Episode 946: Participation ribbons

Zain 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 934. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter.

Zain 0:09

I said no! Was it that funny? I

Zain 0:11

said no! Was it that funny?

Carter 0:13

furious. Like, we've done this.

Carter 0:17

Done what? I have no

Zain 0:18

no idea what you're talking about. What the fuck are you talking

Corey 0:20

talking about? Corey, how's it going?

Corey 0:23

It's going pretty well.

Corey 0:24

I can't believe that the election was four days ago. I can't

Corey 0:28

can't believe Stephen Carter accurately predicted that it would be a liberal government. But here we are. Carter,

Carter 0:35

only— How's O'Toole Island for you two now? Huh?

Carter 0:37

How'd that work out for you two?

Corey 0:40

let's be clear. O'Toole Island was always about him overperforming relative to his market price. There was a whole buy-sell metaphor.

Corey 0:48

O'Toole Island is still pretty sunny, still pretty nice. He was supposed to get killed this election, and he did just fine. Yeah, Carter, come on. He

Carter 0:55

He did the exact same as Andrew Scheer.

Corey 0:58

well we could yeah well he was supposed to do worse

Zain 1:02

uh speaking of uh peeking at just the right time uh the strategist podcast guys uh on election day did what number one baby

Carter 1:12

baby number one on

Zain 1:15

on the only poll that matters on election day we were number one now don't look right now because it doesn't matter the polls don't matter after election matter do they do they matter carter do they matter before carter not

Carter 1:25

not for another not until Until another election. No. Polls don't mean anything. They're meaningless. I mean, sure, they show direction, but you can turn direction around at any time.

Carter 1:36

And we won. The charts

Zain 1:36

charts don't matter today. The charts don't matter any other day except Election Day. And where were we, Corey? We were? We were number one. We were number one. I just want people to know

Corey 1:47

we were number one right at the time. We were number one. I do want to put a proviso, though. The

Corey 1:51

The charts will matter if we're number one tomorrow. They

Zain 1:53

They will matter. Yes, that is correct. Yeah, that is correct. Correct, yeah. They will matter if we're number one tomorrow, but more importantly, we were Carter, what position were we in on election day? Number one, Zane. Yeah, first at the top. We

Carter 2:04

We were, we beat everybody.

Carter 2:07

Grenier fucking kicked his ass.

Carter 2:10

Right? We don't have to do this. We don't have to do

Corey 2:22

Corey? I mean, when he's right, he's right. They're all losers.

Zain 2:25

let's move it on to our first segment our first segment get back to work you fuckers yes indeed the exact same plus or minus one stephen carter plus or minus two response that canadians have given back to justin trudeau and his liberal government a liberal minority not weakened like some people said not a majority like others people said almost exactly the same as the version that he had heading into this election. Okay, so we're a couple days removed, so a lot of the analysis has been given, so to speak. But of course, with the podcast that finishes number one on the charts on Election Day, I'm sure people expect higher of us, at least two of us, right, Corey? Oh,

Zain 3:08

Yeah, and Carter— We all agree to that. Yeah.

Zain 3:13

Carter, keep those expectations low. But Carter, we're going to go through every party. We're going to go through every leader, every party. Did they overperform? Did they underperform? What's their future? Maybe we'll kind of use that as a basic skeleton. You're nodding your head as if you're listening, but I know you are not, especially after your expose last episode where you mentioned you don't listen to anything I said. So, Stephen Carter, maybe just repeat what I said before we move on.

Carter 3:37

Anyway, Zane, I think that really the big winner was Trudeau.

Zain 3:45

You're insufferable. you're insufferable after you were on the current for eight minutes eight

Carter 3:50

eight minutes on the current which was really good you guys do your little panels where you get eight minutes for four of you but on the plus side you guys do get paid and i just got nothing so you

Zain 4:01

you gotta ask it on air actually you gotta make it really awkward at the end of the interview so you're like do you guys

Carter 4:06

guys validate parking matt

Carter 4:08

matt where do i send my invoice cory

Zain 4:11

cory let's start with the liberals let's just let's just get this going let's start with the let's start with the liberals here um where

Zain 4:18

where does this leave the liberals from a perspective of obviously governance and one of the emerging narratives that i'd like to address are uh related to justin trudeau and his leadership does this minority which isn't a majority leave justin trudeau a bit humbled and a bit hobbled or is a win is a win is a win uh from your perspective maybe we'll start there and then we'll move on to carter getting your thoughts on the liberals and down the line Do

Corey 4:46

Do you know, it's funny, because when you look at 2021, it's really easy to say this is just 2019. And honest to God, in seat counts, least

Corey 4:55

least consequential election in Canadian history. I went through all

Corey 4:59

all of them. And you can make some, some rough, ambiguous cases, I think, in 1940. But this is this is crazy how little change, you know, you had one seat change for most of the parties, two seats for the Conservatives, two seats for the Liberals. It's nuts. But there is something interesting about 2021 that is worth talking about. And it's that for each of the political parties, with the exception of the Greens, there's

Corey 5:25

there's reason to argue it's a better result than 2019. It's like an optimized version of 2019. 19. Okay,

Zain 5:33

Okay, well, then go, let's go down your path, then. How exactly does it does it bear out? You can skip my frame for a second. How exactly does it bear out that 2021 was perhaps better as an electoral result for all the parties? Yeah,

Corey 5:46

Yeah, well, let's talk about the liberals first, because that was where you wanted to take us.

Corey 5:51

They now have representation in the West, which they did not have before. They've got a seat in Calgary, and they've got a seat in Edmonton. And that was a a real problem for them not having that representation before it's not just a beachhead in western canada you've got to keep in mind when they won seats in western canada in alberta specifically i say western canada but obviously there's seats in bc but that's so far west we consider that eastern canada as well that's

Zain 6:15

that's right just wraps around yeah just just like

Zain 6:17

like the political spectrum yeah basically

Corey 6:18

basically adjacent it's the horseshoe concept of the country right yeah there's the west West and then further west if here is east and further east if here is east. But that

Corey 6:28

was a wave election that put liberals into seats in Calgary. In

Corey 6:33

right? In 2015, yeah.

Corey 6:36

This is not a wave election. And yet the liberals managed to win some seats. Obviously, we've got the Jason Kenney story. I'm sure we'll talk about that at

Corey 6:43

at a different point here. But that's a big part of it. But let's

Corey 6:47

let's be really clear. This is better for the liberals in terms of being able to say that they're a national party.

Corey 6:53

When you look at the Conservatives, they

Corey 6:55

they still won the popular vote. It looks like by the exact same amount they won last time, which is hilarious. Again, this is like the perfect election for just – it's

Zain 7:04

it's like the most Canadian election. Ground-out day metaphors?

Corey 7:08

But while they gave up a bunch of percents of the vote in Alberta, dropped 14 points. That's a huge drop in Alberta. Alberta, started to see some incremental gains in Ontario, in Quebec, and won some seats in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Well, they weren't shut out of New Brunswick before, but the Maritimes wasn't such a wasteland for them. Atlantic Canada wasn't such a wasteland for them. So that's

Corey 7:32

that's something for Aaron O'Toole to hang his hat on too. Now, will it be enough to save him? I'm sure we'll get there at some point. The New Democrats saw their percent of the vote go up. They saw, And it looks like at the end, only one seat gained. On election night, it looked like it might be three.

Corey 7:47

But there's reasons to be somewhat optimistic if you're the New Democrats as well. They're the only ones that gained votes in real terms in the 2021 election, because

Corey 7:56

because in general, the voter turnout was down. They're the only ones who got more votes in 2021 than 2019.

Corey 8:02

the block gained a seat and we said in 2019 that was like the high watermark for the block it was going to be so hard for them to get more or

Corey 8:09

or so even the same or close in this election and they actually managed to gain a seat so

Corey 8:15

it can't be possible that the greens failed so badly that that you know that that's the benefit to all of the parties it's just really interesting because it does seem like it's a somewhat optimized version of 19 there's things each of the parties can talk to and say, yeah, that's not so bad. Yeah, that's good. We can work with that.

Zain 8:33

You know, what's interesting, Carter, because the optimized version, as Corey mentions, is perhaps more important in 2021, as we now have leadership questions for all of the three major party leaders, for Singh, for Trudeau, and for O'Toole, right? To lesser degrees and to lesser extents, but you're hearing leadership chatter for all three leaders and what this election means. So maybe we'll kind of, Corey, thank you for that frame. Carter, I want you to respond to anything you heard there, but maybe let's keep it in the liberal category there on in, from what you think this means for the liberals going forward, your analysis of their performance, and then let's talk about leadership. And let's do that for each of the parties. Let's talk about their performance and leadership, performance and leadership. And let's start here with the liberals, Carter. What do you make of their performance? And what do you make kind of of Justin Trudeau's leadership here on in? And there's multiple narratives already out there and around what this could mean for Trudeau. I'm curious to hear yours.

Carter 9:26

Corey has kids and he wants them all to get participation ribbons when they play their sports.

Carter 9:33

This isn't fucking kids sports. This is politics. This is about governing. And every one of these parties failed because they didn't form the government. They didn't, you know, the

Carter 9:44

the bloc didn't put themselves in a position where they were the only party that could support a minority. The NDP didn't put themselves in a position where they were the only party that could support a minority. The minority is so strong that the liberals can shop it out to whoever they want. But the minority is not so strong that it's a majority because Trudeau failed. He failed. It's not stronger. It's not optimized. It's a fucking failure. O'Toole, you guys weren't buying land on O'Toole Island. Yes, we were.

Carter 10:15

Come out exactly the same. oh we really thought he was gonna we

Zain 10:19

we were buying it for marginal gains carter that's have you marginal gains do you real estate bro do you house flip bro do you yeah honestly man

Corey 10:27

yeah what's wrong you never averaged down brother you guys

Carter 10:30

guys you guys house flip with a fucking loose toilets that's what you guys do with a shitty ass vinyl uh that's supposed to look like hardwood that's what you guys are house flipping okay first

Corey 10:40

first of all that stuff has come a long way and that manufactured hardwood, you're

Corey 10:46

you're welcome. How dare you speak

Zain 10:48

speak of the Northeast that way? Keep going, Clark. Anyways,

Carter 10:49

Anyways, my point is this. My point is this, that when you enter into these elections, you enter to win. Each one of these leaders is now deservingly fighting for their lives because the question has to be asked, if this is the best they can do, is it good enough? And I think that each one of them is going to have to make a case to their members and supporters that they should stay. I think, frankly, Singh and O'Toole should stay. I think Singh and O'Toole should be given the opportunity to fight another election. But I think that Justin Trudeau, this is his third election, and he's won exactly one majority. This is the ballgame.

Carter 11:25

Off you go. Not right away. Not right away. He can wait, you know, three years from now, but someone else should be leading the Liberal Party into the next election. Because you know why, Zane?

