Episode 924: Accidental UCP government

Zain 0:02

This is a Strategist episode 924. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's going on?

Carter 0:10

I've been outside for two straight years. Nobody cares.

Zain 0:13

It's fine. Carter, you've got a working microphone. Let's not jinx it with outside talk. Corey, how are you doing?

Corey 0:20

I'm doing really well. I don't like daylight saving. I don't like daylight saving. Nobody likes daylight saving. This is not the bad one because my kids aren't going to wake up an hour early, but why

Corey 0:30

why we continue to do this is just beyond me.

Zain 0:34

Listen, I don't want to get into Carter territory, but I'm not a big fan of daylight.

Zain 0:37

So I feel like this

Zain 0:40

this doesn't really make a difference to me. Carter, are you still living off the high of the headline show? You know, we put all of our blood, sweat, tears, sweat equity, tears equity into that show. And it really gives the people what they want. and and it feels like um we live off the high for at least three months and are you

Zain 1:00

still living off the high the

Carter 1:01

the audience again is letting us down because there are two things that the audience loves the audience loves the headline show which is superficial at its best right like it's like go go go headline headline headline and then they love the deep dive and i don't know how you can love both of those things maybe it's two different audiences i don't understand them let

Zain 1:20

let Let me tell you something. Superficial at its best used to be the tagline of this podcast. We don't use it anymore because it's pretty much redundant and implied. Corey, there is a podcast war happening in Alberta, and I don't think we're involved, which makes me very upset. Now, I don't know what the podcast war is, but I want to be a part of it.

Corey 1:39

Yeah, I've seen people tweeting about a podcast war, but the reality is if it doesn't involve us, it's like a war between PEI and some rock outside of PEI. I don't know. Who

Zain 1:49

Who cares? Shots fired. Stephen Carter, a man who takes on many proxy wars, if he's not in them, do you have any fighting words for whoever is involved in this podcast war? I personally don't know who is involved, but do you want to fire shots in any direction? You've never been afraid in the past.

Carter 2:07

Just remember that there's no hill too small to die on. So just, you know, dig

Corey 2:16

Is it Dave Cornway and Paula Simons? Because that would be an interesting podcast war. That

Carter 2:21

That would be a good podcast

Zain 2:21

podcast war. I think it might be. No, I don't know if it's Ryan, but I don't know. I mean, I don't know the other podcasts. I mean, we're in our own league, so I don't keep track of all the other podcasts, right? Like, it's just

Zain 2:35

just not what I do. It's just not what we do.

Carter 2:39

cheap to, like, start a war with another podcast just to boost your own ratings. Yeah,

Carter 2:44

why would you do that?

Zain 2:46

do it like everyone else uh go on a different show for an hour uh produce your best content recycle it from your podcast and then talk about it ad nauseum on your podcast that's how you that's how you're supposed to do these things even if cory doesn't like it that's how these things work okay

Zain 3:03

okay cory's just i'm

Zain 3:06

i'm just you know what let's make this more uncomfortable for cory uh carter are you ready i think we can actually have a reality show podcast for us and i think think i know who can fund it i'm

Carter 3:16

let's do it good

Zain 3:17

reality show i'm not gonna tell you the funders because cory's gonna get upset but there is a funder that

Zain 3:25

to fund a podcast wars reality show we'd

Carter 3:28

we'd be all over west jet's ipads that'd be pretty great that would be really amazing i'm

Corey 3:33

i'm just i'm just so very impressed we've managed to do two minutes on a podcast war that we don't even know the participants uh who are involved like

Zain 3:42

like i like i that superficial at best is the tagline for the show let's move it on to our first segment our first segment chill it's netflix guys

Zain 3:54

we have to we have to talk cory do you want me to tee this up

Corey 3:57

up i don't even know what to say do

Zain 3:59

you just want this to be a continuation of your rant from last episode we can go one of two directions i can

Zain 4:04

okay i can add context or you think you need

Corey 4:07

need to because anybody outside

Corey 4:10

alberta will have not a clue what we're talking So

Zain 4:13

So let me add context from the purposes of what I mean by Chill It's Netflix as a segment headline, but also from last episode when Corey was talking about our beloved gift to Canada known as the War Room or the Canadian Energy Center in its formal capacity and how they are not just bad at their jobs, but they're self-defeating on their mission and mandate. date well uh we've got another excellent proof point because the war room is going to battle with the netflix children movie saying it inaccurately portrays the oil industry that is not a joke the canadian energy center says that more than a thousand people uh i think it's now what 12 13 1400 in their defense just to be accurate in the numbers have sent an automated letter off its website to netflix canada to let it know that an animated film sounds like propaganda The film Bigfoot Family, Corey, you'll tell us all about its production details, so I'm going to save that, is about the son of a mythical creature who fights an oil company and made its debut on the streaming service earlier this year in 2021. This petition letter, which I should have the website in front of me, I'll find it while you guys rant and rave about this, it ultimately tells the head of communications at Netflix that you really don't understand the energy sector. This is a misrepresentation of the excellent work of the energy sector. A movie about Bigfoot is what our jewel

Zain 5:41

jewel from Alberta, our gift to Canada, is talking about. Corey, I'll save you for a second. Stephen Carter, jump in first here. Listen,

Carter 5:50

Listen, this has a lot of precedent before in history, as you both will remember the big banking industry when it sued Scrooge McDuck. That was a representation that just went too far. And so this is stupid. It's an animated film. It's an animated film with caricatures for bad guys. Yeah,

Zain 6:14

you for mentioning that, Carter. I didn't mention it was an animated film. I thought people might get it from the fact, and I thought the Energy War Room might get it from the fact that it's an animated film because it's about the son of a mythical creature who fights an oil company, just so you know. But thank you for clarifying, Carter. it's

Carter 6:28

it's it's it's utterly ridiculous they they so so they're either geniuses and they've got all this free publicity um you know they've taken their 30 million dollars and turned it into 31 and a half million dollars because they got a ton of free publicity everybody's writing stories about it it's all over global television you know all the newspapers have got it uh it's twitter's on fire uh the premier himself you know uh threw down a tweet to uh to make sure that we were all watching Netflix this weekend, essentially, you

Carter 6:58

you know, this was a colossal

Carter 7:02

unless that's what they meant to do.

Carter 7:05

I honestly think, you know, there could be a strategy where

Carter 7:09

where this might make sense. This is not that strategy. This is not that time. This is not the execution that actually makes sense. But sometimes you do want that outrage, sometimes being in a 50-50 fight, or even a 30-70 fight if the 30% is your 30%. And I think maybe we'll get to an Aaron O'Toole video today that kind of shows that example. But if you have a 30-70 split on something, that might be the good communications vehicle for you. But in this particular case, everybody is making fun of them.

Corey 7:45

Who let the dogs out?

Zain 7:47

Yeah, Carter. Carter, are you adding sound effects to the show? No, we've

Zain 7:51

we've really upped our production value. I'd

Carter 7:53

I'd like to point out that

Carter 7:55

that we have no static.

Zain 8:03

Carter has rewired his house again. No,

Carter 8:05

I have not. I have moved. I have given up. The bedroom in the basement is just static electricity central.

