestly believe they would have been better off from

Corey 10:33

from a communications point of view now. Now, this is one of those interesting things, because arguably, even the mask mandate expanding to health zones and being slightly tighter than the language of the municipal ones is good but from a politics point of view they would have been better off not to mention mask mandates at all right they made such a hash of it the way they did it then that it looked ridiculous same deal with casinos they would have been better off not mentioning casinos at all you

Corey 10:58

know just closing table games and not slots actually probably some pretty good public health rationale i can imagine these places you used to be able to smoke in them probably have amazing HVAC, probably sitting more than one slot apart, you're probably not in an awful lot of risk. But it's absurd. It sounds absurd. It sounds absurd that you can sit at a slot machine, but your 17-year-old cannot sit in a classroom. So by layering in some of these

Corey 11:23

additional measures, throwing the kitchen sink, if you will, out there,

Corey 11:27

it just, it looks silly. A lot of it looks incredibly silly. And if they just said, we're shutting down junior high and high schools you are no longer allowed to co-mingle outside of um you know in households as far as the the stuff around bars maybe

Corey 11:41

maybe throw that in but it's a little complicated a little more difficult to explain too and they just kept their mouth shuts on everything else they might have actually been better off communications

Corey 11:48

communications wise now that

Corey 11:50

that does actually everything i've said there actually weakens the public health response to it so there's an interesting question here whether they've done more damage to confidence in government that that's the worst public health response or if they have actually taken a better response than what I've just proposed. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Carter, let's keep it on Tuesday. So we're moving on from COVID to the mid-year economic statement where a headline that I know you presented to us was around public servants. So talk us to about the mid-year economic statement by the government and this line about public servants and their inherent value to Alberta society.

Carter 12:25

So the TLDR short form for Corey, because he didn't read it is that basically

Carter 12:32

basically things still suck you know oil and gas is performing a little bit better than we expected so it's not as bad as we expected but bottom line things still suck that doesn't matter to me what does matter to me is this this this paragraph from page 10 of the report and it was pulled out uh by a cbc reporter that was fantastic quote while the public sector plays a key role in delivering public services it does not create jobs or generate Rather, public sector activities and spending are paid by withdrawing money from the economy through taxes or by taking money from future taxpayers by borrowing or deficit financing or for deficit financing. my apologies this

Carter 13:15

is a quote that was in an official government report as though the people number one who have the job is a job for them right and number two it is only a cost upon society teachers public service uh all the public service nurses doctors these are only a draw upon society there is no there's no positive it's a drain nothing positive comes from from our public sector is this how they actually feel is this what they're setting us up for and i cannot believe and cory maybe you have some insight into this i can't believe this is actually in a government document this was written by the government this isn't just some stupid ass fucking press secretary which i would expect this from this is from a government of alberta document where they are saying there is no nothing positive that comes from public sector nothing positive ah

Carter 14:06

ah made me fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Corey, give us some insight if you have any, or speculation with some context and knowledge. What do you think about this? And what do you think about the politics around it as well?

Corey 14:19

Yeah, I saw Blake Schaefer on Twitter say, hey, Alberta now is going to be, we're redefining GDP to not include government, right? Which is a huge percent of the economy. It's an absurd assertion on its face. And I think we understand that. The question that Carter has sort of floated out there is how in the world does this make its way into a government document? Well, there's a couple of things you need to keep in mind. One is that the fiscal update document has a couple of different sections normally, right? It's the fiscal update and the economic update. And then there are a number of charts that go along with all of that. But both of those documents, one of which is really about a narrative, they're

Corey 15:03

first drafts by the public service. But they are they are signed off by the premier's office and whoever the premier's office designates as the person responsible for that. So it would really be a mistake to think of these as documents that are done by bean counters and have no political impact whatsoever. That is not the case. You know, you may have a situation in the economic update where just

Corey 15:23

just to be clear, like where the economists, they're never going to say economists say the opposite of what you've said. But the language around everything, the exact language that Stephen Carter is talking about, that

Corey 15:34

that comes from the brains and the pains of the tall foreheads in the premier's office and the minister of finance office. It does not come from the public service. First drafts do. Absolutely. Last drafts. No, that's that's not how it works. So I don't think that you should look at it and say, my God, this is horrifying. This is a self-hating public service. I don't think that's what Stephen was suggesting. interesting but it

Corey 15:55

it does sort of lead

Corey 15:57

lead the to the question if this is your view of the public sector

Corey 16:02

well actually it leads to a question it leads to an answer like if that's your view is that your view and if so i guess that explains a few of the actions that are happening right now in some of these public sector negotiations i'm thinking about health in particular right um

Corey 16:14

um i know absolutely

Corey 16:16

absolutely anybody who has been on the internet in the past 12 months in alberta will We'll see the battle that goes on on these very lines, but it's

Corey 16:26

it's a huge part of the economy. I think the Canadian average for public sector, like as a percent of the GDP is like 40%, four zero, I

Corey 16:33

think might even be higher in some jurisdictions, probably not in this one.

Corey 16:37

So it's fascinating, but it's also a bit alarming that the government would take such a stance because if you destroy the public sector, you're going to war with 40% of our gross domestic product. And the part that is probably the most evenly distributed and the most equal in outcome.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Carter, read the tea leaves for us from your perspective. What do you think is happening here? Is it what Corey is saying? Is this a war with 40%? Or is this something different? Do you feel like they're trying to set up another play? What do you think from your strategic lens the play here is?

Carter 17:11

They're going to war. They're going to war. It was part of the reason that they had all their senior staff take a 8% reduction or 7% reduction. They're going to war. They're coming after public sector. And just keep in mind, like when you pay a nurse, the nurse doesn't just take the money and disappear, right? Like it's not some sort of offshore, you know, holding company. That's for the people that the UCP likes. The people that, you know, the nurse takes the money and puts it back into the economy. So it's actually 44% of the government is or of our economy comes from from from the public sector, 44%. So you start cutting down the public sector, what you're doing is taking money out of everybody's pockets. And so I'm frustrated that he's decided to go to war. It was said in the in the mid in the mid year update, it was said again, over

Carter 18:04

over and over again, he's saying that

Carter 18:06

that basically, they want to get the expenses back. It was actually in the same mid-year update that they said that they want to get expenses in

Carter 18:14

in line with the other provinces, which sounds okay until you realize that it's

Carter 18:19

it's just going to take people's money out of their pockets and it's going to hurt our already staggered economy. This is going to be the third element of the Alberta recession, COVID, oil and gas, and decimating the public service.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Corey, round us out on this. We have to move on, but I want to get your final comments. Well,

Corey 18:37

Well, the interesting question for me is, was this just words? You've got some paragraphs to fill. Was it just words? Was it just somebody's ideology falling onto a piece of paper? Or was it tactics? Because the general public does not generally read economic and fiscal updates from the government of Alberta. That's not a

Corey 18:55

And that makes me wonder who amongst the regular readers of those updates was this meant for? Who was this a shot for? Because even when you talk about these different public sector groups, I don't generally think of Yuna

Corey 19:10

Yuna and Ayupi and all of these other people of going through the fiscal update and trying to read the tea leaves that way. That just that seems like a strange way to send a message that you could send much more directly at the table.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

we'll see much more on that okay let's move on so monday we had nothing we've well established that tuesday we had kenny show for the announcement we had the mid-year economic statement wednesday we had a poll come out from environics and qp saying 69 of albertans think the ucp is on the wrong track on health care so that's something we can pick up on there's also the facebook live i mentioned earlier and the facebook live had some notable moments mainly about kenny's defense what what Corey would call the second order defense on a rural mask mandate. I want to talk about what you saw from the premier there. This was the second time we'd seen him since that 10-day absence. And I have to be honest, he looked quite tired. Many people online were comparing him to a meme of Mayor Quimby from The Simpsons. You know, he had the unbuttoned top button on his shirt. He looked very, very tired and almost beaten down. So I want to get your take on maybe let's start with the Facebook Live and then let's move on to the poll to see if there's any meat on the bone on that. And Carter, I'll go to you first on the Facebook Live and what you made of Premier Kenny, both doing that as a tactic, but also kind of what you saw with the staging.

