Episode 934: The Alberta "U"CP

Corey 0:02

This is a strategist episode 930. Zain, there's no time for that. We've got to talk about Alberta.

Zain 0:08

Stephen Carter, how you doing?

Carter 0:14

Yeah, I was outside.

Zain 0:15

Wait, wait, wait. Before we get started, do you want to tell the audience what episode number this is?

Zain 0:20

Okay, perfect. Thank you, Carter. Episode

Zain 0:24

Excellent. And you were outside, you were saying?

Carter 0:26

was outside. I went for a walk and a tootle on my bike. I bought a new bike and it tootles. I was very excited. I almost rode over to your house, Zane, and then I remembered I might run into you, and so I changed direction.

Zain 0:39

Corey, it is Eid. This is our Eid special. As you know, I mean, we don't make a big deal of it because, you know, it's the Eid special. We do the holiday spectacular, but this is an important episode for you and I, of course. Well,

Corey 0:53

Well, absolutely. And the last 10 days of Ramadan are very important for any practicing Muslim. And the Night of Power was particularly moving, I suspect, this year.

Zain 1:03

Sounded a little patronizing, but I'll take it. I'll take it. Okay, it's good. It's good. Just, yeah, I mean, listen, Eden Mubarak, both of you, I know, Carter, you're new to the tradition. You still are not accepting the copies of the Quran that I leave at your front step. But one day, one day, you'll open the door and you'll be ushered in with the bounty of knowledge.

Carter 1:25

Well, I like that you keep trying.

Carter 1:27

Thank you. It makes me feel loved.

Zain 1:30

In bigger news, Wendy's now has a strawberry Frosty. Now, Stephen Carter, as you know, Corey, this is important stuff. I know you want to talk about it, but now I'm just doing the exact same thing. No, I'm over it now. I'd like to talk about Frosty.

Carter 1:43

No, I'm dying to know why.

Carter 1:45

What was wrong with the original Frosty?

Corey 1:47

Because they can. Well, because they had chocolate. That was the original. That's

Carter 1:51

That's all you need. No,

Corey 1:53

brought in vanilla. I

Carter 1:53

I don't think they have vanilla anymore. I

Zain 1:55

I don't think they have vanilla. No, see, vanilla's gone, and it's now strawberry. But it looks like vanilla. So, just so you know, that also exists.

Zain 2:03

As soon as we can go out, as

Carter 2:04

as soon as we can leave our houses, we're going to Wendy's, right after

Zain 2:07

after DQ. Next week, Burger King Deep Dive. We're doing it, guys. We have to do it. Great. Let's let's move it on to our headlines, guys. We have got so much to cover, but of course, I'm not going to skip the headlines that I find intriguing, that I find fascinating. And this one starts with The New York Times, where the Ohio lottery is to give five people a million dollar each to encourage vaccination. That's right. The many propositions that governments have used to bolster slumping demand for the vaccine in the United States. Well, Republican Governor of Michigan Mike DeWine of Ohio, I should say, raised the ante considerably on Wednesday, announcing that the state would give five people a million bucks in return for having been vaccinated as part of their weekly lottery program. Stephen Carter, we have talked about incentives. We've talked about vaccine hesitancy. We've talked about vaccine behavior. What do you think of this particular incentive proposed by the governor of Ohio? Ohio I'm

Carter 3:04

I'm all in I think it's fantastic I think it's a great way of incenting behavior uh with with some with some folks that are uh gonna have some problematic issues uh it's also you know I I like the idea of thinking that this is worth something right like it's worth at least a lottery ticket as well as my my wellness and my health so

Carter 3:23

so I love it I would love for Alberta British Columbia one of the one of the provinces to give it a try especially somewhere like Alberta where we have super high vaccine hesitancy. For me, this is a great idea. Let's do it. I'm in. We're

Zain 3:36

We're all about the lotteries and the gambling here. So it could very well fit with our thematic elements of Alberta. Corey, how pissed off would you be if you got your vaccination and then figured out that you were not eligible for the $1 million jackpot every week?

Corey 3:53

Well, not very, because I understand probability. But to the point about why this is actually maybe be not such a

Corey 4:00

a bad idea. People who are worried about the one in 100,000 chance of a bad reaction, why not offer them one in a million chance to get some cash, right? This is not a group of people that are by and large looking at the statistics and running this thing like a computer would. I don't know, however, that I would have offered a million dollars chance if you get it. I would have brought social pressure into this as well. And so I would have said, if your neighborhood hits 75 percent your

Corey 4:29

your neighborhood's entered and draw everybody in your neighborhood and i define it like a block yeah everyone on your block will

Corey 4:35

will get two hundred thousand dollars or something to that oh i

Zain 4:38

i like that a postal code sort of lottery almost i think a postal code would actually be small enough in the canadian context if i'm not mistaken to like net out a decent amount if you've got a split of a million bucks i'm just thinking top of mind that's an interesting interesting interesting strategy, Corey. Carter, do you legitimately feel like an incentive like this could work in Canada? It's almost like we're a few paces behind in terms of our cycle. But if we get to this point, is this something to keep in mind quite legitimately?

Carter 5:05

Well, it is. And think about the cost-benefit ratio. Let's say that you give away five $1 million prizes or one $5 million prize. It really is irrelevant. It's absolutely inconsequential when you consider the overall health budget and the costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. So it costs nothing. And

Carter 5:25

And you might be able to get an uptick, let's say 5% uptick, an 8% uptick. That's a significant number of people who are getting their first and second vaccinations that could save you a lot of money down the road. For me, this is a perfect idea. Let's do it. Really, there is no downside except having to give away a couple million bucks, which in

Carter 5:49

in the overall scheme of government is inconsequential.

Zain 5:53

Corey, do you want to add to that point around would you actually encourage policymakers to consider something in this neighborhood if and when Canada approaches a similar moment in time?

Corey 6:04

Yeah, I would absolutely encourage them to look at incentives here. I think carrots and sticks is what you're going to need to do to get the kind of numbers that we're hoping to get. I'm not 100% convinced that the lottery formulated the way they've done it will have any material effect. But what I like about the United States always is that there are 50 crazy experiments. So let's see which states figure this out. Let's see if it has any material effect relative to their neighbor states, because maybe it's just a situation where you're paying $5 million to people who would have been vaccinated anyhow.

Zain 6:33

Yeah, that's a good point. So

Corey 6:35

figure that out. But let's look at incentives for sure. Let's find ways that we can encourage people and find whatever they're motivated by to get them to get jabbed to make us all safe.

Zain 6:45

Let's move on to our next headline. And guys, we're going to get into the headlines almost in rapid fire succession because we've got so many things to talk about. This one comes to us from Global News. Tori's delete tweet that slams one dose summer. OK, so you guys have seen the image. I can't describe the image, but maybe I'll leave it to one of you to kind of help describe it. And then tell me what you think happened. I mean, we've covered social media, you know, airs of parties before. four. But Carter, can I leave it to you to maybe kind of describe this meme? And then let's talk about it very quickly in terms of why the conservatives put it out.

Carter 7:19

Sure. I mean, I think that the easiest way to describe it is that there was a two-dose summer, which had a number of very happy-looking, well, let's call them white people, all celebrating... Is that what we're calling them now? Okay. I think we should. I mean, I'm not an expert in whiteness, but it appears to me that they are pretty damn white all celebrating uh the two-dose summer everything is great we can all be close together and then right underneath of it says the trudeau summer and it's got a person with a uh oxygen mask on it doesn't look like they're uh

Carter 7:52

uh intubated but uh obviously very ill and uh yeah

Carter 7:57

um near death and

Carter 7:58

and and the one dose summer is not good enough for canadians is the the caption of the tweet. So it was not seen necessarily as particularly politically correct or communications-wise particularly savvy.

Zain 8:13

Corey, what was interesting about this tweet that they've since deleted was a couple of things. You know, if you're on social media like us, you notice a few of these things. One of them was that it was a scheduled tweet. You could tell because exactly at a particular timestamp, like 8 a.m. So this must have gone through like a vetting process by some folks being like, yeah, put it in the queue, so to speak, right? Right. So this was not a off the cuff. Someone came up with an amazing idea that Trudeau kind of said one dose summer. So, you know, Trudeau sounds like Trudeau. And they kind of put it up. This was at least some form of vetting, which I thought was interesting because there's probably checks and balances to these things. And then the second thing was, you know, a question around which audience were they trying to play with? So those are just two observations from my mind. But I'm curious to get your reaction to this mean tweet by the conservatives. Well,

Corey 8:57

how very charitable. You actually think they were playing to an audience and providing any strategic thought as they assembled this tweet.