Zain 8:12

Corey, Bigfoot family, son of a mythical creature. sure alberta's energy war room are really dealing with the big issues here what do you think is

Corey 8:23

is there a more apt summation of the canadian energy center's whole thing than demanding accuracy from bigfoot cartoons i mean it's fucking perfect the it's just embarrassing listen my dudes i grew up in the 80s and the 90s fern gully captain planet you remember the smoggies remember the raccoons This was just sort of a thing. There were overly broad cartoon villains from industry, from development, from oil and gas, from any of these things. And I don't recall ever a province deciding they were going to start like an initiative to take them down one way or the other. uh it's it's just it's

Corey 9:01

it's a kid's show it's a kid's show that cost 20 million dollars to make that made nine million dollars in the box office which if you're taking count means it lost money that was on netflix that nobody cared about and that you have decided to make the centerpiece of your war on i don't know what i don't know why this is what the canadian energy center has decided uh it is necessary to spend their time on and ultimately it's just another example of them them embarrassing the hell out of us. Because an

Corey 9:30

an industry that had a little bit more confidence, a province that had a little more swagger, wouldn't be fighting with

Corey 9:36

with a kid's cartoon that nobody has ever watched or thought of or cared about one way or the other. It's just unbelievable to me that they continue to give us examples of how they are lighting our money on fire. It's just crazy. I'm going to

Zain 9:49

to read an excerpt from here. And I'm going to do two things. Number one, its 2385 signatures upon recording which by the way is not a shit ton considering all the free media they've been getting so they they started i bet they started at a thousand flat and that was just an inflated number so 2385 i want to do i do want to give them the respect um here's here's a line from it tell netflix this is unacceptable send a letter to netflix canada's head of communications that sentence underlined this sentence also underlined brainwashing our kids Kids with anti-oil and gas propaganda is just wrong, and Netflix needs to know that. Stephen Carter, you've been shaking your head. What are you shaking your head at? The fact that—well, maybe I'll ask you a question, actually, here, which is they must know that these are own goals, right? Like, they must know that they're trying the strategy you'd mentioned about trying to get attention and garner, almost using trolly behavior, some earned media or some support from their base. Do you do not suspect that even if that's not their execution, that that's their strategy? Because I do want to dig into them because we could we could dunk on them, you know, episode after episode, which would be a lot of fun. But I do want to try to tease out as to what they're trying to do, despite the fact their execution might might leave a lot to be desired.

Carter 11:03

Well, what they're trying to do or what they're supposed to be doing, because

Carter 11:07

because what they're trying to do is communicate with people who identify with oil and gas industry, the people who support the oil and gas industry. Because I don't think that they are communicating with anybody that was sitting on the fence, right? I don't think there's anybody in the middle. So when we used to do these types of communications, we used to talk about, you know, we had a Likert scale. And you put people at one end of the Likert scale who were kind of environmentalists, very pro-environmentalists. And then you put people at the other end of the scale who were very pro-oil and gas industry. And then the people in the middle were the people you wanted to communicate with. And that's what I thought the Canadian Energy Centre was being designed to do. Because all CAP has been doing, you know, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, all CAP has been doing is communicating with the people who already love them, right? That's what their whole energy citizens campaign has been.

Carter 11:57

here comes the government to the rescue with $30 million, and now we're going to finally communicate to the middle, except they haven't.

Carter 12:04

They continue the strategy of communicating only to the oil and gas industry. It's like they are communicating with downtown Calgary and that's it. No one else in the whole either in the province nor in the in the country and certainly not anyone internationally because this this is a joke.

Carter 12:23

So I'm not sure I understand. I think their strategy does appear to be to communicate with people who already believe in oil and gas. It does appear to be some kind of a perverse mechanism to try and get people who are in oil and gas to support Jason Kenney. But I just don't understand it because I think they've already got him. So I'm completely flummoxed because the strategy they should be doing versus the strategy that they are executing just are so unrelated. relate it.

Zain 12:50

Corey, I'm going to throw a hypothetical at you. You know, the premier's office calls Tom Olson, who's running the Energy War Room. They're like, Tom, what the fuck? We don't need this. What are you doing?

Zain 13:00

What is what do you think Tom says to the premier's office being like, you know, you're a $30 million albatross on our government. What the fuck are you per year? And we've refunded you. So let's just this is a very hypothetical conversation. But what do you think he would say that he's trying to do here? Similar question to Carter, but I'm curious to get your take. If there's more nuance to the strategy than what Carter is – I'm not saying what Carter is saying simply, but what Carter might be suggesting.

Corey 13:26

You know, Zane, I've been wondering, and I've been trying to paint myself a picture as to how they managed to get into a position where they

Corey 13:33

they decided that they needed to take on Bigfoot family. Again, a cartoon nobody had really ever heard of until here. Right,

Corey 13:39

right. And the only thing I can think of that makes sense is that they got a call like that from the premier's office sometime in the past that said, Tom, what the fuck? What are you doing? Would you actually show some value here for the money that we are giving you? Because this is the tactic of somebody who is desperate to do something. I can find no strategy nor any tactic value in it otherwise, right? Like they have mistaken action for direction. They need to do something. So they did something. But it turns out that something was pretty fucking stupid because otherwise I can't fathom this. Before his – Tom Olson put out a comment through the media saying effectively, yeah, I got an email or a phone call or something from a woman whose kid had seen this, and that's why we've decided to spring into action here.

Corey 14:27

How is that a trigger for you in a competent organization that is well run, right? Right, right, right. It just – like to me, all of that just smacks of amateur hour. But let's just say he was sitting there and he said, oh, shit. OK, great. Now I've got something I can do. I can show everybody that I am fighting for oil and gas. Let's spin this bad boy up. Let's get to the ramparts.

Corey 14:49

Let's move past the madness of all of that there. Like the idea that they would be so reactive is – does not speak well to them. This was originally supposed to be an initiative that was going to proactively prove the value of Alberta's oil industry and rebut, again, in a proactive sense, some of these messages that were out there that the Alberta government took exception with. You know, the amount of CO2 being so much more extravagant coming from the oil sands, the fact that oil going through pipelines was deemed more corrosive, you know, things the Alberta government disputes. Instead, it has become, hey,

Corey 15:27

hey, I just got an email about a Bigfoot movie, so let's spin up a petition. How does any of this work? What is the logic of this? You have now 2,000 signatures. Was this a list-building exercise? Because if this was a national list-building exercise, it's embarrassing. 2,000 signatures is nothing. nothing. If this was an attempt to show that you were doing exactly what Stephen said, like talking to downtown Calgary, well, I don't know that they're going to pick up the paper and feel particularly good about this one either at the end of the day. I just, I really don't even know.

Corey 15:58

I can't find very many people online defending the Canadian Energy Centre on this one. The only person I saw was David Staples, which I can't even get distracted by that particular point. That's just totally baffling that David Staples would simp for them in that fashion, because he's the guy who's all about not wanting cancel culture and this is absolutely an example of that i

Corey 16:20

if there was a phone call and said tom what are you doing why was this of any value if i am tom olson if i'm trying to say that this is a value i'm saying we're putting them on blast we're putting them on notice they're going to get these headaches from us as we do them but

Corey 16:34

last i checked bigfoot family was not in canada's top 10 movies last week it is now back in canada's top 10 movies on Netflix. Congratulations on, you know, the Streisand effect is in full blast here.

Corey 16:49

I don't know what Tom Olson's excuse is when he gets a phone call Monday morning.

Corey 16:54

Carter, we've always talked about the energy war

Zain 16:55

war room. I shouldn't say always, I want to be charitable to them or as truthful as I can. In recent weeks, months, we've said that this is a drag on the government. It's a liability, right? It's a liability. Is it an an electoral liability at this point? Too early to tell? Yes? What do you think? And have the opposition NDP done a good enough job to make it an electoral liability from your perspective? So certainly a liability in governance, but is it getting down to the point where the Stephen Carter give a fuck factor on the energy war room being a proof point of incompetence or government mismanagement kind

Zain 17:30

kind of ranks on the list for you? Do you feel like it's there yet or not so much? Well,

Carter 17:34

Well, that's a really interesting question because I'm not thinking now in terms of today. So let's just forget about today. It's not a big issue today. But I'm trying to imagine a scenario. Can we actually imagine a place where the energy war room is operating during the next election, right?

Carter 17:52

right? Right. Does it does it have to be folded before the next election? Because to your point, I think it will be a total distraction if it's still operating. I don't think obviously nothing's going to impact, you know, they'll probably fuck up 26 more times before the actual election. It's one every three weeks. So there's going to be more mistakes. But

Carter 18:13

we walk away from those mistakes very, very quickly. This won't be an issue when we record our Thursday podcast, for example, which people should download frequently. maybe a couple of times on Thursday or Friday mornings. Very big podcast. It's our best work.

Zain 18:29

don't think you know how the downloads work, but that's fine, Carter. Go ahead.

Carter 18:34

They download it many times, multiple. Anyways, here's the thing. Here's the bottom line. If

Carter 18:39

If this thing is still in place, by the time we get to the election, it's going to be a massive liability. And on top of that, it could be viewed as electoral third-party advertising, I would imagine. So I don't know that you want three government ministers sitting on the board of a private corporation during an election talking about your primary industry.

