Episode 959: Civil War

Zain 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 959. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, it

Zain 0:08

it is the day. It is the succession finale evening. Right, Carter? How was it? Did you like it? Did you enjoy it?

Carter 0:15

I'll tell you something. You know, it started off with a bang. One guy jumped out in front that no one expected, and then it was a little bit boring in the middle. and then right at the very end you know the guy that everybody loves to hate all of a sudden jumps to the front and that's how it ends and now he's also world champion this

Corey 0:32

this is also how steven was going to answer if you had asked about the gray cup i think

Carter 0:36

think yeah unbelievable uh

Carter 0:38

uh how was the gray cup carter anyways

Carter 0:40

anyways the uh gray cup started off really slow right and no one could score a point and then at the end, holy smokes, what a twist. No one saw that coming, but that's Canadian football for you. If you can't win on a rouge, what's the point of even playing?

Zain 0:58

Rouge, not the airline, just so we're clear. No,

Carter 1:03

Rouge, the single point from a missed field goal or punt. You can kick it out of your own end zone.

Carter 1:11

As you know, Zane. I

Zain 1:12

I was sure if you can't kick it out of your own dead zone it was a euphemism the way you looked at me you were just giving me this weird look

Carter 1:23

now I think it should be a euphemism what

Carter 1:25

what should it be a euphemism for that's fantastic obviously

Carter 1:29

it's something the end of a segment

Zain 1:33

joke's on you this wasn't a segment this is the part where we tee up

Zain 1:37

a segment kick it out of our end zone for our first segment Are you telling me that people

Carter 1:41

people don't pay for this show? Are you telling me that people get this for free?

Zain 1:45

It's amazing. You know what else someone can get for free, Corey, is our Going Nowhere contest, which we will announce on the Holiday Spectacular. I will throw it over to you to give all the details or, you know, I should say as many details as you choose for our Going Nowhere contest or Going No Place or whatever it's called, Corey.

Corey 2:04

Well, salient fact of this.

Corey 2:10

we are willing to fly you from

Corey 2:11

from calgary to abbotsford

Zain 2:15

why abbotsford cory uh

Corey 2:17

uh because even when it's dealing with floods it's better than your shit town abbotsford's

Corey 2:27

then uh that's it that's all i remember about this contest are we actually doing

Carter 2:30

doing this yeah we're actually doing the contest people have to submit the person who's going no place no going nowhere who's

Carter 2:37

who's the most you know and they couldn't nominate any of the three of us that was the rule well

Corey 2:41

well yeah because zane's wanted too much now this is all coming back to me yeah

Carter 2:44

yeah thanks for listening

Carter 2:45

listening to the pod and it's

Zain 2:46

promoted by our sponsor flair

Corey 2:49

not not our sponsor but yeah yeah still uh heather

Carter 2:51

heather wouldn't let me listen to this podcast on the way out to the mountains today we had to listen to west of center oh

Carter 2:57

so anyways i fell asleep and drove into the ditch so that's

Corey 3:02

that's not very nice that's

Zain 3:03

that's why you should fly with

Zain 3:04

with airlines carter uh let's move it on to our first segment our first segment genomics guys brian gene the 68 percent man he has done it in fort mcmurray the king of fort mcmurray uh brian gene has won his nomination contest for the ucp so we can put that particular story to bed i mean there's gonna be so So much more written on it. Party members in the constituency of Fort McMurray-Lac-Levish gave him 68 percent in his victory on Sunday after he ran on a platform of mobilizing disgruntled party members and forming for forcing, I should say, Premier Jason Kenney to resign. The by-election will have no local candidates defending Kenney or the current UCP leadership.

Zain 3:48

Corey Hogan, I'm going to start with you. You have talked a lot about how Jason Kenney would be crazy, crazy

Zain 3:54

crazy to let Brian Jean in.

Corey 3:59

uh it seems pretty crazy doesn't it i mean we now have somebody who is going to be you

Corey 4:05

you know barring something really shocking happening uh a ucp mla who got elected on a platform of the leader must go and uh and that's that doesn't seem like much of a team player and the fact that he's now going on a tour across the province he's going on a tour across the the province. He is a local candidate who has an election upcoming. And rather than actually being in his riding to run for his seat, he has decided to go on a tour across the province to drum up enthusiasm for, I don't know what, I guess, kicking Jason Kenney to the curb. So this is all very weird. And it's all very par for the course for Alberta. I also am getting quite a kick out of the fact that, you know, we have become a Roman mob on the issue of Jason Kenney, will he survive? Will he not survive? Went from everybody saying he will absolutely not survive to his AGM and then saying, oh, it looks like he's going to survive to all of a sudden with no real change of fundamental facts along the way here. Brian Jean, where he was an MLA and an MP and where he is a bit of a local hero after the fires, wins his nomination. All of a sudden, people are again saying, well, maybe Jason Kenney won't survive. right so uh it's

Corey 5:17

it's always good to update your priors and say we've got new data does this change our view of jason kenney's survival or not but i really do think people are going pillar to post on this here and maybe it's a good time to just sort of take stock and say what's

Corey 5:30

what's actually going on at the ucp carter

Zain 5:32

carter cory's trying to be way too calm here we need to start swinging like a crazy pendulum he was he's not going to survive that's why i'm here the shittiest week of his life tell this is

Carter 5:40

is this is the end of jason kenny uh as you know uh just because a popular ml former mla former mp wins in the spot that they've always won uh this is in fact a harpinger of doom for uh jason kenning uh there's no question about it um no i'm kind of with ken with with our good friend uh cory hogan um which is always makes me upset uh but cory is correct uh everybody should Everybody, I think, knew that Brian Jean was going to win. I mean, if you didn't know, well, what are you talking about? I mean, I think that Jason

Carter 6:14

Jason Kenney's team knew that Brian Jean was going to win. I mean, you can hope for good things, but there's no sense in just thinking this is actually going to happen. I mean, it was never going to happen. He allowed it.

Carter 6:29

That may be his downfall, but I

Carter 6:31

I don't think so.

Zain 6:32

I want to come back to that. Corey, jump in before I do. So

Corey 6:35

So there was certainly an optics error that was run by the Kenny team and by Jason Kenny himself here in that he raised expectations for his own proxy candidates performance. You remember saying things like, well, I'm not going to stop Brian Jean from running. That was mistake one. He should have just said he should get the fuck out of town. If he wants to run against me in a leadership, well, then there's a leadership contest review where he can do that. But we're not going to do this. It's not healthy for the party to have all these proxy battles, right? It's not the Cold War. This is a political party that's supposed to have common cause and common purpose. But then he went on to say, oh, I'm sure people will have many difficult questions for Mr. Gene about the fact that he didn't finish off these two terms. No, they wouldn't.

Corey 7:19

and so it was a bit it was a bit silly to uh along the way suggest that there was going to be anything except for a coronation for brian gene in this nomination contest and

Zain 7:29

and and how would he have how would he have suggested that carter you were someone unlike cory who said sure let him in you know uh allow him into the fold how would he have suggested that this was going to be a gene landslide while still not looking weak uh

Carter 7:46

uh by actually just being strong enough to say hey hey, Brian Jean's going to be back in the party. This is great.

Carter 7:51

Brian Jean's been a loyal servant to the conservative movement for years. I brought together both sides of the conservative movement that Brian Jean was unable to do. But nonetheless, we are all together now. This is the whole point. The whole point is to let everybody into the big tent. He's coming into the big tent. People love him in this area. And I look forward to having him serve alongside the other, I can't remember how many MLAs he has, but let's say 60-some-odd MLAs. We're all going to surf together because that's the whole point. We're not going to backstab each other. Anybody who's backstabbing can find their place over with Drew Barnes and the other guy whose name I can't remember.

Corey 8:32

Yeah, Brian Jean doesn't like me. That's okay. I don't need everybody to like me. We're a big tent. Sometimes I have to make the difficult decisions that are unpopular in the moment, but I'll always do what's right for Albertans. I guess, if he wanted to let him

Corey 8:46

him run, which I wouldn't have done in the first place. But no sense going down that road. But, you know, the mistake really was, was raising any kind of expectations. I would have just said, yeah, Brian Jean is running for the nomination. He's a he's a local hero.

Corey 9:01

I get that. So he is going to win this nomination. And I have a, you know, this party is big enough for dissenters. And this province is mature enough to deal with dissent. But he didn't do that. So, you know, instead he tried to kind of walk both lines at the same time. And this, again, I mean, I hate – I feel like I just bang on this drum too much. But he set himself up a future problem with his actions there. He won the day. He got the dig in on Brian Jean, right? Ooh, you know. But there was nothing behind it. You know, it was a styrofoam wall.

