Episode 929: The Covid-18

Zain 0:02

This is Strategists episode 929. My name is Zain Velji, with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what is up? You see how I struggled to get the name of the podcast out there, Strategists? I barely got it out there. We've only done this 930 times. Of course, that one episode, episode zero, is where we started. Yeah, but you know, I'll get used to it at some point. I'm

Carter 0:27

just happy that we're not the only team that has difficulties internally.

Carter 0:34

everybody has to get along all the time, guys. We don't all have to get along. It's now a

Zain 0:40

time for me to read a letter.

Corey 0:43

Oh, we got a letter. Did we get letters?

Zain 0:45

Yeah, well, it's a letter I'm writing to you to indicate my dissatisfaction. We also get a pile of letters from, let me just check right here. Actually, literally, we have a pile of letters. from this company called WestJet. And they're telling me to not mention them on air. And I don't know why. Because if

Zain 1:03

if you book right now, you

Zain 1:06

you can get an awesome rate to Thailand. I don't know why they don't want me to mention that. I'm sure you can. You could probably get an awesome rate there. I don't know if they fly there, but you know.

Corey 1:17

long as you're the one getting the letters, man. As long as you're the one getting the letters.

Corey 1:21

I can see Corey's very pleased with this how are you doing cory i'm doing i'm doing well it's been seven days since we last recorded because of course you had to celebrate easter and yeah let

Zain 1:31

let me tell you something let me

Corey 1:33

me tell you something

Zain 1:34

one of the prophets okay

Corey 1:37

we have a lot of but i think one of the major points of distinction is not believing that easter was a thing that happened so still very curious and also good religious information for our heathen listeners out there and

Carter 1:49

and probably you too

Carter 1:51

Yeah, well, I'm also a heathen, so it worked out well for me.

Carter 1:54

Let me tell you something.

Zain 1:55

Corey would start a podcast on any subject if we gave him the time and the runway. And we have in the past, and it's been another disaster.

Zain 2:06

Who could forget Corey's podcast on several distinct topics? I know, Carter, you remember some of them extremely fondly.

Carter 2:13

I mean, you know, his one on ditch digging and water spreading was great. He has experience in both of those. he's excellent at both ditch digging and water spreading men

Zain 2:23

men have very few skills but uh high confidence in every single one of them are

Carter 2:30

you gonna start us or are we just gonna ramble for like four minutes carter

Zain 2:32

carter this is a podcast between two friends you and i okay let's

Zain 2:38

let's move it on to the headlines our first headline comes to us from the hill okay

Zain 2:45

okay i'm trying to think about how i want to read this and where i want to put the quotes on it because of course people can't read these themselves so this article comes to us from the hill quote matt gates wants to date your child unquote billboard appears in florida you see why i have to do that

Zain 3:01

the people would be like wait does it say child billboard is that what the billboard says no the billboard stops that matt gates wants to date your child that's

Zain 3:11

that's what the billboard says and it it appears in florida now of course you may have been asking zane how did you find this did you do your standard search of florida this came up correct but this appeared in multiple places because i also searched matt gates came up there uh and of course as you know i'm a big fan of bringing in traditional advertising approaches so billboard so this was a a intersection of three venn diagrams stephen carter you're a big fan of traditional marketing you're not a big fan fan of Matt Gaetz, and you're a big fan of the fuckery that happens in Florida. Your initial reaction when you hear this? This

Carter 3:44

This is the perfect Florida story. I mean, first of all, Matt Gaetz, come

Carter 3:48

come on. What a guy.

Carter 3:52

Really? That's your take? You

Carter 3:54

You know, I can't wait for him to go down. Because I'm

Zain 3:58

I'm saying, if the stenographer, which we do have, I don't think we've mentioned this to our listeners, we do have a stenographer that is available for our podcasts, even though many Many people ask why. But if she were to read it back, Matt Gaetz, what

Zain 4:12

what a guy. It does sound like an endorsement. It does sound like kind

Carter 4:15

kind of an endorsement. I'm going to come across the way I meant it.

Carter 4:18

But nonetheless, he's quite a piece of work. And this story is a gift that keeps on giving. Because, you know, watching assholes go down is a fantastic hobby. And one that I just can't get enough of.

Zain 4:31

Corey Hogan, Matt Gaetz wants to date your child, Billboard, appearing in Florida. Your thoughts? was

Corey 4:36

this a pro matt gates or a con matt gates billboard

Carter 4:41

do we know if matt gates himself put i need some

Corey 4:44

some details here uh that might be considered a bit of a selling proposition uh to certain audiences here and also let's be fair child can be any age carter is old as shit he's got parents he's somebody's child that's uh you know it's true maybe matt gates wants to consensually date your child who is of an appropriate age

Corey 5:04

Maybe that's what the billboard

Zain 5:05

The billboard should say. In fact, strategist listeners, we are actually beginning our new crowdfunding campaign to get a new billboard in Florida, which will of course, what was it say, Corey? You just said it there. It was a very good phraseology. It wasn't wordy at all, but I appreciated it.

Corey 5:21

You know me, I like billboards with really long, you know, run on sentences on them. Those are the most effective billboards, in my opinion.

Zain 5:28

That's good. We'll start that. Our next headline comes to us from the Star Phoenix, I do not

Zain 5:40

not speak French, but is Quebec French really different than France French? Yeah,

Corey 5:44

Yeah, it's pretty different. It's particularly, you'll find spoken, but yeah, it is different. I think that though, this is probably, I'm curious, I'd be really

Corey 5:54

really keen to talk to the person because there's also many people I know, who are from England who would fail. an english test if we provided it to them right now too you know the world is full

Zain 6:05

full on the natural extension

Corey 6:07

world is full of people who are bad at things and so maybe that's a more likely explanation at this point but no man like seriously i have been in places with quebecers and parisians who mutually

Corey 6:19

mutually unintelligible cannot understand each other so

Zain 6:22

so you're telling me it's not called france french that's

Zain 6:25

that's not what i should call it it's

Corey 6:26

generally parisian french is what we We say, I don't know, maybe Metropolitan French. I don't know. I could look this up. But instead, I'll just confidently suggest that I know what the answer is.

Zain 6:35

We've literally talked about this with your many podcasts that you've had under our banner. Stephen Carter, man from France, fails Quebec French

Zain 6:45

French exam for newcomers. What do you think?

Carter 6:48

Well, I'm assuming, of course, that this is just a person who can't take tests. You know, like to Corey's point, there's lots of people who are like that. But it is more fun to bang on both France and Quebec. So let's just keep doing that and assume that Quebec's test is horrible and people from France can't speak French. It's a podcast

Zain 7:05

podcast with zero ambitions to grow its listener base. I think that is the right thing to do. That is absolutely correct, Carter. Carter,

Zain 7:11

Carter, next headline comes to us from the Moscow Times. I want a quick hit on this one. Putin named Russia's hottest man.

Zain 7:25

Okay, our next headline comes to us from Newsweek. A bit of a bit of a tongue twister. McConnell in Kentucky calls for corporations to stay out of politics, then adds, I'm not talking about political contributions, of course.

Zain 7:41

Corey Hogan, Mitch McConnell, ever the, I

Zain 7:45

don't even know what I was gonna say.

Zain 7:48

Ever the shill, who clearly wants to make his intentions known on the podium. Not much self editing going on. You've given me the

Corey 7:56

the pinky finger. for

Corey 7:57

folks following along at home um

Corey 7:59

um corporate money is speech speech is protected shut the fuck up right

Corey 8:06

these these are the three things i'm supposed to reconcile into the republican worldview of corporations at this moment it was such a it was funny it was almost like a um uh i saw people describe it as arrested development i thought it was almost more like a curb your enthusiasm where there was like this creeping realization that occurred over him as he said it he's like oh wait i don't i don't actually mean stay out of politics i just mean write

Corey 8:30

write me a check and sit there and look pretty coca-cola you know it was it was um it

Corey 8:36

it was a really kind of a fascinating moment where i think even mitch mcconnell realized what a fucking hypocrite he is but that didn't stop him from diving in with both feet that's for sure carter

Carter 8:48

definitely something that should be belong on twitter where hypocrisy reigns supreme i mean mean the republicans are hypocrites shock absolute shocking i mean it is the

Carter 8:59

very nature of where they are right now just as they're marching away from their principles and this is just another principle that they're marching away from but at the same time they get um they

Carter 9:10

they they get all kinds of uh you know good things happening for them so you know whatever

Carter 9:15

whatever i mean the republicans are the republicans i i'm they're not going to be punished for this they haven't been punished for anything anything else our

Zain 9:23

next headline comes to us from the associated press where i'm going to start with you on this one uh university of kentucky mistakenly sends 500 000 acceptances that's right the university of kentucky mistakenly sent acceptance emails to 500 000 high school seniors from a program that usually accepts wait for it three dozen students a year

Corey 9:46

know uh and this is real university of kentucky is mitch mcconnell's alma mater so you know

Zain 9:52

know you know i i i i i have these threads i i run a really tight narrative thread across their show people don't realize it you know we've been called disjointed we've been called a bunch of things but i just want to take a round of applause when you weren't going to give me one anyways cory back to you well

Corey 10:08

i'm just saying that the alma mater of america's hottest man Man, you should have run a bit of a tighter shift there. That is crushing for the kids. That is really bad. I feel so sorry for the people who received this letter, got very excited just to get the Just Jokes follow-up letter that's coming from the university. And my God, can you imagine being the person who works in that registrar's office who has to deal with that? It's unreal. It's so unfortunate. unfortunate but i just i

Zain 10:38

i just want to be clear cory that uh you uh unilaterally are throning mitch mcconnell as america's hottest man is that what you've just done here yeah

Carter 10:46

yeah it's what he did okay he tied it all together he tied it all together i'm

Corey 10:52

i'm weaving these threads man i'm

Corey 10:53

yeah this is the university of kentucky america's hottest man it's all a rich tapestry i am the glue Lou, that bonds this show. You're welcome.

