Episode 906: "Aloha"

Zain 0:02

This is a Strategist episode 906. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, Happy New Year.

Carter 0:10

Happy New Year to you too, Zain. What a great time to be alive. You and I and Corey together again. I'm so excited.

Zain 0:18

Thank you for your canned opening line, Stephen. Thank you. Thanks for being

Carter 0:21

Heather has been writing some lines for me and asked me to be nicer to you guys because sometimes I'm mean to you. So, my apologies. Is

Zain 0:27

Is this an attempt for us to be nicer to you?

Carter 0:30

Oh, yeah, it is, because sometimes you guys are really mean to me, and it makes me sad, and sometimes I cry.

Zain 0:34

Corey, how's it going? How was your New Year? First of all, Happy New Year.

Corey 0:38

Well, it wasn't going that great, but then I heard that we were making Stephen Carter cry successfully, so I'm feeling a lot better about myself.

Corey 0:45

It's good. Listen, the Wizards have won two in a row now, making their record two and five, I believe. And let's not forget that those

Corey 0:54

those ballots, those votes are still missing, and somebody's going to find them out there. there, those 11,780 votes. And that's a great mystery. Yeah,

Zain 1:02

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's first of all, surprising that that's exactly the amount of votes needed to find. And number two, that that is exactly the amount of votes that are currently missing. It's just, I mean, puzzle piece, Stephen Carter, amazing. Any New Year's resolutions for either of you, by the way?

Carter 1:19

Oh, no, I made none. I'm very, very popular and very proud of the way that I am. So I'm not changing. So why change that which ain't broke yeah

Zain 1:29

yeah not just like was that was that nelson mandela i think that you just quoted there yeah

Carter 1:34

about nelson mandela is the man that i'm actually uh most often compared to so that's uh that's amazing you picked up on that zane thank you yeah

Corey 1:42

yeah maybe i know you're perfect but maybe self-awareness is something you could try to work on maybe ask a few people their opinions about you i don't know just give

Corey 1:49

give a shot i

Carter 1:50

don't see any reason for that but thanks Thanks very much, Corey, for your input.

Zain 1:55

Yeah, no, this is that mildly awkward and slightly tense moment. Let's

Zain 2:03

Live from Hawaii, my family tradition. Guys, I want to devote our entire episode to the story that

Zain 2:10

that continues to break, I guess we can say. I don't know where we begin. I guess I do know where we begin. Maybe I'll kind of summarize where we're at. We have had local,

Zain 2:21

provincial, federal representatives from across the country, I guess,

Zain 2:26

guess, contravene orders, advisories, and travel either interprovincially or overseas over the course of our winter holidays. And it seems like Canadians don't like that shit. And not only do we have it happening at every order of government in this country, I would say that it is happening in a very interesting and perhaps more magnified way here in Alberta. So when we focus in on Alberta, we have right now, I think, six UCP MLAs that traveled out of the country over the holidays. We had, of course, the one that let it off, Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard traveling to Hawaii, Calgary Klein MLA Jeremy Nixon to Hawaii, Calgary Pagan MLA Tanya Furr to Vegas. Vegas, what happens in Vegas is now in the news. Red Deer, South MLA, Jason Steffen to Arizona, Lesser Slave Lake MLA to Mexico. And of course, Fort McMurray, Woodbuffet MLA, Tony Yao, still in Mexico, unreachable by the Premier's office. Hilarious. So we've got this growing list of MLAs here. We've also got politicians from across the country. We just had this afternoon and this evening, a news break that two liberal MPs are giving up their committee and parliamentary secretary posts federally. We also had Nikki Ashton, a popular national figure within the NDP who traveled to Greece and is having her critic roles removed. And then we also have individuals from across the province, starting and most notably with former finance minister of the Ontario Ford government, Rod Phillips, who was at the airport, had a press conference and was later resigned from his position. So, you know, we can focus in on a lot of this stuff. And I want to go chronologically in a sense of what happened here in Alberta, because guys, I think what happened in Alberta is the case study for not just the scandal itself. I think it's also the heartbeat of the scandal itself. And it's also a really interesting analysis of how to and perhaps not do issues management and crisis communications, which is something we often discuss on this show, but we now have a live wire in front of us. So before we get into that, there seems to be a lot of conversation and perhaps even confusion as to how something like this could happen. So maybe let's start with you guys and your experience and knowledge of government, of government process, of perhaps even the mechanics of how this kind of works within a party or a caucus structure. And I'll start with a very simple question. And Corey, I'll start with you. How could this happen with

Zain 5:00

with members that are either ministers or MLAs within than government. What's kind of the process that maybe kind of dictates this or the loopholes that allowed them to perhaps go overseas or to go interprovincially? How

Corey 5:11

How could this happen? It depends on what you mean by this. If you mean how could MLAs and cabinet ministers travel without the premier being aware of it? Frankly, they can't. It strains credulity that one would be able to get away with it, let alone 10%, 10% of the UCP caucus traveling outside of Canada. That That we know of at this moment, that number could continue to climb. If they are asking how do they manage to just leave the country, well, they just – they do what anyone would do. They book a flight and they leave. And the requirements at the –

Corey 5:45

we don't have like exit customs. You visit customs on your way back into the country, but it's the other country that's going to determine whether they can come in or not. And I think we've seen that the Americans are perhaps a little

Corey 5:57

little more lax, right? I think that in general, countries are allowing, if you come by air, a fair bit of latitude. That's maybe something to unpack at some point. If you're asking how morally, ethically an MLA, a cabinet minister of a government that is saying eliminate all essential travel, no social gatherings, sorry, you can't see your

Corey 6:18

your grandparents, you can't see your parents, you can't see your cousins, your sisters, you've got to stay home. home um how they can then decide that the rules don't apply to them and and go and have family vacations and other jurisdictions i have no fucking idea like the level both of of like

Corey 6:35

moral difficulty and uh you know political cluelessness is is really next level zane you said alberta

Corey 6:41

alberta was the heartbeat of this i don't know if that's true i i think that we're the most extreme manifestation of it and so in that way it's probably the most interesting also it's home for us so it's more interesting for us but really

Corey 6:52

really in some ways this was set off by doug ford establishing the expectations here even though keep in mind doug ford said he knew that

Corey 7:01

that this minister was in saint bart's yeah with philips still you know call it a fire and call it a resignation he still got quit that minister that minister got quit hard and jason kenney then went up and said i didn't know and i'm not you know it's fine right and so that's

Corey 7:19

that's that's strange and i have some thoughts as to the

Corey 7:22

the sequencing but it would just be reckless speculation but i can see carter wants to get in here carter

Zain 7:26

carter jump in and and i'm gonna pose the same extremely broad question to you as well which is how could this happen so answer that whether it be the political or moral gymnastics that a mla or minister of the crown would have to do to to be able to justify this trip, or the mechanics? Because I think both are interesting, and then we'll dig deeper into each one. So where's your at? How could this happen?

Carter 7:48

Minister of Municipal Affairs is an interesting case study for this. So if we take this as a case study, right now, I think that the two biggest municipalities in Alberta are currently under states of emergency related to COVID. That's a very serious state for the municipalities and the municipalities kind of as, if you will children of the of the province that has very specific requirements of the minister of municipal affairs this minute this minister is not going anywhere without telling somebody else where she's going so she would have told the chief of staff and that would have been passed on the whip would have known it would have also gone through the premier because there would have had to be other assignments made because you can't just leave the country not when you've got two municipalities to the areas that you're you're responsible for in a state of emergency that just does not happen now so kenny's

Carter 8:44

kenny's lying or the minister's lying right so someone or they didn't follow procedure or kenny's lying that that's probably the best way of putting it either they didn't give a shit that these municipalities were in a state of emergency they didn't care what could happen i remember when i was chief of staff we had a windstorm uh that took out a bunch bunch of the city of Calgary windows from the high-rise towers and dropped it onto the streets, declared a major emergency. And we also had a fire that threatened Lethbridge on the same day. It turns out the Minister of Municipal Affairs was the person who called me, right?

Carter 9:22

right? So it turns out that these things happen very quickly and the minister is involved right from the get-go because that's the process. So there's no way, there's no way that this, that there was not not some sort of plan for a contingency of government, contingency of role that would

Carter 9:39

would have been undertaken.

Carter 9:40

So Kenny obviously thinks so little of us that he doesn't feel like he needs to tell us the truth.