Corey 9:31

And Brian Jean stormed through it like the Kool-Aid man. And so now

Corey 9:35

now this is what happens. Now you get a bunch of bad headlines. You get, you know, breathless columns from Don Braid, not knocking

Corey 9:42

knocking Don Braid on his column. It's a nice summary of this before I had to come onto this podcast and record with you two. But yeah, I mean, he didn't manage expectations very well. I'm talking about Jason Campbell. But this is the

Carter 9:52

the same thing that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, Corey. He didn't manage expectations coming out of the UCP convention. Now he's talking 90,

Carter 10:01

on the leadership review and anything less than that, especially if it's 78. It's going to look like quite a big failure when I think you and I were both talking that if he'd played it a little bit differently, 50% plus one could have been just fine, just

Carter 10:14

just fine and dandy if he'd chosen to set a totally different tone.

Zain 10:19

Yeah, Carter, do you want to start a band? I want to call it Styrofoam Wall. I really like that as a band name. I feel like that could be an excellent band name where I am the lead singer and you play the accordion and Corey's not involved.

Corey 10:32

i'm not involved you guys will never actually schedule it and do it this

Zain 10:35

this is true i would i will find every excuse to not to not do it uh today's uh today's a sunday that's close to a leap year we shouldn't record we shouldn't record today carter um

Carter 10:45

um thanks again for showing up today zane we're

Zain 10:48

we're very pleased it was listen it's a big accomplishment uh and uh you and our listeners are very lucky uh that i decided to show carter hey you know today is my birthday i did we want want to gloss through it oh fuck here goes 770 again here he goes it's his birthday okay so let's just remind everyone uh it's your birthday do you want to tell everyone how old you are i

Corey 11:09

i am uh too old for the under 40 lists and too young for the over 40 lists over

Carter 11:15

over 70 over 70 lists those are the new ones great and uh just once again

Zain 11:19

remind us uh your gmat score it

Corey 11:22

it was a 770 and

Corey 11:24

remind your class rank

Corey 11:26

well i was first in my class but not valedictorian

Corey 11:29

well that's uh that's just a vote i was i was running so

Carter 11:32

weren't popular is what i'm hearing you

Zain 11:34

you came in first but you lost how does that work yeah

Carter 11:36

yeah explain to us exactly

Zain 11:38

carter talk to me about cory's valedictorian strategy where did he go

Corey 11:41

go wrong i had i had the highest academic average what even went wrong

Carter 11:44

wrong is he's a dick that's

Corey 11:46

that's where he went that does sound right he

Zain 11:51

unlikable is the problem okay uh huh speaking of speaking a

Corey 11:55

a lot of reflection on my 40th birthday here oh

Zain 11:57

oh this is good i'm glad we're able to provide oh

Zain 11:59

oh you're 40 okay i didn't oh

Carter 12:01

oh my goodness i

Zain 12:02

i hadn't figured that out 40 years and finally what do you want for christmas me

Corey 12:07

all i want for christmas is you okay

Zain 12:08

okay that's the correct answer carter what does jason kenney's monday morning quarterback strategy look like right now plays play monday morning response to this he's going to do some presser about some thing tomorrow i was going to say some bullshit thing but the guy's premier so he's going to make something

Carter 12:22

something to talk about yeah

Zain 12:24

yeah yeah covid whatever yeah and then this is going to be the first question. Literally a guy got 68% running against your leadership as premier in Fort McMurray. Mr. Kenney, what do you say? And Carter, what are you scripting him to say? I

Carter 12:36

I built this party. I

Carter 12:38

I built this party by bringing together two halves. One half was Brian Jean's half, and I constructed this party to put together everybody. This meant that I wasn't going to be saying no to Brian Jean. I've signed the grassroots guarantee. I've signed the the opportunity for the grassroots members to bring whomever they want to this particular party. They've chosen to bring Brian Jean and I will stand there and I will welcome him when he ascends the steps of the legislature because I'll tell you something, I'm going to campaign as hard for him as I would for anybody else in the by-election because he's a UCP member and he's a UCP candidate and we're going to have a UCP government again in 2023 and it starts today, it starts now.

Zain 13:17

Oh, so you're offering to join Brian Jean on his cross-province its tour damn right

Carter 13:26

damn right i would fuck you going around the province without me i'd

Carter 13:30

i'd be right right beside him my

Carter 13:32

my blue truck driver

Carter 13:34

driver what kind of truck do you got brian i got my blue truck you got a red truck oh

Zain 13:39

oh you see my blue truck fire kenny and kenny's right behind him side by side it's the shittiest buddy comedy cory is that the right approach no

Zain 13:50

what do you mean no What is the right approach? What's your approach? Super short term, super short term. Tomorrow, we'll make this disposable. What is Jason Kenney's response tonight or tomorrow?

Corey 13:58

Jason Kenney's response is congratulations to Brian Jean for getting the support of the members in this. This is a big tent party. And while Mr. Jean and I do not see eye to eye on many things, we both agree about how bad it would be to have the NDP in government. And so, you know, we wish him the best as fellow party members. and that would be it like i sure as fuck wouldn't say i'm going to campaign as hard for him as anyone you know why because the next thing out of brian jean's mouth is we don't want you you are an albatross you are not to come to fort mcmurray and guess what you were never going to fucking go to fort mcmurray but now it looks like you were told you're not allowed to go to fort mcmurray

Carter 14:37

mcmurray anyways it's my party baby are you seriously doing that are

Zain 14:41

are you just already no are you trying to be contrarian are you trying to be strategic which should actually be the name of of the podcast but but

Carter 14:50

seriously carter are you literally suggesting yeah because it's my party and it's my it's you know if i'm jason kenney it's my party you're serious you're serious party

Carter 15:01

it's his party and he goes if he wants to goes if he wants to goes if he wants to you would go to to if it happened to you no

Corey 15:13

no i wouldn't why

Carter 15:14

why not see what i

Corey 15:15

i was just saying i just sang

Carter 15:16

you on your birthday i

Corey 15:18

was i was upsetting uh

Corey 15:19

uh yeah it was

Corey 15:21

upsetting for a lot of us

Zain 15:22

us uh wait carter are you actually suggesting jason kenney's next move is to go to fort mcmurray and impose his will

Corey 15:33

do you think that's a good idea no okay

Corey 15:35

no what what do you think's gonna happen Play that out for

Zain 15:38

for me. Do it, Carter. Play it out for us.

Corey 15:39

Okay. Okay. Let me set the scene for you. He takes –

Zain 15:42

– okay, go ahead.

Corey 15:45

yeah, okay. You get in your car. No,

Carter 15:48

Why? He gets into his truck. You get

Corey 15:51

get into your big blue pickup truck. Yeah. You drive your ass through those winding roads north of Edmonton until you get on the highway and then you're in Fort McMurray.

Corey 16:01

And then what? Then you what? Show up at the local campaign office? office sure do you show up at the local camp absolutely

Carter 16:08

absolutely you show up at the local campaign is

Corey 16:10

is it unlocked do they let you in they let

Carter 16:13

let you in is

Corey 16:14

is that a good visual if they don't

Carter 16:16

don't let you in it's on them then you have another

Corey 16:18

another they walk in the room is cold as shit everybody's staring you've

Carter 16:23

whole crew of people the 32 percent of people who didn't vote for brian jean you can go and see them you can go and see other people who want 32 percent you can go and talk to a whole bunch of people you go so now you're just like going

Corey 16:34

going to like a mirror candidate the candidate that didn't get elected you're

Carter 16:37

you're going to like

Carter 16:38

like are you going to be hosted you're going to fort mcmurray where people care about you and they care about the conservative movement so what you're hosting your own rally

Carter 16:45

rally now are you

Carter 16:46

you running in fort mcmurray

Carter 16:48

is running in fort mcmurray he's running in all kenny is in fort

Corey 16:50

fort mcmurray and brian gene is down in calgary is that that's

Carter 16:53

that's exactly how this should go fuck

Carter 16:56

fuck now it's even better oh

Carter 16:58

oh my god you're

Zain 17:01

carrying on the a game from you

Carter 17:02

you know what you know what i think it needs to be noted i

Carter 17:05

i never back away

Zain 17:07

yeah no kidding clearly showing

Zain 17:11

showing up to a locked campaign office and running

Carter 17:14

back away i get first words out of my mouth i stick with them period that's the way we go that's

Zain 17:18

that's the way this show runs oh i shouldn't have asked any follow-up questions no

Zain 17:22

let me try to get you to save yourself here um okay

Zain 17:27

okay cory give me what was the cliff notes of your response that kenny would say we're part of a team we don't agree on everything yeah

Corey 17:34

yeah we're part of a team it's a big team we don't agree on everything best of luck to him because we don't want the ndp to win end of end of list that's

Zain 17:42

carter yes and brian gene says what to that because

Zain 17:46

because he he and i'll get into the strategy of how brian gene volleys tonight's success uh over the course of a longer duration of time rather than making this 24 hours but let's make the super disposable comment kenny says that tomorrow What's Gene's statement or response to that? Is there any?