Carter 20:25

Well, I mean, I'm always kind of a bit at a loss when you do the Facebook Lives. I'm not sure which questions you want to answer and how it's supposed to serve your public agenda if you're not prepared to actually address the public. But let's just start for a moment on how he looked, because this to me is the big takeaway. away he looked exhausted he looked tired he he looked as

Carter 20:46

as bad as i think we've seen him he's always got the the the five o'clock shadow like 9 30 in the morning he's got the five o'clock shadow that's just the way that he looks but then you

Carter 20:57

you rarely see him with the tie undone you really you know he looked disheveled he looked tired he looked he looked like he'd he was suffering and i almost wondered if that wasn't part of the um part of the the the theater that was brought to us is is that these questions, these challenges that Jason Kenney is working on, he's the hardest working man in Edmonton and he's been working his ass off for us in Alberta. But I just don't think it lands. I don't think that, I mean, if that was the play... Carter, do you think it was?

SPEAKER_02 21:27

was? Do you think it was deliberate theater? You say you wonder if it was. Do you speculate? Do you think it was?

Carter 21:34

Yeah, because no one puts anybody on camera like that, unless you're choosing to put someone on camera like that. You

Carter 21:38

don't choose to put your principal on camera with his tie undone unless you've chosen to put him on camera with his tie undone. Like it is just – it's a conscious decision by someone who is managing the premier. And so I think that they chose to put him on so that people would understand and have empathy with him, that he was working hard for us. But it just came off like he was

Carter 22:02

was out of his depth, that this is too hard for this man. This man, you know, we've talked about how he's struggling to reconcile his ideological reality with the reality that is being presented. He's failing. He's failing and flailing. And as a result, putting a man who's failing and flailing in front of the population who's looking disheveled and tired, probably the wrong call.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Corey, you know, this is not part of his general brand. He's someone who comes across as obviously very hardworking, as we all know. No, but this disheveled look is not a look that he has, right? There are certain politicians we know in this province and otherwise, right, that just have that look and it works for them. This is not part of his brand, so to speak. So I'm curious to get your take if you agree with Carter that this was purposeful staging. And if you also agree with Carter that this was something that didn't land from Carter's analysis of the situation.

Corey 22:54

Well, look, as a longtime wearer of loosened ties, I'm not going to hold that against him. I think he was going for exactly what Stephen said he was going for. I got to tell you, so I know Jason Kenney a bit, and I've seen him record at 9 p.m. after a day of meetings and look like he came out of a Brooks Brothers catalog. So I feel like he wanted to go for this look. That's the only thing that really makes sense to me at this point. He wanted to look like he went through hell to get to the point that he got at, at Facebook Live. He wanted his audience to feel that he was very torn up about these decisions. And certainly we saw that in the language that was on Tuesday as well about this

Corey 23:31

this was the last thing he wanted to do. He's taking the minimum steps he thinks that he needs to do. These are things that he said.

Corey 23:39

And he's obviously quite concerned about that group of Albertans who will react pretty negatively to this. Now, we talked about this in our last episode. In some ways, his language over the past few months has created this problem. By saying, no, we've got to manage the

Corey 23:54

the economy. We can't shut everything down. This is going too far. And then to do the steps that you previously described as too far, even if the situation has fundamentally changed, that's tough. That's tough to explain to Albertans and that's tough to explain to people who have, shall

Corey 24:08

shall we say, a simpler view of how this should all roll out. So I think he was going for sleeves rolled up, really tired. I do think they may be overshot on that because

Corey 24:21

haggard. you know the the quimby thing i hadn't seen online but the i can imagine the scene it's when he's fighting arguing with sideshow bob right uh they're debating and it looks like he'd like there's just pouring sweat because that was sort of the vibe that he gave off right there he was pouring sweat he looked nervous he looked uncomfortable and

Corey 24:38

and that's um that's i'm certain not what he was going for okay

SPEAKER_02 24:43

okay i'm moving it on to the other wednesday item the poll any meat on the bone that you guys want to pick up there on the horse race the ucp are down seven sixty nine 99%, especially on the healthcare question, wrong track. Corey, you put your hand up.

Corey 24:54

Yeah, I would say that directionally, I 100% believe that poll. Now, we can argue about whether it's 47-40 or not. And I think that that would be almost too

Corey 25:04

too good to believe for the NDP, right? And I'd be very careful because you're an almost majority of popular support territory at 47%. That's a really high percent. Yeah.

Corey 25:16

But that said, it

Corey 25:18

it absolutely feels true. We had a couple of polls a few months ago that showed effectively a tie between the UCP and the NDP, and it has not been a good couple of months for the UCP.

Corey 25:26

So do I believe that the UCP is trailing the NDP? You bet I do. I absolutely do. Do I think it's 47-40? Eh, maybe, maybe not. I actually think that seven-point spread is not outrageous. I think where it is is a little – like if somebody had said 42-35, I'd say, yeah, that feels about right, you know, with a big chunk of people who are undecided or drifting in a bunch of parties that don't really exist. that

Corey 25:49

would have made sense to me but 47 40 those are those are some big numbers there carter

SPEAKER_02 25:54

you know this good numbers for the ndp you know jason kenney's had a bad couple of months so to speak taking his licks uh this week included this poll of course did not calculate for this week what's your take on on the numbers that you see and what it could mean for the electoral prospects of uh of of uh of the ndp going forward very quickly i

Carter 26:13

also questioned whether or not But people really give a fuck about some of these questions, especially about the services being contracted out. It seems like those answers were particularly high. And I would love to see all of that because I'm not buying what they're selling on some of those other ones. So I didn't think it was a great poll. I think that the polls don't

Carter 26:36

don't matter in year two of a four-year mandate. date. Um, but if I was Jason Kenny, I'd probably be starting thinking a lot more about years three and four. Um, because you, you know, whether it's 4740 or 4235 or, or

Carter 26:51

or 2929, it doesn't matter. You're not popular right now, Jason. So what are you going to do?

Carter 26:56

Um, and he's not popular. So, and I don't think he's going to get us there. Another one of those mid-year announcements was is that we're going to reduce corporate income taxes faster. Who

Carter 27:07

the fuck cares? Small businesses are already paying like 2%, like nothing, right? Like no income taxes to speak of brought to us by the NDP. But it doesn't matter because you don't pay income taxes on no

Carter 27:20

no profit, right? So if you're not making money, it doesn't matter. And right now, I just don't think that there's a lot of Albertans making money. So Jason

Carter 27:30

Jason Kenney better figure out a plan. And I don't think the plan he's got is working.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

you know, the lockdown, about what socialism had kind of done to their life and what they didn't want to happen to our province. Well, CTV found those folks, the Venezuelan woman who believes she was part of Jason Kenney's argument against the lockdown. She remembers the encounter, but it was significantly less dramatic. There was no crying. And by the way, they were refugees Jays from Venezuela 30 years ago. Carter, this story is fantastic. It is entirely, I shouldn't say meaningless, but it's kind of relatively moot considering everything we've seen this week. Just get your quick hot take. I want to go run one round with both of you and then I move on to the big story on Thursday.

