Episode 958: The most Canadian podcast

Corey 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 950. 770, Zain. That's what I got on the GMAT.

Zain 0:07

Oh, I know you had a 770. You do not stop talking about it off-air. Carter, how much did you get on your GMAT? Didn't

Carter 0:14

Didn't take the GMAT.

Zain 0:16

Well done, sir. Well done.

Carter 0:18

770. Thank you for it. A bachelor was enough for me, baby. Bachelor of Commerce and my white privilege took me to the top.

Zain 0:26

Listen, it took me to the top. Sorry, I interrupted you. I interrupted you. You went back to the middle, back again at the top. Well done, Carter.

Zain 0:33

That white privilege really lets you yo-yo your way through life, doesn't it? It

Carter 0:37

It really does, Zane. Thanks for recognizing that. What episode is

Carter 0:40

Yeah, what episode, Zane?

Zain 0:42

It's 9.58. I think people know who we are. Zane Baldy,

Carter 0:48

This is going to be a special one.

Zain 0:50

You know, Corey, the 770 GMAT of provinces is Alberta, the most Canadian province.

Zain 0:58

I feel, uh, that's called introducing a topic without any context and not filling in those who don't know the context with any, right, Carter? We're not going

Carter 1:07

going to do that. It's on brand, baby. Let's move forward.

Zain 1:09

Usually we do our, uh, for most Canadian province at our, uh, of course, holiday spectacular episode, Corey, which is coming up. Uh, anything you want to talk about in relation to the holiday spectacular episode coming up and whoever knows, however the fuck, how long, who knows? We'll do it when we feel like doing it. It's

Corey 1:27

It's probably just worth reminding people about the Not Going Places contest. Yeah,

Corey 1:31

please do so. We are still looking for nominations. We put out the call to our thousands and thousands of listeners. We got one nomination so far. So it's looking like a pretty even race for that fellow. We could use a couple more. Obviously, Zane is always automatically a nominee for this particular award. But having won it four years in a row, I think we're a little hesitant to give it to him yet again. Again, so if you could just tweet at StrategistPod with your nominations for the Not Going Places Award. No, I will not explain what the criteria are for winning it. That would be very much appreciated. Yeah,

Zain 2:03

Yeah, no, we don't do

Corey 2:04

do that. Back to you, Zane.

Zain 2:04

No, thank you, Corey. I really appreciate that. Carter, please don't jump in at any point during this episode to fill those in that may not have listened to the last episode regarding the contest. But let me tell you something. Your base fare will be paid for. That's all I'm

Carter 2:18

Very exciting. All you have to do is pay for the add-ons. it's like it's

Zain 2:24

it's it's pretty much like none nothing let's let's move it on we haven't done this in a while to the headlines that is right guys we have headlines and we start here with cnn ceo of better.com fires 900 employees over three minutes zoom call that's right the ceo of better.com might want to consider his company's moniker the next time he plans extensive layoffs the head of the digital mortgage company jumped on a zoom call last wednesday to to abruptly inform more than 900 people that they're being terminated. Quote, if you're on this call, you're part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Unquote, the CEO said, looking stiff and unemotional on the call. Carter, these individuals did not want to go places. They actually wanted to be part of our context, but now they're packing their bags and taking a Flair Airlines trip to another destination, which will not be Better.com, unfortunately. Yeah,

Carter 3:18

that's that's tragic. I mean, I'm kind of, you know, I'm kind of of the Aaron O'Toole camp on this one. I think they should have left 900 voicemails. I'm a little disappointed.

Carter 3:31

think that that would have been the way to go. But, you know, I mean, how are you supposed to do it in the COVID times? Do you do it in smaller groups? Is that what it's supposed to be? And let the let the word circulate through the company. Don't take the Zoom meeting. Don't take the Zoom meeting.

Carter 3:47

I mean, I prefer doing

Zain 3:48

doing it with, like, three people on a call, right? So you've got the person who's doing it and then, like, the support person who's kind of there to do caller commentary and pick up the pieces when you need to let them know that you're being let go from something, Carter.

Carter 4:00

No, that's too many people.

Carter 4:02

That's too many people.

Zain 4:03

And sometimes when that person doesn't understand that it's about them, you have the other person on the call kind of pick up the pieces and add some commentary to

Carter 4:10

to really press the point. What's happening now?

Carter 4:13

Did you guys finally get a hold of Eric? is fucking eric that

Corey 4:20

take take a seat steven take a

Zain 4:23

cory's the anna kendrick to my george clooney uh that was that was a reference that maybe i don't know i'm

Zain 4:30

i'm pretty half the people will understand

Corey 4:31

understand is it because you've got 10 years ago it would be very good yeah it's

Zain 4:34

it's good uh cory 900 employees filed uh fired through zoom uh carter asked is there any other way to do it voicemails he's offered as a solution do you have any other ways to do it yeah

Corey 4:44

yeah i think small batch terminations are more in vogue these days but 900 people is impressive i mean not only do you need the pro zoom license you need the large meeting add-on to get that many people into the particular zoom meeting so uh you know in a way it tells me that it took a certain amount of coordination so um better they're not but uh i

Corey 5:06

i wonder if they're going to go back to the free license after this do they need the pro anymore yeah

Carter 5:10

yeah you probably go back to the free license yeah for sure cost

Zain 5:12

cost saving measures will be tremendous let's move it on to our next headline this one comes to us from a ctv walmart pulls children's toy that swears and sings in polish about doing cocaine that is right an

Zain 5:25

ontario grandmother who bought an educational toy for her 15 year old granddaughter was shocked when the dancing cactus started swearing and singing about doing cocaine the toy uses swear words and talking about cocaine a lot unquote quote says anya tanner when she spoke to ctv news toronto this is not what i ordered for my granddaughter stephen carter seems like someone has found the hidden strategist podcast merchandise on the walmart website uh singing cactuses that talk about cocaine in polish your thing uh

Carter 5:56

uh very much my thing as you know the entire political world is based on the cacti formula uh never let anybody get too close or you have to prick them uh that is basically the entire political world and as you know uh we're all pretty coked up on this show so jesus

Carter 6:20

if we if we if we monetize this sucker we would be oh for sure we

Zain 6:25

we do have a sponsor though do we

Carter 6:26

we have a sponsor cory do you want

Zain 6:27

want to talk about our sponsor flare airlines

Corey 6:30

you think getting you hired do you

Corey 6:32

you think in poland do you think in poland thank you i don't think you know not a sponsor uh do

Corey 6:37

do you think in poland they have like uh characters on the shelf that are from like that sausage party movie and they come home and they don't know that in english they're swearing like is this a possibility that's just a foul adult character from poland that somehow made it onto the the shelves yeah

Zain 6:53

yeah i this is my theory i blame supply chain issues that's what i'm saying i suspected they wanted a different toy they got this supply chain issues it's the easiest excuse for anything cory you just throw it into just throw it into conversation i'm sorry i was late supply chain issues they just throw it it's it's multi-purpose i know carter uses it all the time in his new job sorry

Carter 7:12

sorry i'm sorry we had to do those three zune episodes supply chain issues right you're

Zain 7:18

you're getting it already

Zain 7:20

let's move on to our next headline this one comes to us from the huffington post steven carter you're gonna love love this one camel beauty

Zain 7:26

beauty camel beauty contest rocked by botox scandal that is right saudi authorities just wait this gets way better saudi

Zain 7:36

saudi authorities have conducted their biggest ever crackdown okay i'm gonna stop there their biggest ever implies there have been other crackdowns but okay their biggest ever crackdown on camel beauty contests that received botox injections and other artificial touch-ups the state-run saudi press agency reported wednesday with over 40 camels disqualified from the annual pageant saudi arabia's popular king abdulaziz camel festival that's actually the name the king abdulaziz camel festival which kicked off earlier this month invites the breeders of their most beautiful camels to compete for some wait

Zain 8:11

wait for it 66

Zain 8:12

66 million dollars what are

Corey 8:19

all right well this is this is coming into relief now this is starting to make sense i

Carter 8:23

was trying to figure out why you would do this but now all of a sudden i'm buying a camel you know like totally

Carter 8:28

totally makes sense to me this

Zain 8:30

this explains many things i mean there's obviously the scandal element uh it's also what other oil producing uh regions have done with their money money, Carter. And I feel like we really could have gone into this camel beauty contest lane as the province of Alberta a long time ago.