Carter 18:00

Yeah. Brian Gene says he gave up on the conservative movement.

Carter 18:04

Brian Gene says that Jason Kenney sold out the conservative movement to try and get government. And he's been pandering to the center ever since. And every time he panders to the center, he weakens the conservative movement. And it's time that we had some real conservatives back in this conservative party.

Zain 18:21

Corey, you seem to disagree with that take.

Zain 18:23

take. Sure. He's not going

Corey 18:25

that there's a center that he's not. He's going to say Jason

Corey 18:28

Jason Kenney has gotten away from conservative values and that's what's hurt him because Alberta is a small C practical conservative place. That is where the center is in Alberta. Like that's more the line he's going to play there. But if Gene

Corey 18:42

Gene were smart in response to all of that, he'd say, thanks, I agree, and that would be the end of that, and then I would go on my road trip. The road trip obviously designed to sell memberships and get yourself people at this delegated leadership review that's happening in April. I mean, this is a pretty bonkers situation we have right now. Oh,

Corey 19:03

I mean, a guy has won a local nomination. He is now running around to

Corey 19:07

to try to get delegates

Corey 19:08

delegates to go to a leadership review that is occurring after this contest. Yes.

Corey 19:14

So, I don't know. I mean, what is the plan here? here is it the writ drops and he continues roaming about yeah

Zain 19:20

yeah um probably carter let's let's let's talk about a few of the strands here let's talk about brian

Zain 19:26

brian jean um because i think that's the most important one for today and then we'll go back to jason kenney in terms of how much hurt this actually does to him and how he may use some as you've called in the past political jujitsu to kind of take advantage of the situation that that might be in front of him right now but let's talk about brian jean first carter um big win small win no win at all tonight was for him what do you you think it's

Carter 19:48

it's just a normal win he was he won a nomination he was supposed to win i mean uh if he'd lost the nomination we'd be talking about it being a significant loss but he won because everybody expected him to win so

Carter 19:58

so is this a big deal no not really um the big deal as cory mentioned is him launching himself down a provincial tour um like a leader would do uh but i think that this ultimately may help kenny uh in some weird way because i think that brian

Carter 20:14

brian gene comparing to Jason Kenney. Again, you know, have you seen a Jason Kenney speech recently? He's ramped up on the economy. He has got the economic speech in the can. I think that he's gone too far. I think that he's he's left behind the nine percent or nine and a half percent of Albertans that are still looking for work and another significant percentage that's underemployed. But it

Carter 20:41

doesn't matter. His speeches bang on and people wanting to believe that will believe it. So I think that Jason Kenney versus Brian Jean is actually a fairly decent comparison.

Zain 20:52

Corey, what would you suggest Jean do in the coming days here? How does he keep this momentum alive? He's clearly going on this tour, but how does he

Zain 21:02

capture tonight's victory? And maybe even, and I'm going to try to impose this a bit, the 68%, like I think the percent is interesting to to me, especially with the leadership review in the coming days. I know you can't volley 68% until April, but I'm kind of curious, like it's a sizable chunk that voted for this anti-Kenny agenda, if he calls it that. How does he leverage that in the coming days? How does he keep this going, this momentum alive and maybe turn the tide against the good weeks that Kenny's had in the last couple of weeks? Well,

Corey 21:30

Well, so things we always suspected, that

Corey 21:32

that there were more rank and file conservatives, maybe not current membership holders, but people who are like like recently lapsed members or would be willing to buy without very much effort at all.

Corey 21:41

We always thought there were more of them who were opposed to Jason Kenney's leadership than supportive of it. That's based on public opinion polling that's out there asking, are you a conservative supporter? How do you feel about these things, right?

Corey 21:50

So in many ways, that 68, I think, is reflective of that. And perhaps maybe not even a spectacularly good number, given the other conditions that we know here. One, those were old Wild Rose ridings. That was Brian Jean's riding. There were still three in 10 conservatives up there who were not particularly keen about Brian Jean coming back and being the candidate there. That to me doesn't necessarily, like

Corey 22:13

like he didn't exceed my expectations. I actually thought he might win with 80, 90%. Interesting.

Corey 22:19

Which, by the way, is probably something that Jason Kenney should have said instead of suggesting that there'd be real problems with him out in the riding, right?

Corey 22:27

So I don't know that the math has fundamentally changed there. They did sell a lot of memberships for that nomination contest. There's no question about that. They are all in the Fort McMurray ridings, the two that are right next to each other there. I don't know if that will translate into people showing up at this leadership review. view it seems to me like that's a pretty long drive and uh and we haven't necessarily seen that kind of translation yet uh but he'll

Corey 22:52

he'll go he'll go out he'll go down the road he'll try to create additional events he'll try to make these moments these media moments maybe do an editorial board or two talk about what he wants to do how he thinks it's so important to conservatism how the most important thing anybody can do is get their membership and come vote for jason and Kenny's, you know, demise at the leadership contest. I mean, it's

Corey 23:14

it's like the leadership race has been called, I guess is what I would say.

Corey 23:19

The same tactics you would see in a leadership contest, going to people's

Corey 23:22

people's basements, having friends of friends come, say, okay, this is why it's really important that you get involved and you go and you do these things. It's weird for sure. And, you know, while they're dealing with all of this palace intrigue, Can I just say the

Corey 23:38

to Brian Jean right now and

Corey 23:39

and perhaps to his desires to get rid of Jason Kenney is

Corey 23:43

is a group we haven't really talked about. It's the NDP.

Corey 23:47

This guy is running to be the local candidate, like

Corey 23:51

like the local MLA in Fort McMurray, and his first job is leaving town. I can't think of them playing into the NDP narratives more strongly than that. They don't care about you. They're not even here. They are so wrapped up in their own bullshit, they're having arguments 500 kilometers away, right?

Corey 24:08

right? Where's your local representation? Who cares about you? Who cares about your future? We've got report after report about reductions of investments in the oil sands. What's going to happen to this community? and and i i don't know i mean like i there is it's

Corey 24:23

it's not likely i'm not calling this i still say it's improbable but there is a scenario where

Corey 24:28

where brian jean goes out and does his whole dog and pony show

Corey 24:32

loses the by-election and then the

Corey 24:36

the entire rebellion is over it's done you know it will have just reinforced every message about about

Corey 24:42

about like these the conservatives are just too wrapped up in their own intrigue so

Zain 24:46

so okay i'm glad you put the ndp on the map here carter i want to ask you the same question on gene and then let's talk about the ndp what is gene hires you as tour campaign manager oh

Zain 24:56

oh great is the first thing you're doing canceling the tour or are you saying we're doing this tour i

Carter 25:02

wouldn't do the tour uh

Carter 25:04

uh i wouldn't do the tour i'd cancel the tour and i'd stay home and when when they i

Carter 25:09

mean we talked about this before right you don't campaign for for a job that's not available it's bad form it gives you bad karma and you know we already saw that i mean um we

Carter 25:23

we talked about danielle smith and that really shitty uh lege poll uh danielle smith and brian gene both being uh mentioned in it you know they they don't want their names any the next leader of the uh ucp wasn't on that poll the

Carter 25:40

the next leader is smarter than that and is keeping their They're powder dry.

Carter 25:44

Brian Jean actively campaigning against the leader. You know, maybe he wins. Maybe he does. But I'll tell you something. He probably won't win the leadership.

Carter 25:52

He'll win the leadership review maybe. Maybe he forces Jason Kennedy to step down. But I don't think he's got much of a chance of actually pulling off winning the leadership. Because there will be so many knives stuck in his back after all the knives he's stuck in Jason Kennedy's. It's bad form. It's bad play. and Brian Gene called me up and offered me a million dollars because that would be about my asking price, I'd say, you know, no. You've got to get home, win a by-election, and then once you've won a by-election, you need to be a good MLA.