Carter 28:41

This is the big challenge of making up these stories. I mean, there's kernels of truth. So Jason Kenney didn't lie about the story, but he embellished it to fit that fit into his narrative. Even the fact that it was for, you know, refugees from socialist Venezuela. I mean, come on, really, from 30 years ago? I mean, this

Carter 29:01

this is a different problem that he has shoehorned this into, but it tells us a lot about who he is. He's willing to make up a story, or he's willing to adapt the story significantly to have it fit his narrative. And it doesn't matter what his narrative is. You know, he wants everything in the world to fit into that narrative um so when he talks to the venezuelan couple that seems to be very successful with their business um you know he he tears them down a little bit and turns them into a uh an immigrant story yeah an immigrant story that didn't quite work out and it's just it's really it's really tragic in fact that in fact i think most of us do this to a degree where we we fit you know we fit evidence into our own narratives and and maybe jason kenney's just is proving that he's only human, you know, for an android.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Corey, this is not the only story this week with Jason Kenney talking to immigrants or perhaps even talking down to immigrants in some ways. But I want to get your take very quickly on this story, what it means about Kenney's character, what it just means on the overall arc of things, wherever you want to go with it. I'm leaving it open-ended.

Corey 30:08

Yeah, it's a bit silly. I don't have an awful lot to add beyond what Stephen has said. And the idea that you would make this statement, though, and expect – I mean, the entire internet called bullshit at the moment. Right, right. Like, let's find this person. And then, of course, this person was found. And it's not quite as advertised. It was a little bit different. The fact that it was a refugee – the fact that Jason Kenney said it was a refugee from Venezuelan socialism and

Corey 30:33

and they came 30 years ago, I don't know anything about Venezuela. But I think it was a right-wing government at the time, too. Like, I think it's just a very strange thing to say, because if you didn't know that, and if you just sort of assumed it and layered it on, it's a bit awkward. But honestly, every politician is guilty of this to some degree, right? The anecdotes. Bill Clinton was notorious for this. You remember the movie Primary Colors even, you know, made reference to this, the fact that he had an uncle who was always exactly what the situation called for. The thing is, that

Corey 31:05

that was a different time and it was a different audience size. I don't know if Jason Kenney has ever

Corey 31:10

ever had as big of an audience as he had on his Tuesday announcement. There

Corey 31:14

were just tens of thousands of people waiting on Facebook, hundreds of thousands of people watching across all of these channels.

Corey 31:21

That's pretty wild. And to then make a statement that is so easily disprovable, again, it's

Corey 31:28

it's really good that he started bringing in some emotion and humanity here. But he's got to be careful because it can't be phony emotion or humanity, or else it's just going to undercut the message that he's trying to deliver. We

SPEAKER_02 31:38

We have to move on to the big story of Thursday. Bright and early in the morning, CBC's two investigative reporters outside of Edmondson, Charles Rustnell and Jenny Russell, came out with a story that said secret recordings taken earlier in the summer revealed that political directives and tensions over Alberta's pandemic response, ultimately concluding from a series of about 20 or so recordings leaked to CBC, that there was what they called political interference. from the bureaucratic suggestions made to Jason Kenney and his government. Carter, I'm going to start with you, because I know Corey's got a take that's already widely out there. What did you make of, let's start with the story, and then let's start with the political damage. I want to hit on two fronts here. We'll do a bit of a deep dive than we have on the other stories, so I'll let you guys know that ahead of time. But what did you make of the story? What do you kind of think are the political consequences of the story? Those are the two things I want to talk about right now.

Carter 32:36

whole story was bullshit. Bullshit. Just

Carter 32:41

You know, first of all, bureaucrats don't make a recommendation and say, this is what you must do, right? This has never been a situation where they walk into the room and they say, we must do this. What they do is they bring you a range of options. And those options have outcomes and consequences. And you know why they do that? Because these are tough questions. These aren't questions that have a singular answer as though it is like a multiple choice question on a bubble test. You just choose the right one and away you go. Everything works its way out. These are what I called 51-49 questions. On one

Carter 33:15

one side, 51% good. On the other side, 49% bad. I just don't know which side is which. They are very, very difficult. We had many of those types of conversations when I was in government i'm sure you know cory's been privy to many many conversations i'm sure cory's had to write some of these memos where the memo comes in and says well here are your options you can do nothing because even in the simplest case you have available to you the do nothing option right

Carter 33:42

right so in the simplest case simply do nothing that is an option that will be brought to you by bureaucrats all the time and then you're going to see a range of complexities that come from that particular option. Charles Rusnell and Jenny Russell took the recordings of the tapes and they cherry-picked pieces of information and gave them to their expert.

Carter 34:02

We don't know which pieces of information they gave. We don't know that they gave a fullness of it.

Carter 34:07

Because if you gave the fullness of it, chances are you're going to hear from Dr. Hinshaw, you could do this, but this is going to be the outcome. You could do that, this is going to be the outcome. This is the positives, this is the negatives. And on top of that, they're getting information from one source, which is the Chief chief medical officer of health. There is going to be another set of advisors in another room who are going to be giving them a different set of advice based on the economy, based on how oil and gas sector needs to operate, how we can't afford to shut down, you know, the in-situ plants. We can't afford to shut down the malls. We can't afford to shut down the education system. That's going to come partly from Hinshaw. It's going to come partly from other experts. it's the politician's job the politician's job and i don't care if it's rachel notley or if it's jason kenney every time they whatever the decision is their job is to hear the various options and then to choose and it's their choice it's not dr hinshaw's we can argue about whether his chief medical officer of health she gets to make the decision she has chosen not to it's her job then And it's Jason Kenney's job to choose. And it was an absolute hatchet job. It was it was it was a terrible story. And it didn't reflect my experience of reality. And I would suggest anybody who's worked in government because we saw them all responding to Corey's delightful tweet.

Carter 35:29

Everybody who'd worked in government thought Corey was right. Everybody who'd never been in government thought Corey was wrong. Maybe people with experience know that Corey's right, and people who have no fucking clue thought Corey was wrong. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Carter, save that passion because I might get you to turn on it in a second. Corey, your take of the story. What I'm hearing from Carter was, Carter, exceptional at filling time. Thank you. What do you mean? That was good. No, it was good. It was good. Bastards. I don't know if I necessarily agree with your take on the story not being good, so to speak. You know, I am the odd one out of the three of us, right? If we're getting personal, I have not worked in government, unlike the two of you, right? So it is interesting to see how I've absorbed it, which is perhaps more so in the vein of the audience who may not have worked in government, which I think is interesting. So I would not classify it as a story as such. But Corey, I want to get your take, both on the story, what Carter's point was that very textured, very nuanced, the story was missing that from what I heard. and then maybe even talk a bit about the political consequences. And of course, I know you had a take about the public servants involved as well. So roll it all up for whatever it's worth, Corey, and we'll go from there. Sure.

Corey 36:39

There's a few things in this story, and they're not mutually exclusive either. You can feel that the government of the day did a bad job, right,

Corey 36:46

right, based on that story and the leaks that came out. You can say, what the F is the Kenney government doing here? And you can also believe that public servants should not leak. Those are not mutually exclusive thoughts, and I'll expand on that in a bit. But the story that Rusnell and Russell got out was effectively one where the chief medical officer of health was being overridden by elected officials. That is literally the system. We don't have government by expert. We have government by elected official. We're a democracy. For better or for worse, and usually better, but sometimes worse, we are a democracy and the deciders are the people that we send to Edmonton to make these decisions on our behalf. Carter, you said something that I just want to expand a little bit on because I think that people kind of, they

Corey 37:34

get a little hung up when you say the government is weighing that health advice against economic advice. 100% true. Triggers people because they say during a pandemic, this is a time of absolutes, we should only worry about health care. that's never been the case i i mean if we only worried about lives the speed limit would be 20 kilometers an hour or more likely cars would be banned but it's

Corey 37:54

it's more than that it's healthcare weight against social services weight against the justice system and and there are there are awkward realities that need to be balanced here and it's not always as simple as you want it to be it's it's a very complicated world but

Corey 38:09

but in the conversations that occur in the public service i I can tell you, they

Corey 38:14

they are presented forcefully. They are presented strongly. People say things like, you absolutely must do this, minister. And when the minister pushes on it, they say, well, I mean, I guess maybe not. I've been in conversations where I have been told that the legal advice is waterproof. 100% this goes to court. It's going to go one way. I'm a lawyer. How dare you, minister, think otherwise?

