Episode 976: Selling out

Zain 0:02

This is The Strategist episode 976. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, I

Zain 0:09

I don't need this job, okay? The only reason I have this job is to keep the lunatics from trying to take over the podcast. I just need to let you know that. That's

Zain 0:17

That's the only reason I

Zain 0:17

have this. I don't need

Carter 0:18

need this. Are we the lunatics in this scenario? I think we are the lunatics in this story.

Zain 0:22

Could be doing this podcast in the private sector, okay? I wouldn't have to do it on weekends. I wouldn't have to do it on evenings. Are we the public sector? sector

Zain 0:29

you you are you're the barely the charitable sector okay barely

Zain 0:35

don't have a job guys guys beyond my parodying of jason kenney yeah

Zain 0:39

we've got big news stephen carter what's the big news

Carter 0:42

we we but because of you two lunatics we had to get a new venue so we've got a new venue uh so we moved maybe stop we

Zain 0:54

long time ago we

Carter 0:55

we sold out when we started the podcast really we sold out the engineered air theater 168 seats gone 22 hours boom sold out you two you're not you can't just be happy can't say a bird in the hand bird in the hand is worth two in the bush not for you two you two are like no let's go to the martha cohen so we're going to the martha cohen and you know what that means steven had to pay put more money up i'm the only one without a job i

Carter 1:20

i had to put another 1850 dollars on this thing i am into this for two thousand five hundred dollars and we haven't even sat down yet and they're sitting on our ticket revenue there's

Carter 1:31

there's like thousands of dollars in ticket revenue they are arts commons has so much of our money right now my

Carter 1:38

my money not your money they got my money

Zain 1:45

know eventually when we move to a mail-in podcast you think they're going to refund us all that money you think that's what's going to happen carter you

Carter 1:50

you know who's not getting a refund this guy all the ticket holders are going to get money all

Carter 1:55

all the ticket holders are going to get money when we change it back to a mail-in prorated

Carter 1:58

prorated refund or something like that whatever we have to do but

Carter 2:01

but i've already told people i'm committed to mailing it in for sure for

Zain 2:05

for sure here's here's Here's what's happening, if you can't wade through what Stephen Carter is saying. 168 of you really like Arts Commons and giving them $9.75. I think that's what we know here. We've sold that out. We are now at a bigger venue. Is that right, Corey? The Martha Cohen Theater. That's

Corey 2:21

That's right. It's like $350 or something like that.

Zain 2:23

$350, so more people can show up.

Zain 2:27

Get your tickets. You might be wondering, Zane, are

Zain 2:29

are we back to this again? Are you back to promoting the Strategies Live? No. No, I'm not promoting The Strategist Live. What I am promoting is The Strategist. Present The Strategist Live brought to you by The Strategist because here's what's happening, folks. $34.75, immense value. Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, we've talked about this. But tickets, now you might be wondering, Zane. Okay,

Corey 2:49

Okay, so I'm just going to let you know right now I am not going to let you do this for another hour.

Corey 2:56

There's important information on the table. Okay, you put the information on the table and then we're going to move on.

Zain 3:01

It's like a Zoom call in real life.

Zain 3:08

here's the thing as part of the larger venue cory this is where you can actually make a contribution for fucking once on the show as part of the larger venue we

Zain 3:16

we have had to actually give away something to get something what have we given away and what have we gotten in return well

Corey 3:22

well i i prefer to think of it in the more positive light what we managed to get um many of you are aware that we

Corey 3:28

we weren't able to secure the domain the strategist live.com it was taken by um what we'll call a hostile party and we had to settle for had

Corey 3:37

had to settle for strategistlive.com but we've managed to work through that uh we've managed to work through it our lawyers their lawyers uh a couple of meetings between principals here that being of course uh myself and the ceo of well it doesn't matter which airline it was the ceo of but we had the conversation and uh i'm happy to announce we have the domain the strategistlive.com which is where you go to buy tickets uh to this event to this extended event to this expanded event now unfortunately and zane was alluding to this we did have to give something up we had to give up the domain strategistlive.com so don't go to strategistlive.com you're going to want to make sure you go to the strategistlive.com and not megan the stallion style there's only one e it's the strategistlive.com i guess and

Corey 4:22

that's where you'll buy tickets uh previously you bought tickets at strategistlive.com but that's no longer the case. Now you're going to want to go to thestrategistlive.com.

Zain 4:32

And if you had gone to thestrategistlive.com when you first bought tickets and you now want more tickets, don't go to that. Just because your browser automatically wants you to go there, don't follow that. Don't be on autopilot. No, no, no. You are your own person because you're going to go to thestrategistlive.com. Is that right, Carter?

Carter 4:50

Exactly. thestrategistlive.com. I went to the wrong one today, and i just was stuck there forever didn't move at all so i

Carter 4:59

i i you want to make sure you're going to the strategist live.com which

Carter 5:04

which makes me think we should get our own website at some point too we

Corey 5:08

should uh it's probably going to be you know i'm just realizing now all of your bullshit conversation about the importance of websites the other episode we don't even have a website that's

Carter 5:18

that's true carter what are we running for we're not running for shit uh

Zain 5:23

uh just send us us a google doc with your email address people just like write it into a google doc and tweet it to us that is where we are here on the strategist but yes once again summarizing the strategist live show also known as the strategist present the strategist live brought to you by the strategist april 10th martha cohen theater yes the martha cohen theater you can get your tickets at the strategist live.com cory i'm not gonna do it again unless i feel like it and then i will we're

Zain 5:50

we're gonna leave that there we're gonna move it on to our first segment our first segment mail out bail out stephen carter the

Zain 5:58

the ucp what how what can change so much can change the ucp leadership vote the deciding vote on jason kenney's future has now been changed it's actually now turning from a live event as predicted as being a giant clusterfuck by the strategists here and by anyone with two brain cells knowing that 15 000 people could not vote in a six hour hour period, is now not an online event, in a sense. It's a mail-in event. You are mailing in your vote for leadership, and not just the individuals who signed up, not just the 15,000-ish that could have been 20,000 people that signed up for that live event in Red Deer, but all UCP members. Stephen Carter, when you saw this, I want to get your initial take. When you saw the rule change come down with the executive director of the UCP indicating how this was about a flourishing democratic movement, how this was fairer than ever before, how this was the best process that got everyone involved and part of the process. What did you think?

Carter 7:02

I, you know, Cynthia Moore, who's the president of the UCP, her

Carter 7:08

her words echoed in my mind. And when she said, the only way we can ensure a fair process is to do it in person. Yeah, that's the the only way they can ensure a fair process the bc liberals just had a mail-in ballot for their process and the stories that you hear in british columbia about how that unfolded is just staggeringly dirty so i suspect that we're going to see all kinds of foul play but don't don't worry they've added a third party um they've added a third party you

Carter 7:39

you know accountant firm to make sure that everything worked you know is is legal so you know here's the thing it's

Carter 7:46

it's not going to be a good process it's not going to be fair and uh there's so many ways to cheat in a mail-in process uh especially a rushed mail-in process so i'm anticipating uh tons of crazy things happening

Zain 8:01

okay so that's interesting you're going after the process itself see i was thinking the new process might tilt in someone's favor cory maybe react to what you heard from carter

Carter 8:12

tilts in the in the favor of the person willing to cheat

Corey 8:17

yeah i don't know about that so um a couple

Corey 8:20

couple of things carter's carter's comments about what the president of the ucp said about how in person was the only way to ensure a fair process

Corey 8:29

not not true there's lots of ways that you can have a fair process that's remote there are many ways that you can vote remotely it's really unfortunate that she decided back then to to disparage the idea of remote voting, because here they are having to do remote voting. At the time, it was the view of Kenny Loyalists that having an in-person event where there was a higher barrier to participation was in their interest. And so that's why they

Corey 8:53

threw out arguments like that. But this is kind of, this is a thing we've talked about so many times, I'm going to talk about it again, which is they

Corey 8:59

they paint themselves into corners. They make statements in the moment to win the moment, and they don't think about the long-term consequences. They don't think about if I walk down this hallway, do I have a way out of it? And that's something you've always got to be thinking about, whether you're a political party or a government, anybody in the public eye who has to kind of go through the thrust and parry here.

Corey 9:18

the process itself, like the actual voting, will the actual mechanics of I mark X, X gets counted in some way?

Corey 9:26

Will that process be quote unquote fair? Well, I'm sure it'll be run with integrity. It's not Not like they hired Arthur Anderson. But where fraud can come in, and this is true, by the way, of a lot of things that accounting firms work with, whether it's the financials or whether it's a voting process like this, is anything upstream or downstream. So they're only looking at a certain part of the process there. But things that the accounting firm, I'm quite sure, will not be looking at.

Corey 9:52

Or if they are, it will be in a very limited sense. Are these real members? Did these members actually want to sign up? Did these members vote themselves or were their votes harvested? And probably most importantly, well, maybe not most importantly, but probably almost as importantly, did

Corey 10:08

did one party know that these rules were going to change and act accordingly? Were they just acting in a way that would be useless in Red Deer if you were going to go in person, but provides a significant leg up if

Corey 10:19

if you know that it's going to be a remote vote? So these are questions that the firm is not going to be able to answer. So while I think that the actual mechanics of the vote will be run fairly cleanly, those

Corey 10:28

those are the other questions that are more interesting to me, the ones that are around it.

Corey 10:32

But before anybody accuses me of jumping straight into conspiracy town, let's

Corey 10:36

let's be clear. The three of us all said for weeks it would be an absolute clusterfuck to run this vote in Red Deer. So something needed to change. Something absolutely needed to change. Did it need to change in this way?

Corey 10:51

No, there were lots of other ways they could have run it.

Corey 10:53

I think that is what's concerning people today, right? Why not have multiple voting stations? Why not have each constituency run it? Why is it an online vote? Or why is it a mail-in vote? And the consequences of that, of course, are also we will not know the results for about a month beyond what was originally planned.