Zain 19:01

Corey, I'll ask you the same question. Electoral liability for Jason Kenney and the UCP or not so much? And I'll maybe tag on another part of that question.

Zain 19:09

Should they kill it? Should they take a political hit today and just kill it? We've talked about this before, probably six months ago, five months ago, maybe.

Zain 19:17

But should they just kill it right now? What do you think? You

Corey 19:19

You know, on its own, it's just an embarrassment. When you think about the election, it's only a liability two years from now insofar as it fits into a bigger story, which actually is not a story that is – it looks better for the government today than it did six months ago. So let me explain what I mean by that.

Corey 19:40

If Jason Kenney in 2023 is still facing an oil and gas industry that has hemorrhaged jobs, that is not producing wealth for Alberta anymore in any significant fashion, then yeah, this will be pointed to as an example of them failing on this particular matter. The energy war room didn't do what it was supposed to do. We couldn't get access to markets. Our steam continued to drop. Jobs were not created. Wealth was not created. It was a total failure. However, the energy war room may just get lost in the shuffle and not look so bad if the oil industry has $80 oil, $90 oil. If all of a sudden there's this rebound effect, if downtown Calgary is humming again, then even though there's nothing causal about it, people will point to it and say, well, you know, we had the energy war room, it was pretty embarrassing, but now the oil industry is looking better and we have all these market access issues largely resolved. They might get away with it, frankly. But that remains to be seen. It is not necessarily clear to me whether that's a particularly wise strategy because that's really a strategy based on hope. The reality is it is a liability. It is creating gaffes

Corey 20:49

gaffes perpetually. The government does not need it. The government should find a way to gracefully shut the thing down.

Zain 20:56

Carter, would you kill it too right now regardless

Carter 20:58

regardless of the political

Carter 21:00

I'm really interested in Corey's economic argument. I mean, let's say that oil and gas does pick up. It has picked up. The oil industry, you know, oil is higher today. Oil being high in and of itself does not mean anything to the average Calgarian or Albertan, right, or the average Canadian. It just means that they pay more at the gas pump, frankly.

Carter 21:22

What does matter to the average Calgarian, the average Albertan, is an oil and gas industry that is actually active. And one of the challenges of a high oil price at this stage is I'm still not convinced that there's going to be investment in our industries. We have moved to unconventional oil or non-conventional oil through the in situ, oil sands and mining of oil sands. Those are long-term projects, and the long-term future of oil still looks dismal.

Carter 21:55

so compounding the problem is if we have 80 dollar oil and no economic recovery that's

Carter 22:01

that's really going to be tricky for the average albertan that's where the the war room isn't going to be able to generate even what what cory's seeing as a as a potential bounce right like cory's not saying this could happen you know this will happen he's saying this could happen and i just want to cast a little bit more doubt on that because i actually don't think it's about 80 dollar oil i think it's It's about the economic activity of a confidence in oil that still doesn't exist.

Corey 22:24

Yeah, look, I think that this could be a jobless oil boom for sure. We may not get that capital investment we have in years past as people start worrying more that that will be stranded assets. But wealth will be created. Revenue will be created if there is an oil boom. And that will smooth over some things. It will make government finances look better. It will mean there's more money splashing around in Lamborghini dealerships downtown Calgary. But, you know, that money, I'm not a believer in trickle-down, but there will be money splashed around this city. People will develop big homes. Things that will just be gaudy and awful will occur, but they will mean more money for people around town.

Corey 23:02

Things may seem better.

Zain 23:05

We're going to leave that segment there and move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, we'll never be royals. Guys, the Liberal government is reestablishing an advisory panel to help select the next governor general. Six people have been announced to the committee by Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Inuit leader Nathan Obed, someone from the University of Montreal, the current board chair of Canada Post, the former secretary to the governor general, Stephen Carter. This is breaking news, a big deal. Very, very big. How big is this to you? No,

Carter 23:39

No, it doesn't resonate at all. I mean – Corey,

Zain 23:42

I can count on you for this. Breaking news. They delivered it when it matters most, Friday at 5 p.m.

Zain 23:51

Huge deal. Corey, how big of a deal is this to the country? Selecting the next head of state. So

Corey 23:55

So another thing I want to say about the Canadian Energy Center is that there

Corey 23:59

there is this Amazon show called Tin Star, which actually takes place in Alberta. Is that with Tim Roth? Yeah, that's with Tim Roth. Tim Roth actually has realistic evil oil villains, and the Canadian Energy Center doesn't seem to care about that. They're worried about the cartoon villains in the Bigfoot movie that are using bombs to blow oil out of the ground, right? That's

Corey 24:20

That's so good. Just crazy. Fucking

Zain 24:22

Fucking love Tim Roth. Great Governor General pick, by the way, just to let him know. Let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, we need you to speak. I have moved it from your third least favorite topic, which is the governor general, to your second least favorite topic, guys. We charity. Oh, no. And their

Zain 24:42

founders, Mark and Craig Kielberger, will be appearing before the House of Commons Ethics Committee on

Zain 24:47

on Monday, i.e. tomorrow, if you're listening to this podcast, right when it goes up on Sunday evening. Carter, are you expecting any, like, legitimate, real fireworks here? Like the developments have been investigations. We've talked about the Velcro plaques, right? We've talked about the double announcing of some of their projects. I mean, that's kind of serious stuff. I mean, regardless of how much fun we make of we and how insignificant we might think it is in the grand scheme of things, there's some serious allegations out there. But do you expect any political

Zain 25:17

political fireworks that can have consequences here in our country?

Carter 25:23

I don't expect any. But what I'm actually just thinking about is what I think obviously doesn't matter. But what is the what is the prime minister think? What is the the liberal government think? Does the liberal government think that

Carter 25:35

that this potentially could have legs and could could hurt them? In which case, if I'm the Kielberger brothers, I'm not necessarily going in there all worried about being grilled by Pierre Polyev, but instead by some liberal MPs that think that they can distance the liberal government from the Kielberger's charity and

Carter 25:58

potential misdeeds. I don't think that—keep in mind, the

Carter 26:03

the Conservatives have made this connection between the Liberals and the Kielburgers, right? The connection is a charity doing good work attracts the patronage of the prime minister's wife and family. I mean, this is not scandalous. I mean, we see these types of relationships all the time. but they of course uh you know of course when the money was flown out the door for for the pandemic response they got a chunk of it and now we have a scandal and

Carter 26:31

and then it turns out that the gilberger's charity may or may not be behaving ethically i don't know but this is going to the ethics committee um

Carter 26:39

um if i was running the liberal response

Carter 26:42

response i would probably say you know what

Carter 26:44

they're not our guys we're not here to protect them we're not here to take the hits for them Let's throw some jabs. Let's see what we can get. Let's let the Canadian public know that if anybody was taken advantage of or ethically convinced to do something, unethically convinced that they were getting something that they didn't actually get, then let's

Carter 27:07

let's hold their feet to the fire.

Zain 27:10

Wait, so Carter, are you saying that this chapter

Zain 27:13

chapter for We Charity is divorced from the first chapter that we saw and that an ergo liberal should be assertive and not necessarily like defensive of them, so to speak? I just want to clarify that that's what you're saying.

Carter 27:26

Yeah, that is exactly what I'm saying.

Corey 27:28

Interesting. Yeah, Kinkori, do you agree with that strategy? Completely. We is now the focus of We. Plaques with Velcro, $40 million in real estate. the question that the opposition parties now need to ask themselves is how are they going to get it back to the liberals the problem is the way it has evolved is it has evolved away from the liberals and in fact steven is absolutely right if the liberals now pile on to and say what is going on and and continue to keep the focus on the kielburgers and we um and all of these stories that are roaming out there the

Corey 27:59

the liberals are going to get off scott free i mean there's there's kind kind of this halo that the conservatives might be hoping like oh you were willing to do business with these people but the reality is yeah you

Corey 28:08

you could go through a list of canadian blue chips and they did business with we so it's not going to be a particularly successful attack to say well you were willing to to deal with them because engage with all of these things have come out after the fact here so um i think that in a funny way the fact that there has been more has really been a bit of a boon for the trudeau liberals because it means that That, you know, the ball is moved and people's eyes are on that ball and it is no longer in the Liberals' court.