Carter 8:49

Yeah, I mean, we just need a few more camels. But we could, this could have, this could have worked for us. Wow.

Carter 8:57

Never have I heard such a story.

Carter 9:01

welcome. That's all I have. Okay,

Corey 9:02

Okay, that's great. Corey, any reaction? action they

Corey 9:05

say a camel is just a horse built by committee zane thank

Zain 9:11

i appreciate it cory let's move it on to our last

Zain 9:14

yeah yeah well was it a 770 i just

Corey 9:17

make sure kendall roy is dead okay

Zain 9:20

okay here's the thing i have to tell you this okay we don't care i think jeremy

Zain 9:25

jeremy strong might be deserving of an oscar even though don't give oscars for television shows that

Zain 9:33

that That guy's so fucking good. He's very good. And if he's dead, I'm going to lose my fucking shit. You

Zain 9:39

a 10,000-word New Yorker profile on this guy and then just kill him off in the final episode. I don't think it happens. You absolutely

Zain 9:48

No, you do not. Oh, you think it's a celebratory, like, look at the amazingness of this guy, like, capstone New Yorker profile. Boom.

Zain 9:56

It's like we're killing

Corey 9:57

killing you off, but we're

Corey 9:59

we're going to do a bit of a media tour for you. No

Zain 10:02

what do you think?

Carter 10:03

Um, I, I'm shocked and

Zain 10:10

Excellent. Uh, what sport does, uh, does, uh, Kendall Roy play, Carter?

Carter 10:15

Kendall Roy's in succession and, uh, I don't like this, uh, having my, the wool pulled over my eyes.

Carter 10:22

You know, just because I can't afford HBO doesn't

Carter 10:25

doesn't mean I don't know what's going on in the world of pop culture, Zane.

Zain 10:31

Let me tell you something. And then, Corey, there's no way Kendall Roy got a 770 on his GMAT. No way. I'm sure he was a legacy. Impossible.

Corey 10:36

Impossible. He was a

Corey 10:38

He definitely didn't graduate top of his class like I did.

Zain 10:44

Let's move on to our final headline. Let's spend some time on this serious, serious topic. One worthy of discussing. This one comes to us from Global News. Quebec teachers removal for wearing a hijab. A quote-unquote cowardly move, minister says. Let me fill you guys in with some background. and I think we've all heard of this story or a lot of us have heard of this story this week. Parents from the Chelsea Elementary School in Quebec said they found out that a teacher was being removed last week

Zain 11:12

when they received a letter about it. Some later learned it was due to her hijab and the teacher herself ultimately confirmed the fact in an interview to the Canadian press. In a statement to the Canadian press, the Western Quebec School Board, which was previously come out firmly against Bill 21,

Zain 11:26

the Quebec law, declined to comment specifically specifically due to confidentiality. Multiple politicians are speaking out to condemn the reassignment of the elementary school teacher who was forced to leave her job after being told that the hijab violates the province's law that forbids teachers from wearing religious symbols. It's cowardly, said Crown Indigenous Relations Minister Mark Miller. This type of discrimination isn't reflective of the Quebec society we live in. Jagmeet Singh coming out, others. Notably, and I'll add this one final piece of context before we get into the discussion, Aaron O'Toole, maintaining Quebec's controversial secularism law is a provincial debate on this item and not budging from the national stance. Stephen Carter, let's start here. Let's talk about this. This is an extension of the fireworks moment of the debate in this last federal election, of a key series of questions in the 2019 federal election, and now rearing its head as a real-life example of someone wearing a religious symbol in Quebec against a discriminatory law which discriminates against three groups of people. Muslim women seek men and Jewish men who wear a kippah, and here we are with a real-life example of this happening in Quebec.

Carter 12:41

Yeah, I mean, I just

Carter 12:43

just don't even know what to say. I mean, Quebec has always been a little out of step with the rest of Canada with some of their laws before it was the language laws. And now we're seeing, you know, this type of religious, anti-religious law. And I say this as someone who is not religious. I'm not religious and I'm not particularly interested in seeing a bunch of religious symbolism in public classrooms and those types of things. But a hijab and or a crucifix around the neck or, you know, these these kind of low key religious symbols don't bother me as much as the, you know, for example, the Ten Commandments, you know, painted on the on the steps of the courthouse or or, you know, portraits

Carter 13:33

portraits of Jesus or something like that. I can see a place for secularism to dominate, but I don't feel that this is the case. And I think that this is going – this was a law that was going too far that federal leaders have all worked overtime to avoid because they want to capture a certain group of votes from a secular Quebec that they're

Carter 13:55

they're all willing to sell their souls for, if you'll forgive the double

Zain 14:02

Corey, you know, this is, you know, you reap what you sow in some ways. Every political, major political party in the country, you know, responding to Legault in this previous election when Quebec says jump, everyone says how high in many ways. Do you feel like this is a natural extension of having to live with those ramifications as federal parties and federal leaders?

Corey 14:24

I mean, I do. Absolutely. You can draw a very clear line. In no sense is it a reach from Bill 21 to this action. I mean, this action was enabled by Bill 21. So, you know, I mean, it's a complicated matter in that fear of losing language, fear of losing culture, fear of being overwhelmed is really quite a predominant anxiety in Quebec, right? Which is this French island in this English North America, in this Western world that is predominantly English in outlook and approach, right? And so a lot of these things come from that place. And so, you know, the irony here, but also the thing that I think we do need to sort of name and point to is that these

Corey 15:08

laws are passed for the same anxieties about being consumed and assimilated that are then in turn put on people within Quebec society who are part of religious minorities. And that's not right. right and it does require a certain amount of self-reflection and saying like hold on i mean

Corey 15:27

we are worried about you know essentially being quashed of our language and culture are we doing that and what does that mean and what are the considerations and why is it wrong to

Corey 15:37

to happen to us but right to happen to the next jurisdiction down or to individuals that's a serious conversation that people need to have and it's a complex one and it's a nuanced one and at the end of the day I am not confused about what side of that conversation I land on, but what

Corey 15:53

what is really shocking to me in the English language debate, and I guess we're going back to that, is everybody

Corey 15:58

everybody pretended it wasn't nuanced, pretended it wasn't complex, and they jumped to the, no, Quebec is well within their rights, and maybe even Quebec should do this side. And if you're not willing to have those complex conversations, you're doing a disservice to your friends, your countrymen, because these ugly things come up. And we could have been talking about the ugly potential and the ugly future consequences months ago, and now we are going to be reacting to them. And

Corey 16:24

And in many ways, I feel good on individual ministers and individual MPs and the conservatives, in the liberals, NDP,

Corey 16:33

NDP, who are now standing up and saying, whoa, this isn't right.

Corey 16:40

But where were you when something was on the line, right? Yeah.

Corey 16:43

Besides high-minded language. And

Zain 16:44

And when the through line to your electoral fortunes didn't reside in Quebec, regardless of which party you were. Carter, you wanted to jump in here.

Carter 16:55

Well, I also want to add, you know, this was this was the this is the province where Jacques Parizeau runs to the microphone and says that and says that the reason they lost the referendum was because of money and the ethnic vote. You know, this is gone shortly

Corey 17:10

shortly thereafter, though, Stephen, like, you

Carter 17:12

you know what? what? He still said it.

Carter 17:14

He said it and he may have been gone, but he was also thinking, I mean, keep in mind where, you know, the immigration rules for Quebec are totally different. The way that they approach immigration is totally different. They have a cultural aversion to outsiders that they base inside of their language laws, right? They are protecting their language. Ergo, no one who doesn't speak French can come into this space, except

Carter 17:43

when that's used to go after certain minority groups, and let's be clear this is going after certain minority groups, that is it's a form of systemic racism that is being put into a Canadian society that our leaders are afraid to speak about because of a backlash in Quebec it would not be tolerated in Alberta, and it should not be tolerated in Alberta, it would not be tolerated in British Columbia, and it should It should not be tolerated in British Columbia. You know, Saskatchewan's still on the fence. But in Quebec, this is, you know, it's brought on. And that's just crazy. Well, come on. The Saskatchewan joke was hilarious. Neither one of you laughed. That was upsetting.