Carter 11:35

You know why? Let me tell you.

Carter 11:37

Because he's a failure.

Zain 11:38

So here I am. here i am cory's shaking his head because he thinks you're wrong i'm shaking my head because you're clearly are not paying attention to the format by the way if this is your first episode listening to the show um i'm irrelevant the exact same format

Carter 11:54

cory did a format i i'm answering cory cory

Zain 11:58

cory just carter's participation ribbon election framing i need you to respond to that everybody

Corey 12:06

everybody get the trophy

Corey 12:08

he's accusing me of uh handing out participation ribbons he's going to the people on the podium and he's knocking them down and calling them assholes it's it's a bit much but he's not wrong about the fact that it creates a um a bit of a weird instable situation for a lot of these leaders and just as you can point to it and say it's like look it's optimized from a governing and opposition point of view it

Corey 12:30

is probably not the kind of thing that's going to to make you rest easy in the PMO or the OLO or the third party leader's office. You're saying actually, I'm not so sure. Yes, it's only one seat. But in

Corey 12:42

in a funny way, I think that despite doing the worst of those three, he's probably got the most secure leadership right now if he wants it. And that's, that's

Corey 12:50

something to unpack at some point,

Zain 12:53

Corey, let's talk about Trudeau for a second. I want to, you know, get off the liberals, and we'll talk about governing.

Zain 12:59

Do you agree with Carter's framing here that that Trudeau is like, This is a second minority in a row. Is he weakened here? Or do you feel like he gets to write his script regardless of the fact that this is a minority going forward? Or do you feel like he's got one eye on succession planning by force as a result of this?

Corey 13:18

think we're still in the moment and we're going to have to give it a bit of time and see where everything lands there's a couple of facts

Corey 13:25

facts that you can't ignore 32.6 percent that's what the liberals are sitting at right now that's not a very strong government it may be a strong minority in total seat count but in terms of the amount of the country that's with them for the second election in a row they've lost the popular vote to the conservative party And yeah, they're playing the system as it exists and they're allocating resources somewhat brilliantly, it appears, because their vote is incredibly efficient. But it's not exactly speaking to kind of this goodwill feeling that you're going to be able to carry on. And it's certainly something I think that will give the liberals pause. because the thing about running a vote that efficient i really want to stress is

Corey 14:04

is it works until it doesn't and then you lose fucking everything yeah

Corey 14:08

you drop five points from 32.6 and all of a sudden you're at 27 and your seat count's going to go from 158 to

Corey 14:15

to like 40 yeah

Corey 14:16

yeah yeah you're going to be back to the liberals in 2011 all of a sudden and we've actually seen what the consequences of that can be there is an argument to be made that justin trudeau well he's run an optimized campaign he hasn't run an inspiring one not one to capture that old magic that got him into the the

Corey 14:33

the majority government that he enjoyed in 2015

Corey 14:37

can it get better from here well

Corey 14:39

well after you run two with identical outcomes what is that old saying you know the definition of insanity same thing over and over and getting the same expect a different result there

Corey 14:49

will be questions people will ask that we'll see how it shakes up if the If the conservatives end up ditching

Corey 14:55

ditching O'Toole, I think the liberals will be inclined to hold on to Trudeau for a bit and just get their popcorn and see what happens. But if the conservatives stay with O'Toole, interestingly,

Corey 15:06

interestingly, I think the liberals might say, well, maybe we should be looking at our options. Maybe we got to mix this up somehow.

Zain 15:11

Carter, you seem so definitive on Trudeau needing to go after this election. Why? Why?

Carter 15:18

Because he called an election that everybody's saying was an absolutely needless election. Now, I'm not sure that I'm going to buy the framing that it's an absolutely needless election, but he set out to achieve a goal. He set out to achieve a majority, and he failed.

Carter 15:33

And because of that, he showed a lack of judgment. He set the entire government on a course. He cost people an awful lot. there's mla or there's mps or former mps yeah

Carter 15:47

they lost their pensions there's mps that really had a lot of promise that are no longer mps we're talking about plus or minus one plus or minus one it wasn't plus or minus one for the ones that lost you know there there were some ones that lost and some ones that won and the ones that lost are gone and they don't and their political career is over because of the hubris of one man and it's really hard to move past that so i think think that this particular prime minister should be you know not necessarily taking a walk in the snow right now i think he's got probably three three good years but then he'll have been prime minister for nine years and that strikes me as as enough time um nine years a long time you know mulrooney stayed eight seven and a half how'd that end for the conservative progressive conservative party of canada uh

Zain 16:36

not great you know what well he came back to endorse a conservative party leader 30 years later, Carter. And

Carter 16:41

And look how that ended

Carter 16:42

ended for the Conservative Party of Canada.

Zain 16:46

Corey, let's talk about, can we talk a little bit of strategy rather than just analysis here, if it's cool with you? I want to talk about Trudeau. I know we're in the moment, right? Like, so I want to acknowledge that. But this is also that malleable moment, and we're seeing it certainly in the conservative side of things, where petitions are out, knives are out, people People are jockeying, angling, trying to define the state of the leader. If you wanted to, you know, let's just say accelerate Trudeau's timeline, make sure he's got that one eye on, you know, succession planning. What would you be doing right now if you were in the Liberal Party and whether you or by proxy someone you know within the circle has ambitions to take over the job as the next leader of the Liberals?

Corey 17:29

I would be having a lot of quiet conversations with my colleagues to see where their heads are. And I would be reminding them exactly what Stephen said, which is that it was a failure. He failed expectations versus August 1st. He arguably met or exceeded them on September 20th. And memories are short, but you've got to lengthen those memories

Corey 17:48

remind people that this is not a great, noble victory. This was a fucking disaster of almost epic proportions. I mean, we talked about if he had managed to lose it, that it would have been, you know, the biggest own goal in Canadian political history. And I still believe that's true. He didn't lose it. So it wasn't. So I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But if I had ambitions on the leadership, I would be reminding people about how close that precipice was. And as much as you are seeing liberal partisans online rather breathlessly say, it's always worth it because it's a democracy. Yeah, it's it's not, you know, simple thought exercise for you here. If we called an election tomorrow, would that be worth it? Yeah,

Corey 18:30

no. So now that we've defined that perpetual elections is not a good thing. Can we at least argue that there's some gray as to when an election is worthwhile? And when you've got a minority that nobody is contesting, and by the way, you're returned with the exact same minority, plus or minus one or two seats. Pretty good argument that nobody was looking for a big change here. And it wasn't a great time for an election. Carter

Zain 18:51

it's worth it because in Canada we are worth it that was my best Justin Trudeau it was a great

Corey 18:58

great Justin Trudeau you

Zain 19:00

what it's a lie

Zain 19:01

that Trudeau would say I felt

Carter 19:02

felt anger when you were doing it so that is that's

Zain 19:07

I need you to channel that anger into positivity because I want you to do the other side of this thought exercise on strategy if you're if you're on team Trudeau and team let Trudeau plan his own legacy and land his his own sort of plane however he wants. What are some of the things you're doing in this mushy, malleable period post-election to ensure that Trudeau isn't forced out or doesn't have to go on that long walk in three years, but can kind of even run again, should he have that desire? What are some of the strategic things you're putting in place, Carter, if you are working on that side of the equation?

Carter 19:39

Achieve something that's longer term, right? Set out some things that you can actually achieve and actually go and do it. So, you know, I'm not sure what it is. I think that daycare absolutely is one of those things. If in three years, there's not a workable daycare system across the country, then Trudeau shouldn't be the prime minister anymore. This is one of those things that is promised to occur and was promised to happen is now deals everywhere, except I still still think alberta's out but i think alberta wants to be in they

Carter 20:11

they say but regardless um he

Carter 20:15

he needs to achieve some things he needs to show canadians that their lives are better off with him that could also be part of the economic recovery uh getting us back to work getting getting people to actually uh achieve the the climate uh goals that we need to achieve um but he needs to achieve certain things. And maybe that could be pharma care. Maybe it could be dentistry into the Canada Health Act. I mean, there's any number of things that he can do that

Carter 20:42

that can be his legacy, but he has to achieve them. He

Carter 20:45

He can't just talk about them. And unfortunately for him, the last two-year cycle really doesn't count because everything that he achieved is fleeting. He got us through COVID. covid that's that's very good it's very impressive but even within months of covid well covid hasn't ended in the middle of covid that still wasn't enough to get him the next step on the ladder so all he did was get the exact same place on the ladder and if he wants to have a real legacy he needs to look to his father who came back after minority governments and achieves and achieved majorities uh he should be looking at kretchen kretchen by the way was nine years too wasn't 8 or

Carter 21:22

or 9 like well

Corey 21:23

well yeah it would have been 93 to oh three yeah

Carter 21:28

yeah okay so around there

Corey 21:30

nine ten years yeah so

Carter 21:31

so i think you have you know you have to figure out where you fit in the in the in the overall scheme of things and then try and and uh um

Carter 21:39

um actually do something that you're going to be remembered for and i don't you know don't do something like the gst uh that you know destroyed the the progressive conservative party um but you know maybe a rethink on the way that we do our taxes maybe a rethink of the of the deal between the federal government and municipalities maybe maybe maybe maybe right right now most of the transfers go to the provincial governments but there's there's all kinds of options your

Zain 22:04

your main headline is legacy programs that you actually execute within the window of this cycle that actually have your stamp on it in a sense right Am I putting words in your mouth by saying that? Remove the word legacy.

Carter 22:17

Remove the word legacy because if you're doing something for legacy, it will never be a legacy. If

Carter 22:23

If you're doing something because it's actually the thing that the people want, it could become your legacy. And I think that too many politicians misunderstand legacy. They want to do something that is big and bold and would create a legacy for themselves. But if they're doing what they think to be right, that will in fact create the legacy.

Zain 22:41

Corey, round us out on this. Trudeau, you're on the team with Carter in this particular scenario, helping him solidify his place in history, sure, but also his political prospects that he can end this, his time as leader on his own terms, whether that's running again, or, you know, leaving should he want. But but, you know, how are you kind of in this mushy middle period, helping him do that?

Corey 23:02

Yeah. And interestingly, I would say that the

Corey 23:06

the strongest argument that the liberals had a failure of this campaign is that I don't think that there's anything they can do now that they couldn't have done before

Corey 23:13

before the election was called. And arguably, there's fewer things they can do because they've shown a certain amount of weakness here.