Corey 9:03

As you mentioned, it was part of a queue, or I mean, either that or it's the mother of all, I mean, mother of all coincidence. It's the one in 60 chance it's just going to be on the top of the hour. always right but um i i would suspect it was probably on the queue and um and that means it was probably at least on an editorial calendar a binder that gave somebody in authority the position say yep this looks good oh that's awesome yeah you've nailed whatever it is oh you've dunked on them or whatever yeah but uh to the point about dunking it

Corey 9:32

seems to me if this was for anybody this was for the base that would lap this up the people who are just looking for ways to dunk on Trudeau and find snide ways. This was a party-sanctioned version of Trudome or the Liberals or any of the other, you know, very weak sauce insults that are thrown around on social media that play entirely to a specific type of person. Because let me count the ways this was kind of bad. On execution, just the cheesiest fucking stock photo I've ever seen. Like, what are these people doing? They're all kind of huddling around like they're playing invisible football uh with a bunch of like 25 something bar stars

Corey 10:08

like it doesn't make any sense and then just this uh again this this person who's just on their back with an oxygen mask doesn't look like they're intubated again just kind of stock imagery nonsense um and then let's talk about the fact that um it

Corey 10:23

it it just it's very callous it it's talking about people uh who are dying and what that could possibly mean and it's making light of this idea it's like yeah look the The Americans get to party, and that

Corey 10:36

that shouldn't be our biggest concern right now, right? Yeah. That's part of it. Like, the whole thing was just a tonal miss across the board. And the funny thing I thought was they took it down, but

Corey 10:46

but unless they've apologized in the past few hours, I've been busy watching Alberta implode. But unless it happened in the last couple of hours, they didn't apologize. They just took it down and almost pretended it never happened.

Zain 10:59

Yeah, yeah, just moved on. on uh we've we're on the vaccine front tangentially in some ways can i ask you guys about astrazeneca like i'm just throwing shit in because like i kind of you know what i just want to kill time

Corey 11:10

time you just want to just keep dragging it out drag it out before we get to

Zain 11:13

to the alberta coup yeah this

Zain 11:14

this is good this keeps the people going it either does one of two things it keeps people until the 43 minute mark when we start with alberta or we lose 80 of the audience no

Carter 11:23

no i think you should ask us how the astrazeneca you know vaccine works and how how uh how it's different how's the different mrna uh how

Carter 11:33

is it different i got it that

Carter 11:35

that makes it different you know like let me

Zain 11:39

me ask you one quick question on both because i think it is an important thing with the back track this week um carter how significant is that back track and two double barrel question how um how

Zain 11:49

how does that make the naci look from from last week when we were discussing it

Carter 11:54

i i i don't actually understand what the hell is going on i am am so confused with the communications and and the structures around astrazeneca i don't understand what they're trying to to communicate here's all i know i'm in like i'm in this group that got this vaccination that got the az vaccination i need to get the the second one uh for this to be as effective as it should be and i just hope that all of this toing and froing doesn't put people like like me off of getting our second vaccinations. I don't understand why they're making such a big deal out of it. It just does not feel like it is compared to the risk of the pandemic compared to the risk of other issues. This just does not feel like it's something I'm going to worry about. Until it reaches the level of birth control risk. It's just something I'm not going to care about. Corey,

Zain 12:47

Corey, talk to me about the communications on this quickly.

Corey 12:50

they've obviously made a decision a conscious decision that they're going to start moving away from astrazeneca and when you think about the when we talked about this last we said was this a mistake was this strategy i kind of discounted it was part of strategy zane but i'm not so sure now and i was talking to a a colleague who's an expert in this space health policy in particular and and what they were telling me was um the

Corey 13:16

thing you have to to keep in mind about astrazeneca is um the efficacy nobody doubts the efficacy is great that's that's been proven in the real world time and time again but the way they fudge their numbers and

Corey 13:27

and the way they have played fast and loose with these things in the past has made a large number of health professionals skeptical about what else might be hiding in the bushes here and and whether it makes sense to take astrazeneca's words for for basically anything now i'm not trying to create additional skepticism about that the reason it was it told to me was this maybe

Corey 13:46

maybe this is what's going on maybe this is where something is going on here but um you know i talked to a different health professional who said do you understand what the effing risk of a blood clot is if you get covid it is through the fucking roof get your goddamn vaccine he didn't use those words i'm just trying to make a more comfortable at this moment sure and um and

Corey 14:05

and and so i i tend to think yeah

Corey 14:08

yeah i'm with carter like do we really need this kind of ambiguity at this point we are still in a moment where not everybody who wants a vaccine can get a vaccine. And do we want to be discouraging people from getting vaccines? It's, it's a bit befuddling to me. And frankly, if we're moving away from AstraZeneca, it just needs to be a much clearer communication. It can't be, you know, one-off decisions by provinces to act in different ways, NACI doing different things. We've got,

Corey 14:32

you know, we need some, we need some really sharp, really clear, really direct communication on this matter. Totally.

Zain 14:38

Totally. Let's hit, let's hit a few more headlines very quickly. Next one comes to us from CTV. Minister backtracks on Bill C-10, says social media users will never be regulated. I mean, this bill has been a disaster from the beginning. We've talked about it briefly in a few episodes ago. Stephen Carter, what do you think this kind of says about the minister here? I'm just kind of curious from your communications lens, you know, was this a policy issue? Was this a communications issue? Now that the bill is held up, he couldn't really translate it all that well to Canadians in terms of what it was or was not supposed to do. I'm quickly getting your thoughts on the minister here on this particular bill.

Carter 15:14

Either the minister didn't understand the file when he took it over, or he didn't have a real clear communication strategy. This did not work. It did not work from the beginning. It did not have simple talking points that he could stick to and understand. And based on the various discussions and the various times he's spoken to the bill, he has not been able to present a clear understanding of what this bill is designed to do, because I fear that this minister did not understand what this bill was designed to do. And that is a real problem if you're Justin Trudeau, because the prime minister's office can't do it all. This type of bill, this type of regulation of the internet shouldn't be that challenging. We've covered it off here before. I think that there is a difference between a right speech and a right to broadcast. There is some sort of a line in

Carter 16:01

terms of broadcasting and social media. I don't think that what, you know, I think what we're doing is broadcasting. I don't know that it's just putting up a podcast. I don't think we get to say whatever pops into our pretty little heads. I mean, we

Carter 16:15

we do, but you know, you know, there's, there's a consequence to it and there should be a consequence to the speech. And when companies that post things don't face consequences and individuals who post things don't face consequences. The system is fundamentally broken.

Zain 16:30

Corey, policy issue or communications issue? Many say that there should have been a slam dunk for the minister, a linear sort of approach with the sense, hey, listen, our rules are dated. They don't really accommodate for platforms and networking, and sorry, streaming giants. We need to make that happen. What do you think kind of happened here now that it's on hold or being held up, so to speak?

Corey 16:49

Communications were challenged, but you've got to keep in mind that all problems manifest as communications. problems. And I think in this case, it's pretty easy to look at the policy and say, boy, they were not on firm or clear ground on that particular matter. The number of things that came up in the discussion where they changed what they were saying, like, yeah, no, we're not going to regulate social media users. Well, maybe we'll regulate big accounts. No, we would never regulate social media users.

Corey 17:16

That's not really fundamentally a communications problem. They flip-flopped, and that that added to the chaos of it all similarly when we talk about the policy of all of this and the fact that they kicked so much of it to the crtc to regs that were unable to answer very obvious questions about how this could possibly be implemented and just basically said not even trust us but trust the crtc like let's let's figure this down the road that's

Corey 17:42

that's a half baked policy and and i think i said it at the time but beware when uh somebody comes and says we'll just figure it out in regs right yeah because even though there are i mean it's the reality of any bill you're going to put into the regulations more specificity than you would into the bill because bills only get opened every so often but you should be able to answer with a lot of clarity what those regulations would look like at that particular moment doesn't mean they need to be drafted yeah but i mean they weren't even there like they couldn't even speak to intent uh on the regulations or what was to come we

Zain 18:13

we we hear that a lot of the driving force behind this this bill was Quebec, you know, the politics in Quebec, the need for something like this in Quebec. Carter, can the Liberals allow this bill to just die? Or do you think the political cost is too high for them?

Carter 18:28

Oh, it dies for sure, I think. I

Carter 18:29

I think it dies for sure, because I don't think there's enough runway left to resurrect it, recreate it, and ultimately push it through. Nor is there the political desire to. I mean, sure, they may be wanting to do this for Quebec, But there's other things that they can give to Quebec that may mean more to the average Quebecer. This is not a policy that necessarily carries the election for them. And given the timelines get tighter and tighter, I would just go back to the budget and focus on the amount of money that's being spent and the money that's been left over that hasn't been spent.

Zain 19:07

Corey, the Conservatives kind of claim this is a freedom of expression, free speech sort of exercise that the Liberals are kind of encroaching upon. But in many ways, this is something that they're responding to, not just with the platforms and the streaming giants, but for a Quebec constituency. Do you feel like this dies? And can they afford to let it die?

Corey 19:25

Will the Conservatives let it die? Sorry,

Zain 19:26

the Liberals. Will the Liberals let this thing die and languish? Or do they have to spend political capital to keep it alive as much as they can for a Quebec that they need in an upcoming election, whenever that may be?

Corey 19:39

So I believe languishing is probably the worst of the options here.