Zain 11:11

Carter, jump on that. It feels like you want to get in. If

Carter 11:14

If you're confident that in-person voting is the way to ensure that this is a secure vote and it is something that everybody can count on, then set it up for an in-person vote. It's not hard. Political parties have been doing it, well, forever because it was only recently that we started to switch to mail-in ballots or telephone balloting. So recently, meaning like in the last 15 years. Before that, everything was run in person. So just simply set up. I mean, we talked at one point about the five major centers plus Calgary and Edmonton. That's certainly a lot of work, but at the same time, it could be managed. You could live stream Jason Kenney's remarks. You could live stream the election preparedness pieces. And then you could allow every single member the opportunity to vote in person. And if you really wanted to go crazy, then certainly every constituency association is up and running within the UCP. They don't have, you know, like oftentimes the Alberta Liberal Party or the Alberta Party or even the Alberta NDP may not have all 87 ridings up and running. but the the ucp does i'm sure that they could have run a simple process to ensure that everybody had the ability to vote in this in person but they didn't choose that which

Carter 12:35

which makes me think that they're choosing the the the alternative for a reason um and that reason is that i think that jason kenney uh to use his words is trying to stop the inmates from taking over the asylum so how does he stop that he stops that by making the most advantageous process he can and while Well, Corey says, I'm not sure that there's a lot of cheating. It's not about the count. The count's not where the cheating happens. The cheating happens when you mail out the ballots, the ballots are picked up, the codes are picked up by different people, and those ballots are filled in by people who aren't the person that they say they are, right?

Carter 13:11

right? There's mass gathering of these ballots in multiple, multiple races. I've seen it many times, and it is something, you know, people have been sent to jail because of it. And I remind you that four years ago, there was a mail-in ballot process that resulted in the current leader of the UCP, the person who's advocating for this new process, being investigated by the RCMP for the last four years. Now, it does beg the question, why does it take four years? But here we are.

Carter 13:40

So, you know, if there was malfeasance four years ago, what makes us think there's not going to be malfeasance now?

Zain 13:48

Corey, what do you make of the strategy question here that we have in front of us? And let me start with perhaps not Jason Kenney.

Zain 13:56

Let me start with Brian Jean. His, you know, aggressive calls now with inside the UCP, claiming that Jason Kenney is doing just what Carter said, cheating, that he's bending the rules in his favor. Is Brian Jean just wise to your earlier commentary on this podcast and elsewhere to shut up and remove himself from the picture because his constant propositioning of himself as a replacement, even when he's talking about perhaps legitimate things like the rules, doesn't help the case? Or is Brian Jean on the right wavelength here in your mind from what you see in terms of trying to call out the premier in this process from a strategy perspective? No,

Corey 14:39

I think he's wrong to make it about him. I said that at the end of last episode. I still believe that. One of the things that Jason Kenney would really have going for him is if people saw this as a vote between Jason Kenney and Brian Jean, both flawed individuals rather than Jason Kenney and this perfect candidate that may or may not exist out there who has all of the virtues you're looking for. So Brian Jean, if he wants to be successful, he needs to think about this stepwise. Step one is to vacate the office of leader. Step two is to run for leader. It's not to do the both of them concurrently. That's not an optimal strategy. That's not to say it won't work, but it's not an optimal strategy.

Corey 15:18

One of the things, I mean, a lot of what Carter is saying is there's a lot of innuendo out there. There's suggestions, could this vote be appropriate or not? I think last time, if I'm not mistaken, UCP wasn't mail in, it was mail out, like they mailed out a code to vote, and then they voted on on like computer, right?

Corey 15:36

I could be wrong about that. I'm sure someone will correct me if I am. There were, of course, like multiple leadership contests in there with the PC leadership, and then the UCP leadership. But, you know, again, these processes, it's not the mechanics of the actual thing. And I don't think Stephen and I are disagreeing on this point. It's a lot of the things around it, right? Who's on those lists? How did they get on those lists? Did they know they were on those lists? Did they vote themselves? Is this actually their vote? Is this actually a membership they paid for? All of these things that are, you know, not just party rules, but actually start to bleed into election rules. and so uh

Corey 16:12

uh with with the innuendo that was out there in 2017 plus these rule changes plus everything else i guess the macro point step back because we don't know we don't have perfect knowledge as to who's acting in a toward or untoward fashion out there this

Corey 16:26

this is all so fucking messy at this point and it's hard to imagine that regardless of the result it's going to be viewed as legitimate by you know there's going to be good chunks of the party that rebel against it regardless of what happens. And so

Corey 16:38

so it's really tough to see what the path forward is for either, well, you know, at least the clean path forward for either party.

Zain 16:45

Okay, Carter, let's talk about that, the mess that this creates, because this is not just a mess that is contained between now and April 9th anymore.

Zain 16:55

This is a mess that now extends well into May. From what we understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have the dates right in front of me, because of course, I don't prepare for this podcast. But I suspect, from what I recall, May 11th is when individual members have to vote by mail. I thought

Corey 17:15

thought it was the 18th.

Zain 17:16

18th is when it's announced. Yeah, that's the result. There's

Carter 17:18

There's like some sort

Zain 17:18

sort of announcement event, whether it's in person, et cetera, we don't know just yet. Carter, they're dragging their family drama, their internal affairs, their dirty laundry, which we thought was going to be contained to a two-week period from today-ish, right? Two and a half weeks from today.

Zain 17:35

today. plus maybe a couple of days on the back end, which could lead to more craziness, of course. But now we're looking at, just look at this, let's map this out. Craziness between now and then. Gene won't stop. He won't take Corey's advice. No offense, Corey. He's not going to take your advice. He's going to do it. And if not others, more demonstrations like we saw today with UCP MLA speaking out within the legislature on the footsteps of the legislature. They might grow in number. They might stay as small. But the family drama continues. And it continues until Until May 18th, Carter, at least, because we don't know what happens on the back end of that vote. I bring up the two questions, right? Logistics, OK, let's say they've solved that. Legitimacy, still very much on the table on the 18th. Zoom out for a second and map out for me what you think the terrain of Alberta politics dominated by this family drama will look like for the next, well, foreseeably two months here.

Carter 18:28

Well, if I'm eternally optimistic and I'm with the UCP, I put it in and they say, listen, we're going to dominate the news for the next eight weeks, right? We are going to be the people to look at.

Carter 18:42

Unfortunately, when you're the people being looked at, it's oftentimes because your pants are at your ankles and your hair is on fire. And I think that that's where we are with the UCP is, you know, pants are at the ankles, hair is on fire, and they're running around, you know, lighting their buddies on fire. I think it's a real problem for them. I think they're in the midst of really destroying themselves. And I actually think this is the throes of the division of the party into two halves. This is not a natural coalition. They don't belong. And, Carter, can

Zain 19:12

when you say this, and I don't want to stop you from where you're going, and they don't belong together and they're glued together. But when you say this, just to be clear, do you mean the elongated timeline? Like, do you feel like that is what could do them in here? The fact that they're now going to have to do this dance in public, or at least they think they do, for so long?

Carter 19:31

Yeah, I mean, I think, well, keeping in mind that as long, you know, what you're describing, Zan, is you're describing a fight that was going to last until April the 9th, right? And now that fight, and then it was supposed to be cleanly dealt with, right? 75%. That was the hope.

Carter 19:45

75%. When he stepped up six months ago.

Carter 19:47

Yeah, vote for Jason Kenney. And Jason's able to say, small number of people tried to get me out. I didn't get, you know, I'm holding this party together. we're moving forward look at the polls you know i'm doing great that's

Carter 19:58

that's supposed to be it now you're going to be fighting for another six weeks after that and during that fighting you move further and further apart you see your differences i mean i got a telephone call today from drew barnes you know uh one of those robocall things um a single question poll lasted about a minute 20 asking me essentially um would i support him for the leadership and if you look on twitter there's number of people who've been getting this telephone call um and

Carter 20:26

and i'm like no

Carter 20:29

he didn't say which party he was seeking the leadership for right

Carter 20:32

right like this is this

Carter 20:34

this is the um the beginning of the pro you know what should be the end of the process which is you know everybody coming together actually feels like it's the beginning of the process of everybody sitting apart and

Carter 20:46

and and we could maybe go back and draw it and say well the actual beginning is when you know those 17 or 18 let people sign the COVID letter. Or

Carter 20:58

we could just say, this is actually it today, because that's what it feels like today between Jason Kenney's outburst about the lunatics in the asylum, as well as the change in the process. It feels like this is now the

Carter 21:12

the beginning of a separation.

Zain 21:15

Corey, I'm going to get into strategy mode in a second, ask you guys some strategy questions related to this elongated timeline, but give me your analysis. Kinta Carter, do you agree that this elongated timeline kind of draws them even further apart, or any other reactions or insights based on what you've heard Carter say thus far?

Corey 21:34

Well, I don't think it'll help. I agree. This was going to be over one way or another, it seemed, on April 10th, and now we're going to be going through basically the entire sitting of the legislature here, and that's weird, right? You've got a weird dynamic in the legislature, And it's just going to get weirder. Today, you had a number of constituency presidents plus a number of MLAs stand on the front steps of the legislature and basically condemn the rule change, right?

Corey 22:00

MLAs, yeah. And, you know, it's maybe the third most interesting story today. And I think that I just want to sort of underline what

Corey 22:07

a weird place we're in right now with the governing party. You had Peter Guthrie, Jason Steffen, Angela Pitt, Dave Hansen, Richard Gottfried, five UCP sitting UCP caucus members stand up against these rule changes, plus Drew Barnes and Todd Lohan, who have been kicked out of the caucus. All told, that's seven people who were elected under the UCP banner, who

Corey 22:29

who were standing on the front steps of the legislature, fighting against the executive that their leader controls. And that's the third most interesting story. Like, it's a weird, tense dynamic in that legislature, is my point. And to have to deal with that and to navigate that for another month, holy fuck, I truly pity these people.

Corey 22:48

I worked for the Alberta government for many years. Stephen worked for about three minutes for the Alberta government. But I think we can both attest it's

Corey 22:57

it's a small building, you know, in a literal sense and in a metaphorical sense. And just to have that kind of tension in your caucus and have to be dealing with it and have to see the people in the hall and have to sit with them in the legislature under the dome. And I don't know. I mean, I would just hate that as a work environment, frankly. And it's not the kind of thing where I think it's going to get better over time. it's just going to sit there and fester and people are going to see then you're going to have stories that come out about somebody being sent a uh you know a vote or an id or a membership that they didn't ask for and you're going to have stories about those things not showing up that you did ask for and did it come out of my mailbox and it's just going to be hit after hit after hit after hit all the all the while you'll note of this list of seven that i mentioned i didn't mention kind of you know instigator number one here i didn't mention our friend from fort mcmurray

Corey 23:50

you've got you've got like a fifth of your caucus here in open rebellion the

Zain 23:55

like lila here and others who've silently yeah no she hasn't been silent like and you just like add this i'm basically counting them

Corey 24:01

them in that fifth

Corey 24:03

you know it's this is a this is a tense setup for sure and it's not going to be helped with time and ambiguity carter

Zain 24:10

carter you know Now, Corey said this is a third Wildest Story in the province. Of course, you and I already spent some time today talking about how wild Alberta was. Corey, sorry you missed out while Carter and I were doing national radio together. I'm sorry we had to bump your slot, Carter, for Bob Ray. I just had to chat with him for a while instead of you, so I hope that was

Carter 24:27

okay. And you cut it down, too. I was supposed to have like 15 minutes. I got seven minutes.

