Transcript
Corey
0:02
we're about to go live. Let's get Carter. Let's get Carter. You want me to call him? I called him. I called him. He sent me straight to voicemail.
Corey
0:08
I say we just start.
Corey
0:10
It's not really... We'll do the formal episode the minute he shows up. So we'll just start.
Zain
0:14
Okay, okay. And then can we just share this link? Are we just going to share this
Corey
0:17
this link? I already did. Put
Corey
0:17
Put it on Twitter. Okay, perfect.
SPEAKER_00
0:19
And I'm going to retweet it just so I can get some of my followers to see what's up.
Corey
0:24
Oh, because you have so many followers. We're live now, by the way.
Corey
0:27
I just want you to know. like
Zain
0:29
this is on youtube people are watching well
Corey
0:30
well it's about to be because there's like a 30 second delay and i'm about to hit start so they're going to hear a bit of this and they're going to come in
Corey
0:43
think hold on can
Corey
0:45
can i see you i can't see you yet i can see you now what up
Corey
0:49
what's up cory what's up what's up you yeah let's so first of all afl
Zain
0:54
afl predictions go ahead Okay.
Corey
0:56
Okay. So I went eight for nine in my AFL predictions this week. And it's really good because the Brisbane Honeydogs have been having a really bad season. But the way the Adelaide Super Australians
Corey
1:12
Australians failed, I don't care.
Corey
1:16
Carter will be joining us. We should mention that in
Corey
1:19
in theory. He said he will.
Corey
1:20
Is he? I don't know.
Zain
1:21
know. I don't know. I don't know. Who the fuck knows?
Zain
1:28
feel like that's General Carter territory. Uh, okay, Corey, I am stuck in the boot loop of watching ourselves rather than actually trying to get the show on the road. Um, where do we want to start? Let's start with, let
Zain
1:39
let me try this. Let's start with the
Zain
1:43
the lead up and the delay and
Zain
1:45
and the spidey sense that at least you and many of the Twitterati had that this thing was being dragged out for a specific reason, That it was being delayed, that it was being pushed, that it was being, you know,
Zain
2:04
And that seemed to bear itself out, because this seemed like a jump ball decision, because the result may have been clear with 51%. But Corey, the decision isn't really clear for a leader, right? Like, we could have seen that speech go either way. And it went the other way. Well,
Corey
2:22
we thought the speech was going to go the, I'm staying around, I'm not going anywhere, Wolf of Wall Street style, right?
Corey
2:28
But it didn't. He kind of surprised us all. But that was an early indication that something was amiss. I said this on CBC and I'll say it here.
Corey
2:38
When the results were supposed to become between four and six, that's pretty healthy buffer. And you give that kind of buffer because it allows you to deal with when things go wrong. so when you're outside of that things
Corey
2:49
things are really wrong right something has gone awry somewhere in some way shape or form now it can be mundane it could have been technical but now the suspicion has to be that result came in and everyone said shit what
Corey
3:01
what what do we do what does this mean how do we proceed from this point and
Corey
3:06
and uh you know i'm sure there were conversations to be had with people who needed to know i'm sure there were updates
Corey
3:11
updates to speeches that needed to occur curve
Corey
3:13
and so here i
Zain
3:14
some of those conversations were like okay man like i know you said 50 plus one but fuck you that's not a real thing right or even him saying i know i said 50 plus one but fuck me that's not a real thing yeah
Zain
3:29
i think that's pretty much where he arrives like that's the summary of that speech being like listen i know what i said i said what i said i meant what i said but you know i can't stay and he was right like i think I think he was probably... Actually, you know what? That's a
Corey
3:43
a question, Corey. Was he right?
Corey
3:45
I think he was right. We were saying just before it, wow, it's going to be impossible to stay with this result. And then he didn't stay with this result. So I think that's kind of common analysis. 51% is not enough to hold a party together.