Corey 19:42

The Conservatives aren't going to walk around from it. You don't want to go into an election with them being able to hammer you for it and saying they would repeal it. They're already starting to talk like that. I'm I'm not saying it's going to – I don't think the election is going to hinge on Bill C

Corey 19:53

C-10, but it's going to matter a great deal to a certain number of people. Either fix the bill and get it passed or kill the bill yourself and just say, you're right, this is not ready for primetime. Here's our intent. We're going to figure this out at a later date. But to have a deeply flawed bill sitting out there as something that you would like to do, I don't think does you any favors if you're the governing party. Let's

Zain 20:13

Let's move it on to our final headline. Our final headline comes to us from Global News. News. Trudeau did not break federal ethics rules in We Charity scandal, but Morneau did, says a new report. Mario Dion found that Bill Morneau violated conflict of interest provisions of three specific aspects, and that those findings were directly linked to the fact that Morneau's relationship with We Charity co-founder Craig Kuehlberger meets the definition of a quote-unquote friend under the rules. Corey, I mean, there's so much to be talked about around this in many ways. We could spend an entire deep dive episode why wouldn't we uh we will do that later um Morneau's gone does this stick no

Corey 20:52

no I don't think so because Morneau's gone and ultimately we talked about this when this was all going on in real time uh this is why this is why you move on from that that's why nobody buys when you're saying I'm

Corey 21:04

I'm gonna go run off and deal with uh you know run for the presidency of of this major international organization did he ultimately submit his name for that i forget what ended up happening i mean uh yeah no i don't think so no no okay

Corey 21:17

i i well or or he dropped out but in any case that that didn't occur uh obviously the um the reality is there's just there's what are you going to do what are you going to ask for if you're the opposition you can make it a judgment call on justin trudeau how did you allow this person uh to make the decisions that he made but that's only going to get you so far the guy already doesn't have his job. It just seems like a bit of a stretch for me to think that this is going to hinge. And unfortunately, for the conservatives, the ethics commissioner also cleared the prime minister at the same time. Yeah.

Corey 21:50

So it's, it's a tough one. I mean, it still reeks to the high heavens. I still continue to be unenthused, shall we say about the we charity situation from top to bottom. But when you start talking about a political issue using at the doorsteps, Yeah, you can maybe paint a general brush of look at these guys, look at their lacks of ethics, but he's

Corey 22:13

He's gone. And, and in some ways, it looks like it was a problem that was dealt with.

Zain 22:17

Carter, Bill Morneau is gone. As Corey said, he also dropped out of that OECD Secretary General position in early January. Carter, does it stick? He's gone. Yeah, I mean, listen.

Zain 22:29

Or actually here, maybe a better question. Make the best case for me for the conservatives to make it stick.

Carter 22:35

Well, I'm not. There is no case for it, because the the best case was made in the moment. And that was by the conservative leader when he said Bill Morneau's resignation is further proof of a government in chaos. And of course, that that conservative leader was Andrew Scheer. So he's gone. This is not something that's stuck. And I think that this is part of the reason that Scheer himself is gone, because they chased they chased issues that didn't matter. And so my recommendation to the conservatives, don't chase this. it's over it's done uh chase c10 that seems to be working chase um chase the budget chase uh chase what you can do for canadians but bill morneau is gone and these ethics violations come with no impact at all it's over move on cory

Zain 23:21

cory i want to ask you the same question you know one of the conservatives threads for a long time has been trudeau and his ethics these liberals and their fucking ethics this this would have proved to be a proof point of that i'm sure they can still bring it up in the abstract. Help me make that point stronger for them if they want to bring up this narrative thread.

Corey 23:38

Liberals aren't sorry. The Liberals aren't apologizing for their ethics failings. They didn't fire Bill Morneau. Morneau, they just wanted to move behind the curtain. They tried to get him a cushy job elsewhere. In fact, as was reported in Blacklock's last month, they spent nearly $11,000 during a pandemic on hospitality and printing in order to try to get this guy the OECD job. I mean, it's madness to think that somehow Morneau was being punished. This is just another example of how when the spotlight gets too hot, the liberals try to give their buddies jobs somewhere in the dark. And that's all you're seeing here. And you should not give Justin Trudeau a pass for this. This is not ethical heroism. This is ethical failure at the highest stages. It wasn't bad enough that he had to be an ethical failure in Canada. He tried to make Bill Morneau the world's ethical failure by putting him in charge of the OECD.

Zain 24:30

Nicely done. Carter, give

Zain 24:32

give me a response to that in terms of maybe don't give me a response. I don't want your version. Give me, because you didn't have one. Yeah,

Carter 24:37

Yeah, I don't have one. Cory did fine, but it's not going to resonate because he's talking about things that are long ago past. I

Carter 24:46

don't know if I agree with

Zain 24:47

this one. I think this is a big thread for them. I agree with Carter. You just made me

Carter 24:51

me say that. You made him do it. Neither one of us would do this. I

Carter 24:55

You forced him to do this. we both want to talk about alberta you're fucking with us at this stage let's move it on

Zain 25:03

on to our next look it's it's a 25 minutes clean it would have been perfect people could have told their friends it starts at the 25 minute mark now i need to wait till the 26 minute mark to delay entirely carter the worst

Zain 25:15

which which i just want to wish all of our listeners a very happy eid mubarak once again let's move it on to our next segment our next segment and then there were 60 guys the The UCP in Alberta has two fewer members in its ranks as of this evening. We record tonight on Thursday evening. The party caucus met Thursday evening to discuss a letter from former UCP caucus chair Todd Lowen, published announcing his resignation as chair and stating that Premier Jason Kenney was, quote unquote, causing dysfunction within the party. MLAs from the party voted to remove him as well as, wait for it, drumroll, Stephen Carter, True Barnes, of course, finally, from the government caucus in a statement issued by Mike Ellis, who's the party whip. He said members recognize the need for government caucus to remain strong and united behind our leader, Premier Jason Kenney, as we continue to fight through what looks to be the final stage of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. OK, guys, a lot to talk about. I mean, we had the letter in terms of timeline. First, in terms of how the letter was delivered. What was it, midnight, 1 a.m., something like that, like in the middle of the night, right? I think if we heard about it, we heard about 5, 6 a.m. when we were getting up in the morning. So timing, I want to talk about that. I don't want to actually bypass the entire letter conversation. Then the subsequent steps of an additional MLA coming and supporting this particular MLA, Todd Lowen. No real support for Jason Kenney from his caucus. I want to talk about whether that was strategy, whether that was happenstance, whether that was a directive by the Premier's office, whatever that was. Then we get into a caucus meeting that lasts several hours, leading into a vote later in the evening, where we find out the results of what I just mentioned, these two members, Drew Barnes and Todd Lowen, out of caucus. Corey, can we start with the letter? Or do you want to start somewhere else? Because I wanted to start with how the letter was delivered first. But maybe give me, before I jump into that, how bad is this for Jason Kenney, top line, and then let's jump into the mechanics of what happened over the course of the last 24 hours. Well,

Corey 27:18

Well, I don't know, and I don't think anybody could reasonably know at this point. The dust is still settling. I'm not convinced by the end of the recording of this podcast there hasn't been another major development that helps us to somewhat adjust things. What is clear, however, is that we've moved into a different stage in the rebellion. So when we last talked about this, I made the comment, it's not real because nobody's putting their name to it. Well, Well, we got it. We got a name to it. We got it on MLA

Corey 27:43

MLA letterhead and it's laying out a case why, you know, I was about to say Justin Trudeau, Jason Kenney should no longer be leader. And that's that's a very different situation that all of a sudden Jason Kenney finds himself in. And I don't want to zoom too forward to the vote, but there was reporting that there was 77 percent support to to kick out. No,

Carter 28:05

I think that was a joke by Brett.

Carter 28:09

That was a joke. It's a good joke,

Carter 28:10

Because it was 77% for the leadership reviews of Redford and Stelmack.

Corey 28:16

Okay, wow. This is great. It's

Carter 28:20

No, but it's funny that you fell for it, and I think that that makes me happy.

Zain 28:27

What was the vote? We

Zain 28:30

I don't think we know yet. Yeah,

Carter 28:31

Yeah, there's no results that have been released. all we know for certain is that these two were kicked out and

Carter 28:37

and and let me let me start there because i want can i answer zane's questions about whether or not it was bad for kenny because you

Zain 28:43

you jump in top line there's so many things to discuss but let's start here yeah it

Carter 28:46

it wasn't bad for kenny it was great for kenny because kenny this is not a this is not an isolated incident right this this letter that was was released at 12 o'clock midnight let's talk about why it was released at 12 o'clock midnight it's because something was happening today because Because you don't release a missive at midnight hoping that you can get something to change tomorrow. You're doing that because something bad is going to happen to you already. So my bet is that Todd Lohan was on his way out as the UCP caucus chair or something along those lines. Or, you know, they were going to have a caucus meeting where they were going to talk about these issues. And he didn't want to be able to come out and support the government afterwards. So he puts out a letter at midnight. Letters at midnight don't happen unless the next day there's a problem that

Carter 29:38

that they already foresee.

Corey 29:40

Can we rewind a tiny bit here? Speculation theater, what I think was going on, what might have been going on, all of this stuff. And can we just put on the table the things that we actually know right now and continue to correct the things that I just fell for that were obviously jokes, please? There was a letter that was released in the middle of the night. which laid

Corey 30:03

I am no longer going to be caucus chair I think it's time for Jason Kenney to resign I'm paraphrasing but he talked specifically about the eastern slopes he talked about doctors he talked about the situation becoming unhelpful the way the conversation has been charged on the pandemic which seemed to me to be coded language about he's being overly critical of people who are opposed to vaccines It's just based on the fact that, you know, Todd Lohan has

Corey 30:33

has been a little more sympathetic towards those

Corey 30:36

those opposed to lockdowns. So we know

Corey 30:39

know there was a letter.

Corey 30:41

We know there was a caucus meeting and we know the result of that caucus meeting was that Drew Barnes and Todd Lohan were kicked out.

Corey 30:50

I don't know anything else. Do you know anything else?

