Episode 934: The Filet O Fish of Podcasts

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode 934. My name is Zain Velji with as always, it's 935. It's 934.

Carter 0:09

No, it's 935. Is it not?

Zain 0:11

I'm pretty sure it's 934. Well, I mean, we wasted an entire episode on the fucking Dairy Queen thing. Do

Zain 0:17

we just want to relabel it? Hold on. I'm now I'm now very convinced it is now 934. Corey, does it even matter? I'm just let me ask you that.

Corey 0:25

it does matter okay we have a very elaborate filing system that's been on for almost a thousand episodes yeah

Carter 0:32

yeah you can't just make shit up now it's 9 35 9 34 was red ink blue conservatives oh

Zain 0:38

oh yeah six i guess that makes sense well you know what it's 9 35 okay people can just fucking catch up a minute in to the fact that it's 9 35 i'm not re-recording the beginning how

Zain 0:48

how are you guys doing doing

Carter 0:50

thanks for checking in if this is someone's first episode

Zain 0:53

episode so they don't even know your name they

Zain 0:54

they don't know your name that's fine who

Carter 0:55

who are you here

Zain 0:56

here with zane introduce introduce yourself carter let's just do it let's just do it like episode one where i was sitting on the sidelines who are you i'm cory hogan pump prick yeah

Corey 1:06

and i'm steven carter guy who thinks he's very funny uh

Zain 1:11

how's it going guys um carter you doing okay i'm

Zain 1:15

i'm doing doing really well other

Zain 1:17

you do it okay

Carter 1:20

shit i couldn't even get that bit going for like one question yeah it had a huge flaw that literally was exposed 15 seconds later buy into the bit commit to the bit i did not commit to the bit it's pretty

Zain 1:33

pretty much your take you do it okay though

Carter 1:36

yeah really well thank you good really well what's

Corey 1:39

what's going on in your world well

Corey 1:41

well everybody in alberta appears to have covid but i don't so i'm feeling pretty good about that Actually, all three of us are vaccinated. Good for us. Carter,

Carter 1:49

get your vaccine? I

Carter 1:49

that. I did. I did. I got my vaccine last Thursday. I didn't want to talk about it on the show because I didn't want people to be jealous. And really, it would have taken away from the whole DQ debacle.

Corey 2:02

It's like an auditory vaccine selfie. Yeah, that's good. We're just

Zain 2:07

just taking it to strange new places. I'm really proud of us. No, it's good. I mean, the side effects from the vaccine definitely explain some of your performance on that show on thursday so that's good that's excellent i

Carter 2:17

i was dying on friday i had total male reaction it was not good it

Carter 2:22

it was not good old man reaction to the flu essentially let's

Zain 2:26

let's get into it we didn't do it last thursday because of well reasons that we all know but let's jump into our first segment the headlines guys are you ready for some headlines i'm

Carter 2:36

i'm excited i've missed it last week it's

Zain 2:39

it's been a while well you're gonna love this headline this one comes to us from forbes Louisiana lawmaker argues schools must teach good of slavery. That is correct, Carter. Louisiana state representative said Tuesday public schools and universities should be required to teach the good of slavery when discussing race as part of a bill he proposed to ban divisive concepts from the classroom. Stephen Carter, I know you've been traditionally on the right side of history. This one's a little bit harder to get on the right side of. So I don't want to just box you in with the hot take. But do you have one for us? didn't

Carter 3:12

didn't louis ck have this actual bit like didn't louis ck say you know of course slavery's wrong of course it's just a terrible thing but

Carter 3:20

but maybe so maybe this guy's just

Corey 3:21

just related to uh to louis ck okay

Carter 3:25

because louis ck is an upstanding citizen in today's world you know he's been fairly careful gave

Zain 3:29

gave you a pretty easy path to uh to to get some points on this one i have

Carter 3:36

i'm on louis no No, I'm not on Louis K.'s side.

Zain 3:44

Corey, step in. These bear traps I set for both of you.

Corey 3:48

There's no bear trap. The idea that you would, quote unquote, teach the controversy of slavery, the idea that you would both sides slavery, tells you everything about the current state of discourse in American politics right now. Now, people who had those opinions used to at least try to fucking hide them. Actually, I don't even know if that was better. At least now they're in the light of day and we can point to them and say, what a bunch of shitheads. But the idea that you're trying to look for the silver lining on owning other people, I

Corey 4:22

think that's fucking a

Zain 4:24

a bit much. That's a bit much for me. So

Zain 4:26

So are you both on the record as slavery was bad overall? Just making sure that both – Carter, just making sure

Carter 4:34

didn't take that route would give us the opportunity.

Carter 4:37

No, I think that slavery has been bad, just unequivocally bad. Thank

Carter 4:43

so much, Carter. Really appreciate

Corey 4:44

appreciate it. You know, I don't even need the on-net qualifier. I think I'm with Carter on this one. Slavery is bad.

Corey 4:51

Owning other people, bad.

Zain 4:53

Not great. Let's move it on to our next headline from Axios. Joe Rogan walks back anti-vaccination comments. Why it matters? Well, Joe Rogan, the largest podcast on Spotify, they, of course, paid this dude $100 million to be exclusive to their platform. Of course, offering it to us first, and we politely reject it because we're not capitalist pigs. We're not like that. Rogan

Zain 5:15

Rogan True's swift backlash from critics, including multiple Biden officials, after he made some anti-vaccination comments on his podcast. He backpedaled them earlier today, saying that, quote unquote, he's a fucking moron, which I believe was a walk back strategy first deployed by none other than our Stephen Carter, if I'm not mistaken. I

Carter 5:38

I have, in fact, done that exact. I wrote that line for him. I don't want to talk too much about it because it's a confidentiality agreement. But having used the I'm a moron defense, I find it works really well. It takes the steam right out of your critics' sails. You know, I'm a moron really ends the conversation. Cutting

Zain 5:58

Cutting yourself at the knees is never a bad strategy when you find yourself in such a situation. Now, Corey, you have been a noteworthy critic of podcasters dispensing medical advice. I recall an episode a couple of weeks ago where you made it abundantly clear that none of us were doctors. Were you foreshadowing a situation like our friend Mr. Rogan got into? to i

Corey 6:22

i feel he should have just stuck to his lane which is getting us to eat bugs and playing a zany character in a dave foley vehicle that would have been just fine for me and

Zain 6:33

and and smoking cigars with elon musk which by the way i don't have this as a headline but elon musk is hosting saturday night live carter what what that what the hell thought

Carter 6:43

thought i mean there's there's hope for every billionaire out there uh so you know he's really standing up for the downtrodden billionaires does anybody think that that's going to be funny like

Carter 6:54

like how do you make no but i

Zain 6:55

i think you'll get ratings i think that i don't i don't think that's the intention i i i think it's going to be weird and super fucking

Corey 7:02

fucking strange cory zane zane

Corey 7:06

zane take us backstage snl talk to us about the existence in 30 Rock? How does it feel?

Corey 7:12

When Elon Musk is in the, you know, when you've got like a

Corey 7:16

personality of that kind of stature, you know, Carter-esque almost. How does that change the dynamic? I

Zain 7:23

I think it's clear what's going to end up happening. The writers are going to write a bunch of sketches for a guy that they think is Elon Musk. And Elon Musk is going to get there, and they're going to realize that none of it actually works. And the show is going to be an ultimate uh and and i hate to use this metaphor uh self-driving car wreck uh it is it is

Zain 7:46

is going to be a fucking disaster of a show uh that is my take uh cory do you have your own take i

Corey 7:54

i i think that's a pretty good take it's also a pretty good joke you should you should get on to the writing staff you should try

Zain 8:00

writing for saturday night live we all have ambitions This podcast was supposed to be a trampoline for us. 934 slash 35 episodes in, we're still here. Let's move it on to our next headline. Our next headline comes to us. Now, this one was from last week. And actually, you know what? Let me tease this one in, because this podcast has talked about many things in the past. Politics, sure, at the epicenter. But we've also had another niche on this podcast. You two may not realize it. It's food. We have, of course, talked about the infamous Buttergate. We've talked about the Nanaimo bar ratio. We upped the ante last week, of course, with the DQ episode. Fantastic episode that was met with universal acclaim. But now we have this New York Times headline, which I think will also open up some further debates and division. The

Zain 8:52

The New York Times, why the filet of fish is my gold standard for fast food. The sandwich was an attempt to market McDonald's to as many people as possible, and growing up as a Chinese-Canadian, as the author is, she felt like it was made just for her. The ultimate item from McDonald's, Stephen Carter, the fillet of fish.

Carter 9:14

It's a classic, the square shape of the fillet. I don't know how they make the fish like that, but it is spectacular. It is how fish should come. and it's the only way really uh to eat processed cheese uh half a slice it's the best part of the entire uh dining experience and you just slather that in the mayonnaise slash tartar sauce tartar sauce it's spectacular it's spectacular is

Zain 9:42

is of course the original pronunciation cory the fillet of fish we're also known in alberta the fillet of fish selfish uh the

Zain 9:51

the number one item the gold standard on the menu no

Corey 9:57

no no no it's fucking gross it's a gross concept uh growing up my dad would sometimes order it and it was always embarrassing it was you know even through the drive-thru i'd be trying to make sure nobody could see me in the car next to this lunatic uh also it's his birthday today happy birthday dad uh that's

Carter 10:13

that's nice get a

Corey 10:14

get better taste in kind of fast food cravings, but no, we can't countenance this. The New York Times and its hottest of hot takes just continue to scorch. We've got to do something about this. The gray lady has lost her mind.