Corey
3:58
And especially when you consider all the advantages he was given in getting this leadership vote to the finish line. He
Corey
4:04
He got to choose the way the votes were counted. He moved it from in-person to a remote vote. vote. He obviously had a bit of foreknowledge that that was going to occur. So he could have sold memberships before the deadline to that effect.
Corey
4:16
And there are just so many other things you have in your control when you're the leader. You have things that are big, such as the rule changes we were talking about. You have things that are quasi big, such as having an army of staffers who you can say, it's time for you to go on vacation and put some hours in here.
Corey
4:30
And then you have things that are small, which is people will always want to talk to the leader, even if if they're pissed at them. So you always have an opportunity to make your case to the angry people of the party. And that means something. But given all of that, to get 51%, especially when you consider some of the allegations around bulk vote buying,
Corey
4:49
what do you do? Like just paint a scenario here, 51.4%. I wrote the numbers down. They're in my notes, but they were close, right? Like a thousand votes separated them.
Corey
4:59
There is a suggestion, 4,000 votes were purchased on eight credit cards so if that conversation just continues if elections alberta comes out and says we are investigating that because we think it was an illegal contribution or something you
Corey
5:11
you there's this cloud over you you're considered the phony premier and and so what do you do you have to step down you
Zain
5:18
you know look i have a question for you and this is it's neither here nor there but it's kind of here which is does this kind of what does this do to the rcmp investigation investigation like you were just talking about cheating in this
Zain
5:29
race like i do do you have a sense of what this multi-year investigation could mean now that the guy's saying peace out i
Zain
5:37
i mean the simple
Corey
5:38
simple answer is it will continue but
Corey
5:40
but you know it'll be like with the with the ucp uh leadership contest and how jeff calloway many many years well
Corey
5:48
months if not you
Corey
5:50
know a couple years later get these fines we may be sitting there drinking our mint juleps on our porches one fine summer day in 2024. And we opened the newspaper and we say, oh, that's interesting. Jason Kenney was just fined $25,000 by the commissioner of elections. How
Corey
6:05
How quite, right? But it won't mean anything because he won't be premier by many years at that point. So this goes to the point of those things need to move faster in just a natural justice sense. Because even if you're the innocent party, you don't want that sort of languishing over you. You
Zain
6:22
You know, you said he won't be the premier in many years, but he could be the premier relates to the next couple of weeks or as it relates to the next couple of months, I think there is, and we were just on CBC, all three of us, and Carter, of course, needed to take a nap after that just to make sure he can recuperate and ensure his heart palpitations are under control. But all three of us are saying it isn't crazy if, I was going to say if, Corey, if Kenny stays on as
Zain
6:51
as the interim leader, that there is no, quote unquote, quote new premier sworn in in that regard yeah
Corey
6:55
yeah well in some ways it might be the smoothest thing for his party because you're going to have a contentious enough leadership fight why have a contentious interim leader fight right and so often
Corey
7:05
often they'll just casually pick an interim leader and that's fine but
Corey
7:09
but the interim leader does have the the
Corey
7:11
risk and the opportunity of branding the party and
Corey
7:14
and you don't always want that you don't necessarily um you want to have somebody else out there when there's when there's people who are vying for the job and
Corey
7:23
and and so why not keep the guy everybody knows doesn't mean everybody loves him but he will fade into the background there is still a government to run and
Corey
7:31
and there are still things the ucp agrees upon and that can be his focus over the next couple of months i'm
Zain
7:36
i'm gonna save the strategy questions for for when carter jumps on he just said he's gonna he's gonna be there in five he's uh he's eating uh two hours his past supper time uh for carter uh
Zain
7:47
he's having the swiss jelly special as he should treat yourself carter um we have to talk about you know a couple of things related to this race when we look back that should have been clear that he was not gonna win with the swagger he had i'm so curious about the fucking swagger man the guy was like doing like big dick energy for the last last two weeks which kind of which
Zain
8:11
which handicapped a lot of people from saying anything negative to say like this if he if this is the way he's acting he's got it in
Zain
8:18
in retrospect still a smart move i guess i guess maybe i don't know to me i i think it kind of was but uh you know it's it's it's certainly inconsistent with the result let's put it that way right like the blindingly obvious uh insight but it also did do something into into intervening like two weeks it kind of kept a lot lot of people at bay perhaps yeah
Corey
8:39
yeah so i think um i
Corey
8:41
i think maybe it kept the vultures from circling but i don't believe that's what his intention was i do believe he thought he was going to do better i will tell you and this will be backed up by all sorts of pundits and all sorts of politically connected people over the next bit the
Corey
8:55
the premier's office was really confident they really thought they had this thing everybody i talked to well unless they were
Zain
9:02
yeah based on what did So was there any sort of like underlying theory of the why we got it?