Zain 11:03

welcome. Stephen Carter, as someone who has a daughter in university, 500,000 of these acceptances

Carter 11:14

Yeah, I mean, I'm assuming this must have been email, right? Like, otherwise there would have been someone in the mailroom who's like, oh, this feels like a big day.

Corey 11:23

What a good year.

Carter 11:25

Holy shit, things are really looking up for the University of Kentucky. you

Carter 11:29

know i mean this pandemic hasn't been all bad i don't know like it's just it's nuts to me that this would happen but um you know it is well

Carter 11:39

well i think it's

Corey 11:40

it's probably like a company that's hired and they're just like university of kentucky must be a hell of a place i've never been some

Zain 11:49

some some mass mailing some some probably they probably get that sort of volume from the alumni night relations office anyway so they're like yeah let's just let's go our next headline comes to us from the hill georgia governor says voters in line can of course order uber eats and i need to substantiate this a bit more georgia governor brian kemp on wednesday pushed back on criticism that his state's controversial new voting law which prohibits non-election workers from providing food and waters to voters in line argued that it's fine people can just order grubhub or uber eats Great. Carter, you, of course, mentioned earlier on the fall of assholes. This gentleman, Brian Kemp, has definitely not fallen yet. But I know there's a desire amongst many to see that happen. What do you think of it when you see the contempt that this individual seems to have for his citizens and frankly, for democracy at large? well

Carter 12:44

well i mean this is great the way you've tied this together with the mcconnell thing too because obviously mcconnell's speech thing was all about that you're genius man yeah you're genius um and but but here's the challenge um the this

Carter 12:57

law is bad for many reasons the the not delivering water to people thing is is just but one of the many reasons that it's bad and it sometimes takes the light off of some of the other places that it's bad and and one of those places is that the georgia legislature can now step in and actually undo some of the election results. So unfortunately, we're talking about getting water delivered in lines and other kind of things that are seen to be very egregious. And they are. I mean, let's not take away from them. But there's also an evil underbelly to this legislation that's not getting the attention that it deserves. Basically, bottom Bottom line, on every level, this is a bad piece of legislation. I'm very pleased that the corporations exercise their democratic rights to free speech and, you know, pulled pulled out of Georgia. I mean, that's

Carter 13:49

that's good. It's good for teaching these guys a lesson.

Zain 13:54

Corey, Georgia governor says voters in line can, of course, order Grubhub or Uber Eats.

Corey 14:00

yeah i mean there's nothing i can imagine nothing less disruptive to the process of sitting in line than a bunch of uber eats guys coming being like yo yo who ordered uh who ordered this like uh i don't know i'm trying to imagine the the thing that i'd least want to have somebody eating in front of me in line uh

Zain 14:18

uh a 14 inch a 14 inch like fish sub

Corey 14:25

was gonna go with calamari but same same basic yeah

Corey 14:28

on the same wavelength here yeah um no i like this is this is the height of absurdity but i i guess it does create a bit of a loophole if you want to create a water delivery service instead of offering free water stand on a corner and have your cell phone out with a sign that says text this number for water you know i mean i don't know This is just kind of, you know, Carter's already talked about the fuckery of it all, but ultimately the problems are so much deeper than you can't give people water. It's that Georgia has just decided democracy doesn't work for the elected officials because the elected officials don't like the outcome. And that's a weird place to be, much weirder than just considering the fact that Uber Eats might be delivered to the person in front of you in line. Carter, jump in. Well,

Carter 15:15

Well, I mean, it just ignores what's supposed to happen in a democracy is that if your party is becoming less popular, you're supposed to move towards where the voters are. And

Carter 15:24

And by constantly just changing the rules and trying to change the way the game is played, the Republicans have not had to move towards the majority. It's created a very perverse kind of system in the United States. And I think that it's it's a real issue for for where we are and where we expect to get going to.

Zain 15:47

Let's move it on to our next headline. Our next headline, liberals hope for tame convention in contrast to rival parties controversies. Let's spend a little bit of time on this, because why not? Thousands of federal liberals gathered online Thursday evening, i.e. when we're recording tonight, to start their three day national convention. that promises to be downright

Zain 16:06

downright dull compared to

Zain 16:08

events held by the conservatives and new democrats uh carter what do you expect coming out of of this convention what's what's the headline is there a headline is there something interesting we can maybe talk about the carney thing if we'd like but what are you looking for when the when the liberals when the liberals meet i

Carter 16:24

i think your interview with carney was able to uh successfully take him from interesting to not interesting interesting so listen

Zain 16:33

listen it is a it is a unique skill i bring out and i have for 930 episodes now of course uh many of those you told me were being recorded but of course we had chester hosting yeah

Zain 16:44

um what is it uh 300 and some of them uh unfortunate but yes stephen carter uh please get back on track about the mark carney uh

Carter 16:54

the liberals are going to desperately try and manufacture a headline, which is kind of stands in stark contrast to the conservatives. Right.

Carter 17:01

You think they are,

Zain 17:02

though? Or do you think they're just going to say who gives a shit if this even happened? You

Carter 17:05

You don't do events like this. You don't do events like this not to come up with a bump. Right. The point of the exercise is to gain attention. Politics is about communications and communicating with the people. And if no one gives a fuck, then why did you even bothered to do it uh so you they're going to try and come up with something um i will say that i have a lot of empathy and sympathy for the person trying to come up with something uh because it would appear that the uh the country of canada only has a couple things on our mind and and one of them is not uh the liberal virtual

Carter 17:39

online that's happening right now as we speak i mean i

Carter 17:43

i haven't watched any have you guys watched any no

Zain 17:45

no no i haven't watched anything cory do you you think they're going to try to come out with a headline of some sort? And maybe I'll expand on that. If you think so, what do you think they should try to make it be?

Corey 17:57

They're definitely going to try to find a headline out of all of this.

Corey 18:03

Carter's exactly right. That's the whole intent. And I also think they're going to smugly be looking for the contrast with the conservative convention that got a

Corey 18:12

a different type of headline, right? I mean, I'm

Corey 18:14

I'm sure if they had a way to of an angle that they would love to have a resolution that passes with 99 of the vote that climate change is real and we're going to do something about it right and maybe an emergent resolution on the floor that'd be fucking fun you should do that liberals if you haven't been considering doing it already and um the uh the the fact of the matter is they've they've put together a bit of a star-studded cast uh for this to to help prop them up on some of the areas where i think i've argued on this on this show that they've been a little weak or a little vulnerable such as the economy. Having Mark Carney come and talk about, you know, a plan to grow the economy is pretty smart on that front. Certainly a lot of credibility with the Bay Street crowd. The other thing, of course, they're going to be talking a lot about, and this has been reported on a few senses, is election readiness, getting ready for whenever this election comes.

Corey 19:04

Talk has oscillated a bit between,

Corey 19:08

between, you know, spring or not. I've been pretty steadfast. Why Why the hell wouldn't it be spring if you're the liberals? Because the fall is not necessarily going to look any better. Hearing that people are starting to get quite nervous about the idea of going in the spring and that the budget would have been a trigger but maybe is not going to be a trigger now.

Corey 19:26

Don't know. Lots of noise. Lots of chatter around there. I'm not willing to back away from the spring prediction at this point because I don't want to be the seesaw that is Stephen Carter on these matters. Oh,

Carter 19:35

Oh, I'm running away from the spring. I'm running away. I'm back and forth all the time.

Corey 19:42

But I will say that as much as you might get cold feet when you are staring down vaccination problems, lockdowns in Ontario, COVID restrictions heightened everywhere, saying how in the world do we go to an election if Ontario and Quebec are in the state that they're in, if you're the Liberal Party of Canada, right?