Zain 9:45

Carter, from a mechanical sort of perspective, when you were chief of staff, Corey, I'll get to you in a second here. When you were chief of staff, would you know the whereabouts of each minister? Like, would you have access to that information? Was that something kind of documented, so to speak? Because there's just been this conversation online about this transfer of power, that if you are leaving the country, you need to assign someone. And I just want to get the facts about that straight from your experience as to how that accounting of where someone is happens.

Carter 10:12

Well, I mean, we don't have this board in the Premier's office that says where everybody is, right? Like it's not the in

Carter 10:17

in and out board. But we did have something similar in

Carter 10:19

in that we did know where people were. Because this idea that everything just goes smoothly. I

Carter 10:24

I mean, all of us have been on vacations, all of us have been on trips. Corey and I were on a trip together once where we missed the flight home and had to, you know, stay where we were an extra day. Now, it's not the end of the world. We just stayed an extra day. But when you're a minister of the crown and you have responsibilities to the crown, you don't get to just miss a day. You don't get to miss academy and you don't get to miss some of these things that you're responsible for. So, yes, we have a tracking. The WIPP's office is primarily responsible for tracking all the MLAs themselves. But then the premier's office is responsible for for tracking essentially the whereabouts of the ministers. Not, you know, is this minister in their home riding today? We don't really care if you're in the province, if you're easily gettable. But if you leave the country, if you go to Mexico, if you go to Hawaii and you're a flight away,

Carter 11:14

we need to know that so that we can make sure that we have a plan and someone's covering you off. Should you be unable to return? Should something happen that is unexpected? These are normal things in government. That's why we have these ministers, because shit happens.

Zain 11:28

Corey, what do you think is more likely here, that Jason Kenney knew

Zain 11:32

knew or that several

Zain 11:34

several MLAs and one cabinet minister skirted the process?

Corey 11:40

I think it's certainly more likely that people knew more broadly. Whether that information was put up to the premier, I think the premier would be a little derelict in duty not to say, hey, what's the holiday roster look like? Because let's just take a step back. In fact, Stephen's right. Ministers move around, MLAs move around, they're going to events all over town. Nobody actually cares what city they're in, especially if they're going to be in Calgary or Edmonton. Yeah, if they're going up to McMurray, if they're going up to Grand Prairie, somebody should probably know that because that is a bit of a logistical hurdle. You're not near these hubs of government infrastructure, right? You can't get to McDougal to do a press conference, you can't get to the legislature. legislature but um when

Corey 12:17

when the holidays come certainly there is an awareness that some people are going to be around more or less than others and some people's duties need to be covered off so even if you're not talking international travel even if the premier just said i assume nobody is going internationally you know the blind spot say that's going to happen there should have been a list of these people are going to be around and it should have been a huge effing

Corey 12:38

effing flag when a bunch of them weren't now listen that's not my side of the house when i was in government but it was certainly my understanding that any kind of movement like that you're going to fill out an awful lot of paperwork that's been backed up by former ministers of of the past couple of governments and you can't just leave the country as a minister here's the thing it's not just letting the boss know it's not just this notion that you're kind of playing hooky you're

Corey 13:02

you're you're a minister of the crown you have such sensitive secrets and such sensitive documents on you we heard that allard the minister of municipal affairs here in alberta was working on the beaches of hawaii

Corey 13:13

well so was she using her ipad was she connected to e-committee which has got all of the sensitive cabinet documents did she have to pass a border with it was that with her the entire time these are things you need to know as a government and there are security protocols that need to be put in place and you know and the united states is the united states but you know when you're going to you don't just take your electronics to china let's put it that way you don't take your government phone and your ipad to china and no matter where you're going if it's outside of of the jurisdiction of Alberta, if it's outside of Canadian law, you've got to consider these things. So you don't just get to F off. And if that's exactly what happened, well, then the minister didn't follow procedure and should be relieved of their ministerial duties because the risk is significant that

Carter 13:53

this with Maxime Bernier, right?

Carter 13:54

right? He was minister of the crown and he left his stuff in a place that shouldn't have been left with his girlfriend. And he's no longer a minister.

Carter 14:03

These documents are, and that's in Canada. A

Corey 14:05

A lot of reasons Bernier is not a

Carter 14:06

a minister. But this is this was the the catalytic moment. But this is Corey's

Carter 14:12

Corey's exactly right. These this

Carter 14:14

is beyond not against, you know, this is not protocol, period. End of sentence. And if it was protocol in this government, then Jason Kenney's lost his flipping mind because this is not the minister that was in the Stephen Harper government. I'll tell you that people may not like Stephen Harper, but he ran a tight ship and Jason Kenney would have learned that, you know, on his knee.

Corey 14:36

Continuity of government is one of the most important principles of our form of government. The idea, you know, the queen is dead. Long live the queen. There is always somebody in charge. And if you're not there, there's the next person. And if that person's not there, there's the person after that. And the notion that somebody could

Corey 14:51

could just leave the country and go to a foreign country, go to Mexico, go to the United States, it's

Corey 14:58

it's crazy. It's such an understatement to say it's strange credulity that people wouldn't know. And by the way, the notion that the premier wouldn't know where his chief of staff is, is

Corey 15:10

is next level. And

Zain 15:11

And this is where I want to go to. I'm glad you hit on this because Carter, from your experience, former chief of staff, in this case, the chief of staff was out of the continent, not just the country. You had your, I guess, your most notable issues manager out of the province. How much do you think some of the key staff members being away allowed for this to happen in that sense? because now I want to get into, okay, before the mechanics of like, okay, what happened? How did it happen? Your experience? I love that. Thank you for layering that on. Now we know chief, like the chief of staff and key staffers are away. Do you think that that element of perhaps their eye not on said balls, plural, was perhaps one of the reasons we find ourselves or the UCP find themselves in this situations? Carter, to you first, and then Corey.

Carter 15:57

Yeah, I mean, first of all, I mean, you guys may be aware that I do things outside occasionally, traditionally um

Carter 16:02

um go skiing and stuff like that when i was chief of staff i couldn't ski on the back side of lake louise because i lost my chief i lost my cell phone signal so

Carter 16:10

so i stayed on the front side because there

Carter 16:12

there was no cover for me right you can't you can't just staff it out sometimes so let's assume that these guys staff this out like who's in charge is a very big question and jason kenney has lost um he didn't lose his chief of staff he lost uh his principal secretary who who also was a significant ally of his and someone who carried a big stick in that government. And it seems to be showing because someone dropped the ball.

Carter 16:41

Now, my belief is that the premier dropped the ball, right? But his staff should be there to say to him, this is a problem. We should not let it happen. But instead, his staff said to him,

Carter 16:53

I want to get to London. So I'm going to go to London. These other three guys are going to go to Mexico, to Hawaii. i.e. they're off to Mexico and Tanya's off to Vegas because that's where her sister is. You know, none of this makes sense. So, yes, it was a staffing failure. Yes, it was an office failure. But I think that, you know, I don't want to put too much weight on Howard Anglin's shoulders here. Like he was the only one who could manage the show. But,

Carter 17:19

you know, you lose staff, you start to change your premier's office and it just gets weaker. sure.

Zain 17:25

Corey, what do you think of the staffing key staffers out of the country? Could that have contributed to the situation that the UCP find themselves in?

Corey 17:32

Yeah, in a couple of different ways. And Carter's talked about the eye on the ball one. So let me talk about the other one here.

Corey 17:39

Look, one of the reasons this is such a big deal, this whole event writ large, the reason people are so angry, beyond the hypocrisy of it, right, is that it

Corey 17:48

it makes it less likely the public will take these restrictions seriously if the people who are saying these are important don't actually seem to care well then why should we care and you're going to change your behavior accordingly that's true internally to a government as well so when the chief of staff says you know what it's it's been rough i'm tired i'm going to the uk i'm going to be quiet about it that is giving permission to absolutely everybody else in cabinet and the caucus to make the exact same decision right like this this uh moral failing kind of cascades down and what i think people sometimes

Corey 18:26

argue there is no cabinet minister as powerful as the chief of staff. And certainly a lot of ministers live and die and have a lot of anxiety about having to talk to the chief of staff. And you're specifically

Zain 18:37

specifically talking about the chief of staff to the premier, right? Yeah,

Corey 18:39

Yeah, absolutely. Not their chiefs of staff. That's an entirely different relationship. But the thing that I really want to stress here is that they

Corey 18:46

they see that as somebody who was just as senior as them deciding to make this decision. And so why wouldn't they make the decision to now, I can actually give a bunch of good reasons for that politics being top of that list, even if you can get past the moral ambiguity there. there but um you

Corey 19:02

you know the rot starts at the top here and and when you when you kind of allow these things to happen when you when you give a bit there you're giving a signal to everybody else that it's fine and how in the world would would jason kenney say to minister allard you can't go after he said jamie huckabee can go which

Zain 19:19

which is yeah which is who is his chief of staff that's right that you're saluted to okay so we have the context set we have the situation of how this could have have happened, the mechanics in government that perhaps prevent this in normal times for this happening, it now happens. Multiple MLAs and cabinet minister travel. And this happens, you know, in different and varying degrees across the country, happens at the federal level, happens at different provincial governments. But then we hear that Rod Phillips in Ontario, the finance minister, was traveling to St. Barts. And we hear that he did this while posting on social media activities and videos and clips that ultimately tried to show, and we can discuss this, that he was here domestically in Canada. And ultimately, what happens to him is he gets, Corey, to your term, gets got quit. And to your point, it's a template is set. So before we even hear of any Alberta case, we have this Ontario case where a template is set. So Carter, talk to me about this template that you see? Do you feel like this ultimately set the table for perhaps anger and Kenny's response? Kind of what do you make of what happened in Ontario? And what do you make of Ford before we jump back to Alberta? Because I think it's a really key indicator, as Corey's mentioned earlier, as to what Ford has done to perhaps set the tone here for this entire nationwide quote-unquote scandal that we see.