Corey
9:06
Yeah. I mean, in a funny way, it's very simple. They just thought that the anger wasn't there. It had abated. They just weren't hearing it. The people they were talking to were telling them, yes, they're going to support him.
Corey
9:18
think they were surprised. I'm hearing that there were tears in the room tonight as this announcement was there. And that to me speaks to people kind of processing something in the moment, something that they hadn't seriously considered before. And so this was shocking. This was definitely something that was not foreseen by a lot of people that were directly around Jason Kenney. I don't think it was an act, is what I'm saying. The other thing I would say is, once the ballots are in,
Corey
9:45
in, it's closed, the count is going to be what the count is going to be, there's no sense in continuing that energy. strategy uh in fact you're the the rational thing to do is the opposite is to manage expectations the other way and say well i really don't know anything could happen and regardless i just i think it's important that this party moves forward united and take that tone of like because you
Corey
10:06
you just imagine it from a game theory point of view uh you take that approach and you win well you've managed expectations down and your win looks even better yeah you take that approach and you lose well you've adjusted everybody to that rationale and you don't have to deal with people saying that That guy was out of his mind the last week. He was delusional the last week that he was running around. So I really do truly believe they were surprised.
Zain
10:30
Yeah, and I think we were too. What did you make of the construction of that Spearcombs, Carter? I'm curious what you made of the construction of that speech, which was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Hey, what up, Carter? We're going to start the official business in a second, but I'm asking Corey about what he made of the construction of Kenny's speech.
Corey
10:50
Well, I think that it was my theory. My theory is he had a speech. He had the I win speech and he didn't want to throw away all of it. Right. So like the first start was the I win speech, like the membership has spoken. I have gotten a majority. And then he said, okay, but let's change pages two through six into, but I'm out of here. Right. Because it did seem to be, I
Corey
11:12
I mean, here's the reality people need to realize when you're preparing for these situations. You sit down and you say, what speeches do I need? I
Corey
11:19
I need the victory speech. I need the concession speech. And there may be those flavors in there of like, I need the close victory or I need the close loss speech. But maybe you don't get there. Maybe not. Maybe you do the thing that we all do in our jobs, which says, we just don't know. We know we're going to have to tailor it to the moment anyhow. So let's just start with these two core speeches and we'll modify from there. And then all of a sudden it's 415, let's say, and you're informed, excuse me, Premier Kenney, so the ballots are counted and you have 51.4% of the vote.
Corey
11:50
And you and your closest advisors are in the room and you say, what?
Corey
11:54
That can't be right. We
Corey
11:55
We thought it was going to be larger. What? But you have to process it. Maybe you make some protestations. Maybe you ask how this could be the case. Maybe you had some concern with some things that were validated later that now it matters and you didn't think it was mattering later. But now you also have the two speech problem and you've got to turn out the real speech if these results are correct. And so what you do in that case is you take the speech that's closest to the speech you're going to give and you start making modifications. And if you won, you start with the victory speech, even if you're going to resign. I can see the logic of that and I can see how that speech went there. But yeah, it was like an M. Night Shyamalan movie there. There was just this twist partway through where you're like, oh, that's
Zain
12:34
that's so crazy. He
Corey
12:35
He was dead all along, right? Is it like
Corey
12:36
like how I did that?