Zain 10:31

Stephen Carter, you mentioned that your relationship with the Dairy Queen was driving past it to a McDonald's. What would one Stephen Carter order from a McDonald's if it wasn't the Filet-O-Fish?

Carter 10:43

No, it's a Filet-O-Fish, a cheeseburger, a medium french fries, and a medium Coke.

Carter 10:49

That's what one should get when going through the drive-thru. You have a little bit of everything. You're not overindulging in anything. You don't have to go to the Big Mac. You don't have to go to the Quarter Pounder. You get a simple cheeseburger. That's all I need. I'm a simple man with simple tastes.

Zain 11:05

Corey, many have argued that the fish-to-burger ratio should be zero at McDonald's. Stephen Carter, of course, fighting that trend. He's known for being off on his ratios related to food items. What is the ideal McDonald's order, Corey?

Corey 11:19

I always get a Big Mac, no meat, and a small order of fries. That's my thing. And what do you do next? Do you do the thing with the fries and the burger? Yeah, I put the fries in the burger. No, that's

Carter 11:31

that's just wrong. I

Zain 11:32

I like that you weren't

Corey 11:33

weren't going to explain that unless I asked you about it. I think that's just a given, isn't it?

Corey 11:37

It's not a given. This is the standard vegetarian play at a fast food restaurant, on, at least until all these crazy burgers come out. How about the Filet-O-Fish, though? Is that not a standard vegetarian play? I mean, it's a fish. It's not a vegetable. Go

Corey 11:49

into your garden and plant some fish. See what the fuck happens. Hopefully they come out square, like Carter would say.

Carter 11:55

say. Yeah, this is how it works. They come out square because of the planting.

Zain 11:58

I've interrupted you, Corey. I felt like there was more to your take than the standard order you'd mentioned thus far.

Corey 12:04

Well, I've gone to McDonald's.com, and I'm working through the calorie calculator to Just see this nice, balanced meal Carter just described of a Filet-O-Fish, a cheeseburger, a medium fries, and a medium drink.

Zain 12:16

Now, was it a medium Diet Coke, Carter, or just a regular Coke?

Zain 12:19

Don't do Diet Coke.

Zain 12:24

Carter, over, under on $1

Carter 12:31

No, no. It's definitely under.

Carter 12:36

It's $1,150? It's $1,150. really koi

Carter 12:41

koi i think it's gonna total

Corey 12:45

know it's it's okay it's it's 1230 50

Corey 12:50

grams of fat and

Corey 12:52

1530 milligrams of sodium you can actually just use grams there 1.5 grams of sodium you

Carter 12:59

you know what you don't just get this heart condition just without trying guys you

Zain 13:03

takes some effort our

Zain 13:05

our next headline comes to us from the bbc italian hospital employee accused of skipping work for 15 years. That's right. A hospital employee in Italy has been accused of skipping work on full pay for 15 years. The man is alleged to have stopped turning up to work back in 2005. He's now being investigated for fraud, extortion, and abuse of office. Corey, is it fraud, extortion, and abuse of office if you've been able to successfully do this for 15 years? Or is it just you've got to give this guy's check? It

Corey 13:35

depends on if you've kind of threatened anybody along the way. But this man is a legend. There will be a statue of him in a town square in some Italian town in the very near future.

Zain 13:48

skipping work, still getting a paycheck.

Carter 13:50

Isn't this what Chester's doing to us right now? Isn't he taking all the revenue off this fucking thing?

Zain 13:56

This is true. I mean, he

Zain 13:57

the structure very, very uniquely. We

Carter 13:58

We made bad choices early, but we left the negotiating to Corey, and he was young. It's

Zain 14:04

It's not even remotely true. It was supposed to be a springboard. It's entirely on. still here still fucking here our next headline comes to us from business insider meet the entrepreneur who set up britain's first polygamous marriage website but still can't find a second wife that is correct this gentleman has set up a polygamous website uh and he is still struggling to find a second wife i i'm really just setting these traps for you to see if there's anything cory's shaking his head so is carter am i just moving on or is carter you you want to you want You want to dig into this one? Just

Carter 14:37

Just out of curiosity, what was the name of the website? I'm opening my browser.

Carter 14:43

.com. Secondwife.com? I think so. I'm sure Heather will be appreciative of seeing that in my browser history.

Corey 14:51

you remember when the headlines was about politics? Anybody else remember

Zain 14:55

No, no, no. I've literally enjoyed this so much. The food, the second marriages. Our next headline comes to us from CBC. see manitoba teachers will be able to get vaccinated in north dakota premier says that's right manitoba teachers and other school employees will be able to get vaccinated in the united states says brian pallister an agreement between announced last week between manitoba truck drivers who regularly cross the border to north dakota to get vaccinated in the u.s will be extended to teachers and other school workers on the surface this headline reads pseudo-comically or quasi-comically But it seems to make good sense. Corey, any thoughts to it from when you kind of first see it from a knee-jerk perspective?

Corey 15:36

I think it's fairly creative. We've been critical of Pallister for going out and trying to do things he can't do. But the idea that he has actually struck upon a way to have people vaccinated that

Corey 15:47

that works, I think, is somewhat impressive. I am curious about the details because, of course, the border is supposed to be closed. And truck drivers are allowed to cross the border if they're crossing the border. And that kind of makes sense. But are teachers now just going to hop in their Porsche 911s because teachers are so wealthy and just drive down to North

Corey 16:09

North Dakota and be allowed into the United States to get this shot? I mean, I guess they've worked it out with the state. Have they worked it out with the federal government? I don't know. But I applaud him for figuring out a way that he can get teachers vaccinated. vaccinated, I'm hoping that the great state of Montana decides to offer a similar amount of largesse to the good people of Alberta.

Zain 16:32

Carter, was this not the same Brian Pallister? I think, Corey, this might be what you're referring to, that tried to secure his own vaccines with his own deal, right? Right. So we're talking about the same Brian Pallister, to remind everyone, the same premier of Manitoba. Carter, what do you think of this? Any initial knee-jerk reactions when you hear this?

Carter 16:50

I think it's dumb. And I think that Corey's dumb for thinking it's a good idea.

Zain 16:54

I should say it also extends to other school workers, including janitors and administrators of schools as well. Carter, why

Carter 17:00

why is it dumb?

Carter 17:00

How about just opening up? I mean, we've got vaccines starting to flow in massively into the good country of Canada. There'll be 2 million Pfizer vaccines coming in every week. There's Moderna coming in. There's going to be more AstraZeneca. We're going to have lots of vaccines. Why not just prioritize teachers and school staff? and get them into the existing queues and get the vaccines that we will have shortly into the Canadians' arms without having to flaunt going into the United States and making this a political ploy instead of an actual distribution ploy.

Zain 17:38

Let's move it on to our next headline. This one comes to us from iPolitics. Conservatives grill Gilbo about regulating social media. This is a very interesting topic that has come up, I should say, pun intended, online over the course of the last couple of days. Bill C-10 was designed to update the Broadcasting Act to include online streaming services, which would allow Canada's broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio Television Communications Commission, the CRTC, to seek financial contributions from online broadcasters such as Netflix, Spotify, Crave, and Disney+. The bill would give the CRTC the power to regulate these online streaming services, mandate contribution payments, and order discovery requirements and introduce fines for noncompliance. But the Liberal government is being accused of its effort to regulate social media content, which conservatives are saying amount to censorship of political speech as well. O'Toole made a comment this past Thursday saying that he finds this to be regulating social media and being a mark against free speech. speech, and after the government amended its final version of C-10 in the late stages of a committee review. Stephen Carter, I'm going to start with you very quickly.

Zain 18:52

Is this a real issue or is this politics? Do you feel like that there's meat on this bone for this free speech angle that the conservatives are going after? Or do you feel like they're just trying to bastardize the situation here that isn't intended to perhaps have the aims that they're suggesting? Well,

Carter 19:09

Well, I think that going

Carter 19:10

going after this particular bill makes

Carter 19:13

makes sense for conservatives. They are the ones who are benefiting from some of the negative commentary that's been pushed forward. I personally think that we should be pushing

Carter 19:27

pushing to make the online world function more like a broadcaster. We should be careful in terms of what we say. We should be careful in terms of what we broadcast. for fear not just of being

Carter 19:40

being sued for libel or defamation, but also because we do have a platform where people will listen. Corey was right to tell us, you know, remind our listeners not to take medical advice from three political people on the Internet. You're supposed to take your medical advice from doctors

Carter 19:58

doctors and medical professionals. This, you know, this is why Rogan gets his platform and is able to make the statements he's able to make. There's been a deterioration in the content structures, and we're kind of at a loss. On top of that, there's a lot of other things tapped into this particular bill, making sure that taxes get paid and other good things from Internet providers. And I think that people should be responsible for what shows up on their platforms a little bit more. And by the way, this isn't making everybody who posts everything responsible. This feels to me like it is a compromise to start, and I suspect it may get compromised a little bit more as it moves through the process. But frankly, I'm for this, and I think that we've waited too long and incurred far too many negatives. There is no question that the rise of social media, the rise of the Internet has done damage to our intellectual discourse and the news that is gathered and disseminated throughout the society. And it has created havoc for us and our democratic institutions. So putting some walls around that is probably a good thing. And I'm not sure this is the bill I would have written, but I'm

Carter 21:20

I'm quite comfortable that a bill should be written.