Carter 20:48

I mean, I want to answer this two different Because first of all, what happened was when Doug Ford says that, you know, Rod Phillips is done, that's the new punishment. And

Carter 20:58

And any parent that's been involved in punishing children or anything,

Carter 21:03

you know, we know that consistency is key.

Carter 21:05

Consistency of punishment is key. So if Doug Ford, if Papa Ford comes down and says, you know what, you are no longer going to serve as a minister of the crown, then that's the appropriate punishment. And that is now the expectation across the country. And we're seeing, you know, that happen with Justin Trudeau's cabinet and others, Nikki Ashton as well. Didn't happen here. But let's talk a little bit about Doug Ford, because Doug Ford's put himself in a very precarious position. position we

Carter 21:35

we don't know the inner workings of that cabinet we don't know the interpersonal relationships but doug ford knew that rod phillips was going to saint parts he

Carter 21:43

fired him anyways right

Carter 21:45

right so he's he's refused to acknowledge his own culpability in this now how is he able to get away with that maybe the rest of the cabinet thinks that phillips is dick right in which case hey no problem everybody's on board i can get them all on board or maybe everybody thinks you know what But if you didn't fire him, we were dead. We were dead in the water. So thank God you did. It was the right thing to do because, you know, we love Rod. He's a good guy. But someone had to get someone had to get killed, right? Someone's head needed to be chopped off. And we've seen this with staffers in the past where, you know, someone walks the plank for the boss. This is just the, you know, he walked the plank for the boss. He'll get his reward later in his tenure, whatever the situation may dictate. dictate um so we we don't actually know that but ford was able to get past his own culpability in it kenny

Carter 22:38

kenny doesn't appear to be able to get past his own culpability right he denied culpability straight up in the press conference and

Zain 22:45

and we'll get to that yeah but

Carter 22:46

but jamie huckabee is traveling um all these other people you know he just seemed to have a much much bigger problem so the action that ford took may

Carter 22:55

may not even be available to kenny we only know of what six mlas seven mlas um

Carter 23:03

could be more um

Carter 23:04

um you know minister savage traveled to uh british columbia to check on her house is that now uh uh you know a a death penalty uh style of offense you know he has he can't lose Three or four cabinet ministers. He can't ask 10 of 10 people in his in his caucus to sit as independents. He just can't. The revolt would begin immediately and he would lose a tremendous amount of power. So I think that Doug Ford painted him into a box. But we also don't understand what

Carter 23:37

what allowed Doug Ford to do that. I think we have a better sense of what constrains Jason Kenney from doing it here in Alberta.

Zain 23:44

Corey, your reaction to what Carter said and then how the Ford-Phillips sort of saga, so to speak, kind of set the tone in Alberta and perhaps even federally as well.

Corey 23:56

Well, Carter's entirely right. If you only have one minister who's done this and the public wants blood, the decision is fairly easy. If you're Jason Kenney and you are aware of, let's just say it's six MLA's, one minister for fun, plus your chief of staff, like what are you going to do in that situation? Are you going to lose all of those people in one fell swoop? You can't. You can't make the same decision that Doug Ford made. And that puts you in a bit of a bind here. Now, interestingly, I think there

Corey 24:26

there are other options between doing nothing and terminating somebody, and they seem not to have been explored. But yeah, like the problem is, as soon as Doug Ford does that, everything is going to be measured relative to that. And that was, you know, that was one of those things that worked really well for Doug Ford, but actually could turn out to be a very bad idea for him if he finds himself all of a sudden with two more ministers, a pile of MLAs who are in prominent roles in the same boat.

Corey 24:53

you got to have an awful lot of confidence you don't to take that action. I mean, arguably, it's never the wrong time to do the right thing. And Doug Ford made a mistake. It's kind of funny when you make the mistake to fire somebody else for that. But you know, it's, I, I guess points for moving quickly, right? And Doug Ford does have a knack, at least in these COVID times for understanding when the public's temperature is going to go through the roof.

Corey 25:17

And ultimately, I think the big difference between those two cases, arguably, arguably between the Phillips The thing that Jason Kenney, if he was so pushed, could point to that would say Phillips deserved to be fired, my guys and gals don't, is the cover-up angle, right? The notion that you were creating this illusion that you were in Ontario shows that you knew it was wrong, shows you had something to hide. It's always the cover-up that kills in these cases. And, yes,

Corey 25:46

yes, Allard had a Christmas video of her at the legislature, but honestly, nobody thought she was at the legislature. At the time that video came out. So I think you I give her a bit of a pass for that. I think you're just sort of looking to be angry for that one. But, you

Corey 26:01

Phillips clearly tried to convince people that he was in the country. And that's a bit of a different situation. So

Zain 26:07

So we find ourselves then January 1st, Jason Kenney says he's going to do a media availability. He shows up to the podium sometime in the afternoon on New Year's Day, and ultimately says, I can't sanction anyone. I ultimately, it's my responsibility. And I have not laid out clear terms for my ministers and my MLAs. And going forward, no non-essential travel. But, you know, I can't sanction anyone for what has happened before that. that uh cory carter jump in uh maybe i'll start with you cory which is what did you make and and why did jason kenney do that because to call a press conference uh seems like some action is coming this was ultimately i'm instituting a new policy uh but there was no real penalty no action and this is on the heels of what i'd call that template being set in ontario that punishment punishment template that carter was talking about being set in ontario and you know it kind of all hell breaks loose after this so what did you kind of make of what you saw there cory yeah

Corey 27:13

yeah zane that's what i can't get over why did he hold this press conference why did he stand up and make the statements he made it was destined to end this way if if you were going to take the position that jason kenney took and let's just set aside the morality and let's just assume that there were good reasons for him to do that that had to do with all sorts i don't even care maybe just assume there were bad reasons but why

Corey 27:34

why from a pure political tactics point of view would you put the principle up there with no answers and weak answers on something where the public is so obviously fired up all you're doing is creating sound bites all you're doing is creating opportunities for the media to attack you i cannot understand for the life of me why this was not just done quietly through the premier's press secretary to a friendly media outlet saying yeah you know So you could have even done the same week's off story. Yeah, Jason Kenney wasn't fully aware of all of this. The premier has made the rules very clear. He's read some people the riot act, but he doesn't feel he can punish them any further.

Corey 28:09

That becomes a story somewhere. It trickles out. People are mad online. But to take the approach that they took and to begin with an accusation that Trudeau didn't make the rules clear enough and

Corey 28:19

and to talk about how it saves WestJet is – I

Corey 28:24

I don't know what to say about that. like it is it

Corey 28:30

it is so tactically um bad

Corey 28:33

bad i like i truly like as a just a communications practitioner it

Corey 28:38

breaks about every rule in the book like you do not do that you just do not do that to your to your candidate to your leader to whomever you work for in communications it's just he's just twisting in the wind it was one of the most painful things i have seen and it was reflected And all of the media coverage, all of the online conversation, I saw people angry

Corey 28:56

angry that I would never assume would be against the premier on things. I saw country music stations retweeting negative tweets about Jason Kenney here. It was it was unreal. And it was entirely self inflicted.