Zain 28:39

I think you've both implicitly answered this, but the risk then for the Liberals to go aggressively against we when perhaps in the long term, the Canadian public's understanding of the we scandal won't be this clean cut divorce between what happened with the Liberals and what happened thereafter. after like there i think there's a risk there so i'm curious to hear your thoughts cory do you mind jumping in first and then carter i'll go to you on that same question i

Corey 29:01

i think there's absolutely a risk you're right this may be a division the liberals can't get too cute with this either um and there's also the fact that people who have nothing to lose can really

Corey 29:11

fuck you and if the kielburgers do have dirt about the relationship with the liberals in some way shape or form they

Corey 29:17

they could say well i don't know i mean your minister was was aware of x fact or they could throw something else on the table and really throw it back to the liberals court And you could see some real first class fuckery going on if the Kielburgers feel that that's in their interest. So I think if I'm the liberals, I'm probably showing kind of like, I'm not doing anything to kick the story further. I'm making it clear that I'm on the side of I'm skeptical of we now too, but I am not kicking that story any further.

Zain 29:49

Carter, comment on that. And maybe I'll add another question too, if that's okay. I

Zain 29:53

mean, it's just one

Carter 29:54

one day, right? The

Carter 29:56

Kielburgers are now the antagonists of the story. And

Carter 30:02

And if the liberals play this right, it's not that they're going to become the protagonist. It's just they're going to be kind of a supporting character. Like

Zain 30:07

Like neutral. If you were writing the holding statement for the prime minister, if you're the issues management team in the PMO, this holding statement, he hopefully doesn't need to execute if

Zain 30:17

if it isn't a complete, you know, firework show. But what are you writing as part of that holding statement for the prime minister? Erlang, what track does the messaging look like if he's asked to comment on this tomorrow or the day after?

Carter 30:34

I'm very pleased to see the Ethics Committee was able to bring in the executives behind the WE Charity and get answers. That's what the Ethics Committee is there for. We supported, you know, digging in and getting more of the answers under the right terms and the right situation. So we've done that. We've done that work. And I'm quite confident that the committee will do what needs to happen, you know, will do the work that needs to happen.

Zain 31:01

Corey, do you agree or anything to add to that statement if you were writing the holding statement for the prime minister?

Corey 31:06

Not very much to add. I think you, if

Corey 31:08

if I want to broaden it and talk

Corey 31:10

talk about what Stephen just did, is just move it back to process. Talk about the fact you've supported the process. You're keen to hear what comes out of it. Nothing to see here. here

Zain 31:19

i'm gonna leave that segment there and move it on to our next segment lead from behind i want to talk about two things two alberta stories uh and i think i'll split them up uh evenly in this segment and let's start first with the executive

Zain 31:33

executive board of the alberta ucp saying they'll hold a leadership review next year for jason kenney they said friday evening that they are going to to hold a leadership review at their 2022, not 2021, 2022 AGM, which is scheduled for sometime in October, roughly six months prior to the scheduled election date in 2023. The second story I want to talk about, just so you keep in the back of your mind, is the upcoming poll, not the upcoming, the recent polls in Alberta, at least three of them, guys, I might be wrong, two of them that I've seen, maybe three, and then the top line numbers, is one of two things. Either the NDP are significantly up in one of those polls, or the NDP are leading with a sliver. But regardless, the NDP are up. So I want to talk about both of those things, strategy on both of those things, meaningfulness. But let's start with the leadership review. Corey Hogan, the fact that the UCP have decided their leadership review, is this just pedestrian what a party does? Or is this a symbol, a sign, a message being sent to Jason Kenney and the fact that he currently is, and perhaps tying the two things I want to talk about, quite low in the poll numbers, so to speak, and his leadership is leaving, you know, a lot to be desired for many people, even if they consider themselves UCP members. This

Corey 32:45

This wasn't a message to Jason Kenney. This was the apparatus trying to support Jason Kenney. This was not just matter of course business. If it was, it would come out on a Monday morning, not on a Friday evening. You don't send news releases late Friday for any reason but to try to bury them.

Zain 33:01

Well, unless it's the announcement for the next governor general, because that's actually massive news that really has massive impacts on the state so i just wanted one rare

Corey 33:10

um what they're doing right here is this is a very high stakes game of chicken this is jason kenney betting that if he can get away with getting the leadership review in 2022 and more on that in just a moment here that he basically is

Corey 33:28

untouchable because what party in their right mind is going to drop their leader six months before an election

Corey 33:34

It happens, though. So that's what makes it an interesting game of chicken. There has been many instances where people have dropped their leader that close to an election. Britain is full of them. Spills in Australia are very common that this would occur right before an election. Leadership spills are a fun thing, by the way. We should talk about them at some point. And even here in Canada, we've seen leadership changes at the last minute before an election. Sometimes it was the leader's decision. Sometimes it was not the leader's decision. It occurs all the time. So I think that Jason Kenney, if his plan is October 2022, it's too late to get rid of me. I think that's a mistake. I believe that actually, if you're staring down certain electoral defeat with six months to go, you might be really tempted to drop your leader and try to clean the slate. So I think this might be one of those solutions that's too clever by half or be careful what you wish for. But I also believe it was dropped on a Friday evening to satisfy demands for people saying, hey, we should have some leadership review before the next election.

Corey 34:34

And he's really hoping that he could get away with moving it to 2022 and there wouldn't be a big backlash from his party saying, come on, are you nuts? We can see what you're trying to do. You're trying to put a gun to our heads. Let's do this leadership review in 2021. 21 and so i feel like there was probably a lot of sharp holding of breath when they hit send on that news release friday night now the reaction generally seems to be that it has not resulted in a mutiny within jason kenney's ranks but like i said he

Corey 35:01

he may find that this does not have the effect that he's looking for because to foreshadow your other point the ndp have been beating them in the polls from a little to a lot every single poll i have seen since november since november This is not an ambiguous point at this matter. The NDP are leading in the polls in Alberta, maybe

Corey 35:23

maybe by a lot.

Zain 35:26

Carter, I want to ask you the question I should have asked Corey, the one he answered, which I'm thankful for, which is, like, read the tea leaves here. What do you think is going on with this Friday evening announcement, this 2022 timeline? timeline. Do you feel like, to Corey's point, Corey, I want to paraphrase you just so I get it out correct, that this is like the apparatus supporting Jason Kenney? Do you sense the same thing, Stephen Carter?

Carter 35:49

Yeah, this is, I mean, Corey,

Carter 35:50

Corey, you know, this is the lesser of two evils, really. They had a choice to allow the party, the CA constituent presidents, to essentially force the leadership on

Carter 36:05

on a timeline that would not have been as beneficial to Jason Kenney, or to Corey's point about playing chicken, they could play chicken with six months to go before the election. So this

Carter 36:16

this is essentially Jason

Carter 36:19

Jason Kenney and his team saying, we can't not have a leadership review. Let's have the leadership review that is the most beneficial to us. and so you and you talked to us last week about what can a party apparatus do to manage a convention this is one of the things that they can do to manage a convention manage a a party they

Carter 36:39

they have now chosen um

Carter 36:41

um the best time for them and the worst time for the party for the leadership review they have used all the levers that they have they they could no longer use the lever of not doing anything that

Carter 36:54

that lever was removed from them and then they constructed a backstory that It said, yeah, we were going to do this anyways, because, you know, this is something we do every three years when it's written in the Constitution. This is what we're going to do.

Carter 37:04

But really, they weren't going to do it. No one expected them to do it. And now they're heading into an election.

Carter 37:11

And this was the lesser of the two evils available on a leadership in, as Corey has pointed out, maybe late 2021 or a leadership in late 2022. This, by the way, I do not believe would take the former off the table. They could still force this, but it's going to be much harder. Now the chair

Carter 37:33

chair of the conventions

Carter 37:35

conventions can say, oh, we've already got this on the agendas for 2022, so we're just going to defer that. We'll take your motion, and we're just going to redate it for that time. Thanks very much for your help. If

Zain 37:46

tries to push the agenda and the timeline. Yeah.