Corey 20:02

You go to a convention, you come out of it feeling good, you get a little swagger, you've talked about election readiness for a few days, these things start to feel a little more inevitable, that pendulum kind of swings back. So it will be interesting. It will be very interesting to sort of watch their tone and tenor coming out of it and the tone and tenor of the members who are responsible for election readiness and carrying it on. Because you can really kind of create momentum accidentally in these moments, too, in the name of being prepared.

Zain 20:28

Carter, can we talk about Carney's strategy for a second?

Zain 20:31

Should he come out

Zain 20:34

out as a liberal?

Corey 20:37

um you know my

Carter 20:39

friend ken bosengold says this would be the worst thing in the history of mankind um i'm like mark carney's a still a fairly young man uh you know he's not and you know he's he's not ancient he could he has a future ahead of him and and my thinking is we shouldn't be discouraging people from seeking uh uh to serve so um if he wishes to come out as a liberal i think he should Should he

Zain 21:03

he do it at this event? Let me be more clear. Should he do it at this event when he speaks?

Carter 21:09

Only if he wants to seek a nomination somewhere. Only if he's kind of got one lined up with the prime minister. I mean, this wouldn't be a spur of the moment type of thing. If he wants to be a liberal in the next election and seek a seat, I mean, wouldn't it be something if he ran an Edmonton center? That would be spectacular. Let's make a call. Let's make that happen. You know, he's from Alberta, theoretically. It would be fantastic. He could change the way that we view the election in Alberta for sure. But otherwise, no, I don't think so. He's got time. He can nose around the Liberal Party for quite some time before he ever has to announce to lead the Liberal Party. Because I think that's his end game. I think that the end game isn't just to be the MP from Edmonton Center, which is now where I've decided that he's running.

Zain 22:01

Very quick, zero to 60, Stephen Carter style ramp

Zain 22:04

ramp up there. Yeah,

Carter 22:05

Yeah, exactly. I heard a rumor. I heard a rumor Mark Carney's running an Edmonton Center. I heard it on a podcast. So yeah, it's probably, I would think that he's got time if he wants to wait, too. So no rush. And he doesn't strike me as the type of person who lurches into a decision the way that I might, for example.

Zain 22:26

Corey, should Mark Carney come out as a liberal when he gives a speech to the liberal convention?

Corey 22:32

I almost think it's a distinction without a difference.

Corey 22:50

Like, he's going to stand there and be like, and I'm here to tell you I am a liberal. Like, what the hell does that look like? And why would that help? If anything, wouldn't it make sense to have somebody who's endorsing, who's from more of a neutral voice, insofar as you can play that card? And listen, here in Alberta, parachuting in from out east might be a great way to become premier, but it won't get you elected as a liberal MP. So I don't think he's going to run. I

Carter 23:23

I heard it on a podcast, and it would be done in this route. Corey, I've heard it on a podcast,

Carter 23:30

he'd do it in his scrum it wouldn't be on from the stage people

Zain 23:33

people are saying some people are saying this okay i've heard

Zain 23:36

people are saying yeah

Carter 23:37

yeah many people are saying everyone

Zain 23:38

everyone i'm talking to is saying this yeah

Zain 23:40

like literally everyone i've been speaking with recently is saying this stuff um

Zain 23:47

someone who's very close snorted okay

Carter 23:49

okay cory makes me snort sometimes i'm not proud i'm not proud of it it's it happens um you should try but uh i heard that a guy who interviewed him recently uh

Carter 23:59

uh was saying it so it's kind of i was

Corey 24:01

was talking to a guy who was talking to him just last week yeah i know and you know what i heard a

Carter 24:08

audience too yeah he

Carter 24:09

he might be he's running in edmonton center it's all happening uh

Zain 24:12

uh let's talk about him for a few more seconds uh let's assume he wants to be a leader cory i'll start with you best

Zain 24:18

best approach run in this cycle or do you wait out powder dry run straight for the top or is there something to be said of you know start Start, whether it's Edmonton Center or wherever else in this country, as an MP, jump into cabinet, and then you're competing with like a Freeland or someone else as an inside

Zain 24:37

inside track, so to speak, for next leadership. What do you think from someone with

Corey 24:42

profile? I think you run in this – if that's really your intention, if you're Mark Carney – And it's all an assumption, right? Of course. We're kind of like we're borrowing assumptions on top of assumptions here. But you run in this cycle because – and it's not so much because it helps you win the leadership. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. I think on net it's probably a positive. But you're

Corey 25:02

you're going to have to work with this caucus if you're actually going to end up being leader. You need to understand Ottawa to a level perhaps from a view that you have not seen it. You are governor of the Bank of Canada. I'm not saying you don't understand Ottawa. But I'm saying it might be helpful to know where the bathrooms are in the House of Parliament if you're interested in having that job. So, yeah, run. Get that limited experience. Understand it. Also, know a little bit about what you're getting into here because you might get there and be like, what the fuck was I thinking? You know, to jump in with both feet, very few people have done that successfully. It's not impossible. I mean, because let's be clear, we're not even necessarily talking about running to be just leader. It may be running to be our prime minister. And,

Corey 25:45

you know, that's even different than Brian Mulrooney coming in just with business experience or Jack Layton. who came in from politics still, just not, you know, the House of Commons. So it's, you know, I'd have

Corey 25:57

have to check, but it sounds almost unprecedented to become prime minister after having no political elected experience. Straight

Zain 26:03

Straight to the top. Good points there, Corey. Carter, same question to you. Advice you'd give him. Suppose there is a whisper to you saying, OK, yeah, I want to lead this thing. What would you tell him to do?

Carter 26:14

Everything that Corey said was right. And I'll just add one more thing. And that is that he gets to show that he's a team player. he gets to sit in the back bench for a few weeks he gets to sit you know maybe he gets made a cabinet minister right away but he you know he can help people um i'm sure he can raise more money than he would ever be able to spend in edmonton center and so he's able to send that money out to other candidates um he's he's able to uh he's able to keep putting you know he builds his relationships by running because you know if you uh kent hair was doing this and in calgary You know, he had more money than he could spend, but he could send it out to other to other riding associations. And those other riding associations were grateful. The Liberal Party was grateful. It's a way that you can be shown to be part of the team without necessarily being the person who's the leader.

Carter 27:09

So it's a great opportunity. If he's going to be if

Carter 27:13

he wants to be prime minister, he should be running in this election cycle.

Zain 27:17

let's leave that there and move it on to our first segment yes that's right you're hearing it's our first segment cory wow it's 27 minutes in

Corey 27:24

i know you're gonna you just what you do you just time stamp it you look at the time

Corey 27:28

better than last week our

Zain 27:29

our first and let's just say it's our only segment our

Zain 27:33

our first segment alberta's covet 17 variant guys i want to talk about out yes indeed the 17 mlas part of the ucp caucus here that are revolting revolting i tell you but a little bit of background earlier this week jason can announce another round of restrictions saying it was his job to make tough choices and taking the province back to strict rules that were in place in february during the second wave now editorializing a bit of these these restrictions perhaps the most lenient and loosest restrictions we've seen in the entire country um from from any leader. But Kenny's saying that it's his job to place these restrictions. When cases had grown rapidly, they were concerned that the hospital system would be overrun. By

Zain 28:15

By Wednesday night, we record tonight on Thursday night. So last night, it was clear that many in his caucus did not feel the same way. 17 out of 63 UCP caucus members, fully one quarter, signed a letter addressed to Kenny saying they disagreed with returning to more stringent restrictions. For months, there's been a handful of these disgruntled UCP MLAs And some notable signatories include former Minister of Municipal Affairs, Tracy Allard, as well as Speaker of the House, Nathan Cooper, who was also part of this letter.

Zain 28:50

So many things to talk about, guys. And so maybe I want your assistance in further setting the table. So Carter, I'll start with you. What additional context would be important here? We had Jason Kenney come in earlier in the week, expectations, as always, saying, what is he going to do? What is he going to do? For many, under-delivered in the sense of restrictions that didn't go far enough. The next night, you had this disgruntled group within the UCP write this letter openly, publicly release it, not leaked, publicly release it.

Zain 29:21

Initial reactions when you saw this. Let's start there, and I'll get initial reactions from both of you, and then we'll kind of go down some different rabbit holes, so to speak.