Zain 21:23

Corey, the distinction Carter brings up here, The publisher v. platform distinction is one that's clearly alive and well in the United States as a hot topic as well. Should the social media platforms be treated as simply a platform, which has been their long-standing case, or a publisher? And the amendments to C-10 in its final stages of the committee review included social media and user-generated content as part of its bill. Where do you kind of stand on this, Corey? Corey, do you feel like this is a real conversation we're having? Or are the conservatives kind of playing politics and perhaps bastardizing this a bit from your perspective?

Corey 21:56

think both. On net, it sure doesn't feel like social media has been very good for us. The way things propagate in social media, there's a fundamental flaw within social media when it comes to political discourse. course. And it's a flaw that can be easily exploited by anybody who's interested in being even a little bit unscrupulous. And that fundamental flaw is this, the truth will only be as interesting as the truth will be. A lie can be anything. And when you think about virality, and you think about viral posts, a post that is just the truth might not be that interesting, might not be that outrageous, might not actually provoke you to share. But maybe you just modified a little bit. And it gets shared

Corey 22:41

a bit. Maybe the next person along the line modifies it a little bit further, and it gets shared. And I think that there's an interesting example even this week with social media posts that were going out about Joe Biden somehow violating the Constitution because he hadn't done a State of the Union by February 20th. Things the Constitution doesn't talk about. February 20th. Requirement to actually give a State of the Union address. Like, all of it was pure fiction. And I was reading an article, I can't remember which outlet posted it, where they said, we reached out to the person who originally posted it, and they didn't get back to me. because they knew they were fucking lying they knew they made

Corey 23:11

and and they just didn't care it was just moving that forward and so we're in a weird place and for a long time my theory has been

Corey 23:20

we can get out of this valley we just haven't been inoculated we're not savvy enough on social media but

Corey 23:25

savviness will grow and and people who are maybe born in it and and grew up in it will have a certain inoculation to the bullshit of social media that we simply do not um but

Corey 23:37

but i'm not so sure about that as time goes on because the problem seems to be getting worse not better and even even as we play whack-a-mole with the individual challenges of social media here so something it does feel like needs to be done and now is this the something that needs to be done is applying the crtc rules to it the something that needs to be done because you're right. It could conceivably post or apply to original posts or individual posts. One of the challenges with this bill is, you know, Carter, you said it won't make everybody responsible. Well, the government has said that. But maybe it will, because it will depend on how the CRTC decides to apply rules. And that's TBD. Are we going to have CanCon requirements for various posts? Are we going to have anti-obscenity requirements for some of these posts? Again, Again, it seems like the answer is no, but that becomes a regulatory power that the CRTC then is able to apply. And

Corey 24:32

And so is it censorship?

Corey 24:35

I mean, that's an interesting question. I find that a very interesting question because the CRTC rules, I don't think the conservatives would say are censorship for broadcast television, right?

Corey 24:45

So why are they for the internet? But maybe they are because maybe the fact that the actors all of a sudden, you know, they're not going to have an ombudsman and all of these people behind them to help them figure this shit out. maybe it does put a chill on free speech i don't know but uh we've

Corey 24:59

we've got a problem here whether this is the solution not

Corey 25:03

not sure but i would like our elected officials to have a sincere debate about all of this and stop being so fucking performative on it because that's really you know there's great irony because that is kind of social media discourse in a nutshell it's not to debate it's to show that you're dunking on your opponents as hard

Zain 25:21

hard as you possibly

Corey 25:21

possibly can At very best, social media seems to be an exercise in discovery, where people give their best lines out, and they see how much the people around them cheer them on. And that seems to be what passes for debate, certainly on Twitter. Yeah,

Zain 25:36

Yeah, the hierarchy points, so to speak, in that discourse. You know, Carter, this being treated similarly but different in the United States, you know, perhaps one of the few things in the U.S. right now that seems to be having at least some momentum of bipartisan support around antitrust legislation, a lot of this stuff in the U.S. being embodied within that casing. Do you feel like the free speech angle is the right criticism angle for the conservatives? And maybe my broader point here is, do you feel like free speech, to borrow Corey's term, is a political argument that can catch virality, that can actually mobilize and engage enough people? Or is there a different angle if you were conservatives and you wanted to attack this bill you would go after? So

Carter 26:20

So let's go back and let's go back historically and look at free speech, because freedom of speech does not equal right to broadcast. Right. So that that's a very different thing. Back in, you know, like, so we invent the printing press, and then we allow anybody to buy the printing press. Right. So anybody can have a printing press, anybody can print their own newspapers,

Carter 26:40

newspapers, really, and there's no control over it. And then we get to the advent of radio and television. And at that point, government

Carter 26:47

government determines that the airwaves in which the frequencies on

Carter 26:52

on which broadcast television, broadcast radio are going to be sent

Carter 26:56

sent out to the world are going to be regulated as a public good, as a public opportunity. And that in turn creates a different relationship. So now the right of speech is not the right to broadcast. But when we come back to the Internet, we go back and treat it just the same way as we treated the printing press. Anybody can have it. Anybody can have it and anybody can say anything that they wish to say on it. And I think it's created a mistake in the system where I think the right way to approach it was the right to broadcast should not necessarily be given to us. The right to speech is not inhibited just because you're not allowed to broadcast it on a podcast, right? We can't say anything that pops into our heads on this podcast for fear of some sort of legal chill that might land on us. For example, we can't just every week bring up WestJet.

Carter 27:50

That would be wrong, right? It would be totally

Zain 27:55

would be wrong, but it would be criminal to talk about some of their great travel deals that they have coming up.

Carter 28:00

up. To destinations throughout the world that are enticing for all. But I do wish, you know, and I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole because there's a whole conversation about the antitrust side that I would love for us to talk about because it has tremendous impact on politics. But for now, I'm just going to simply finish with where I started. I strongly do not believe that the right to speech equals the right to broadcast that speech.

Zain 28:27

Corey, free speech, right angle for the conservatives to hit on?

Corey 28:32

Well, I think Carter is making a distinction without a difference. Free speech is not the right to broadcast. Okay, that's fine. But how about freedom of the press, which is another right that we have, like, you're creating a weird parsing. And the other thing is, you're just wrong. I mean, there's been so many times throughout history, I'd suggest most of the world, there was at least some time where not everybody could buy a printing press. They've often been regulated. Even in the United Kingdom, they were regulated for a long period of time. There was the licensing of the Press Act in the late 17th century. So, like, you're just wrong. but this in many ways makes the conversation more nuanced and more interesting and more textured and this is the conversation i think people need to have rather than making grand assertions they believe are true like you could always buy a printing press let's talk about how these technologies have often led to challenges and how people have often moved through those challenges because the question of like just entire falsehoods being fabricated that goes back to the printing press and there were things that people had to do and there was a and it's part Part of why I've generally speaking been like, well, we'll figure it out, because we've always figured it out with these past technologies, sort of, right? Like, we've had to deal with these challenges, but it's

Corey 29:44

it's a complicated matter. And especially in this country, we don't tend to look at our freedoms in such an absolute way. It's not like the United States, where you just say, freedom of press, boom, done, get the fuck out of here. We have that very Canadian line, love it or hate it of, you know, within limits, you know, justifiable in a free society, whatever the hell that means. So it's

Corey 30:08

it's a difficult issue. It's a thorny issue. It's one where we can look to precedent. But let's stop brandishing precedent as a phony weapon in a way that, you know, that I feel like way too many actors, including apparently one on this podcast, have done.

Zain 30:27

smart that the liberals are—I'm just going to wait for his reaction. Corey, I think he's talking about you.

Carter 30:34

I'm not going to let him get under my skin tonight. Tonight is a night for you and me, Zane. Two friends having a conversation. This

Zain 30:42

This is correct. Those two friends rotate every single episode.

Carter 30:46

Yeah, I'm not fucking talking to him anymore, so you're just going to have to be the intermediary.

Zain 30:51

That's pretty much my job, Carter. Thank you for defining it. Before we end on this, Corey, good

Zain 30:58

good political move, political move that the Liberals are addressing this right now. Yes or no, in your mind?

Corey 31:08

Tough question. I think that certainly it's in the air. The zeitgeist

Corey 31:11

is social media has gone too far. They're looking for actions. Canada isn't the home of these social media platforms. So we don't have the same sort of levers to pull unless we want to go really deep into true censorship. where we say, well, we're shutting off those parts of the internet within our country. I don't think there's any appetite for that. So this seems like it's an attempt at a solution that works within the legal framework of being the country next door to the country where all of these bloody things are. But, you know, you've got to be really careful, obviously, with things like this. The unintended consequences for any piece of legislation can be significant. When you are creating something brand new, doubly so. So when you are saying we're going to figure it out in regs, we should all run for the hills.