Zain
12:38
Corey, here's what I'm going to do. I think I'm going to reset for the pod. So Carter has now joined us. Carter, can you hear us okay? You're good?
Zain
12:46
You can't hear... Oh, my God. We can't
Corey
12:49
can't hear you. We actually can't
Zain
12:50
can't hear you. Are you doing a thing? He's
SPEAKER_00
12:53
He's doing a bit. Are
Zain
12:54
Are you doing a bit?
Zain
12:54
He's doing a bit. I
Corey
12:56
I don't know if he's doing
Corey
12:56
a bit or not.
Corey
12:58
okay he says no i can't hear you i can read lips
Zain
13:00
lips now why don't you come back come
Zain
13:02
come back just leave and come
Corey
13:03
yeah what's wrong with you i was going to reset for the pod how
Corey
13:06
can we miss you if you don't go away yeah
Zain
13:09
god okay i did
Corey
13:10
did also invite eric grenier so there's
Zain
13:13
there's okay i wonder
Zain
13:14
don't know if you're being serious or
Zain
13:17
guess we'll find out how is it that alberta politics is more interesting than ontario politics and they're having a fucking election right now well
Corey
13:23
well do we really want to restate our last show i mean they just got they got some things going that is true
Zain
13:29
we'll wait for carter to come back we'll reset for the pod is there anything else what else do you want to talk about i mean give me give me a run run a show for for what we're discussing on this
Zain
13:37
say 15 20 minute max pod because if you're listening right now on the live stream you
Zain
13:43
you want to come to the maharaja banquet all you want to make your fucking you want to make your way up to edmonton okay hotel rooms pennies on the dollar right now now. Many places to stay. You want to make it up for our live show tomorrow because it's going to be a hoot. We've got so much shit to talk about. We can't pack it in today, but also you
Zain
13:59
you want to be at the Maharaja where you get to see other people just as dazed and confused as you are about what the future of Alberta politics is.
Corey
14:06
I agree. I don't know if you're actually trying to do a weird plug here, but holy shit, do we have a lot of things to talk about. We could do 30 minutes on the hold music alone. I think Alberta strong and free has just been indoctrinated made it into my mind so oh
Zain
14:20
oh my goodness uh carter is of course um uh he's uh he's passed so uh he's he's he's uh he's gone folks i didn't want to break it to you this way you're gonna feel really bad now if that's not true i'm
Zain
14:33
i'm i'm gonna be buying several dozen lottery tickets if that is true so it's
Zain
14:39
it's it's really fine uh it's fine either way it's really a win um give
Zain
14:44
give me a run of show what do you want to talk about today cory because we've got we've got so much to talk about out um
Corey
14:49
um yeah we'll do more of it tomorrow but i think it's instant reaction yeah what what do we think what are people grappling with tonight just as we're grappling with things carter
Corey
15:00
carter can we hear you yet can
Corey
15:03
you hear us yet carter
Corey
15:06
those microphones for show wow
Zain
15:08
wow this is this is terrible horrible this
Zain
15:12
is uh this is unfortunate seriously
Corey
15:17
hey carter when i look at your inputs and outputs uh i have your both are your okay
Corey
15:24
okay i can't hear so
Corey
15:28
this is what we usually do for about 20 minutes before we start live streaming oh my
Zain
15:32
my god yeah we should have done that i mean this is the fact he came late so we'll blame it on him uh instant reaction who's grappling with what the The announcement and the strategy, I want to rehash again. And then I think it's like implications, right? Like interim leader stuff. I want to talk about a bit about that. Interim leader stuff and then like opposition reaction. Somebody
Corey
15:52
Somebody just on the YouTube thing said Carter's microphone needs to resign. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree. I
Zain
15:59
agree. It was actually, it isn't a microphone. It is the old PA system.
Corey
16:07
good. The show can go on.
Zain
16:13
he's not. If Carver's here,
SPEAKER_00
16:14
I'm going to leave.
Zain
16:15
No, no, this is a glorious moment. His audio isn't working.