Zain 24:30

You weren't supposed to have that. No, but I'm really sorry about that, Carter. I hope you feel left out, Corey. You know who's not going to feel left out? Anyone who attends The Strategist Live. This is going to be the show of the century. April 10th, Martha Cohen Theater, TheStrategistLive.com. Look at Corey's face. It's incredible. He

Carter 24:47

He loves it when you promo it.

Carter 24:48

I do. I do love

Carter 24:50

love it. Can I get you guys to each kick in some of the deposit, or is this just the way it's going to go?

Zain 24:54

go? Oh, we got to move. Carter, we got to move on. Carter, we have to move on. Carter, people can only handle this for so long. Carter, here's what I want to talk to you about.

Zain 25:03

The UCP call you today. day. They say, Stephen Carter, we

Zain 25:06

we want to remain together as a party.

Zain 25:09

We heard the podcast. We agree. We can't take this elongated time horizon of dirty laundry. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work. We agree with your premise. The more we talk about ourselves, the further we draw ourselves apart. We're not supposed to belong together, but our political survival,

Zain 25:30

our political upside, side, our political viability ensures that we stick together. Stephen Carter, what are you advising us? You're hired on retainer.

Zain 25:39

What are you advising us? How are you trying to spin this as a positive democratic movement as we tried in our newsletter? How are you trying to spin this as the greatest show in Alberta? Not drama, but this is a natural healing exercise of concern. Tell us what we do. We've now taken what was supposed to be two and a half weeks, Turn it into two months. Stephen Carter, what's the game plan? How do we not lose ourselves and lose Albertans simultaneously if we have to stick together? What are you doing?

Carter 26:09

Well, basically what I'm going to do is remind you that if you're an MLA, your primary responsibility is that in the house. In the same fashion that staff would be asked not to work on leaderships during work hours, MLA should not be working on this process during work hours. we need to make sure that we are focused on um the outcome uh for sure i mean but the outcome for albertans we have a very positive budget we have uh lots of legislation that needs to get pushed through that should be our focus during the working hours outside

Carter 26:45

outside of working hours you can do what you want to do you can be a part of whatever movie you want to be a part of but during the working hours let's get focused again on why people elected us and that's to get the job done for Albertans.

Carter 26:56

And if we can do that, you've taken already a big step forward, because then at least you've got, you know, 12 hours every day, where you don't have MLA shitting on the leader. And that's ultimately what you're trying to do. Do what you need to do, do what you want to do outside of this, but stop using the media. This is now a closed process with members, make the calls, send your emails. But don't do this during work hours, and don't do it through the media.

Zain 27:23

Corey, you're sitting in that room. You're waiting to pitch next, of course. UCP has this massive retainer that's available. They've come into some money, one may have heard from some refunds. But Corey, you hear Carter's pitch and you're like, OK, yes

Zain 27:39

yes and that for me. What are you suggesting that the UCP do for the next two months? Is there any way to polish a turd or is this going to be a turd regardless? Carter says, listen, working hours, we focus on our political wins not bad advice carter and then let people do what they need to outside of that don't use the media it's a closed process cory what are you adding to that how are you keeping discipline how are you keeping this thing together and not fraying even more if you believe that's at risk akin to what carter does so

Corey 28:05

so uh building on what carter said i would i would say first let's agree what we agree on we want to keep this party together and we want this party to beat the ndp regardless of what occurs in this leadership review uh and whatever spills out of this so we've got to stay focused on those things and that naturally leads into some of the points carter was making about staying focused on work the

Corey 28:26

the additional advice i have really depends are you if you're the

Corey 28:30

the the campaign around jason kenney uh and i'm not saying legal or illegal i'm saying clean or dirty are you running this clean or are you running this dirty because

Corey 28:38

because if you are actually running it clean there are a number of things that i would recommend one of them is actually signal this will be a weird time there are tens of thousands of members there are going to be mistakes with memberships going to the wrong place to the wrong name ballots not showing up all of those things and when they happen we're not asking you to keep quiet about it we're asking you to route it through a party process and that process because you want everybody to feel confident and it should be external external oversight of such complaints external uh you know authority to to address those complaints, empowered by the board to do so, with, you know, oversight from constituency presidents, whatever we think would actually calm the waters there. Probably also looking at, you know, an accounting firm or something like that. And by the way, we didn't mention, but one of the reasons people always go to accounting firms is, you know, they're a professional body, and they're required to act with a certain code of ethics. And if they don't, then they lose their licenses. It's, you know, it's not just because accountants are good at counting uh although that doesn't hurt either uh

Corey 29:36

uh so yeah i mean what you need to do is embrace the messiness and have a very neutral separate from the leader process for dealing with any messiness if you're running it clean if

Corey 29:46

if you're running it dirty same

Corey 29:49

same but you don't offer the process you just say we know these stories are going to come up you

Corey 29:53

you can't you can't work on them right now but the reality is that's going to be deeply unsatisfying for people and you've got to to accept a certain amount of turmoil, if that's your plan.

Zain 30:03

Carter, I talked to Corey about the Jean strategy. I talked to both of you about the party strategy. Carter, I want to get your thoughts on Jean before we jump into all things Kenny. How does Brian Jean ensure that there's someone that

Zain 30:16

that I shouldn't say is capable, because many would argue about Brian Jean's communication skills overall, but someone who is a standard bearer for the rebels without making it himself? What does he do here? Does he ensure that it's one of those five or six that stood on the steps today? If he's got leadership ambitions, what are you telling him today saying, OK, like we saw you call out the premier, we get it, you're getting the media hits, you're getting the airtime. What are you telling Brian Jean today and how are you telling him to balance his future ambitions with ensuring he does what he needs to do today or that the movement that he's building or is part of does what it needs to do today against Jason Kenney? Let

Carter 30:55

Let me ask you a question, Zane. Why do you think he wasn't there today?

Carter 30:59

Because I'm confused by that. Why wasn't he on the steps with the other seven?

Zain 31:03

I was thinking about that too, especially in line with how public he has been on being the front lines. Part of me would like to be optimistic and say he's taking some of the strategic advice.

Zain 31:13

And I'm not saying optimistic personally. I'm saying from like a strategy lens. Like, it seems like he's taking some of the advice. Are you going that direction? Are you genuinely asking?

Carter 31:21

No, I'm genuinely asking because it seems to me that if we were giving him advice, you you know, kind of in the

Carter 31:26

the opposite of what Corey's given him, you know, the sit down and shut up because he doesn't want to be running against Kenny in this leadership review. Because that doesn't appear to be what he's doing. He does not appear to be taking that advice. So why wasn't he there? Because the alternative is, you know, show up at every parade and put yourself at the front. It makes me wonder if the seven MLAs that were there explicitly told Brian, don't be there And keeping in mind that I got that lovely robo today from Drew Barnes, you know, Drew's obviously got his own leadership aspirations. So what's going on? What is the what's the play from from Brian

Carter 32:09

Brian Jean? I don't know, but I honestly don't think that Brian Jean's that great a politician. condition so i'm not sure that he's necessarily going to follow the strategy so much as do frankly what i think the ndp is doing which is seeking headlines where's my headline i've got to run to the headline and every time you run to the headline um you

Carter 32:29

you know you sell a little bit of your soul so um i think that's kind of what brian jean's been doing of late uh and and i'm surprised he wasn't in this particular headline but he maybe has his own you know maybe he's doing something make special tomorrow for all we know.

Zain 32:44

You'd suggest, Carter, that if you see less of Gene going forward, that it's strategic, perhaps. Is that fair to say from your perspective? Yeah,

Carter 32:52

Yeah, I mean, Corey's advice is really solid. You know, like, don't

Carter 32:56

make this about you. Make this about Jason. Jason's performance, I think, by almost any metric is bad until you compare him to Brian Gene. Because Brian Gene is not as good a politician as As Kenny,

Carter 33:11

Kenny, period. I mean, that just is what it is. So what are we doing? Like, if you're Gene, you

Carter 33:19

Kenny to lose, but

Carter 33:21

but don't be the face of it. So maybe today was the first of a long series of steps of not being the face.

Zain 33:27

Corey, I need to ask you about other MLAs in the UCP caucus. About four or five months ago, I don't even remember when, we did our session regarding you guys providing advice to the hospitality suites, to those who wanted to, you know, potentially be the next leader. I just want to go back to that and stress test it. If you're sitting side by side with Jason Kenney today in the UCP, is it still celebrating him, applauding him, doing whatever you can to keep the leader? Are you making any tweaks to your advice based on what you see? This is kind of going to be my segue into how fucked is Jason Kenney, which we should get to in a second. But let's start with the others. And I'm going to throw out names not knowing anything, but if I'm a Doug Schweitzer or others on that front bench who might have ambitions again, Am

Zain 34:18

I doing anything different than your advice several months back of celebrate the leader and don't make yourself part of the process right now?

Corey 34:28

I think the answer is no, not really. You continue to be a team player. You continue to support the government's agenda. There are ways that you can back,

Corey 34:35

back, not backhandedly, but celebrate the leader in ways that are truly celebrating yourself. Do you support Jason Kenney? Yes, I do because Jason Kenney's supported

Corey 34:42

supported me and allowed me to do this great work I've done in my ministry. And look how kick-ass the outcomes are in jobs, economy, and innovation as a result of all of the good actions I've taken as minister. Me, me, me. Turn it on you. A good speaker, a good politician is going to be able to take whatever tee up they give, very quickly brush it aside in a way that's not going to cause trouble for the leader, hit the kind of mandatory checkbox exercise of being loyal, but not dwell on it, not become seen as somebody who is three feet up Jason Kenney's ass. That's something that they should be able to do. And if not, well, they're probably not going to have a good chance of being leader anyhow, right?

Corey 35:19

But, you know, there's an angle beyond this here, too, at this point. There's the fact that you

Corey 35:27

you don't want to be too, too close either, just

Corey 35:31

just as you don't want to be too far away. Because ultimately what's going to occur at the end of this very messy process, I suspect, I'm not 100% sure, and we should actually talk about some of the scenarios that could or could not spill out of this in terms of if Jason Kenney wins even by a bit or whatnot. But they say there's a leadership contest just for the sake of the conversation here.

Corey 35:54

There is going to be a huge amount of pressure in the party to not fall apart, right?