Carter 29:28

My initial reaction, I mean, I have two initial reactions. One is about just the sheer stupidity of being opposed to these restrictions. This restriction is so minimal at this stage. It is not moving us anywhere near back enough, especially with the new variants that are coming online. Our chart is spiking again in Alberta with no signs of slowing. slowing uh and it takes time for it to slow because it takes time of course uh for the uh for covet 19 to to to be seen and to actually have impact on people so uh it's going to get worse before it gets better so

Carter 30:07

i i'm just in awe of the stupidity i'm in awe of the lack of understanding that the way that we get our economy on track is to actually get rid of covet the the way the only way to get it back on track is to stop people from dying uh we're not texas i just don't think that we are going to be in a position where we fill stadiums because we think hey what the fuck I don't give a shit anymore I don't need to live and I don't need the people around me to live that's Texas that's not Canada so I don't think that in Alberta this is going to this was a particularly smart move and I do mean that literally just a smart move and for the people of Alberta then of course you have to think of things politically I'm a political person what what the hell was this about the politics of this don't make sense to me uh because it doesn't strengthen your caucus it doesn't do the primary objective um you know there's a few people out there talking about uh how this has been staged right this is a communication to the right wing that everything's still going to be okay under kenny government except it's not there

Carter 31:10

there the objective of that is to secure the right flank the objective of the stated objective of the the conspiracy theorists, is that this is a move that in some fashion secures the right flank. It does not.

Zain 31:22

A wink to the right flank, so to speak. It

Carter 31:25

It weakens the right flank. It is driving a wedge between the right flank and the primary party. It is a significant issue. And the right flank, I don't know if you guys have noticed in Alberta politics, has a tendency to go off on its zone this

Carter 31:42

is something that they are extremely comfortable with they will do it again and they will elect people to the legislature again they

Carter 31:50

they know that that's why and these 17 people who signed this letter know it now i've got more things to say but i'm going to stop for a bit let cory say a few things then i'll correct them cory

Zain 32:02

cory initial reactions when you saw this

Corey 32:06

uh well we learned a lot about what's going on behind the scenes with the the ucp uh caucus for sure in in this bit and tuesday was really quite telling even before the letter came out when jason kenney was talking to albertans from the lectern and he was saying things like i expect there will be many people who disagree with me even in my own caucus he was late uh as is kind of the fashion here not just they rescheduled this thing for an hour but then he was late still my understanding is it was because of a very rough ride at caucus uh that kind of spillover and spill out is really quite something and i will say zane one

Corey 32:50

one of the things that this highlighted for me is that as much as we talk about divide between kind of smaller liberal small c conservative really when When you get down to it, on many issues, the divide is actually urban-rural. And it's not just that 17 of his MLAs signed this letter and another one came out against his decision on the Grace Life Church, where it was the Alberta Health Services came in, or maybe it was Alberta Health, I can't recall now, but essentially cordoned off this church.

Corey 33:21

17 of his 24 rural MLAs signed this letter. that's that's not just a majority that's a super majority of the rural mlas and so it really does highlight the tension inherent within the quote-unquote united conservative party it is a marriage of two strains of conservatism and the strain that was largely represented by the wild rose they

Corey 33:46

they hate this shit they hate this lockdown uh and this isn't even really a lockdown but i'm going to shorthand it in that sense they hate this lockdown shit so um it really it

Corey 33:58

sort of made real for me a thing that i think we could all see intellectually which was that jason kenny had had

Corey 34:04

had to manage a pressure from his rightward flank that was that was real and it's obviously real and i agree with carter i don't think that this is 4d chess and jason kenny trying to show that oh look look at this uh it's fine and and this is where our hearts are and this is why we have so many of the caucus members out there i think his caucus is falling apart and there's been additional reporting today that that makes me think that those tensions are pretty bad there's also people i've talked to in the legislature who have said the

Corey 34:34

the ucp caucus caucus right now is effing miserable walking around scowling bad bad

Corey 34:41

bad vibes all throughout the place with the staff with the uh with the MLAs. And, and that's not how you carry yourself if it's all theater. That's for sure.

Zain 34:51

Well, that's also probably not how you carry yourself when you're government with two years to go, right? It's not, it's not downtroddenness with six months to an inevitable outcome. This is government in a province that, you

Zain 35:04

you know, has largely and I'm going to put this, you know, conservative ideals, so to speak, you should be the kings of this province in many ways. Corey, Corey, jump back in before I go to Carter.

Corey 35:13

Well, I just want to say that as much as I've said all of that, none of this is preordained. I'm not saying that the UCP is about to fall apart or anything like that. But there is kind of an origin story tension that we kind of forget about because we all remember how successful Jason Kenney was at bringing these two groups together. But

Corey 35:32

if Kenney can get through the next few months and get out of this moment we're in, be able to reopen society, I

Corey 35:38

I think this will be just a moment. It's not necessarily a moment we will all forget, but this is not preordained. This is not preordained, the end of the UCP. Wouldn't want anyone to think I'm suggesting that.

Zain 35:48

Carter, my questions are only going to get slightly more sophisticated from, what's your initial feelings to, have

Zain 35:54

have you ever seen something like this before? Like, I know conservative infighting should be Alberta's official sport, right? Weird. But no, no, no, let me be clear. Have you ever been up? Yeah, I was going to say.

Zain 36:08

i'm glad you answered that way but because i want your insider take in terms of what these meetings look like how would this go down in a conversation but when i say have you ever seen this before i mean when you haven't had the privilege of serving a premier or a cabinet minister have you seen a letter like this with a quarter of your caucus quite literally um sharp sharp elbowing you to the face as a sitting premier. I haven't, but maybe give us both sides of this take, which is what are some of the meetings you've been in? Give me some of the anecdotal stuff, and then answer my fundamental question. Is this different, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Do you sense this is perhaps a little different in that regard?

Carter 36:48

Yeah, I mean, I've had dealings with parties as they're about to collapse. I remember being

Carter 36:56

being at or near a couple of meetings that just before the wild rose went kabluki, which was very interesting. I was at or around a couple of meetings with Alison Redford going into the 2012 election, which were not pleasant. There have been a number of times when caucuses revolt because they do not like the direction of the leader, and it tends to be strongly linked to their own electoral chances. You would be amazed at the shit you will put up with if you're guaranteed re-election. As soon as that

Zain 37:31

that guarantee... That doesn't compute for me here because this is rural MLAs. Do you feel like self-interest was part of their driving

Corey 37:38

driving force? But Zane, there's a difference between being in government and being in opposition. Oh, yeah.

Corey 37:43

Yeah, the perquisites that come with one are quite different. And you start thinking, if I'm going to be a backbencher in a government that doesn't follow my ideals,

Carter 37:53

I'll go be a backbencher in the New Wild Rose Party party i were at least i get to say with a what the fuck we want buddy exactly

Carter 38:01

and and they know if they leave today and

Carter 38:04

and they form a new caucus of you know independent wild rosers or some some such thing that they'd have to i don't know if they have to do that in this term uh with the new legislation that's been passed but let's just call them independent wild rosers just for shits and giggles um they form this new caucus they're

Carter 38:21

they're more likely to get re-elected as as independent wild rosers than they are to get reelected as UC peers at this moment in their war, in their ridings. And I believe that they know that, which gives them the sense of power to actually take the step of saying, you

Carter 38:38

you know, let's send the letter. Let's put the pressure on this premier. Let's make sure that we are putting our constituents first, because our future lies in with the constituents, not with the premier or the leader who's going to sign our papers. to be candidates again in the next in the next election. To Corey's point, though, it's not over. This hasn't fallen apart. It's

Carter 39:00

It's not a dead. You know, there is not one straight road that says there's only one possible outcome. There are multiple outcomes. But let us be clear. The ones that are defining themselves include now a group, a breakaway group of MLAs that form a different caucus, and that Jason's united conservative party may not be united in the future.

Zain 39:26

I want to get into strategist mode in a second, Corey, but I have a question for you, and words do matter. Is this a revolt? Would you call this—we use the term caucus revolt so broadly. I'd love to kind of get your sense of a letter by 17 of your MLAs sharply worded against the premier's policy decision. decision does that quantify a revolt

Corey 39:48

revolt in your mind yeah i mean that's absolutely i mean that's like that textbook definition of a caucus revolt we do not want to do what you want to do now the maybe you could walk it back a bit by saying they said they're opposed but they haven't said they won't do it and there was reporting today where

Corey 40:04

where jason kenney had apparently said if you break the rules you encourage other people to break the rules you're

Corey 40:10

you're out of here um so so So maybe you can kind of – if you are the UCP, of course, you're going to parse that and say, no, no, no, this is just strong opinions voicing their constituency. But this is a caucus revolt. And it's being – it

Corey 40:24

it seems to be led at least in part by Drew Barnes, a man who was so, so sad he wasn't in cabinet. Every day validates why that was a smart decision by Jason Kenney not to put him in cabinet. But to

Corey 40:36

to build on what Carter and I were talking about where you start saying, well, if I'm just going to be a backbencher, then fuck it. Maybe I'll be a backbencher who speaks their mind. If Drew Barnes believes he's never going to get – part of why he acts the way he does is he believes he'll never get in the cabinet. Now, it's kind of reinforcing because he will never get in the cabinet correcting like this. But yeah, it's – you've got a couple of dangerous elements if you're Jason Kenney. You've got somebody who gives no fucks. You've got more people who have gone from private grumbling to public grumbling, and that can start fueling fires. And that means you're all of a sudden going to have constituency associations weighing in, and presidents of local boards saying, well, maybe it's now time to trigger a conversation about the leader, because those people are less controllable even than an out-of-control caucus. And these things can kind of explode and get out of your hands in kind of a big way. So yeah, it's absolutely a revolt.