Zain 31:56

Yeah. Carter, good political move that the Liberals are introducing

Zain 32:02

introducing this policy at this current junction?

Carter 32:06

I think it's a required move. I'm not sure politically it's necessarily a winner. I don't think anybody's going to be voting on this issue. But I do think that we need to have this conversation and decide how we're going to approach freedom of speech and regulate the way that people get to take everybody down.

Zain 32:33

We're going to leave that segment there and move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, greatest summer ever. her.

Zain 32:40

As the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic set new records on Thursday, which is tonight, the day we're recording, Alberta's Premier Jason Kenney announced targeted public health measures intended to slow the spread of the disease. The province reported 2,048 new cases Thursday, the highest single-day total since the pandemic began in March of 2020. Also worth mentioning, the highest active case rate in Canada, with more than 480 active cases per 100,000 people. Starting Friday, the province will implement targeted measures for hotspots across the province where we have at least 350 active cases per 100,000 folks. The list of targeted communities include Edmonton, Calgary, Fort McMurray, Red Deer, Grand Prairie, Airdrie, Lethbridge, and Strathcona County. So a lot of what you'd call urban Alberta, if I can put it in that very simplistic classification. Corey, let's start with you. A premier who today comes out with these new quote-unquote measures, many would call them light or cosmetic or not necessarily massive upgrades, but on the heels of comments yesterday where he said, you know, why introduce new rules and new measures when we know people aren't going to follow them? Explain to me what you're thinking or what you think Premier Kenney was thinking And perhaps what led to today in terms of what was rolled out?

Corey 34:01

couple of weeks ago, I talked about a problem that I feel I see in Jason Kenney's approach to governing.

Corey 34:08

And that's that he always wants to win the day, but often in doing so will set himself up a future problem. And I don't think I could have asked for a more clear example than this. Yeah, right. There's no way that yesterday you didn't know that it was at least under consideration. And as much as when when Dean Bennett at Canadian Press just scorched him for this in the first question in the press conference today, you know, and then Jason Kenney returned with, well, I said that in certain circumstances, you know, he kind of

Zain 34:36

of considering this package of stuff. Yeah,

Corey 34:38

Yeah, I mean, it was just, it was rambly, and it wasn't convincing, I'll tell you that right now. That, you know, he created this problem for himself by making these extreme statements yesterday. And again, if

Corey 34:54

if we want to look at this issue and talk about this challenge that he has, he went from a couple of weeks ago saying this will be the best summer ever, I

Corey 35:03

talk about over-promise, under-deliver, to,

Corey 35:05

to, I'm not kidding here, folks, within a week saying, well, it'll be a great summer, to within a week of that saying, we

Corey 35:11

we can have a good summer if things go our way, to today, I think we're just basically acknowledging it will be a summer in a literal sense, and that's about it. So, you know, we're in a real mess here. And it's not just the COVID numbers. It's that the communication has become so bloody confused. The tensions within the governing party are so prominent that it is really emboldening people to just say, I don't give a shit about these COVID regulations anymore. And the regulations that were brought in were a fascinating mix of seemed very light, but also seemed like they would be very antagonizing towards, let's call, you know, the COVID-18, what we called them, like the 18 people in his caucus who lined up against him on various COVID measures here. Because in

Corey 35:58

some ways, it's so light. It's no indoor sports activity. That was supposed to be heavily clamped down. Anyhow, there

Corey 36:05

there is this idea of when you're going out to eat at a restaurant with your family, now we're going to ask them to basically confirm that. Tons of questions as to how, in fact, that's going to work and whether it's even fair to ask restaurateurs to be the ones to police this. I think that's just a painful thing to be asking servers to do. I just don't believe any good will come of that. um but he did also say if numbers get beyond a threshold of a thousand per million curfews could be a possible on

Corey 36:35

table yep yep that's and so and that's despite not happening now that's the kind of thing that's going to light people's hair on fire so this was just a bloody

Corey 36:45

mess uh of kind of an announcement and the whole thing more

Corey 36:50

more so and this is really saying something More so than any of these COVID press conferences to date had this absolute dystopian feel. You know, the lighting was a little off today. The audio was a little off. They were putting in the chief medical officer of health via Zoom. That's right. The entire thing carried a grim – because she's sick. Because she's isolating

Carter 37:09

isolating because of COVID protocols.

Corey 37:12

Because, you know, the whole thing had a very tense, grim air to it. The media was angry. They were taking none of this.

Corey 37:21

and you're sitting here as an Albertan or I'm sitting here as an Albertan I won't put words in your guys mouths but you're thinking what

Corey 37:27

the fuck do we do you know like this feels both like it won't actually do anything

Corey 37:31

there was also saying that junior high and high school students would stay away from school but you know many of them are already away which

Zain 37:40

which is why I think many people think this was light to that point Corey Carter 400 and I'm just reading the number 480 80 active cases per 100,000 people. I know this is not an entirely fair comparison. But when we know what's grabbing the headlines right now on the COVID front is India,

Zain 37:58

that's 200 cases per 100,000. So Alberta is bad. It's not great here. We hit a daily high. It's 2,000 as a raw number may not seem high, but it's bad here as it relates to how things things are going. Help me with your strategic sort of brain, perhaps tease out what Jason Kenny was trying to do today. Was this a simple, let me try to keep the rural folks happy so they don't try to fucking give me another sharp elbow? Was there more to this calculation than that? Do you agree with Corey's hypothesis that win the day and then you'll fuck over future Kenny? Is that what you think is going on? What do you kind of make of what you heard today from a strategic standpoint. He

Carter 38:42

He was absolutely trying not to anger the rural caucus. Now, let's just give one example. Banff's on fire. Banff is so bad that they are sending additional vaccines to Banff because it is one of the worst areas in Alberta. Correct.

Zain 38:57

Janssen vaccine is getting prioritized for that region, correct? Right.

Carter 39:01

Right. So they're sending the vaccines out there. It's kind of like stat. We got to get these things out there. Them and Fort McMurray are the two areas is that are absolutely on fire. But Banff is represented by Miranda Rosen, one of the COVID-18, who said, you know, come on, Premier, let's let us all back to doing whatever the hell we want to do. And as a result, they instituted this floor, right, where you have to have at least 250 cases in the active region, regardless of what the rates are, regardless of how it actually is functioning. So basically what that does is any small center, you can't actually get to, you can't get above the threshold because you've only got X numbers of thousands of people. So there's what, 4,000 people in Banff? So they're underneath the threshold of 250 floors. Let me ask you the explicit question, political math?

Carter 39:53

It's all politics. It has nothing to do with how safe people are. It has nothing to do with actually arresting the exposure to the disease. It has nothing to do with saving people's lives. it has everything to do with keeping miranda fucking rosen in your in your caucus as though that matters at all as though keeping her in is in some fashion keeping the the caucus together this is tragic for people who live in rural alberta this is essentially allowing

Carter 40:22

allowing us to have no regulations because if you're sitting there and the rest of the regulations why would you even bother following them if you're in banff i mean the town councils must be losing their minds trying to figure out how they can actually stop this. Already, Miranda Rosen was censured by both the Canmore and Banff town councils for her previous actions. And now the whole government of Alberta has basically given the giant FU to both communities. And I'm pissed about it. I have friends in both of those communities. And it gets worse because of the decisions that were made by this government today. and and it's all for bogus

Carter 41:02

bogus politics you know do the right thing and if the right thing costs you votes then do it anyways because that's the way the government's supposed to function you have two years to recover and if you can't recover in two years then maybe you're just not a very good government and if jason kenney's still the premier when he they lead into the 2023 election i'm going to be shocked because he's going to be taking it from the left and the right of his party after today's debacle?

Zain 41:28

We'll talk about that, Carter, in a second. The Kenny Must Go campaign, one of several that are now starting to go from socialized to vocalized in our public sort of political zeitgeist. Just to kind of fill in some context before I go to you, Corey. So the active cases, the threshold is 350 active cases per 100,000 to be included in these targeted zones, or at least 250 active cases. So that's the political math that we're talking about here, Which is many of these small towns can't meet that minimum sort of threshold, that floor, thereby they're not in the targeted hotspot zones that we've mentioned, which is that playing politics with the math. Corey, you wanted to jump in here.

Corey 42:09

don't really know if I did. The thing about, you

Corey 42:13

know, Carter's got a lot of, he's got a head of steam. He's a little angry about this. I understand it. It's very frustrating as an Albertan. I've spoken to that frustration, the confusion of what the hell happens. But he also said something that's really important, which is getting it from both the left and the right.

Corey 42:29

his caucus, I don't know. Do we have any indication that he's getting it from the quote-unquote left of his caucus right now? We do know that there is a group of people who

Corey 42:37

who believe this has gone too

Corey 42:39

too far, but I'm not seeing a ton of evidence. There's a lot of protest

Corey 42:43

protest on the other side that it's not gone far enough. Now, that's not to say it's not happening, but is

Corey 42:47

is that really the risk for him right now? And it's an important question to ask because it

Corey 42:52

it tells you about the balancing act that he's got to perform and where the balance is in that act. And we're in a weird situation here in Alberta because

Corey 43:02

because if, for whatever reason, Jason Kenney goes down, it's likely that he will go down because he was too extreme on COVID. Yet the majority of Albertans do not believe he's been too extreme on COVID or the plurality.