Zain
16:18
Okay, here we go. Grenier, hold tight, okay?
Zain
16:23
This is The Strategist, episode 991. My name is Zane Belchie. With me, as always, Corey
SPEAKER_00
16:32
What's going on, guys?
SPEAKER_00
16:33
Finally, finally, this is happening.
Zain
16:36
it is a real pleasure to have a
Zain
16:39
a higher quality bald
Zain
16:41
bald man on the show hello sir i know
SPEAKER_00
16:42
know there's only place for one right so yeah
Corey
16:46
yeah well you know and so we do what we can to keep it balanced to the universe as i lose my hair we're actually looking for somebody with more hair as well so just keep your rolodex active yo
Zain
16:57
yo granny did you did you see what what happened there did you did you like witnessed that topsy-turvy announcement?
SPEAKER_00
17:03
Yeah, yeah. It was a very strange sort of defensive start by the party president already sort of laying out, presumably,
SPEAKER_00
17:12
presumably, defense to what was going to happen afterwards. But yeah, it was, as usual, did not happen on schedule. Not
Zain
17:20
Not just not on schedule. Corey, the announcement was like this, as you were just discussing earlier, this M. Night Shyamalan style twist, wasn't it? So
Corey
17:28
So they start with this kind of of conversation and i agree with you like the party president made me think he's got it too she seemed okay she seemed as though the result was what was expected and then jason kenney comes out and we hear or not jason kenney but the uh the chair whose name orman uh comes out and gives the result and everyone goes wow and then there's a bunch of early twitter traffic that he's gonna stay and
Corey
17:51
and then he comes and then all of a sudden we have a uh we
Corey
17:55
we have a situation where there's this hard pivot partway through where it's gotcha fuckers. I'm out of here. I know I said that I was going to listen to, uh, you know, the, the party and the party had spoken, but, uh, but now we're going to change course entirely. And so, uh, we, we had to do this live on CBC, Eric, we were like reacting in real time. And even though this is the sensible move, it
Corey
18:19
it was still very shocking. It was shocking that the sensible move played out.
SPEAKER_00
18:23
Yeah. Cause when he started talking, It sounded like he was saying he was sticking around that 50% plus one was enough and he got 50% plus one But yeah, it was a bit shocking. Yeah,
Zain
18:31
Yeah, ready How is it that you guys are having a provincial election and it's less exciting than what we have going on here? Like on a pedestrian daily basis.
SPEAKER_00
18:40
Well, that's Ontario. That's Ontario politics for you. This is a by Ontario standards This is a pretty exciting election God, no, it's not. No, this is it's a pretty bad election election. But yeah, no, our elections are not nearly as exciting as yours, despite the fact you've only had, I think, two parties governing the province for the last century or something like
Corey
18:58
Yeah, we change parties very infrequently. We've had a few. So the Liberals were in power until the early 20s. And then the Liberal leader hated the Liberals so much he campaigned against the Liberals. And then we had the United Farmers of Alberta, because an agricultural cooperative where you buy potato sacks is who you want to govern your province. And so we did that for about 20 years. To be fair, so did Ontario. Yeah.