Corey 18:26

I'm sure all of our listeners in Saskatchewan are having a riot right now.

Carter 18:30

Oh, they think it's hilarious.

Zain 18:31

Yeah, I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do. We should poll each and every one. In fact, let's bring them all into a Zoom call.

Zain 18:37

All 900. All 900 of them. Corey, will

Zain 18:41

will anything change because of this? Like, you know, I don't know if I am where you are, where you're like good on individual ministers. I mean, like these were and let me point the finger at Mark Miller, right? Like close friend to Trudeau, you know, someone who's in the inner circle has been stood idly during that campaign, right? Like to your point, like, does it mean anything now? And do you think anything will happen now from a political, you know, governance perspective now that we're not in the throes of an election?

Corey 19:10

Well, I guess what I want – and I say good on individual ministers. I don't mean they're heroes or that they're somehow at this high – Fair enough. They're doing better than nothing, right? They're actually breaking ranks and starting to have this conversation. But it is largely being driven by the fact that there is an outrage at the personal level. You know, people who know this teacher are upset about it. Individuals can easily picture what would happen to themselves if they were put into the same sort of situation, if it was their child's teacher who was pulled out of the classroom. And I'm

Corey 19:43

I'm glad that, you know, at least the common

Corey 19:46

common approach where everybody is just going to put their fingers in their ears and

Corey 19:51

and close their eyes is starting to crack. And that's really what I mean by that.

Zain 19:56

Carter, I have a question for you. I want to bring this to strategy for a second. And this is a tough, you know, conversation to immediately politicize and kind of make it about strategy. But there is one federal leader I want to make this comment about, which is, let's talk about the strategy for someone like Jagmeet Singh.

Zain 20:14

You know, he, when it's that 2019 election, trying to protect the seats that Mulcair had got for them in Quebec, didn't really make gains, actually lost significant amount of seats.

Zain 20:25

You know, 2021 goes into that same thing saying, I can't piss off Quebec, we have an opportunity, our pathway has to be through Quebec, gets fucked in Quebec, like it doesn't make any gains. Carter, is now the time for Jagmeet Singh, I don't need to point this out, but I will anyways, the only federal leader that would be impacted if he were in Quebec with this law to speak out from a political strategy and perhaps even moral perspective to say, fuck this shit, finally, I'm against it, I'm full-throatedly against it. Or do you think there's too much to risk for the future of the NDP beyond Jagmeet Singh, that this would poison everything, that he would never do it and be too cowardly to do it from that strategic point of view? Now that we've got this story and this opportunity on a silver platter, I would say, at least in my mind, you may disagree for him. You

Carter 21:12

You know, I think that sometimes minority candidates or female candidates don't want to carry the burden of their visible minority-ness

Carter 21:22

-ness or class and the fact that they're women and they don't want to have to carry everybody else's burden. They don't want to have to put, you know, stand up as a representative class in the class action lawsuit against society. um but politics is about values and values say that you must stand up for this this is especially the ndp and i would argue that you'll do better right you'll do better when you stand against this type of thing because people will see that you have values and you're prepared to stand behind those values you could not live in british or in quebec and actually you know have a job that you wish to have you've

Carter 22:02

you've got to speak out again speak out against that you've got to speak out against that that's just and and it was his weakest moment in the campaign in 2021 he should have spoken out against it sure 2019 he's a new leader he's trying to figure out his way in the world but there's no longer an excuse politics is supposed to be about values show me your values sir stand against this and stand against it harshly and you know what put in stark contrast finally you have something that puts you in stark contrast with the Liberal Party, which we've been advocating for how many times on this show, how many times have we said that the NDP just can't simply be a little bit of the left-wing cousin of the Liberals. They've taken all their spots. You know, the Liberals had the most green platform. The Liberals had the most friendly platform. They have, this is something that Jagmeet Singh can stand up and say, I stand for what's right, not what's politically correct.

Carter 22:57

You know, it is politically incorrect.

Carter 22:58

fuck he can just stand for what's right it's

Zain 23:02

it's you know carter makes a good point here about like you know the moral outrage doesn't rest at the feet of jagmeet singh that's not what i'm trying to say here like i think justin trudeau is significantly more responsible in that sense because he's the leader of a party he claims to have these multicultural pluralistic values like you know it's on him so don't get me wrong i bring up jagmeet singh from the strategic opportunity opportunity that he has right now. And I think to Carter's point, it may just nicely triangulate with the right thing to do. Do you agree that there is something here? Or do you feel like this is something that they would pay a larger price for down the road with the institution that is the NDP?

Corey 23:42

think there's a way Singh could do that if he wants to. It's not, in my opinion, going to be particularly fruitful to stand up and play maximum outrage, particularly given given his previous stances on this matter. But he is uniquely positioned amongst the federal leaders to have

Corey 24:01

have a conversation in Quebec about,

Corey 24:04

hey, I need you to think about this a different way for a bit, and maybe even win some points within the province from people who are, you know, it's not universal love. Massive Anglophone,

Zain 24:14

you know, massive Anglophone population to begin with, and not just

Corey 24:17

Anglophones. More than Anglophones, there's Francophones

Corey 24:19

Francophones who are opposed. You know, I mean, I think that's an opportunity to voice something that people have been a little afraid to voice and do it in a way that is not, fuck

Corey 24:29

fuck these guys, these guys being the province of Quebec, but rather say, you know, we got to unpack this. And, you know, there's, this is an anxiety that, you know, I don't want to speak for a racialized Canadian here, but he could talk about the anxieties that he feels. And he can say there are parallels to the anxieties that Quebec society feels more largely. And we need to talk about these things. And we need to be open about these things. And we need to talk about the downsides of some of the approaches we're taking here. And we, you

Corey 24:56

you know, we've got to look if there's better ways to address the root concern you have, which is, you know, about the language and the culture of Quebec disappearing. And frankly, you

Corey 25:06

you know, removing a competent teacher from a classroom does

Corey 25:11

does nothing but hurt the next generation. It doesn't help the future of Quebec. And you're trying to help the future of Quebec by protecting that unique language and the unique culture. And I think he could have that conversation, and he could bring a certain pathos to it that, well, that Justin Trudeau loves

Corey 25:28

loves to fake a certain pathos. But, you know, we've talked about Singh's authenticity in the past, and, you know, he can talk

Corey 25:36

talk lived experience, and he can bring an element into this that I think would be constructive. I don't think he wants to be destructive in this particular sense. sense.

Zain 25:45

Carter, you know, extension of what Corey's saying here, what would you advise if you were in that room with Jagmeet Singh saying, you know, we've watched three fastballs down the middle on this issue go by at least in the last couple of years? Well, guess what? We don't just have to act during elections. We've got an opportunity now. If you were to convince him, what argument would you use to convince him on messaging? How far would you go? What would you suggest he do? Would it be a bit of a, I was wrong, a mea culpa? Would he address past missed pitches that he just let, you know, go right through the middle of the plate? Or would this be a refrain of a different kind in your mind on the messaging side of things?

Carter 26:26

I'm not perfect. I disagree a little bit with Corey, because I do think that this is something he should stand up and bang a drum on. I think this is a bigger issue. And if he doesn't stand hand up i think he's he's really missing the opportunity uh but don't

Zain 26:42

don't you think going from like largely being in the same category as everyone else to skipping over the like responsible like let me think about the cory version of things done and then jumping right over that leapfrogging that to like banging on the drum on the other side don't you think that comes across as disingenuous carter nope really

Zain 27:03

really okay i'll set her up go go this is

Carter 27:05

is interesting go down the go down down the road i'm really interested in this because how long is our collective memory i

Carter 27:09

mean sure we understand this we remember this how long is our collective memory three days right

Carter 27:15

right so sure the the the industrious media goes and picks up the quote and says you know oh this is bad we shouldn't have done this um fine whatever you

Carter 27:24

you know he he gets to he gets he still gets the stories he still gets all the media attention um and he can say if asked i was wrong then and i'm right I should have stood up stronger. I did not. And he could go and he should meet with this teacher and he should, you know, in French, talk about what this means to the broader community and what it means to be discriminated against. because to Corey's earlier point, that's all this is, right? It is one marginalized community deciding to pick on another marginalized community. And that's just

Carter 28:03

just not on anymore. We're not supposed to be doing this. We talk about systemic racism all the time and how we're supposed to be addressing the systemic racism. And it

Carter 28:12

it has to be more than just words, doesn't it?