Corey 38:34

And then the government's lost the court case immediately. Immediately. I think there is a reality that needs to be acknowledged here, too, which is that experts

Corey 38:41

experts are not always right.

Corey 38:43

They're not, even when they have the best of intentions, especially as the ball is moving. And at the end of the day, they're also not accountable. The

Corey 38:50

The people who are accountable are the elected officials, which is why they are the ones that get to make the decision. But if you want them making good decisions, if you want them making better decisions most of the time, you need to have the experts being as candid and as forceful and as passionate as possible on those matters. And that is impossible if they believe that that's all going to be leaked and show up in Russ Nell's column, you know, three months later.

Corey 39:15

puts such an epic chill on the public service and i've seen it small they're

Corey 39:19

they're seeing it big right now this is as big of a stage and as big of a problem as it gets but i've seen leaks and i've seen what happens when those leaks occur people

Corey 39:26

people stop trusting people those conversations happen absent those experts and over time we all get poorer for it that

Corey 39:33

that is not to say there's not a time for whistleblowing but the question is was this leak a

Corey 39:37

a whistleblowing and i think based on on what i read it

Corey 39:41

it was government as usual it was ugly it was embarrassing and

Corey 39:44

and sometimes government is ugly and embarrassing but it's not in our interest in the public to necessarily have all of that all of the time for the same reasons it wouldn't be in your workplace because people will clam up decisions become superficial decisions

Corey 39:57

decisions become performative you know it becomes not a debate it becomes art

Corey 40:03

art it becomes theater and we just don't want that which is why i was uh quite quite opposed to, to

Corey 40:09

to lauding this as a leak that, or lauding this as like heroes in the public service coming forward with malfeasance. It was months ago.

Corey 40:17

It was at a time when COVID was very different.

Corey 40:20

And frankly, this is how those debates go when those debates go ugly. But just because they're ugly does not mean they are illegal or even unethical.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Carter, I'm going to move it over to you for a second and get you to play a slightly different role than you have on this podcast. There was many retorts and Corey's last statement there was pretty much the gist, if I can say that, Corey, of your tweet that you put out there, right? That these folks are not heroes, they shall not be celebrated as such. This will have ramifications and a chill on the bureaucratic sort of service and their relationship with government. If I can paraphrase, Carter, there was a series of arguments against that. Public servants are beholden to people, the government steamrolled health professionals, people died as a consequence of that, I'm going to ask you, what is the best argument against Corey's take here? What is the best argument, at least in your mind? And I know you are aligned with Corey on this, so I appreciate that. But there was some arguments that, like I said, I might be a better proxy of the audience and that section of people that never worked in government. But what is the best argument around someone in the public service who wanted to perhaps leak this?

SPEAKER_02 41:27

I know I'm putting you on the spot, but I'm curious to get your take, because there's a series of them.

Carter 41:31

Yeah, I mean, I've read a lot of them. I was tagged in a lot of them because I mean, you know, unusual for me when I saw Corey's tweet, I actually supported him because he was right, which is unusual for him. So I,

Carter 41:45

struggle with this, Zane, because what you're saying to me is, is imagine this, imagine this scenario, this scenario, this specific scenario, this scenario. And when would this have been okay, that these have been leaked? Pretty

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Pretty much what I'm trying to ask. Exactly.

Carter 42:00

It can't be. Now,

Carter 42:02

I can imagine a different scenario, right?

Carter 42:04

right? I can imagine a scenario where the

Carter 42:06

the government hasn't been meeting. The government hasn't been bringing in these experts. Because let's be clear, they

Carter 42:13

they don't need to meet with them, right?

Carter 42:15

right? They don't even need to fucking meet with them, right? Clarify this.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

this. You mean the government doesn't need to meet with these health experts and the public? not at

Carter 42:22

at all right they don't need to bring in an outside expert at all i can sit in the oval room adjacent to the premier's office and make this decision by drawing crayon on a piece of paper which i may have done twice when i was chief of staff that

Corey 42:37

mother's against drunk driving it

Carter 42:38

it was fine i was also

SPEAKER_02 42:42

also explains the six-month tenure uh go ahead no but

Carter 42:46

but you don't have to listen to these bureaucrats right you don't have to bring them in so if that was happening If they literally weren't bringing you in and this was this type of situation and the bureaucrats couldn't even get access to be heard, then maybe then maybe I could see a whistleblower type of piece. Or if something wrong was happening,

Carter 43:06

someone's taking money out of the public purse. Shandro's directing the work to a private enterprise.

Carter 43:14

Right. Say, for example, even the McKinsey contracts. If the McKinsey contracts hadn't come out through the normal course of contract exposure, if that had been somehow swept under the carpet, then, yeah, I could see that coming out. But in this particular case where the minister is hearing you, where the premier is hearing you, when you are in the room and the and the simple failure is

Carter 43:38

is that you didn't listen or they didn't take my advice. I

Carter 43:43

I mean, fully keep in mind, fully has to be added because some of the advice has been taken and the advice is four months old. There was a different vector here. There was a vector for making decisions in June and a vector for making decisions in October and November. And those two vectors got collided in this in this news article, in my opinion, by those reporters on

Carter 44:06

on purpose, because they knew that it would make the biggest possible splash. You think there was a reason why these things came out when they did? Of course there is. And I know I got into some problems with some journalists who took me to task. You know, no, no reporter would ever do that.

Carter 44:22

Okay, these reporters might. Right. Anyways, I digress. I honestly am not creative enough to come up with an argument for these bureaucrats.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

No, this is why I want to have this discussion, right? There is a lot of nuance to this. And Corey, maybe if you can add some nuance. Is there a scenario that you see that what these public servants did would be acceptable? Clearly, it isn't this one for you. I understand that. Is there a version of this scenario that it would be?

Corey 44:54

why don't i'll take i'm going to ignore that and i'm just going to answer the question you asked carter instead which is uh what's the best argument for this leak sure in my opinion the best argument for this leak is that the premier has said that they are just following the advice that dr hinshaw has given and that's obviously not the case that was a lie however i think that that's been made clear on dozens of other circumstances including comments by dr Dr. Hinshaw within the past couple of weeks. So I don't think that we learned anything from this. It just becomes additive, but you know, not additive in the sense that it changes the equation. It's, it's like we brought in another variable, but we're just multiplying it by that. And it's going to come out at the same number at the end of the day.

Corey 45:35

That to me would be the best argument, but that best, like I said, that argument requires you to not already know that.