Zain 26:26

Brian Gene tells you to fuck off and he ups the offer to $10 million. Carter, where's the first stop on the tour?

Carter 26:32

The first stop on the tour is in your backyard, Zane. As always, that is where all great political endeavors begin. in and uh some of them die right there in the first day so that's where we go carter

Zain 26:45

carter let's let's talk about this seriously so so let's say gene doesn't doesn't stop the tour let's

Zain 26:50

let's say he brings you and just to advise him on the side i'm doing this man i don't give a shit i'm doing this this thing is on how

Zain 26:56

how do i keep this thing alive so

Carter 26:59

you want me to give him bad yeah strategic why don't you go to cory first on bad strategic i did ask him this

Carter 27:05

he's very good why do i get stuck with With the bad political advice. I can't think

Carter 27:12

simple dimensions. It is my birthday.

Carter 27:14

It is his birthday. Okay. He

Zain 27:16

He got a 770. Did you know that? Yeah,

Carter 27:18

Yeah, I know. But

Zain 27:19

came in second place for something he should have won. Weird. Something

Carter 27:21

Something that he was a shoo-in

Zain 27:26

Who's worse at campaigning? Brian Jean or Corey Hogan? Corey Hogan is actually worse than Brian Jean. I

Zain 27:32

I think he's pretty bad. It's unbelievable.

Zain 27:35

You know, we haven't picked on

Zain 27:36

for a while. This feels good. This feels natural. on the video subscription just for the look yeah carter carter yes sir you have no choice but to do this he's telling you i want to go do this tour give me some strategic pointers and that could kind of make this the

Zain 27:52

the most valuable political exercise i

Carter 27:57

don't know but i think that he's got to come to calgary i think that calgary has been the you know the the potential fighting grounds So you've got to come to Calgary. Ideally, you'd be seen with the business leaders, the business movement. So you'd go and you'd meet with the CEOs and CFOs that are running what remains of Calgary's oil patch. And then you go and try and find the true blue conservatives in Calgary. And you find them all and you ramp them up and you get them all excited. I think that that's the only play. I wanted to say he should go to Edmonton, right?

Carter 28:35

right? I wanted to say he should go to Edmonton and he should show everybody how popular he is in Edmonton. I don't think that will work. I don't think there is a popular UCP here in Edmonton. Lord knows Casey Maddow is not popular. So if he goes, you know, where is he going to go then? Red Deer? Well, that's pretty strict. You know, why wouldn't he stay in Fort McMurray? Grand Prairie? Is he going to do the rural tour? Like, is he going to make it the Lethbridge Medicine Hat? It just feels like the only place that's left, if he has to do a tour that even looks like he's going to be moving a needle, it has to be Calgary.

Zain 29:07

Corey, is there any strategy to start going after the 22 that signed the letter and going neighboring or starting something like that as part of your tour?

Corey 29:16

Well, that's not such a bad idea. But if I were him and I was hellbent on doing this tour, I think I would make my first stop somewhat symbolic. I would probably make it in Red Deer at the place where the convention is going to be held, and I would try to get some media about that and create a bit of buzz and say, you

Corey 29:33

you know, there's a big decision that's coming up here in April, and it's a decision that dictates whether we are going to have conservative government going forward or a return to NDP government. And so what I've been hearing is that people want to talk about how we maintain a conservative government. Now, we all know step

Corey 29:51

step one is Jason Kenney gets removed. But step two is we come together and we decide what's next. So I'm putting a flag in the ground, and I'm saying, we

Corey 29:59

we all have to get together for step one. And then I would see if I could get a bit of earned media about that and see if I isn't maybe some low-hanging fruit, have a website up that allows people to register basically via you, so you know that they're coming to the convention and, you know, to your benefit. And you just buy them some partnerships,

Zain 30:16

whatever works for you. Calgary. Yeah.

Corey 30:19

It is Calgary ultimately because

Corey 30:22

because you want to go straight into Calgary because no government in this – like it's a funny thing here in Alberta for those who are not in Alberta and maybe even some in who have not really kind of thought about it in these senses,

Corey 30:38

We've often talked about the three regions in Alberta, right? And the basic math of government in Alberta has been you win two of three regions. So Edmonton is locked up for the NDP. It's like impossible for me to imagine that in the Edmonton region, not just the city of Edmonton proper, but the Edmonton region, that the NDP are going to lose seats, right? There's only one in the city proper that they don't have already.

Corey 31:02

Rural Alberta, maybe not as locked up because

Corey 31:05

because there are some of these rural seats that are like Banff, Canmore.

Corey 31:11

you know, we call them rural, but we don't even really mean rural. We just mean the non-Calgary, non-Edmonton ones, the Lethbridges, the Red Deers, Madison had that could conceivably go NDP without, you know, you're not breaking your mind thinking about that because they won them in 2015, right?

Corey 31:27

But, you know, largely that's going to be a UCP block. They're going to get most of those seats at the end of the day,

Corey 31:35

barring something totally crazy from the Wild Rose Independence Party or something.

Corey 31:39

Really comes down to Calgary, right? So if you're Brian Jean, you've

Corey 31:44

you've got to go through Calgary for the leadership review. You've got to go through Calgary for the leadership contest. You've got to go through Calgary for the actual election. And while I would never encourage any candidate to be thinking about the thing after the next thing they have to win so much, I mean, realistically, absent

Corey 32:03

absent like a where's a really good place to go get some of these people and knowing that it's so important in those next steps, of course, you're going to go to Calgary.

Zain 32:12

Carter, you know, from the perspective of what

Zain 32:15

what he says, here's what I'm really curious about. He's

Zain 32:18

He's clearly going across the province because he's got leadership ambitions or let's be charitable to him. He wants Jason Kenney gone. Does he mention the

Zain 32:27

the leadership ambitions? Is he laser focused on Kenney being gone? Is this somehow some weird through line about Fort McMurray? What the fuck does he say when he's on these tours? He can't just show up and then just like be an empty vessel. He's got to say something. So if you're advising him, what is he saying on these tours? Why do you keep asking

Carter 32:47

asking me to explain what's in a lunatic's mind?

Carter 32:52

is a bad plan

Corey 32:54

being executed by a stupid

Carter 32:57

What do you want me to say? Oh, here's how we can rescue this plan, Zane. If he can finally find a way to put these four words together, there is nothing that makes this a good idea listen knowing your political history i'm pushing back you've

Zain 33:12

worked with bad politicians i've

Carter 33:14

worked with all the worst politicians but i've stepped up i'm working with a great politician now i can't work with these idiots anymore can't be done i

Carter 33:23

i don't even know how to think ask cory cory knows how to think about the stupid people

Zain 33:31

right imagine brian jade being our premier in like three or three or four months it's just oh my god it's

Zain 33:38

cory what is he saying what

Corey 33:40

what is he saying at these things yeah

Zain 33:42

yeah what the hell is he saying well i think you can't talk about fort mcbury can

Corey 33:47

i think it's the same thing i said about red deer it's about you know step one and all of this is you need to go and express your discontent jason kenney is a good organizer well and if you don't even want to give him that you say jason kenney is is an organizer and he He also has a lot of levers, being in the premier's office. All of those staff whose jobs rely on Jason Kenney, those MLAs that he holds over them,

Corey 34:15

they're not going to do the things that we need them to do. You need to do the things that we need to do. And that means going to Red Deer, and that means voting against Jason Kenney in a leadership review. I don't care what you think of me, right?

Corey 34:26

right? That's almost immaterial. I'm happy to carry the water for people. I'm happy to be the person who's brave enough to say the things that I know they're all thinking, but they can't say because they know how vindictive Jason Kenney is, and how uncommitted he is to conservative values. He'd throw them out, he'd wreck their lives. I'm the one who's going to stand up and say these things. Doesn't, but it's not about me.

Corey 34:49

You know, it's about is Jason Kenney the right person for this party?

Zain 34:52

Sounds pretty good to me, Carter. Why couldn't you have come up with that?

Carter 34:58

It's a stupid idea.

Zain 35:00

speaking of not so stupid ideas, let's talk about the NDP in Fort McMurray. So let's limit the scope here. How do they maximize their impact? And frankly, Carter, what should they be signaling, if anything, regarding Brian Jean's province wide tour? Corey talked about, you know, these people are 500 kilometers away, naval gazing and bickering about their own infighting and internal wars. Is that the message? And let's talk about beyond message. What are some of the strategy levers or even tactical levers that you're pulling if you're the NDP up in Fort McMurray trying to create some heat and light from this particular race? The

Carter 35:33

The first strategic question is, do we want to go full tilt on this?