Zain 29:09

This is a good time for me to mention that today's podcast has our first official sponsor, WestJet. We are being sponsored by WestJet. As you know, COVID has struck Albertans hard. It has also struck WestJet incredibly hard. They are now asking for their own miracle, which is why they are proud to announce the WestJet Miracle Workers Program. It's, of course, a loyal trip takers program that tries to help you justify non-essential international trips with a clear conscience and a full heart, knowing that you, of course, are helping the heartbeat of Alberta, i.e. WestJet. So thank you to WestJet for your sponsorship of our podcast. You know, we usually don't do sponsors, but when a sponsor of such magnitude and strength and with such a compelling program shows up. Once again, this is the WestJet Miracle Workers Program, allowing you to take non-essential international trips. Thank you for your sponsorship, WestJet. I really do appreciate it. And all of the money from the sponsorship will be going directly into my pockets. Thank you. Carter.

Carter 30:11

Great reading of the ad. I'm looking forward to the new sponsors. I

Zain 30:15

I read it a little casually, but they have sponsored us for a full year.

Zain 30:19

So they've asked for two readings. This was the first. As you can see, I'm very excited about our association with them. They're having a great week. Is

Carter 30:29

Travelocity next week? Who do we get next week? We get iTravel

Zain 30:32

iTravel 2000. Corey's actually agreed to do the jingle. Corey

Zain 30:37

has agreed to look forward

Zain 30:39

We're doing all travel-related promo on this podcast here on in. We are selling out because we want to be heroes for WestJet and other companies. Carter, same question.

Corey 30:51

question. Is this a good time to plug our live show in Palm Springs next month as well? Or should we wait for the end of the episode for that?

Carter 30:57

Ixnay on the live show. Never mind.

Carter 31:01

Don't talk about the live show.

Zain 31:03

Yeah. No, let's not do that. We're not allowed to

Carter 31:05

to do that. Not

Carter 31:05

Not yet. The contract's not signed.

Zain 31:09

Yeah. The indoor venue hasn't gotten back to us just yet. We're actually doing an indoor basement in Palm Springs. Yeah.

Carter 31:15

Yeah. It's going to be huge.

Zain 31:16

Yeah. It's going to be appropriate. Carter, justify this for me. You are a you know, you've been a chief of staff. What was Kenny thinking? He's not he's not a stupid politician. He himself is pretty like, I mean, we can do a whole thing of Jason Kenny. Are we sure he's good? We're not going to do that just yet. But let's just take it at face value. Right. He's not stupid. At the very least, he's tactically smart. He's strategically sound. Try to justify for me what his thinking was here as to standing up on that stage and doing that press conference that we saw. I think a press conference as a strategy would make sense. That press conference certainly did not to many people. But try your best for me. Put me in his, you know, his chief of office was out of town. So that spot is empty. So act as the chief of staff and tell me what was going on with Jason Kenney right there.

Carter 32:11

So first of all, the first thing that happens is get the paint over with quickly.

Carter 32:16

Stand the principal up, get this over with, and the faster you do it, the faster it's over. And getting it over with in the glare of New Year's Day when maybe people aren't paying attention, that makes perfect sense. So let's get him out there, and then let's take the offense. The offense has worked with him before. I mean, blaming Trudeau always works. So let's blame Trudeau. I mean, the rules are confusing, Zane. You know, why is it that you can get on an airplane, but you can't cross at a land crossing? I don't understand that. I think it's a stupid ass rule. If the border of the United States is closed, it should be closed. We have a special deal with Hawaii. Okay, granted, the Kenney government helped to negotiate that. But let's shit on that, right? Like, let's go and make this, and bring in all the confusions and all the exceptions. Because people hate the exceptions. And we can be on their side. So I think that, you know, a good offense is the best defense to me was the thinking that went into this press conference. Get it over with quickly and take the attack.

Zain 33:23

Corey, what do you think? Put yourself in that same position. You know, I've added to the qualifiers. Kenny's not smart. He's strategically sound. what do you think he was thinking in in in making the strategic play of that of that media availability and news conference yeah

Corey 33:39

yeah so a lot i agree with a lot of what carter said it's it's january 1st let's get ahead of this thing we know there's other mlas i likely i feel was part of it there so we've got to start softening this ground now i've got to start putting out these these things before it runs away from us entirely um

Corey 33:57

and i really believe he probably thought this

Corey 34:00

is going to be tough and only i can walk this tightrope i can get ahead of this you know it it smacked of of of uh pride shall we say right like this notion that he himself had the tools to walk this very very difficult line but here's the thing he didn't you

Corey 34:17

you know uh and i think he needed to be more aware and the people around him needed to be more aware that what he was being asked to do what he was proposing himself to do was basically impossible this was not a story that That was going to end well, and he should not have been the person who was gone up there. Here's the other thing. January 1st, people not paying attention. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense in a year where we're not all quarantined with COVID, right? But this is actually just a regular day. This is like every other day in my life. I'm in my house with my family. I've got a lot of time. In fact, I'm not working, right, because it's a vacation day. So I've probably got more time to surf the internet, more time to see this press conference. uh the the conventional wisdom of january one flipped a hundred percent not

Corey 34:58

not situationally aware that that would potentially be the case and um you

Corey 35:02

you know ultimately getting ahead of it was this this did not get ahead of it because it had already happened so if your desire was to get ahead of it your press conference should have been held three days ago and all and all of this combined to to just like one of the more dismal uh appearances i think i've seen don braid a A columnist here in Calgary for the Calgary Herald described it as the worst day of Kenny's premiership.

Corey 35:25

I think that's true.

Corey 35:26

think a poll right now would show just absolutely devastating numbers for the governing party. What I think our listeners outside of Alberta need to appreciate is three of the last four polls in Alberta, the

Corey 35:39

the UCP has not been leading, right?

Corey 35:41

right? It's been either a tie with the NDP or the NDP leading.

Corey 35:44

This is not a government that was particularly popular before what I think is probably the most devastating blow it's taken.

Corey 35:52

you know, it ultimately came from a place of overconfidence, this notion that they could handle this story by jumping in front of this train. But it was a train and

Corey 36:02

nobody survives jumping in front of a train. That train ain't going to stop.

Zain 36:06

I like that metaphor. Graphic as usual. Corey, appreciate it. Carter, you get a call from Jason Kenney. he says, listen, my chief of staff is in the UK. He can't come back because of this new COVID strain. So he's going to have to fly through the US. I have the directory of former chiefs of staff and you are a ninth on the list. And I am calling you. I need you to fill in for me. I'm thinking of doing this now at 7am in the morning, January 1st. I'm thinking of doing this press conference today. What should I say? What should I do? My mind's made up. I'm doing the press conference. What are you telling them? You're saying, okay, yeah, I'm going to sign a a 24-hour off-waivers contract to be your chief of staff, what are you telling Jason Kenney on the morning of January 1st, knowing you now have full transparency, you know the number, it's not one, because at that point it was one minister, now it is one minister plus several other MLAs. You have that information. What were you advising Jason Kenney on the morning of January 1st?

Carter 37:04

We made a mistake.

Carter 37:05

We made several mistakes, and the mistake lies with me. I wasn't clear enough with my staff. I wasn't clear enough with my ministers I wasn't clear enough with my MLAs and

Carter 37:16

and I think in general I haven't been clear enough with the good people of Alberta so I'm telling you right now this is what we're going to do we are going to make clear all of our rules we should not be traveling internationally we should not be traveling interprovincially we should be staying at home those are the rules that I told you I allowed for some loopholes and I'm closing them now I'm closing them for the next two weeks So we can finish this off. We've done a hell of a job. We're going to finish off strong.

Carter 37:46

And we're going to ensure that

Carter 37:48

that these little breaches of the COVID protocols aren't going to happen anymore, because I'm putting my foot down. And we're going to be clear moving forward. This is my mistake. I made it. And

Carter 38:01

I'm not going to allow it to happen again. end.