Corey 23:19

I don't 100% agree with Carter. This legacy can never be the legacy if you're intending for it to be a legacy. I understand what he's saying, though. And I do think that there's an opportunity to look at, well,

Corey 23:31

well, follow some of your better angels. And when you look at the 2015 election campaign that the Liberals ran, there were promises made some

Corey 23:39

some of which were pretty grand and some of which weren't kept um you you want a legacy and you want to do the right thing how about taking on at least an honest throw at at your commitment to get rid of first past the post elections electoral reform right

Zain 23:54

right oh yeah there are you

Zain 23:56

know it would be a way that you can

Corey 23:58

clean up a blemish on your record plus fundamentally change things and have people talk about well yeah that was uh that was a trudeau government government a decision that was done so um that's a real possibility i think you could also look at at some

Corey 24:12

some of the other things around you know some of so many of them are just sort of futzing around the edges or nobody's going to remember in a hundred years like oh trudeau brought in a two percent wealth tax or whatever who gives it like that's not legacy stuff but uh there is the opportunity to still use this moment and rework canadian society coming out of covet 19 if you you want to take it. But it's going to require you to work with the NDP and really care less about who gets credit and care more about what gets done.

Zain 24:42

Carter, let's move on to O'Toole. Performance of the Conservatives. Corey highlighted some of their high points or their participation ribbon points that they, if they're selling back to the membership, which I'm sure he'll need to, regarding seat growth in certain areas, areas that they've done better in. perhaps maybe not necessarily gotten seats in Ontario and Quebec. Carter, analyze performance and leadership of O'Toole, and then we'll do the same exercise regarding keeping O'Toole versus canning O'Toole. What would you do strategically in this mushy middle position? But before that, give me your analysis on Conservative and O'Toole performance here.

Carter 25:21

The Conservatives need to decide what they want to be when they grow up. Do they want to, you know, to a lesser extent than what Jason Kenney is facing in Alberta, They still

Carter 25:29

still face the right left divide of the Conservative Party, the

Carter 25:33

the progressives, the red Tories versus the the

Carter 25:36

the the screaming lunatics on the far right. And if the screaming lunatics get 10 days on guns every election, the scream, you know, it's going to be very difficult for the for the red Tories to appeal to the middle. So

Carter 25:49

So when you you know, there should be certain issues in Canadian society

Carter 25:53

society that are basically settled, that are 80 20 issues. And if you start to pander to the 20%, it's going to be death to you. Abortion is one of those issues. You know, gay rights used to be one of those issues. Now it is a settled issue. There is no 20% left, you know, that are advocating against gay rights. But now they're advocating against trans rights. So if you continue to grab those issues, gun rights is another one, obviously, that is grabbed, that is settled in Canadian culture, and

Carter 26:24

and you put yourself on the side of the 20%, you're really going to be in trouble. And they allow themselves, every time they do that, to then be painted by that 20% when the 20% does lunatic things like protest mask mandates. uh so if o'toole wishes to remain leader um

Carter 26:43

um this is going to say you know he may have to move to the right again to keep the lunatic fringe from taking over all of those those freaking um all

Carter 26:53

all those freaking riding associations and calling for a leadership review but the truth of the matter is if he wants to win the election he needs to do what he was doing which is to move towards this, you know, the center where most Canadians find themselves. This governing as though Alberta is the mean is creating significant issues for them.

Zain 27:19

Corey Carter, you know, the best analogy for O'Toole is also a political one, which is what Romney, you know, very blatantly said he was going to do in the 2012 US election, which was run to the right in the leadership. And then what was his infamous words like Etch-a-Sketch during during the general election, try to run a more centrist, reasonable campaign. Clearly didn't work for him, clearly didn't work for O'Toole. From your perspective, Corey, the conservative outcome on Monday night and the leadership for Aaron O'Toole, your thoughts on both of those?

Corey 27:50

Well, clearly didn't work. But when you look at the conservative

Corey 27:53

conservative campaign, and you ask yourself,

Corey 27:56

why did the conservatives lose? There will obviously be, now let's just talk them out, There will be two theories that people will, in broad strokes, they are the

Corey 28:04

Conservatives lost because the few right-wing nuggets they had in there absolutely derailed their campaign. You can look at guns, you can look at standing next to Jason Kenney during the fourth wave and the COVID response there as two painfully

Corey 28:18

painfully obvious ones. And certainly the polls show momentum stalls or even momentum reversals, as in particular the gun issue was being digested by Canadians. Now, correlation

Corey 28:28

correlation is not causation. Maybe the liberals would have turned it around there anyways. But that's a pretty reasonable theory of election, right? And you could say, maybe

Corey 28:38

maybe O'Toole could have won. And maybe if that momentum had been maintained, maybe if they didn't have that meat for the right wing base, that we'd be talking about Prime Minister-designate Aaron O'Toole right now. Yeah. The

Corey 28:49

The other theory of election is, of course, that the PPC cost them the votes and they lost that PPC vote because they tacked to the center instead of

Corey 28:58

of holding their ground on the right and trying to persuade Canadians to become more right wing. So in

Corey 29:03

in a way, Zane, I guess in some ways, these are two theories of politics in general. Do

Corey 29:08

Do you go to where the votes are or do you persuade the votes to come to you?

Corey 29:12

And those are the two wings of the Conservative Party that are going to fight out on this leadership question over the next bit. it.

Zain 29:17

Corey, let's talk about the strategy for O'Toole here. If you are in team, let's boot Aaron O'Toole, let's get rid of him. You know, we've got this interim period where the spin, the framing, the strategy will matter. What are some of the things you're doing? We've got Bert Chen, one of the members of the Conservative Party of Canada, national sort of elected representatives, starting this online change.org petition, which has got about 2000 signatures to to recall Aaron O'Toole. Now, that's not something they have in their constitution. So he's trying to trigger something, a new brand new process. But if you were on team, this guy isn't our cup of tea. He's not our pathway to success. What are some of the things you'd be doing right now to stab the guy in the back, so to speak, if I can be so crass?

Corey 30:01

Yeah, my message would be simple.

Corey 30:03

He blew up in one election, what took us a decade to put together. He destroyed right wing unity.

Corey 30:08

And we will never come close to government until we get back together. And that means being true blue blue conservatives, like he promised to be, but like he failed to deliver upon.

Zain 30:18

Right. And is there strategies associated with that, Corey? Like, are you trying to like get some, you know, high level, you know, conservative luminaries to carry that message? Is this, are you going down to low, low grassroots and feeding it there? What do you kind of think about dissemination of what seems to be a very compelling and apt message from your perspective? Yeah,

Corey 30:39

Yeah, you stoke those fires at the local level. You make it

Corey 30:42

clear that the constituency associations aren't with Aaron O'Toole. Let's not fucking forget, Aaron O'Toole couldn't get his climate plan through before the

Zain 30:50

the election. His convention, yeah. His convention,

Corey 30:51

convention, right? So it's not exactly like you're going to have to do an awful lot of work to get the base of the conservative party to say this guy is not where we want to be. Do

Zain 31:00

Do you stoke them where the PPC may have, you know, killed your vote or where we have lost narrowly or the seats that you held? And you kind of start there and say, this guy's to blame, so to speak?

Corey 31:10

do, and you also use that as the start of your olive branch if you're going to be a more right-wing candidate. You say, I understand why you weren't with us last election. I absolutely understand.

Corey 31:21

But you know the PPC is not going to be government, certainly not as long as there's an independent Conservative Party as well. well. So come

Corey 31:27

come to our AGM, get your membership back. Let's talk about what the conservative party can be again, if we get rid of Aaron O'Toole. And you bring in that energy and that venom from the PPC. Maybe like, look, I'm not trying to be like the darkest man in the world and the most cynical political organizer ever. You don't need to take the absolute fringes of the PPC, but there's an awful lot of conservatives who went there. And I think if you could bring some of that energy into the campaigns and don't get me wrong there will be tensions on the local level as a result of this it's like fuck you you ran a candidate against me last time but if you can make uh the message that the real enemy here is erin o'toole so to speak let's let bygones be bygones this is your last exit to do that because you do one more election like this these people will not be in the same room again for 10 years carter

Zain 32:16

carter i want to i want to get you to react to the Corey strategy, but maybe I want to put a slightly different challenge in front of you, which is, let's say you want to get rid of O'Toole, okay? But you don't want to necessarily get rid of the lane that he picked in this election, the progressive conservative lane that he picked. So suppose you want to get rid of Aaron O'Toole, but you actually think this centrist positioning that he had, not horrible. In fact, to your earlier point, what we need, He put out some things that are table stakes for a modern Canadian electorate. We need that. This fucker can't be the standard bearer for that. What is your strategy if that's your nuance take from what you believe? Because there's a few folks in the party that probably want to take the mantle from O'Toole and be like, this fucker shouldn't be representing this PC brand. I should be doing it. Or this by proxy, this person should be doing it. So nuance challenge. Corey, I want to get your reaction to that afterwards, too. But Carter, you first. First of

Carter 33:11

of all, we can no longer run a leader who behaves one way in a leadership and behaves another way in a general election. We

Carter 33:20

We need to elect a leader that is the exact same in the leadership as they would be in the leadership or in the actual general election. Because that brand dissonance that we're creating is the reason that the PPC forms. It is the reason that Canadians don't trust Aaron O'Toole. They don't trust the party. um so having you know having a a leader in in aaron o'toole who is essentially duplicitous because he campaigned differently for the leadership than he campaigned for the actual election and canadians whether they are conservatives or not don't know who he is so he has to go and

Carter 33:58

and then we're going to have another leadership and that leadership may have like what cory is describing a leadership candidate that that says we are going to merge together with the PPC, we're moving back to the right wing. We are going to be true blue conservatives. And it may also have a leadership candidate that says, no, that's not the way we're going to run this. You know, it's James Moore. And he's saying we have to have a conservative party that can win in British Columbia on the coast of British Columbia. And that is a different conservative party than the one that Aaron O'Toole ran to lead the leadership with.

Zain 34:30

So what I'm hearing you say is that should your disposition be that this party needs to keep in this same lane of PC or centrist party, you're not actually, if you want to take down O'Toole, you're not trying to take him down with that argument. You're actually defining the problem rather than presenting the solution just yet. You're saying, and that problem is around duplicitousness, talking out of both sides of your mouth, et cetera. And then you eventually, you know, try your best to once again, occupy that lane, if I can paraphrase what you're saying. Is that fair,

Carter 34:59

fair, Carter? Yeah. I mean, you're basically, what you're trying to do is you you have to get you're trying to get rid of the there's a fundamental problem in the conservative movement.