Carter 30:54

Do I know anything else? Yeah, I know that fundraising was low. I

Carter 30:58

I know that these 15 or 18 MLAs signed a letter previous. I know that there are two factions of the caucus at least. I know those things. But that's all I know because that's all the stuff that's come publicly. That's

Carter 31:14

That's a significant amount of knowledge. Like if you take this as an isolated incident, it's one story. If you take this as connected to all the other factors, then it's a totally different story. so

Carter 31:26

that's why i think and that's why i'm jumping to conclusions because if it's just if it's just as you describe it then

Carter 31:34

then two mlas got expelled from caucus and no one really cares because at the end of the day they dis you know drew barnes could not have been more disrespectful to his leader over the past two years than he has been the

Carter 31:47

the fact that he is still in caucus today to be be expelled from caucus is the shocking part right

Corey 31:53

right yeah it's very shocking right

Carter 31:54

right that's the part that's shocking so the fact that he was eliminated today is irrelevant right

Carter 32:00

right the fact that todd lowen decided to throw himself on the same sword is marginally interesting what

Carter 32:06

what is interesting is the speculative part where we start to try and figure out why today why now so

Corey 32:14

so can we talk about out a couple of things that we can speculate about with a high degree of confidence yes sure let's let's create a new list now speculating with a high degree

Carter 32:22

degree of confidence is good number

Corey 32:26

the vote to kick them out was not unanimous we

Corey 32:29

we can be pretty comfortable of that because they didn't release the number and if it was unanimous for sure they would have said it was a unanimous vote of caucus to kick him out i

Carter 32:37

i concur i agree okay

Corey 32:40

we can speculate with a high degree of confidence that uh the western standard was not entirely full of shit that they were being leaked to in real time about what was going on at the caucus they

Carter 32:51

were not entirely full of shit but there might have been a load of shit next door to them yeah

Corey 32:57

yeah and we like and so we don't know necessarily maybe the only two leakers were the two people who were kicked out because of course they were still in the caucus and so it'd be possible to be in the caucus meeting uh

Corey 33:09

that's sort of it for

Corey 33:10

for me i don't i don't know what else we know like they i would actually say for a day that had a ton of leaks i don't feel like i know an awful lot about what occurred in that meeting

Zain 33:19

yeah that's that's interesting um by the way if you're just tuning in i want to introduce you to the new host of the show cory hogan uh thank you thank you cory for for stepping in there

Zain 33:29

that's what i get for being like so what what is your payback

Zain 33:32

for 25 minutes of fucking us Oh, fuck. Okay. Yeah, this is interesting. So Corey set a lot of things on the table. Can we go piece by piece, though? Like, I feel like that's what we need to

Carter 33:42

to do here. I want

Carter 33:42

want to continue down his what else do we know for sure's. Okay, please lay

Carter 33:45

it on me. Go down that path and let's

Carter 33:47

go piece by piece. Or what are the other assumptions, right, that we can make with a high degree of confidence? The other assumptions are, this is not the end of the dissent from the caucus, right? Like, so Dave Hanson, the MLA from Bonneville. Tell

Zain 34:04

Tell me what makes you say that. Because

Carter 34:05

Because the MLA from Bonneville, Cold Lake, St. Paul, Dave Hanson, wrote

Carter 34:12

wrote a very supportive message on his Facebook page, I believe it was. In

Zain 34:16

In support of the letter,

Carter 34:17

correct? In support of Todd Lowen's letter last night, criticizing the leader. And yet his name was not included in the we got to kick you out list. So there are two ways you can leave caucus. One, you can be kicked out. And the second, you leave. We had Lloyd Snellgrove leave when I was working for Alison Redford. You know, he he was less than thrilled that that she won the leadership and he just bailed. leaving the caucus is not off the table for these mlas that are that like i think the next big assumption is this isn't over we

Carter 34:55

we are simply in the middle and i think that this is where the speculation really starts to ramp up when you start looking at the the eight what do we call them the covet 18 the 18 people that signed the letter the 18 people that oppose the lockdowns the 18 people who feel like their constituents aren't being served by a government that's barely taking care of its citizenry, those people aren't going to be satisfied. I'm dying to know what's going on with Angela Pitt, and with, you know, a number of these others that signed these letters.

Zain 35:26

Carter, okay, hold on, let me let me go back to Corey's framework, don't know what we know with a high degree of speculative confidence, right? Yeah.

Zain 35:32

Are you saying this is not over define defining this as

Zain 35:37

others leaving the caucus or being told to get left from the caucus? Marcus?

Carter 35:41

I think that this is just, I mean, at the end of the day, here's not something that's speculative, but not speculative at all.

Carter 35:49

MLAs and governments tend to act so that they can get reelected in the next election. Corey, you're going to agree with me on that, right? There is a strong motivation to act in a fashion that will get you reelected. And looking at the money,

Carter 36:03

looking at Jason Kenney's overall popularity, looking, Corey's the one who's been pointing out to us that the polls have shown for, what is it now, seven straight months, Corey, that the NDP are poised to form the next government. Seven straight months, multiple polling firms, multiple polling methodologies, all of them tell us a singular story, and that is the NDP is most likely to form the government. Having said that, the MLAs that signed this letter aren't the MLAs that are going to lose their seats, right?

Carter 36:34

right? These are the MLAs that have a high degree of confidence they can actually hold their seats and that's why they're speaking out against the premier right

Carter 36:41

right they have confidence that if they were to leave this caucus they could form their own caucus and still and still hold and that's what i'm that's what that's the unknown known that i'm the most interested in is

Carter 36:52

is that the right wing of alberta forget about the party affiliation still

Carter 36:57

still hold significant sway in rural alberta cory

Corey 37:04

don't know about that um

Corey 37:08

So let's take one further step just to fill out a bit more of the story here. We can speculate with a moderate degree of confidence that not only was it not unanimous, but it was closer than the government is comfortable about because they did not release the numbers within caucus either. So it wasn't unanimous. That didn't make it into the news release.

Corey 37:26

Wasn't mentioned to caucus.

Corey 37:29

That tells me something else about the numbers again, right? They're a little too tight. They're a little too embarrassing for the leader. What that is, I mean, I would actually say 20% would be too much. That would be a scary number. 25%? Scary number. 30? 40? 45?

Corey 37:46

Mortifying. You've got a certain number of people who, in a vote that was not unanimous, were able to say, like, no, I'm not going to kick out somebody who called for the leader's head. That would show a party that was entirely out of control. And we know, well, we can strongly suspect that there's a good chunk of the party who was not willing to turf somebody for resigning as caucus chair and calling for the leader's head.

Corey 38:13

Right? So the thing I sort of agree with Carter on here is that

Corey 38:17

that does make, if I was in the premier's office, I would be holding a very sharp breath right now, waiting for another shoe to drop. Yeah.

Corey 38:24

Another shoe doesn't always drop, though.

Corey 38:27

Now, that might be a comment that ages crazy poorly. It might be bad now.

Zain 38:34

That's interesting. And I want to kind of take that framework of, you know, where we've advanced in the rebellion. Carter, you feel like there's another shoe to drop. Corey, you're saying there could be. You know, Carter, talk to me more broadly. You've seen this from the inside. Is this how premiers go down? Oh, like, because I'm trying to reconcile your initial comment of today being good and not horrible for Kenny versus if we're in the middle of something where there's potentially other shoes to

Carter 39:02

to drop, bridge the gap for me, my friend. No, the way that the way that premiers go down is when the people who are in their caucus take them down. The people who are outside your caucus can't do anything to you. Right. Right. The people who are outside of the caucus are sitting out there thinking about their next moves and how they're going to get reelected, forming their own party. They're not coming back in. So it's the people who are in the caucus that represent the real threat to you. So what what I'm certain Kenny's concerned about right now are the six. What did you say, 60 that are left? Those 60 are, you know, they're more than enough to keep your majority. There's 16 more that can leave and you can still hold your majority government. But you have to make sure that those people aren't gunning for you because all of these things added together, like I said a number of episodes ago, the best thing that could happen to Kenny is that he kicks eight people out of his caucus and those eight people form a different party. And then he can start to shift into what does a true conservative government look like? A true conservative government that's concerned about the cost of health care, that doesn't want to see people's lives wasted for no particular purpose, that wants businesses to get back to being

Carter 40:19

being businesses as soon as possible. And that means locking down for short, sharp periods. That's what Kenny wants. That's what Kenny needs. And today could be his very first step towards actually achieving that.

Zain 40:35

Corey, jump into what Carter's talking about.

Corey 40:38

another thing we can speculate with a moderate degree of confidence is that this is not a caucus in a state of total anarchy uh to my point about how little we have actually heard that we can feel has been vetted by multiple sources uh you know media say and i've talked a couple of outside of you know uh the western standard who obviously has a pipeline to somebody or somebody's uh there has not been an awful lot of of that spilled out of this caucus um they they are still largely holding together so to carter's point maybe

Corey 41:09

maybe this is an opportunity to reset right to say we're going to take a different approach from this point forward i am i'm not i i put up with drew barnes and his nonsense for too long that was a lesson learned for me uh we allowed that to become a poison let's make no mistake drew

Corey 41:25

drew barnes and his opposition to the covet restrictions that

Corey 41:30

that was just drew barnes finding something to be miserable about maybe he believes it in his core but i I also believe he would be fighting about it regardless. The guy has found every three months since he was not made finance minister a reason to break with Jason Kenney on something.