Carter 37:48

Yeah. Oh, it's funny that you should bring that up, saying we agree we should do a leadership. We're just going to do it here. So do you mind if we change your motion? Do you mind? Friendly amendment? That's what we'll do. Do

Zain 37:58

Do you agree with Corey that, you know, just because it's in 2022, T-minus six months, give or take, that it's not a, you know, get home free sort of ride for Kenny, that there's still danger

Zain 38:11

danger and risk here? Is that fair to say?

Carter 38:13

Well, let's say he's behind in the polls again, right?

Carter 38:15

right? Or still, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't buy the Leger 360 poll. I think that it was just the data, the delta was too big.

Carter 38:25

But let's assume that he's 10 points down, 8 points down.

Carter 38:29

What are the odds? Because keep in mind, it's not 50% plus 1, right? We long ago, Joe Clark long ago, established the benchmark for a conservative leader, well, for any leader, to survive a leadership review.

Carter 38:44

And right now, it's 60% to 70% minimum. You really have to hit the 90th percentile in order to be secure. um and if you're 10 points down even with six months to go um you have a lot of work to do you know if we

Carter 39:01

we go back to last week when we were talking about you know strong cas with the right people involved with electing the right uh delegates or however they you know the they were getting the one member one vote structure however they're going to do their their leadership review getting

Carter 39:16

getting the right people in the room i mean allison redford faced the leadership review view um right after the election and and even though she just won the election the amount of work that's required to generate a you

Carter 39:28

you know 80th point percentile

Carter 39:30

percentile victory of something is is really hard especially when you've brought together two halves of of a party right that that really don't like one another it's this is a very very dangerous uh game of chicken uh to to steal Corey's characterization.

Zain 39:47

For my what I recall, it was Klein who said he needed 75% and he got something in the 50s neighborhood, which kind of 55, right, which led to so these numbers like this three quarter benchmark 60 to three quarters kind of seems to be the Alberta sort of standard, so to speak, Corey, let's talk a little bit more about the risk, but perhaps do it in a slightly different manner. If I'm some of the people that is circling around Jason Kenney's leadership, leadership. Maybe I have an agenda of defeating him. Maybe I have an agenda of myself wanting to be a leader, Brian Jean, or others, right? You know, what am I doing right now? I now know the date. I now know that they've kind of put this out there. What changes? What am I doing? How am I thinking about this? Because you can sure expect that some people are now circling, you know, October 2022 in their calendar and then having a work back plan of their strategy to either defeat beat Jason Kenney or figure out how they kind of take hold six months before before an election? What do you think? No, I

Corey 40:46

I think no, they're not doing a work back strategy from six months from now that that cannot be their plan. That is not their plan. The reason why there were sharp holdings of breath, I am sure in the UCP party office and in the leader's office when this was dropped on a Friday night, dropped on a Friday night, because he didn't necessarily want to make a big play of it was he wanted to see if the constituency associations thought that was enough. Or if they thought, no, we've got to have a leadership review now. We need to understand where the leader is now. So if I am looking to push the premier out of his seat, and I actually don't think there are too, too many people who are openly trying to do that. I think we're still in a phase where it's like, you know, I like Jason, but that's always the first stage in a bit of a leadership push here. But what you are doing is you're working the phones and saying like, yeah, I mean, I mean, we all see what he's trying to do here. I think we – look, we're in a real jam. These numbers could get really locked. Look at the NDP. Look at their leads right now. We need a leadership review now. And again, because we're still in that, I like the guy. But if only to get everybody a lot more serious about what needs to be done, right? And you frame it almost along the lines of the leadership review is what will make Jason Kenney make the changes we need.

Corey 41:58

We need caucus to have more power. We need the ability of constituencies to be stronger in order to kind of govern their own way. We need to be more conservative. We need to – whatever it is, whatever your ax to grind is, you make that the reason to have a leadership review because it becomes less about pushing

Corey 42:15

pushing him out and more about the

Corey 42:18

the appropriateness of pushing off the leadership review and what the leadership review allows the party to hold over the leader. This is your way to yank that chain in. So you're working the phones now if that's your motivation. Yeah, I mean, I am and I'm doing it kind of casually like, hey, what do you think about all this? Hey, Jim, president in who

Corey 42:36

who the fuck knows, just

Corey 42:37

just giving them a conversation. Was this good enough for you? I know you had concerns and you just information gathering first, understand whether this was enough for people. Then you start asking for something that is, let's be clear, you

Corey 42:50

you are not asking for a new leader at this moment. You are asking for a leadership review because the leadership review allows you to put pressure on the leader.

Corey 42:59

It's a pretty natural step after that, but that is how you get your foot in the door.

Zain 43:03

And just for our non-Alberta listeners, when Corey said, who the fuck knows, that's in fact one of our rural ridings here. Most people don't know that, but it is actually the name of one of our rural ridings.

Corey 43:11

ridings. Yeah, it's a large northern one. It's really nice. Yeah, yeah.

Zain 43:14

Beautiful this time of year. It was renamed

Zain 43:15

renamed about 10 years ago. It's actually underrated in terms of its scenery. Great rural riding, one of our 87 strong. Carter, over to you. What do you think? If you're trying to undermine

Zain 43:28

undermine Jason Kenney's leadership, if you're trying to dislodge him from the leadership, if you're not satisfied,

Zain 43:35

Corey makes a good point. You're not circling October and working back from then. You're probably doing this stuff now in a casual way, testing out the appetite, maybe trying to stoke those flames. What do you think? This

Carter 43:44

This is not the party that I joined.

Carter 43:46

You know, I mean, Jason

Carter 43:47

Jason Kenney promised us a grassroots guarantee. Do you remember the grassroots guarantee? I watched him sign it. He signed it and he said that we would, in fact, be the leaders that he would listen to. So, Corey, I'm calling you. I'm asking you as our CA president and get the fuck out of here or wherever the fuck it was. I don't remember because it was three seconds ago and my memory. Well, that's another

Zain 44:07

another one. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah,

Carter 44:09

a little bit more controversial. Most Southern,

Carter 44:11

the Southern, most Southern. It

Zain 44:13

pretty much to get those people from Montana to never come back. Yeah.

Carter 44:16

But the, you know, the

Carter 44:18

the grassroots guarantee says that we have the choice when we do the leadership review. And again, another top down structure, another top down dissertation from on high, where we bring in the leader who tells us, what is this, Alison Redford again? Is this Alison Redford? Is this who we elected? Did we elect Ed Stelmack? Are we going to be told in the second year to look in the mirror? Is this what we've asked for? Because this is the PC tactics, not the wild rose tactics. Yeah,

Corey 44:46

I thought we were the party of fixed election dates. We

Carter 44:49

We were the party of fixed election dates, and that means fixed leadership reviews as well. We're the party of grassroots. We're the party that brings from the bottom the suggestions to the top, and we damn well better be heard. And I don't think we're being heard right now. The pandemic over-response, now they want us to get vaccinated. Are you fucking kidding me? and if you don't think that there's like 25 other

Carter 45:13

other piece you know uh i

Carter 45:15

i regret playing along

Corey 45:16

along for even a second yeah it's

Carter 45:17

it's pretty good though hey yeah

Zain 45:20

carter carter's gonna if they make us get vaccinations i'm moving from get the fuck out of here to who the fuck knows right like i'm moving from the south to the north that's what's gonna happen uh guys how how real is the risk here

Zain 45:32

for for jason getting we've talked about these hypothetical situations like do you feel like this move Friday, holding your breath to Corey's point, has done enough to reduce the risk for Jason Kenney's leadership, at least from an internal party level? We'll get to the poll numbers in a second. But from an internal party level, do you feel like this has reduced the risk or kind of raised

Corey 45:52

raised the stakes in some weird way?

Corey 45:54

I think it has reduced the risk. My sense is the reaction has been fairly fine. I don't know they were facing a boil on leadership review to begin But this takes some of the pressure off because now there is a leadership review on the books. It is coming, even if that is a bit down the road. However, it

Corey 46:12

also means you've traded pieces here. Think about it like a game of chess. You no longer have that piece on the board. And you no longer have the ability just to absolutely butcher and mix my metaphors. You no longer have that release valve available to you. So if there is another thing that occurs and everybody gets really mad and everybody says there ought to be a leadership review and constituency associations start driving towards having a leadership review using the mechanisms within their party bylaws, you

Corey 46:38

you can't point to the fact that you've got a leadership review already on the book saying where they all know that. Like you don't get to set a leadership review again unless it's an earlier date. And at that point, you have truly, truly failed. So like

Corey 46:51

like anything in politics, ultimately, what you are trying to do in the internal party machinations is you are trying to, or even government for that matter, is you're trying to maximize your range of options and not get cornered, right?