Corey
19:22
It's a thing. Then we brought in social credit. We wanted to print our own money. The fucking Easterners wouldn't let us do that. But we stuck with the social credit party anyhow. And then the PCs. And of course, we know the last couple of years have been a little bit more topsy-turvy. It was the first time we've had kind of a non-perpetual
Corey
19:43
But now we have continued turmoil. oil what's
Corey
19:46
what's going to be interesting to see here is what this does for everybody's ambitions because obviously oh yeah changes
Corey
19:52
changes the ndp's calculations uh the ucp is
Corey
19:57
you got to put a question mark after the u now tbd i think jason kenney's move tonight makes them stay in united more likely and
Corey
20:04
and so for that if you are a part of a stalwart of the ucp you probably want to commend the premier but
Corey
20:10
much could happen much could go
Zain
20:13
you know granny from your perspective you know you've been tracking the federal leadership race. What do you think this kind of means from the perspective of conservatism in this country? We were talking about Kenny coming in as a harder right candidate in Alberta. The campaign I was working on with the Alberta NDP were certainly positioning him that way. And now it seems like he was criticized and turfed largely
Zain
20:33
largely for being too much of a moderate in the conservative movement. Do you see some ramifications for conservatism overall based on actually what's playing out with maybe the purity test that the feds are are trying to do with the the polyev uh leadership uh candidacy as well yeah
SPEAKER_00
20:48
yeah well i mean you guys have talked a lot about it uh just the debate uh that we had what was it a week or two ago um you know it's a competition in a way to be the closest to the freedom convoy even jean charret when he was talking about his position on the convoy was focusing on the windsor blockade rather than uh the fact that ottawa where i am was uh was itself uh you know occupied for about a month it It was very unpleasant to be here in the city. And it was almost like that didn't matter. It was the fact that the economy was being halted there. So it
SPEAKER_00
21:20
it does feel like the party is moving in that direction in the sense that someone who is a moderate like Jean Charest doesn't even have a chance. And someone like Jason Kenney is a bit of a problem because he was, while in the rest of the country, seen as one of the premiers who was probably the most reluctant
SPEAKER_00
21:38
reluctant to go go forward with restrictions or those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00
21:42
In Alberta, for a lot of people within his own party, he was still going too far. So it does suggest that maybe the pandemic has accelerated a little bit of this, a little bit of this stuff over the last few years.
Zain
21:55
Okay, I'll let you get in. But Eric, while I have you on this, why is Carter so terrible on the pod?
Zain
22:02
you know, my predecessor was, I
SPEAKER_00
22:05
I have to say, yeah yeah
SPEAKER_00
22:07
think i think carter brings a lot of uh energy and
SPEAKER_00
22:11
and i can't compete with that
Zain
22:13
oh where's the turn where's the where's the jason kenney style he brings a lot of energy he does this well and then boom you slam him in the face grenier that's what we're supposed to do well he doesn't
SPEAKER_00
22:22
doesn't show up when
SPEAKER_00
22:23
he's needed when he's most needed this is not there he's not there and i was able to step in and
Zain
22:29
and i don't know if people know today was also the leadership review results for the the strategist podcast and uh sorry for burying the lead we do this all the time but carter is off the show i'm sorry that i did not make this clear for everybody who's just cluing into the fact uh that we have replaced carter uh yet again cory you want to jump in on this i
Corey
22:47
i can't even remember what i was going to talk about here oh i do recall so you made this point you made this point zane on cbc which is that in
Corey
22:54
in a funny way jason kenney was somewhat rebranded over the past last two years, because in the 2019 election, he was seen as the extreme right option. Sure.
Corey
23:02
Sure. And yeah, there was some logic to that relative to what the PCs had been in the past. He certainly was more conservative socially than the last couple of PC leaders, those being Prentice and Redford and Stelmack. And he was certainly a truer believer of conservative philosophy than all of them as well, taking a lot more of his cues from kind of academic conservatism, you know, the Heritage Foundation group.
Corey
23:28
But, uh, over the last two years, um, because there have been so many people to the right of him, criticizing him from the right, in many ways, he is, he
Corey
23:36
he is the moderate conservative, you know, after him, who
Corey
23:39
who knows what comes. It could be a situation where you've got, uh, a much more right wing candidate. Um, you could have Danielle Smith, who is, uh, you know, really lean into the libertarianism over the last couple of years, become the leader of the UCP, unlikely perhaps, but it's a possibility. You could have far-right individuals coming in from any walk of life, and they've certainly shown their ability to marshal numbers, even through things such as the protests in Ottawa there. So, well,
Corey
24:07
well, there will be a lot of people, I think, cheering the demise of Jason Kenney because he was an unpopular premier amongst the public as a whole.
Corey
24:16
The reality is Albertans
Corey
24:18
Albertans might really not like what comes next, might really not like what comes next.