Corey 45:40

Right. And we already know that, but even then it's

Corey 45:43

it's not allowed. Even if like, I can think like Like, ethically, I worry about that. You know, are we encouraging a premier to be dishonest with Albertans? But that's

Corey 45:53

that's not really up for the public servant to decide whether that's right or not. Premiers have to tell lies sometimes. They

Corey 46:00

And if it becomes just calling out the premier on a lie becomes the rule of the day, holy shit, are you going to see a different government out there? Carter wants to – Carter looks like he's going to jump through the screen. He really wants to get in. But I've got a question for you after saying. Yeah,

Corey 46:13

Yeah, okay. Carter, jump

Carter 46:15

But how do we know that this isn't her recommendation? This may not be her favorite recommendation. This may not be the choice recommendation. But I suspect that on a piece of paper, most of these recommendations did come with a consequence, perhaps, right? If you do this, Premier, then this is probably what's going to happen. And it maybe wasn't her choice that these be the recommendations that were selected. But I suspect that they were well within the range of recommendations that were offered. And that's why I think that this isn't necessarily a lie from Jason Kenney, that

Carter 46:45

that he's saying that he's taking the recommendations of the chief medical officer of health. I think that it just probably is within a range and maybe the very bottom end of the range.

Corey 46:55

That's a great point. So let me explain to listeners what happens when a public servant puts together a briefing note, and it goes forward to a decider. It's a very standard format. You get the format from the policy coordination office. Effectively, you summarize the issue in one paragraph, you

Corey 47:13

put the decision points, you give a recommended option, and you give other options beyond that. and the recommended option like that makes it sound bigger than it is in some ways like the fact it's recommended means very little often you will recommend what you think that the decider wants to hear and you've still got the other options there you're trained as a public servant that you want to be creating options that are largely orthogonal so you're looking at things that are not just variants of it like let's do a lockdown and let's do a lockdown but give people silly hats that's not two options that's one option with a variant on it right and you're You're supposed to give your political masters a number of ways to get towards the outcomes they are trying to drive at. You

Corey 47:51

You know, yes, this is the one we think is most likely to succeed. Here's why we think the benefits outweigh the negatives. Here's the option we think is less likely to succeed. Here's the negatives, why we think they outweigh the benefits. But you get both. You

Corey 48:02

You get both. And your job as an elected official is to weigh what I have given you as a bureaucrat with other notes that other bureaucrats have given you and come to conclusions that you think are best for the province as a whole. That's what your job is. So I agree with Stephen. I think that there is a way

Corey 48:18

way that you can kind of lawyer

Corey 48:20

lawyer it so that it looks like the premier is saying, yeah, I'm doing what Dr. Hinshaw has proposed to us.

Corey 48:26

I still think that that's a little weaselly myself, if that's the case.

Corey 48:30

The question I have for you, Zane. Lay it on me.

Corey 48:33

You have said you're perhaps more of a representative of the public there. What do you think was the most compelling argument? And give me three minutes to give you my rebuttal to it. No,

SPEAKER_02 48:43

No, there was no three minutes required. You know why? Because I was trying to engineer with my question the response you gave me, Corey, which was, amongst the noise, the signal for me was that this was a government that had said they were listening to health professionals who were calling the shots, and this, regardless of the time horizon, was providing a set of evidence that signaled that that was not the case. And I think that is what the takeaway from this story is. If there is a legacy to this story, there is perhaps that, that this proved that, that that was indeed the case. And I think there is a subtext towards perhaps, and I know certainly Dr. Dina Hinshaw's statements afterwards were about her, you know, being upset at the potential leaker, etc., right? Saying and stating that she's never felt like she's been muzzled or not heard. But there's almost a subtext that her advice was not being taken seriously. So I think that was the signal for me amongst the noise, the answer that you gave.

Corey 49:43

Yeah, it's funny because that was a lot of the feedback I got on my tweet, which I don't think is technically ratioed because it had more likes than replies.

Corey 49:53

replies. Oh, yeah. Everything is technicality.

Corey 49:55

technicality. Let me lawyer it a little bit. Yeah,

Corey 49:57

But a lot of what I got was why doesn't government just listen to experts? And so, I mean, there's a little bit of rich irony in people yelling at me about the importance of listening to experts while absolutely ignoring my and other former bureaucrats' expertise in how the public service works, you

Corey 50:13

you know, substituting their feelings about how they think it should work, how they feel it should work, how they want it should work, as opposed to, you know, well, as I sit here and look at my order in council designating me as a senior official, you know, one that did that for longer than almost anyone who's had the role, yes, you know better than me how government should work, right?

Corey 50:31

right? Right. I mean, there is irony there, because if we want to talk about expertise, the reality is I think that I hope that lays bare for some people. We don't always rely on experts. Sometimes there's overriding principles. There's values, there's philosophies. And you can say, yes, you may know how it works and you may know what

Corey 50:47

what the impacts will be. But I

Corey 50:48

believe there's a bigger principle

Corey 50:49

That is exactly what the politicians are doing when they're overriding the health expertise. OK, that's that's one thing I want to say. The other thing is everybody wants transparency to work. You know, I would say even before I went into government, I had more radical ideas about transparency. And I remember people like Carter saying, yeah, well, good fucking luck with that, having done his stint a little before mine.

Corey 51:10

it's complicated. And if we have seen anything from the debate around this, it's that we like to claim that we're good at nuance, but we're not good at nuance. We're not. We get mad. We go to our corners. We yell from our sides. and

Corey 51:24

and if government internally operated the way that debate operated on twitter god help us all god

Corey 51:31

god help us all government

Corey 51:32

government needs the space to be able to have those awkward conversations without the public weighing in from their corners cheering people on or booing people like they're a wrestling heel that's

Corey 51:41

that's very important if we want to have good outcomes in the long run because it's not just this pandemic there

Corey 51:47

there will be another pandemic there will be other health crises there will be be fires. There will be buses that crash into people that, God help us, are full of young men and children. This stuff happens all the time. Government is life and death.

Corey 52:00

And we need our

Corey 52:01

our elected officials to be making decisions based on the weighing in of experts. And if we freeze the experts out, if we scare politicians away from ever wanting to hear things that don't go with their point of view,

Corey 52:14

well, forget it. It's not going to work. And you're going to have much much worse outcomes. Your heart's in the right place, the outcomes will be much, much worse.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

Corey, thank you for that. Carter, for the last 15 minutes, we turned into the bureaucratists version of the podcast. Let's go back to political strategy to round this out very quickly, because there's other things I want to talk about. This week is not over. This week recap, political consequences. So you guys have teased out your rationale, why in your in your belief, these public servants were not heroes. We talked about the story. Let's now talk about the politics will this be damaging to jason kenny carter first uh

Carter 52:48

uh no more damaging than his other actions i think that the bigger story of the the week was the uh the covid lockdown problems i think that already people are starting to forget about the uh the you know this this leak and it'll be

Carter 53:04

uh rusnell and russell have a tendency to tease out these stories i suspect that they've got uh five weeks of stories out of this one set of tapes so um they'll tease them out but they can't tease them out for for two years so i don't think it'll have too long of a consequence cory

SPEAKER_02 53:19

cory political consequences will this have an impact for for jason kenney uh

Corey 53:24

uh i think it might there there's both like the first effect politics where people will say well what a what a bloody outrage right it just it's more fuel for the fire and obviously it gives another baseball bat for rachel notley to pick up and and start treating uh jason kenny like he's uh you know somebody in a casino who's been taken out back but uh more

Corey 53:45

more than that it really will have an effect on the public service i i i did my best to avoid talking to people in the public service last week more than just like hey how's it going you know but

Corey 53:56

i've been there i know what happens as soon as there's a leak of this nature the chaos that it puts it in the way it takes everybody's eye off the ball for the next bit as you try to figure out what's next.