Corey 41:46

He has been picking a fight every three months since the dawn of time. On a very similar schedule, Brian

Corey 41:52

Brian Jean has been popping his head up ever since the 2017 leadership race, writing

Corey 41:57

writing a column in

Corey 41:59

in varying degrees of vagueness about what the premier should or shouldn't do. And even before he was premier, when he was leader of the UCP and

Corey 42:07

no, nobody's taking this right now. Nobody's interested. I haven't started a rebellion. I'll try again in six months. Right. Yeah.

Corey 42:13

And some of these people around, I am floored that Jason Kenney has put up with for as long as he has, allowing them to go on. I think it's hard, particularly for me to imagine, given that he sort of learned at the feet of Stephen Harper. And I can't, for the life of me, imagine Stephen Harper putting up with something like that. Stephen Harper was, you

Corey 42:36

you know, Belinda Stronach left his caucus. That was bad. But that was like an entirely different situation in some ways. And

Corey 42:47

And so I just, I don't know what's going on right now. Yeah.

Carter 42:51

Can I add to the speculation, though? Because one of the things that I was thinking about today is maybe Jason Kenney is getting a bit of a bad rap. Maybe Jason Kenney came in and said, you know what, I don't want to run my caucus the way that Stephen Harper ran his caucus. Maybe I want to give more freedoms to people to speak out. I mean, it's the only thing that I could think of that explains the way he treated Drew Barnes and allowing Drew Barnes to be so hyper hypercritical of the premier and the government over the last two years. I mean, your point, Corey, is bang on.

Carter 43:22

This is just the latest thing that Drew Barnes was complaining about. Drew Barnes was complaining from the moment he didn't make cabinet minister, and he's just been carrying that all the way through until today when he's now able to be the de facto leader of his own one-person party. So that's what should have happened to Drew Barnes months ago. But I I think that, you know, is it possible that Jason Kenney said, I don't want to be like Harper, I want to, to allow more flexibility within my caucus. And, you

Carter 43:53

you know, it certainly does seem to have manifested itself as such, over the last two years.

Zain 44:00

Carter and Corey actually I'm going to go to you on this because you've brought up the Brian Jean point and I think we should you know try to include it in parts as part of the conversation do you feel like for Barnes this was trying to pick a fight every three months now he's on the outside does this give him and perhaps Jean something to work with like if we're looking at this as checkers rather than chess is there enough you know mixing a metaphor making it worse pieces on the board to do some damage with if you are brian gene popping up for you know every six months to try to figure out what's up in the world of conservatism in alberta this

Corey 44:34

this is the question i think that will drive uh the answer to it will drive alberta politics over the next two years because one of one of two things is happening here right one is that brian gene and um you know at all now the mlas who have barnes and lowen who have all who've been kicked out of caucus let's just assume they're on the same side even if they're not on the same team yeah

Zain 44:57

yeah right yeah good point either

Corey 44:58

either they are um

Corey 45:01

trying to take over the ucp or

Corey 45:04

or they are not and i don't want to be too simple about it but if they are if they are trying to recreate a wild rose party if they're if they're happy to see these things burn then i think we're in one game right

Corey 45:15

right where all of a sudden there's another party on the right this could be a big fight um

Corey 45:19

um but you have to know that if you had had two right wing parties, you brought them together, and they fell apart within just a couple of years, the odds of them coming back together again, get a little bit longer. And that starts to look like more of a permanent schism. And that definitely does not like seem like a way back to government. If

Corey 45:37

If there is the sense that they are actually just fighting over the UCP, the tactics will be markedly different. Barnes, Barnes and Lowen won't like they'll sit as like independent, true conservatives there who want the UCP to be more united and better. And they will continue to try to chisel people out of Jason Kenney's orbit.

Corey 45:58

But, you know, in the sense of like, but we're all still members of the UCP.

Corey 46:02

My sense is they're actually more like that right now. Based on, again, the very limited data we have available right now. First of all, who

Corey 46:12

who quits as caucus chair but not quits the caucus? Yeah.

Corey 46:16

I think that's a pretty strong signal as to where Lowen's head is at. said. Similarly, Barnes didn't go anywhere. Barnes

Corey 46:23

Barnes could have gone a lot of places for a long time here, and he didn't. He was much happier to be a gadfly within the party. And Carter,

Corey 46:32

Carter, you said it, and I'll repeat it to you, and I'll say it's part of why I leave to this thesis. They want to win elections, individually and as government. And yes, maybe they could all get elected as Because back or opposition MLAs in this new right

Corey 46:48

right wing initiative, Wild Rose Independence Party, different party, but are they ever going to sniff government? Do they ever have a chance of that if they take that?

Zain 46:57

Carter, I want to I want to see what you think of Corey's two tracks, new party or take over the UCP. Do you agree with that? And from the breadcrumbs you've seen thus far on this Thursday evening, which one do you feel like this could be leaning more towards?

Carter 47:12

Well, let me project forward in the timeline. So let's assume that Corey's correct, that they wish to stay close and be able to take over the UCP. There are two timelines to do so. One is a relatively short timeline where the leader needs to be forced out and step down. In order to do that, you'll start to see some sort of letter-writing campaign from executives

Carter 47:37

executives and constituency associations, board of directors of the UCP, that'll

Carter 47:43

that'll be demanding some sort of a leadership review or some sort of a formal function to try and get rid of them. We've seen anonymous

Zain 47:48

anonymous versions of that that we've discussed on this podcast in

Zain 47:51

in the past. Do you feel like—can I ask you a more pointed question? Do you feel like after today, those anonymous campaigns might have names attributed to them? They're

Carter 47:59

They're going to have to. Yes, they have to be. Or they're on a different timeline

Carter 48:02

timeline or they're on a different plan. So there's really three options. If you go with Corey's thesis, the first option is they're going to try and get rid of them right away and try and win the leadership right away, the results. Because you still have two years, tons of time to run a leadership, reestablish the leader, and win the next election. The second timeline is right—

Zain 48:25

right— Can I stop you before you get to second? I need to clarify this for myself as I act as a proxy of the lister, okay? Carter, on option number one, finish off what the tactics are for a quick unseating of a leader, right? You said letter-writing campaigns. I interrupted you, and you said, yeah, they need to be specific. People need to put their names on them. What other pressure tactics get a premier to resign in scenario one? Just explain that tactically to me before you jump on to number two. Leadership

Carter 48:53

Leadership review is the first tactic. You must get to the place of a leadership review. The second is an actual caucus revolt, where the caucus, including cabinet ministers, are talking about how this guy needs to go. That is what took Alison Redford out. She made it through the leadership review, but then she was unable to sustain through the actual caucus revolt because she kept committing errors. right so the errors right now um the the challenge that this timeline has is that the errors that are happening most of the caucus i don't think see them as errors i think most people most of the caucus recognize that the thing that is making kenny unpopular with the 13 or 15 mlas is the thing that's going to actually make him popular with albertans right stop this fucking pandemic So I think that those

Carter 49:48

those are basically the two things. Right now, the only one that's available to this group is

Carter 49:53

is the leadership review because I think the general members will fuck him over.

Carter 49:57

The second pathway, the second longer pathway is to wait until after the election. If he loses the next election, you take over the party. You're the leader. Now, it means you have to be in opposition for four years, but that's not all bad. You can take it back four years later. So that timeline is relatively simple. simple the third course of action of course was the idea that they'd be forming their own party that reflects their actual values instead of their compromised values that a uh a combined party would have to by by its nature has to represent cory

Corey 50:32

so it's like in the series dave right are they fighting over the iron throne or are they trying to establish an independent kingdom in the north and it's pretty clear to me they are fighting over the iron throne still five minutes minutes ago drew barnes released a statement on his departure departure from the ucp caucus it's a nice way to put it drew um but it ends with this i will continue to speak as the member of the legislative assembly for cyprus medicine hat i will continue to stand on the principles and beliefs that the united conservative party was elected to govern under and has since abandoned so

Corey 51:03

it is um you know it's not exactly the clearest sign in the world but i would say the fact that you're still talking about the beliefs of the ucp and not small c conservatism that you were were elected under is a sign to me that that apparatus, that infrastructure still means something to you. But here's the thing that we need to talk about.

Corey 51:22

They might be trying to take over the party.

Corey 51:25

They might fail. I think this particular cast of yahoos is likely to fail, right? Like even if they managed to pull Jason Kenney out of the throne, I don't think they're getting it.

Corey 51:35

They might feel it's better to be an opposition MLA than unelected at the end of the the day. And so as much as they might want to keep the UCP intact, as long as they think that's a prize that's attainable to them, if they feel it's not, they

Corey 51:48

take the well, and we've seen this, you know, Derek Fildebrandt did this, you

Corey 51:53

know, the Freedom Conservative Party, look

Corey 51:56

look how that caught on, not really at all. But if a party like that did catch on, if a party like that took five, 10% of the vote, you

Corey 52:04

might as well do Rachel Notley the favor of measuring the drapes and and reporting it to her yourself, because that's going to hand the next election to the NDP.

Corey 52:14

Carter, you're shaking your head. What do you think?

Carter 52:16

I totally agree with Corey's analysis. I think that Corey is correct. But it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what they think. And the problem with this group is that they all think their brand of conservatism is the right brand of conservatism. If you simply exposed Albertans to that brand of conservatism, Albertans would bite on it. They'd love it. Yeah,

Carter 52:36

true. They love this brand of conservatism. So Corey's

Carter 52:39

Corey's problem is that he's thinking rationally, right?