Corey 35:59

right? There's going to be a desire to stay together, and there's going to be an understanding that going with Brian Jean or

Corey 36:05

or going with somebody who is personally so closely tied to Jason Kenney is almost going with the side and risks a greater split of the party. And they're going to look for somebody who can straddle both sides of that organization, somebody who speaks urban and speaks rural, somebody who speaks PC and speaks Wildrose. Whatever those divisions are, they're going to be looking for a candidate to split right between the middle there. So you also don't want to be too associated with one side, which I want to stress is not the same as being disloyal. You can be loyal, and

Corey 36:37

and you can be nuclear. It sounds like it's a contradiction, but really it's not, because

Corey 36:41

because ultimately political parties all understand that there is a fundamental requirement to stick together. other.

Zain 36:48

Carter, talk to me about the waiting in the wings strategy, if you're an existing MLA. Expand on what Corey's mentioned here, right? And of course, there's some templated advice, which is what we're giving here. And there's strategic tailored advice for who you are. But add to what Corey said, if you're on the sidelines wanting to potentially be the next leader of this party or the next premier, how are you playing the balancing act to Corey's point? And has it it fundamentally changed from the advice you gave several months before always

Carter 37:17

always return to the members always return to albertans right who are we serving uh you can never go wrong by reminding people why you chose to run i chose to run for jason kenney's conservative united conservative party because i thought it was the best way to serve albertans i was so afraid of what the ndp was doing to our to our province that standing up with jason kenney and the ucp um i thought that it was the best way to stop things that I didn't want to have happen in our province. That's why I ran. That's why I continue to be proud of the service that Jason Kenney and I am providing to the great province of Alberta. It's had bumps. It's been a nightmare. But it's been a nightmare primarily because we've been hit by an external force. That external force is COVID COVID at the same time as we had a massive, massive downturn in our economy. Our economy has turned the corner and we've done that together. The UCP has made that happen for you.

Carter 38:16

But that's the type of stuff that you've got to say. You've got to focus on why you're serving, what you're doing, and who you're serving rather than simply leadership drama, leadership drama, leadership drama. Is Jason Kenney going to be the leader? That's beyond me. I don't make that choice. The choice is made by the good people of the UCP, and whatever they choose, I shall abide by. I don't know how I'm marking my ballot yet. I'm going to listen to everybody. I'm going to meet with everybody, and I'll make my decision as late as possible, frankly.

Zain 38:48

Bottling it up and ready to serve. Nicely done, Carter. Corey, you want to jump in?

Corey 38:53

Yeah, so he threw me for a loop there at the end where it was the question about how are you going to mark your ballot. That's an interesting one, and I'm not quite sure what I would recommend and a cabinet minister respond with at this particular moment. I certainly know what the expectation would be from the leader's office, and I think that would somewhat inform my answer there.

Corey 39:13

Yeah, I'm just totally thrown for a loop by that. But I guess one of the things that I would recommend to anybody who's in that kind of position is you've got to be careful not to be

Corey 39:22

be so obvious that you're skating or so obvious that you're sticking to a line. So the first time somebody says, do you support Jason Kenney, give Stephen's answer, right? Right. And they say, OK, that's wonderful. Do you support the leader of this? And then you just say, yes, he's the premier. End it. Kill it. Make it short. Make it simple. Don't look like you're trying to dodge the question or you are going to get yourself all of a sudden caught up in ways that you don't need to be caught up in. How are you voting on that?

Corey 39:49

Wild, but I think I would have to say I'm voting to to continue the good work that we've done as a cabinet over the past bit. Jason Kenney has led this cabinet. Next question.

Zain 40:00

you think that suffices carter suppose a microphone is put up in someone's face tomorrow suppose you know that's asked of the entire cabinet you think that suffices how are you making it stronger i

Carter 40:12

i don't know i mean it's it's one of those gotcha questions that it's nearly impossible to answer properly right well

Corey 40:18

well look if i was pushed beyond that i'd say yes i'm yeah what would you say kenny yeah

Carter 40:22

and then just not um

Carter 40:23

um i mean that's that's almost essentially what happened to ralph klein everybody was asked on camera oh yeah like there's very very little downside

Zain 40:30

downside in saying yes despite you know so how screwed

Corey 40:33

screwed he is here's the thing like a reporter can throw a mic in your face and ask that but like there is an art to being quoted and there's an art to not being quoted and there are ways that sort of demand context where that clip is not going to be particularly useful to them nine times out of ten and even the print reporters are going to have a little bit of trouble knowing what to do with it right uh so how are you voting in that well i'm voting yes and walk away now if you know the actual language of the question that means yes i support the leader you know i mean but like it

Corey 41:03

it i wouldn't even say voting yes i would just say yes and walk away i guess my point is you can make it difficult to use and be weaponized against you down the road you

Carter 41:12

you can even say yes i'm voting like you don't have to be super duper cleaner and just walk away hey

Zain 41:18

hey carter uh question for you let's talk about jason kenny we have to to get into him now so we're talking about have

Carter 41:24

have to get into jason kenney these double entendres have got to stop i

Zain 41:29

i just gotta stop no no no no you know but do you know what i would say yes to the

Zain 41:35

the strategist present the strategist live brought to you by the strategist you know that is going to be one heck of a show april 10th the strategist live.com that's where you get tickets a healthy charitable 975 going to arts commons remember tickets sale we only

Carter 41:46

only get 25 $25. This is bullshit. You know how much money they're going to make off of us now?

Carter 41:53

It's a ton of cash.

Carter 41:55

Tons of cash. You don't have a number.

Zain 41:56

number. Okay. Well, thank you, Carter. Carter,

Carter 41:58

we were- It's going to be 10 grand. They're making 10 grand. We're each making $3 a ticket.

Zain 42:05

Carter, here's a question for you. We

Zain 42:07

We were talking about how if the vote continued in the existing process, we're going all the way back to in-person Red Deer, 12-ish thousand people, Right? If it continued in that process, 12,000 to 14,000, it looked like Kenny was done.

Zain 42:22

a mail-in vote, all members elongated to May 11th with a conclusion and grand reveal on May 18th.

Zain 42:32

Jason, Kenny still is screwed, Carter?

Carter 42:36

is jason kenney still is screwed um i

Carter 42:41

have to answer right like i can't just say i don't know because obviously there's two options you have to answer or

Zain 42:47

or you have to do a uh a 30 second promo for the strategist present the strategist live brought to you by the strategist so

Carter 42:54

so no jason kenney's not gonna win um thank

Zain 42:59

thank you did that yeah do

Carter 43:00

do you support do you support jason kenney Yeah, I'm going to vote. I'm going to mark my ballot. Here's the thing.

Carter 43:11

If this was the most advantageous thing for Jason Kenney, Jason Kenney would have chosen this first, right?

Carter 43:16

right? He's been in the field. He's been doing organizational structures. He's been trying to figure out how to get everybody there. there. He is now on the Hail Mary. This might be even the third Hail Mary of the game, right? Every time he's just been penalized or there's been a penalty and he's had to move back 10 more yards and he's still trying the same Hail Mary. And he's trying to get the Hail Mary to actually connect. And this is it. This is his last one. Now he has tricks and he has ways of making it go. So maybe he can win.

Carter 43:46

I don't think he can make this happen without some

Carter 43:50

some skullduggery. So I'm dying to see how it all unfolds.

Zain 43:58

is he just as screwed as he was last time we talked about the conditions in person, Red Deer, 12 to 15-ish thousand speculated? Or does this give him more light and more opportunity?

Corey 44:11

it has to. And the reason is the scope of rule change, because the most obvious solution and the one that would keep the most peace in the party would be to change as few rules as possible. Now, they may have made a calculation that it was impossible to change them to any degree without getting backlash. So in for a penny, in for a pound. But either way, I mean, as we already talked about, this was not the only choice or even the most obvious choice because it is still an SGM. So it would have been very easy to

Corey 44:38

to say, we're going to have multiple voting locations, we're going to be at the convention centers in Calgary and Edmonton, and the original one in Red Deer. Or as Carter alluded to that what we often in Alberta think of as the five major centers outside of the big cities, plus Calgary and Edmonton. That was the most obvious solution because it essentially keeps the SGM framework, just spreads it out to multiple locations. You've still got your results that day. You've still got a conclusion that weekend. That is the most obvious solution. So to go to a mail-in vote was to say we're going to do something different than the most obvious solution. And there's not a lot of reason you would do that unless you were trying to find an advantage somewhere. It doesn't necessarily mean that advantage is in Jason

Corey 45:21

Jason Kenney getting the outcome. It could be you just think it's simpler to manage and all of that, but Occam's

Corey 45:26

Occam's razor here. The reason why the leaders, hand-selected executive, would do this would probably be because it benefits Jason Kenney. So to your question, do I think Jason Kenney is as done as I did just

Corey 45:39

just mere days ago? The answer is no, because fundamentally the rules have changed. Does that mean I think he's going to win? I

Corey 45:46

I don't have a fucking clue. Because to Carter's point, this might just be a Hail Mary. This might be he knew for sure he was going to lose that way, so he's going to try a different way. and

Corey 45:55

and that doesn't necessarily speak well because to carter's point this was the option that was negated first off the gate right like no that one's not going to work and it does and

Corey 46:05

and we've always known that the broader you cast the net the more trouble he's in because he's not particularly popular even with his party so

Corey 46:14

is he going to win no

Corey 46:16

no clue um but but certainly Certainly his odds, you have to assess as different today than they were five days ago.

Zain 46:26

Carter, if you were advising Jason Kenney right now, let's just assume he wanted to play the clean route. Any principles you'd advise him of? Just high level, not knowing where his head is at or what he's wanting to do. But let's just say he's saying, the process will dictate the outcome. The fair process will dictate the outcome. What principles are you putting in front of him today? And

Zain 46:46

And you're working for Jason Kenney, right?

Zain 46:49

right? Right? Not the party. You're working for Jason Kenney. So think about his potential future. I want to talk about his future, right? Like his future in mind, his legacy in mind, the script and the story, which is something you talk about quite often, in mind. What are you advising him today? So if you believe, and let's just make one other assumption, that this is slightly advantageous and might be a bit of a Hail Mary, you know that, what

Zain 47:16

what advice are you giving Jason Jason Kenney, today?

Carter 47:18

Here's what I'm giving him. I'm giving him the advice that he wants to go out with his head held high. The best way to win this and the best way to look when you lose this, if you lose this, is the exact same. Remind everybody why you did this. Let's go back four years to when you started to put the parties together. Because when you were putting these parties together, it wasn't for the self-aggrandizing nature of Jason Kenney becoming the premier. It was to rescue, you know, quote unquote, rescue a province from the grips of negative outcome from not having real political leadership. You've make the case that you haven't seen real political leadership since the days of Ralph Klein. So how are you going to how

Carter 47:57

are you going to really show that in your final few days, especially knowing that the the the

Carter 48:04

the leadership candidates that are coming after you don't have the ability to actually showcase or show how they would be different. So I think that that's the opportunity is to get in there and say, this is, you know, show how high minded you are and how moral you are. Um, and get in there and, and actually create, uh, an outcome, uh, that is based on, you know, those original principles that you put in place, uh, four years ago.