Corey 54:07

And that's going to hurt. All

Corey 54:08

All of the things I just said, I believe and I mean. And the public service is going to be less

Corey 54:13

less good at their job for the next couple of weeks as they digest this.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

We talked about Monday, the blank day, Tuesday, off the books, Wednesday, Thursday, got the big story out of the way. We had anti-mask rallies in Calgary on Saturday, can't cover it, not enough time. Sunday, I'm moving to Sunday. Jason Kenney goes on Red FM, which is an ethnic South Asian radio station here in Calgary, talks about how the greatest COVID cases in the province are coming out of northeast Calgary, a very multicultural, very diverse part of the city. And then almost, you know, I shouldn't be too charged on this, berates the folks for these rise in cases without acknowledging, A, the mask rallies and the lack of any restrictions to those the previous day, or B, the fact that a disproportionate number of folks in this geographic area in the city are what you call frontline workers, essential workers, people who have to actually go to their jobs. Carter, I want to get your take on this first. What did you make of the commentary by the Premier in some way, shape or form, like finger wagging against a group of a very multicultural, not monolith, but geographically singular group group of people is

Carter 55:25

there any way to take it except racist is

Carter 55:27

is there any way to take it except racist i mean the

Carter 55:29

the the predominantly white crowd on saturday gets an absolute fucking pass but the people who are actually doing the work that are they're out there um serving our communities because they have no fucking choice are are getting berated on you know red fm like fuck man like pull your head out out of your ass jason this is um don't blame the victim number one number

Carter 55:55

number two we're seeing no specific behaviors out of northeast calgary that are indicative of breaking the the public health uh bans right or the the orders that have come down this week but you can see right across the street like down in at city hall you can see predominantly

Carter 56:13

predominantly whites marching up and down the the streets screaming that we're you know about their rights being taken care of there wasn't you know there was barely a a minority face in the crowd at chinook center uh from the videos that were posted about chinook center the fistfights that brought popped up all us white guys what

Carter 56:32

fuck man like if you're going to hold people to account hold us all to account don't pick a small subsection of the community and and say that they're wrong in some fashion because uh frankly they serve us. And that is, it's just, it's small and tiny, and it's Jason Kenney to a T.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Yeah. And I mean, it was challenging some of the notions of what family was for a lot of these communities that come with very different family values that, you know, that come with very different living situations, not often by choice, but by necessity. Corey, I wanted to get your take on this. And, you know, adding to Carter's comments and the political damage this could mean, I mean, this is Jason Kenney. This is supposed to be the guy that really knows how to work the multicultural communities, right? His words, not mine, right? Minister of Curry in a hurry, his words, not mine. So, you know, how could he be so tone deaf around stuff like this? Yes, there's

Corey 57:28

there's there's a couple of answers to that. But here's here's my personal bet. It's it's because he actually does feel and arguably does have some competency dealing with multicultural communities that he has forgotten some pretty fundamental things. And he thinks that he gets he thinks because of his background and who he is, he gets a pass on these things. He thinks it's a strong foot. Therefore, people will forgive him. And no, he's not racist. Right. And then he goes and he says something like this and really steps in it.

Corey 57:54

Carter, you asked the question, like, is there any way to look at it besides racist? I think it's because of what you said about the lack of consequences on Saturday that really put it in stark relief like that. If he was just being premier tough guy, telling it like, like, I don't know from the health stats why he has come to the conclusions he's come to about Northeast Calgary and the South Asian community. The fact that he would feel that he needs to have

Corey 58:17

have like real talk from Jason Kenney with the South Asian community. It's like paternalistic

SPEAKER_02 58:21

paternalistic lecturing on like in a radio station that is in there and like in a Punjabi and like Hindi, like talk radio station. Just yeah, yeah.

Corey 58:30

But like to do that and then to do nothing, nothing

Corey 58:33

nothing even comparable with this other group is what makes it look that way. Now, it's

Corey 58:38

it's just as easy an answer is kind of cowardice though, right? It's I'm scared that this group is going to turn against me and I need this group. Ultimately, it gets you to the same door, which is I

Corey 58:47

I worry more about this race than that race, right? right, which is the definition of racism. But I think it's filtered through politics, I guess is what I would say. And it's funny thing is, that's about as charitable as I can get on that. And that's not very charitable. And I'm not trying to be charitable. But I'm saying that the thought process is going on in their heads. We're probably not over active racism. Guys,

SPEAKER_02 59:06

Guys, let's quickly I want to have to follow up on this. Why him as a messenger, Carter, maybe I'll go to you first on this. You have ministers who are from that area, you literally have a minister from that area. Why have Jason Kenney be the messenger on this? knowing that the danger is this paternalistic racist um sort of diatribe that can come out of your mouth and and it did today yeah

Carter 59:30

yeah the only answer to that is that they didn't know they didn't see it i mean you ever take your car and back it into someone else's car you know you didn't do it because you wanted to you did it because you didn't see it right and and that's that's what jason kenney did with this he did not see um the the the potential racist uh lens that This would be viewed through, the fact that he'd be seen as a racist. He also saw himself as a very capable messenger to this community. He has been in the past. That's not a

Carter 1:00:00

surprise. He was a very good minister in this community. He did a lot of solid work. He knows the community very, very well.

Carter 1:00:09

I'm sure he thought, I've got this. I'm fine. But that's the blind spot. That's the mistake, right? And someone who was near him, this is where my challenge is. Someone who was near him on Tuesday or Wednesday night when he when he goes up and does the town hall needs to say that's not the look. Someone who was near him today says that's not the line.

Carter 1:00:27

Like so who is speaking truth to this premier? Who is the one that's standing up and saying, you know, that's not the right play, sir.

Carter 1:00:37

You need to take a different tone with this audience. I think you're going to come across like an absolute asshole.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:44

add before you move on?

Corey 1:00:46

No, I don't think so. So this is one of those stories developing in real time. And I guess we'll see what comes in the next day or so. That was

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

was the week that was in Alberta. Well done, guys. Look at that. That was a marathon. And guess what? To your delight, we've got another segment and we're heading right into it. Our next segment is procuring Canada. Now, I want to give us a bit of a backslap from last week. We looked into our fortune telling. I don't know what device you use, Carter. Carter, just a mirror where you look back at yourself, your fortune telling eyes. We

SPEAKER_02 1:01:18

our crystal ball and we talked about the communications on the vaccine. We opened that bracket last week just to say, hey, what would be some first principles that the prime minister would want to get in place? Well, it seems like maybe

SPEAKER_02 1:01:28

maybe less than 48 hours from our conversation, we had another narrative emerge on vaccines, which was Canada's at the back of the line, right? right? We have got an amazing per population ratio secured. Great. Let's like congratulate ourselves. But this narrative around Canada being back at the back of the line started to become much louder as the week went on. Corey, what do you think happened here? Why do you think was it was it just a vacuum that you felt like kind of caused this? There's been some updates to the story. But I just want to try to tease out from a comms perspective. Was it that the Prime Minister wasn't following some of those first principles? But I'm just you know, or was was it something else what's your what's your take on uh what we saw this week you

Corey 1:02:09

you know i really didn't know where this came from i i mean in a sense yes we know where it came from a professor said this and it became a conversation that that all of a sudden took over canadian discourse until today i guess just to preempt you where moderna effectively said no canada is getting some of the first wave of vaccines we'll

Corey 1:02:27

we'll see because of course the canadian the american government has has all sorts of powers at their you know disposals and perhaps override some of those contractual obligations but i think

Corey 1:02:37

think really it was a reaction to the fact that this is such a positive for uh trudeau the fact that there's so many vaccine doses that are available for canadians that when somebody made the comment oh canada's actually at the back of the line

Corey 1:02:53

the conservatives latched onto it like somebody would latch onto water dying of thirst in the the desert yeah it became all of a sudden the thing to talk about and you had conservative premiers talking about it you obviously had conservative mps talking about it and

Corey 1:03:07

let's be frank only moderna has so far weighed in saying like no no no don't worry at least as far as i've seen so concretely that's only like one of the 10 doses so it's not necessarily clear to me that we are we are out of the woods on that front it may be a real problem still but um but i think the reaction that came from this week was all

Corey 1:03:28

all politics and and all opportunity carter

SPEAKER_02 1:03:31

carter what do you think what happened here like this was this picked up so quickly it became the predominant narrative minister baines uh did not really have many answers when he was interviewed on multiple political shows which kind of extended the cycle on on procurement and where canada was in line the prime minister tried to you know quell some of the concerns saying no no we we've we've got got some of the first orders, but they didn't have specifics as it was assuming a moving target. What do you think happened here? And what do you think the lessons are to be learned for the Trudeau government from this week?