Zain 38:04

Two things for you, Carter. Number one, are you putting together different ramifications for these individuals who have the ministers and the MLAs? It's

Carter 38:14

It's too broad. I

Carter 38:15

I don't think we can do ramifications, I think, especially if the premier throws himself on the sword, right? And this is what gets you out of the ramifications. When the top guy says it was my mistake, you don't have to punish anybody else. This is Doug Ford's thing, right? Doug Ford was the guy responsible, but he punished someone else so when the when the guy who's responsible does

Carter 38:35

does you know he he doesn't need to be punished because the electorate will hold him accountable if he's not honest and truthful and forthright with the moving forward second

Zain 38:44

second question for you carter following up on there would you publicly at that morning january 1st released a list of every mla who traveled outside of the the province and country there

Carter 38:54

there is nothing worse than a trickle there is nothing Nothing worse than speculation. I would have had a list of every MLA, every government MLA, and where they were located. Fuck it. I would have put every MLA on the list. If I knew where Rachel Notley was, I'd write it down for her. I'd say this is where this person was. I'd get every single person I counted for, and I'd hand it to the media. Because this, you

Carter 39:19

you know, days and days and days of looking for the person who's contravened the rules. Jesus, man, this is brutal. brutal everybody and their dogs being asked this is the equivalent remember when bill clinton smoked marijuana and everybody in the world was asked you know have you ever smoked marijuana and did you inhale this is the equivalent it will continue until everybody has answered the question were you at home this christmas so you may as well get out in front of it cory

Zain 39:44

cory i'm gonna offer you the same opportunity i did carter you get that same 7 a.m phone call chief of staff is out of town uh steven carter's advice uh kenny was so lukewarm on uh he's now asking you what is the advice you're giving him uh to set forth an alternative reality on on the morning of january 1st well

Corey 40:02

well what carter basically said was what the premier said without the ridiculous trudeau and west jet stuff um so in some ways i think that was probably the plan going in let me just start there and there was a bit of vamping i like i seriously doubt some of that stuff was in the script and i think it was to his detriment. I think you got to go harder. For me, I would probably build around the idea of punishment that is short of resignation in most cases. So I would basically say this is serious and we let you down. Every single one of these MLAs, these ministers, my staff, and myself are being fined under the public health orders to the highest level possible. We are going to accept those punishments because we were wrong. I was wrong in not having proper oversight. site. They were wrong in violating these public health orders. We expect more from ourselves. We know you expect more from ourselves. They will not be paid for their vacation time or 14-day quarantine. And I would fire one of them. I would fire whichever one was the most egregious. And I would just really underline, this is serious as death because people are dying. And we blew it. And it could have been an opportunity for him to be a leader and even take on a punishment that That he doesn't necessarily, like, he wasn't directly, he didn't leave the country, right? But he could say, no, this is too important. And I would have gone with something like that.

Zain 41:21

Corey, would you have also released the entire list?

Zain 41:23

Absolutely, I would have. And I would

Corey 41:25

would have said, and if anybody knows anything like that, and they haven't disclosed it to me at this point, they will leave this caucus. You know, I have canvassed everybody. I've asked for their locations. These are the six people who have told me they have not been in the country. If there are any more, they are gone. There is no discussion. gosh, and they've been given their one chance to come clean with me. Let's

Zain 41:42

Let's emerge out of that, the strategist role-playing thing for a second. Why do you think this list is not public yet from the Premier's office? This is confounding to me. Any, like, is it just that they don't know? Like, do you think it's strategic? Carter, what do you think?

Carter 41:56

I have no idea, Zane. It is the easiest thing in the world, and there is nothing worse than bleeding to death. And they're bleeding to death right now. Put out the list. You know, every city councillor in Calgary has been asked. I'm sure every city councillor in Edmonton has been asked. I'm sure every city councillor in any place that has a daily

Carter 42:16

daily paper or news outlet has been asked. And they're all answering it. You know, this is going to drive the story until it's all out there. So get it out there. It's beyond

Carter 42:29

beyond me that the premier's office with the resources that they have at their disposal

Carter 42:35

aren't doing the right thing in getting this information out to Albertans and Canadians.

Zain 42:40

Corey, any speculation why the Premier's office has not released this comprehensive list?

Corey 42:45

I can only assume it's because they don't have confidence in the information. I'm sure they've done a full canvassing, but I suspect that there are doubts that either they've

Corey 42:54

they've captured all of the various – like, I think they don't want to say definitively this is it, right?

Corey 43:02

and then that's because they just don't know for sure that this is it that there's not going to be another social media post or something like that it's the only thing that makes sense to me at this point because otherwise why would you not just get it all out yeah

Corey 43:14

idea that you are going to just slowly

Corey 43:16

slowly this and and i

Corey 43:19

i mean i guess it would be pretty damning to say yeah 20 of the caucus left surprise but you're already at 10 they're

Corey 43:26

they're just dying here the

Carter 43:28

the you know the the the amateur

Carter 43:31

amateur sleuthing is killing it right like you

Carter 43:33

you can't just have this kind of going up with with you

Carter 43:36

you know i'm hearing this person i'm hearing that person i mean that's just bull you you can't allow that you're the premier you've got to get the information out and uh you've got entire offices of people to do this you know like i just you know you've got whips office that could do this you've got uh premier's communication staff that could do this how many fucking issue managers does he have is this not an issue like this feels to me like it's an issue so

Carter 43:59

so why aren't they doing it so

Carter 44:01

so i this is beyond my understanding of of how they behave i just don't understand it just

Zain 44:08

just just a bit of an issue carter just want to put that out there i think it is a bit

Carter 44:11

there's a bigger issue i mean we have to get a pipeline so i mean i guess they're all working on that uh okay

Zain 44:17

okay so so i just want to be clear so you guys proposed your alternative of reality for what kenny should have done is it clear from from both of you that your optimal strategy would have been to not do the press conference to begin with that you would have probably said if this is your track screw it like a press conference like the track that he went down ultimately do not use this instrument is that fair to say before i move on oh

Corey 44:37

oh completely like everything for all of the reasons i said he didn't have satisfactory answers he could not walk this tightrope this was not a good day to put him up because we're in quarantine times and it's not normal logic that applies here i

Corey 44:51

i i am flabbergasted that all of the different checks and balances that exist in an office like that all seem to fail and allowed this to happen and by the way he was late he was like 40 minutes late which is a great way to antagonize the media and he's got to stop being late for all

Carter 45:07

all he's got to stop that he's he's killing himself he

Corey 45:10

he yeah i mean it is just a it's just a good way to piss people off um people who are waiting to watch this thing the media who are are waiting with their questions on a holiday, as we mentioned. This is just poor form.

Corey 45:23

And that delay made me wonder if this plan didn't come together very last minute.

Zain 45:27

Yeah, fair enough. That's a good point. Okay, I want to move on. And there's a few other additional items before I get into some of the capstone strategic questions I have. Carter, the next part is Corey's kind of answered, giving me his take. So I'm going to start with you on this. Why are people so mad? This is seeming to be the issue. And I think we know the naked it hypocrisy. We've put that out on the table. People made their own sacrifices. But give me your take. You know, you've been studying campaign behavior, psychology, and how people kind of react, how people make decisions, how people become engaged or apathetic. In your perspective, from the work that you've done and the experience that you have, how do you kind of summarize the palpable level of anger and almost universal disdain for Kenny's response that we've been seeing over the past 24 to 36 hours?

Carter 46:19

Do as I say, not as I do, is not something that regular human beings respond well to, right?

Carter 46:24

right? So that's the first problem. Do as I say, not as I do. That's a significant problem. The second problem is that understanding an issue sometimes is really tricky, right? Issues that are very bite-sized, that are manageable, are deadly. We saw that in the No Meat Committee in Alberta, where, you know, we had a committee that got paid $1,000 a month and didn't meet for 23 months or something like that. So people got $23,000 just for hanging out or whatever the numbers were. Well, I know what $1,000 a month this. And I'm able to really put $1,000 a month into my bank account. Well, I know what a trip to Hawaii is.

Carter 47:06

I know that I couldn't have my parents over, but we could apparently fly to Hawaii, because it was a traditional family gathering. So that do as I say, not as I do problem, coupled with the size of the problem, were both very significant. And let me add in in the third issue people

Carter 47:25

right like this isn't like uh the the sky palace issue no one died in sky palace uh allison redford took some flights where she was the only person on the flight uh with her daughter yeah no one died it was upsetting no one died she spent an extra thirty four thousand dollars flying back from south africa uh because she didn't want to wait for the prime minister's plane okay no one died no

Carter 47:47

no one died you know this is a life and death issue you and they're making light of it and they're not following their own rules properly and that is extremely upsetting we are near the end of this we are on our last nerve we are at the end of our tether if you will and these guys are fucking around at a time when everybody should be focused on vaccinations this is the next shoe that drops by the way vaccinations

Carter 48:11

vaccinations because i can i can be i can give them a little bit of leeway for three weeks to try and figure things out but i want want to see some real fucking numbers starting tomorrow on actual vaccinations i don't want time off and and you get to fly to hawaii and these things aren't linked right like they're not linked except they're all together because the only reason i can't go to hawaii is because well there's two reasons i can't afford to go because my job's been cut and number two um i will you know we we uh you

Carter 48:41

you know this whole thing is a gong show i don't have the money and i can't i'm not allowed to go. And these guys are flaunting it in my face. So there's a bunch of issues that all come together on this. But I think that those are the big three, Zane, in kind of how I've been thinking about it.