Zain
24:24
think there's real buyer's remorse here, Corey? Like you already think there's buyer's remorse? Or you think this is like
Zain
24:28
a downstream effect? This
Corey
24:29
This is down the road. This is not tonight. Like people aren't sitting there tonight saying, oh, no, right? Not by and large, not the average Albertan, I think. But I do think that it's not impossible to imagine a scenario where people say, wow, we've really moved outside of the mainstream. stream and if albertans sort of fall for the old leadership contest snap election here's our new premier just getting to know them for the first time now that they've got a majority government they
Corey
24:58
may really regret that right and they might start saying oh my god i wish jason kenney was premier it's it's
Corey
25:03
it's not impossible it might not even be improbable eric
Zain
25:06
eric like what do you what do you sense from your perspectives like sitting where you are um what's like the the the reaction that you have to what's happened here from like a
Zain
25:16
a downstream, what could happen perspective, but also to the earlier conversation, like we jovially talk about like, this is Alberta politics, but like from the macro Alberta perspective, what do you kind of think when you see what happened tonight?
SPEAKER_00
25:30
you know, you think about Jason Kenney, he has a reputation in Ottawa as being someone who is a very good politician, someone who has been able to win election after election. He left Ottawa to go save Alberta and was winning the PC leadership, then the UCP leadership, and then the election.
SPEAKER_00
25:49
You really think about what his legacy is going to be going forward. You know, when you think about when he was criticizing the prime minister for having the depth of a finger bowl, I believe it was.
SPEAKER_00
26:01
Trudeau is right now the dean of premiers
SPEAKER_00
26:04
premiers and, you know, the prime minister in the country. He's actually been around for the longest amount of time. Uh, and you think about that, uh, McLean's cover with the resistance, uh, those,
SPEAKER_00
26:14
those, those figures keep fading away.
SPEAKER_00
26:17
Uh, it does make you wonder what, really
SPEAKER_00
26:23
what impact those, that, that perspective had on, uh, conservatism in the country. Because it's no longer just about getting pipelines built and a carbon tax out of the way. It's more the kind of people that are hearing from Pierre Poilier that it
SPEAKER_00
26:38
it is a little bit more on the populist side than maybe it was even just a few years ago. Yeah. Corey,
Corey
26:44
you wanted to jump in here. You know, there was an article written by Speer just a while ago in the National Post, and we were talking about it, that Jason
Corey
26:53
Jason Kenney was actually the
Corey
26:55
the most conservative conservative premier and the best thing that was moving on the movement. And certainly, I think that there's some truth to he was a true believer in conservative ideology. ideology. Now, we talked about this on the pod earlier, and I said, maybe
Corey
27:11
maybe not ideal because he was also making it a little unpopular in a province like Alberta. And it's hard to imagine that that is ultimately
Corey
27:18
ultimately a winning formula for conservatism. If you take it to such an extreme place, the province of Alberta is saying, not really for
Corey
27:29
now when you look around at the conservative leaders across the country, it's an interesting bag. You have a populist in in quebec you have a uh kind of a red
Corey
27:37
red tory in nova scotia have we lost another one who
Corey
27:43
who who's a populist did
Corey
27:45
did i cut out for a while is that what happened yeah
Zain
27:47
yeah you did yeah we
Zain
27:48
did and we were just about to bring your replacement on pure polyamory pure polyamory was just about to enter stage right uh
Zain
27:55
uh i will finally be replaced with nine then she and the pod the pod will be the full rotation
Zain
27:59
the rotation is done yeah
Corey
28:02
yeah that's like the old men in black i'm not training a partner i'm training my replacement thing right so yeah
Corey
28:08
yeah i you know there's the conservatism as a whole is gonna have to do some soul searching but i you know when you think about that the resistance cover that you're talking about eric and all of those leaders and the way that they have drifted from our memories uh like sand through our hands
Corey
28:23
was such a moment and it does feel like when
Corey
28:27
when you think about those moments ending it's often with like the tide receding and the liberals coming forward but it you know in some ways it It feels like there's a more extreme conservatism on the march. And what does that mean for this country? And what does that mean for the conservative movement?