Corey 41:30

Most revolts get put down. You

Corey 41:32

You know, if we're going to just talk about historical context here, even big ones, you know, 1848, there was this wave of liberalism across Europe, gone. You

Corey 41:41

it happens. And sometimes the reactionary forces win. And, you know, and I just I wouldn't go to even though it's a revolt, I guess my point is, I wouldn't go so far again to say like, it will be a successful revolt that upends a leadership.

Zain 41:57

This is this is great, because we've got a few different threads to pick up on here. I'm going to park the Kenny stuff in his response on on regional openings and all that sort of stuff for a second. it. One more question before I jump into strategy for this 17. That's what I want to do first is I want to I want to I want you guys to do like we used to whiteboard strategy for these 17 how to like make this successful for their agenda. Let's just make a few assumptions as to what their agenda is. But what does success look like to them? What would you be positioning success for them? How to break free how to break off how to be how to gain maximum leverage within the UCP be Calcas, whatever these options look like to them. But before I do that, I want to talk about two of the names. Allard and Cooper stuck out to me. Cooper because he's Speaker and because, of course, he had that email to a constituent that he wrote during the Hawaii vacation scandal leaked, and it was pretty scathing about his leader, Jason Kenney, also the Speaker. And then Allard, the former minister. Do those names mean anything to you? Do they signal something to you specifically, or especially, I should say, or do any others. Corey mentioned Drew Barnes. I look at Drew Barnes as a fringe player in many ways, but those two voices I found to be quite interesting. So Carter, maybe I'll get your take if there is any that you have with those two voices in particular, and then let's move on to strategy for the 17.

Carter 43:22

I'm going to add in Barnes too, because I think I disagree with your assessment a little bit on Barnes. Yeah, Yeah. Allard. Yeah. There's a reason she's a former minister. And this is it. She couldn't be counted on. She's the hell out of there. And she has nothing to lose by going after this. Cooper should be stepping down as the speaker. This is this is ridiculous in my mind. He's not just an MLA. He is the speaker of the legislature. He should be standing apart from this. He can say whatever he wants to a constituent as an MLA. But as soon as he starts acting as a political minister uh within the party um this to me is stepping outside of his role as the speaker he could offer encouragement he could offer uh you know quiet words that if if this group were to seek party status in the legislature he'd of course recognize them um that would be fine cooper should be stepping down as the as the speaker and

Carter 44:20

and if i was kenny and if i was looking for retribution i'd try and do something that ralph klein could never do to ken kowalski which is oust that motherfucker right um you know get rid of him get a get a new speaker in there i think that the ndp might vote for cooper just to you know allow the shit show to continue uh but to me

Carter 44:40

me cooper's overstepped uh his role as speaker uh notwithstanding those fine videos about his office and what he does which and they are fine videos and don't under don't underplay uh barnes barnes is putting himself in a leadership role on this um barnes has been the leader of this This rebellion didn't start on Tuesday. This rebellion started quite some time ago, and the person leading the rebellion has been Drew Barnes. He should have been kicked out of caucus many, many moons ago. He

Carter 45:08

He wasn't, and now he finds himself in the place where he can lead 17 caucus

Carter 45:13

caucus members in an open rebellion against the premier. Premier, Barnes has done a hell of a job pulling together this group. And he's really, in my mind,

Carter 45:27

the de facto leader. And it didn't surprise me one bit that

Carter 45:30

that the first inkling of this letter that we got was from him and his Twitter account.

Zain 45:36

Cooper, Allard, Barnes, Corey, surprise. Do you agree? And El Tegon, do you agree with Carter that Cooper's overstepped?

Corey 45:43

agree with a lot of what Stephen has just said here. As far as Allard, the same reason why barnes as somebody with nothing to lose he's

Corey 45:51

he's never going to get into cabinet so he starts saying who gives a shit that she falls into the same camp she's out the odds of her getting back in are are low and you've got to keep in mind generally speaking if you're in the government caucus the goal is either to get into caucus get into cabinet or stay in cabinet right i mean there are some people who just are happy being a regular government member uh a quote-unquote backbencher But for the most part, people want to move up. They want to get involved in those roles. They want to have more responsibility, more authority. That's why they want to get elected in the first place.

Corey 46:25

may have severely overestimated his authority. I think that tri-corner hat is cutting off the blood in his head because he is not actually somebody who is supposed to do the things that he is doing here. He is a spokesperson for the House. I'm going to read you verbatim something from the Legislative Assembly website here. Once elected, the Speaker becomes an impartial representative of the whole Assembly and must serve all MLAs equally, regardless of party affiliation. The key characteristics of the Speaker's role are authority and impartiality. The Assembly grants the Speaker the authority to direct a debate and proceedings, and the Speaker does so without favoring MLAs from one party over those of the other. We all know he's a UCP MLA, and the role of an MLA is twofold. It is to be somebody who votes in a certain fashion and also to be an ombudsman for services. When you're a speaker, you give up that voting in a certain fashion rule. You don't take sides on these things. You're still an ombudsman for your constituents, but you're supposed to stay out of the fray.

Corey 47:31

And this is not staying out of the fray. This is making the fray worse. This is jumping into it with both feet. And it seems absolutely wild to me that he would think that this is the appropriate role of the speaker. And yeah,

Corey 47:44

yeah, okay, yeah, sure, he's an MLA. But the reality is that the job is different once you're a speaker. In the United Kingdom, you resign your party when you become the speaker. We're not quite there. We're in a little bit of a different dynamic here. But this is pretty extreme. This isn't even just saying I'm

Corey 48:02

I'm a government member who keeps their mouth shut and kind of acts impartial. this is i'm now just doing whatever the hell i want but

Corey 48:09

but he's doing it while wearing a hat

Corey 48:11

literally that he is the spokesperson for the house and

Corey 48:14

and that's that's not right when the speaker starts making statements that are against the government's agenda because while he's a spokesperson for the house the house has put responsibility in the government of the day that's why we have a responsible government so i think this is i think this is wrong on on the way he's approaching his job here and i suspect he would disagree because he's doing it but i don't think it's right for a speaker to take a position like this.

Zain 48:38

Carter, let's talk about what the 17 strategy looks like for them. What do you think their endgame is?

Zain 48:47

Their optimal endgame? Let me ask, what do you think their optimal endgame is?

Carter 48:51

Their optimal endgame is to get themselves reelected.

Zain 48:54

That seems to be very clear. Do you think they care what color jersey they're wearing when doing that?

Carter 48:59

I don't think they care what color jersey they're wearing. I think that they heard, I mean, I mean, Miranda Rosen, the MLA for Banff, Banff Canmore, said very clearly that she heard from her constituents that this is what they wanted. OK, whatever. But I guess this means that you're acting in a way that you want them to reelect you. So if you want to get reelected, you better find a way that the premier is going to sign your nomination papers. And because if he's not going to sign your nomination papers, you don't want to find out two weeks before the writ drops. Uh, so you got to get back in there, in, into his good graces. Um,

Carter 49:37

you know, this thing, you know, I,

Carter 49:39

I, if I was talking to them, I'd say, do, do you want to start a new party? Yes or no?

Carter 49:45

Because if you want to start a new party, you should do that. And

Carter 49:48

And if you don't want to start a new party, then you should get back in this one.

Carter 49:51

Um, that's what I'd be telling the individual MLAs.

Zain 49:54

If this letter was a bridge too far for coming back into this one, not

Carter 49:59

not at all. Here's how you get back in. You

Carter 50:01

simply jump back in by saying in two or four days, so let's say Monday of next week, you're going to say, you know what, cases

Carter 50:14

cases have really risen over the last five days. I step back from that position. I think what the premier has done is correct because I didn't understand that so many people would be back in hospital and our medical system would be expanding, and I'm hearing different from my constituents today. I was just trying to represent them in everything that they are saying. And now I see more clearly the premier's position. Yeah.

Carter 50:36

Yeah. Are you walking it back? Yes, you are. Are you getting in line? Yes, you are. And if you were smart, you'd be the first one to move it back in line because the first person who gets back in line might get a reward. The last person who gets back in line might get kicked out of caucus.

Zain 50:54

So you think splintering of this group is possible? Corey, same question I'm going to ask you. Optimal endgame for them, do you believe it's re-election? You feel like that's what they're all after? And if so, what do you feel like the optimal strategy is for them? New party, get back in line within the caucus? What do you think?