Carter 28:16

Doesn't it? At some point? And shouldn't people like, I don't know, the five party leaders? Okay, I have to drop Bernier. The four party linears at the national level, shouldn't they at the very least be the ones standing up and say, yes, we have to attack systemic racism in Canada? Shouldn't they be the ones carrying that load? At the very least, those five?

Zain 28:40

Corey, are you sold on Carter's strategy?

Corey 28:43

No, because I think that he talked about it being strong, and then he just articulated a much softer strategy. No, I

Carter 28:50

You're just – you're hearing wrong. You're hearing badly.

Corey 28:56

is the human condition. I will give you that. And

Corey 28:59

And it's not new in politics to do a total about face and pretend that you never held the previous position. But I

Corey 29:07

I think that the

Corey 29:08

challenge with taking the moral high ground as your policy when you are so clearly being calculated on this based on your previous position is it's difficult to actually drum up the people around you to the same degree. like there's a certain eye roll in it in general i mean just imagine like you're you're imagining an empty field here like what do you think lego is going to say if he takes that approach he's going to say he was he was totally for it before and now look at him he sees this opportunity have the fight have

Carter 29:36

have the fight take the fight you know me i'm always in i'm always for the fight

Zain 29:43

fights are good very

Zain 29:44

very quickly i wanted to focus on sing but i am a little bit like disturbed the way I asked the question, almost kind of placing the burden on him, which I don't think is the situation. I think the opportunities are, I want to be very clear. But on Trudeau, anything he should be doing right now on this particular, I mean, it seems like Trudeau, we can go on hours about the lack of alacrity, as Corey would say, that he and his government are currently engaged in, or not engaged in. But Carter, like Trudeau, strategy, anything on your mind for this situation? situation

Carter 30:22

minister should lead he

Carter 30:24

he didn't lead during the debate because he thought he would you know he was trying to he was seeking a majority government that whole election was seeking a majority government that whole election wasn't it was was evidence of of a weakness in character character um i want the i want more not i'm going to give more and i

Carter 30:44

i want politics to be better and

Carter 30:46

because i want politics to be better i want justin trudeau to stand up and say this is wrong i'm

Carter 30:52

i'm not expecting that he will i'm sure he's got a hundred you know advisors telling him that this is not any way to win seats in quebec you have to not do it but god damn it can't i expect politics to be better? Can't I expect people to stand up and say at the very least what is right and what is wrong? And a school teacher losing her job for wearing a hijab is wrong. Period. End of story. Over.

Zain 31:21

Corey, let me ask you a slightly different question. You're the 101st advisor, right? The first hundred are saying, Mr. Prime Minister, don't do this. This is crazy. This is stupid. It's inconsistent with everything you've said before. You've got cloud cover of the the courts, you still have cloud cover of the courts. That's not going to change. Just say that same line that you have been for the last, what, three years now? You're the 101st advisor. Your job is to kind of say, okay, I put together a strategy for Jagmeet Singh that kind of de-risks it so that it doesn't maybe have negative impact for the party down the road, that it isn't to Carter's strategy of beating the drum excessively hard. What would your version of of that if i if i forced you into that corner of providing trudeau with the version what would that look like for him if you were committed

Zain 32:06

committed and had a conviction that he must say something what would the most de-risked yet possibly effective strategy for him look like in your mind

Corey 32:16

yeah i listen there's the legal parsing argument which is like well this technically isn't what bill 21 called for so my outrage is absolutely justified right right

Corey 32:25

because they weren't a new hire, you know, or something like that. But like, right,

Corey 32:30

you know, that's, that's probably not going to cut it. I mean, I think, I

Corey 32:36

think my recommendation for the Prime Minister is not materially different from my recommendation to Jagmeet Singh, which is it's like, we got to have a talk about this, right? Now, the problem is, Justin Trudeau is maybe not the perfect messenger for that. But his party has historically been the party that can carry that message. He's got a number of strong quebec lieutenants i actually don't know this is when we need to hear from the prime minister a lot my you know my recommendation for strategy on this particular front is

Corey 33:06

i mean bluntly i hate to say it but it's just you know keep your head down but i would like to see the liberal party as a whole take a take a braver stance on this and um i don't know i mean

Corey 33:18

i'm i'm sure there's all sorts of parsing out of the polls right now and trying to determine where this is there's obviously a route they can take that says this is not what was supposed to happen right

Zain 33:28

yeah you look visibly frustrated carter i'll let you jump in and it's like good i just

Corey 33:31

just don't think i just don't think that that's very compelling um but you know the smart thing i hate to say but the smart thing might be just keep your head down carter

Corey 33:40

to carter's point how long are our memories carter how

Corey 33:43

how long are our memories

Carter 33:46

why take the hit follow

Carter 33:48

follow the polling i I see the strategy. I understand what Corey's saying. It just, you

Carter 33:55

I just want someone to stand up for the young teacher who was told that she can't be a teacher anymore. I want someone in power to stand up and say, this isn't good enough anymore.

Carter 34:13

You know, yeah, you might lose some seats.

Carter 34:16

if it can't be the prime minister it better be one of his cabinet ministers and if he you know and i i think it has to be sing sing has to stand up he cannot let this go by um someone needs to stand up for the young teacher who lost her job

Zain 34:34

fascinating we're gonna leave that we're gonna leave the headlines there that was a good conversation guys and moving on to our first segment that's right province most with leader best and membership most also yes we are headed into the uh we are headed into the uh north korean segment of the show where we discuss our province we'll be talking all things alberta guys there's so much to talk about i mean bill 81 we'll tease that out for folks what that's about but let's start here uh with a bit of a victory lap i in sort in a sense of sorts uh because cory you guys had a couple weeks ago i don't remember how many weeks ago uh definitely prior prior to the Zune episodes that we did, had mentioned how you felt like the Jason Kenney leadership vote would go, maybe not in terms of outcome exactly, that's still to come, but in terms of putting the pieces together, the restrictions, how the chessboard was set, what sport were we playing? Were we playing, you know, tackle football? Or were we playing flag football? Were we playing, you know, were people able to join online? Or was this going to be on the field with a high rate of, you know, membership costs to be able to attend. Well, we got some clarity this week when the UCP board of directors and the executive rejected calls for more than a quarter of its constituencies associations to hold an early leadership review before March 1st. So that's off the table, as you guys predicted. In a letter, they said that that is not happening. We're going to be April 9th in Red Deer, in person only, no independent body verifying the votes. You dissenting members, fuck off. It's in April, on the 9th, in Red Deer. The board is set, and there's probably some other pieces we want to get into. But, Corey, initial reactions when you saw the scope that was now put on the table for what this leadership review would look like for Jason Kenney and his political future? Well,

Corey 36:29

Well, as you said, I mean, you can roll the tape. They played it exactly like we thought they would. And that's not suggesting any great political genius came from that, right? Like that was becoming pretty widely telegraphed by the time we were talking about it. But the constituency associations get to request a special meeting. They don't get to dictate the terms of the special meeting. And that's what we said. And that's exactly what the president of the party said in her response to these constituency associations. So, April 9th, in person, $100. And it seems like, barring any kind of significant, significant changing of the landscape,

Corey 37:08

why would we expect something different than what happened the last time they had an in-person meeting that

Corey 37:13

that required you to pay a convention fee, right? Where Jason Kenney held the room. Didn't have 75%, but he certainly had more than half. So not a guarantee that Jason Kenney will survive April. Certainly, it's

Corey 37:28

it's a bit different when you know the leader himself is on the agenda. Like maybe you don't want to go to the AGM because F that guy, but you'd happily show up to stick a knife in him. It remains to be seen. but the thing about putting a contest like this in a place like red deer is every single one of the people who's on the ucp payroll and government payroll as a political staff person is going to show up right

Corey 37:54

right they will all make it to red deer that will be a command performance and meanwhile

Corey 38:01

maybe others won't want to make the trip i think it's one of these bullshit games political parties often play here in the province of alberta you

Corey 38:08

know for those outside and those who aren't involved in political parties we tend to swap you know calgary edmonton red deer right and you know the red deer one will have to be swapped for a different minor center as well right and

Corey 38:22

and the thing we always tell ourselves the lie we always tell ourselves about red deer is red

Corey 38:26

red deer splits the difference between calgary and edmonton you know it's more it's more convenient it's

Corey 38:31

it's less convenient for everybody, right? You want to put it in one city that's a metro of 1.5, another city that's a metro of 1.5, or

Corey 38:38

or Red Deer, right?