Carter 35:38

And I think the answer to that is absolutely, right? You're going to go full tilt on this because –

Zain 35:44

– Why is it so crystal clear that it's absolutely to you? I'm interested by it. Because

Carter 35:48

Because I take big, broad strokes and I don't just paint – you know, like I don't just look for the lines and see how close I can get. I take big, broad strokes and the answer has to be absolutely. Okay, it is. Because then Corey can pick it apart and say, well, let me tell you why. It's not going to be an absolute. It's going to be something down the middle, right? And he will win over the— Don't explain

Corey 36:10

explain how the show works.

Carter 36:11

works. Oh, sorry, yeah. Don't do that. Absolutely. Go 100% all in. And if you're going to go 100% all in, that means you're going to remind the good folks of Fort McMurray of all of the things that are going wrong, right? You're going to remind them of how hard it is under Jason Kenney's leadership. You know, there's some excellent statistics coming out about household income in Alberta. I would be willing to bet that if you were to dig into that data a little bit more, that you would find the household income in Fort McMurray is really suffering, at least for many people. I would be focused on post-secondary education. I'd be focused on where do people need to go. I would be sending up a litany of MLAs to prove to everybody how important Fort McMurray is. and i'd make sure that uh has the candidate been nominated um

Carter 37:01

yeah you know i'd point out that the candidate is another favored son or

Carter 37:07

daughter of uh of the fort mcmurray see

Carter 37:10

see these these these big bold statements they don't care who's there i mean they don't they're not relevant you know they're so big they're so bold they're so strategic that That they can work for anybody. So vacuous, Corey. I thought we were doing a totally different fucking show today. We're 38 minutes in on this thing.

Carter 37:30

What happened, Zane? We're

Zain 37:31

We're doing a different show. This is what happens every time. I get interested in something and I keep going. Oh my God.

Zain 37:37

Okay, let's be more specific than Carter's big, bold statements of sending a bold vote. I'm giving this four seconds of thought, Zane. Boatload of MLA's in for Fort McMurray's favorite daughter, as he says.

Corey 37:53

Who he couldn't name.

Zain 37:54

I'm not even sure there is a candidate.

Zain 37:58

Corey, does the leader go up? What other tactics need to happen up in Fort McMurray? And where are you with Carter's question of are we going full tilt or not?

Corey 38:08

Well, you know, this is the thing. You've got to be careful about expectations and you've got to make it clear that

Corey 38:14

that a loss to you is not a loss to you. right i mean this is fort mcmurray you don't need to win there to be viable to win government in alberta if you're the ndp and you've got to be careful that it doesn't look like you thought you could and then you couldn't get it here so um you

Corey 38:28

you know it's it's a tricky one obviously you want to make things as difficult as possible it's not impossible it's not inconceivable that the ndp could win in this particular writing it is fairly improbable though right just at the nomination nomination contest which was for ariana mancini it's

Carter 38:44

it's how i say it yes okay

Corey 38:51

thanks steven um there was uh you know reporting was 50 people there that's that's not a i mean that's more than i think a lot of opposition parties on on the center and on the left have gotten in fort mcmurray but that's not a huge huge number but ariana

Carter 39:05

ariana was already recently totally respected by everybody in fort mcmurray they didn't have to come out What does Arianna

Carter 39:11

Arianna? She's a candidate for the NDP in Fort McRae.

Corey 39:19

she is a teacher. And, you know, there's an opportunity to really pick at some anxieties that people have up there. And I think you can cause an awful lot of trouble for the UCP and you can make things difficult for them. And a win very well could be bringing Brian Jean home and feeling like he's got to campaign for this job. I also do believe that this is one of those situations where you can kill two birds with one stone. The NDP has had an awful lot of new interest in it. I suspect there's probably new staff members around and constituency associations in their caucus apparatus. Absolutely send everybody up there, get them to get a taste of campaigning and get them to get a taste of campaigning in an area where it's not, you

Corey 39:59

you know, downtown. It's

Corey 40:00

It's not Kensington, right? For those of you who know Calgary, right?

Corey 40:03

right? Right. Like in my neighborhood, if you were to walk down the street and grab 10 people, nine

Corey 40:08

nine of them would be voting NDP and the 10th of them would just spit on you for grabbing them in an inner city neighborhood because they'd be very worried about your intentions.

Corey 40:19

send them to an area that is, you know, more pickup trucks than people.

Corey 40:23

Make them sort of test some of these messages outside of the bubble and

Corey 40:28

and get some of those valuable campaign skills.

Carter 40:31

So what I heard was go all in.

Corey 40:33

So don't, no, don't

Corey 40:34

go all in. Don't be sending up a ton of MLAs.

Corey 40:38

Send the leader up, but don't go nuts on that.

Corey 40:44

And by all means, if MLAs want to go up, just send them up quietly. Like, don't make a big deal out of it. And certainly you don't want to have people thinking like, oh, they could really do it. They could really do it. Oh my goodness, they got blown out 70-30. Because the problem is, there is an anti-candidate on the ballot. How

Zain 41:00

How do you prevent that narrative of they can really do it? I always find that fascinating, where it's like you're trying to win without looking like you're going to have this chill. You're

Zain 41:07

like, you know, I want to play it cool. Like, you know, no, we can't win. But then you're like, deep down, you're like really trying and like with the resources you have there, you're moving it. How do you prevent, this is a more general strategy question, the narrative that this is now viable versus, hey, we want to remain underdogs. We'd love to still stay in that position.

Corey 41:24

Well, a lot of this is very classic media relations. You know, you've got to get to the opinion leader class and you've got to spin them on the, hey, look, we're going to give it a college try. And we think the UCP have screwed up really badly. So to the point where, you know, if things break a certain way, language like that, like if things break a certain way, the UCP could be in some trouble here. But let's be realistic. This is Fort McMurray. This is a place where Brian Jean has deep, deep roots. He is running against Jason Kenney himself, and he will get some, you know, some bump from that.

Corey 41:55

Ultimately, regardless of who the UCP puts forward as their standard bearer in 2023, people have time to stop and think, did UCP policies make my life better? We're fairly confident they will say no, they absolutely did not, and that there'll be an NDP government. government, so let's not make this bigger than it is. That's the conversation you have with the media. But you almost have a bit of a wink to them, too, and say, but we don't mind kicking up a little dust, causing a little trouble, and giving people a really strong candidate and a really strong voice, who, by the way, would be a phenomenal MLA in Fort McMurray.

Zain 42:28

I'm going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our next segment, our next segment, America the Great, America the Fragile, Stephen Carter. Carter.

Carter 42:36

what I thought we were doing.

Zain 42:41

Well, let me tell you something. I'll let you tee up the segment up. You wanted to talk about this quite

Zain 42:46

quite significantly for a long time. And frankly, it is, you know, jokes aside, it is it is it is worthy of a deep conversation. We won't get into all of it today, but let's start it. Late on us, Carter.

Carter 42:57

I mean, I think that there's a lot of people talking about what is going on in the United States And what impact does it have in Canada?

Carter 43:04

Because obviously, you know, they're our largest trading partner. They're our democratic cousins, if you will. What happens in their democracy tends to happen in our democracy, perhaps to a lesser extent, because we have more checks and balances than they do.

Carter 43:18

but you know we were worried when trump well

Carter 43:21

well you know trump was coming to of age in 2016 and was it was you know none of us thought none of us thought that he could win most of us were behind uh um oh

Corey 43:33

oh oh jeb bush yeah yeah that's who you

Carter 43:36

you liked right cory big

Carter 43:38

big on jeb bush i

Carter 43:39

i remember lots of

Corey 43:40

of just noting the time to drop in the oh yeah there we go yeah keep going most overplayed

Zain 43:44

overplayed the clip go

Corey 43:44

go ahead yeah that's

Carter 43:47

jeb bush needs to survive this primary and compete in a general jeb bush is not surviving this primary he's totally surviving this primary rock it down on your calendar okay steven carter so hold on jeb bush is the guy

Carter 44:01

so in essence i think that we have a you know we have an opera we have to start talking about it because it's no longer just this little thing that's kind of annoying that you know the trumpism the anti-vaxxers, the governors in Texas and Florida and Louisiana and a few other

Carter 44:22

other states that are going crazy. It is problem after problem. And when you have religious fanaticism, and it's a weird religious fanaticism because it's not just, well, we're going to be religiously fanatics about Christianity, although there is a significant amount of that down in the States as as well but it's a religious fanaticism over the constitution uh specifically the second amendment that seems to be the one that they really love and everything else can go to hell um and

Carter 44:51

and a protectionism of of the media and the media falling apart when you add religious fanaticism to a media environment that no longer works that is fundamentally broken it doesn't take much of a spark to set the tinder on fire and that's where i'm afraid of because the sparks that we can see happened this weekend in Western Kentucky when all of a sudden a tornado rips them apart. We've seen natural disaster on top of natural disaster.