Zain 43:18

the delta between perhaps his party and the provinces, it seems to be more stark than ever before. Yeah,

Corey 43:24

Yeah, there's no obvious way this gets immediately better. And in a funny way, that's a benefit to Jason Kenney, right? He's got to ride this out. But ultimately, it's not a bad thing if your premier and your caucus is rebelling, but the public is behind you, you know, or at least is not with them is probably a better way to put it. It creates an interesting dynamic here. But, you

Corey 43:46

you know, this whole thing just feels like, doesn't

Corey 43:50

doesn't feel like this is going to work, feels like cases are going to continue to increase, feels like we're going to have other things that we're going to have to bring in. And it's going to feel then like, I wish we'd done this a week ago. And I think that's fundamentally the frustration many in Alberta are feeling right now. Yeah.

Zain 44:04

Carter, you talked about Jason Kenney getting hit from both sides. Let's talk about one of those sides right now with a campaign called KennyMustGo.com. It's an open letter that one can send as a general member of the UCP or a CA, Constituency Association board member. The form letter includes comments, which by the way, we don't know who the sponsors are of this letter. But we know that the other than to know that they, you know, presumably seem like conservative UCP members. I'm quoting from the letter now. You have not upheld the core grassroots principles of the party, particularly by repeatedly violating our statement of principles and attacking free enterprise, personal responsibility, freedom of worship, freedom of assembly, and the free use of property. You have not controlled government spending or protected Albertan families from excessive government intrusions. That's just a quote from it. Getting hit by the right of his party, getting hit by presumably that rural group that COVID-18 group. How serious do you take this if you're Jason Kenney right now? And then let me expand it. How seriously do you take this if you're at the Premier's office right now? This particular campaign, and then let's expand this because it's been a week or so since we've discussed Kenney leadership overall. And now, I shouldn't say the floodgates, but the conversations are certainly more normalized, certainly more socialized, that Kenney's leadership is under threat. It used to be that little sort of murmur in the political class. We now see blog posts talking about who could replace Jason Kenney. We now see this campaign. We now see op-eds being written about Jason Kenney having to go. So let's talk about those two things. First, Carter, the wheels on a campaign like this, and then let's expand the scope about our assessment, strategic assessment on Kenney's leadership. So maybe start with the former, and then let's jump into the second part thereafter. The

Carter 45:54

The wheel, I mean, this is all cumulative, right? This is not not just one thing that's happening in and of itself i mean first of all um let me just say that uniting the right was fundamentally a dumb idea in alberta because there are no there's no one right uh did you say that in

Zain 46:10

in hindsight or did you always believe that no

Carter 46:12

no we never wanted them in our party right

Carter 46:15

right the progressive conservative party was pleased to be the progressive conservative party because it meant that the crazy conservative party was over there and

Carter 46:21

and the crazy conservative party has always been there whether the western canada concept party or they're the the you know they ebb and flow but the crazy conservatives were the other guys um the same way that the liberal party in british columbia is happy to be there because they've got the conservatives over there we're not the real conservative party we're the liberals we're the liberal party not the real conservatives we're the kind of conservatives people like the kind of conservatives um but the The actual Conservatives are kind of crazy and they don't like government. They don't like what government brings to the table. So they're always going to be fighting against the government of the day. Now, that's one thing when you're putting a power line in through the, you know, you're going to do DC lines up and down both sides of the province. That's one particular problem. This is a whole different level of problem when you've got COVID requiring societal size changes. changes um and and this is what we're seeing then you add in the

Carter 47:22

the two real problems so the the right wing is a problem to be sure but when you add in uh the fact that cory will bring up over and over again uh and that is that for the last seven months the ucp hasn't been leading in a poll and then we see the the money numbers uh which show that the the fundraising for the ucp is less Less than 50% of the NDP, all

Carter 47:44

all of those things make the idea that a leadership review is going to be held in late 2022 seem like a pipe dream to me. It seems like the leadership review is probably going to get pushed forward in my mind because these guys will have enough crazy folks to call the question and force a leadership review, in my humble opinion, not having read their constitution lately.

Zain 48:12

In terms of how it would structurally happen. Corey, potency of this particular campaign, what do you think?

Zain 48:18

I think it's ridiculous we're even talking about

Corey 48:20

about it. This is an anonymous registry of a domain. It uses a ProtonMail email address, which is kind of like this ephemeral disappears email. It's built on Wix. It is designed by somebody who,

Corey 48:32

who, you know what, literally not a single name is willing to stand behind this at this point. I don't think this is anything more than muckraking. This is just shit disturbing until somebody actually stands up and is willing to put their name on it. And the reality is nobody is right now. And so I think that it's very easy to overstate the nature of the revolt right now. And this

Corey 48:55

exactly what a certain group of people would love. They're trying to create this sense of significant revolt to make people take that next step where they come out publicly and talk about Jason Kenney needing to resign. But there's just not a ton of evidence right now that that's actually a critical mass in the party. I continue to believe we are still at this stage where it's, I like the guy, but the people around him aren't serving him well. He's losing focus and he needs more people to be, he needs to be hearing more voices. The things you hear at the start of a rebellion, right? We are not at the point where people are actively organizing must-go on websites like this in a serious fashion. Because whoever did this is so afraid of being caught, they've done everything they can to cover their tracks. And that is not talking about a rebellion that's a serious threat. Well,

Zain 49:43

I'm glad one of you said that, because I wanted you to kind of take different stances on this, which is, what is your internal strategist and political operator sort of indicator for when this becomes real? Corey, to you, right now, you don't think it's real. Carter, am I fair to say, am I putting words in your mouth where you're saying it's starting to feel real to you?

Carter 50:04

Yeah, it's starting to feel real. I think that it was real when they scheduled the leadership. They didn't schedule the leadership review just for shits and giggles. They put it when when they did it, so that they could force the party not to unelect Jason Kenney as their leader because, you know, it would be so close to an election. I suspect that that was done because there was real pressure then. That was back then. This is now. Shit's getting real, guys. Those first quarter results, those were not great. Great. That alone will change the mental gymnastics that the UCP faithful are going through.

Zain 50:46

Corey, what do you need to see in order to make this real

Corey 50:51

Do not misunderstand me. His leadership problems are real, but

Corey 50:55

but they're, let us say, stage two real. This website

Corey 50:58

website is trying to pretend they're stage four real. He's got members of his caucus who are actively bristling and writing memos about not supporting policies of his. He has op-eds from conservative leaders talking about the need for him to change his way. He has had to get rid of his chief of staff, lest we forget. I know it feels like ancient history. It was only a few months

Corey 51:20

And he had to drop a cabinet minister. And it's been difficult. It's been difficult times. But it is not open rebellion difficult yet. Now, that's not to say we're not going to get there, but this particular website is trying to fake that we're already at that stage. And there's just – maybe, but until I see somebody actually stand up – you know what? If tomorrow Drew Barnes says, yeah, actually, I did the website, and here's the 12 people who are with me, yeah, we're in a different fucking ballgame. But I don't see that at this moment.

Zain 51:53

Carter, can I ask you one more question on this before I move it on?

Zain 51:57

you're offering advice to a group of people right now that that wanted to make stage four happen that wanted to have a path to stage four what would you tell them because you believe that and tell me if i'm misquoting you that jason kenney will not be on the ballot in 2023 you'd be surprised that if that he would be the the the really

Carter 52:19

oh yeah it's a card of prediction

Carter 52:21

It's a Carter prediction.

Zain 52:22

I just wanted to make sure it

Carter 52:24

it was branded with that. Write it down. I've never been wrong. Carter prediction right now. This

Carter 52:29

This is going to happen.

Zain 52:31

Okay. Talk to me about the steps that need to happen to get there. And more specifically, how you would be advising an internal rebellion right now.

Carter 52:40

Well, at this particular moment, what it is is a bunch of people calling each other and saying, you know what? I'm not happy. I only raised X number of dollars last month. And it's actually down. from January,

Carter 52:50

January, February of this year, I'm down to virtually nothing. I've got nothing left. And if I if I keep going at this rate, I'm not going to be able to run the next election.

Carter 53:00

I'm not going to be able to put this this money in place. And then they're going to come back and they're going to say, you know, you know, to get to Corey's point, they're going to come after some of the staff, right? You know, Brock Harrison, Brock Harrison is not serving the premier properly. We got to get rid of that Brock Harrison guy. So Brock will walk the plank. And then maybe another Another couple of people will walk the plank. But that won't be the end of it because they're still going to be stuck in their space, right? If they are still stuck not being able to raise money for three successive quarters, this thing is going to end right away. That's a milestone

Carter 53:32

You know, so, yeah, because money matters in politics. I mean, I remind people. I know we talked about this. Yeah, you know, so my view is that these people right now are probably having telephone conversations. Sure, to Corey's point, it's all hidden at this point. but the point isn't whether or not it's hidden the point is whether or not they feel comfortable talking to one another about it and i know that they feel comfortable talking to one another about it because 18 of them signed a fucking stupid ass letter last time that something like this happened and i expect that we'll see something very similar coming in the next little while even with this stupid ass floor that is putting albertans lives at risk yeah

Zain 54:10

yeah i was going to ask ask you guys about that in a second. Corey, jump in.