Zain 48:57

Corey, I want to talk about vaccines. We'll get to that in a second. Carter, thank you for bringing it up. Corey, to you, were you surprised that this anger and this concerted sort of palpability, as I say, has almost transcended ideological lines? It's starting It's starting to seem that conservatives or people who identify as conservatives are angry and are angry at the premier. Has this kind of surprised you a bit that this is not one of those things that has fallen strictly, at least from what we can observe, on the ideological boundaries that a lot of these scandals do?

Corey 49:29

No, for the reasons Stephen said, and then another one that's a little more foundational. It

Corey 49:33

It doesn't make any sense, right? The argument is incredibly shaky. You can't see your family for Christmas in Alberta, but you could all get on a plane and see each other in Hawaii. That doesn't make any sense. And so to sit there and defend it and say that is acceptable, but you cannot have a social gathering, even outdoors in Alberta, right? You cannot even gather outdoors, but you can all hop on a plane to fucking Maui and you can just chill out on the beach, right? That doesn't make any sense. And so when you layer on the hypocrisy and the sense of elitism and the entitlement and and the fact that these these are all grabbable concepts and numbers, it's just it's enraging. It's absolutely enraging. And and you

Corey 50:17

you are seeing that rage come quite naturally from across the political spectrum. You are seeing conservatives talk about how bad this is. You're starting to see cracks in the UCP caucus itself saying, like, I will not condone this behavior. this is um this is the kind of issue that that takes down premiers in normal time right where where judgment looks so flawed and if people internally

Corey 50:39

internally in the caucus i mean the ucp caucus start pointing the fingers at jason kenney and say you

Corey 50:44

you were either asleep at the switch or you condoned this neither is acceptable he's you got a real problem like you got to keep in mind in alberta um

Corey 50:53

for all of you futurama fans out there there was this episode about like the The king kept being killed by the other king, and they lasted like 30 minutes. That was Alberta for like a decade, right? People just got knifed by the next person who wanted to be the PC premier. That's in their DNA, at least part of their DNA, and they've got to watch themselves. If you're Jason Kenney and you're the people around Jason Kenney, I

Corey 51:15

this is the nature of the beast that you've taken over here.

Zain 51:18

Carter, I want to switch gears a bit before we end it. Talk to me about the opposition NDP. What should their message and strategy be right now? You're seeing this happen for all intents and purposes. None of their 24 MLAs or their leader has gone away, it seems like, or that story has not broken yet. So it seems like we can safely say, at least as we're recording this on Sunday evening, that they are in the clear from this particular scandal. Are they sitting back here and watching their chief political enemy hang themselves proverbially? Are they being more assertive? Are they creating an on-ramp to people? Like, what is their strategy right now? And how do they balance between being overzealous, which is what you can easily do in this moment, and say, me, me, me, us, us, us over here, and kind of being subtle but strategic and effective with how they're trying to monetize

Zain 52:12

monetize and be operational? opportunistic of this moment i

Carter 52:14

think i saw rachel notley put out a tweet on renewables or something like that today uh

Carter 52:19

uh that's not how i would do it uh i don't think that you just do business as normal i think the whole world is talking or the whole province is talking about one issue you don't uh just leave it there you know you don't just move away from it now you don't have to say anything you know never get in the way of your opponent beating the shit out of themselves uh so allow them to do that but then move on to the next step the thing is now Now, what's the next step? I think it's vaccinations. I think the vaccinations is the next step. I think that it's easy. It's right there. The numbers are terrible. People don't know that yet. They will shortly.

Carter 52:55

It's also going to tie into the removal of the restrictions, right? The removal of the restrictions are going to come down here in the 14th of January. I would be planning a big push right now if I was the NDP on vaccinations from the 4th of january or the 5th of january till the 14th of january and then i would bang on uh the removal of the restrictions and i'd make sure that everybody understands that when life and death came to this caucus they

Carter 53:21

they went to hawaii they

Carter 53:23

they went to mexico that's

Carter 53:25

that's what they did

Carter 53:27

that's what i would

Zain 53:28

same question for you what is the uh what's the strategy here for the ndp the strategy and the message in your mind carter is saying you give them you give the ucp some time to kind of hang themselves proverbially, and then you move quickly into vaccines because that's how you kind of link the two, the scandal to what Carter anticipates as being the next sort of, you know, ball drop, so to speak, by the UCP. What is your message and strategy for the NDP right now, as we sit in this moment?

Corey 53:56

So normally, I would agree that you get out of the way when your opponent's blowing themselves up. And I have often been critical of, if I have a criticism of of the opposition ndp who i think have done a very good job as an opposition let me just say it's that they go to 11 on a lot of things right it's tough to sort of calibrate what the true outrage is but this is a true outrage so channel that rage call for blood um because there will be people in the street demanding a you know not literal blood i hope but and not literally in the streets because hey it's covet times but uh there will be people calling for ministers resignations termination of senior staff who've done this punishments to the mlas i suspect that that that pressure is going to get large enough that the premier is going to have to deal with it in some way shape or form so why don't you call for it um and certainly the people are with you on this there's a parade so get in front of it i mean this this made the washington post for christ's sake we're a province of four and a half million people way

Corey 54:50

way up there on the map you know you pull your globe out if you're an american tough to find but they're this is just this is such rank rank hypocrisy that it is interesting reading to people in the U.S. capital. The notion that somebody is asleep at the switch literally went on vacation, you know, going gets tough. They

Corey 55:08

They just crapped out. They went on vacation. They were too tired. They needed their family tradition. Bridging that to vaccines absolutely, I think, is the key. I would get

Corey 55:18

get a little caution on that because I don't know that it would actually change. You know, I am concerned. concerned let me put it this way i am concerned that things have been drifting so much that

Corey 55:31

either the judgment was so poor that this was allowed to happen these trips or the premier was asleep at the switch because that's that's a real problem when we're dealing with a crisis here but i don't actually think that allard you know the minister of municipal affairs has that much to do with the vaccine distribution hey i know what you're going to say but let me put it this This way.

Corey 55:51

Well, I'll save that thought. But I'm not convinced that the vaccine rollout is going to be terrible. Let me just let me just drop that there. And I'll come back to it. I can see Carter looking like he wants to jump out of his chair.

Zain 56:01

Carter, jump in there. And then I want to I want to move on.

Carter 56:04

Right now, the vaccine rollout is terrible.

Carter 56:06

Right. And it's going to be terrible for the next two weeks. It may not be terrible by the time we get to May and June, because you know what, they're going to find their feet, they're going to find their legs, they're going to know know exactly how to do this and they

Carter 56:18

they will at some point remember that they do this every year with the flu vaccination so there is a protocol there is there are steps available to them they haven't found their feet yet they haven't got they haven't figured it out so take advantage of that and right

Carter 56:32

right now people are going to be asking a big question what the hell is going on and when do i get my vaccine and it's not about holding allard responsible i don't give a shit about allard If I'm if I'm the NDP, I'm interested in Kenny.

Carter 56:46

I'm holding Kenny responsible. Any delays in the vaccination rollout, if there if one dose of the vaccine is wasted, I'm

Carter 56:54

I'm going to bet I'm going to blame him. And

Carter 56:56

And that's that's the opportunity that has been given to to them by the premier's lack of awareness around his own issues.

Zain 57:06

Corey to you yeah

Corey 57:09

there's this caricature of the bureaucracy of this bumbling force that desperately needs politicians to to help them figure it out I've worked in many organizations you know multinationals national all sorts of different colors bureaucracy is probably one of the better run ones uh that I've dealt with at least the Alberta public services here the bureaucracy is not incompetent but it is not very good at starting new things so the very nature of like kind of government infrastructure is it optimizes processes already in place i've said this i think on this show before but i'll say it again the bureaucracy works great if you're in the 95 of cases that are just smooth sailing god help you if you're in one of the fringe cases right you are just doomed but part of that culture of let's let's build a process let's run a process uh means

Corey 57:55

you're not good at starting processes and um there's not like a startup culture of let's do do this quick, let's fail fast, let's move on to the next thing. The cycles are too long. They swing too big in government. But I will say this, they

Corey 58:08

they will eventually figure it out. And they will be just churning out the vaccines when they do. You

Corey 58:13

You know, you see this in government all the time, it starts out shaky, and they almost over swing. And all of a sudden, they've got all of the resources in the world running something down. And I suspect we're going to find ourselves in that place with vaccines right now. We are not there right now. It's not just Alberta that's struggling to get this vaccine out right now. Look at the United States, obviously, is a big a case study but there's not a lot of jurisdictions doing this well carter's

Corey 58:33

carter's right they will all figure it out it's not the flu vaccine there are some complications

Corey 58:38

complications but they'll figure it out they'll they'll build the process that works for this and we'll just be throwing vaccines out the door in the most positive sense of that in i

Corey 58:48

believe in the next three or four months i

Zain 58:50

i want to ground us back to what the ndp should do with one final sort of follow-up to both of you which is one of of the biggest sort of, not criticisms of this story, but one of the big sort of sighs that you're hearing from people be like, oh, you know, it's a big deal now, but it won't be a big deal when we all go to vote in 2023, right? We've heard that so many times about COVID's handling, we're hearing it now about this particular scandal amidst COVID. Is there anything that the NDP can do, you know, tactically or strategically, as they look forward to what is ultimately their end goal electorally? Is there anything they can do now to try to make something like this have lasting impact? Or is that a card that you play when 2023 enters the equation? So to both of you, I want to talk about the long-term vision that they have, not just the political points they want to score today. So Carter, maybe I'll start with you. And then Corey, you could finish us off on this question right after Carter.