Carter 45:22

Those natural disasters, when COVID hit, we thought, you know what, that's going to be a unifying force. It's going to be a unifying force. It's going to bring us together. And what we saw actually was the opposite. It put us into two camps, the them and the us. And the them and the us in our neck of the woods was tough enough. It's still hard enough to watch people being hanged in effigy in British Columbia. But in the United States, it is going to be coming down, I fear, to real violence. And at this stage, I think we have to stand up and step up and say, okay, it's happening there.

Carter 45:58

It's happening there. there how do we diffuse it how do we diffuse it here how does the international community diffuse it because this if this were to happen in what is still i think the largest economy in the world

Carter 46:12

does that do what are the ripple effects and how does it impact canada first because you know something the ripples hit the closest base first mexico and canada will be hit first what do we do to ensure that this this these ripples that could come are we're protected from the you know from the international community or with the international community uh we're protected our economy is protected and in an absolute worst case scenario and i don't want to go all handmaid's tale here where you know everybody's rushing across the border into toronto but

Carter 46:45

this shit's getting real now and i

Carter 46:48

don't think that a civil war is imminent but i do think the collapse of the a collapse of some sort is potentially there and i think that it's important that people start talking about it cory

Zain 47:00

cory yeah i'm just let you plainly react to what you heard carter say

Corey 47:05

well i mean to say i'm concerned about america would be a deep

Corey 47:11

understatement obviously it's it's very problematic what's going on and canada is next door in

Corey 47:17

in so many different ways you know physically mentally you name it and we're so deeply embedded with the united states our economy there's

Corey 47:25

there's things that you can see like the canadian auto workers put together and stuff and they're true like you know the parts that get put together here and then get sent across the border and then they come back over here and then they go back to final assembly or whatever it is here there's

Corey 47:38

there's no there's no strategy of just disengaging with the united states let's put it that way and

Corey 47:44

and so when you start thinking about the political strategy that our leaders need to be

Corey 47:49

contemplating and what they've got to sort of wrap their minds around it's what do you do when your best

Corey 47:55

best friend loses their mind right um and

Corey 47:58

and forget best friend roommate how's

Corey 48:01

how's that you know um because you know this is not something that we're going to be able to deal with overnight

Corey 48:06

overnight um and it's quite likely that if there is a true true crisis down there it will effectively occur overnight like let's just roll back the tape for a minute here just

Corey 48:16

just to sort of I've set a stage and

Corey 48:18

and say on January 6th, imagine the storming of the Capitol went like that extra degree. It was just a little bit worse. And the people who stormed it, the true lunatics amongst them found Mike Pence, killed Mike Pence. Donald Trump called in the army, said this is under martial law now.

Corey 48:38

You know, this is total chaos.

Corey 48:41

What's Ottawa's first move there? What's the first thing Justin Trudeau does in response to that? Have

Corey 48:47

we thought about that?

Corey 48:49

I worry that not enough people have. And I worry not enough people around the prime minister have really thought about that. Like, what would we do if things really went awry in the United States? Because those same standard bromides of, you

Corey 49:00

you're such close friends, and we share the longest unprotected border. And, you know, I don't even know. I don't know. I don't know what you say there. It becomes like

Corey 49:09

like a rueful smile, like just this, I'm very sad about what's happening in the United States.

Corey 49:14

It's got to be more than that. But these things seem so inconceivable until they occur. And I think that's one of the things that I think Stephen is talking about. It's time for us to start conceiving them because, you

Corey 49:27

you know, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. And the United States is sliding down this list, flawed democracies. We're seeing the language. We're seeing the gun violence. We're seeing, you know, the Republicans in particular just taking over processes for elections. And I don't know, man, it's a bad scene. It's a bad, bad scene. Carter,

Zain 49:47

Carter, let's talk about this in specifics, if that's okay, with the overturning

Zain 49:52

overturning of Roe v. Wade here, more than likely. It seems like that the Supreme Court may undertake, in a sense. But, you know, you talk about that from the perspective of what would happen then in the states, and I mean individual states, and more than a dozen of them, overnight. night, you know, talk to me about what you think from like a strategy perspective, the ramifications there may look like and the considerations may need to be had from a Canadian perspective. And I know we can talk about it from a democracy perspective, which we've kind of touched on. But I want to do hit on some strategy pieces here. From a strategy perspective, what do you think, you know, Canada does to a, you know, trend

Zain 50:32

trend like that or an incidence like that?

Carter 50:34

Well, I think that the problem with the ideological Supreme Court, if we were to to accept the premise that this is going to go a specific way. And I think that almost everybody expects that it's going to go a certain way, right? It's going to go against Roe, and I think it was 22 states that immediately moved. There's another seven states or something along those lines that have some stuff that's in the hopper. And then you have yourself a red and blue state problem. It won't stop at Roe versus Wade. The court isn't suddenly going to become less ideological over issues around gay marriage or over issues you know just because it's been settled once by the court all

Carter 51:14

all of a sudden all the previous uh all the previous precedents are now up in the air so everything can be brought back

Carter 51:21

and all of these things that are settled in canada right i mean we just did the conversions therapy discussion last week um you know 100

Carter 51:31

you know there was there was a worry that there was going to be some rogue some

Carter 51:34

some rogue mps that would vote against it but those were rogue Those were a small subset.

Carter 51:42

What happens when we empower that? What happens when Max Bernier's party all of a sudden isn't just a laughingstock? You know, that 96% of the people believe that he's, you know, this stuff travels across international borders because there is no controlling information anymore. more and

Carter 51:59

and so they're going to start coming after all of the sacred cows that canada's dealt with whether it's abortion or whether it's gay rights whether it's religion in schools um these are the things uh segregation automatically comes back to the table they may not win on all of these things immediately but they don't have to win on all the the left didn't win on all these things immediately where where things start to go wrong is when the left or the right say you know what this is going too far, too fast, and we're no longer going to abide by this. One of the great questions of the American Constitution is who's supposed to enforce the

Carter 52:35

the rulings of the Supreme Court?

Carter 52:38

Who's supposed to enforce those rulings? And there's been multiple times when national government has had to step in in order to force the state government to actually follow these rulings as dictated. What if the national government no longer steps in to enforce these these rulings we saw tidbits of that under trump under his his attorney general right he we saw that already begin this comes back again what if you know instead of instead of um one outcome is that all the democrats come out of the woodwork or all the independents move majorly

Carter 53:14

majorly to the left and vote for the democrats and keep the democrats in power the other is that everybody moves to the the right and all of a sudden you start to see the congress the senate flip over to right wing um to

Carter 53:27

to right wing ideology and suddenly the federal government's not enforcing the laws that are even on the books anymore because

Carter 53:34

because they've decided that they don't matter they can get them maybe passed but biden won't sign them all of a sudden you know the government itself for

Carter 53:42

for a government to stop functioning for democracy to stop functioning i think that people need to understand it is is incredibly easy for it to do it is incredibly easy all it takes is people to start stop believing that the government is working for them and already we're in that situation so

Carter 53:58

so i just i think that's the strategy for canada the strategy for canada right now is to make the world's best relationships with china the best relationships with europe the best relationships with leaders in in africa and and to find a way like asia is going to be massively

Carter 54:18

massively important to canada in the future and we

Carter 54:21

we we're only a month away a month outside of a of a hostage taking by the chinese government so

Carter 54:29

so this is a weird world man this isn't a world that we've faced in our lifetime

Carter 54:34

and we live through well cory and i well mostly me we live through the uh the the red scare you You know, that we were all going to be bombed into nuclear oblivion.

Corey 54:47

a bit of an aside here on

Corey 54:49

that. I remember vividly watching a video in grade two or grade three of, you

Corey 54:57

know, learning about East Germany.