Carter 35:07

They believe they have to behave one way in

Carter 35:10

in order to gain government in order to gain the leadership and

Carter 35:13

another way to gain the you know, the the actual government. I mean, this would be the equivalent of saying I'm going to behave like an asshole in order to get the first date. And then, you know, once I get the first date, I'm going to be a true gentleman. compliment um

Carter 35:28

um you know oh that works though never mind let's just move on to jesus

Zain 35:34

jesus christ cory i'm gonna pose the same challenge to you um you

Zain 35:37

you want to stay in the lane but you want to get rid of the guy yeah

Corey 35:40

yeah carter laid out a a generally solid approach which is it isn't the concept it's the execution right and the way he approached it in an execution sense left a bad taste in the right of the party's mouth because they just felt betrayed canadians felt they couldn't trust Trust him as a result, because who is Aaron O'Toole? He'll take any position. Ultimately, his failure was because he tried to ride two horses with one ass. That's the general approach that Stephen has proposed here. And there's some logic to it. And in fact, you can start to point to the tensions within his campaign, the ones that we've already pointed out, that caused some of those challenges. So you talk about, for example, the gun stuff. Well,

Corey 36:19

Well, that's in some ways settling a debt from his leadership contest. That's what you say. You make the same comments about conversion therapy, about a number of the small eyebrow razors that were within the platform, where you'll recall when we were talking about, we're like, well, that's interesting. And your problem is, well, that's a very, I think that's a pretty decent message for broad swaths of the public. That's a much tougher thing to execute on the party level, because I don't think the party is geared for that. Because again, see comments of couldn't

Corey 36:49

couldn't even get the climate plan through the last convention. That wasn't Aaron O'Toole trying to kill the climate plan. That was his party over his objections killing his climate plan. So I

Corey 37:00

I think you really do have a problem that the people who show up in the conservative party, the people who vote in the conservative party, I see very little evidence from the past two leadership races that they're compelled by that message. So what are the tactics that you can do? How are you going to change the composition of the conservative party fundamentally? And how would you do it? How would you do it? Like as a just let's just say you were a center right, but didn't love the conservative. Like, let's just say you thought that that side of the conservative party was nuts.

Corey 37:32

You're going to go talk to your centrist friends. You

Corey 37:34

You think that there's a chance in hell they're going to buy a membership in the conservative party as it's currently composed?

Corey 37:39

Right. How do you make

Corey 37:40

digestible to the point where you can encourage people who are not in the party right now to come in and think they have a hope in hell of changing the party and have the party represent what they want? I don't know the answer to that right now.

Zain 37:53

Carter, let's move it on to the NDP. Jagmeet Singh, the NDP's performance, do both of them together. Your analysis on what you saw on election night. Some people say, you know, this guy is an expert at narrative versus numbers. He can, you know, dance away to the point where you're like, I guess he won something. But, you know, what he did win was once again, the power broker position, the kingmaker position in a minority parliament. So your reaction to, you know, the narratives about the NDP now, right? Is this once again, re-entrenching power broker? Is this a $25 million operation that needs to be shut down with this particular leader? What do you think of the NDP results and Jagmeet Singh by extension? I

Carter 38:33

mean, I think that the NDP results are basically what the NDP results are. I mean, this is where they are because they're not seen to be likely to form a government. So at the end of the day, when the election day comes and everybody's going to go cast their ballot, the question is, do I want to elect an NDP member or do I want to elect a government member? And because they continue to struggle with their brand, they continue to struggle with who they are, they don't quite get there. And you know what? They appealed to youth before. They've appealed to workers before. Their lack of a green policy, the fact that the green policy didn't reach the heights that it could have, really hurt them. And I think that Jagmeet Singh, frankly, appearing to be a rather significant child who is far more interested in trying to appeal to people on TikTok than appear to be a significant leader, really

Carter 39:34

really hurt them as well. Having said that, I think that Jagmeet Singh is growing into this job. I think that the people that are today watching TikToks, trying to decide who they're going to vote for, four years from now will be in a different position in their lives. A number of them will be married. Others will have children. They'll be facing different realities. And

Carter 39:58

if he is able to continue to build that relationship, I think that he could be someone who leads the NDP to another height. And I like the NDP for not throwing their leaders overboard with each performance. It feels to me like he's got one more good election in him to figure himself out. And I think that the NDP should have the patience to get them there. They're not a good party right now. They're not a good performer. But I think that they have the ability to get better. And if they commit themselves to that, that should be their course of action.

Zain 40:32

Corey, your thoughts on the grow with Jagmeet strategy that Carter is suggesting? And in fact, on this podcast, we have said that, you know, and I think, Corey, you have said, and I want to make sure it's in context. But, you know, depending on the circumstance, there could be merit for Jagmeet Singh to be the leader of this party for a very long time, especially as, you know, folks grow with him. But when we look at the performance of this election, they didn't, you know, their overall seat count may have grown a bit. Their vote poll didn't start with the number two, still in, you know, 16, 17%, if I'm not mistaken, looking at the overall vote percentage. So it wasn't in the 20s. No evidence to show that the youth vote kind of came out in droves for Jagmeet. From your perspective on the NDP outcome, and by extension, what it might mean for Jagmeet Singh, and then we'll do the same exercise we've been doing for O'Toole and Trudeau.

Corey 41:23

I find this to be really tied up in what you believe the role of the NDP should be and what you believe the ambitions of the NDP should be over the – let's call it short to middle term.

Corey 41:35

He is a very likable fellow. I don't think he's hit his ceiling. How could you possibly think that? Arguably, his ceiling was two elections ago back when there was higher polling for the NDP. But

Corey 41:52

don't know. I mean, draw me a map from here to government. That's the problem I have right now. It's not through Quebec. That's pretty clear after two elections with Jagmeet Singh, right? We're talking about two elections with one Quebec MP.

Corey 42:07

And that was, of course, the big change that happened in 2011 with Jack Layton. And even Mulcair, I think, got, what, 16 seats in Quebec? Something to that effect. But there was a significant Quebec presence, right? Right? Not true, would Jagmeet Singh. So you better find seats somewhere else. Show me how you're breaking into the cities, because Toronto, once again, went all red.

Corey 42:30

All red. You know? Some close races,

Corey 42:33

Liberals fucking ran the tables in Toronto. Even

Zain 42:36

Even in the seats with the individual in Spadina, who was, you know, no longer sitting as a Liberal caucus member, went for the Liberals, right?

Corey 42:46

Yeah. And if you are an urban party, you're not showing a lot of evidence of that in

Corey 42:52

in the city of Toronto, at

Corey 42:53

at the very least our biggest urban center, not seeing a lot of evidence of that in the

Corey 42:57

the city of Montreal. You're not seeing a lot of evidence of that, frankly, in any of the major Canadian cities, you know, with the exception, I suppose, of Vancouver. hoover yeah

Corey 43:12

where are your seats count

Corey 43:14

count to 170 for me show them to me in a way that i actually believe that is credible at because right now i just do not see it but if that's not your ambitions if your ambitions are are different if they're longer term even if it's to set up the party for

Corey 43:29

for a future success where they're raised on jagmeet singh tiktoks and then they have their kids and their kids have kids not so bad he represents uh you know just in who he is uh and you

Corey 43:40

his ethnic background what

Corey 43:42

what canada is becoming which is more ethnically diverse you know more uh you know more cosmopolitan and

Corey 43:49

and that will pay long-term dividends but

Corey 43:52

will it pay them soon enough and is it something that the ndp wants to wants to deal with right now so carter

Carter 43:58

i have a question for you guys i don't know the answer to this do you guys know if there's any Any ethnic performance difference for the NDP since Jagmeet Singh became the leader?

Corey 44:09

Easy enough to look into, and I'm sure somebody

Carter 44:12

somebody has done that analysis. Yeah, because it's

Carter 44:15

it's an interesting scenario. I think that when we were doing the NENCI 1.0 campaign, we didn't appeal necessarily to visible minorities straight off the bat. It took time to believe that he could win. And I wonder if that's not part of the math that's holding back Jagmeet

Carter 44:35

Jagmeet Singh, because at the end of the day, you

Carter 44:39

you know, you have to vote for different purposes and different reasons when you're thinking of the NDP. This has been my position from the beginning. You guys always poo-poo me on this, but I don't believe that Canadians look at the NDP and say that is the party I want to govern.

Carter 44:50

Not federally. So maybe there's a whole bunch of different things that need to be thought of with the federal NDP that we haven't started even touching the surface of.

Zain 45:02

Carter, you want to get rid of Jagmeet Singh. You're part of that camp in the Indies. You've got greater ambitions. You don't see the pathway. You don't think a generation raised on TikToks will stay with them for half a decade long and then become movement voters, or even if they are that, to electoral voters. It's not going to happen. You don't believe that BS. You want to go in a different direction. What are you doing in the malleable state right now to get rid of Jagmeet Singh and his leadership?

Carter 45:26

Going to organized labor.

Carter 45:27

I'm going to organized labor and I'm saying, you know what? We've lost our voice. We have lost our voice in the Canadian politic. And we think that we can just slide in with the liberals and we're going to be heard. But it doesn't work. It doesn't work. Every time we slide in with the liberals, we don't get heard. And we don't get heard with the NDP anymore. And we don't get heard for sure with the Greens. everybody's all you know chasing a future that doesn't include us and we need to make sure that we are heard uh so the very first thing we need to do is get a a real traditional new

Carter 45:59

new democratic party leader in here who can lead a a party that represents union workers uh the people who the unionized workforce of canada um that are the backbone of of the canadian society and

Carter 46:14

that That's the group of people that need to be seen and heard. We haven't had a damn thing. We haven't had a person who represents that. And if you look at Horgan, if you look at Notley, they have connections to labor that are lost at the federal scene. And this is Singh's weakness. So we have to get rid of him, and we have to put in place a leader that can continue to grow. And that will give us runway in Quebec. It would give us runway in Ontario. It would give us runway in cities like Calgary that

Carter 46:46

that we don't have right now.

Zain 46:49

Organize around him. Go to labor. Corey, same question for you. What are you doing if you're in the get rid of sin camp right now? We spent 25 million bucks. We can't stick with the TikTok generation. He wasn't able to pull the youth vote. We need to cut the cord right now. What are you trying to do?