Carter 52:42

right? And how dare you, sir, on this podcast, bring rational thought. I will not have it. I will not have it. Zane, for irrational thought, we go back to you as the host.

Zain 52:52

Oh, thank you so much. Once again, that was Stephen Carter, host of the Strategist podcast. Thank you, Carter. Guys, I have a question for you on this, right? So you see this release, and this could happen. What I'm about to ask you could happen five minutes from now, could happen tomorrow. So

Zain 53:06

So but let's talk going back in time. Throughout the day, we saw literally no support for Kenny on social media by any of his caucus, his ministers, etc. Corey, by design, or telling to some degree for you, perhaps both? both i

Corey 53:22

think by design the fact that nobody said it tells me it's by design because again we know how the vote went and so it's it's inconceivable to me that nobody supports the guy at this point um i suspect that as soon as this happened there was some version delivered in some way and again like we're in speculation town yeah but don't

Corey 53:43

don't say a fucking thing we are going to get together as a caucus and talk about it we're going to get our ducks together carter

Carter 53:48

carter it is not speculative

Carter 53:51

to assume i mean yes it is an assumption so i guess it's some speculation like

Carter 53:56

bear with me it is it is going back to your breaking of the speculation it is a known unknown that

Carter 54:02

that there was communication between the whips office and these mlas that

Carter 54:07

that is something that was reported in the western standard uh which pains me to recognize as even a something vaguely resembling a media outlet um it

Carter 54:17

it it's not for those paying attention but the

Carter 54:25

and i'm sure that part of that communication was no

Carter 54:28

no more going to the media don't don't express your support for the premier that will only weaken everybody let's get to the caucus meeting and let's express our views there what

Zain 54:40

what needs to be done publicly now let's get into strategy mode vote for kenny let's move out of speculation let's move into strategy we don't have all the facts of course we don't but we we know a few things um that we've laid out on our on our as carter would like to say known unknowns uh cory um what is what is the kenny strategy need to be from here does he need to have a parade of caucus just showering him with praise does he need to just move in strong what does it look like for him as a next step beyond what we know tonight

Corey 55:11

know there's it that's well

Corey 55:14

well i just i have a chart time getting past the fact we don't know what's going to go on uh yes there's um there's still an awful lot that could occur in the next bit i suspect even if somebody is thinking of leaving unless they're leaving right now they

Corey 55:27

they might want to leave at a time that gives maximum damage if they're trying to be real jerks about it they would wait until things have cooled down a bit and

Corey 55:35

and then they would leave right so i don't think that there's i don't think there's a channel changer here that you can do until you know for sure the state of your caucus uh and in that sense i wouldn't waste any channel changes you have in your back pocket so the very first thing that you need to do if you're jason kenney in the premier's office is figure your shit out like really figure your shit out i don't mean sort of and do not fall for the idea that you need to try to win tomorrow flip the channel tomorrow anything like that You are in a long-term game at this point, and you win it by controlling your internal party apparatus, not the media narrative tomorrow. Although, obviously, those two interplay, and there's a lot of back and forth there. You've got to keep in mind what you're trying to do over the next bit.

Corey 56:18

Here's my point, though, Zane.

Corey 56:20

Good strategy comes from good analysis.

Corey 56:23

Good strategy comes from good analysis, and you need to understand what you're working with. with you've got to have a good understanding, an honest understanding with yourself of who is rock solid with you, would never leave you, would take a bullet for you. The Doug Schweitzer's of the world who will embarrass themselves for the premier's office if they need to, right? And who is on

Corey 56:44

on like the furthest periphery of you right now. The Angela Pitts who are barely on site as it is, signed the letter, has made a bunch of comments that have been deeply unhelpful to you. mlas who have given sympathy like you've got to do an honest accounting of all of this you cannot be lied to by your staff you need to understand every

Corey 57:02

every whisper about these situations you need to know where their constituency association presidents are you need to know where constituency board members are you've got to understand who might be whispering to them how uh how loudly and you've got to understand the situation you're playing with right now because that drives all of your decisions going forward now if you fundamentally decide this scared the crap out of people uh in the sense that they're not going to be a problem to you for a bit and they're not immediately out to go and kind of more on that in a minute you know what happens when the parade doesn't start because i assume you're going to ask us at some point okay

Corey 57:35

okay like drew barnes how do you kick this thing further how do you get what you want yeah yeah i'll get there yeah for sure um but

Corey 57:44

it's at this point you've dealt with an insurgency it's time to apply good counter insurgency which means you co-opt the people who are co-optable and

Corey 57:53

you burn the people who aren't and if you've got to cut another person off at this point you do that but you cannot do that until you understand the situation you're in you cannot do that until you understand the extent of your insurgency the tools at hand even

Corey 58:06

even some of the external events and how they're going to play in actually not even definitely some of the the external events, things like COVID.

Corey 58:14

Good strategy comes from good analysis. I

Zain 58:16

I like that headline. Carter, is this where organizer Kenny comes in? Call sheets for every constituency association president, call every single person in caucus, how was today for you? What did this mean? If this is reset, you guys have used the word reset or redux or whatever, something in that neighborhood. Is this where the guy that has been mythically known as a master or organizer pulls out those chops and quite literally enters campaign mode to ensure that he doesn't win the day, spends the time, spends the perhaps political capital and runway in public, just making sure everything is aligned and is rock solid. Is now the time to do that?

Carter 58:54

I think so. I think that this is the time when you do up a list of 300 to 350 telephone calls that you're going to make, and you start making them. And you make the first 25, the first 25 or to your let's call it the potential problem caucus and you pick up the phone and you call them directly and you're going to have your whip sitting beside you you're going to have your chief of staff sitting beside you you're going to have the caucus chair sitting beside you and they're all going to pass you notes as you're going through the conversation because they can all hear it right but they're not speaking because you're going to have the control of the relationship and you're going to make sure that you know where angela pitt is standing how she's feeling and she's going to to have to tell you, is

Carter 59:32

is she with you or is she against you? And if she's with you, great.

Carter 59:36

Welcome to the team. Happy to have you. If you're against me, there's

Carter 59:41

And I think that those types of conversations need to happen. Then another set of conversations need

Carter 59:46

need to happen with all the riding presidents. You're going to pick up the phone. You're going to explain the problems that you're in. You're going to explain the pathway out of it. You're not going to staff these calls out. The staffing of the calls out is what got you to this place. This is a premier who is surrounded by pit bulls. These pit bulls go after people. They attack, and they seem to only know how to attack. And imagine that you're one of the caucus or one of the constituency presidents. You don't want to have a phone call from an issue manager. You want to have a phone call from the premier himself, because that makes you feel like you're valued. And at this stage, the premier needs to actually show that he values the people that ultimately make up the entire party. Now, you can't call 70,000 or 80,000 or 90,000 members. Party

Carter 1:00:37

But I'll tell you something.

Carter 1:00:39

You can make this into a giant phone tree.

Carter 1:00:42

You can make sure that your loyal, you know, your loyal 35 caucus members are making telephone calls to the vice presidents of every constituency association. You can give and assign this all out. And all that happens over the course of this weekend is that your top people are spending six and eight hours on the phone every day. And that's what should be happening this weekend if you're going to control this. Because while

Carter 1:01:06

while Corey's completely correct, you have to have a longer term plan. The first step in the longer term plan is to put out this particular fire.

Corey 1:01:14

Corey, jump in on this.

Corey 1:01:16

They're not mutually mutually exclusive. And in fact, one of the ways that you're going to get the information you need is by making these phone calls. You

Zain 1:01:22

You mean the analysis to help make

Corey 1:01:24

make that analysis? This is my point. You have to be careful using the leader because people will lie to the leader, people will tell the leader the things they want to hear. But there are certainly times you want to deploy the leader. And I think certainly when you're talking about the caucus, for sure, it's Jason Kenney who needs to be making those calls. And maybe you've got to be very careful with the the tone too i mean if i were jason kenney i would probably start each call with well this was a hell of a week wasn't it and i think we probably got a few things to talk about and um and you you cannot reek of weakness but you need to say like i i want to talk to you i want to hear more from you and um i you know carter i'm really curious your thoughts on this i would be really hesitant about saying like i'm gonna change i'm gonna listen i'm gonna do all of this more. At least if you do that, you've got to do it with a certain finesse that doesn't look like you're on the run.

Zain 1:02:20

Yeah, Carter, it's an interesting point that Corey brings up. And maybe I want to kind of dovetail another question back to you on this, which is the weak leader, strong leader format as it relates to Kenny as well. That's something you've brought up in the past, where he's been kind of been playing in a box that isn't where kind of what he sold and what's got him to this position. What do you think about that tone around pseudo or quasi apology? and I'll learn from you, I'll listen to you that Corey was mentioning. That

Carter 1:02:46

That would be tragic. I mean, Corey was right. You can't go into that space. I'd make every part of this conversation you focused instead of me focused. So if I'm the leader, the very first question out of my mouth is, are you okay?

Carter 1:03:01

Right? It forces them into an open-ended answer about themselves, not about you. We're not asking their opinion of your leadership. We're asking how they are in this moment. And then I would make sure that I've got five scripted questions that I can always bounce back to, especially if things start to get a little rough. And those five scripted questions are you focused open ended so that, you know, you

Carter 1:03:24

you know, how are you how are you dealing with this with your with your constituency association? What are you hearing from your constituents? Those

Carter 1:03:32

Those are the questions that will keep him in the leadership.