Zain
28:40
Yeah. One last thing I want to talk about, because we want to keep this short. And of course, we've got a live show tomorrow. Eric, you're going to be there, of course. Maharaja Banquet Hall. I
SPEAKER_00
28:49
know. I'm booked with Flair Airlines. I'm really excited about this flight. I'm hoping that I can make it on time.
Zain
28:55
You'll make it on time. They always make it on time. You know, Flair Airlines.
Zain
29:00
God damn it, I have nothing. Okay, we've got one final thing. I'll come up with something. I'll come up with something. Corey, does
Zain
29:08
he stay as interim leader? And what does that do to the legacy? I want to talk about that as we round out.
Corey
29:13
Yeah, well, you're making us predict something that will probably be known pretty instantly here. Maybe it's even on Twitter. We've been going kind of like straight from analysis here.
Corey
29:22
He can stay and he should stay in my opinion, because it just simplifies the next bit. He did win with the party. So there's not kind of that. He can literally say, I won. He gets to actually say my undefeated election streak remains. I will leave on my own terms. It was my choice to leave. And my terms are that I want this leadership contest to be brisk, but that I will still stick around until it's done. And so that's what I would recommend. It's very possible that he'll leave. But I also think that within the conservative movement more generally, there's There's so much disdain for what Jim Prentice did, the knock over the lectern and say, fuck it, I'm out of here on election night on 2015, that
Corey
30:02
that it might culturally
Corey
30:04
culturally give him a bit of a reason not to do that as well. Because he's got to decide how he wants to leave as well. film. It's like that old line from the movie, Dave, where there's the two characters arguing and one says, you chivalrous fool, what does it matter how a man dies? And Dave replies, when the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal. And I think that Jason Kenney's got to be thinking about his legacy and how he wants to present himself. And he made a decision tonight to act like a statesman. And I suspect, and I would recommend that he take that position forward over the next couple of months.
SPEAKER_00
30:40
I would just say, you know, you think about Andrew Scheer and Tom Mulcair, two leaders who decided to stick around after their parties were done with them.
SPEAKER_00
30:50
I don't know if that really helped. So if I'm Jason Kenney, I'll
SPEAKER_00
30:54
I'll find the United Conservative Party. I'm not sure if having Jason Kenney still there for the next eight months maybe while there's a leadership race going on, it could become sometimes
SPEAKER_00
31:04
sometimes problematic that he has to be there as the person that people still don't like.
SPEAKER_00
31:08
If you get someone new in there who comes with a bit of a fresh face, maybe gets the party back into a competitive spot. Maybe it sets up the next leader better, but it's different, I guess, when you're an interim opposition leader and when you're an interim premier.
Corey
31:23
Well, the other thing I would say is I really suspect they're going to go fast because they got to get their pants on and get ready for the fucking bus. This election is coming. And so if they're
Corey
31:34
they're not aiming for a September result, I think they're nuts. If I were them, I would move quickly. We've got so
Zain
31:40
to talk about tomorrow for the live show in Edmonton. If you do not have your tickets, now's a great time. Strategistlive.com. Get your tickets. Maharaja Banquet Hall. Get your way up to Edmonton. I don't care where you are. Anywhere in the country. Edmonton is the place to be. Eric's going to be there. He's definitely going to be there. He's replacing Stephen Carter. We've talked about this. Carter lost the leadership review. you. We got Eric. So much to talk about. What do the NDP do? Who are the candidates in this leadership race that comes forward? What is the rebranding of the UCP look like going forward?
Zain
32:12
We're going to leave it there. Special thanks to our sponsor Flair Airlines. Flair Airlines is
Corey
32:15
is not our sponsor. Keep moving.
Corey
32:18
it's not always your choice how you leave.
Zain
32:19
We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 991 of The Strategist. My name is Zaid Velji with me as always Corey Hogan, Eric Regnier, and we'll see you next time.