Corey 38:39

right? Which is an hour and a half away from either of those. Well, guess what? It's not actually that convenient for a lot of people. It's deeply inconvenient for 3 million Albertans.

Zain 38:48

This is interesting. Carter, I want to get your initial thoughts, and then I actually want to do what Corey's already started to do. Let's unpack the strands of this in person versus in person and online or online exclusively okay 100 bucks let's talk about cost right it's not 500 it's also not 10 okay so we'll talk about that and then red deer the car cory's already gone on that path but give me your initial thoughts on and take your victory lap if you'd like to on the terms and the scope that has been set for jason kenny's future uh dictated by jason kenny in in many ways let's

Carter 39:20

let's be clear this isn't my victory this

Carter 39:22

this is a victory of of a man who got 770 on his GMAT.

Carter 39:27

This is the victory of a man who graduated top of his class but still somehow managed to pass up being the valedictorian. This is the man who sits across from us, who is the leader. Only he was able to predict that which was patently obvious to everyone who was paying attention. So

Carter 39:47

So congratulations to you, fine sir. It is yours. It is yours, Corey, to bask in the glory of being correct. correct as you occasionally do um in terms of the rest of it i mean giant victory for giant victory for uh jason kenney uh why

Zain 40:04

explain it explain it to me explain it to the listeners why a giant victory like i'm not seeing okay so i

Carter 40:10

i mean it's an in-person event right off the bat boom takes

Carter 40:15

takes okay 50 of the membership out of play bam that's great uh now Now it's going to you can only vote if you're there. It's in Red Deer. Bam. Another group of people who can't afford to go. Right. Corey's like half half. It's, you know, splitting the difference. Now you've got to get to a real crew of people. And I've seen Jason Kenney stack one of these things. I watched the buses show up. I watched the buses filled with students from the local, you know, from the from the rural Catholic school board systems, uh which do a tremendous job of educating the youth of our province um and they piled off and they voted for you know for all the resolutions that he wanted voted for he voted against all the resolutions that he wanted against this is playing right into jason kenney's strengths as an organizer we talked about it in the last episode this is what he does he is an organizer first i think i I thought that that organizer talent would translate better into being a better premier. It has not, but

Carter 41:19

but it is still there and we cannot underestimate it. And all of the things that he needs to do to hang on to his leadership are now within his grasp.

Zain 41:30

Corey, let's, okay, you talked about, I just want to make sure we tease out each of these things elementally. And one thing we, I want to bring back from last conversation is, okay, he got this, but But I want to talk about why it's good strategy, right, a little bit more. And then I also want to talk about what he needs to do here on in. So, okay, we talked about the in-person versus online, right? Like you reduce the pool. You reduce the geography, the in-the-middle metropolitan area. Let's talk about the cost, $100. You know, you've run a party before. When you see $100, it's not the $500, $600 that you often can sometimes pay to be an observer or the couple hundred that you have to pay often to be a delegate of an AGM. It's $100. What does $100 mean to you? I'm kind of curious if there's anything that you felt like might be, and I know we're speculating a bit, the strategy behind $100.

Corey 42:19

It's an amount that's about as big as I think they could get away with. It's literally just showing up for a vote. Why is it $100 is a very legitimate question. Exactly.

Corey 42:27

But, you know, this poll tax that they've created will dissuade the people who are less committed. And the thing is, it's so interesting. And, you know, we'll talk about Bill 81 in a minute, and I don't want to sort of pollute it. But there

Corey 42:42

there are basically two ways you can win a contest like this that require two different strategies, right? And you have to pick a lane, and Jason Kenney picked the lane that played to his strengths. But one is numbers, right? If you think you've got the numbers but not the enthusiasm, then you go online vote, really broad, make it super simple to happen, and you just run them out with the kind

Corey 43:03

kind of low give-a-fuck factor, as Stephen Carter calls them. uh but you know they're on your side so that's one way to win right the other way to win is to increase the threshold of engagement through prices through hour and a half drives down the highway in the in april i guess it won't be the middle of winter uh but to red deer and um and you just increase what it requires for you to get there you know mentally with freeing your weekend up money all of that and then you just get

Corey 43:31

get the most committed even if you don't actually have the rooms outside of the rooms right even if you don't have that so you're running an entirely different game you're running an intensity game and what jason kenney did is he made a calculation that he can win the intensity game but

Corey 43:45

but he will not win the broad game so

Corey 43:47

so that's why it was constructed the way it was how it was and uh everything we've seen to date makes me think he's probably right have

Corey 43:55

have we seen any sort of suggestion that uh you know we're going to get a fundamental different uh you know situation than what we had in calgary at the gray eagle casino at their agm no

Corey 44:09

that jason kenney's destined to win and in fact i

Corey 44:11

i would be careful if i were him not to get expectations swung too far the other way right

Corey 44:15

right he should be talking about how it's going to be a little bit tough make people who think oh he's going to lose anyways stay home get your diehard uh you know organizers to come here but yeah

Corey 44:25

yeah i mean he's he's set by choosing in person by choosing red deer he's created a threshold and

Corey 44:33

and he believes he can drag people over that threshold steven

Zain 44:36

steven carter jason kenney's had a good couple of months right let's let's talk about all those things from the strategy session we had in the hospitality suites for all of the groups on the show to that actual agm i don't think i think he's been like pretty pretty solid since then, right? He's had a solid sort of win behind his back. He engineered a headline that was better, arguably, than even the optimistic one we'd said on the podcast after that AGM. He's been on this economic cheerleader boosterism tour. You know, is he getting standing ovations and such? No, but he's definitely not talking about Omicron. He's He's not talking about COVID. And now he is set the table for this strategy. The insurgents couldn't afford you, Stephen Carter, but they're hiring you again. And I need you to go down this path to say, OK, you're back on board for them. This is a group of wild cards. They all don't even care for the same leader to take over from Jason Kenney. But they know one thing. Holy shit. He's actually running laps around us. Even though we may have different people that we want to take over the chair, this guy's fucking with us. We need to get on board together. What are you telling them right now, knowing that the game board has been set? $100 in person, Red Deer. He's got the economy by his side. He's got a new message. He seems to have a new lease on political life, and he's going fucking nowhere. What are you starting to tell these people in terms of what they need to start doing so he at least, at the very least, stops running laps around them within the confines of their own party?

Carter 46:15

I'm telling them probably to stand down.

Zain 46:21

Walk me through it. Stand down forever, stand down for now, and pounce later? What are you talking

Carter 46:26

There's only one more opportunity to take care of Jason Kenney. I think it's April 9th, right? He does it on April 9th, and if you organize against him and you lose, and again, what's the number, right? What's the number that it's going to need to be? Let's assume that Jason Kenney decides he's holding on at 54, right?

Carter 46:47

You know, there was talk of Ralph Klein holding on if he was just above 50. He didn't care. He wasn't going to go anywhere. The rule is 50% plus one, and you get to stay the leader. So why

Carter 47:01

why not stay the leader?

Carter 47:05

if he's – and if I were Jason Kenney, I'd play that game. he's playing this stupid you know i need you know i'm expecting 995 i wouldn't play that i'd say i'm looking for 50 plus one and and anything higher than that is is just you know i don't need to win 10 to 1 i just need to win 50 plus one because 50 you know that's all we need to win this election moving forward and that's all i care about and i'm going to make sure that all of my mlis get get reelected it's going to be like that um but so you're

Carter 47:34

you're not going to get 54 55 56 keep in mind ralph klein tremendously unpopular he barely barely

Carter 47:41

barely was ousted in the leadership review um

Carter 47:45

you know and and the people who ousted him didn't win the next leadership right

Carter 47:50

right so stand down best

Carter 47:53

best case scenario but

Carter 47:55

you're you you can run for the leadership when the ndp is in for another one and done.

Carter 47:59

So just focus on being the next leader that brings the UCP back into power and allow the NDP to be another one and done.