Corey 1:03:36

those are the types of questions where uh he will get more honest answers because you ask an mla who might be a little nervous about their boss who just shit can two of their colleagues what

Corey 1:03:45

what are you hearing out there and you've given them the opportunity to express their own anxieties

Corey 1:03:51

through other people which will tell you an awful lot about the situation you're dealing with at that but

Carter 1:03:55

but it doesn't weaken your relationship it keeps your relationship strong and those are the calls that he should be making and if he's not making you focus questions all the way through those 300 people that he says to call this weekend and asking the 3,000 people that his top people need to call, then he's totally missed the opportunity to begin a resurrection for his leadership.

Corey 1:04:18

Yeah, he's got to avoid the urge to monologue, to explain, to revise history to his benefit when he calls. This is time for him to listen because, again, part of this is information gathering. He needs to understand the situation he's working with, And if he gets off a call with an MLA and all he's done in 10 minutes is talk for nine minutes and step over the starts of their answers for the other one, you're

Corey 1:04:39

you're making the situation worse for starters, because you're probably damaging that relationship further. But you will have learned nothing. You will have been on transmit rather than receive. And at a moment like this, you

Corey 1:04:51

you for sure need to be hearing what people are saying.

Zain 1:04:54

Carter, I have to ask you this question because, frankly, I don't know if there's another person in the province that could answer this question for me. A lot of comparisons being made today in media around this sounding, feeling, sensing, smelling very similar to Premier Redford. I know you weren't there in that exact moment when she was, you know, at the ropes, so to speak. Tell me what's different here and tell me what, at

Zain 1:05:17

at least from what you know, is strategically lining up similarly or different, even as elementally as the calls and the organizing and the relationship stuff that we're just talking about right now?

Carter 1:05:29

Well, the primary difference is she would never make those calls.

Carter 1:05:33

When these calls need to be made,

Zain 1:05:34

made, she would never make them. She would never make them.

Carter 1:05:38

Here's the call list, Premier. Here's your question list. Thank you very much.

Carter 1:05:42

Shredder. Never would happen. Because it was beneath her, right? She was the leader. She She was fixing problems, right? There was always another issue to be had. And let's be clear, the

Carter 1:05:54

the Premier should be doing something else this weekend instead of making these telephone calls. But if the Premier wishes to remain Premier, the Premier makes these telephone calls, right? You have to staff out the management of the pandemic so that you can focus on the management of your caucus. And the difference between where Jason Kenney is and where Alison Redford was, is that Alison Austin Redford, let these moments of festering continue, right?

Carter 1:06:21

right? Something as simple as trying to have a pizza party night with their caucus. Just have five people come in and talk about what their issues are, what they're hearing. You bring in five MLAs that have a common regional or geographic issue. Or you bring in five MLAs that have a common concern for the post-secondary system. Or you bring in five MLAs that care about the health care system. I mean, you sit down, you have a pizza, and you talk about things. Those types of connections are the ones that are lost between the premier and the caucus. And it's all tried to be managed by a caucus chair or a caucus whip or caucus meetings that the premier himself or herself doesn't even attend.

Carter 1:07:03

And that's the death of these processes. It's the equivalent of trying to run an organization without telling everybody in the organization what their role is and what their strategic place is. You simply cannot do it, especially when every one of those MLAs believes that they should be senior management.

Carter 1:07:21

Right. And that's ultimately what each of them believes, because each of them knows that they should be a cabinet minister.

Zain 1:07:27

want to, Corey, anything to round us out on the Kenny track, what he needs to do? Let's say let's keep it in the short term window because we we only have so much information. We can move into the mid and long term and future episodes. Anything else to round us out before I move to Notley and Barnes slash crew?

Corey 1:07:43

We've touched everything I think significant on that front that is probably worth touching on. It is a situation that is deeply ambiguous right now. I will say, and this maybe as a bridge into Barnes and whatnot, sometimes two people storm off and say, I'm going to start a parade and nobody follows. And that can happen for all sorts of different reasons. And so also don't assume that somebody is going to leave, because that's the other error you can make in this particular moment is say, well, did you see them? Do you see how they acted in that situation? And maybe they acted in a way that means you should keep your eye on them, but you shouldn't necessarily read deeply and negatively into everything. This, again, is all part of the analysis. But when

Corey 1:08:29

when you're on kind of a mole hunt, you're going to find moles, even if they're not there. And you've just got to be careful. And you've got to check that instinct as you're moving along. long.

Zain 1:08:37

Carter, let's move to the Drew Barnes stuff and our continuing series of how to stage a revolt. We could probably patch all those those segments together. But let's talk about Barnes. Now it's more clear he's out of caucus. He's got, you know, Todd Lowen beside him, the former caucus chair of the UCP. He might have other friends and family on the sidelines waiting to help organize, endorse, do whatever, whether take over, as we've talked about, and or form a new party how does he extend his strategic goals let me leave the question as broad as that what does he need to do tonight

Zain 1:09:10

tonight what is what is what does tonight look like for and i don't know why i'm assigning uh uh the front man position to drew barn so maybe you can even address that like is he the front man of this situation but let's use him and lowen together what is tonight and this weekend look like for them well

Carter 1:09:24

well if they haven't already called the uh other 16 mlas that signed the letter with them about, you know, the COVID, you know, the COVID-18 letter, as we refer to it. If they haven't called them tonight, I don't even know what they're doing. And what they do is they call them and say, I'm out of caucus.

Carter 1:09:41

And either they say, join me, or I'm out of caucus, please don't join me. Right. And it might be the more effective message to say, you got to stay in caucus, you got to stay in caucus, and you got to carry the message that we tried to carry. Obviously, we paid a price, but the price was worth being paid because we were carrying the right message. We were speaking for the people of Alberta. That telephone call should be made already to those 16. Some of them are going to be susceptible to that type of messaging. And that's

Carter 1:10:13

that's how you build relationships is you work the phones, you work the relationships, and you make sure that you've got relationships within that caucus. And then I would probably take a look around and see who else is organizing, see what else is out there. Neither of these guys are involved, you know, would be involved with municipal politics necessarily, but there's, you know, certainly not in the two big cities. But there's right-wing groups that are forming. There's TPAs that are forming, third-party advertising groups that are forming. I would be making sure that I was reaching out to each of those TPAs and making sure that everybody in the various parties knows that you're a freelancer and you're open to talking. What I wouldn't be doing is going and licking my wounds. There's no time for that. There's time for movement only and action, and that's what these guys should be doing.

Zain 1:11:08

Corey? What is the Barnes-Lowen, perhaps further crew, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday look like?

Corey 1:11:16

I think Stephen hit on a really good point here. You do work those phones. You are going to get texts in this situation, sympathy from the sympathetic members who say like, hey, sorry, you know, I voted the other way. I'm really sad to see you go. You want to join those texts. You want to start the conversation in the same way that Kenny doesn't want to look desperate. You don't want to look too scheming. so uh you know take your opportunities take the invites that you will inevitably get from people who throw them out there work the phones on the next layer out now

Corey 1:11:47

now i don't know if i would do tonight i i'm not sure i'm 100 with steven on that i would maybe plant

Corey 1:11:52

plant a few texts like hey man i'm sorry to see you go but i want you to keep fighting that good fight or whatnot um the the advice that steven gave of you got to stay in caucus is for multiple reasons absolutely the the right advice at this time a they

Corey 1:12:07

they are a more strategic value on the inside than the outside they can cause more damage on the inside than the outside of that content but b fundamentally tied up in that is this notion i care about you yeah

Corey 1:12:18

hey i paid a big price but i care about you it's the same advice steven gave to jason kenney to start with how are you doing what's going on with you and you keep it on their anxieties their feelings and you give them the pass because some of these people when they talk to barnes especially if let's just say they were co-conspirators who didn't take the step with them right or maybe we're a little more quiet in caucus than

Corey 1:12:39

they're going to be worried about how they're going to be even judged by this and he should be giving them the passes like i totally understand why you kept your mouth shut it was the right move i you know you've got to stay in there you've got to help put this party on the right uh right trajectory and i think that's particularly true if um if

Corey 1:12:57

if you want to take over the ucp but it's even true if it's not right

Corey 1:13:01

because you're allowing essentially you are you You are continuing to express the values that you think are supposed to be driving this organization. And you are showing a type of leadership that Jason Kenney has been accused of being deficient in. So everything that Jason Kenney isn't, you want to be in those moments, in addition to doing the things that just sort of make sense on this front. Now, I think it will be very funny if and when there's two united conservative caucuses. Like, that's just going to be amusing to me in the legislature. They probably won't be allowed to have that name. game but um ultimately

Corey 1:13:35

ultimately if your plan if you want to give yourself the range of options here

Corey 1:13:41

tell everyone to keep their powder dry not to go too nuts um this this is something that unless like you're gonna have a temptation particularly if there's a lot of people uh that um that that are sympathetic to you to say like well let's just all go out let's create like the i don't know the pcdrc or something like that right but um that's

Corey 1:14:02

that's probably not the right move at this moment if

Zain 1:14:05

if your objective is stephen carter's scenario one quick dethroning of the premier what are you doing differently this weekend yeah