Corey 54:14

think it needs to be said that his party is acting a little bit nuts. And if they were a better political party, they would be standing with him more strongly.

Corey 54:26

has a crazy number of first-time MLAs, right? And a lot of first-time MLAs often get caught up in the drama of it. You know, they're there, they're under the dome. It feels so big and so important, and everything has this kind of House of Cards, West Wing vibe to it. And if you get consumed by that drama, if you get consumed by this notion that everything you do has to be the most dramatic thing ever, your government will go down in fucking flames, right? That's just, that's not how you survive in this game at all. Nothing in life is ever as good or as bad as you think it is. And that's doubly true in politics. You've got to be able to moderate your response to these things. And this cabinet has the same problem. There's There's only one person that's been in Alberta cabinet before in this cabinet, and it's not Jason Kenney. It's Rick McIver. Kenney was in federal cabinet, but they

Corey 55:16

they just don't have a ton of experience, and I think they are overreacting to things. It's very easy to say at the start, like, we're going to be tough, and we're going to do these things, and when these things get difficult, we're going to stand together.

Corey 55:27

But then the rubber hits the road. And I

Corey 55:30

just don't believe for a minute that these MLAs are thinking about this in an optimal sense for their own political lives or for the political survival of their movement. I don't even mean their party, but they are just denting the shit out of the conservative brand, small C conservative brand in this province right now. Yeah.

Zain 55:50

Corey, I'm going to stick with you for a second. What's the optimal endgame from this leadership crisis Kenny finds himself in? Whether it's stage two, stage four, whether it's terminal or not, you know, we can debate ad nauseum future episodes as well. But what's the optimal outcome for him here? Is it kumbaya? Or is it something lesser than that?

Zain 56:11

The optimal outcome for him? For him. For him. Yeah. Like, obviously keeping his job, but what would it look like in terms of of the fracturing for the party? Let me be more specific, or perhaps the souring of some relationships. Is it having everyone still within the UCP? Is it allowing some to just splinter off and say, fuck it, like, let these people go? What do you kind of think the best outcome for him might be in this situation?

Corey 56:33

Yeah, let me paint a bit of a picture here. And let me just say, it's not necessarily the optimal outcome for the province, certainly in terms of lives and livelihoods here but if things get a little bit worse and albertans really say like this has got to be much stronger what the f are you doing and kenny brings down the hammer and then this group rebels and literally nobody is standing with them because the situation has changed so dramatically and then jason kenny can purge himself of drew barnes and perhaps a couple of others uh that may allow afterwards especially if we immediately roll into okay we're vaccinated things are debating it's getting calmer he may have an opportunity and i you know i haven't been party or privy to the conversations that have been going on in caucus but there may be an i told you so moment right you

Corey 57:21

you know i tried to i tried to meet everybody part way here i warned you the risks of that and look what the hell happened and now we've got some serious work to do over the next two years and so we're going to pick up our fucking socks and we're going to be a team for the next bit and you know there are some people who are not willing to do that and they are no longer in this room they

Corey 57:40

they are no longer on the team and

Corey 57:41

and uh and their political careers are done you

Corey 57:44

you know that would be optimal for him but that requires a number of things to sort of land together but but you know he's got two problems here if i can sort of restate it one is the the moment and he needs people to say at the end of the moment he tried to lead well through the moment and maybe some of the people around him and and now i'm talking more the caucus than his staff kept him from being able to do the things that would have given us better outcomes like there's got to be a general sense of that and he's got to cut off this rot like drew barnes i

Corey 58:14

i i am i'm perpetually shocked he is still in this caucus and i am sure there's a lot of reasons for it i'm sure the dynamics are tricky but i

Corey 58:23

have a hard time imagining jason kenney wouldn't be in a stronger leadership position if a year and a half ago when drew barnes was spouting off more extreme versions versions of Alberta separatism if he just said, like, no, okay, thanks, bye, I'll see you later, Drew, right? So that, to me, is as close to optimal as you're going to get in a moment like this. But you've got a couple of things that you're going to have to try to do concurrently. Carter, tell

Zain 58:47

tell me the optimal Kenny outcome as we close this segment off.

Carter 58:51

I think the only way he survives this is if a group of people leave the party. Ideally, it'd be as you know as few as eight uh you wouldn't want it to go much over over 10 um but they actually do you mean leave

Zain 59:04

leave or do you think he has to engineer them leaving let me be clear on that um

Carter 59:07

um i think it might be stronger if he kicked them out but he's going to have some problems with that because the caucus itself may need some convincing of that um but they it looks like people are poised to leave i think that he should take the right decision and try and get us out of this mess as quickly as possible. British Columbia has somehow found a way to reduce their overall caseload and not go over 1,000 new cases every day. That's pretty great. I think that we should emulate them.

Carter 59:37

But in order to do that, he will have to lose people. But I actually think that's his best case scenario. If he keeps everybody in, then they're going to find themselves doing a leadership review. And even if it's in the third quarter or fourth quarter of 2022, 22. He may be out and someone else might be leading us in to the 2023 election.

Zain 59:56

We're going to leave that segment there, leaving us from the greatest summer ever into our next segment, greatest spring ever. Let's talk about Joe Biden, guys, and his first 100 days, because while it may not have been what many expected, it seems to be a 100 days that many people are quite pleasantly surprised by. Strong approval ratings for Biden. And when I say strong, I mean, stable, unlike Trump or even Obama, who came into office with higher approval ratings and in the first 100 days saw double digit, you know, drops. Biden's held pretty steady, about a number above 50. He's put some bold, progressive, even transition like policies and principles in place, including the massive recovery bill. And on Wednesday, he gave his first address to a joint session of Congress on the eve of his 100th day. His 65-minute speech brought the importance of his first 99 days, summed up by the three Bs, big in ambition, boring, and bipartisan. He talked about things that are classic Joe in the sense of cooperation, bipartisanship. It wasn't a rhetorical barn burner like we're used to with an Obama speech. It was what we saw with Joe as vice president or Joe at the convention or on election night. But it was also big in ambition, which I think many people are cluing in on. And many people are calling it the response to the 30 or 40 years of plus of Reaganism that the United States has felt where Reagan stood up to Congress, talked about slashing taxes and welfare. welfare and almost now this Biden era of slamming the door shut on that and this more progressive approach on more taxes on the wealthy, more taxes on corporations, social spending, and really a punctuation to progressives winning the battle of ideas. That's just my summary. I want to hear yours, both from the speech and the first 100 days. And Corey, I want to start with you. We teased out on Sunday's episode a bit on the first 100 days, but tell me a little bit more about what What you heard in the speech as that capstone and any further comments you'd have generally about Joe Biden before we jump a little bit and double click into the speech?

Corey 1:02:11

There wasn't a lot that was brand new in the speech by the time the speech went. And in fact, I think when we last talked about it, we had a pretty good sense of what he was an American family's plan. I think it's called there

Corey 1:02:21

was a fair bit of a victory lap on on COVID-19. And to be fair to him, when he took office and he said, I'm going to get, you

Corey 1:02:29

you know, these X number of vaccines in the first 100 days, people thought that was crazy ambitious. He wouldn't

Zain 1:02:34

wouldn't be able to

Corey 1:02:34

to do it. He blew past his targets. So good for him on that.

Corey 1:02:39

But, you know, in some ways it's very methodical, isn't it? He's just checking boxes. He's like, okay, we're going to deal with this COVID thing. Not done. Don't raise that mission accomplished better yet. But you can kind of put the tick in. Okay, we've done what we said we were going to do on that. that we're showing some really clear progress on that the united states obviously has doses per capita really near the top of the list right um there was the yeah i'm gonna fumble all of the names of his various bills here but he had his recovery bill uh

Corey 1:03:08

which he's gone through and check on that one and now we're talking about infrastructure and we're talking about families and all told this is just a wild amount of money that is fundamentally going to change americans relationship with government in in so many ways and and this really i mean it's not an exaggeration to say you sort of have to go back to fdr lbj to see government that had this kind of swagger in it and that

Corey 1:03:36

that is going to i i don't i'm surprised by that i don't know if you're all surprised by that i'm surprised by that um but he he has really kind of captured kind of a new deal democrat vibe and

Corey 1:03:49

sort of running with it, and his approval ratings are not that great. So there's one thing I take exception to here, and you said he's doing better than Barack Obama at that point. That's not true. Barack

Zain 1:04:01

Barack Obama. Sorry, that is true. I mean, I'm sorry. I meant more stable with his approvals from when Obama came into office to where he is right now. So no major drops per se, no sort of like precipice. So

Corey 1:04:13

So that's sort of true. But let's be clear, Obama still at this time was more popular, both in real terms and in net terms than it is. We're in more polarized times, perhaps a little less hope times. But he seems to be very

Corey 1:04:27

very comfortable with saying, I got my super, not super majority, that implies 60 seats. I got my majority. I'm going to drive through as much of this as I humanly can. And we'll just we'll let the chips fall where they may. Hey, like the Republicans pouting about the lack of bipartisanism is hilarious. And Biden has said multiple times, or people around Biden, that the strategy here is really to be bipartisan, but