Corey 54:59

And they were talking about how in East Germany, kids are not like they ride bumper cars, but they have to go around in orderly circles and they're not allowed to bump each other. And there were like these gasps of horror throughout the class. You know, as we looked at this clash of civilizations of a different time, I could

Corey 55:15

could go back for some old bumper car disparities at this point. Listen, I think that this is an interesting conversation and it's one that everybody should be having, but we've got to do more than just have it. We've got to think about two

Corey 55:27

two things in particular. One, what do we do if things do get real bad in the United States? And we should be encouraging our elected officials to think about that and vocalize what they would do. But two, and probably equally or more importantly, why is it happening? Could it happen here? And how can it be stopped? If this is something that we don't like what we're seeing, it's important that we look at the root causes, whether they be legislative or cultural or whatever it is and say, all

Corey 55:58

it's not fucking worth it. Let's just put it on the table as a theory. Let's say it is social media.

Corey 56:04

If social media were determined to be the root cause, would anybody be like, well, yeah, but, you know, got to get my Insta going. Or would we just say, not worth it, right? Maybe we've got to bring in laws, bring people accountable for some of these things. Much of it's under conversation here. And I'm not saying it's social media. But what I'm saying is we

Corey 56:21

need a bit more of a critical analysis here and we need to have a little bit more urgency in dealing with not going down the road that we see our neighbors going down. But,

Carter 56:29

But, you know, we could all be a lot more like Australia, right,

Carter 56:31

right, where they are forcing the social media companies to behave differently by paying for news sites that they're spreading, by forcing them to pick, you know, more reputable news sites. Those types of decisions are in our hands. The other thing that's on our hands is we can choose to make them liable for

Carter 56:51

for the defamatory statements that are put up online. We can make them liable. We've chosen to indemnify them, but that's a choice. It doesn't have to be like that. And if we choose a different choice, maybe the rhetoric starts to come down. I mean, yeah, sure. Maybe everybody just moves over to whatever the most recent right wing. It's Telegraph, right? That's the one that everybody's on right now. Telegram, Telegraph, Telewho, Telehealth. Who can keep track? But these... It's

Corey 57:20

It's Telehealth. You call your doctor. Yeah, Telehealth. He tells you 9-11 was an inside job. You rope

Zain 57:25

rope your doctor in,

Carter 57:28

We can change the laws around these things. And why the federal government isn't moving on this is beyond me. I mean, obviously, the Facebook

Carter 57:36

Facebook lobbyists and the, I

Carter 57:38

I mean, I think it's more Facebook than Twitter, but I think Twitter is in the same boat. I think that all

Carter 57:42

all of them, we remember many conversations with the Twitter leadership where people, where they said the most important thing is freedom of speech. And we just kind of like unregulated speech is not a great thing. You know, freedom of speech is important, but that's

Carter 57:58

that's a little bit different. It's

Carter 58:00

It's a little bit different because all speech has consequence. And when you remove consequence from speech, the consequence is the deterioration of the society.

Zain 58:10

I want to kind of maybe wrapping it up for this sort

Zain 58:14

of round of conversation, go back to one of the questions you'd posed, which is, what

Zain 58:20

what does Ottawa say when one of these big moments happens, right? Like, are they mealy mouthed about it? Are they just kind of like, oh, shucks, that sucks? Sort of talk to me about like the live wire that we're dealing with in the US, right? This potential overturning. Is there a role for Ottawa on messaging? Is there a role for Ottawa in terms of how they can kind of think about this particular perspective, knowing that there's many, you know, battles to be waged with the US, even including on the USMCA and electric vehicles, for example, the most recent one, like there's just so much, you know, at

Zain 58:54

at stake, how does Ottawa kind of respond to a social crisis that your next door neighbor or your roommate may be having?

Corey 59:02

Well, I think that's the part of the problem, because it's easy to say, what's the what's the quote, unquote, right right thing to do which is take a stand for ballot access and democracy and minority

Corey 59:14

then there's the economic realities of our close connections

Corey 59:17

connections and and not just economic but social you know our

Corey 59:21

our media is the same as their media our

Corey 59:23

our families span these borders my mother lives in in south carolina you know this is this is the reality for many many people and um

Corey 59:33

and so when these moments come they do the mealy mouth thing and the mealy mouth thing is not always the wrong thing to do can i just say if it's an intentional choice in diplomacy it's to say okay well i don't want to antagonize these people that could make the situation worse maybe i'm gonna do

Corey 59:46

do some soft diplomacy behind closed doors i'm gonna you know give statements of extreme concern all of that but not risk up you know we're talking about america kind of succumbing to populism here so you don't want to risk a populist uprising by all of a sudden being a foreign leader who's taking a round out of them see

Corey 1:00:02

see how well that works for you right and so that That is kind of the anxiety. And maybe

Corey 1:00:08

maybe longer term, the strategy does need to be – we've

Corey 1:00:12

we've talked about my entire lifetime this idea of our over-reliance on the United States. It's really only gotten worse in my lifetime

Corey 1:00:17

through the free trade agreement and then NAFTA and all of that.

Corey 1:00:20

But maybe it's time to get much more serious about that and start talking about where other markets are for us, other relationships we can start having. I mean, even things like right now, and I'm not suggesting we pull out of it, but our

Corey 1:00:34

our military commands are basically embedded. You know, NORAD is

Corey 1:00:40

all of North America's air traffic or aerospace is kind of controlled by a single organization here. Yeah,

Carter 1:00:47

Yeah, that's dramatically threatened right now where military leaders were preparing what can only be described as documents that describe a coup. This is the group that is running our air defense system, and we're an integrated force. There is no question. I mean, you know, we're not going to be able to call up NATO when this goes wrong. You know, Donald Trump wasn't exactly wrong on that. I mean, it is an American, primarily American-led or American-controlled force. worse um you know this

Carter 1:01:22

this is you know we shouldn't be just saying you know i don't want to be implying that this is going to end in some sort of military action i don't think that's the outcome i think that it's chaos and i think that chaos is what drives economic problems and if we so how we we avoid chaos is the ultimate strategic question cory and i have talked about the relationships relationships with the rest of the world.

Carter 1:01:44

While the United States is the dominant economic force in our world, and certainly might be for the rest of my lifetime, there's a chance that it won't be.

Carter 1:01:54

And the biggest chances around us are India, or

Carter 1:01:59

or not around us, but in the world are India and China.

Corey 1:02:02

I'd say Europe. And

Carter 1:02:03

And Europe, yeah. And we have the opportunity to have good relationships with at least two out of three of those um so we need to do more uh we need to do more right away to make sure that we have the strongest possible relationships and justin trudeau frankly i think should be on a plane a hell of a lot more going to these places and building these relationships and and you know i wouldn't you know hasn't been back to india since the the the the costume incident i

Carter 1:02:32

i don't give a shit get back to india get to china um get to to Western Europe, get to Eastern Europe, for God's sake. The world is changing. Everybody's our new friend, because our current friend is undergoing what can only be described as a dimension moment.

Carter 1:02:48

You know, things aren't going well. Things are not going well.

Zain 1:02:52

Carter, I'm going to end with you on this final question, which is, I asked Corey what that message looks like, or the considerations of that message on the overturning of Roe v. Wade. For you, it's more specific perhaps to what actions in the interim or even on the very short term does Canada, Justin Trudeau, Ottawa more specifically need to think about so as to not have that populist rage that could be fueled. And we don't know what it will look like, right, if and when this happens in the United States, that that doesn't cross the border immediately or that we're weathered as best as we can in that sense. And I'm talking very short term here.

Carter 1:03:31

You know, I don't know.

Carter 1:03:34

The two things that went through my head as you were asking me the question, the first one was, is there any way that we can set up clinics that American women can access? You know, if there was a crowdfunding to allow women to fly to Canada, I don't think that's a good idea.

Corey 1:03:49

The blue states are going to be, we border blue states. And

Carter 1:03:54

if we were the United States, this is the second thought that went through my head. If we were the United States and a government around the world did something that we didn't like, we'd just fund the thing that we liked. We

Carter 1:04:04

We would fund the blue states abortion. Like if we were the U.S., we would simply fund the anti-abortion. Like they're going to fund anti-abortion. We'd fund abortion clinics in the U.S. We'd fund Planned Parenthood. We'd fund birth control for young adults. We'd fund, you know, maybe we'd start the YouTube channel on not getting pregnant when you're a teenage American. But I don't know. I think all of those things are too dicey on this particular issue. It is fundamentally tied to religiosity. And I think that when you're playing with that, the odds of things going horribly wrong force you into that mealy mouth statement that Corey said, which is we're disappointed. We hope that America returns

Carter 1:05:01

returns to the rest. I mean, how many countries, I mean, I'm sure there's lots, but how many countries, how

Carter 1:05:07

how many Western democracies don't have some sort of availability of abortion? The United States has got to be an outlier.