Zain 48:08

Corey, I'm going to let you get in, but I just want to make sure we clarify where Carter was at, right? Saying only a couple of months ago, not even, I'd say six weeks ago, that we're going from strategizing dead man walking to now stand down. Is that right, Right, Carter, before I go to Corey? I was never in the side of organizing.

Carter 48:28

I was always on this. You always made me do it. You'd be like, you're going to go into the room with the dissident. But you saw the lane. There's a lane. There's no lane now.

Carter 48:40

This guy is either taken out by the gen pop of the party, in which case is fine. But if you're organizing, you're never going to be the leader.

Zain 48:48

Corey, has the ground shifted so much that there is no lane now? I want to get that binary answer from you first, and then let's talk strategy. No,

Corey 48:56

No, there's a lane. I can think of two lanes. I can think of two lanes. Let's

Corey 49:01

You know what? I wonder which would be better for

Corey 49:04

for dramatic effect. So the first lane is just do a better job than him. You've got a larger base to draw from. You know that there's more party members who are opposed to his leadership than not. Get the money. Get your people out. Do the same things he's doing and do it better. You've actually got a bigger pool to draw from. So if you can organize half as good as him, you should still be able to win this thing. That should still be possible. Now, I don't actually think they can organize half as well as him. So I still feel like it's probably his to have there. And then there's a different one, Zane. This is a different strategy altogether.

Corey 49:40

Delegitimize his convention. Boycott it. Let him get Saddam Hussein numbers, Brezhnev numbers, 99% of the vote. Let Albertans see that and say, what the fuck? That's nonsense. That's bullshit. shit. This is clearly not a real leadership review. And when it goes down in flames like that,

Corey 49:59

you win by losing.

Corey 50:01

That is your strategy. I

Zain 50:03

I remember trying to do something like that on a campaign where we tried to tell people not to answer polls, so that they would just poison the well on the polls in some ways. You're suggesting something very similar here, which is like, let him actually get numbers that are wildly inaccurate, just don't even show up. And then And then the doubt still remains, the cloud cover still remains.

Corey 50:23

Wildly impossible. And say, like, this is not a real leadership review. It's a $100 poll tax where we have to travel for 90 minutes just to voice our dissatisfaction in this supposedly grassroots party. Nobody who believes in this party should show up. You know what? Jason Kenney wants you to show up. He wants you to show up and get rolled by his illegitimate actions. And we're not going to do it. We're out.

Zain 50:47

Carter, let's stress test this. I've got your first one in the can, Corey. And we'll go to that one in a second. But this one's the most intriguing to me. The Saddam Hussein, we'll call it the Hussein strategy, Carter. Walk me through this. Stress test it for me. Where does it fail? Because Kenny gets 90% in a leadership contest. Okay, you allow him to.

Zain 51:06

What's the pathway for you to take over? Is there one? And is that even the objective here? What do you think? Like, Corey puts it on the table. Stress test it for me. Where are the holes? Well,

Carter 51:16

Well, I mean, it fails when you hire the minister of propaganda from the Saddam Hussein regime, Corey Hogan, to even come up with a strategy. You don't win by losing in politics. I mean, you lose. So you lose. Great. The leadership's over. Jason Kenney still runs to the frickin election. He's still going to be the guy running the election campaign. And he either wins or he loses. And it sounds like he's going to lose, which means you're now a backbench opposition MLA, if you're lucky. If you're lucky, because right now, as it stands, unless you're in rural Alberta, and by definition, then batshit crazy, you're going to be done. You're going to be done. There's no way that anybody who has a major municipality in their riding is going to be able to hold on the way that things are currently looking. So, well done, guys. You've turned yourselves into something a little bit substandard to the Alberta Party. Well done.

Zain 52:17

Now, Corey, in your defense, I forced you to come up with solutions in a sense. No, he gleefully jumped up. I don't have one. I have two great strategies. But I actually want to get at this. Are you suggesting this?

Corey 52:32

You know what? The thing is, there's two things you would need for it to work. One is you would actually need people to follow the boycott because you threw out 90%. That's not enough. I'm saying like 99 plus percent need to show up and vote support for Jason Kenney's leadership. The second is you've got to hang it on you don't think it's fair, right? You've got to make it about this

Corey 52:53

this is a so-called leadership review where there is not going to be independent auditing of the results. This

Corey 53:00

This is a so-called leadership review where you need to pay a $100 poll tax. I would use language like that, right? And this is a so-called leadership review where you may need to travel in a province as big and as wild and as diverse as ours 10

Corey 53:15

10 hours to get to the voting booth.

Corey 53:18

That's not legitimate, and we're not showing up, and we don't count this as the leadership review. And what we want is everybody to put pressure on their board members to have a real leadership contest. So what I am saying here, Zane, is if you don't think you can out-organize, if you don't think you can do strategy number one— Right.

Corey 53:34

Then you need to change the rules of the game. And how you do that is by delegitimizing his particular process and creating the same pressures that forced this early leadership review to begin with, because lest we forget, they

Corey 53:47

they didn't move it. Like this review was basically happening when that review was scheduled by the party. And that was called by Jason Kenney himself to relieve pressure because there was so much antipathy within the party. So it is possible to just sort of make these things happen absent a bylaw ability to do so. And by the way, he

Corey 54:06

he could do this. He could have this review. If 99 percent, let's just say, let's play this out. 99 percent say, yeah, we

Corey 54:15

we support him. the

Corey 54:16

same 22 constituency presidents who were just denied here can say fuck you now do it again and do it right and they can trigger the same special general meeting thing to hold a leadership review they're

Carter 54:28

they're not gonna do that not if you just game the system come on they're

Corey 54:33

not do it right that's what they say oh

Carter 54:36

oh my god so

Carter 54:38

okay so that's like being so wrong

Zain 54:42

and so that's interesting cory likelihood do you think it happens cory oh

Corey 54:50

talk you couldn't hold them together like this unruly bunch are you kidding me like like the very fact that brian jean is a quasi-announced candidate here i don't i still don't believe anything helped jason kenny more than that like as soon as the enemy had a name and it's not kenny versus a perfect invisible man yeah it's kenny versus brian jean here

Zain 55:08

here we are uh

Zain 55:09

uh carter okay let's let's i want to challenge you carter on why you would not pursue cory's strategy one out organize just you know it's you there you have a bigger base to build on bring that base to red deer why

Carter 55:26

why not because if it fails the consequences are too great right so if it because you can't organize without showing your hands right like this idea idea of organizing in a vacuum where people can't see you doing it if you start organizing like the second someone starts organizing something in in the city of calgary i know who's doing it right

Carter 55:48

right because you can't not put your fingerprints on stuff so if you start organizing i'm

Carter 55:55

i'm going to see it and if i'm jason kenney i'm definitely going to see it and then there's going to be hell to pay because i'm probably still going to be able to out organize you and and i just think I think that this is a bad, bad idea. If the general population of the UCP shows up and votes against him, that was great. But you don't want any piece of this. You don't want any piece of this at all. You should be attacking Brian Jean for trying to run a leadership while running for a nomination. You should be attacking Danielle Smith for even suggesting that she'd run for the leadership. These are the better strategies for you as an individual in the long term, period. This isn't some sort of game that

Carter 56:34

that Corey wants to play with his 770 GMAT score as some sort of like bonus opportunity. It's not how it works.

Zain 56:45

Would you recommend this approach, Corey, your first strategy?

Zain 56:49

What I call the conventional strategy. As

Corey 56:50

As opposed to the Stephen Carter just fold and live to fight another day strategy. I'm not knocking it. Like what he's saying is not crazy. If you do not think you can win.

Corey 57:00

Don't play. Then don't play. Right.

Corey 57:03

And so it really,

Corey 57:05

really, Zane, it depends. Like, if I think that I couldn't actually out organize them, then yeah, I do strategy one. If I don't, then Stevens makes an awful lot more sense. But, you know, it's, I have less, well, depends on what you mean, Steven, when you say, well, people know when there's consequences. I have less fear of that. Because again, I've got a larger base, at least in this theoretical world we've built, where the polls that say that the party membership is more off on Jason Kenney than on, right?