Corey 47:05

I think we need to give the youth more credit is what I'm saying. We have created this very simple idea of what appeals to a youth voter. But you know what motivates youth voters? Youth voters are motivated by social justice. They're motivated by somebody who can fight for the things that they believe in, a clean environment. The liberals ran a better climate plan than we did in the New Democrats. The liberals ran arguably more progressive social programs than we did in the New Democrats. What was the New Democratic value proposition? It's got to be more than TikTok. And

Corey 47:36

And so that's when you then start having the conversations with people about what it means to be a New Democrat in 2021. And Stephen talked about labor, and I intentionally didn't. I talked about more of the environmental bend. And one of the things about – all parties have their camps,

Corey 47:56

New Democrats have a split between labor and environmental wings. It's not so horribly pronounced that it spills out all of the time. Although you do see it manifest in odd things like when there was a New Democratic government in Alberta and a New Democratic government in BC, rarely

Corey 48:13

rarely on the same page on certain issues, I think, like pipelines. lines. Because I think the Alberta one is not to say there's not labor connections in BC and not to say there's not environmental connections in Alberta, just to be super clear, right. But there was there was more of that jobs economy bend in the Alberta New Democrats. And there was more of that environmental protect the coast bend in the BC New Democrats. And that's likely going to be a conversation that would happen in any sort of future leadership race. And anybody who wants to replace Singh is going to have to stake out some ground on that and explain how

Corey 48:46

how Singh is somewhat deficient and cannot provide what they want to do. But you could take a couple of different approaches on that matter. Because I do think that there's the social justice argument against Singh too, and it's what I just outlined, hasn't quite gone far enough. And maybe that's something that you could mobilize around a young, exciting candidate. Maybe that's something you could mobilize around, you know, an old warhorse who's been fighting like the Bernie Sanders of of canada you know um i i have some ideas who that could be but i would just roll my eyes in response to myself if i said them right now say it say it no i'm not gonna do it uh

Corey 49:21

there are definitely people in the ndp who think they are the bernie sanders of canada and so you

Corey 49:27

you know like i could see either one kind of popping out there but i guess my point is this if

Corey 49:32

if you're going to talk about replacing sing you got to talk about what you're replacing him with and you're going going to have to define a vision for the party it's not like o'toole in a way where it's just this guy's not good enough because people like jagmeet

Corey 49:44

jagmeet singh and so you're going to have to move past nice guy but to here's what i'd replace him with carter

Zain 49:49

carter you want to keep him what are you doing i

Carter 49:53

think what i'm doing is is uh putting forward a plan to really

Carter 49:59

really control this parliament right really try and put ndp issues at the at the core i talked about doing like something like Pharmacare. Are you announcing

Zain 50:09

announcing that now? I'm

Carter 50:10

I'm not announcing it. I'm going to be achieving it and then announcing that we achieved it. So anything that the liberals do, I'm taking credit for it, if it's even close to the progressive side of the ledger. So make sure that you're in the decision making. Don't let the liberals dictate to you. Liberals can't afford to go back to an election uh for for years um so use that power make them go and do deals with the black quebecois or with the conservative party um but but hold on to your principles decide what it is you care about and then just fucking put you know put the stake in the ground and say i am not moving from this place this is the place that i'm going to live from and then if you're saying you've got got to communicate that better to the members. The TikTok generation is one thing, but communicating it to your writing

Carter 51:04

writing associations and the people who are actually making things work, that's

Carter 51:08

that's where the opportunities really lie.

Zain 51:12

Corey, there's already dissent within the party around Jagmeet Singh. Some folks coming out and saying this was just an ad campaign for Jagmeet. We haven't made gains. This isn't happening. What are you trying to do? And I find the ad campaign for the leader a rich argument. Yeah, me too. But Corey, what are you trying to do if you're in the keep Jagmeet Singh camp right now? Because you're going to face some calls, perhaps maybe not as assertively and aggressively as Aaron O'Toole will in his conservative camp. But what if you are team Jagmeet Singh right now and you want to keep him and ensure he stays as leader? Well, as far

Corey 51:45

far as a message track goes, you say, we

Corey 51:48

we didn't want this election. We thought this was a pointless election. Canadians agreed they returned the exact same result. You can't hold hold us to account for being absolutely right this is not an election anybody wanted now in terms of the next parliament steven is correct and i think that this is one of these things where if you decide to work with the conservatism block on some common ground and i'm thinking in particular around parliamentary procedure there's 174 seats between the three major opposition parties here you might be able to make the liberals life a little bit more hell and if you can make their their life a little bit more hell while at the same time being their salvation because you are the votes they need to get things passed you may find you've got a lot of chips a lot of chips to bargain with in the next bit to get

Corey 52:33

exactly what you want and that is part of the uh the sing story it is a continuation of the story you told this election which is yeah

Corey 52:42

yeah i might only have 25 seats but we get stuff done and you get enough of that stuff done and people like it and if the liberals ultimately get to a point where they say, we don't want to do the progressive thing you want to do, that becomes the start of the reason that you sell to people why you vote NDP over liberals, something you're sorely lacking right now, because they are in many ways leapfrogging you on the left.

Zain 53:06

Carter, we have to talk about these two parties, and we don't have to get everything done on this show. We don't want this to make us a four-hour episode. Four hours

Carter 53:12

hours would be great, Zane. People love the long episodes. At

Zain 53:15

At some point, we'll be like Like Joe Rogan-ing it, Corey will be starting to smoke a joint. I'll be handing you some ivermectin,

Carter 53:22

Starting. This is how we get into this

Zain 53:25

I'll just be asking rhetorical questions that are like anti-vax-ping-ling. Do my antibodies just protect me, Carter? Is that just a thing? I'm just throwing this out there. I'm just throwing this out there. Carter, Mad Max. That's a good transition material. You're welcome, people. Mad Max and the PPC. see, they did not hit the double digits that some pollsters suspected that they would, but they were also not entirely insignificant. 800,000 votes, zero seats, five-ish percent of the popular vote clearly played spoiler in some areas. Give me your analysis on the role that the PPC played in this election.

Carter 54:01

The PPC was the home of the anger. And there's lots of anger. And I think I think that, you

Carter 54:07

you know, Max can reasonably make a case that he's got the capacity to continue on and to continue to build this movement of anger.

Carter 54:18

He's unhinged and there seems to be a real... And the last

Zain 54:21

last couple of days, even after the election, have demonstrated that. There seems

Carter 54:25

seems to be a real market for unhinged politicians in democracies right now. Whether you're in Europe, you're in the United States, South

Carter 54:35

South America, I mean, all over the democratic, in quotation marks, because some of these aren't real democracies anymore, you see these figures evolving and developing. And Max Bernier has turned into Canada's version.

Carter 54:53

He has a chance to essentially turn the

Carter 54:56

the PPC into a real money machine. These are the donors, man. These people will give money and they will fund his little operation. He'll be kept in a fairly decent lifestyle by saying the most outlandish things. And essentially, he won't even need the rebel anymore. The PPC will become the rebel and he'll be able to fund his own very lavish lifestyle by being a lunatic.

Carter 55:19

And who knows? Maybe he wins a seat next time.

Zain 55:23

Corey, he did not win a seat. The party did not win a seat, but they clearly played spoiler. or your analysis of the PPC in this election?

Corey 55:32

Yeah, you know, it's funny. I think I've said this on a bunch of shows, but not this one. I said it on Jesperson. Were

Zain 55:39

Were you on other shows? Oh, that's good to

Corey 55:41

That's a really good show.

Carter 55:43

Did you get nine minutes on your own? I'm just asking. With Galloway? I'm just wondering.

Corey 55:48

Zane and I were invited to Eric Grenier's live stream on election night for a bit. So we

Corey 55:54

we went and we had a good time. That's

Corey 55:57

I shared a story about

Corey 56:04

thought it was nice

Corey 56:05

too, too. Yeah, us, too. Yeah, we really liked it. Us, too, too. I was just trying out that dynamic. Just take it for a test drive, you know?

Zain 56:12

And you know what, Carter? It works. There's promise there. Yeah, it's pretty good. There's promise.

Corey 56:17

So when I voted, I voted on election day at 6 p.m.

Corey 56:22

I went after work.

Corey 56:23

Normally, I would bring my kids, but I didn't. And then I was explaining it wasn't because of COVID-19.

Corey 56:29

It was because I didn't know what kind of lunacy I would see at the polls with all of the nut bars out there. And I didn't think that my kids would be in danger or anything like that. I just didn't want to scare them off democracy. So I went by myself.

Corey 56:41

And I'm glad I did because two people in front of me was somebody who was refusing to wear a mask, was clearly just trying to pick a fight on the topic. The Elections Canada, you know, volunteers just let them do their thing. A couple of people made snarky comments to him. It wasn't an asshole, he was. I tried to give him one quarter of the stink eye, you know, like the Canadian stink eye, like I'm still polite, but I disapprove of your impoliteness. And, you know, and then he just was loud and he left. And that was that. And I just, you know, these

Corey 57:10

these people aren't going away. It's not like the day after the election, that guy woke up and said, oh, job well done. People have spoken. Looks like vaccines are fine now, right? Right. This is this is an angry, charged up group who are looking for fights, not physical fights right now, but fights

Zain 57:28

physical. The fundamental question here,

Zain 57:30

here, and we can unpack this over multiple episodes, but I need to ask you now because you brought it up.

Zain 57:35

Once the pandemic is over, do they have anything to rally against?

Zain 57:42

You think so, hey? You

Zain 57:42

You think they can keep that through line of anger on something else, anti-establishment? You've

Corey 57:48

to keep in mind, Zane, that some of these people will become exceptionally marginalized by the end of the pandemic, the way things are going.

Corey 57:55

Vaccine passports are going to push them further to the fringes. And when that happens, and I'm not saying it's wrong, we need vaccine passports to get out of the pandemic or else we won't be talking about after the pandemic because we'll still be in the fucking pandemic.

Corey 58:07

some of these people who are just going to opt out of all of this stuff, they will find each other and

Corey 58:12

and they will be an insular community that reinforce each other's views. Yeah,

Corey 58:15

they will build a false consensus that they are right. And everybody else is nuts. And they don't even know anybody who supports this stuff. And they're going to support the PPC and go to weird ass rallies in the middle of my community, instead of their fucking shitty community, wherever it may be. And I'm just talking about their front yard. I'm not casting dispersions across anybody's geography here. And yeah,

Corey 58:37

we're gonna have to contend with them. They're not going away this 5% of the vote. That's one in 20 voters.

Zain 58:43

voted PPC. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. Like, even, Corey, you and I live in the same, I think all three of us, if I'm not mistaken, live in the same, in and around the same, you know, riding. And the PPC signs here, I'd say, were very competitive with the mainstream parties all across. Carter, I want to move on on the PPC. There's much to discuss there. We have to talk about Annemie Paul and the Green Party, right? Right. So to set the table, Toronto Centre, you know, she stayed there almost 95 percent of the campaign. She did not even come close to the vote totals that she had. This is her third time trying it, if I'm not mistaken. Did not even come close to the vote totals she had during the by-election. The party as a whole secures Elizabeth May, loses Paul Manley and gets a seat in Kitchener. Primarily, if you want to put an asterisk on it, you can. And it might be well-deserved, primarily because the Liberal candidate, Saini, suspended his campaign and moved aside. Carter, the results for Annamie Paul in her riding, but then also the larger conversation on the Greens and their extremely depressed vote totals across the country, partially as a result of not fielding candidates in some key areas of the country. So, Carter, you know, absorb all of that and give me your take on the Greens as it stood from election night. The

Carter 1:00:02

Greens were a disaster before the election. They pulled it together a little bit during the election. But you can't undo the

Carter 1:00:09

the mistakes that were made prior to the election, the fights that were being held by the Green Party executive. And then you also can't undo the bad decision that the leader made by running in Toronto Centre. That was a bad decision. decision and uh you know it was her decision three

Carter 1:00:26

three times and you know i'm not sure why she she made that decision i'm not sure if it was that she didn't want to campaign away from home or if she was under some misguided idea that she'd be able to win there um but you

Carter 1:00:41

you know now now the greens instead of being up a potential seat instead of you know having an extra spot for uh you know getting to three or four seats uh they're down at two and more More importantly, the leader, the person who's supposed to lead them, doesn't have a seat in the House. And that's a big deal. Because I don't think Elizabeth May has the kind of selflessness that Scott Bryson had when he stepped down for Joe Clark. You know, would Elizabeth May say to Anna Mae Paul, you know what, you need to come out here and I'll step out and you can take my seat because you're the future and I'm the past. Does anybody think that's going to happen? Does anybody think that it's in Elizabeth May's wheelhouse to be that kind of selfless? I don't. I think that she's exactly the opposite type of selfish, and there's no way that that's ever going to happen.