Carter 1:04:05

Well, I think that two things happened. First of all, the Trudeau liberals continue to be very bad at communications. They just aren't great communicators and they haven't been great communicators. They're not going to be good communicators. It's very frustrating. So they created this. They were either blind to it or they they weren't prepared for or some some such thing the other is that the conservatives finally got a life raft this is something they could actually score a point on because they aren't going to score a point like scott moe isn't going to score points by saying i want you to buy more vaccines 10 to 1 is not enough you know they they they needed something um that would actually score them some points and they got it so uh they jumped on it uh like a fat kid on a s'more and they just dug in so that's that

Carter 1:04:54

that those two things together the conservatives finally finding something that would stick and the liberals having uh no capacity to push back cory

Corey 1:05:04

yeah i mean the liberals seemed legitimately befuddled by this uh not even knowing where it was coming from for the first couple of days in their communications almost to me took on the flavor of well we better see if there's anything to that you know uh let's really make sure that our vaccines are coming and

Corey 1:05:20

and you know what i think that you talk about lessons for the liberals i think there was a lesson for partisans in here there was and you know what it is stop fucking spinning for your party just have some intellectual honesty could you please the number of liberal enthusiasts i saw saying things like well of course we're going to have to wait almost trying to prognosticate where this was going and immediately jumping to what they imagined the party line would be defense for the party yeah Yeah. Defending the fact that we were going to have to wait for those things. No, that's not OK. It's not OK for us to think that this vaccine is coming and then to find out we might be last in line.

Corey 1:05:51

I do expect the prime minister to try to do something about that. This has been going on for a while. We should have been talking about this if this was a real risk before. I think it is still a risk, but we've talked about this already. I don't need to go into it. i always thought the risk was more from government actors um at

Corey 1:06:05

at the last minute as they start to get greedy but like the idea that everybody well not everybody but all of these enthusiasts for the liberal party immediately jumped to yeah

Corey 1:06:14

yeah we're gonna have to wait of course we are guys just calm down that

Corey 1:06:17

that no no and you know what it wasn't you weren't even chasing the right line there so let's all be a little more honest let's just stop trying to spin and let's just see where the the facts land and let's make up our minds about whether we think things are good or not. Can

Corey 1:06:31

Can we try that on for a change? If

SPEAKER_02 1:06:32

If there was a week where political commentary didn't age well, this week was it. Running the tapes on Wednesday and Thursday in response to this particular issue will not age well for certain folks. I want to talk about this risk that Corey brought up very quickly, Carter. Before we had today's interview with the Moderna executive saying that Canada is you know not going to be at the back of the line this may have held a little bit more water but let's talk about it because it's something that the the trudeau liberals which you have said are not great at communicating may need to account for which is right now the prime minister's line is that canada's entire population will have their vaccine before america's entire population this this communalist sort of like will get to our end before they get to their end and i want to talk about the risk of that political messaging especially when we might be looking at an individual basis where that communal erosion may occur. And you might be looking at people down south and saying, I don't give a shit about if we as a country are going to, you know, complete before the rest of them. I care about my vaccine. I care about me, my golden ticket. Is there a risk here? And how big do you think that risk is, Carter, if for some reason we are punched to the back of the line or there's delays from our at least visible counterparts down south?

Carter 1:07:49

Well, I think it matters how long the delay is, right? Like if first responders, so this is all going to go in waves. So if the first wave of the United States vaccinations happens in January and the first wave of Canadian vaccinations happens in February, I really don't think we're going to be talking about a significant issue. If the first wave goes in, you know, in the United States, the second wave goes in the United States, the third wave goes in the United States, forget about vaccinating the entire population the entire population isn't going to get vaccinated in the united states like it's just not going to happen it's probably not going to happen here especially with jason kenney you know promising

Carter 1:08:28

promising to repeal the uh the legislation that would make mandatory vaccination even possible even though we don't use it here in alberta um

Carter 1:08:37

you know This vaccination debate gets particularly bad when you start falling behind, right? Being behind with one wave isn't really falling behind. Being behind with one,

Carter 1:08:52

one, two, and three waves where other people are, you know, if all of a sudden me

Carter 1:08:57

me flying down to the United States to get a vaccination is more viable than me being in Canada to get a vaccination, that's going to be a real problem. problem so

Carter 1:09:07

that's where i think um trudeau

Carter 1:09:10

trudeau really needs to be careful because you can't set up a false measure that people won't care about you have to set up a false a true measure that people do care about and the one that i care about is is it happening can i see it happening and once i see it happening then the little details will i think for the most part uh be relatively easy to get over cory

SPEAKER_02 1:09:29

cory round us out here what's the political risk here if there is this delay if canada is is not at the end of the line or the back of the line, but not as quick as our counterparts in the US and, and Canadians start seeing this FOMO where other folks are getting their golden ticket?

Corey 1:09:46

Well, they're going to have all sorts of problems at that point. And people will say, why didn't you take certain actions, and the government will

Corey 1:09:52

will not have great answers for them in some cases. So the question really is how big of this, how big will this problem be?

Corey 1:09:59

Eyes were always going to turn in a bigger way towards the vaccines and vaccine rollout in the the next couple of months this has hit you a little bit sooner than you thought but it's here now so start tightening up your communications get ready have better answers be more prepared for the misinformation and it's not even necessarily going to come from your political opponents but there will be rumors like bank runs and bread lines running out of food like this is going to get weird and people are going to worry about this a lot so get tight now because it's upon you a little bit sooner than you thought all

SPEAKER_02 1:10:29

all righty let's move it on to our final segment are over under a lightning round. Stephen Carter, are you ready?

Carter 1:10:35

I am ready. Thank you for coming to me first. I will, as always, the correct one. I'll

SPEAKER_02 1:10:40

I'll be going to Corey first. Thank you, Stephen, for your offer. Corey, we know that the fiscal update from our federal government, look at that, we couldn't even talk about it in detail, comes out tomorrow. It's Krista Freeland's first update as finance minister. Probably some tough news that she's going to have to deliver on some of the bigger numbers around debt. debt, but also we're getting leaks early today and throughout the weekend that it's going to be a further stimulus-related, targeted relief effort. Are you in or out on that strategy for the government for this week? That's my lightning round question. In or out if we're extending the stimulus PM and stimulus finance minister mantra for another cycle going forward?

Corey 1:11:22

in. What's your alternative?

Carter 1:11:25

Yeah, you got to be in. I mean, you got to do it. This is you can't finish till it's done.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:30

We're going to do much more analysis once we see exactly what's in that economic update in that package. Let's move it on to our next one. Carter, I'm sticking with you. Over under on six, over under on six, the political damage for the mayor of Windsor, who is mentioning and berating and consistently trying to tell his citizens to adhere to COVID restrictions, but then was caught dining out with seven people. Over under on six, the political damage for Mr. Mayor in Windsor?