Corey 57:34

You can telegraph, you can steal best practice, you know, the strategy of being silent and sneaking in underneath and having the fog of war work for you. That's the underdog strategy. That's what Jason Kenney, in a sense, should have been doing, right? And in a way did, right? He just very quietly took over a convention without making a big to-do about it. And now the narrative around him has totally flipped, is totally flipped from like dead man walking to not

Zain 58:00

Carter, what about the 50% plus one isn't good enough strategy? So not entirely organizing to beat him if he loses, not giving him 99% so he wins. But how about the 50 plus one is a bullshit number? That is not confidence. Is there any merit in winning

Zain 58:18

winning the messaging air war versus putting your resources into organizing? And is that a good message to try to win on?

Carter 58:25

mean, I think you could definitely do that. That's low consequence. And you can be, you know, a senior official in the UCP says, you know, both Stelmac and Redford were brought down with 78. Truth is, if you're not over 80, you're not going to win. um you know something like that would be relatively low consequence and you'd be probably fine just say it in a way that makes it sound like it came out of hand hell dan chill his mouth instead of your own uh because you just again you don't want to be what

Carter 58:56

what what did i say you guys

Zain 58:59

um cory that strategy is it is it is it enough is it sufficient to uh topple him or or you feel feel like it's just winning one small piece and he wins a larger war you

Corey 59:11

you know i think it was sufficient in 1983 when when joe clark said 67 is not enough i don't think it's sufficient in 2021 i think we've become so why is that yeah

Corey 59:22

like brinkmanship is just absolutely trump is the reason trump you know there's a brazenness to it you know this this idea of like these these norms that are built upon the actual rules is just it's gone it's gone in our election laws it's gone in in our, you know, political discourse. And even when you look at, you know, without having to bring in, you know, the T word here, think

Corey 59:44

think about Tom Mulcair, and the leadership of the NDP, which he lost, of course, in an Edmonton convention. He was saying he'd be fine with 50% plus one, there is actually now a fair bit of precedent in this country to where people have said, you know, 50% plus one is fine, it's enough, it's good enough. And if it's good enough for a federal leader, when you're starting to think about the diversity of the entire country, Which, by the way, was Joe Clark's whole point. This country's too big and woolly to say 67% is enough, right?

Corey 1:00:15

it's just a province, right? 50% probably is enough. And why give your opponents that space? space um

Zain 1:00:26

i want to get out there's a there's a capstone question i won't ask it now let's move on to bill 81 cory do you do you mind can i make you do the the burden of explaining to people 81 and how it ties into even what we're talking about here yeah

Corey 1:00:40

yeah well i'm not sure it does although a lot of people have been trying

Zain 1:00:43

trying to make a connection yeah in

Corey 1:00:44

in the last bit good

Zain 1:00:45

good fair point fair point yeah

Corey 1:00:46

yeah so bill 81 is updates to alberta's election laws there's all sorts of stuff in it fixes the election date more permanently you know it's not this floating one anymore uh but the one that everybody's talking about the thing everyone's talking about right now is it directly addresses the question of of purchasing memberships for somebody else um there

Corey 1:01:08

there was uh you know there was a much to do in the legislature on the last night of the legislature where UCP

Corey 1:01:15

UCP MLAs were trying to bring forward, well, just a couple, but an amendment that essentially said you need the consent of the individual you're buying the membership for. Even just setting aside that membership purchasing, the

Corey 1:01:29

the chief electoral officer said it's not allowed at all, right? So the UCP rammed through the bill that would allow somebody to purchase memberships for somebody else. And there's a lot of people saying, well, that's crazy. crazy that's nonsense and um uh

Corey 1:01:46

uh yeah i got a lot of things i could say about this but i would say i don't really think it's about the leadership review for all of the reasons we talked about in that like if your strategy was to go as broad as possible then

Corey 1:01:56

then you make it really easy to get a bunch of memberships of low information that go forward right i think this is about trying to correct the past or or or essentially create a situation where the things that he's accused of doing, that UCP is accused of doing in the 2017 leadership race are now clearly by legislation legal now. And so when it comes to the PR war to come, you're like, it's legal now, even like this is nonsense. Like it's not a big deal, right? It's not allowed by our bylaws. I didn't do it. And it's not a big deal anyways, because it's not against the law.

Corey 1:02:28

That's what I think this is about.

Zain 1:02:29

Carter, do you see this? There's a lot of, and there's a lot in this bill, like, you know, know, around third-party spending, associations,

Zain 1:02:37

associations, disclosures of fundraising numbers, cumulative versus by quarter to like, you know, perhaps mask over certain sort of deficiencies in fundraising,

Corey 1:02:46

fundraising, one might say, for like a listing of... The one everybody was worked up about previously was, you know, nomination contests and how that money can then roll into the parties. Transference, yeah.

Zain 1:02:54

yeah. A lot of stuff in here, Carter. But I guess the overarching question I have is, do you, like some folks, see this as shifting shifting the goalposts when you're in power to make certain actions legal, amenable, justifiable, advantageous to your current situation. As in this case, government, but a government that's trailing in the polls. Is that how you would see this? Or is that in your mind, perhaps not the accurate way to digest at least what we know thus far of 81? We'll revisit it throughout, but I'm curious from your perspective, top line.

Carter 1:03:28

Any government that sets their own rules to get themselves reelected in some fashion or to ensure that they come out ahead, you know, that's just not ethical, right? You know, like there used to be a rule that you kind of wouldn't set your own pay rate. You'd set the next government's pay rate, right?

Carter 1:03:45

right? So the next government would get paid on these new rules, but you're keeping your existing rules. And the same type of thing should be done with election laws. We've tinkered with our election laws in Alberta quite a bit, Whether it's the Local Authorities Election Act, which governs the municipalities, or the Election Act, which governs the provincial elections from nominations to leadership contests, as well as third-party advertisers. They are shit now. They are really bad. First, the NDP weakened them and made them bad, and then the UCP came in right afterwards and made them worse. and nothing

Carter 1:04:25

nothing that i see in bill 81 cleans up the mistakes that were made uh in the last in the last couple of years in fact i think it just continues to make it worse um and to be doing so on you know with the idea that essentially you

Carter 1:04:42

doesn't matter makes it easier for us um that's

Carter 1:04:47

it's just unethical but this is the government right this is the government it doesn't matter matter if it's ethical or not as long as they get to hold on to power and i think that this is unfortunately i don't think it's going to raise a big enough stir for anybody but the three of us who will look at it and say this isn't good enough um but the general population is never going to get outraged about an election law change uh they just won't understand why the elections are working so poorly cory

Zain 1:05:13

cory from your perspective do what do you think the top line is for you yeah

Corey 1:05:18

wrestling over rules is as old as time right

Corey 1:05:22

yeah i mean we've talked about it in the context of leadership races and organizations do this all of the time and you know the bylaws are the thing you look at when there's a problem right but

Corey 1:05:30

but let me apply the principle of charity

Corey 1:05:33

we have really gone through a rough tumble here with election laws in the last bit going back to including the ndp government i've said before it was like a game of whack-a-mole the election act Act and the Election Finance and Contribution Disclosure Act were opened so many times over the years, right? As we went from kind of more of this, you know, open, vague, but generally supposed to be principles-based approach to specifically, you can do this, you cannot do this, you know, with lower limits and all of that. And the money just flows. It's like a river. It just finds different avenues, right? All of a sudden, third-party advertisers are a thing. All of a sudden, the financing of them is done through these ways that are technically legal, You know, instead of these simple rules that made clear the intent, we got the very specific rules, which created almost a roadmap for people who wanted to get around them.

Corey 1:06:20

Thus leading to this game of cat and mouse between, you

Corey 1:06:23

you know, parties, frankly. And the

Corey 1:06:27

the UCP has continued that. Now, I think the NDP changes were largely designed to take money out of politics and broaden, you know, the sense of franchise.

Corey 1:06:37

That's what the NDP would say. The UCP would kind of interpret them as rules

Corey 1:06:41

rules designed to advantage the NDP, right?

Corey 1:06:44

A little ironic now that the NDP is out fundraising the UCP, but maybe

Corey 1:06:50

maybe not ironic at all. Maybe a direct result of that is actually a better way to think about it. So the UCP is trying to undo some of these things. And now we are wrestling over these rules in such a crass and open fashion that I really do worry about this. And so this is a building on Carter's point.