Zain 1:01:29

Corey, your take on the Greens from everything either Carter's laid out or some of the baseline info that I kind of threw out there as an outcome of this election for them? Yeah,

Corey 1:01:37

Yeah, I think the Greens need to figure their shit out, obviously. That's not a blinding insight. In Toronto Centre, they went from 33% in the by-election to 9% in

Corey 1:01:47

the general election. Yeah, like a surprising

Corey 1:01:50

wasn't even a 1 in front of it. Yeah, I mean it was – I remember seeing the results and I just thought, holy fuck. Like I truly thought she would get second. I didn't think she was coming fourth. Of course, we're not in Toronto. But here's the thing.

Corey 1:02:02

You run your leader for

Corey 1:02:04

for a party that – okay, well, let's put it this way. This is a party that is still trying to break in and get a number of seats. Like I mean that literally,

Corey 1:02:13

literally, like a number. They want to get on the board. Right. And they did get two seats. So we should acknowledge that. that Toronto Centre is the smallest riding in the country. It's under six kilometres, square kilometres here.

Corey 1:02:26

You are never more than probably a 10-minute walk from the edge of the riding when you're in the riding. Walk, right? It's not a big place.

Corey 1:02:33

And it's a major media market that is going to be saturated with national campaign ads, ads for liberals in other areas, and you are the leader of the Greens, and you are just there trying to run a leader-centric campaign utterly swamped in this sea of red that we've already talked about that is Toronto you

Corey 1:02:49

just didn't stand a chance yeah

Corey 1:02:51

you didn't stand a chance in the final summation and the reason why it worked in the by-election is because that was the only that was the only media back and forth that was the only conversation that was happening there she should have run in

Corey 1:03:00

in a riding where she had a little bit more control over the airwaves a little bit more control over the outcome and she did not and

Corey 1:03:07

and it was a tactical error it was an obvious tactical error in advance it's not like like she got killed she

Corey 1:03:12

she got oh yeah much worse of a result than i expected but

Zain 1:03:16

nobody thought she was

Corey 1:03:16

was going to win this thing well

Zain 1:03:17

well it almost seemed like it certainly was a tactical error i think everyone knew it but one of the most and i think we may have talked about this last time one of the most like illuminating elements of this campaign for them was when she did an interview with ctv and she said well listen like my advisors told me i'm paraphrasing her like this was the best place to run almost implying like no one was willing to give up their seat or give up any fertile territory for her for her to run there like a total fuck you from the party in a certain way, Corey. I just wanted to make sure I inserted that point from the campaign.

Corey 1:03:48

Well, so how long until Elizabeth May is leader of the Greens again?

Carter 1:03:51

I give her three months.

Corey 1:03:53

Yeah, well, the drama in that party is just unbelievable. And this should be the moment for Green politics. So it's just like, what a wasted opportunity.

Zain 1:04:02

We will leave that monstrous segment there. Is that still the first segment?

Zain 1:04:07

It sure is, Carter. It sure is. Wow. Let's move it on to our next segment, our next segment reviewing the rage carter i want to talk about this we have to talk about our home province and we're gonna sprint through it you know why because we went for a long walk in the snow on that first we went for a long but i feel like it was worth it because because we we did what it needs to do carter there are four big stories in alberta all related to one jason kenny i might not even give you guys a fair shake on each story that's how fast i want to go steven Stephen Carter, let's talk about them. Let's unpack each one of them. First part of this story, did Jason Kenney cost Aaron O'Toole the federal election? Lay it on me straight.

Carter 1:04:49

he may have cost two seats.

Zain 1:04:53

Corey has has Jason Kenney cost did he cost Aaron O'Toole the election and let me expand that question a bit right it's less about what happened in Alberta perhaps more about what happened to the O'Toole campaign in the endgame stage where they went dark on the media over the weekend where he struggled to answer those questions

Carter 1:05:09

questions that was O'Toole who did that that

Carter 1:05:13

that was a catalyzing force let Corey

Zain 1:05:15

Corey answer you could either answer as a catalyzing force or directly head on like you did did carter uh

Corey 1:05:21

did jason kenney cost aaron o'toole the election um not

Corey 1:05:26

not on his own and

Corey 1:05:28

and i don't even mean the aaron o'toole thing i i think that this is kind of a broader a

Corey 1:05:34

a broader challenge that uh that aaron o'toole had with uh with right wing causes and he probably could have survived just the kenny thing probably listen survive is not even right let me take another stab at this

Corey 1:05:49

By the final weekend, it was unlikely, knowing what we know now about the vote efficiency and how everything was playing out, that Aaron O'Toole was going to win that election. He could have probably still held Justin Trudeau to a smaller minority and really made a strong case that it was the conservatives on the upswing. But there was just absolutely no chance to turn around what had become liberal momentum the minute the Jason Kenney story came out.

Corey 1:06:14

But at that point, you're already behind. You're

Corey 1:06:16

You're already down. And the real catalyst was the guns, but that too is sort of tied to the right-wing politics and they have the same origin, the same source, this idea of crusading conservatism that is maybe a little bit offside of the general public that they stand next to for reasons utterly

Corey 1:06:35

utterly inexplicable to me, right?

Corey 1:06:37

Utterly inexplicable to me why that why a mainstream political party would take either the position they did on guns or the position or support or even like stand next to the position that Alberta had on COVID-19.

Corey 1:06:50

Unclear to me. Unclear why the government here in Alberta did it for so long, frankly. So, no,

Zain 1:07:01

Here's the thing, though. Perception is reality. And for some, Kenny is a—but Carter, you're sighing. You know, this is your

Carter 1:07:09

your bailiwick. No, I mean, I aged three years during that answer. Yeah, maybe, I don't know. Fuck, yes, no. Well, you're

Zain 1:07:15

you're going to age half a decade on this question, Carter, so here we go.

Carter 1:07:19

go. Here we go, yeah, okay.

Zain 1:07:21

Carter, perception is reality, and in that sense— Well, for starters, it's not. Well, it is, it is, Corey. For argument's sake, we're going to stick with it. You can also listen to Corey's dissecting of how perception isn't reality on his independent podcast, Look, Listen with Corey Hogan, which is our sister podcast.

Zain 1:07:42

for argument's sake, thank you. I really appreciate it.

Zain 1:07:48

The narrative is, though, that Kenny is a convenient excuse for why O'Toole lost the election. And for many here in Alberta, you know, the election was not what we were looking forward to on Monday. It was supposed to be the appetizer to the main meal, which was what was going to happen to Jason Kenney. The chattering class was alive and well. The volume on the fact that this guy is done, this guy is toast, it's all happening. And then, you know, right after the election, we hear that there's something happening. We're like, OK, is this the guy? Is he leaving? Has caucus pushed him out in advance of that caucus meeting on Wednesday? And what we hear, it's a cabinet shuffle. It's replacing the health minister, Tyler Shandro, with the labor minister, Jason Copping, and they would just do a job switch. Stephen Carter, what did you make of the cabinet, the mini cabinet shuffle, if we can call it that, that we saw here in Alberta? And specifically, it's very naked and perhaps obvious political goals of perhaps deflecting some of the anger against Jason Kenney, tying it to Tyler Shandro and saying that he's now, you know, resigned, and I've accepted that resignation. And I'm going to give Jason Copping, the Labor Minister, his role as the new Minister of Health. Do

Carter 1:09:04

Do you really call it a shuffle when it's only two ministers? I don't.

Carter 1:09:07

Is it really a shuffle? Is it just like a, you know, first of all, I thought we're

Carter 1:09:12

we're going to get a shuffle. We're going to see a real shuffle. I mean, this

Carter 1:09:15

this isn't the first time that Kenny's promises a shuffle and given us a little dabble, right? I expected a real honest to God shuffle that would address the issues that he's facing within his caucus. And instead I got copying for Chandra, Chandra for copying. Nothing, nothing at all. Absolute minimal. minimal um and i thought well that's not gonna work there's no way this is gonna work people are outraged in this caucus they're gonna lose their minds and then the next day the caucus meeting happened and he said you know what i'll agree to a leadership review in march

Carter 1:09:46

march march march sounds good i can't believe they went for it i gotta be honest the only people dumber than jason kenney are the people in this caucus like that is a stupid fucking deal if you do not like this guy you just gave him like an unbelievable gift and if you like this guy boom

Zain 1:10:07

what am i i want to come i want to come to you carter carter though is is it also possible that the collective rage that we'd been hearing the murmurs were just overblown that that you know that this is this is not that big of a deal whatever like the that the caucus rumors were just overblown in that sense

Carter 1:10:23

sense i mean we only had one kid die so i mean obviously there couldn't be that much outrage i mean

Carter 1:10:28

mean I mean, they should be outraged, but they're, of course, not. I mean, they're outraged for the wrong reasons, and maybe it is overblown. I don't know.

Carter 1:10:35

But the fact that there's any outrage just pisses me off.

Zain 1:10:39

Corey, I said we have to talk about four things. Carter's merged a couple of them together. Let's talk about them together. It's the cabinet shuffle, the Copping and Shandro trade, and then literally the day after when media were lined up to see, you know, when the leader was leaving, how he was leaving, who the new interim premier was, right? Right. This was speculation for those that are not familiar with the Alberta situation. This was all kind of bubbling through. We hear that Jason Kenney had effectively, you know, the vote of non-confidence at the caucus meeting was shut down and that a leadership review would be happening in March. Your thoughts on both the cabinet swap as well as the outcome from what we saw with that caucus meeting? yeah

Corey 1:11:20

so like carter i thought that we'd be seeing a bigger shuffle when the rumors of a shuffle started coming out and when i saw that it was the swap i thought that

Corey 1:11:29

that seems like not very much and it wasn't even really a resignate do you call it a resignation when you get an equivalent job like even calling it a resignation by the same job

Carter 1:11:37

job same i don't did

Corey 1:11:38

did anyone even buy that did even even report that i think you know however

Corey 1:11:45

can you fault jason kenney on that Because he survived. He got out. And so the thing

Corey 1:11:50

thing that I thought when the shuffle came out was that it was part of a two-pronged strategy, right? Because he's got two problems. He's got an unhappy public and he's got an unhappy caucus. And an unhappy caucus is in part because of an unhappy public. They'll forgive a lot of things if they're popular, right? But you're not going to change public opinion overnight. It takes time. So if you're Jason Kenney, you

Corey 1:12:14

you need to buy some time with your caucus. And that's where the idea came in of saying, you know what, we'll

Corey 1:12:20

we'll have that leadership review and we'll have it in March.