Corey 51:12

think it's re-election, but I actually think it's more than that. I think it may even be, quote-unquote, more principled than that. I think these people are out of their minds, just so I can be really clear on that. But

Corey 51:26

they seem to legitimately dislike this course of action and think it's wrong for the province and is antithetical to the things they believe in. And when you look at kind of the pedigree here, the Wild Rose Party that was the home of many of these people and certainly tend to be more sympathetic to the further right views that the party has, that's not too surprising. And you've got to keep in mind that in that party, principle

Corey 51:53

principle is really elevated, much more so than it was in the old PC party that Stephen Carter used to pal around with there. You had a number of people who

Corey 52:03

basically just refused to follow Daniel Smith across the floor to join Jim Prentice's government. They stood on principle. They didn't go away. Their grassroots didn't go away. And the grassroots and the people, they remain. And they remain principled about small government, getting government out of their lives.

Corey 52:21

So much of what we talk about in Alberta is ultimately driven by a debate about power lines. For those of you in Alberta, you'll probably remember that. For those of you out, there was the need to appropriate land for transmission lines and people

Corey 52:36

people lost their minds and it became this cost celeb of the Wild Rose that then I think it was even the Alberta Alliance they were called. And that's

Corey 52:46

that's real. Like that's at the core of many of these people and why they got into politics in the first place. So I just – I want to say as much as I think they are just flat wrong, I don't think it's entirely about political calculus about getting elected or not. And I think some of them would be happy to go down in flames if it was on principle because that tends to be a

Corey 53:06

characteristic you see in more extreme members of any political party, right? Like I'm not putting any water in my wine here. And that is something you have more of the luxury of being and doing, and you're certainly probably going to see more extreme members in areas that are more conservative because it becomes all about the primary and who you can rile up more, the quote-unquote primary, the nomination here. here all

Corey 53:27

that said i do think that the people in their orbit the

Corey 53:31

the the people on their local boards the people in their communities are probably more likely than people in say inner

Corey 53:37

inner city calgary where all three of us live to

Corey 53:40

to be saying with the f's going on i hate this shit you got to stop doing it and they are probably getting a little bit of anxiety about losing their jobs maybe not even at the ballot box maybe it is with the nomination maybe they're worried about losing control of their association and having all sorts of grief like that and that is driving some of this so if

Corey 53:58

if you are trying to get an optimal outcome for you let's talk about what optimal looks like yeah

Corey 54:03

do it clear to me optimal is you

Corey 54:08

you get to stand by your principles and you stay in government now this might be a situation where it's choose two right

Corey 54:13

right you don't get to do all of them but um the

Corey 54:16

the uh if you're trying to do that balance and you're trying to figure these things out. Your best case scenario is that you are saying to Jason Kenney and his premier's office and like, we support you. We are on board in a general sense. We cannot follow you here. This is antithetical to everything we stand for. And we will stand with you. And we will we will kind of walk this line. But you cannot go any further. And you need to get us out of this as fast as possible. And I'm not sure it's enough. Like I think they may have crossed a bit of a Rubicon con here because it's pretty hard to walk back this level of public disagreement but um you everything that people are saying like jason kenney's doing 4d chess you have to basically say like we'll help you sell that like we'll make it try to look like you're a strong leader but you've got to you got to we got to be really clear with you this is too far do

Zain 55:04

do you agree uh with carter on his fracturing of the 17 that the first one to come back in line might get a reward the The last one can get booted out. Do you agree with that general philosophy?

Corey 55:16

I think he's right that by the time you are getting to like number 11, kind of creeping back at

Corey 55:22

at the, right. Yeah. You're, you're, you're screwed. And so you have a bit of a prisoner's dilemma at this point. If you're part of the COVID-18, I'm counting the 17 plus the one who, you know, Grace Life Church, you, you, you are best served by supporting

Corey 55:39

supporting the premier early rather than later. if

Corey 55:41

everybody goes back now

Corey 55:43

now you're also in a really bad situation if this this grows and you're kind of the guy who double rats or the woman who double rats kind of goes and comes back so carter

Zain 55:51

carter you you wanted to jump in here and i've got a question on the heels of what you say

Carter 55:56

well i just i agree with cory i think though that um the

Carter 55:59

the problem with this is that this is a pandemic right like this is a fluid situation that is changing day by day and a lot of times like if If you were just opposed to the budget, let's say, you know, you could take that principled stand and say, you know, Mr. Premier, I have to oppose this, you know, new tax increase on alcohol or whatever the hell he's got to do. But this is a pandemic and it's fluid and it's changing day to day. So I don't know how you get to take a principled stand when we are, you know, I don't know if you guys listened to the CMOH today, Dr. Hinshaw, when she did her update. I'm certainly not enthused with where we are or where we're going. And I don't think that Albertans will be. I think that this is a really difficult situation. And I

Carter 56:45

I just think that the pandemic politics of this aren't being weighed by these rural MLAs because they're not feeling it the same way that the urban MLAs or the urban population is.

Zain 56:59

Carter, do you see this as a one-off, that this issue really was a principled stance for these 17 plus one people? Or do you feel like this is a longer impressed upon issue with the urban-rural divide here? And this kind of leads me into the Kenny questioning and his strategy. Because is this a one-off he has to bat away and try to maneuver into the fold? Or is this going to be a sustained force? Because I heard you say the Drew Barnes thing was beginning a long time ago. yeah, that might be a COVID thing, but there seems to be some momentum around this fracture back to traditional PC Wildrose grounds, so to speak. So do you see this as one-off, systemic?

Carter 57:42

No, this is systemic. This goes back for a very, very long time. I mean, when I ran Alison Redford's leadership campaign and her 2012 campaign, I had to make a discerned choice. Do I go to the right and go after those right-wing conservatives that say that they are more conservative and more committed to the Conservative Party than anybody else? Or do I move to the left and go after the centrists and the people who are in the center who represent large urban areas? and I made a deserted choice to move to the left because it's a lot more reasonable over there. You don't have the wackadoodles that would tie themselves to the, you know, Corey's point about the power lines. My God, I live that. You know, those guys, you know, the

Carter 58:26

the government was coming to steal your land. The government was coming to steal your land. Does anybody you know have their land stolen? No, but they're coming, right? And it's the same thing with vaccinations. It'll be the same thing with the COVID vaccines. This is a culture war, and choosing to be, you know, Jason Kenney's choice to unite the right meant that he brought together these two distinct cultures, and it's going to be super hard to keep them together in time.

Zain 58:54

Corey, jump in on that before you jump to Kenney.

Corey 58:57

I wrote an article about this in 2016. The very way that Jason Kenney merged the party was essentially surrendering power to the right, right? He talked about using as a model for this merger what Harper had done when he brought together the old PC party and the Canadian Alliance, and it was just give in to all their demands, just give in to all of them, just get it done. Whatever you need to do to get it done, get it done. But in that case, Harper was surrendering to the center. In Kenny's case, when he was leader of the PCs trying to merge with the Wild Rose, he was kind of surrendering to the right. Right.

Corey 59:32

And that had the risk, it always did, and I think we're starting to see it here, of creating a party that is fundamentally going to be offsides with mainstream Alberta. And when you see an issue like this and you see the number of people within the party who are saying, no,

Corey 59:46

no, actually, I'd like to see fewer restrictions, when we know from all the polling that is available that, in general, Albertans think we are not doing enough.

Corey 59:56

But as premier, you are having to kowtow towards that small minority. yeah holy shit like what a thing to manage and it's no wonder that the the ndp have been up in the polls for seven months now guys for seven months there has not been a poll that has shown the ucp leading that's

Corey 1:00:14

that's pretty wild and uh and the average now is moved from like 10 to probably between 10 and 15 that the ndp are up uh one hell of a thing and maybe it's just a fundamentally fundamentally flawed party outside of the moment of reacting to, you know, four years of things not going great and voting against an NDP government.

Corey 1:00:34

I don't think Albertans were ever voting for the UCP platform. I think it's

Corey 1:00:39

it's an interesting tension to try to manage as a premier.

Zain 1:00:43

Let's talk about that, Premier. Corey, I'm going to stick with you for a second. I want your strategic advice for Jason Kenney. But before you jump into that, grade for me, roughly, roughly what you thought of his current moves that he's already made, the ones that have either been leaked out or the ones that have been put out directly by him. The first one saying, showing more flexibility to regional openings, right? So that's one of the calls for in this letter, Nathan Cooper saying, we can't have the same policy for the entire province. Can he showing a bit of soft tissue on that saying, yeah, I could be open to that, right? When we reopen, open there could be you know waves of how we do that uh the second one being this uh stance that if you fuck around i i'll kick you out of caucus right not not the words but that sentiment and the third one being being leaked here and and slowly being substantiated by some caucus sources saying that kenny was threatening to call a snap election um to to to uh as a way to to boot these these people out now that found its way in the in the media and the social commentary they're on in but we

Corey 1:01:47

we we were hearing that before it was in the western standard like that is some correct people are talking about today that

Zain 1:01:52

that is good i'm glad you mentioned that um right because because in our circles and others it has been repeated uh and and heard of those strategic moves as a as a package give me uh give me a a take on what that is and then give me a take on on what he should be doing, knowing his optimal goal here is to probably

Zain 1:02:12

probably bridge this rather than let it go, unless it isn't. Unless his goal here is to say, fuck these people, let them go. But I'm curious to hear your take on the package and then what Kenny's optimal strategy looks like.