Corey 47:05

right? Because you never know what the future is going to bring for you in this business. And the minute you have sort of traded, you've closed the door, you've locked it, and you can no longer go through it, or you can no longer use that tactic again, that's not a good day. That doesn't mean it's a bad day, but ultimately it means you have fewer options in the future, which means there may be a bad day down the road.

Zain 47:25

Carter, let's move on to the

Zain 47:29

the NDP poll leads. You talked about one of the polls. So, Corey, you phrased it much better than I did up front. They're either leading by a lot or they're leading by a little, but in these polls, they are leading, the NDP, that is, Rachel, not leading

Corey 47:40

leading the NDP. All of them. All of them we've seen since November. And if you include – so there was one poll in November that showed the UCP leading. There was one poll in November showing the NDP leading. Let's just take all of those polls. If you look at the polls where the NDP are leading, and there are six now since November, the minimum lead is three, the

Corey 47:59

the mean average lead is 10, and the median lead is seven. Those are big, real leads. And by the way, the bigger the sample size, the bigger the NDP lead has been. So generally, the better the poll, the

Corey 48:10

the better the NDP lead. Now, I know Carter is saying he doesn't believe the Leger poll because it was about 21 points lead. I

Corey 48:17

I will point out that's pretty close to the Main Street poll, which was about a 17-point lead.

Corey 48:22

You know, this is starting to feel a lot to me like in 2015, the denial that was out there, like, oh, those numbers just don't seem right. It doesn't seem possible. Like, yeah, I see that the NDP are leading there, but realistically, we think the PCs are going to win, right? Right.

Corey 48:37

It's got that energy at this point. Like, open your eyes, open your ears. What is it telling us? The NDP are leading by a lot in this province right now. Now,

Zain 48:45

Carter, react to that. And then I've got one major strategic question I want you guys to grapple with that I have about this. But, Carter, I want you to react and jump into what Corey's saying. The

Carter 48:54

The NDP are leading.

Carter 48:56

I'm not sure that by all I'm disputing is by a lot. And on top of that, I mean, it was Corey who just two podcasts ago said, you know, don't don't overly rely on the top lines in the national polls. And

Carter 49:08

And the same thing happens in the provincial poll. You have to be able to break this down into

Carter 49:12

into little into little groups. Now, traditionally, we talk about the thirds, right? Calgary, Edmonton, and then rural. I think, and what I'll be watching for, is the break between north rural and south rural. And if we had a pool, like if I was to do a pool right now, I'd probably do a pool with a much larger sample size, and then oversample rural Alberta to see what's going on. Because if Alberta starts to split and the north of the Red Deer River starts to split, then Kenny's

Carter 49:44

Kenny's got a really big problem. And trying to figure it out is going to be – right now he's trying to figure out how to win back Calgary, right? Win back Calgary is a challenge. But trying to win back Calgary while not losing north rural is – especially the donut ridings around Edmonton. um then you really got a trade-off and this is where part this is where governments really get into trouble not when they're fighting a single front uh but when they're fighting two fronts and you know that's kind of where christy clark was in bc um you know when when doug ford wins in in uh in ontario he was able to open up multiple fronts multiple places that he could start to win and i and arguably that's where um aaron o'toole faces the biggest challenge he He hasn't opened any fronts, right? So this is where I think in Alberta, you're starting to see an opposition party that

Carter 50:38

that has opened one front for sure, and

Carter 50:40

and is now about to open a second. And that's what I'd really like to see some more numbers and some more detailed breakouts.

Zain 50:46

So my core question is this.

Zain 50:49

Is there any value for the NDP to not necessarily own their lead in the polls, to almost ensure that they maintain underdog status? status, because I want to ask about the risk of perhaps owning the fact that they're up in the polls and kind of giving that underdog status back to the governing party. And so how do you, if you're the NDP, play this? Maybe that's my top line question. The first part is probably my editorial thought that I'm inserting as a question. But if you're the NDP, how do you want to play this? Do you want to own the fact that you're leading? Do you want to kind of be like, oh, polls don't matter and only use it to fundraise? Like, what's your strategic guardrails and Balancing Act that you're looking at almost like to the date, two years now, to election day, right? Like we're sitting in March, we're probably gonna have this election writ period probably in and around this week in two years. So like, Corey, what are you doing if you're the NDP? What are sort of the guardrails or principles you're considering when you're talking about consistent poll results putting you ahead, but you're still the opposition party?

Corey 51:46

Yeah, so own your lead. I think it's important that people know that the NDP can be government again. That's one of those things that we just hear too much in alberta can't despite the fact they were the last fucking government it just it blows my mind how many people who think like oh the ndp can't win in alberta you need people to know that the ndp can win in alberta uh so own your lead but also own the fact that it's a snapshot that things can change over the next couple years we've got to keep the pressure up we got to do uh you know we got to keep moving towards this goal also own the regional disparity that steven talked about yes we have a lead in the polls but you've got to know that It's a bit uneven. Calgary is a battleground. Southern Alberta is a battleground. Northern Alberta is a battleground. And make sure that you are building up a story where you can say, we

Corey 52:30

we want to fight everywhere. And we're leading overall, but we've got to win everywhere. It's not enough just to sort of lead overall. We don't win the vote count and win government. This is now the time to – this is the time for all good new Democrats to take arms. arms um but that first part is really important to me because you've got to you're gonna have a bunch of people as soon as you see like the the ucp is down but the the ndp is not up as much as the ucp is down saying like oh see there's this desire for this middle option or whatnot and you just gotta quelch that that nonsense uh this is uh this is one of those things where um

Corey 53:10

the the the biggest risk that both the NDP and the UCP have are splitting. I think that maybe we are facing 2023 to be a real clash of civilizations election between these two extremes. Extremes is not fair, I think, to either side, but like these two polls, and that that is where we're going to see the

Corey 53:30

the battle take place.

Zain 53:33

Carter, last time we talked about this, I believe was one of the first polls we'd seen in a long time with the NDP up. And I asked a very similar question, what should did the NDP do with this lead? And you said something like, and paraphrasing once again, Carter, so correct me if I'm wrong, if you remember, use it to fundraise, use it to create the organizing class, use it to incubate candidates and political organizers, use the big momentum to say that you're the only choice, and that drive it with outcomes, people, time, money, get those commitments in the can. We're now four or five months away from that, two years to an election. interaction is the advice the same is the advice different and and the top line question are you are you owning the lead are you shying away from it a bit i'm

Carter 54:14

i'm trying to prove that we're the government waiting you know if if this is my party and i'm running the party i'm trying to show that we're the party and waiting we're not just or the government waiting we're not just the we're not just the opposition party we're not just the ones that stand up and scream about everything that the the ucp is doing wrong we're instead putting up contrasts of what it is that we value that we would be doing differently and then i would be trying to do that in such a fashion that it shows regional strength right

Carter 54:43

right so i would find those you know so say there's a couple of former mlas that want to run again in calgary find

Carter 54:48

find them bring them back make them make them stars remind people how much you love they love them obviously not enough to

Carter 54:55

to re-elect them but find

Carter 54:57

find those new candidates dates put them up in the front in the front window start you know put start doing things to show regional strength right now again i'm looking at the ndp i see unbelievable strength in edmonton um we

Carter 55:11

we have unabashed uh adoration of shannon phillips on this podcast um you know she she's great in lethbridge uh where's the rest right um where's joe cc i mean he the he did did the budget critique did

Carter 55:27

didn't ask he's not the budget

Corey 55:28

budget critic he's not the what

Carter 55:30

is he the finance yeah

Carter 55:33

where is he where's the budget you know where

Carter 55:35

where where are that was

Corey 55:37

was shannon phillips ironically to your previous

Carter 55:42

um shut up shut up my

Carter 55:44

my point is this we we needed to see we need to see more of the mlas from in calgary we need to see more more organization from them in Calgary. We need to see more organization from them in the North. We need to see more potential candidates in the North. Get all those people together and get it done.