Zain 48:37

Corey, what advice are you giving Kenny, if you're in that situation?

Corey 48:43

um, it is the opposite of the advice I give Brian Jean in many ways, right? Right. It's to paint yourself against the alternative, because one of the things that comes up in basically every conversation I have with what I would call moderate conservatives in this province is there's a real fear of whatever comes after him. As much as people may be fed up or exhausted with Jason Kenney, like what comes next seems legitimately scary to a lot of people. And one of the things we haven't touched on was there was this piece of reporting today by Elise von Scheele, of course, because she breaks all of the major news in

Corey 49:16

in Alberta legislature at this point is rapidly becoming a legend, where it was Jason Kenney speaking to caucus staff, saying that he's trying to keep you open with this saying, right? He doesn't need this job. He's trying to keep the lunatics from running the asylum. And one of the things you said, and I hope you don't mind that I'm just going to throw it out on the pod, is you said, oh, I wonder if that was intentional. Oh, you mean in our track

Corey 49:44

And I immediately discounted it, but I've been thinking about it a lot since because I

Corey 49:49

I don't believe it is. I think it's just too uncontrolled. And I worked for Jason Kenney for a year. He is pretty candid in moments when he's talking to officials and I assume when he's talking to staff. So I don't have trouble imagining this being a normal conversation by Jason Kenney.

Corey 50:07

I, you know, but it's the kind of messaging that might work. And that's what's given me a pause. Like this messaging is actually quite constructive if you are trying to make a case that it's you or anarchy. Right. And you are just trying to keep this party from getting absolutely wrecked by extreme elements that would otherwise come in and take control of it here. So my advice to Jason Kenney, if he wants to maintain this, is that he's going to have to find the center in a way that he's never really found the center in the past. He's been pushed into it over COVID often against the more right-wing flanks of his party. He has always been more of a pragmatist than his caucus when it comes to some of these issues, which is not saying a lot. I just really want to underline that. But it's true. And maybe if he creates this whole clash within the party argument where it's moderation and acceptability to Albertans versus convoys

Corey 51:04

convoys and lunatics running the asylum, maybe he's got a chance. Because if you look at the membership as a whole, it is probably more moderate than the people who are going to clog the highways to go to Red Deer and fight.

Zain 51:18

I want to talk about that, Carter. Let's talk about the membership that didn't sign up to go to Red Deer. The now expanded pack of folks that hold a UCP membership that can now vote. They might be either less engaged or satisfied with Jason Kenney or not as motivated or mobilized, to Corey's point. If you're helping Kenny, what campaign is he running with those members? He probably has a decent understanding of who they are, who hasn't signed up. Are you actively now continuing on the micro-targeting, digital-ass campaigns? Construct it for me right now, like two of you. What are you doing with the—I shouldn't call them less engaged, but let's just call them the Tier 2 members. They're not Tier 2 in any other way other than that they didn't register to go Boots on the Ground and Red Deer, so maybe less engaged in that regard. What are you doing if you're Jason Kenney, knowing that even if that's a 60-40 in your direction, that's better than perhaps what you were going to get with the folks that were going to show up in that Tier 1 boots on the ground to Red Deer membership?

Carter 52:13

Yeah, this is all direct contact now. How many telephone calls, how many emails, how many texts can you send over the next, you know, even before they get their ballots? You need to determine very quickly what the likelihood is they're going to vote for you. And secondly, what is the likelihood that they're going to vote, period, right? Right. So you need to be putting in a tremendous amount of effort to find those people who are kind

Carter 52:36

kind of supportive of you and kind of likely to vote, because if someone's 100 percent likely to vote and supportive of you. Yeah, I mean, you track them, but you don't really need to put much effort into them. But the people who are kind of likely to vote for you and kind of, you know, likely

Carter 52:51

likely to vote, those people need phone calls. They need texts. They need help filling in their ballots. They need, you know, they need, you know, gatherings. They need answers from the premier. They need telephone calls from cabinet ministers. They need a whole full

Carter 53:07

full court press, direct contact. Corey Hogan, you matter to me. I need you to vote for me. I'm sorry you haven't heard from me for the last four years. But keep in mind that I was the one who put this party together that enabled us to achieve control. control and this is unfair that due to circumstances outside of my control um

Carter 53:27

um we're really gonna we're gonna blow this whole thing up cory

Zain 53:32

cory what are you thinking what what are you doing if you're kenny right now from a political tactics and strategy perspective he's back to organizing buying himself more time to perhaps do that with the tier two membership yeah

Corey 53:44

yeah well it's uh and this This is what we were just talking about. It's setting that ballot question. For Jason Kenney, it's me or anarchy or

Corey 53:53

or some variant of that, right? Or

Corey 53:55

Or at least I believe that's the most successful one. And for Brian Jean, it is

Corey 54:01

that this is a referendum on Jason Kenney's failed leadership or some version of that. And we do know that Albertans broadly and even conservatives broadly don't think fondly of Jason Kenney's leadership. and actually that's always sort of been the case even in 2017 2018 2019 it's not as though he had like really huge positive numbers arguably

Zain 54:23

arguably one of the reasons he ran jeff calloway as his kamikaze candidate in some ways

Corey 54:28

yeah that's right well because the negatives were strong for him and so he knew if he was going to sling negatives it wouldn't really have the same effect right and so he was looking for an individual who could provide um

Carter 54:38

um good point there yeah

Corey 54:40

yeah well absolutely Absolutely. And so it really is about trying to frame it out for both parties. And I actually think Jason Kenney is maybe, I won't say better at framing out that argument, but his argument is at

Corey 54:55

at least more novel in the sense that people haven't sat and processed it in the same way. And people have really thought about what they think about Jason Kenney. So there's maybe an opportunity for him there to sort of reframe the question in people's minds that improves every time Brian Jean talks, frankly. So what you want to be doing if you're Jason Kenney is setting the stakes as civilization itself. If you're wanting to be Brian Jean and the rebels, you're trying to make it seem like the friendliest rebellion you've ever fucking seen. And

Corey 55:20

And so that's going to be the arm wrestling that occurs over the next bit as to whether Jason Kenney can scare moderate voters and similarly whether Brian Jean can soothe moderate voters.

Zain 55:34

Carter, to that point, you know, one of the things regarding the Gene camp is that it's not the only rebel camp, that the rebel camps, as we've discussed

Zain 55:42

previously, there's dozens of them. Is there a strategic advantage for Kenny there and perhaps a disadvantage? Or you might say the other way around, is there an advantage for the rebel camps to be so disjointed? Or do they need to get under one dome, one comms plan, you know, pool resources, whatever resources means, I think, in this case, generally capacity, right? and start communicating in one drumbeat? Or is their disparate approach, their renegade-style approach that signed up so many members, arguably, we're assuming, for Red Deer, will that not now work on the Tier 2 membership who are now looking for mobilization and not necessarily perhaps raw anger and perhaps hatred of Jason Kenney? So tell me about their strategy and their splintering, so to speak, because we're now getting into this very strange, almost writ period for the conservative race, where you've got a splintered Rebels group and a Jason Kenney looking to mobilize two different streams of people. Some might say that the group that signed up for Red Deer leans more towards the Rebels group. The group that sits on the sidelines that didn't sign up leans more towards Kenney. What is the Rebel group, groups plural, thinking about doing right now? Well,

Carter 56:56

Well, it's actually a really good opportunity If you're Jason Kenney to divide and conquer, you know, Jason Kenney has is probably

Carter 57:07

probably the most popular of the leadership candidates. Right. So if I were Jason Kenney, I'd say, you know what? You may not love me, but imagine what happens to this party if Drew Barnes takes over. Imagine what happens. We've already seen what happens to this party with Brian Jean in charge. That's called an NDP government.

Corey 57:24

So we don't want an NDP. That's a good line. Yeah,

Carter 57:26

Yeah, we don't want an NDP government. Therefore, we don't want Brian Jean in charge. Drew Barnes is, you know, he doesn't get on with anybody. He's out there in his own place. And we don't want to go back to Doug Schweitzer. We don't want to go back to Tyler Chandra. We don't want to go back to, you know, that's Ed Stelmack and Allison Redford territory. We saw where they took us. They're just liberals under a different name. So you may not like us all like me, but you can get in and you can push hard to push away from from these other people that may be able to draw large support groups. I think it's an opportunity to define people differently. Definitely.

Corey 58:07

Well, I don't think he's going to take a round out of Schweitzer and Chandra. Those are on his team. Are they on his team?

Corey 58:13

Well, I do agree generally with you, though, Stephen. They're in cabinet, and that's enough.

Corey 58:18

That one of the things that Jason Kenney has, it is an interesting thing, because this has played out in a lot of different fights in Canada over time. There's the argument of having small cells, guerrilla warfare, many people spontaneously coming to action, and there's real advantages to that. And

Zain 58:35

Carter would say growing to virality in some ways, even

Corey 58:38

even beyond their organizing capacity. I think we saw some of the advantages of that play out over the past couple of weeks here in terms of the leadership review and its original envisionment, right? But there are also disadvantages to that. And there's ways that the big battleship can kind of pick you off one by one, ping, ping, ping, but also point to you and the behavior that you – when you've got 20 groups, one of them is guaranteed to be an asshole. And he can make that indicative of all the behavior. So if we talk about that original ballot question of me, me versus the collapse of civilization, I'm Jason Kenney in this scenario, right?

Corey 59:11

There is going to be a lunatic fringe group. In fact, we've already seen some of them saying like, we're going to blockade the roads to Red Deer. That's what we're up against people, right? That's what we're up against people. And you're able to pick the most extreme behavior of this group and you can point to it and you can say that is representative of all opponents of me. And you can conflate and you can expand. And even if these people are actually a fringe of opponents to Jason Kenney, they become standard bearers for them. In many ways, it's sort of what Russia is doing in Ukraine, right? There's fascists who got 1.5% of the vote in the Ukrainian election, which is fewer people on the far right than have got the vote here in Canada. But you point to them, and you can point to legitimate fascist acts, and you expand it, and you make the entire country about that, and then you act in. And look, I'm not saying Putin and Kenny are anywhere near in the same leagues here, but it's a tested and true tactic to just point to one of your opponents and say all of your opponents are like this.