Corey 1:02:23

I think it's the mother of all cliches, but revenge is a dish best served cold. And in this sense, I wouldn't be looking to extract vengeance in this moment if I was Jason Kenny. You've got to manage a bit of a rebellion and make sure it doesn't grow either in numbers or or intensity so the approach that he's taken at least in public with this kind of reasonable persuadable like yeah i mean like i'll look i'll happily listen to those ideas i'd love to have fewer fewer

Corey 1:02:46

fewer restrictions you know so reasonable persuadable but firm but let's be clear if people you know fuck around and find out guys right i will i will kick you out of caucus if uh if you if you start suggesting that the health guidelines should not be followed that's i think as good as you're going to get um i think this reporting we're hearing and and what i'm so just to kind of give a bit more texture the suggestion was jason kenney said hey

Corey 1:03:12

hey if you're not with me i'm

Corey 1:03:14

i'm just going to call an election because our whole system is about having the confidence of the house and if i don't have the government caucus i don't have the house so we'll go to the polls and you know there was some suggestion from some of the people i was talking to that there was a threat about not signing papers too like you and you're not going to get to be a nominee i don't know the exact language that was kind of handed to me a bit loose but that

Corey 1:03:36

that i think is a little too bellicose and i think it's a little too that's

Corey 1:03:40

that's the kind of thing that i can easily see people getting their backs up against and saying like yeah you're gonna go to the polls you're gonna go to the polls right now we're 15 points back you want to go to the polls that's bullshit screw you man and i just i don't know that that was particularly helpful for jason kenney in the moment although i'm sure he was just furious uh about uh the fact that the party would be jeopardizing everything think that the way that they were so um what do i think of his strategy i think his public strategy has tried to walk the line if his private strategy has been threatening his own caucus

Corey 1:04:11

they're going to remember that and it's going to be harder down the road this is not one of these situations where you're going to be able to reel it in and all of the bad feelings will go away as easily if you threaten them in that context i think he should have taken the same approach with his caucus and from what i understand he did by and large but for i think moments of peak that have come through and shown that he was kind of angry about it which is i

Corey 1:04:32

hear you i don't want to do this this is the last thing i want to do but you got to look at the health numbers we got to do something here so uh you know i have thoughts about what he could be doing should be doing but in terms of measuring his strategy to date i would just say he's got to be very careful that he keeps his kind of anger in check on this one and stays on what is you know reasonable reasonable, persuadable, but firm strategy. Carter,

Zain 1:04:56

Carter, I'm coming to you in a second. Anything else you should be doing, Corey? For example, let me pose a hypothetical. Any merit

Zain 1:05:03

merit whatsoever in saying, fuck these people, I'm actually going to literally kick them out of caucus.

Corey 1:05:10

I think that would be very dangerous because then they have absolutely nothing to lose and you've got a group of 17 people who are effectively going to make your life hell on an ongoing basis and give voice to a very strong part part of your party, I think that would effectively doom chances of re-election for Jason Kenney. And I think they know that. So this is the game of chicken that everybody is playing right now, right? But if you're Jason Kenney, you've got to get your caucus on the same page. You absolutely have to. There needs to be kind of a foundational level setting where everybody feels like, okay, we're going to get at least the same general acceptance of the facts here. And I kind of have flippantly on twitter today says jested like hey he should offer them a choice they can they can work a shift in an icu in a covid ward or they can fucking leave caucus and you know maybe not literally that but it's got to be something pretty close like you know it's got to be drew i need you to understand how serious this is so we're going to go and we're going to talk about how serious this is and as part of the showing the reasonable and yes i understand the other side of this all too it's but let's also canvas and let's talk about the pain this is doing to the economy let's Let's talk about our other options for the economy. Let's do a full canvassing of this here, because he can't look like he's just punishing one worldview. But he's got to say, as

Corey 1:06:25

as an extension of what he said on Tuesday,

Corey 1:06:28

we got to get out of the political mindset here, everybody. We're the government, and we need to do what's best for this province. And that means we've got to get together and understand what the hell is going on here and come to a common understanding. I think that would be a good extension of his strategy, and it would be a good way perhaps to reset conversations that have become unproductive. But that

Corey 1:06:49

would be my only advice, I think, at this point.

Zain 1:06:51

Carter, I'm going to start chatting with you a little bit differently. Put your chief of staff hat on that you've worn previously. You're advising a premier to help, to Corey's point, table set a group of...

Zain 1:07:07

Carter, do you call Mothers

Corey 1:07:07

Mothers Against Drunk Driving now, or do you wait for a week?

Zain 1:07:10

Oh, Corey, you ruined the... The pause there was for that. We're so alive today. So much synergy. Synergy.

Zain 1:07:17

So much synergy. You know, I hate

Carter 1:07:18

hate you guys, but here's what I would say.

Zain 1:07:21

So Carter, actually, to Corey's point, what tactically, mechanically, strategically can you do to do that table set? Like, what is it? Is it take Drew Barnes on a fucking field trip? Is it like, what does it look like from the strategy standpoint, from your perspective? And what have you seen in the past? It would be really interesting. And then I want to actually then still get your score on what you think, how you think Kenny's done thus far. I'd

Carter 1:07:45

I'd pull the 17 together. I'd be the chief of staff, right? So I'd pull the 17 together. Premier wouldn't be in the room. It'd

Carter 1:07:51

It'd be me as the chief of staff and the 17 of them. And I'd say, I'm advising the premier to do a cabinet shuffle. I want to know which of the 17 of you wants to be the minister of health. But before you decide, I'm going to walk you through the presentation of the number of Albertans that we're anticipating are going to die from these strains.

Carter 1:08:09

So here's what we're going to do. we're going to walk through all the presentation and I'm going to ask which one of the 17 of you wants to step forward to be the Minister of Health because that's the advice that I'm going to go back to the Premier and offer because I'm going to offer the Premier the option of putting one of you fuckers as the Minister of Health, which one of you wants it put

Carter 1:08:27

put your fucking hands up now

Zain 1:08:33

game this out for me as if

Corey 1:08:36

if I'm a rural MLA

Corey 1:08:37

as if I'm a rural Bro, we had to mind our audience how long you were chief of staff.

Carter 1:08:42

staff. Six months. It was a good six months. You know what, though?

Carter 1:08:47

So we had our own uprisings. We had our own problems. Well, this is why I want to talk to

Zain 1:08:52

to you about this.

Carter 1:08:52

So you have a choice. You have a choice. You have to remind people. Do you want to get elected? Do you want to be the person with responsibility? All these people that would kill to be a cabinet minister, no one wanted to be minister of health. health in 2012 no one wanted to be minister of health minister of health is a terrible job you you know no one should want to be the minister of health you got to get a deal with the doctors you got to get a deal with the nurses you got to manage the ever escalating health care problem you you know our budgets are exploding this is a terrible job let's

Carter 1:09:25

let's go guys like we gave we

Carter 1:09:28

we gave out associate ministers like candy um to try and keep everybody in line you got to keep everybody in line you got to get everybody on the same page and you got to make sure that they all understand the same information the problem with these 17 they understand information is fundamentally different than the information that the government understands uh that might be because they're outside of government uh one day we'll do the explanation of how they're outside of government but not today um but they are not seeing it they're not buying it they need to see it they need to buy it and they need to get on board i wouldn't do what kenny did where he was is the hard ass, I'd make the chief of staff go and be the hard ass.

Zain 1:10:07

Carter, give me a give me a score. Not actually, you never will. But give me a give me a ranking or a feeling on the package of things Kenny has done thus far. How do you feel about those strategies that he's implemented communications and otherwise, I

Carter 1:10:23

I think he's been too weak on the restrictions. I think he's been too soft on the on the people who have stepped outside. I think that he's taken a massive hit. And then for him to come in and say, I'm not going to sign your papers when he's being so weak in every other front. Now he's going to be super strong on that one. Overall, you know, it's a zero out of 10, Zane. It's a zero out of 10.

Zain 1:10:49

Corey, finish us off here and then we'll move it on.