Zain 56:03

Actually, you know what? Can I pause you for a second? I've got a question for Carter. I'm sorry, Corey. Yeah, sure.

Zain 56:09

Carter, how does that reconcile with the Stephen Carter run-from-behind strategy as the underdog, always wanting to do that? Or is this an exception to that case? Or Or am I bastardizing one of the Stephen Carter rules here?

Carter 56:21

The Stephen Carter rule of running from behind is when you've got a candidate that's behind, you've got to run from behind.

Carter 56:26

When you've got a candidate that's in front, you've got to run from in front. These are different experiences, different strategies. And this strategy that the NDP is going to be running is things were better then, right? Things were economically not great. but my school was open i wasn't worried about it i was you know the cancer centers were getting built the the you know we're still getting built now but everything's a fight now the green line would be built right that's

Zain 56:58

that's no i get it carter it's a

Carter 57:00

a better time it's

Zain 57:01

it's good jason kenney wants to take take to take you back to the 1970s we want to take you back to 2015 that is the question of the next election uh

Carter 57:12

you want to jump in a rough episode for me no no

Zain 57:14

no this is good You're so mean to me. You're making good sense here. Corey, jump in here.

Corey 57:20

Well, look, a couple of things I want people to keep in mind here, because we've been talking about these horse races, but there's actually the stuff underneath that matters a lot, too. And that's demographics, and that's what is Alberta, and where is Alberta's natural resting place on these things when you sort of pull the politics out of all of it.

Corey 57:38

So two days before the 2015 Alberta election, I was on a CBC panel with a pollster and a pundit, and we were asked to predict what was going to happen. And it was funny because the pollster had the NDP up by, I think, 15 points in his own poll, and he predicted a PC majority, right? I mean, that was sort of the mentality that people had. That is Alberta. Alberta goes PC. The guy didn't even believe his own poll. And I said NDP majority and they immediately jumped on me, my other two panelists, and they said, well, where are these seats coming from? Very similar to what Stephen said about, yeah,

Corey 58:10

yeah, but there's regions and we've got to think about that. Well, the reality is if you're up by that much, the answer is everywhere. The seats will come from everywhere. That is a huge majority. uh and we are kind of if these polls are sort of borne out in the next couple like the reality is the ndp are are back in the game in basically every region in this province and so that has got to scare the pants off jason kenney but the reason i mentioned all of this is that

Corey 58:36

2015 wasn't a huge surprise to everybody a lot of us were watching the demographics over the past 15 20 years almost just waiting and maybe the 2015 election we always said was an extreme manifestation of a trend. Maybe it was a little bit sooner than everybody anticipated that trend would hit. But it was very on point with where Alberta had come to from where it had been.

Corey 58:58

Let me tell you a tale of Alberta. And it's a different tale than the tale that Albertans tell themselves even. You know, this is not this small province of Western free ideals that people often pretend we are. Even people here in this province, people like the government, both the current and And the previous would say things like, well, Albertans want X or Albertans want Y. And they would be those stereotypes of Albertans that keep government out of my face. Let's not get too

Corey 59:26

too involved in their business over here. Let's give them options like private education and let's not get too far into the health care business. The tale I want to tell you, though, is it is a province of four and a half million people with two major centers, each of over a million people. ethnically diverse alberta as a whole is about 25 visible minority calgary about 40 edmonton about the same and it's got the same pressures and it's got the same conversations it's got the same political arguments as all of these other places across canada in that sense too so when you strip the fairy tale out of it all and you just look at the demographics the reality is it might not have been an accidental NDP government, it might be an accidental UCP government. And the question Jason Kenney needs to ask himself now and ask himself hard is, what do you do if everything I've just said is true? What if Alberta is far more moderate than we've been cosplaying for the past two years? And if it is far more moderate than that, you've got to pivot hard and you've got to pivot now, because your problem won't just be holding your leadership, it will be holding in your premiership and holding government for the UCP writ large.

Zain 1:00:37

Excellent points. I have one final question. I don't even want to get into this, but I'm going to because, Corey, you mentioned the term clash of civilizations, as in perhaps the frame for our next election.

Zain 1:00:49

Perhaps there's something to consider around the class of civilizations for the NDP and the coalition they need to build. And this could open up a can of worms on this podcast and otherwise, but I'm happy to go here for a second. at. Just to get your initial thoughts, overblown that the NDP's coalition that they need to build their big tent of anywhere from the new, I shouldn't say the new, but the now furthermore emboldened vocal left in Alberta to the former PC center-right, can they exist under one banner? I know they did in 2015, but

Zain 1:01:20

but it's perhaps a different time. So just general thoughts on that. We can dig into it and we'll have to. We'll have to as we get into more. But Carter, Carter, maybe I'll go to you first for like general thoughts about the PCs were always a big tent party, but they were the big tent party with a group of people that fell in line. Power was what they, you know, kind of, as you've said, is calcified towards. This seems a little different, the coalition that the NDP is trying to build. Am I overplaying it or is this a serious challenge, an organizing challenge for the NDs as they head into the election two years from now?

Carter 1:01:50

It's an organizing challenge, to be sure, because you're, you know, your most dedicated volunteers often come from the flanks, right? Right. The same thing happens to the conservatives. The social conservatives are often the most dedicated volunteers. So that does present a problem. But let's be realistic. Rachel Notley was premier for four years. We saw her govern. She did not govern from the far left. She governed maybe a little less pragmatically than I would like, but certainly a lot more pragmatically than than maybe the left would have liked. You know, I remember Brian Mason signing the 3P,

Carter 1:02:26

3P, you know, to build the ring road, which the NDP had been against forever as a needless privatization of the system. But he did so because he was under time pressure and he needed to get it done. And it was the thing that needed to happen. And it was a decision that he made that

Carter 1:02:43

that I'm sure must have stuck in his craw. He'd

Carter 1:02:45

He'd been arguing against it for eight years. but he did it because it was the right thing to do in the moment in the time and

Carter 1:02:52

it strikes me that the ndp government for the most part governed like that so if

Carter 1:02:57

if rachel notley is the leader of that party and she is in fact the leader of the party then it shouldn't be a problem um where it becomes a problem is if she allows people from outside alberta to lead the party or you know know campaigners like they did the 2015 campaign with outsiders um because that's all they had and now it's you know 2019 there was a lot more insiders and now 2023 um i would argue that it should be done entirely by albertans um bringing in all the various flanks that will comprise uh the ndp base gory

Zain 1:03:34

gory the big tent ndp challenge overblown am i overblowing it or is it real real from an organizing perspective to assemble that coalition if they want to be successful in the next couple of years? It's

Corey 1:03:45

It's real, but it's not the biggest challenge they face. We are in a time that is driven more by negative partisanship than positive partisanship. I think just being the best option versus the UCP is probably what's going to hold these people together, as long as people are not complete idiots. And by that, I mean actively attacking attacking people within the tent or people condoning attacks within the tent. Rachel Notley's job is going to have to be tamping

Corey 1:04:10

tamping a lot of that down and just saying, we don't need this nonsense. The real opponents are across the way. The real opponents are the UCP. We all want the same thing here. I think that will be fairly manageable over the next bit. There will always be flare ups. There will always be, you know, kind of random dramas and there will be people who are just, you know, really far outside the mainstream attacking people for being too in the the mainstream that

Corey 1:04:34

shit goes on that shit is not helpful for creating a coalition but i don't think it's going to shatter the coalition i think it will be a problem after the next election when you don't have negative partisanship working for you again because all of a sudden you're going to have big chunks of your coalition perhaps more likely to float away and join another negative partisanship coalition saying well i don't like them or i was excluded in this sense and that is something that um ultimately like you don't borrow problems from the future you don't need to worry too much about that but if uh if i'm premier rachel notley day one of term two i'm thinking about that and i'm thinking about how i make that coalition durable over the long term we're

Zain 1:05:16

we're going to leave that segment there moving on to our next segment our over under and our lightning round stephen carter are you ready i've

Carter 1:05:22

i've never been more ready that's

Carter 1:05:24

that's saying your mic

Zain 1:05:25

mic is held up the wiring Hiring your house is perfect. The dogs haven't barked since that one time. How excellent. She was sent

Carter 1:05:32

sent to the bedroom. She was sent to the bedroom. That's what happens in this house when you bark.