Zain 1:00:10

Carter, did you want to add anything to that? I think

Carter 1:00:11

think that it's just really important that you can acknowledge that it's not just on one side either. The beauty

Carter 1:00:15

beauty of Jason Kenney is he's supposed to be bringing together these two groups and the group to the far right of him is too far right. And the group to the far left of him is too far left. And I think that if Jason Kenney is not using the line, we know how, you know, what happens when you have Brian Sheen as leader of the right wing alternative.

Carter 1:00:34

It's called a notly government. Like that's just a tremendous opportunity. But, you

Carter 1:00:39

you know, he hasn't been doing the lines. He hasn't been doing that kind of work. Right. He's he's I think

Carter 1:00:46

think he's been beaten up too hard. I think he's been beaten up so hard that he's forgotten how to fight. And that's that's a really tough spot. lot.

Zain 1:00:54

Corey, you know, one thing we haven't talked about, let me close on this for this segment, is what do you do if you know that all of your past sins, your skeletons in your closet, everything perhaps will come out over the course of the next two months in some way, shape, or form? Like the motivation to leak, the motivation to poison the well, the motivation, at least from those who know you the closest and may have turned on you, is highest right now. And I'm not saying that the stories that we're seeing recently of kenny are all because of ucp or rebel leaks but there's probably some stuff that's going to happen how do you prevent against that from like uh communications and uh strategy perspective and i'm kind of broadening the scope here when you know bad shit about you is going to come out or potentially could come out while you're still trying to win over a group uh

Zain 1:01:43

uh why are you kind of preparing for that and what are you thinking about

Corey 1:01:46

about if you're if you're kenny in this regard well you don't try to stop it it's just going to to come. And one of the advantages you have is that whenever this stuff is coming out at this moment, everybody looks at it with a bit of a jaundiced eye because it all seems driven towards the moment. And so you actually get a little bit of benefit too, to be able to say, yeah,

Corey 1:02:03

yeah, of course, of course, this is the conversation. And in some ways it allows you, if you're Jason Kenney to reinforce, they will do anything, no matter how bad it is for this party, no matter how bad it is for this province to get what they want. But what they want is not what you want. It's not what I i want it's not what this province needs and so uh just be ready for it um i'm not saying that you just sit there and limply take the punches but you

Corey 1:02:27

you know there's going to be punches so brace yourself and and be ready to to kind of judo them back and say well of course and and again this is tried tested and true as well you remember when uh the news uh was uh dropped about jack layton being at a massage parlor that was actually a brothel in some way shape or form and then it it just became an example of, like,

Corey 1:02:47

like, it didn't hurt Jack Layton. It blew back on the accusers because it seemed like a desperate tactic. So there are ways to kind of judo

Corey 1:02:54

judo it, as Stephen is so fond of saying. Hasn't said that as much lately. Maybe he's given it up.

Zain 1:03:02

Oh, okay. That's good to know. Hey, Carter, throughout the course of this conversation, talking about Kenny's strategy over the next couple of months, have you convinced yourself a bit more that his chances are higher than maybe a Hail Mary? Nah, I screwed. screwed

Corey 1:03:14

well here's what i would say okay go ahead go ahead cory go ahead you

Corey 1:03:17

you know a week

Corey 1:03:18

week ago it looked like kenny was done now it looks like the party might be done and so i'm not actually sure that's a better um oh

Zain 1:03:24

oh christley said he saves it he saves it for a throwaway at the end nicely done done gee yeah cory it could be competing

Carter 1:03:34

competing for that kind of level

Zain 1:03:37

cory it could could be could Couldn't be competing for episode title, but we all know what it's going to be. It's going to be The Strategist Presents The Strategist Live, brought to you by The Strategist, thestrategistlive.com. That's where you get tickets. Let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, Selling Out. Guys, we now have the details of the Liberal NDP Supply and Confidence Agreement. agreements the parties have struck a deal to uh pass particular pieces of legislation supply and confidence pieces through the parliament between now and 2025 the parties have agreed to work together on key policy areas in situations that both parties want the same quote medium term outcome while avoiding an early election call according to the deal the key policy areas include you ready for this carter i am so

Zain 1:04:21

so ready change health climate change health care spending reconciliation with indigenous peoples, economic growth and efforts to make life more affordable, including housing. Carter, when we recorded last time, we recorded just as this story broke. We talked about the different dynamics that could be at play. Tons of ink has been spilt since then on who won, who lost, how the liberals and Justin Trudeau is selling out his party to go now further further march to the left, how Jagmeet Singh is selling out his party by allowing liberal kleptomania and is doing this for his legacy on being the co-author of pharmacare and dental care. Are

Zain 1:05:00

Are you revising your conclusion from what you heard when the story broke to what you're seeing now in details and seeing some of the analysis of what's coming out on either the winners, losers, or the dynamics of the deal and what it might mean broadly for Canadians? I

Carter 1:05:16

I don't think I'm really revising much of what I said. I think that the big problem with what I said earlier is that I was pretty focused on the lack of detail. And of course, we were getting that information in kind of real time, right? So we didn't really know what was coming.

Carter 1:05:36

Having now seen it unfold, I kind of remain in the same spot. I'm not sure what What Justin Trudeau gave up, what he sold out, I feel like this is a pretty good deal for Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party. And, you know, if there has to be a winner and loser, I guess that means that the loser is, you know, Jagmeet Singh. But even then, you know, he could conceivably get, you

Carter 1:06:05

you know, a pharmacare program out of this. You know, if the job is to make life better for Canadians, and I think collectively we think that that's the job, then I feel like this deal moved

Carter 1:06:21

people towards that outcome. I think that we have a better potential outcome for Canadians as a result of this deal.

Zain 1:06:31

Corey, I'm going to come to you in a second. But Carter, here's, you know, the Justin Trudeau argument that you're hearing a lot of. He sold out because he's marching even further to the left, getting in bed with the NDP, giving away the center position while Pierre Polyev strikes even further to the right, creating a massive hole, even more so than he's done in the middle, and blowing through all fiscal guardrails because this is going to be a spend, spend, spend legacy. He wants to be the care prime minister, child care, pharmacare, dental care. This is just a bunch of money. And he's now all in good to the Pierre Polyarv argument, the first NDP prime minister this country's had. That's what the argument of Trudeau selling out is. Do you agree with that? No,

Carter 1:07:10

No, I don't. I think that that just is a simple. First of all, where's this not his agenda? Where's this not what he was talking about? I mean, half of these things, more than half of these things, I think almost all of these things were in his platform. This is not, you know, he moved to the left when he ran. He was this guy. He never presented any sort of, and why is he losing, you

Carter 1:07:34

you know, his former minister of finance, whose name has escaped me? um why more no more

Carter 1:07:41

yeah more no leaves because more no says i want more fiscal uh accountability more fiscal responsibility trudeau's response appears to be interesting that's not what i want off you go so this isn't this doesn't feel to me like it's out of step with what trudeau wants i think that frankly that's one of the criticisms that the conservatives have leveled towards him is you're not being fiscally conservative and his response is yeah yeah, I'm not. And he moves on. So I don't think that this is actually a criticism that sticks because Trudeau is not being that fiscally responsible prime minister. That is not the legacy that he's seeking to have.

Zain 1:08:21

Corey, you had said last episode when this had just come out that there could be a win, win, win.

Zain 1:08:27

A win for Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, a win for Jagmeet Singh and the NDP, and maybe even a win for the Conservatives and Pierre Pallieva. Do you agree with that? now seeing some of the details?

Corey 1:08:38

Yeah, I do. Actually, I think it played out very much that way, in my opinion, the last couple of days. Because of course, the Conservatives will get to fundraise off this like crazy, and they can shout and they don't have to worry about bringing a government down when they don't need or have the ability to run an election. The NDP get a number of concrete wins that they can point to. I mean, saying

Corey 1:08:59

saying that they were the party of Medicare was was getting a little stale 60 years out so now we have some some additional things that we can bring forward to say this is the benefit of a government that is liberal backed up by the ndp right and fair enough i mean these are some pretty significant policy wins for the ndp and it plays into what i what i can sort of see forming as a strategy of of jagmeet singh saying you

Corey 1:09:20

you know elect liberals or elect new democrats like the mix will govern the country and you get to pick the mix so it allows you to say like it's better to have more new democrats than fewer new democrats and if it's part of a two-step process to ultimately contest for government makes perfect sense to me and if you're justin trudeau you really really wanted that majority government did you really need it i don't know and you're paying a pretty big price for it right now because i actually think the price is bigger than the actual tag because steven's right so much of this was actually in the platform but uh but you know there's the optics that you get to enjoy because of now the conservative messaging there but uh but you wanted this and you got it and you got it and it looks pretty solid now um

Corey 1:10:04

we said the devil was in the details and the details are pretty interesting to me because you listed all of the categories that this has committed get into

Zain 1:10:12

into the depths of it yeah yeah

Corey 1:10:13

yeah and that's okay long fucking list is my crazy list really long list and so the thing that struck me about that was twofold one is ambition

Corey 1:10:22

ambition slash boy boy, was Justin Trudeau that desperate to get a deal that he would itemize all those things. And two is, that's a lot of fail points. Like people are talking about this as taking us to 2025, like it's a given thing. There are so, let's put it this way.

Corey 1:10:39

Imagine all of the things that were not in the liberal platform were stripped out.

Corey 1:10:43

What would your confidence level be? They'd be able to hit that timeline, Stephen, you've worked in government.

Corey 1:10:48

I mean, like, it's gonna be really hard. It doesn't

Zain 1:10:50

doesn't work that way. Are they fail points? Because they don't. One

Corey 1:10:53

One of the things they

Corey 1:10:54

they don't include is

Corey 1:10:56

timelines and numbers. Well, they do in

Zain 1:10:57

in some – well,

Corey 1:10:59

one case, yeah. Sure,

Zain 1:10:59

Sure, sure. But like broad numbers mapped out, budget, et cetera. They don't include those. They include sometimes vagaries like progress and starting and up to here in certain cases. Carter, is

Corey 1:11:10

is that a – But

Corey 1:11:12

Zane, that's the point. That is in the eye of the beholder. And if you have a number of people saying, well, this is not progress, and it's so broad and it's so non-concrete. and

Corey 1:11:22

and but like there's this general commitment to it there's gonna be a lot of people saying you didn't actually do this and and there's gonna be every opportunity in the world for the ndp to say in two years no there's not progress here we're out we're pulling the plug if if justin trudeau becomes more unpopular or if there's a leadership change or if the polls shift and all of a sudden singh looks like he could be prime minister there

Corey 1:11:43

there it's not as concrete of a deal because it is so ambitious of a deal.