Corey 1:04:53

but circumventing the representatives in the Republican Party. Because many of his policies have bipartisan support writ

Corey 1:05:01

writ large in American society. They just don't have bipartisan support in Congress. And he seems totally comfortable living in that space and just pushing this as far and as fast as he can go. And it's really fucking impressive, at least on this particular front, what he's managed to do and what he's managed to set up. Carter,

Zain 1:05:19

Carter, are you surprised from what you're seeing, from what you saw as we celebrate the 100-day anniversary? grocery

Carter 1:05:25

i am actually i thought that the first reconciliation bill that was brought forward was going to start off and i can't remember the exact numbers let's just round number it to two billion dollars um it was going to start off at two billion dollars and it's going to wind up somewhere around 1.2 because there'd be a negotiation a discussion would ensue and bipartisanship uh bipartisan joe would come in and he'd find a compromise and the compromise was This is our deal. Fuck you. And he got it passed. And, you

Carter 1:05:56

you know, I mean, I think that that surprised people and surprised me. Everything that he is doing right now is surprising me. He's governing almost like he has a majority. You know, I argue that I don't understand exactly why Trudeau wants an election. He gets to govern like he has a majority. Well, you know, Biden doesn't have an opportunity for an election. He's facing a a stacked court. He's facing a 50 50 Senate with a couple of senators in there that are call themselves Democrats, but realistically come from pretty red areas and have fairly red or purpley red points of view. and he's saying uh yeah

Carter 1:06:36

yeah fuck you kristin cinema come and talk to me in my office fuck you um joe mansion fuck you this this is this is not the the easygoing joe biden that i was expecting to see uh that would result in massive compromise and cory's exactly right this is a new deal era of government uh coming out of uh a government that is frankly incredibly divided and more partisan than it's ever been, which just speaks to some significant skills coming out of this particular White House.

Zain 1:07:10

Carter, is Joe Biden framing

Zain 1:07:13

framing the moment or is he responding to pressure of where America is going? And you can take the second half of that statement from everything from from the diverse makeup of the country to the popularity of progressive ideals to the reinforcements that have to live with him in the Democratic Party, alone as the Social Democrats. Is Joe Biden framing this moment or is he responding to it in your mind? I mean, maybe I'll ask you about part B. Does it matter? He's

Carter 1:07:44

He's doing both, Zane. He is responding to the COVID situation and allowing that to frame his government. The COVID situation is the crisis that you need to make the change that you desire. And he is taking advantage of it in a massive way that that, frankly, other governments could write. I mean, when you're when you're looking at this in textbooks in 20 years from now, that should be the headline in the textbook is how do you take the crisis and turn it into the change you want? FDR did it with the Depression and World War Two. And now you're seeing Biden do it with the COVID situation. And you can also see Reagan and the way that Reagan redefined American politics with the Cold War and the end of the Cold War. He defined himself by taking advantage of that particular crisis and that opportunity. These are textbook examples of how you take the situation and you allow that situation to define what your legacy will be. I would argue that Biden's got more of a legacy in 100 days than Donald Trump had in four years.

Zain 1:08:57

framing the moment or responding to it in your mind?

Corey 1:09:00

think a good politician, to Carter's point, does both, right? Right. You you are you can be too rigid and you can try to blindly put forward on your plans, even though the environment has changed. We've seen that a lot here in this country. A lot of other provinces have seen that or

Corey 1:09:16

or our own province. Arguably, you can see people who just said we've got an agenda. We're going to stick on the agenda. Who cares if the whole world has changed? On the other hand, you can just ride the wave too much and you're not actually telling a story. You're just responding perpetually. But a good politician knows how to respond in a way that tells their story. They take advantage of the various hooks that are out there. In a communication sense, we often talk about media hooks. This is in the news. This is a great opportunity to talk about X. But that's true writ large as well. This is in the news. This is what people are worried about. This is a great opportunity to push X and get X through Congress. And that seems to be the approach that Joe Biden has taken. And so what

Corey 1:09:56

what I don't get, Zane, and maybe this is the pith of your question, is I don't get the sense that he's being pushed into doing something he wouldn't otherwise want to do. I almost feel like this guy's been a progressive sleeper for 40 fucking years. That was

Zain 1:10:07

was at the heart of my question. I'm glad you teased it out that way, because many people would say, where did this side come from, from

Zain 1:10:14

from this guy? Well, no

Corey 1:10:15

no kidding. But here he is. And now he seems to – it really does sort of feel like he saw Reaganism. He said, this sucks. I'm going to undo this. And he just found a way to ultimately do it. But I mean, that sounds almost crazy. That sounds almost like too much. But it does look like he is thinking about his legacy. He's thinking about what America needs. I don't know. Maybe we got to elect really old people more often because he seems to give no fucks. and he's he's just sort of driving this this agenda forward uh palmel now let's not give him the victory yet like a lot of these things are still in bill's stage he's had a couple of clear wins but it's also possible that everything he's proposed in the last bit fails to go anywhere for various reasons well

Zain 1:11:03

that's the heart of my next question here carter what does he need to keep this momentum alive like what's the almost

Zain 1:11:08

almost equate this carter you'd be very familiar with the the basketball player with the hot hand and does he does he yeah you know the hot hand metaphor as you know for sure yeah

Carter 1:11:17

it in the australian rules football league oh

Zain 1:11:20

oh my god okay carter how

Zain 1:11:22

how does joe biden carter's how does he keep the hot hand alive does he does he what are the political lessons here right like can you get high on your own supply is that the thing is it back to cory's lesson that nothing is as good or bad as you think it is, like modulation? What are some lessons that Biden should, you know, might not be novel to him, but he should certainly tape up to his bathroom mirror, just so he can read them every morning.

Carter 1:11:50

So he has to, if he wants to continue this, he has, you know, the filibuster is the big question.

Carter 1:11:57

question. Can he get things passed in the House and then sent to the Senate and through a 50-50 Senate where realistically

Carter 1:12:04

realistically very few Republicans are even considering moving over to a Democratic position on any bill. Even something as something we might consider as simple as the voting rights legislation. You're not getting Republicans. If you do get Republicans, you're not getting over the 60 vote threshold. So getting past the filibuster is about momentum. It's

Carter 1:12:30

It's about showing that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema of the world, that

Carter 1:12:34

that if you don't get on side, you will lose, you will be gone, and the rest of us will continue on without you. You know, the redistricting that occurred didn't shake the fundamental makeup of the House too, too much. So I don't think that they're looking at significant losses for the Democrats in the House if things hold their shape. And I think that they're looking at some significant pickups in the Senate. So I would be saying to Manchin

Carter 1:13:07

Manchin and Sinema, this is your chance to be heroes or your chance to to be forgotten. Because Biden can wait two years. These two may not be able to. So my view is push it. Let's see where we can get.

Zain 1:13:23

Corey, lessons, words of wisdom that Biden needs to just, you know, ensure he doesn't forget.

Corey 1:13:32

It's very similar to Carter's just move those chains, keep moving

Corey 1:13:36

And try to find a way that nobody has an opportunity to line up against you strongly and build that wall. Because ultimately, what the Republicans would love more

Corey 1:13:48

more than anything is to keep their conference together and then also start chiseling away the mansions of the world and saying, okay, well, Joe Biden's gone too far. You know, this is not something that Americans will support. You've just got to keep things moving. You got to keep the positivity on your side. Obviously, you want to keep polls on your side for these things as well, because it makes it easier to point to what you're doing and say, well, Joe, you got to support this. Sincerely, Joe. A lot of Joes around there. You know, it's of a certain era. And, you

Corey 1:14:19

know, and probably to that end, make sure that you're keeping your polling up to date in West Virginia, right? Try to understand exactly how you can, you know, talk about securing Manchin's legacy, make it about him, make it about his state. But, you know, you got a whole team of people to help you figure this out. But keep moving those chains. Use whatever mechanisms are available to you. If this is the agenda you want, push this agenda. Use executive orders, get things through reconciliation, what you can, if you can't get everything, and just keep moving.

Zain 1:14:53

was going to leave it there, but I've got one more question for both of you now that you introduced your answer, Corey. Any lessons you feel like Joe Biden's leadership could teach, whether it's Trudeau or could be now part of morsels of wisdom for another playbook, what you've experienced? And I know it's only 100 days, right? So granted, but impactful 100 days, anything that you feel like that could be teased out from his leadership experience for the political playbook going forward, or maybe reinforces political wisdom going forward?