Corey 1:14:14

this is where you say i stay true to the values of the united conservative party i tried to be critical while still being respectful in my time there my record shows that i stood with the premier even when I stood against some of his policies. And I paid a price for that. And I am now out of the caucus. And we know this is a premier who is vindictive, who's punitive, who goes against the grassroots when the grassroots are not with him. And I understand why so many, and

Corey 1:14:40

and I've had many conversations with people who have deep concerns about Jason Kenney's leadership. I understand why so many have stayed silent. I don't need to now. I

Corey 1:14:48

I am happy to carry their water. I will be their voice. And you essentially create your, you almost create a situation like Derek Feldbrand has here at the Western Standard, where it's, give me your information, tell me your grievances, I will start a list. And if he stands up in the legislature, well, I don't, maybe legislature is not the right venue, but stands up and says, I have 42 UCP constituency presidents who have told me they have deep concerns with your leader. And the only reason they have not come forward is X, right? right? It just allows you to sort of become,

Corey 1:15:21

what's the word I'm looking for? Like essentially the speaker for this movement. There's probably another way to put it. And that's a pretty powerful place to be in if you're

Corey 1:15:30

you're trying to do the quick coup de gras here and knock Jason Kenney out. Tell

Zain 1:15:35

Tell me, Carter, you know, as a cousin to that, what

Zain 1:15:39

what if you're one of the Bryans or the Daves or the Jims or whatever, sitting on a sideline being like, I'd like to be the next premier of this province. And if I see a quick little, you know, dethroning happening, I know Drew's not the right guy, but maybe I am. You know, maybe I'm that person, whether you're Brian Jean or one of the many names being speculated over the last couple of weeks that could be a Jason Kenney replacement. What moves are you taking this weekend? You have no position in caucus. You've maybe got some political power and maybe you're getting some inbound texts and calls yourself. But let's say that is your goal. You're one of these, let's call them unnamed. And And if you want to name them, you can. Individuals sitting on the sidelines in Alberta who's flirted with and or been involved in conservative politics, has a bit of profile, sees a short pathway, short circuit pathway to becoming the next premier of Alberta. Berta, what are you doing right now? Calling

Carter 1:16:30

Calling Drew Barnes, telling

Carter 1:16:32

telling them that everything that he's done is exactly what he should be doing and conspiring

Carter 1:16:36

conspiring with him to figure out how to best undermine the leader and making him the front for the actual person who's putting the knife in the back of Kenny. There's a truth in Alberta politics, and I'm not sure if it holds true in other places, but the person who places the knife in the back of the premier never gets It's the actual throne. Right. So we saw with with Jim Denning when he took out Klein and he would argue till he's blue in the face. It wasn't him. But, you know, people

Carter 1:17:05

people seem to think it was the same thing when with with Ted Morton on Ed Stelmach. Right. The person who puts the knife in the back doesn't get elected the premier. premier and

Carter 1:17:15

so that's if you really want to be the next premier then you're trying to stay away from the actual conflict while encouraging the actual conflict cory

Zain 1:17:26

cory same question to you if you're one of the sideline watchers right now who's got ambitions what are you doing are you doing what carter's telling you are you doing anything more anything less i'm

Corey 1:17:35

i'm not even sure i'd be making those calls to be honest interesting because there's the risk they get back to you and And I agree with Stephen, like the, the party rather reasonably, I think we'll say, well,

Corey 1:17:44

well, it adds a little dicey because it's not as though Jason Kenney, let's just say there's a scenario where Jason Kenney steps down as leader. He's not going to step down with 0% support and

Corey 1:17:53

there will be a bunch of people who harbor rage towards whoever takes them out and whoever's involved in that for quite some time. And that creates a much lower ceiling for you in a leadership race. And that ultimately is, is why you see the scenario play out that, uh, that Stephen is talking about here. instead

Corey 1:18:11

i would probably be stepping back and almost you know it's the classic it's like an alberta party play tut tut there's a better way to do politics we've just got to think about these things smarter and when the job opens up that's when you make your play for it i don't think um i don't think you want to become too machiavellian in it because that stuff can come back to haunt you people

Corey 1:18:33

people aren't dumb you

Carter 1:18:34

you know fun machiavellian

Carter 1:18:35

machiavellian politics are the best politics What's wrong with you, man?

Zain 1:18:39

Corey, let's talk about Rachel Notley, former premier, leader of the NDP. Her message today very swiftly, as soon as this story broke late last night slash early this morning, technically, was saying this guy can barely govern. I'm paraphrasing, can barely govern his party. How do we expect him to govern the province in the midst of COVID? She made a really clean example to the fact that where Todd Lowen is from, a writing that shares a name with her dad. out in Fairview that there's hospitals that don't necessarily even have enough doctors to staff them because of this party, that this is a government and a party that should be focused on Albertans, but instead they're focused on their own infighting. First of all, good message, bad message on what you heard from her and her party today. And more so than let's talk about Thursday to Sunday for her.

Corey 1:19:29

Great message. Great message. First of all, sit back and watch your opponents blow themselves up but insofar as you can point to it and say this whole thing this is not helping you um

Corey 1:19:39

um that adds a layer into it and a complexity into it and a positive complexity if you're the ndp uh that i i think it's it's nothing but win she

Corey 1:19:48

she could have literally said nothing today and she would have been the winner of today she's the winner of today i mean we're going to talk about winners and losers of today rachel notley and

Corey 1:19:56

and you know winner of today no question question um but that she was able to sort of bring in this other message and pull it back to look at everything going on that you don't even have enough doctors right now and

Corey 1:20:07

and and you they are so deep in palace intrigue that

Corey 1:20:10

that your mla who should be fighting for you is

Corey 1:20:13

is so disconnected from your life that instead of the vital life-saving health care that he should be fighting to provide he is fighting with his caucus like he's lowen is a caucus chair whose caucus threw him out and i I think that's part of why we talk about Barnes more as the leader of this movement, because in some ways, like that's it's a little more shameful what happened to Lohan here. But he

Corey 1:20:36

he didn't do anything for them. He he you

Corey 1:20:40

you know, it's just it's

Corey 1:20:42

it's actually it's a good message because actually kind of makes me mad to think about it. Like, what are they all fucking doing? And if we step back from this and I made this comment last week, they're all nuts. Like they are blowing up their own goddamn party. they have their eye entirely off the ball that albertans want them to they are deep in their own bullshit and

Corey 1:21:00

and uh rachel notley and her caucus i saw other tweets i saw shannon phillips tweet something similar they're

Corey 1:21:05

they're they're calling them on it and i think that's actually something that albertans want um

Zain 1:21:10

um carter before i come to you what does the notley weekend look like more messaging in this vein anything particular she needs to do like i like this sort of thursday to sunday timeline we're on for everybody. Tell me what her Thursday to Sunday timeline looks like.

Carter 1:21:24

She needs to take a moment and think about what the real issues are and communicate what the real issues are to the population of Alberta. Because the real issues aren't palace intrigue. The real issues aren't who's in or who's out of caucus. I'll tell you something. The fact that the UCP caucus has 60 members instead of 62 members matters not at all to me. What does matter to me is i don't know when i'm getting my astrazeneca second shot and that's bugging me because i don't know if the alberta government's even going to bring in enough for me to get the second shot so what the hell is the plan and instead of talking about the plan this

Carter 1:22:01

this premier is talking about politics and politics matter probably less than ever to me today during the the hopefully the tail end of this pandemic that's certainly what i'm hoping for cory

Zain 1:22:14

cory same timeline for you on the notly front, Thursday to Sunday? Anything she needs to do? Does she generally repeat these messages in this vein and sit back? Or are you recommending any more steps for her?

Corey 1:22:28

No, I think that's exactly what she does. And I wouldn't even push those messages too, too hard. Let this thing play out. It's a tire fire. Let

Zain 1:22:39

I'm going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our final segment, Stephen Carter, Carter, it's the over-under. It's the lightning round. It's all together, and it is just for you. Are you ready? I'm

Carter 1:22:48

I'm really going to try and drag this out to an hour and a half. That's my stated goal.

Zain 1:22:53

Fantastic. Stephen Carter, over-under on six days, okay? Over-under on six days, the amount of days it takes before we see another Brian Jean article with unsolicited advice for the Premier of Alberta. Under.

Carter 1:23:06

Under. He's writing it right now. It's going to be under six days for for sure.

Zain 1:23:12

Corey, over under on six days, the amount of days that will take Brian Jean to write another article with unsolicited advice for Premier Jason Kenney.

Corey 1:23:24

You'll get the Facebook post this weekend, for sure. And I'll bet you you'll have an article next week as well. I'd say under.

Zain 1:23:33

Corey, I'm going to stick with you for our next one. Stick with you for this next one. On a scale of one to 10, how did Katie Telford do at her testimony with the committee well

Corey 1:23:43

well i'll tell you zane that happened last friday so i don't care about it anymore okay

Carter 1:23:49

well how are you going to extend the the episode to minute 30 if you're not going to care about stuff like that you

Zain 1:23:55

you got to care about the things that are insignificant and i'm hearing you that everyone forgot about it no one cares stephen carter tell us how she did on one to ten and draw it out do

Corey 1:24:04

do you know what i don't care that's a wrap on this episode we're not not talking about alberta anymore uh

Corey 1:24:09

so that's a wrap

Zain 1:24:10

on episode 934 of strategists my name is why do

Zain 1:24:13

get bullied by you guys

Zain 1:24:17

uh my name is aid velji with me as always cory hogan stephen carter and we'll see you next time

Transcript