Zain 1:05:37

Stephen Carter, overrated, underrated leadership reviews.

Carter 1:05:41

Oh, underrated. They're really, really a big deal. You

Carter 1:05:45

You know, in Great Britain, of course, you're taken out by your caucus, right? The caucus votes and you're done. So you have a list of the names of the people who were there and you have a relationship with them. And you have tools to manage those relationships, the caucus whip and all those types of things.

Carter 1:06:01

Here, especially with the one-member, one-vote structures and these leadership reviews, now all of a sudden every riding, every constituency becomes its own stakeholder group. And they can very easily, as we discussed a couple episodes ago, be taken over by right-wingers or by left-wingers or by special interest groups. And

Carter 1:06:22

And they don't give a shit about you. And you have to try and keep them all on track. And your MLAs, even if you're a majority government, you don't have MLAs in every seat. You've got orphan ridings. You've got places with significant problems. You've got values problems. So for me, they're totally underrated.

Carter 1:06:41

underrated. They're hard. They're very hard.

Zain 1:06:45

Corey, leadership review is overrated or underrated in your mind?

Corey 1:06:48

I think they are generally overrated. um

Corey 1:06:50

um people before every single leadership review there's the breathless oh my god what percent will they get and very few of them actually result in big shockers we've mentioned Klein about four different times that's one you

Corey 1:07:03

you know I guess Mulcair end of list after those two but that that's sort of it right because even when we think about leaders who have then lost their leadership less than a year later when we think about Ed Stelmack here in Alberta when we think about allison redford here in alberta they

Corey 1:07:18

they tend to do just fine on the leadership review still because that

Carter 1:07:21

that was so much work to do just fine though so much work to do just fine that's

Corey 1:07:28

that's okay but like ultimately the end product that people see and that the public saw it

Corey 1:07:33

it was not it was not what they were billed in in kind of the columns that were in the lead-up to it where everybody said oh my god what could happen here so that's not just overrated for sure Not to say that there are not moments where they are of significant consequence.

Zain 1:07:49

Coy, I'm going to stick with you. Who will be the star of the WE Ethics Committee tomorrow, i.e. Monday, if you're listening to this on Sunday evening when we're recording? Will it be Mark, will it be Craig, or will it be Charlie Angus?

Corey 1:08:01

I think it will be Craig.

Zain 1:08:05

Very interesting. Stephen Carter, who will it be? Who will be the star of the Ethics Committee testimony, Mark, Craig, or Charlie Angus?

Carter 1:08:12

Those are my three choices. Those

Zain 1:08:13

Those are your three choices. It's a multiple choice question, Stephen Carter. I

Zain 1:08:17

I know you always like to... God

Zain 1:08:20

God damn it, I don't even hear what you said. I don't care. You said something and it wasn't one of those three. That's all I know. Carter,

Corey 1:08:25

I'm going to stick with you. Stephen

Zain 1:08:27

overrated, underrated, the NDP lead in the polls. The Alberta NDP lead in the polls, I want to be absolutely clear.

Zain 1:08:33

Overrated or underrated? I

Carter 1:08:35

I mean, you certainly would, you prefer that to losing, but you're two years out from an election. And this is the ebb and flow of a party that just was in government. So I think that it's probably overrated, because the election doesn't happen on their timeline.

Zain 1:08:50

Corey, overrated, underrated, the Alberta NDP lead, consistent

Zain 1:08:53

consistent lead, we should say, in

Zain 1:08:55

in the polls. It

Corey 1:08:56

is two years to an election.

Corey 1:08:58

A lot can happen. A lot will happen between now and when we go to the polls. But underrated. I think people both in this province and outside of this province are in denial about a very simple fact, which is that Rachel Notley's New Democrats are more popular than Jason Kenney's UCP.

Zain 1:09:15

gory i'm going to stick with you on this one over under on the number three over under on the number three the amount of times the term velcro comes up in tomorrow's we charity testimony over

Corey 1:09:26

over for over for sure i would take the over on 30 zane you

Zain 1:09:31

you take the over on 30 i would take the over on 30

Zain 1:09:34

now we now we're just playing now we're playing for for real over on 30 i'm not even giving you odd steven carter over on 30 are you taking it i

Carter 1:09:41

i am willing to bet that at least one liberal mp walks in with velcro shoes i'm

Carter 1:09:46

i'm thinking a little late instead of laces it's going to be velcro velcro is going to be the topic of the day you

Zain 1:09:52

you think over on three oh yeah wait i'm over it's

Corey 1:09:57

goodness shit now i'm less sure but i'm going to stick with my answer

Zain 1:10:02

And the last question here that I have for you, it's very much back to Alberta, a one sentence strategy. This is tough because of the complexity of this issue. But the one sentence guiding principle, if you are advising Justice Minister Casey Maddow here in Alberta, in terms of what he needs to do with the situation in Lethbridge, what would your advice be? Corey, he stepped in forcefully on the specific situation. But if you're giving him free advice in terms of how to deal with the situation, what are you telling him?

Zain 1:10:31

Clean house, no mercy.

Zain 1:10:33

Stephen Carter, would you agree?

Carter 1:10:35

Yes, but that was two sentences.

Carter 1:10:38

You're adding your own? I had a semicolon.

Carter 1:10:40

semicolon. A semicolon? Yeah. You

Carter 1:10:41

You know, the semicolon is very flexible. Very flexible. It

Zain 1:10:44

It is incredibly flexible, just like headlines. Very flexible. Stephen Carter, if you are giving one sentence philosophical guardrail style advice to Casey Maddow, Justice Minister here, what is it going to be?

Carter 1:10:58

Be very open and transparent. Make sure the investigation is open and transparent so that no political games were being played and no one can accuse you of political games.

Zain 1:11:09

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on Episode 924 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you next time.

Zain 1:11:24

Okay, so I'm assuming it's Barbara Streisand, but what is the Streisand effect, Corey?

Corey 1:11:29

The Streisand effect is when you protesting something brings more attention to it than it otherwise would have gotten. And this comes from when, like I'm going from memory here, but Barbara Streisand has a mansion in Malibu, I believe, on the side of a hill. And there was a picture of it. And she freaked out about the picture. She sent a cease and desist or something to that effect, asked for it to be taken off the Internet. And her asking for it to be taken off the Internet resulted in everybody going to look at her house. Because why did she want it taken off the Internet? So when we talk about this Bigfoot family film, nobody gave a shit about this movie. All of a sudden, everyone's like, well, why is this such a big deal? And now this message that the Canadian Energy Center is so concerned about has been seen by more people than

Corey 1:12:13

than would have happened before because they needed to get 2,000 signatures on their dumb petition.

Zain 1:12:19

Stephen Carter, Barbra Streisand, overrated or underrated?

Carter 1:12:22

No such thing as overrated for Barbra Streisand. She's the best. She's the bomb. She's everything. She's underrated.

Zain 1:12:31

That's the correct answer.

Zain 1:12:32

Corey, I'm not even going to ask you because I feel like you're going to be contrarian for

Corey 1:12:35

for no reason whatsoever.

Corey 1:12:37

I honestly don't know. That's a

Carter 1:12:37

a good explanation. You did a good job.

Corey 1:12:40

Well, thanks. I honestly don't know if I could mention more than like two Barbra Streisand songs. Do you actually have an affinity for her or is it just like a –

Carter 1:12:49

Come on. No. Of course not. Yeah.

Carter 1:12:52

I just wanted to pretend like I knew something about pop culture. I don't know anything about pop culture. I'm sure people would assume at my age I would know something about Barbra Streisand. I

Carter 1:13:00

I don't know anything. There you go.

Zain 1:13:02

Is she the same person as Cher, Carter? She may be. Okay, yeah. Have you seen them in the same room together? I've never seen them together. Have you seen them at all, individually?

Carter 1:13:14

but I have seen the Queen, so

Carter 1:13:15

so I have that.

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