Carter 59:42

Well, I think that the great learning of 2015 is that it's wonderful to win an election when everybody hates the other guy. But at some point, you need them to vote for you because they like like you. And this is the opportunity that this particular scenario is dragging forward for the NDP.

Carter 59:58

They have issues that will be very, very important to Albertans that they get to own now, right?

Carter 1:00:03

right? So own those issues and get it so that the Albertans aren't voting NDP just to fuck over the UCP. I mean, there's a case that's made that, you know, the UCP has enough time to regather and rebuild. I mean, elections are wild things, right? They could still win the next election. But if I were the NDP, I'd be focused on figuring

Carter 1:00:25

figuring out how to get people to vote for me instead of getting people to simply vote against

Carter 1:00:31

against the UCP. The two lowest hanging fruit for me are education and healthcare. They're right there. And I just don't think that the NDP have done a particularly good job of owning those two particular issues. And I'd be jumping all over them. And I'd make them both central economic planks. You don't have a good economy if you don't have a good education system. And healthcare system is our competitive advantage in Canada.

Zain 1:01:01

Corey, that same question to you. Longevity of the issue. Is there anything they can do today to help the longevity?

Corey 1:01:08

Yeah, well, let's start with this. Some things just stick,

Corey 1:01:12

right and and you lose an election years later for a decision that you made um gst

Corey 1:01:18

gst was all it was introduced almost three years before the election it was it was i think brought in what the first budget or the second budget after mulrooney's re-election uh more recently here in alberta carbon tax took effect in 2017 the election was in 2019 by the way couldn't

Corey 1:01:33

couldn't get rid of it because there was a federal carbon tax by then didn't didn't matter people were pissed off off about it here um so you

Corey 1:01:41

you know the reality you can't if you're jason kenney that might be that might be a bedtime story you tell yourself like i got two years i can turn this around sometimes you can't sometimes uh you get yourself in a in a trough you look at those polling numbers you start being seen as an accidental government you start being seen as a government that everybody wishes wasn't there and uh and you can do no right and that do no right carries you you through the next couple of years and um you

Corey 1:02:07

know if if you follow the archetype of the gst

Corey 1:02:10

jason kenney leaves and there's a new leader who goes down with the ship right

Corey 1:02:14

right but the uh you

Corey 1:02:16

you know you know the reality is we

Corey 1:02:19

we are so in this moment um

Corey 1:02:22

um i i just disagree with carter about his view of the ndp on education and health care i think they've done a fine job of establishing what they they would do but they've established it within the context of covet 19 because that's all we can see right now there's this event horizon that we can't get past and they've given their plans for what they would do in a covet 19 context for those two things i think talking about the normal times right now it's

Corey 1:02:44

it's just gonna fall flat so talk about covet establish this covet thing and you know people

Corey 1:02:50

people will remember in two years that grandma's dead yeah

Carter 1:02:55

sure pretty powerful Wonderful. Nicely

Zain 1:02:56

Nicely done, Corey. Okay, let's finish off this segment, our only segment of this show, as I mentioned, our only major segment with this advice for the UCP. They find themselves in this situation Sunday night, six MLAs, if not seven and growing one cabinet minister, universal disdain for Jason Kenney, a high palpability of anger, frustration, disappointment, rage, advice for the premier right now. What are you suggesting to Jason Kenney to stabilize the ship going forward, both from a strategic and messaging perspective? Carter, I'm going to put you on the spot first.

Carter 1:03:31

I think I'd start by bringing the caucus together.

Carter 1:03:35

And I'd say it's time for error-free ball.

Carter 1:03:38

We've made a lot of mistakes, and we can't make mistakes for the next little while. We have to focus, we have to be the best possible government we can be, and we need to push that out for the next year

Carter 1:03:52

year anyways. I mean, no more mistakes, guys. Like, let's get going. Everybody has to have the backs of the ministers. There can be no leaks. Everything needs to be managed to their best of their ability because they're really in trouble. And I think that, for

Carter 1:04:08

for me, that has to be the starting place. Get everybody back on the same team. I think right now you're starting to see some fracturing. And people are concerned about whether or not they're going to be reelected.

Carter 1:04:21

They live and die as a team. If they start thinking that they will do better on their own, then they'll be on their own.

Zain 1:04:28

Carter, maybe more specifically, are you bowing to any of the pressure for a head to roll in this situation? Or are you doubling down and powering through?

Carter 1:04:38

You drop one head, you're going to have to drop a whole bunch of them. So I think you have to power through.

Carter 1:04:42

You can't create an independent caucus. caucus you cannot create it so

Carter 1:04:47

so you absolutely must keep every because there is no punishment outside of the outside of the um like if you're just an mla there is no punishment really i mean what are you going to do drop off their committees like

Carter 1:04:59

like i guess what

Zain 1:05:01

kick them out of caucus

Carter 1:05:01

caucus i guess if

Carter 1:05:02

if you kick them out of caucus then they're sitting there as an independent caucus and all of a sudden what's his nuts down in medicine hat uh gets excited and uh you know The whip party is born. I'd be really, really, really careful about doing any of that type of stuff. I mean, Kenny, we've had this idea that Kenny is super

Carter 1:05:23

super duper powerful. He's not. Every political party in the rest of the country is only days away from being unelected. The conservatives in Alberta have had this idea that they can get away with anything and they would never lose.

Carter 1:05:41

it's it's all changed and now they have to start behaving like every other political party in the country and that's actually very exciting take

Zain 1:05:49

take their scandal seriously cory same question to you advice for for for kenny as premier for the ucp as a party and for this government uh what are they what are they doing knowing all of the context and conditions uh on this sunday evening going forward what are you suggesting they do you

Corey 1:06:07

know there is a school of thought that we've espoused as many times on this show that you just double down in the face of certain things but at a sometimes that's the wrong play and sometimes you've just got to do the right thing at the wrong time and uh there are artful ways you can do it that make it look less brutal um for example i don't think you fire allard i think allard says i have become a distraction i must resign as minister you know um and

Corey 1:06:34

and so much of it depends on the internal dynamics of the caucus caucus carter was hinting at this and he's absolutely right if if you know the thing is if half the caucus is saying you

Corey 1:06:45

you got to do something then

Corey 1:06:46

then it's not just a question it's maybe

Corey 1:06:49

maybe suspending your mlas is too strong but there are things you can do there i talked about you know finding them under the public health act i still think maybe right um

Corey 1:06:59

um i just having a bit of a mea culpa just saying i had no you know this was worse perhaps than i even imagined legend albertans are rightly mad uh we have let you down on this moment maybe this is how you come back to it maybe you use the trickle you jujitsu you screwed up you trickled this out but now use the trickle pretend you're the premier who's just figured these things out at this point it's not going to get that much worse for you so you can just go back and say all right well we really blew this um and uh maybe

Corey 1:07:29

maybe maybe that's your chance to revisit some some of these things. But I don't know. It depends so much on the party dynamics. It depends so much on whether the caucus wants you to do X or Y.

Corey 1:07:40

And if the caucus is relatively unified one way or the other, it

Corey 1:07:44

it makes it a lot easier to do the Stephen Carter strategy he just talked about, which is you pull everybody in and say, okay, error-free ball, we got to be on this together. We're going to do X because you all want us to do X, or we're going to do Y because you all want us to do Y. But we We are a team, right? But if there is Team X and Team Y,

Corey 1:08:01

you're going to have to pick a side. You're going to have to show why you're premier, and you're going to have to hold your party together because we've

Corey 1:08:06

we've seen this story play out 100 different ways. It never plays out well.