Corey 1:07:06

I've really come to the conclusion that the election law changes period should not take effect unless confirmed by two subsequent legislatures. Like, let's actually see, you know, if we can get people to agree for this over five years. Because as it stands right now, like, I just don't think it's healthy to have the rules changing all the time. It's going to engender a cynicism about politics that we

Corey 1:07:30

we don't need because it's already viewed rather cynically.

Zain 1:07:32

And perhaps even a cynicism of outcomes as an extension of that. Yeah,

Corey 1:07:36

Yeah, for sure. We haven't really gotten there. What's a legitimate outcome? Exactly. A legitimate outcome comes from a legitimate process.

Zain 1:07:43

To that point, Carter, I'm going to go back to politics for a second. You know, a lot of people up in arms. You feel like the general public won't hear about it. Not a surprise that it was rammed. I hate using the word rammed through, you know, but like it kind of was. December, end of year, people are crawling to the finish line, trying to get to holidays. If you're advising the opposition to try to make this an issue, the NDP here, how do you make

Zain 1:08:07

make election law palatable? And maybe add on top of that, do you even try, or is this a fight worth for the courts, or is this something you place elsewhere, and keep yourself squarely focused on fourth wave, fifth wave stuff, COVID stuff, referendum on kenny do you so here's a question do you expend any energy on this and if so how do you make it palatable to the public to get them to care that this this is a thumb on the scale situation that our government is engaged in yeah

Carter 1:08:38

yeah i'm not sure that i'm not sure that i can

Carter 1:08:41

message this to make people care about it um you know it's changing the rules to make it easier for yourself but then people say okay well how well someone can buy a bunch of memberships

Carter 1:08:53

okay but how does that actually change the outcome sure it allows someone to become the party leader but it

Carter 1:09:00

doesn't change the outcome of the election

Carter 1:09:03

right arguably if someone cheats

Corey 1:09:04

cheats to win the the

Carter 1:09:07

they're probably not going to be very popular within the general population so maybe they lose the election i don't know how do you get this how do you get people excited about this i'm

Zain 1:09:14

i'm not excited carter your carter's very much in the uh just roll over I don't have a fight

Carter 1:09:21

left in me, guys. You know, clearly.

Carter 1:09:24

Oh, Merry Christmas, motherfucker. I've been drinking from

Zain 1:09:27

from the cup of the federal liberals.

Zain 1:09:32

you're the opposition. Do you try? And if so, what do you try?

Corey 1:09:37

Yeah, I mean, I do think that somebody buying you a party membership you didn't ask for is something you can wrap your head around and does feel like a violation. You know, you are trying

Zain 1:09:45

trying that lane. Yeah, for

Corey 1:09:46

for sure. Sure. And the reason, I think it's not a bad lane in terms of talking about this. It's certainly more fruitful than talking about nomination contest limits that can then be transferred to the party and the consequences of that. I mean, that's just, that's stuff that's very hard to wrap your head around. But the notion of somebody doing that to you, that does feel a bit like a violation. It's not hard to imagine a campaign, which, listen, I'm not recommending to anybody listening out here because I actually think it would be deeply dishonest, but to send out envelopes to people that

Corey 1:10:16

that say, your UCP membership been closed. And they're like, what the fuck? And they open it and say, no, but this is now actually something that could happen because of rules that Jason Kenney just put through, right? You know, it's easy to see how you could get people's ire, and there's different approaches you could take here.

Carter 1:10:31

I actually like that idea. I'm in.

Carter 1:10:33

Let's do it. Oh,

Zain 1:10:34

Oh, you like that better than just not fucking doing anything?

Carter 1:10:37

anything? I'm handing in my strategist card, and I'm just following Corey blindly from now on. You just fucking

Carter 1:10:44

out before the podcast? That is fantastic. Great idea, Corey. Love it. Oh,

Zain 1:10:51

Yeah. Corey, you could have literally said, you could just go to your neighbor's mailbox and take a shit in it. You know what? That's better than my idea. I like that. That's a good

Corey 1:11:02

You're still going on?

Corey 1:11:29

parties and why they shouldn't necessarily be overseen by governments. But here's the thing.

Corey 1:11:37

It's kind of bullshit because political parties are happy to see themselves as private clubs when it benefits them, but they're equally happy to see themselves as these special vital organizations whenever the issues of tax credits come up, when they talk about exempting themselves from privacy laws, from spam legislation.

Corey 1:11:53

They're not just private clubs. They know they're not just private clubs, which is why they give themselves exemptions from rules that they apply to other people. The simple reality is, in our system, a citizen's access to political power is intermediated by parties. So it is in the public interest that parties are required to run elections with the same sort of integrity we'd expect a general election to be run by. And really, I think that that's a loser, talking to people door by door. You

Zain 1:12:20

You mean that message right there? I

Corey 1:12:21

I do, but I think it's important. I think it's really important that people care about these things and think about how political parties are run.

Zain 1:12:29

okay we're a lot to talk about but i'm going to leave that segment there move it on to our over under and our lightning round steven carter i'm going to start with you oh

Carter 1:12:36

oh thank god yeah

Carter 1:12:37

i've been carrying this podcast today uh

Zain 1:12:40

uh between yeah you've just jesus

Zain 1:12:45

jesus christ mailing it in uh will jagmeet singh do anything on bill 21 yes or no no

Carter 1:12:49

no because he's a weak weak leader

Carter 1:12:52

you generally don't think he's going to you see you're you're so passionate i mean he absolutely absolutely should but he's weak and he won't cory

Corey 1:13:00

you think so what do you think he'll do

Corey 1:13:02

i think he'll uh listen to this podcast and realize i was 100 carter

Carter 1:13:05

carter was 100 right and you're just soft you're weak i'm

Carter 1:13:08

i'm not even sure what you're describing his action

Carter 1:13:12

is sitting in a parked car action is that what is that what action is i don't even know what action is anymore from you cory

Zain 1:13:18

cory overrated or underrated the scope of victory for jason jason kenney against his detractors on the the current what i call the the scope of his leadership review overrated

Corey 1:13:28

overrated or underrated in your mind i

Corey 1:13:30

i wasn't listening yeah

Zain 1:13:32

yeah the scope of jason kenney's leadership review criteria the conditions overrated or underrated for for his benefit uh

Zain 1:13:42

what are you now you clocking out what the fuck is happening can we not just go I

Corey 1:13:47

I was texting Carter, is sitting in a parked car action. I don't know. Why don't you ask your daughter? And then you interrupted me.

Corey 1:13:58

know what? I'm going to

Zain 1:13:58

to fuck it up. I don't give a shit. Carter, here's my final question. With all that we've seen this week. I just got a text. Just

Carter 1:14:05

Just hang on a sec.

Zain 1:14:09

Jesus Christ. Stephen Carter, here we go. Just do this one for me, okay? Okay, Zane.

Zain 1:14:17

all that that we've seen this week is jason kenny still the best opponent for the alberta ndp in uh in in the upcoming election yes

Zain 1:14:25

still the best opponent yeah

Carter 1:14:27

but but only because he can he still wears everything but i think everybody's gonna wear everything so cory

Zain 1:14:32

cory still the best opponent for the alberta ndp with all that we've seen and the wind behind his back the last six weeks for the ndp you mean for the alberta ndp yeah yeah

Corey 1:14:40

yeah he is absolutely the the best opponent because he he carries along like morley's chains all of the things that have happened for the past two years the fights with labor uh the fights with the health care system the covid response the the stuff about coal mining on the eastern slopes you can you can sort of wash yourself of that if you're a new leader and say well as the last guy swap the top sort of he doesn't get

Corey 1:15:02

he doesn't get that despite

Zain 1:15:04

despite the last little while well

Corey 1:15:06

well i i think he's got an an opportunity to tell a new story. But not everybody is going to have such a short memory.

Zain 1:15:13

Carter, we're starting a new segment called Self-Analysis. And we do it for one of you after as the last question in every episode. How do you think you performed today? I

Carter 1:15:21

I was really at the top of my game. This was my best episode in quite some time. Thanks for asking, Zane.

Zain 1:15:27

That's a wrap on episode 958 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan. I don't even know if he was there. Stephen Carter, absent for the most part. And we'll see you next

Carter 1:15:37

next time. Dang, I was brilliant this time.

Transcript