Zain 1:15:25

think it's too soon. Because again,

Corey 1:15:27

again, let's not put it in the W column yet. He's got a lot of things to do. He's had a good 100 days, but it's not over yet. Right? right and um and it's funny to hear carter say things like you can outweigh joe manchin well can you you're pretty old and at a certain point you're going to have to decide whether you're running for a second term that's going to affect your authority around here very soon

Corey 1:15:48

yeah well and so this and you know right now he's saying like yeah of course i'm running for a second term are

Corey 1:15:53

are you though joe are you i'm

Corey 1:15:55

i'm i'm not convinced of that as much and then there's the just the realities of age the the grim reaper that it is so um let's

Corey 1:16:04

let's let's see where this settles let's not let's not turn this into a steven covey book just yet but there are a couple of things that are fascinating to keep an eye on let's do that one of them yeah

Corey 1:16:15

yeah well let's talk about uh first and foremost this notion that you can come in and just overwhelm with change right like that you can change everything and you can move it through is this going to be successful in the american context the conventional wisdom has always been it's slow it's deliberate you don't do these things right away the reason we still talk about fdr and the alphabet laws is that was such an exception right you know we talk about the first hundred days because of their potency we don't normally see so much being projected forward and being suggested at the same time um so let's keep an eye on that let's see if that actually works in the united states states uh and also whether it's durable if you do something like that or if maybe this is just a precursor to almost uh crazy whipsaws back and forth parliamentary style where i got the majority i'm going to undo everything you did you got the majority you're going to redo it all again so i'd like to see that the other thing i would like to see is can you keep a coalition together when part of your coalition is sort of just there because you seem to be winning name.

Corey 1:17:20

So I, you know, because ultimately, I don't know that everybody in the Senate for the Democrats is as wild about this as, as Joe is.

Zain 1:17:29

is. Carter, same question for you, either my original question of what lessons you feel like could be teased out from the first 100 days from Biden's leadership, or to Corey's more, I think, perhaps appropriate question, which is what you're keeping keeping your eye on to, to, to maybe put in the, uh, the Stephen Carter, Stephen Covey book.

Carter 1:17:47

Yeah. See, for me, the a hundred days, the lesson is that the a hundred days matter.

Carter 1:17:51

When you win that election, you've got, you've got the opportunity to do something in a hundred days. And this to me is just simply reinforced the idea that you need to have the best possible transition team. You need to have an experienced staff when you walk through the door and you can achieve great things in the first hundred days. And I think that that is something that Joe Biden Biden is shown by hiring, you know, Ronald Klain as his chief of staff and saying, you know, I'm going to hire an experienced group of people and we're going to make shit get done. And he did. He got his cabinet for the most part. I think he lost one. He pushed through his legislation and he's the one who's got an 85 percent approval on his first state, you know, his first speech to the United Congress. He did OK.

Zain 1:18:38

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

Carter 1:18:44

I'm a little dopey. I kind of like to go to bed. It's pretty damn late.

Zain 1:18:47

Well, Carter, we've got another four segments now that you mentioned, and I'm going to just keep going. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. Marathon.

Zain 1:18:53

Carter, overrated or underrated in particular? We've talked about the generic question, but I'm going to ask you in particular. particular, the Conservative Party of Canada says it raised a record $8.47 million in the first three months of 2021 as they prepare for an election. Is that overrated or underrated as their specific tranche of money there?

Carter 1:19:13

Underrated. Money is everything in politics. Money matters.

Zain 1:19:17

Consistent, Stephen Carter. Good. I like it. That was pretty much a measure of consistency to see if you're awake. Corey, same question before we move

Corey 1:19:22

move on to the next one.

Corey 1:19:24

Underrated. Who saw it coming? coming. We were supposed to be hearing that his base was so angry and you had to assume one of those consequences was he would raise fewer dollars. Corey, it's

Zain 1:19:34

it's probably a good time for me to check. How's the house on O'Toole Island working out for you?

Corey 1:19:40

You know what? I've had the hatches, you know, the shutters have been closed for a while. I think I might be willing to open them up again now that I hear these fundraising numbers. There

Zain 1:19:48

There you go, Corey. I'm sticking with you. The risk for the liberals, the risk for the governing liberals between, yes, Corey, it's one one to 10 on Bill C-10. What do you think the risk currently is from a political standpoint to them?

Corey 1:20:00

a political standpoint, I think the risk is fairly minimal, Zane. It's actually one of those issues where the policy might be more problematic and down the road, we might find ourselves really regretting the approach that was taken. Carter,

Zain 1:20:11

Carter, the political risk for the Liberals on one to 10 on C-10?

Carter 1:20:15

Negligible. It's just not going to be something that will capture the electoral populace as they move forward towards an election.

Zain 1:20:24

Carter, I'm going to stick with you on this one. Also, 1 to 10, Kenny's

Zain 1:20:28

Kenny's leadership crisis. How bad is it? 10, burning, house on fire, 1, you're

Carter 1:20:34

No, he's fucked. I believe that that is the official term. He's really fucked. You're still holding on? 2023, he's not the candidate.

Carter 1:20:44

That was a prediction. That was an official prediction. I've asked everybody to write it down. I've asked them to record it.

Zain 1:20:48

I gave you a chance to back up. Corey, 1 to

Corey 1:20:50

to 10, the Kenny leadership crisis.

Corey 1:20:53

Nothing in life is as good or as bad as you think it is. As Carter says it is. And that's doubly

Carter 1:20:58

doubly true in politics.

Carter 1:20:58

As Carter says it is.

Zain 1:21:01

Corey, final question. Are you in or out on the K-country user fees here in Alberta? Oh, fuck.

Zain 1:21:07

Oh, man. How did we not talk about this? How did we not talk about that? Listen, it's an hour 21. I can go for however long I want. Do you see why I put it at the end?

Zain 1:21:17

Because as a fan of the inside, it was not a high priority for me. But as I suspect, it might be for one of you, if not both of you. Corey, what do you think? Are you in or out on this political move?

Corey 1:21:30

Well, we might need to actually give some background for people outside of

Corey 1:21:33

Do you want to do

Zain 1:21:34

do it? Or Carter,

Corey 1:21:34

do you want to do it? Yeah, I'll do it because Carter will just get emotional and start

Zain 1:21:39

shouting. That's what I was expecting.

Corey 1:21:41

The province of Alberta has a provincial park system, as all provinces do. do and we've got a a big collection of parks called kananaska's country that's just west of the city of calgary it it butts right up against uh banff national park and it tends to be uh you know kind of the it's the it's one step closer and it is it's full of all sorts of great things you've got mountains you've got you've got uh hikes you've got anything you could imagine there it's it's one of these real gems of alberta and when it was set up many decades ago at this time The idea is it was almost like it was the people's park relative to the national park next door. And so now the government of Alberta has released in what was, I think, like an all-timer press release. It was very funny about

Corey 1:22:27

about all of this money they're going to invest in Kananaskis country. It goes on for like a page and a half and then talk about burying the lead. It says at the bottom, and we're going to do this by charging a fee, $90 for a year for a car to go through the park, $15 per visit. it uh you know just just casually dropping in that all of a sudden there's going to be money that you're going to have to spend to go into this this provincial park which i have to stress calgarians treat like our backyard and so you know zane you mentioned like you

Corey 1:22:57

you know carter will care because he goes outdoors a lot i don't go outdoors a lot but i've got kids and we certainly go to k country at least a couple times a year you know it's it's going to be the rare calgary family family with an automobile who isn't hit by this in some way, shape or form. And so, boy,

Corey 1:23:13

boy, I don't know. I mean, like I said on Twitter, and I'll say again, I feel like I'm going to see a lot more angry lawn signs in my neighborhood soon. Like, I don't think people are going to like this very much. I also don't understand why the provincial government continues to just sort of smash their head against the wall of this file. Like on the parks, they just take nothing but abuse, whether whether it be coal, whether it be privatization of parks. And now I think with this particular fee, they've got yet additional challenges on this front here. It's a fascinating one. And yeah, people are pretty keyed up. People are pretty mad. Carter, are you in or out?

Carter 1:23:52

I'll tell you what. If you came to me and said, you know what, we have to pay a $90 fee to access every Alberta park in Alberta, But it's a $90 fee, the same way that I have to pay $140 to pay to access the Banff, the national park system. I'd say, you know what? That's a fair deal. That's a good price for me. But when they start carving out areas of the actual parks, they can go fuck themselves because they've carved out McLean Creek. Now, that doesn't mean anything to anybody. What's McLean Creek? It's a nice area. It's the place that people go off roading. It's the area in the provincial park that we've fucking destroyed using our motorized vehicles. And that's the part you don't have to pay a fee to go into. Like, fuck you, Jason Kenney. Fuck you, Jason Nixon. This is wrong. This is not the way it's supposed to happen. And I am beyond furious about it. Because if you want to protect our parkland, then protect our parkland. But this isn't even parkland. You know how I know it's not Parkland? Because they're going to log the place that I go fucking bike riding. Fuck you, Jason Kenney. I'm not paying 90 bucks to avoid getting hit with a fucking logging truck, you prick.

Zain 1:25:09

reaction to parks is like my reaction to every season of Homeland and Muslim representation.

Zain 1:25:17

It's pretty good. It's equivalent. We'll leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 935 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan. The still alive, but barely, Stephen Carter. And we'll see you next time.

Corey 1:25:40

So Zane, talk to us about Homeland, which I've always thought was a very accurate representation of the security community. Okay.

Zain 1:25:46

Okay. First of all, everyone isn't fucking named Abu something. Abu Nasir, Abu whatever. No, first of all, let's just start with the nomenclature. Secondly, why is it that they find these British Muslim actors and then they ask every single one of them to play the exact same role like it's some sort of 2002 stereotypical comedy movie where we're all playing terrorists? Have we not evolved beyond that? Every single role for a Muslim person on that show is a terrorist. So I guess what I'm trying to say is fuck you, Jason Kenney. Fuck

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