Carter 1:11:56

He should resign immediately. This is a complete failure. And if personal responsibility and personal credibility mattered, Jason Kenney, this is a great example for you, then he would simply step down because you can't get caught doing this after asking your citizens not to and still hold the job. You've got to resign. that's personal responsibility that's personal accountability that's what jason kenney wants us to live by jason should make a call to the windsor mayor cory

SPEAKER_02 1:12:28

cory how bad is this on a scale on over under on six for the mayor of windsor uh and his political future yeah

Corey 1:12:36

yeah it's it's bad i i think that carter is coming in a little hot on mayor dilkins here i think that that's that's It's a little much.

Corey 1:12:47

we're not in a world of nuance, and I'm not forgiving the guy. He looks bad, and now we've got a situation where people are less likely to hear him, and they need to hear him on public health advice as they start putting in government orders in Windsor. But I

Corey 1:13:01

think, if I'm not mistaken, his name was on a very hot letter. It was a number of mayors in the region. He went to a dinner. The dinner was booked at a time when eight people were allowed. The restrictions became six. There were still eight people at his table. Like that's

Corey 1:13:15

that's stupid and that he shouldn't have done that and he should have known

Corey 1:13:20

But I think resign is a little strong. I think that Carter

Corey 1:13:25

Carter getting his pitchfork and his torch is a little uncalled for here. But I would expect nothing less from the king

Corey 1:13:33

king of nuance. The

SPEAKER_02 1:13:36

The king of nuance, Stephen Carter. By the way, this was not the only mayor this weekend that had this exact issue. The mayor of Denver was berating citizens to stay at home, rightfully so, but then was caught on security cameras taking a flight to Mississippi. So, you know, it happened on both sides of our borders. Corey, I'm sticking with you. After the week Jason Kenney has had, give me a one-sentence strategy. Rapid fire. Give me a one-sentence strategy for NDP leader Rachel Notley. What should she be doing right now, knowing the week that Jason Kenney has had? And, you know, many details still continue to evolve for him. But what is her one-sentence strategy?

Corey 1:14:15

Which one do you want me to teach you? Notley. For Notley.

Corey 1:14:17

for notley okay i had i was sitting here mentally getting ready for kenny

Corey 1:14:24

on rachel notley it's just go for the throat you've you've got them at this point on about eight different issues and don't let the fact that we're about to get into winter and christmas and all of those things distract from the issues at hand and

Corey 1:14:37

and part of go for the throat like don't you like how you ask for one sentence and now i'm giving you the like the context behind the one sentence isn't that nice of me sounds

Corey 1:14:46

the headlines lines don't worry about it

Corey 1:14:47

yeah well like so

Corey 1:14:49

so don't go for the leg don't go for the foot don't go for the arm go for the throat you've got to focus on he's given you so much to target right now you've got to keep on the targets that matter uh because it would be very tempting to start floating towards things like uh that that tuesday economic update that talked about public servants right

Corey 1:15:08

right that's not the throat the

Corey 1:15:11

the throat is covet the throat is um the throat is the government's reaction at this moment there

SPEAKER_02 1:15:17

there you go we distilled it down the throat is covet carter same question to you rachel notley's one-sentence strategy what is it define

Carter 1:15:24

define success define what it means for him to actually succeed in four in two years because did

Corey 1:15:30

did you just read a steven covey book what's

Carter 1:15:33

no like right now jason genny has defined what is you know like what does success look like for this government and right now rachel notley continues to put up what she would do and and counter proposals. I think for the first time she's in a position where she can say Jason Kenney, you need to bring back the economy like you promised. You need to stop this COVID thing and you need to, you know, whatever else she defines as success.

Carter 1:15:59

But right now he can't succeed. So, you know, define success so the people know how he's failing. Define

Corey 1:16:06

Define UCP success. That's what I missed. Okay.

Carter 1:16:08

Yeah. Sorry. That's your throat. That's the throat. I was picking up on your throat thing. That's building on refining

SPEAKER_02 1:16:15

refining as we go. Stephen Carter, I'm sticking with you on a scale of one to 10. The political upside for our friend Jagmeet Singh and appearing on Among Us on Twitch with AOC. What's the political upside domestically for Jagmeet Singh on a scale of one to 10 for his for his appearance on on Twitch with AOC?

Carter 1:16:34

think that AOC is the star of the left, and anytime you get to show up with the star, it's probably pretty good. I would just say that the counter

Carter 1:16:46

counter to that is that he's not that good. He's not a star. So I give it 60%. Thank

SPEAKER_02 1:16:55

you, Carter. Corey, same question to you on a scale of 1 to 10. The political upside for Jagmeet Singh.

Corey 1:17:00

Yeah, I give it a frowny face. I think that you're not likely to move the meter with a lot of the people that you need to. And honestly, it

Corey 1:17:08

doesn't do a lot of service to Gen Z and other people who are interested in those scenes.

Corey 1:17:15

You can watch politicians goof around on those things and not be like, okay, I guess I'm a social democrat now. They're not so basic, man. I think that it's fine you did it. It's not a bad thing to do, but it didn't change political history.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:30

Let's move on to our final question, Corey. I'm going to stick with you. Another story we did not get to talk about, but is all the rage in Ontario, which is Adamson Barbecue. This is Adam Skelly, an owner of

SPEAKER_02 1:17:43

a barbecue joint in, I believe, just outside of Toronto. He's become this media darling for certain types of small businesses, raised $200,000 for his legal fund after he was arrested multiple times. times what do you make of how the media is covering this story it's they're almost covering it as if it were a friend of mine said a category three uh hurricane uh is the type of attention they're giving him i want to end off with this what do you kind of give the media a score of one to ten in terms of how they're covering this story uh in in ontario but now i would say nationally so

Corey 1:18:16

so you start with all the rage in ontario big story in ontario i'm thinking we're going to talk about the auditor we are not no we're talking about which i was i was prepared cared for i wanted to talk about it i thought it was really interesting i'd written myself some notes on it we're talking about the fucking barbecue place the fucking barbecue place okay so what do i think about them in particular the media's reaction to the fucking barbecue correct the barbecue place meta the barbecue place okay it's just i want to make sure that i'm in the right mind yeah okay okay keep going keep going well the media's job is to make things digestible and understandable to make big issues small to make them relatable and they found somebody who's willing to be the clown who can dance for them and illustrate it like the dumbest episode of bill nye the science guy so i don't fault the media at all for following this clusterfuck of a situation but because it helps people understand the issues around covid better that's their job i think this guy is an idiot i think he's an absolute fucking idiot and i think that this issue is just beneath the good people of ontario uh but i have no real problems with the media here

Corey 1:19:20

Do you want to talk about the barbecue place some more, though? I'm ready to go two rounds on this if you want. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 1:19:25

Carter, I want to get your take on the barbecue place so that you and I will do a one-on-one, Carter, on the Auditor General's report. Because I think Corey doesn't want to be part of that.

Carter 1:19:33

What I think Corey's missing on this is that the barbecue place is hugely important. What it does is it stands as a symbol of society and the deterioration and us choosing sides, right? We were either for the COVID restrictions or we're against them. And this is the poster boy for against them. And frankly, I think they've chosen well because when he speaks, I feel spoken to. I feel like he hits all the right chords. And I mean,

Carter 1:20:02

guy's an idiot. He's surrounded by idiots, but there's enough idiots to help him raise $200,000 for his legal defense fund, which I'm hoping that he pockets at least half of so that he can maybe spruce the place up again. You know, it made Four Seasons Landscaping look really, really

Carter 1:20:19

really quite spectacular. Well,

Corey 1:20:20

Well, I guess he put a bunch of holes in the wall, so he needs some money for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:24

guess so. Look at this. I would not have gotten this much passion from the AG report. We will leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 832 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belgey. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you next time.

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