Zain 1:11:49

See, you know what I'm thinking, Carter? I think part of me feels like the glue here is less about what gets done, but the two men who've signed it, co-authored it, and their personal legacies. I feel like Jagmeet Singh is a guy who knows he's never going to become prime minister, and the best he can do is co-author pharmacare and dental care. And for Justin Trudeau, this buys him the runway to land the plane on all the legacy projects that he wants wants to be known for over the course of a potential decade. So Carter, do you see that as fail points on objective grounds, the policy measures they need to collectively hit? Or do you feel like the glue could be both men have effectively now co-signed a plan to chart their own political futures and legacies?

Carter 1:12:29

Jagmeet Singh is no more a failure than any NDP leader that's come before him. In fact, the biggest successes are when the NDP comes up with the policy compromise as they have right now i mean this is this is arguably the biggest deal that the ndp have ever come up with um and if it if 50 of it comes true um they'll you know jagmeet singh's going to be able to point to a legacy of ndp action that has made lives better for canadians in his mind um do you think there's

Zain 1:13:01

there's a pathway that that ruins the party though there's a lot of arguments now that there's a pathway that you know if these ideas work he's wiped off the map and the liberals get complete credit that

Zain 1:13:13

that that the ndp could i

Zain 1:13:15

i don't want to go as far as cease to exist but they could fundamentally lose out on a lot of their ground and perhaps be in a position where they don't exist like they used to or even in the current form both of you are saying no go ahead and i'll go to you

Carter 1:13:27

you but fantastic i don't give a shit that's not why i'm in politics i'm not Not in politics to propagate the NDP. Yeah, but you're not

Zain 1:13:34

not the leader of the NDP. But he shouldn't be

Carter 1:13:37

He shouldn't be there. He shouldn't be there to make sure that the NDP goes forward. He should be there to make sure that he's serving Canadians to the best of his ability and actually getting the things that he stands for, that he believes in. That's like

Zain 1:13:50

naive I would say. That sounds like something naive and

Carter 1:13:52

and sentimental that I would say. This is what we believe in. And we believe that the best way to achieve these things, We believe that the best way to achieve these things is through pulling together a collective of people who agree with us. And sometimes that takes the shape of a party, and sometimes that takes a supply agreement. He's getting what he wants. He's getting what he needs. How

Carter 1:14:14

sir? I've put $2,500 into the live show, and you choose to argue with me?

Zain 1:14:22

Carter Carter saying saying we want to take ourselves or put ourselves out of work is not what you do as a political party they're

Carter 1:14:30

they're not going out of work they're more relevant today than ever great

Zain 1:14:35

great it's maybe their ideas are more relevant today one would argue but the liberal kleptomania on those ideas is perhaps furthered by this agreement I mean that's the argument Corey you want to jump in here uh either to course correct Carter's naivete or to promote vote uh the live show that we're doing ticketsville but the strategist live.com well

Corey 1:14:53

well i think it's it's idealistic of steven i'm not i i don't disagree with it's a fascinating question let me put it that way if the liberals become the ndp if

Corey 1:15:01

if the liberals become the ndp is that a loss for the ndp i'm not really sure it is i think that there would be a lot of new democrats stalwarts for the

Zain 1:15:10

p in ndp yeah

Corey 1:15:12

yeah well sure but who cares okay

Corey 1:15:13

okay but like that's the ideas it's

Corey 1:15:16

idea yeah like This isn't a relevant conversation because it's not – what we're describing here is not going to happen. It's not a situation where the NDP are going to disappear because the liberals have been such strong stalwarts there. If anything, I think that the risk may balance more on the liberal side in two ways. The first way is relative to the NDP because

Corey 1:15:36

because as was mentioned at the top, so much of this was in the liberal platform. But the way it's being read right now is as though the NDP are what pulled all of those things out of the liberals. So I think that the risk may be more along the lines of the NDP get credit for things the liberals were going to do anyways.

Corey 1:15:52

And that is not something that's going to necessarily help Justin Trudeau very much. And then there's the risk on the other side with the conservatives. We've talked about this in different contexts. The liberals have moved to the left, and they've managed to hold the center by and large because the conservatives – I almost called them the Republicans, which was very

Corey 1:16:12

very Freudian and very accurate – they're moving to the right. And so when you consider sitting in the center, whether you're closer to the liberals or the conservatives, you still are remaining a little bit closer to the liberals. But the

Corey 1:16:26

more that you're perceived as moving left, the more opportunity there is there in the center. And one of two things will ultimately happen if both of these parties continue on these trajectories, right? One of them is going to switch course and say, this is nuts. There are way too many votes there. I want them, right?

Corey 1:16:41

right? Conservatives have an opportunity to do that right now. We'll see if they take that opportunity. I'm somewhat doubtful, although hope springs eternal. The other thing is they'll just go so far there will be a pop and something will show up in the middle, almost what the Saskatchewan party was in Saskatchewan originally, where four liberal MLAs and four conservative or PC MLAs joined to create this party, right? And over time, it may morph and it may supplant one of those parties for sure. But nature

Corey 1:17:08

nature abhors a vacuum, politics abhors a vacuum more. And that is a pretty big vacuum to leave the core of where this country is totally undefended. I don't think we're there yet. I don't want to overstate it. I don't think the liberals have absolutely abandoned kind

Corey 1:17:22

kind of the centrism. And actually, I don't think the conservatives have either. there there's a number of pocketbook issues that resonate broadly but that

Corey 1:17:29

that is the risk and that is the opportunity that is there carter

Zain 1:17:33

carter i don't know if i want to do this because it's going to open a can of worms here we go let me let it work

Zain 1:17:37

we still have to discuss the conservatives we still have to do the over under the lightning round uh carter here's the thing where

Zain 1:17:43

where does the campaign to take credit for the deal when does that begin when does that begin to cory's point here. If Jagmeet Singh's whole premise here is the liberals were heading towards this, and we were, you know, the goal line push that got them there, and now we're going to get credit for that. That is a terrible analogy, that proverbial touchdown, right, for being there.

Zain 1:18:07

When does that campaign for Jagmeet Singh start? Like, when does he start communicating that broadly? And what does it look like in your mind? Like, because it can't just be him standing there being like, I did this, this, I did this, I did this. Beyond that, what does it need to look like? You're seeing some elements of that today with Ed Broadbent and others, but what else does it need to look like for Jagmeet Singh? I

Carter 1:18:27

I think he needs to actually achieve something. The deal in and of itself is not the achievement.

Zain 1:18:33

think you can't start celebrating the deal as taking credit for the directionality. You can't do that, you don't think.

Carter 1:18:40

Team drafts a stud quarterback. They don't They don't get to just hold their hands up and say, well, we won the Super Bowl. Tom Brady comes out of retirement. That doesn't give you the Super Bowl again. No, but you

Corey 1:18:51

what, Carter? They sell a lot of fucking jerseys in both of those cases.

Carter 1:18:54

cases. They sell a lot of jerseys, but they don't win the game.

Corey 1:18:55

That's a really good point. Corey, what's the equivalent of jerseys here? Win

Corey 1:19:00

You know what? It's just pulling support. It's enthusiasm for the party. It's believing that this is a movement that is going somewhere.

Corey 1:19:07

You know, I think that there is an opportunity here for Singh, and it seems crazy to say, And I know it sounds grand and breathless, but he

Corey 1:19:14

he could be the most consequential NDP leader since Tommy Douglas at this point, if they actually pull this off. Well, he's

Zain 1:19:21

comparisons, I mean, not so subtly in some of his press

Corey 1:19:24

If we get dental care and pharma care as a result of this deal, that's

Corey 1:19:28

that's pretty bonkers. That's pretty cool. And we'll be talking about it for a long time. And by the way, nobody thinks of Tommy Douglas as a failure in the NDP. And Tommy Douglas did not destroy the NDP.

Corey 1:19:40

getting concessions from the liberals has often been the sweet spot for the ndp and um i think that there is a real opportunity for them to lean into that version um because

Corey 1:19:52

know it's funny what happened ultimately was not that the ndp were supplanted by the liberals is that the liberals went

Corey 1:19:59

went too far left and were blown out by the conservatives right like 84 followed some of this stuff in the 70s so this goes back to i think there's things that all of of the parties can look at positively, look at with interest, and see opportunity in.

Zain 1:20:13

Carter, let's talk about the conservative reaction. What did you make of the rhetoric? Socialism, coalition government, you talk about breathless. They were chomping at the bit. Pierre Pallouier today brings out first NDP prime minister. Any of these good lines? I know you're shaking your head. We don't agree with them ideologically, I get it. But any of these good good lines and good takes from a political strategy and messaging perspective? Or do they come across looking as desperate and weak? I'm curious to get your like practitioners take on this. Well,

Carter 1:20:44

Well, let's assume that there is in fact, a center in Canada, and that center is powerful. Let's just assume that just for right now. I think that polling, public polling shows that there's a group of people who see them in the middle, and themselves in the middle. And I think that um you

Carter 1:21:00

you know the evidence shows in multiple forms that there is a group of people in the middle for some reason the conservative party is reluctant to grab it and because they're reluctant to grab it it has enabled the liberals to move to the left to find very popular let's be clear these are very popular programs

Carter 1:21:17

programs that they can bring forward the child care program for example was huge but

Carter 1:21:23

because the conservatives continue to focus solely on their base and seem so reluctant to expand their base it has given the the liberals in the ndp room to maneuver and if the if the conservatives were smart and

Carter 1:21:39

and and that question remains open they would have they would have moved to the center on this they would have said you know what what this

Carter 1:21:46

this is the most expensive coalition ever right this isn't this has nothing this this is a coalition your grandchildren you pay for this

Carter 1:21:54

this is a this is a coalition that everybody will be talking about for centuries because that's how long everybody's going to be paying for it right

Carter 1:22:01

right um this is a this is a coalition that is spending more you're you know more money than anybody can think of calling them names who the fuck cares like oh you're a socialist zane zane you're a socialist right Right? Fuck off. I don't care. Call me whatever you want. I'm winning. Right? Don't call them names. Win a battle for once in a life. But all Pierre Polyev, all these guys know how to do is pick up the names that they see parroted on Fox News and throw them around and try and figure out how they can raise money off of them. That's what they're good at. They've lost the ability to be a good opposition.

Zain 1:22:41

Corey, or as I call you in my Republican speak, cocky Corey. It's cocky cory cocky cory uh silly steven that's what you get you get silly steven yeah

Carter 1:22:50

yeah that's okay what do

Zain 1:22:51

do you think coalition uh socialism uh what else the first ndp prime minister the rhetoric breathless over the top or you know could be experimenting with some solid lines here especially if i should add if you're pure polyamory and always been talking about this This cabal that's forming, you know, the alt-left and taking Canada in this direction that you don't want to take it in.