Carter 1:05:16

Because like Ireland just moved, right? Like Ireland just opened it up. And they would have been about the last Western democracy.

Zain 1:05:23

Do you want to add anything to this, Corey, as we round out? Well,

Corey 1:05:25

Well, you know, whenever we tackle an issue like this, I always think it's funny, because in some ways, it feels almost out

Corey 1:05:32

out of scope of this show, because it's so big. In many

Corey 1:05:35

ways, it's us all watching like these massive historical forces flying around.

Corey 1:05:39

There are strategic questions that flow out of it. And history isn't something that just happens to us. It's made by people, and we are people and we can ask our leaders to take stronger stances on these things. I will say, and we didn't really talk about it, it's hard to ignore the fact that there's been a coursing of discourse over the past several decades. And don't get me wrong. Like a call to decorum is often used to keep the oppressed oppressed. I'm not suggesting that we all just act nice to each other. But I will say we do need to figure out a way to work with each other because democracy

Corey 1:06:08

democracy has to mean more than my mob is bigger than your mob. Yeah.

Corey 1:06:12

Right. And sometimes there's got to be a compromise with people you dislike for

Corey 1:06:17

for the functioning of the system. And I think we're losing that a bit. And it's probably a topic for another day. But, you know, worth putting that one out there. I

Carter 1:06:25

I just want to add to that because I had the audacity to put out a tweet today or yesterday or some point suggesting that I felt empathy for Jason Kenney as he expressed that it was a challenging year. And I do feel empathy for him because I do think that he's a human and I see him as a human. But

Carter 1:06:44

But one of the great downfalls of this particular of democracy is when you stop seeing the opposition as human, when you start simply seeing them as evil characters in your own story, that makes it easier and easier to move away from them. I will tell you something that I think is universally true. Any of us that are in the game have more respect for someone who's in the game than

Carter 1:07:06

than anybody who doesn't vote.

Carter 1:07:09

It doesn't matter if they're NDP or they're UCP or some other ideological or party affiliation. Anybody who's working to better the system has

Carter 1:07:21

has my respect on many levels, even if they're doing it in a fashion that I cannot respect. So I think that we have to recognize that these are human beings doing the best that they can, and they are fallible. Otherwise, we wind up in a situation where these are just enemies and enemies very, very quickly become other people that we are shooting at. And I know that it sounds like it sounds hyperbolic, but I really think that in

Carter 1:07:49

in the most armed country in the world next to Switzerland, with the highest number of mass shootings of any community in the world, they are almost a warlike state already. ready we're

Zain 1:08:02

we're gonna leave that segment there moving on to our over under and our lightning round steven carter we're gonna we're gonna change the tune are

Carter 1:08:08

are we gonna are we gonna make it funny again because uh shit got real there man yeah

Zain 1:08:12

yeah i mean this is what happens well here let me give you a softball overrated underrated brian jean winning his ucp nomination in fort mcmurray underrated

Carter 1:08:20

underrated this probably means everything it's probably gonna take that's

Zain 1:08:25

good cory overrated it underrated i

Corey 1:08:28

i absolutely overrated this was the most um foreseeable outcome and as i said it might even be less than i thought he was getting cory

Zain 1:08:36

cory the lack of alacrity liberals which is now what i'm going to call them thanks to you uh the lack of alacrity liberals will be giving their fiscal update on

Zain 1:08:45

on tuesday the pressure that they faced on a scale of one to ten for this fiscal update we now know cost of living affordability inflation questions have creeped up even more the opposition opposition at least has done a better job making that front and center so the pressure that they face on a scale of one to ten on tuesday for their fiscal update underrated

Corey 1:09:05

underrated zane it'll be an important update to watch because we've had as so few big telegraphings

Corey 1:09:11

telegraphings of what's going to happen and the fiscal update is about money and money is what makes priorities real uh

Zain 1:09:17

uh carter on a scale of one to ten uh not overrated underrated just so you're clear on the scale yeah no i i'm

Zain 1:09:24

absolutely. The pressure that

Zain 1:09:26

that the federal liberals have on

Zain 1:09:28

on their fiscal update on Tuesday.

Carter 1:09:30

It's overrated, Zane. I don't think that the pressure is really going to be there. I think that number one, it's going to come through as a pretty good fiscal upgrade update. Everybody's anticipating it. The only reason it would come in, it would be underrated is if it came in in some fashion as a negative upgrade update, but I think it'll be very positive. Carter,

Zain 1:09:50

Carter, Canada struggling to make progress on getting the U.S. to back down on their rebates on electric vehicles is, of course, part of the new massive legislation in the United States that gives Americans $12,500 rebate on buying an electric vehicle as long as it's made in the U.S. by union jobs. Canada feeling like this is a violation of the USMCA. Overrated or underrated in your mind, this story where Canada's now had one of the, I'd say, harshest worded letters from Christopher Freeland to U.S. senators to try to overturn this, not making much progress. The story, overrated or underrated in your mind?

Carter 1:10:27

Underrated. This is the first shot. You know, when the United States decides to start ignoring this trade agreement and it starts hurting us and hurting Canadian jobs, that's a really bad thing. And on top of that, it just sparks more chaos, right? Like Corey mentioned, how integrated everything is. Where is the line of an electric vehicle that is produced in the United States?

Carter 1:10:51

You know, can it have wheels? Can it have a chassis that's built in Canada? There's all kinds of different things that are built in Canada and moved across the country, across the borders. And you

Carter 1:11:02

you cannot just pick and choose winners and losers in North America, not with these new agreements.

Zain 1:11:09

Corey, same questions. You overrated or underrated this story about Canada trying aggressively and assertively to get the U.S. to back down on their EV rebate.

Corey 1:11:18

Well, probably about a nine for all of the reasons that Stephen said.

Corey 1:11:22

If they just don't want to enforce it, then what do we do? And this does sort of tie back to what we were talking about in the last segment here, where it's who enforces the decisions, right? Because even if a court came in and somebody said, well, screw it, well, then you've got a problem. And by the way, I did want to say, and I didn't manage to jam it in, it's not super new. The idea that the federal government would enforce or not something, and to be fair, Obama decided not to enforce certain immigration laws, right? It is a tool that they've all taken out of the toolbox and claimed for themselves, and it's something we should watch with

Corey 1:11:54

with alarm because it's kind of the foundational thing, rule of law, right? We talk about democracy, but democracy itself is built on rule of law.

Zain 1:12:04

Corey, I'm going to begin the last question with you. Overrated or underrated on the frame of global policy adoption, what you feel like this might mean to the rest of the world. New Zealand banning all sales of tobacco from next year to anyone born after 2008. And after 2025, only tobacco products that have very low nicotine levels will be allowed. loud overrated or underrated in your mind this policy in terms of what it might mean for for global sort of uh policy instruction on this file in your in your in you from your perspective

Corey 1:12:38

i don't know it's probably rated about right it's it's an interesting move it's a bold move it will have to be implemented in a place larger than new zealand no knock to new zealand but it's what like four or five million people five million yeah uh let's

Corey 1:12:51

let's let's see what happens in a in a larger market carter

Zain 1:12:55

carter same question to you overrated or underrated new zealand banning tobacco sales of anyone born after 2008 and then 2025 onwards only tobacco products so it's very low levels of nicotine will be allowed it's

Carter 1:13:06

it's a c plus i think that it's a good policy direction but it's not necessary you know we'll have to wait and see how it unfolds it's

Zain 1:13:13

it's good we're going to spend the next episode going through the scales at the top just so you guys make sure i know it gets late we do wrong and you forget i think i think you made a few mistakes at the end but I think we had it.

Corey 1:13:22

I think we had the whole episode. No, I'm pretty sure. I was listening pretty closely, and I think that we hit the scales pretty accurately. That's

Zain 1:13:28

That's a wrap on episode nine. Well, hold on. Yeah, what do you want to say? What?

Corey 1:13:31

I don't want a lot for Christmas.

Corey 1:13:33

It's just one thing I need.

Corey 1:13:35

I don't care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree.

Corey 1:13:41

want you for my own, more

Corey 1:13:43

more than you could ever know.

Corey 1:13:46

Make my wish come true.

Corey 1:13:49

All I want for Christmas is you.

Zain 1:13:52

Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, we'll see you next time.

Transcript