Corey 1:12:23

I was surprised that the caucus went with March, didn't push him to be sooner. But when I think about it,

Corey 1:12:30

it does make an awful lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense from both parties' point of view. It makes sense from the rebels' point of view, and it makes sense from Jason Kenney's point of If you're

Corey 1:12:38

you're Jason Kenney, it's

Corey 1:12:40

it's a chance to buy time, turn your public opinion around. Economy may be good. Maybe we're out of COVID. God, it's just we've said that a lot. And that just hasn't happened. But that's got to be the thought. And you think with a bunch of organizing, perhaps you can just pull out the leadership review come March. Bob's your uncle, right?

Corey 1:12:58

makes sense. So you understand why it makes sense for Jason Kenney. If you are the rebels, and

Corey 1:13:04

and let's keep in mind that the rebels come from two different places in the UCB. They come

Corey 1:13:08

come from the people who think Jason

Corey 1:13:09

Jason Kenney hasn't done enough and

Corey 1:13:11

the people who think Jason Kenney has done far too much by having any kind of restrictions. If you are the rebels, you

Corey 1:13:19

you must be aware that a leadership review and a leadership contest at this moment, at this moment, would

Corey 1:13:25

would tear your precious United Conservative Party apart. There

Corey 1:13:29

There would not be a United Conservative Party after. It would be inevitable that it would be polarized along lines of COVID-19. That is what you would fight about until the leadership was settled, and

Corey 1:13:38

and there's a very good chance that you would have effectively permanently fractured your political organization along lines that are not going to be retrievable. So if you are interested in taking over a united conservative party, you need this election, this leadership contest to happen outside of the crisis of COVID-19. So

Corey 1:13:59

So it kind of makes sense for them as well. So

Corey 1:14:02

that confluence of this is in my interest and this is in your interest is what drove us to this March leadership contest. And it does make sense when you think about it in those terms. Do you feel like that's perhaps some version

Zain 1:14:13

version of what you're saying is perhaps what Kenny sold them

Corey 1:14:16

No, I don't think it was ever that explicit. I think that would look just far too weak.

Corey 1:14:21

I really, you know, there's some interesting stories coming out of that. Like somebody immediately called for a vote of no confidence and Jason Kenney said, yeah, let's fucking do it right now. Now, no private, no secret ballot. Let's just do it. And then they cheerfully withdrew, right? And then there was a five-hour conversation.

Corey 1:14:42

But it was a pretty boss move. And let me just say this to sort of wrap on both of my points here.

Corey 1:14:50

Jason Kenney clearly knew exactly what it would take to get his caucus on side to the level he needed them. And he offered no more.

Corey 1:14:57

And he was a little rough with them where he needed to be rough.

Corey 1:15:00

And again, the guy's a good tactician, and this is a good example of this. Will this strategy work long term?

Corey 1:15:07

don't know. I mean, he's bought himself some time, but it's hard to see how this ends

Zain 1:15:10

ends well. well. Carter, Corey says angry caucus, angry public. He says that he sees strategic upside for both parties. He's calling them the rebels, plural, as well as Jason Kenney, in a sense. There are the Kenney supporters in that in that crew. Do you agree now? Are you persuaded with Corey's argument? Or is he just continuing to hand out more participation ribbons to everyone today as a as a through line for today's episode?

Carter 1:15:35

I think the argument that he gave that I'm actually buying into is that the outrage isn't as much or isn't as deep as people are saying it is i think if the outrage was really there they would have done a heck of a lot more but i think that we're looking for outrage because the general population is so outraged there should be some sort of you know recognition of that there should be some sort of you know representation in our legislature the in in our government that people are really angry here in Alberta. And failing to see that, I think maybe we imagine it sometimes. That's the point that's sticking with me that Corey has made. Maybe he's right. Maybe there isn't the outrage that we think there is, or

Carter 1:16:17

or that we think, more importantly, that we think that there should be.

Zain 1:16:22

Here's what I want to do. I'm going to make an audible, as I generally do on this pod, without saying I'm going to make an audible. I'm going to park the situation of public outrage and how, and let's also acknowledge this absolutely insane the situation in COVID is right now right in Alberta like it is absolutely no question to your point Corey like a horrifying horrific sad story that is happening I want to save that I want to spend more time discussing that situation on Sunday but since we've opened this conversation on uh now that we have a date or

Zain 1:16:56

or a month at least in March that there's a review I want to kind of put you guys on teams Corey your team save Kenny Carter Carter, your team, you know, let's get rid of this guy. Kind of like the same thing we did previous segment, but why not? Let's jump into the strategy, right? We have a date. The factions, Carter, that you are balancing are diverse, right? There's a group of folks that want to get rid of Kenny because he did too much. I'm simplifying. There's a group of folks that want to get rid of Kenny because he didn't do enough. Are they, now that we have a date for a leadership review in March, which is earlier than it was supposed to be, because it was supposed Post initially, correct me if I'm wrong, guys, beat March of 23. So it's moved forward, or I believe, if I'm not mistaken, moved forward a year in a sense. Carter, you're the campaign manager for the rebels, right? This group that is made of distinct factions, have distinct ideologies, values, but might, should their anger still be true, believe the same thing. A, we need this guy out. B, because he's a massive liability heading into the next election. Walk me through some of the skeleton outlines, your stream of consciousness in terms of some of the things you're thinking about tactically, the strategies you have in mind, and some of the messaging and internal ploys you're thinking of as you now gear up for an internal campaign between now and March. And we'll continue to revisit this, but let's get a start of the conversation right now. And Corey, I'll come to you thereafter on the other team, which is Team Keep Kenny.

Carter 1:18:27

the goalposts and declare victory.

Carter 1:18:29

And by that I mean, we're not going to, this isn't about COVID anymore. This isn't about his failure in COVID. It's not his failure in doing any of that. It's his failure to get Albertans back to work. It's his failure to be able to follow through on any of the promises that he made when he joined these two parties together. You can't pick

Carter 1:18:48

pick one side of the COVID debate and actually defeat him. Because if you pick one side of the COVID debate, then he gets to pick the other side. So

Carter 1:18:55

So if you want him out as the leader, you need to move the goalposts and the goalposts are economic. That's what joins the two halves of the party together. The ability to get Albertans back to work, to ensure that we've got the high paying jobs that we've become accustomed to, to believe that we have a future in this province that is in excess of any other province. And that's where Jason Kenney's truly failed. He has been no different on the economy than the NDP were.

Carter 1:19:25

He's got no more pipelines. He's got no more economic activity in the oil sands. He's got no more activity or no more concessions from the federal government. Instead, we've just been able to coast on our COVID benefits. benefits. So he needs to stand up, he needs to do something economically, if he's going to gain our support. And that needs to be the party's position, because the party doesn't exist to just be a party that deals with COVID. They exist to be a party that deals with the economy.

Zain 1:19:54

Corey, give me your messaging from the other side. And then perhaps what I'll get the two of you to do is talk about tactics, right? Because we're now in this really interesting position, where you're running an internal campaign of some kind, sometimes silent, sometimes explicit. against your leader or a campaign to prevent and defend your leader. So, Corey, give me your message. And then let's both you and Carter discuss tactics that we've seen at play in the past and not very distant past here in Alberta as one proof point of that. So, Corey, your message if your team save Kenny.

Corey 1:20:27

In a way, your hand is somewhat freed by the actions of this week and with the calling of an obvious leadership vote, because in your contentious conversations Conversations with caucus from this point forward, you can say, well, take it up after the leadership vote, get stuffed, right? And so you have a little bit more ability to say to the fringes of your caucus, you're just not interested in hearing from them at this moment. They've made clear their views, you're going to do what's right for Albertans. And so you have an opportunity to address your problems one by one with perhaps a little bit more range of motion than you did last week. Interestingly enough, right? So my view is Jason Kenney made two fundamental errors over the past couple of months. The first is the branding of the best summer ever, right?

Corey 1:21:10

Best summer ever. COVID's gone for good. Nobody was asking for these absolute statements. This was absolutely unnecessary, and they're being thrown back in his face an awful lot. And that's really, you know, that's the start of a public trust conversation. The other was, of course, disappearing in August and during the campaign and delaying, delaying, delaying to do what was necessary on COVID-19. And that was a decision that was quite literally fatal for Albertans, you know, many Albertans. And that's serious. And that's something that I think that is difficult to think about and difficult to address. But now, with your hands more freed, with the politics somewhat behind you, or at least resolved in the sense that March is coming, it's time to go hard on COVID-19. This needs to be very much in the rearview mirror come March.

Corey 1:22:01

enough of this nonsense with this restriction exemption program it is now just the covid vaccine it is now just mandatory in large swaths of the province the city of calgary did you a great favor by making it mandatory for businesses within calgary because that is of course a geography that is much more interested in in a vaccine i suspect edmonton will probably follow suit and so that will mean that you by and large have your vaccine passport which you should feel Feel free to call it in the cities. You've got to also address, however, not just the health crisis, but that public sense of betrayal that comes with it.

Corey 1:22:34

The Ralph Klein playbook is one of contrition, to say I'm sorry, to say I'm going to do better. I would recommend that to Jason Kenney, except for the fact that I saw him attempt that last week, and it went very poorly. He

Corey 1:22:45

He said I'm sorry, and then he said I'm not sorry when he was asked to expand on his I'm sorry.

Corey 1:22:50

So two options here, Premier Kenney. One is to actually just

Corey 1:22:54

just accept that you're going to have to be sorry for this and not parse your sorry and just say, yeah, no, that was terrible and I'm sorry. And, you know, there are a number of justifications or excuses, but you lead with those. You hedge your stories with those and the public is not going to move off of their point of rage. And your other option, of course, is to just pretend it didn't happen. I just don't think that's going to work. But you've

Corey 1:23:24

you've just got to move past that public sense of betrayal. And Jason Kenney's approach to date has been one of rewriting the recent history and suggesting things were a little bit more murky than they were. Or sorry, a little more clear than they were when they were murky. You know, doctors were saying, Oh, I don't know about this. Well, I think it's going too

Corey 1:23:42

But you can just carry on that track. And maybe it'll work if COVID is in the rearview mirror. Big risk wouldn't do it. And then Carter's right. Get the economy rolling. Get the economy rolling. But the other point here, and I think those are the big ones, right?