Corey 1:23:17

Well, look, it depends on if they actually believe this is going to resonate with the general public. Because if they're just playing to the base, fucking fine, okay? But this otherwise is the exact same mistake that conservatives made in Alberta in 2015. They just started, they took as a given that it was a bad thing to have an NDP premier. They would incredulously say, and then we would have an NDP premier? And then Albertan said, yeah, that sounds fine. What you have to keep in mind is when you look at the polling, people who are willing to vote liberal are generally also willing to vote New Democrat. And people who are willing to vote New Democrat are generally also willing to vote liberal. And the first NDP prime minister is not a scary notion to literally most of this country. Okay? okay so so like to throw it out there as an attack in the general public is fucking dumb it's fucking dumb and it misses the point and you're so far in your own bullshit that you can't actually smell anything else and there's a whole valley of roses beyond here so uh dumb if it's for the general public but if you're playing to this base who actually wakes up every morning and and gets scared about the idea did socialism creep over the border overnight then yeah okay okay, maybe it's fine. Maybe it's okay. If this is the way you feel about life, but, but

Corey 1:24:28

step fucking back, step fucking back and look at this. Like the conservatives are sitting here playing these petty bullshit wars with themselves, losing their heads over the stupidest shit, supporting insurrectionists. Meanwhile, the liberals, not even with the NDP support for most of it have happily gone along and introduced the

Corey 1:24:46

most significant price of carbon in the Western world, basically, at least in terms of where it's going here. universal child care universal dental care now on course universal pharma care now on course legalized marijuana and oh by the way blew the doors out and spending with covet 19 on basically every fucking thing you could think about this is by far the most consequential government of my lifetime and they're sitting there talking about the scare tactics of socialism canadians have voted for and embraced this since 2015 where the fuck are you guys find the center because you are are lost, my friends. You are lost. Carter,

Zain 1:25:18

Carter, let's talk about this. What does Mr. Charest need to do in this leadership race as he sees this happen this week? Is there upside here for Jean Charest, the proverbial find the center candidate? Is he more screwed or less screwed after this liberal NDP supply and confidence agreement this week?

Carter 1:25:40

I think he's absolutely less screwed. I to actually remind people what it means to have a progressive conservative government. Because, you know, it doesn't look like Skippy's going to get them there. So remind people that what's at stake, what is at stake is governing and governing matters. Why is this deal even been constructed? This deal has been constructed because government and being the governing party means you get to do things. You get to spend money. You get to achieve certain goals that you may set for yourselves. that you don't get to achieve by calling everybody a socialist. This is where

Carter 1:26:22

where Jean Charest should be making the very strong case that winning matters and the Conservative

Carter 1:26:33

Conservative Party of Canada needs to really step up their game and actually become the governing party again. They're not the naturally governing party. It takes effort. It takes focus for them to become the party that actually wins. So start providing that effort and start providing that focus. That's what you need to do. And this childishness of just simply running around and screaming, socialism, scary, ooh, scary stuff. It's not winning you a damn thing. Not a damn thing.

Zain 1:27:03

Coy, anything to add to Sheree in particular in regards to your find the center commentary?

Corey 1:27:08

i i don't know if the conservatives are mentally there but if i were going to just dispassionately provide advice to them it would be absolutely that like what why would you consider going further right you've got to find the middle and maybe if charrette's not your cup of tea maybe a version of patrick brown maybe door number eight is the right door right it's always the right door always

Corey 1:27:28

but the point being here you even

Corey 1:27:31

even if you end up accidentally falling

Corey 1:27:33

falling into government under Pierre Poliev, which is totally possible. And I don't want anybody to think I'm saying he could never be prime minister. Government's just hit a shelf life and people look for options there.

Corey 1:27:44

That is going to be so the exception, not the rule. And there's only so much damage you can do in four years before you are turfed the fuck out again for the next 20, which is what's going to happen if you govern in that way, so far off of where Canadians want to be and are. And so So

Corey 1:28:02

see it as an opportunity. See it as an opportunity. The center has been left relatively empty. This could be a chance for a 1984-style blowout where the people who truly believe in left-wing values stick with the NDP and

Corey 1:28:16

more moderate Canadians all rush to the Conservatives. It is not impossible to me that you are effectively going to see the liberals under Trudeau, the younger, follow a similar path to what happened under Trudeau, the elder. Not impossible.

Zain 1:28:32

We're going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our final segment over under in our lightning round, Stephen Carter. The only reason we keep doing this segment, it's you. You're the reason. Are we

Carter 1:28:39

we going to talk about the AFL? Because I had a terrible night last night. The Blues actually won. It was unbelievable. No one expected

Zain 1:28:46

expected it. It's really unfortunate. You know, they won. Do you know who else has won? According to Corey, everybody. Everybody won based on this recent supply and confidence deal. But Stephen Carter, amongst a list of winners, who was the most winningest? For you, who won the most? Who was winning the most as part of this agreement between the NDP and the Liberals? I

Carter 1:29:07

I think the Liberals. The Liberals have got consistency and they're achieving their stated platform much cleaner. winner.

Zain 1:29:16

Corey, is it the liberals that won the most amongst the parade of winners?

Corey 1:29:20

I think that is TBD. The people who have the most opportunity, I believe, are actually the conservatives here. But

Corey 1:29:26

But who I suspect will all admittedly have won the most is the NDP.

Zain 1:29:30

Oh, interesting. Yeah, and consistent with what you've been saying throughout the show. Corey, sticking with you on this, give me a letter grade on Brian Jean this week. You know, not Not necessarily out in front today. Definitely quite animated, aggressive, assertive when the new rules came out a couple days ago, seems like weeks ago. Give me a letter grade on Brian Jean this week.

Corey 1:29:54

I'm going to give him a C. I don't think that he's necessarily done himself so much damage that he can't advance to the next course here, but not an impressive performance. Certainly he's not going to be making the Dean's List with this kind of activity.

Zain 1:30:08

Carter, he's not making the Dean's list. Is he making the Gene's list? What is he getting? What is Brian Gene? Thank you. These are the jokes that you get. It's fantastic. I

Zain 1:30:16

love it. You know what's not going to be fucking awful is the strategistlive.com. Now, that is where you get tickets for our live show April 10th, Martha Cohen Theater. Right, Carter?

Carter 1:30:25

Yeah, I'm going to be there.

Zain 1:30:27

Well, you better be there. How much money do you have on the line?

Carter 1:30:31

$2,500 plus all the ticket sales from the 168 tickets that we've already sold. It's in someone else's bank account, not in our bank account. I just had to throw like $1,850 just boom, down on the table. I'm the unemployed one. What the fuck?

Zain 1:30:48

Also 20% of all CDs and DVDs. Let's not forget that. That is going to be a killer. Carter, Brian Jean, letter grade. This week, what's he getting?

Carter 1:30:57

Brian Jean's getting a D minus because he's just really bad. He's just not good.

Carter 1:31:05

That's all I have. Carter,

Zain 1:31:06

Carter, in less than a couple of weeks, we're expecting a federal budget. What are you looking for in that federal budget? You know, we've had two very different stories. One telegraphing and softening the ground saying this could be some restraint. This was a week or so ago. There's restraints here. We're going, you know, fiscal guardrails, etc. And then boom, liberal NDP deal. Are you, what are you looking for in this budget? Because it seems like the first time in a while, at least the last two years, where we know it might not guarantee to be spend, spend, spend, Ben, very much could be that. It also could be another track. What are you looking for in terms of the budget coming up in less than a couple of weeks? I'm

Carter 1:31:38

I'm going to be watching the revenue lines. I'm going to be watching to see what the revenue lines are looking like. I mean, obviously, here in Alberta, we're seeing a massive increase in our revenue lines just because of the royalties. I'm expecting to see strong revenue increases over last year, reducing the deficit, which I think the Liberals and NDP will use as an excuse to start spending.

Zain 1:32:03

Corey? budget, less than a couple of weeks coming federally, what are you looking for in it?

Corey 1:32:09

Well, I'm looking to see if there's a path, not back to balance, but to see there's been signals from Freeland that this is getting back to the fundamentals of the economy. And I want to see if there's any evidence of that, because it'll tell us a lot about whether they are

Corey 1:32:25

remotely concerned or intending to fight for that more economic liberal that was previously there, or if they think the Conservatives are so out there right now that there's not really that need and they can focus on these major programs.

Zain 1:32:37

You know, Corey, one thing about development properties is that with a fresh coat of paint, some new infrastructure, some new amenities, they can often be rebranded and put back on the market. So Corey Hogan, on where O'Toole Island once stood, are you buying a luxury, especially considering the cost of living today? I mean, I don't need to tell you. Cost of living across this country is high. Are you buying in a 10 to 1 situation a piece of property on Kenny Island, given what we've seen this week? Are you purchasing on Jason Kenny Island the 10 to 1, 10 to 1 payout with your property on Kenny Island today? Yeah,

Corey 1:33:21

You know, one of the things where I have to have a certain amount of humility is that on monday i was thinking oh boy he fucked right and then they did a move and the move was wild and i'm not sure the move in the long term is going to pan out and i think this is kind of a longer term criticism i have of short-term thinking there but it was a move when you think the guy's cornered he's not cornered he finds a different way to play it every single time and i i don't i think he's got a better than 10 chance of pulling this all off being premier here here, let me paint a scenario for you.

Corey 1:33:52

Pulls off this leadership review, ends up with 55% of the vote. His party starts to freak out a bit. He immediately calls a snap election. He replaces half his bloody caucus with his own appointees. He basically dares people both

Corey 1:34:04

both to get their pants on in time and then run against him and thus basically guarantee a notly government or get on board.

Corey 1:34:12

And then maybe he wins because the polls right now are pretty split. It's not impossible to me that he pulls this off cleans that shit up and moves on the guy is savvy as hell he's he is a master tactician i i fault his strategy we ended up here in part because he doesn't see too many moves ahead but uh he's savvy as hell carter

Zain 1:34:33

carter 10 to 1 payout are you purchasing property right next to cory hogan on kenny island um

Carter 1:34:43

don't think he's got a 1 in 10 chance of winning uh so i think think he's got a one in 20 or 140 chance of winning so i'm gonna play the numbers and i'm gonna uh you know this is what's made me uh worth

Carter 1:34:55

worth about one-tenth of what cory's worth so

Zain 1:34:59

well it's that it's that and putting out all putting

Carter 1:35:00

putting out twenty five hundred dollars i think it needs to be speeded the

Zain 1:35:05

live show april 10th it's a sunday it's gonna be a hoot the strategist live.com martha cohen theater here in calgary and we're gonna leave it there That's a wrap on Episode 976 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

Transcript