Corey 1:10:53

Yeah, he can't do anything about the past, but he sowed these seeds too with some of the early COVID response, saying how it was too far, it damaged the economy too much. We've got to do as little as possible to shut this down. I mean, he himself gave voice to some of this worldview that is now coming back to be one of his biggest challenges. And I think this is something that is good advice for any politician. But I think the premier needs to hear, which is he's got to look further down the road because

Corey 1:11:17

because he has now a couple of times created these traps for himself. And one of the things that I've always thought Jason Kenney did well is kind of the

Corey 1:11:26

strategy of tactics. Like he's a good tactician. He understands the moment. he understands how he can frame things out the thing i always think about is you know when i was at the government of alberta in early 2019 just before the election you know there was government polls as to what are the biggest issues for albertans and it was jobs

Corey 1:11:44

jobs economy pipelines like those were the words that people came up with and he laser focused like you know that that's what he made his campaign about and he had the discipline to say well this is what it takes to to be popular at this moment this is what we're going to fucking say but um he's

Corey 1:12:00

he's great at that kind of stuff but when we start thinking about the whole board and how all of these pieces are going to move together particularly in the context of governing you

Corey 1:12:09

you know i i worry about the air traffic control this is this is something that you can see just sort of observing the government lots of announcements not necessarily full conclusion of things a lot of things going on but

Corey 1:12:21

but not all of these planes have kind of come back into the airport and on top of that that

Corey 1:12:26

there seems to be a fixation on winning the day. But government isn't an accumulation of days won. Government is a narrative over four years. And you've got to make sure you're not setting these future traps for yourselves going forward the way that you have here.

Zain 1:12:40

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

Carter 1:12:46

I already did a 0 out of 10 ranking. I think I'm doing pretty well. You're

Zain 1:12:50

up already. We're going to try something new and we're going to do something new. We're going to ask, I'm going to ask you, the

Zain 1:12:55

podcast is going to ask you, whether you're buying stocks or selling stocks in a particular candidate this week. You're starting, you're buying today, you're holding till next Thursday. We'll try it out with this. Are you buying or are you selling stocks in Rachel Notley today?

Carter 1:13:08

Oh, I'm buying in Rachel Notley today.

Carter 1:13:11

Why? Why? Because the other people that she's running against are falling apart. This is fantastic for her. It is an absolute buy opportunity. opportunity so uh you know and it's i don't think it's priced too high either i think that uh you

Carter 1:13:26

you know this would be a definite buy koi

Zain 1:13:28

koi buy or sell notley stocks can

Corey 1:13:31

can i afford to the price must be astronomical i mean she's just crushing it right now but i think it would still be a buy um i think it would be a buy and hold in fact and and at this point you gotta like her odds in 2023 what

Corey 1:13:44

what a weird Weird story that'll be, eh? Oh,

Corey 1:13:47

Oh, yeah. It's like the

Corey 1:13:48

Kenny interlude to the Notley government. Holy cow. I mean, wouldn't that be just Alberta politics writ large?

Zain 1:13:54

Fucking introduced the scale for the first time, and now Corey's introducing buy and hold. What the fuck, Corey? No.

Carter 1:14:00

No. Buy or sell. Buy

Carter 1:14:02

Buy or sell. We're going to try this again.

Carter 1:14:03

We have to take things further than

Carter 1:14:05

than you take them. Corey,

Zain 1:14:06

Corey, buy or sell on Justin Trudeau stocks. Buying today, holding them at least till next Thursday. Are you buying or are you selling?

Corey 1:14:13

I'm day trading it. I'm keeping an eye on it during the convention. I want to make sure that I'm working those peaks and valleys because I think there's going to be a lot of stories about them in the next seven days. And there's some money to be made in that context. Corey, Carter, I should say,

Corey 1:14:29

buying or selling Trudeau

Carter 1:14:31

I'm probably buying mostly because I have to get rid of all that extra capital that I have from selling the O'Toole stocks.

Zain 1:14:41

stocks uh carter buying or selling buying today holding at least until next thursday stocks in the covet 17 oh

Carter 1:14:50

oh um shorting can i short uh can

Carter 1:14:54

can i short their stock that's what i'm gonna be doing it's a limited

Zain 1:14:57

limited downside there yeah

Carter 1:14:58

yeah watch out yeah i'm gonna short their stock cory

Zain 1:15:01

cory what are you doing buying or selling uh stock in uh in the covet 17 oh

Corey 1:15:06

oh i'm not i'm not touching that one the beta in that sector is way too high cory

Zain 1:15:12

cory is sticking with you caucus revolts overrated underrated in your mind oh

Corey 1:15:17

generally overrated people cry revolt at the smallest things um and also here in alberta in particular we're just totally numb to them they they happen like the weather changes uh but this is big like 17 is a big number man and and when you kind of to look at the 17, 18, we're getting to the point where if those people all did say, screw it,

Corey 1:15:39

your majority is in serious risk here, if you're Jason Kenney. Carter,

Zain 1:15:42

caucus revolts, overrated, underrated?

Carter 1:15:44

Underrated. Corey couldn't have been more wrong. This is how leaders die. This is how leaders go away.

Carter 1:15:50

Let's be honest, the electorate sometimes sends away a leader. But especially in Alberta politics. The way the leader goes is through a caucus revolt that is then just before some sort of leadership review, which has to be scheduled before the next election.

Zain 1:16:09

Carter, with an additional seven days of soak time now that we have here in Alberta on our proposed curriculum, is it better or worse for Jason Kenney as it stands today rather than where it was last week?

Carter 1:16:21

I'll tell you something. With Trump gone, the average life cycle of a story seems to be longer um people still are talking about the curriculum and it is it is worse people now it's starting to get into the schools and it's getting into the schools with a mix of anger because um you know 17 of alberta schools right now have uh covid in the schools little outbreaks in the schools um 17 it's a pretty big number and if you're a parent uh there's probably a lot of anger and concern and it's all mixing together uh curriculum covid uh everything is coming together uh in a negative fashion cory

Zain 1:16:58

cory one week later better or worse curriculum for kenny i

Corey 1:17:02

think it's worse because it's it's ossified and there's not a lot of people coming to his support and it really has gotten to a point where even the validators are starting to look pretty tragic like just random professor of math out in a different province kind of stuff right

Corey 1:17:16

there's just there's nobody standing there's

Zain 1:17:18

there's like a big delta between jordan peterson and everyone else Yeah.

Corey 1:17:23

But no, I mean, there's just, nobody's on board. And that is, I

Corey 1:17:30

I mean, that's obviously not great. But it's also, it's in the public consciousness in a big way. People I know who are not very political are furious about this, just furious. is.

Zain 1:17:40

Corey, final question. I'll start with you. Earlier this week, Calgary Mayor Nahed Nenshi said he's not going to be running for a fourth term. In your mind, as we are still in the final months of his term, what do you think the Nenshi legacy will be?

Corey 1:17:55

What do I think the Nenshi legacy will be? That's not a question I was expecting, and I'm not sure I have an answer for it. I think it's very mixed, Zane. I know you two have both had the pleasure

Corey 1:18:04

pleasure of running one of his campaigns, But I think ultimately he

Corey 1:18:07

from kind of like almost like a cultural resonance in this city, it's unsurpassed. Like he was he was the guy in a way that previous mayors never were. He's just bombastic, bigger than life, just such a personality, such a such a character. But I actually don't think he ran a particularly tight council. Part of that is the council itself was increasingly wild. But I think about Brian

Corey 1:18:32

Brian Kanye, who was the mayor before. And, you know, the thing about him is he never lost a council vote. He lost very few, right? He

Corey 1:18:38

He knew where it was. He met, he used his role as the chair pretty strongly. Anyway, Nahed changed council, and I'm not sure for the better in that he's just like, yeah, let's just have the conversation here. Let's see where the chips lie. And he would sometimes, maybe to his credit, but maybe not, almost change his mind or be a bit unreliable himself in how he was going to vote in some of those council settings. And I think as a result, he leaves a council that's very different. I don't even think it's more polarized. I think it's just a council that kind of is

Corey 1:19:09

is showier. Like it grandstands more. So many of them are trying to take on some of the characteristics of Nahid Nenshi, of being the smart person in the room, but they're not, they don't have the capacity that he does. And so they stand up and they say crazy things. And, and

Corey 1:19:24

and counsel has become a little less businesslike and a little more theatric. And I don't know if that's, I don't think that's a legacy that will stick to him. But I think that's perhaps the thing that will have lasting effect that that will all feel for many terms to come. So

Zain 1:19:38

Carter and I had Nenshi announcing he's not going to be running for a fourth term. In your mind, someone who's been with him or was with him in that first campaign in 2010, the legacy.

Carter 1:19:46

Launching the political careers of Zane Velji and Stephen Carter.

Corey 1:19:51

What a legend. Another thing I got against him now. Yeah, exactly.

Zain 1:19:55

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 929 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

Transcript