Corey 1:23:57

Go hard on COVID-19.

Corey 1:23:59

Do something to deal with the public sense of betrayal. You've got two paths there. I think the better one is to say you're sorry if you think you can actually do it, but I'm just, I'm not so sure that that's in his toolbox and get the economy rolling and put some good budget numbers out there. But you also need to clear the decks because you can't deal with any more of this bullshit incoming that you've been having consequences on. So find yourself labor peace in the next couple of months here. Just buy that peace. Find yourself a bit of an accord with recipients of AISH. Find yourself some sort of way out of the curriculum mess that has been created. And then that is a problem that is going to be rearing its head come March, because then the curriculum will start to be looming large. And there's decisions that need to be made at that point. Get

Corey 1:24:45

out of that before you're in a leadership review context.

Corey 1:24:48

And seriously consider whether you want to go forward with this referendum on equalization that is occurring when we are asking other provinces to carry our sick for us. I think you could actually as part of your could he pull

Zain 1:25:03

pull it right now i

Carter 1:25:05

don't think he could why

Corey 1:25:06

why the hell not you really think they've started printing ballots already it's two days ago the deadline passed so

Corey 1:25:13

you just don't need to hand them out they're a separate ballot so pull

Corey 1:25:18

get rid of it say this is not the time this

Corey 1:25:21

this is not the time alberta is facing a crisis this is a conversation i still want to have with ottawa but this is not the time.

Zain 1:25:28

Very nicely done, Corey. A list of strategies, tactics, messaging. Carter, we'll get into how you whip members, how you, you know, do the whole grassroots thing, the internal. We've got time to discuss this. We've got till March, but I want you

Carter 1:25:42

you to respond. I thought you meant tonight. Holy shit. No, no, no,

Carter 1:25:45

I'm old, man. I have to go to bed soon. Bring

Zain 1:25:48

Bring out the ivermectin, Carter. We're going all night.

Zain 1:25:52

Carter, you heard Corey's plan. Glenn, you had an understanding, and you're a strategist worth your salt, so you probably had a sense of where Corey was going to head with that. Talk to me about some of the tactics that you're doing. How do you keep the anger, the rage going if you still think this guy's a liability, despite the fact that he's going to apologize, make amends on a few things, maybe pull an equalization vote? Let's just say he does everything Corey's saying. Talk to me about some of the strategies and tactics you have to keep your crew, I'm kind of appointing you the the de facto campaign manager of the rebel caucus in the UCP so that you can keep keep keep your perhaps your anger and your dissent alive?

Carter 1:26:34

Well, I think taking a page out of Preston Manning's book, you know, traveling around the province and talking to people one on one, you know, having those conversations at the kitchen table where there's, you know, the

Carter 1:26:45

the the constituency president and the and, you know, Other executives are all around the table, and they're all talking, and they'll want to focus. They'll want to focus on the COVID response, right? But then you say no, and then the

Carter 1:27:00

COVID response, I mean, that's just temporary. That's going to go away. But look at what he just did with the equalization referendum. He walked away from a central promise, right? He walked away from the central promise. Can't believe he did that. Bring it back to the central core elements. Albertans are getting screwed. We're losing our jobs. We're losing our economic prosperity. We're losing the Alberta advantage. I mean, my God, you know, sure, revenues are up, but he still hasn't fixed anything. He hasn't fixed the government spending. He hasn't started to do the cuts with the nurse. He walked away from the cuts with the nurses. He's walking away from the cuts with the doctors, all because of COVID. I mean, people still died. You know, like, this is what you do. You bring people back to their core premise, which is this government is too expensive. If this government doesn't have – we've got a spending problem. That's what you bring them back to. You bring them back to the core beliefs that enabled them to form the Conservative Party from the beginning. And those core beliefs are going nowhere because

Carter 1:28:01

Jason Kenney is not addressing any of them right now.

Corey 1:28:06

Yeah, an important part of the strategy that I forgot, and

Corey 1:28:08

and that is to paint a picture of what a post-Jason Kenney Conservative Party looks like. And this

Zain 1:28:13

this is for your strategy, to save Kenny, or is this for Carter's strategy? That's to save. It's the après

Corey 1:28:17

après-moi, le deluge sort of conversation, right? If Jason Kenny is polled, you are not going to like— Do it in French, too, because that would work really well.

Carter 1:28:25

well. I'm basically winning if you do it in French. Yeah.

Corey 1:28:32

basically—yeah, listen very carefully. It's probably not going to be on a campaign sign. That's not what I'm recommending here. My

Corey 1:28:39

My point is this.

Corey 1:28:41

After Jason Kenney, the replacement for Jason Kenney, if

Corey 1:28:44

if there is a leadership review, the replacement who will be premier will probably do a lot of the things that you didn't like about Jason Kenney times five, right? Because they will likely be more conservative. And if you're Jason Kenney, you can make a case that that's probably not what a lot of people want. Carter,

Zain 1:29:02

Carter, you've stitched together this rebel coalition, some that are more PC, others that are more Wild Rose. You're actually a microcosm of the problem in some ways with the rebels that Jason Kenney faces. How are you convincing them after Jason Kenney puts in the window what a prospective new leader looks like? Like, how do you kind of still, you know, make them pound the desk to say, I don't give a fuck. Oh, we still need to get rid of this guy. How do you keep the rage alive when Jason Kenney, through proxies, surrogates, etc., will do his best to pay to post-Kenney future as a negative for the party?

Carter 1:29:37

I'll tell you something. I'd just like one leader. I'd just like one leader of this party to campaign for the leadership the way that they campaign in the general election.

Carter 1:29:45

This guy has walked away from every promise that he made us during the leadership. He was going to bring us all together and give us a common economic platform that we could buy into. And instead, he's moved himself into the social, you

Carter 1:29:57

you know, health care education. I mean, what are we even doing with a curriculum review? We don't need a curriculum review. We need to do what we were doing last year. We're fine. We're fine. We don't need these things. He's doing the same make work projects that the NDP did, except now he's coming at it from a different point of view. This is the central promise. is you can bring this all together by saying he was never honest with us. He's never been truthful with us. And it's the same variant of the Aaron O'Toole argument. If this guy wants to stay as the leader, then he has to stay the leader that he was promising us in 2016, 17 and 18 when he's running for the leadership.

Zain 1:30:35

We're going to leave that segment there. Let's move it on to our final segment are over under our lightning round segment.

Zain 1:30:40

Carter, it's a segment that you get to pretty much do whatever the fuck you want which for you is the entire show the entire

Zain 1:30:48

yeah well that's what i just said carter come on

Carter 1:30:50

on overrated underrated yeah

Zain 1:30:51

yeah no clearly overrated

Carter 1:30:52

overrated underrated section yes

Zain 1:30:55

i literally just said overrated underrated now that's

Carter 1:30:57

that's good this is my favorite section overrated

Zain 1:31:02

overrated underrated steven carter the

Zain 1:31:05

the ppc performance in this election

Carter 1:31:10

oh man underrated because i fear that it's going to be a thing that exists for years

Zain 1:31:15

cory overrated underrated the ppc performance in election 2021 i

Corey 1:31:19

think the ppc is something we're going to have to be dealing with uh for quite some time uh zane this is getting to be a long episode when are we getting to overrated underrated uh

Zain 1:31:29

uh we're going to do that shortly we're going to do that shortly actually we'll start right now with you carter on our first First overrated, underrated question. Carter, overrated or underrated? The petition out for Aaron O'Toole. Fuck both of you, honestly. The petition out for Aaron O'Toole to get rid of by one of the national members of the conservative party, overrated or underrated in your mind? I

Carter 1:31:53

I give it a D minus, Zane. I think that the problem is it is too quick. It didn't allow the members to give their own little thoughtful response to it. But, you know, if it came a little bit later, I think the people would have bought into it a bit much. This just seems like this guy was plotting it from the very beginning.

Zain 1:32:08

Corey, as a punishment, you don't even get to answer that question. Too quick, Zane.

Corey 1:32:11

Zane. Too quick. So I agree with Stephen. I think actually it may have strengthened Aaron O'Toole because it forces people, before they can take an assessment as to whether people actually want to get rid of Aaron O'Toole, to have

Corey 1:32:23

have to now stand up and defend the leader and get themselves on the record as defending the leader. Zane,

Carter 1:32:27

Zane, it's been an hour and a half. Can we get to overrated and underrated?

Zain 1:32:37

carter jason caddy great premier or greatest premier i'm

Zain 1:32:42

i'm not doing it again i'm not doing it carter

Zain 1:32:45

carter overrated underrated uh greens with two seats this election overrated

Carter 1:32:51

overrated i mean it was it it the one in kingston or wherever you said accidental and elizabeth may yeah kitchener holding on uh what a joke give me a break cory

Zain 1:33:03

cory the two seats for the greens overrated underrated in your mind overrated

Corey 1:33:06

overrated i don't know how they move forward they're going to move backwards they're going to make elizabeth may if she's not officially leader she will continue to be pulling the strings and um how

Corey 1:33:16

how can we miss you if you won't go away cory

Zain 1:33:18

cory on a give us a letter grade as we round this episode out on a letter grade of a to f for jason kenney the fact that his leadership review is happening in march of 2022 what does jason kenney walk out of that room with and and get assigned a letter grade with for accomplishing a march 2022 leadership review e for expectations exceeded it was fuck

Zain 1:33:45

you carter what do you give it jason kenney on a letter grade fade f it

Carter 1:33:51

was overrated zane um we're

Zain 1:33:55

we're gonna leave it there we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 934 of the strategist my name is zane velge with me as always cory hogan steven carter and we'll see you next time so

Corey 1:34:11

so i think we want to record a promo promoting the podcast asking people to subscribe yeah carter

Zain 1:34:18

carter you take your you take the first shot at it you

Corey 1:34:19

you go first thank

Carter 1:34:21

thank you for listening to the strategists make sure that you subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts including amazon music where we were recently featured and got an extra four or five downloads uh and you can also listen to us or see us on twitter at at cory hogan at zane velgey or at carter underscore ab of course make sure you're following the at strategist pod uh that's where we uh pretend that neither one None of us have control of the Twitter account so that we don't get in trouble with our employers. Anyways, thanks for listening. We'll see you again next time.

Zain 1:34:56

And I just checked. It's two downloads from Amazon Music. So not bad, Carter. That's

Carter 1:35:00

That's pretty good. Yeah.

Zain 1:35:03

I'm unsubscribing based on that.

Zain 1:35:08

yeah. Also, leave us a review. And if it's not five stars, we'll send Carter after you. Yeah, we'll send Carter after you. All

Corey 1:35:15

All right. Do we want to try that again?

Zain 1:35:16

No, I don't. That sounds pretty good. one take

Zain 1:35:20

one take carter why

Zain 1:35:22

why would we do it again

Transcript