Zain 1:08:11

We're going to leave that there and move it on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, are you ready? I

Carter 1:08:17

I am ready. I'm always shocked you don't ask Corey if he's ready. He's so lackadaisical when it comes to this shit.

Zain 1:08:24

He is. is, he feels like he's above it, which is why I'm going to him first, because he's made a resolution in 2021 to be more of the common man. So Corey Hogan, to you, on a scale of one to 10, the insanity of the Trump tape, where he's talking to Georgia state officials to find him a very specific amount of votes in advance of, I don't even know. Please give it the score.

Corey 1:08:55

I think if I was going to be most charitable, I could ratchet it down to a nine because he at least stayed on message the entire time saying, I did win this though. I did win this. Those votes should have been mine, right? So he didn't just, he

Corey 1:09:07

he didn't entirely say just fabricate votes. I

Corey 1:09:11

I mean, he did, but he didn't entirely say it. So let's just say a nine on the absolute insanity scale. gail this guy has no bottom this america what are you fucking doing this is just like the most toxic relationship you can possibly imagine get

Corey 1:09:24

get out like you've already sent him packing and this is what he's doing right now and republicans you are going to destroy your party nobody

Corey 1:09:31

nobody is going to look back on this in 20 years and say man that was that was a good play ted cruz you know backing up the guy who called uh you know his wife ugly and his dad jfk's assassin like this is fucking nuts what are are you all doing yeah

Corey 1:09:47

it's what does he have on you exactly well

Zain 1:09:49

well there's what he has on you and what he's also giving to some of them uh carter news just broke a couple hours ago that trump is going to be awarding the presidential medal of freedom to devin the cow nunez but just if you don't know that nickname i'm not calling him a cow and jim jordan so uh two outstanding uh democracy democracy loving, freedom loving individuals getting the presidential medal of freedom. But same question to you, Carter, one to 10 on the insanity scale, the Trump tape, asking Georgia state officials to find a very specific amount of votes, declaring him president again. It's

Carter 1:10:26

It's a 13.7, Zane, it's a 13.7. And it is in

Carter 1:10:30

in its lunacy. I mean, this is the death of democracy, right? And, you know, Corey said, this is gonna be the death of the Republican Party. If we're lucky, this is the death of the Republican Party. When you start questioning the results of the democracy, democracy is simply an idea that we all have confidence in. You want to know something about totalitarian regimes? They have elections, too.

Carter 1:10:53

They have elections, too. The election is simply rigged. You go in, you cast your ballots. No one really bothers to count. Ninety six percent of the people voted for Vladimir Putin. What a shock. He did a great job. Everybody moves on. You know, there's international observers on these elections for a reason. We're going to need to consider putting international observers in the United States of America. What was before this election supposed to be one of the great democracies of the world. And it is this

Carter 1:11:25

is the end of it. And it's been caught on tape by the president of the United States being an absolute fucking moron.

Carter 1:11:33

Not a shocker. Nothing new. but the consequences remain extremely high the

Corey 1:11:39

the absolute best election ever 2002 iraqi presidential referendum 11 445 000

Corey 1:11:47

votes cast every single one of them apparently for saddam hussein was a

Zain 1:11:55

knew how to lead uh carter

Zain 1:11:57

carter i'm going to stick with you over under on six over under on 60 political impact of what we are now are we calling it aloha gate in alberta let's call it aloha gate let's call it let's aloha gate on on jason kenney in the ucp in 2023 the over under on six the political impact that they have going forward i

Carter 1:12:16

i think it's going to be a seven for moving forward if they don't figure out how to manage it um realistically

Carter 1:12:23

realistically this could be the defining moment in their government this might be a 10 but i think it's a seven if they figure out how to do something smart cory

Zain 1:12:30

cory same question to you over under on six the political impact of this in 2023 in

Corey 1:12:35

in 2023 um it's going to be pretty tough to directly create a causal link here but i think over i think there are tipping points uh perhaps for the premier perhaps for the ucp more generally and um again they were they were not riding high on the polls before this and the rage in this province is off the charts you can almost feel of walking around your community. So I think over.

Zain 1:13:01

Corey, I'm going to stick with you. Over, under, on seven, the marks you'd give Doug Ford for his political strategy. Quick, swift, get rid of Phillips. I know you said there could be a particular political price he has to pay. Maybe this is where you can flesh that out. Perhaps some of you are thinking there. But over, under, on seven, the Ford political strategy and perhaps the expectations he set across the country with it. Well,

Corey 1:13:24

Well, if there's nothing else over with an asterisk, if there is something else, definitely under, because you've kind of set what the table stakes are here. You're going to have to throw in a lot of chips every time one of these ministers gets caught doing something like that. Now, here's

Corey 1:13:40

here's the thing, though. He really jammed

Corey 1:13:42

jammed absolutely everybody else, didn't he? And I just – I wonder what that's going to do to the relationship between Doug Ford and some of his erstwhile allies because when you move so quickly and

Corey 1:13:55

and so definitively, you've made

Corey 1:13:58

made it so that anybody who does not is held to a standard. And that's – as

Corey 1:14:03

as we're seeing in Alberta, that's pretty tough.

Zain 1:14:06

carter same question to you over on round seven for the ford strategy i

Carter 1:14:09

i mean it's got to be over i mean he did a great job but you know what i'm really loving cory's point there at the end you know did he pick up the phone and call kenny or palister or any of the people that he's supposed to be aligned with and say uh

Carter 1:14:21

uh am i gonna fuck you over if i do this i mean obviously that didn't pop into his head um and he did he fucked them over so for him it was good uh but you know know what doug ford's been doing shit for himself uh for the last six or eight months and and he's been behaving differently than the other conservative premiers uh when it comes to so this is just a continuation carter

Zain 1:14:44

carter i'm going to stick with you here one to ten the political damage for trudeau as of recording right now he's got two uh liberal mps who are removing themselves from either parliamentary secretary or their committee roles pretty swift pretty quick um but as we were just talking about the the stakes have been set as we know right now what do you think the political damage for trudeau is going to be i

Carter 1:15:05

i don't think it's that big i think that uh you know losing a couple parliamentary secretaries whose names people aren't going to even remember uh outside of their own ridings isn't going to make that big of a deal and uh parliamentary secretaries they don't serve a purpose in your government they serve a purpose for the parliamentary secretary so those people just gave away their their their titles and their extra pay cory

Zain 1:15:27

cory same question to you want to tend the political damage for trudeau i

Corey 1:15:31

i think it's under and largely because nicky ashton went first right so it becomes a little bit harder to it's not the situation where the government acted in one fashion and the opposition acted in a different and it moved quickly and the scale is just different federal government's much bigger the this government has what uh 157 seats something like that i think that's what they won you're

Corey 1:15:53

you're talking about two parliamentary secretaries um i

Corey 1:15:56

don't think it's going to be a huge deal cory

Zain 1:15:59

cory i should be sticking with you for our final question but i am going to carter because it is indeed a prediction and steven carter here here we go over under on one just want to make sure you got that over under on one the

Zain 1:16:13

the amount of senate seats that the democrats win in georgia in the runoff on tuesday over

Zain 1:16:21

over on one yeah

Carter 1:16:23

yeah it's going to be both the senate seats uh you heard it here first uh no hedging no bullshit two seats

Zain 1:16:33

you're rubbing your eyes your glasses are off over

Corey 1:16:38

you're you're just destroying the american republic right now you

Carter 1:16:41

you know what i'm gonna win i've been i've been on On fire, on fire with my predictions.

Corey 1:16:48

I think over. I think the combination of the Democrats seemingly having such a lead in the early, the advanced polling, the mail-in votes as before, plus this Trump tape coming on the Sunday before the Tuesday election where Trump needs the in-person voters. This is a doomsday scenario. Mario. The final thing is just the polls have started to show Warnock and Ossoff two, three points ahead fairly consistently of their opponents. So I

Corey 1:17:17

I would have to turn off my eyes and ears to say anything but over. That said, I almost don't want to say it. It feels like it's tempting fate. But the Democrats, you

Corey 1:17:27

you know, if you look at the moment measurements are doing good, if you think about what just happened today, how could that do anything but help the the democrats so i i don't know i don't know what how you could pick anything else we

Zain 1:17:39

we are going to discuss a lot more about that on you the people on thursday but we will leave it there that's a wrap on episode 906 of the strategist my name is zane velgey with me as always cory hogan steven carter thank you to our sponsor west jet and we'll see not our sponsor you

Zain 1:17:55

say not i say yes maybe could be i don't know we'll see you next time

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