Episode 999.9999999: Reduce, reuse, retire

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 999.9999999.

Zain 0:08

My name is Zain Velji with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, I've resorted to counting on my hands.

Zain 0:13

You know why? Because I made a commitment. I made a commitment that

Zain 0:16

that I'll continue getting royalties on this show as long as it remains in the three digits. This is why I refuse.

Corey 0:21

I guess we know how long this bit will go if you're counting on your hands. It has to end relatively soon.

Zain 0:29

think we've got a pretty but I've got other things that I can employ in the counting wars. Trust me. My hands are suffice for now, but if I need to expand, if I need to bring

Zain 0:39

bring in other forces, if I just need to bring in other people, I will do it, Carter. I will do it. This is not a bit. No, listen, this is a financial structure that gets me paid. As long as this does not go into four digits of

Carter 0:48

of episodes. Cause you

Zain 0:49

you do realize I have a, I

Zain 0:51

I have a thousand episode contract and

Carter 0:54

stops. I learned how to count base 12 on your fingers. It's pretty cool. You know, so you can do one, two, three four five six seven eight look at that ten eleven twelve and then you go to one

Carter 1:05

one so it's i learned how to do

Corey 1:06

do that so again steven audio medium but uh really appreciate the visual carter's

Zain 1:12

carter's counting the digits on

Zain 1:12

his finger also known as the white abacus and he's just showing us how to the joints

Zain 1:17

how to do that it's

Carter 1:18

it's good okay anyways move on move

Zain 1:19

move on that's good no it's good hey

Carter 1:21

hey guys this is segments seven out of nine on my afl predictions eight out of nine last week week we didn't cover it um so i'm i'm slowly creeping back up in the standings things are are going my way i

Carter 1:34

i will tell you though the crows won this week and no one expected the crows to win adelaide

Carter 1:38

adelaide crows if you're out there if you're listening we just did

Zain 1:41

did you i'm pretty

Zain 1:42

did you expect the crows to win were they were they one of the ones no

Carter 1:45

no crows i did not predict and i also did not predict the rich so you're eating crow then oh they're

Corey 1:52

they're our strongest start yet

Zain 1:54

you know they don't pay me enough and they will continue paying me until it remains at the three we will renegotiate

Carter 2:00

renegotiate we promise hey

Zain 2:03

hey cory um you're doing well everything's good on your end yes

Corey 2:06

yes i am yes i am it's a long weekend we've had two weeks since the last public episode so i've had all sorts of time to get my thoughts straight i know exactly what i'm going to say about

Corey 2:16

about you and about steven and his think piece and about all of the various leadership contests going on.

Zain 2:22

Oh, thank you for reminding me about the Stephen Carter think piece. I mean, that is something we've discussed multiple times on our Patreon episodes. Of course, that episode of Carter and Velji, classic episode one of that show.

Zain 2:34

We actually have an ongoing campaign that we will start at some point. We want a 8000 word profile on

Zain 2:42

on Stephen L. Carter. This is the more famous Carter that does not get the airtime. Yale law professor, significantly more accomplished than mediocre white Stephen Carter. This guy needs his own profile. Get on it, Sprawl. This needs to happen. Alternatively, we will also accept a 8,000 word profile on Stephen Carter, the production designer on the TV show Succession. I will also be accepting that as an alternative, but I do prefer Stephen L. Carter.

Carter 3:08

Both significantly more accomplished than I am. I think we can all agree.

Zain 3:16

Carter, have you read your piece yet?

Zain 3:18

Are you going to continue to lie to us that you haven't

Carter 3:19

haven't read it? I haven't read it.

Carter 3:21

I got as far as downloading the podcast onto my phone.

Carter 3:25

So now they got the download. And?

Zain 3:31

Would it help if I tell you, Carter, that

Zain 3:34

that most of the podcast is

Zain 3:38

saying some pretty crazy shit, man?

Zain 3:44

Would that help for you to get to listen to this article as a podcast about you? I've

Carter 3:48

I've been doing this podcast. This is episode 999.99999999. Seven nines. Yeah.

Carter 3:57

said some pretty crazy shit on this podcast as well. I think that people have who have been listening. I don't know if you've got it handy, Corey, but do you happen to have the Jeb Bush thing that I said?

Carter 4:08

Because I believe that, in fact, was crazy as well. Do I?

Corey 4:10

I? You know, I wouldn't. I mean.

Carter 4:12

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

Carter 4:25

some crazy shit take

SPEAKER_01 4:29

you have just been witnessed to another

SPEAKER_01 4:35

back to your podcast already in progress

Carter 4:42

oh my god he donated

Carter 4:44

got donated how are we not getting yeah this is

Carter 4:46

is what yeah this

Corey 4:46

what you missed this is what you missed

Carter 4:47

that last time last time when you when you i had to leave we shouldn't talk about it okay we don't we

Corey 4:53

we don't need to get into

Zain 4:53

no we don't need to get into that what we do need to get into steven carter has an 8 000 word profile if you haven't read it um carter says some crazy shit let's move it on to our first segment our first segment it's gonna be may yes

Zain 5:10

ah man it is it is july technically it'll be august tomorrow but it is going to be elizabeth may more

Zain 5:17

more than likely cory because former green party leader elizabeth may is going to run again for her old job and is now proposing that she share responsibilities with

Zain 5:28

with a co-leader so

Zain 5:29

so that if and when no let's take out the if when the green party is successful cory we're gonna have co-prime ministers this is what we need okay this is what we need multiple

Zain 5:38

multiple sources have told the toronto star that she's set to join the green party leader race they

Zain 5:42

they will announce their candidates it's on august 31st there's a whole set of rules in terms of what a candidate is

Zain 5:47

is and looks like and the signatures and all that sort of stuff and let's get into it but stephen carter top

Zain 5:53

top line thoughts about the fucking green party and like i say that because i

Zain 5:59

i think for many the

Zain 6:00

the green party for the longest time had the right idea even

Zain 6:03

even seemed to be gaining a bit of momentum um some would even say that annemie paul was a step in the right direction from a perspective of of representation, from a perspective of trying to articulate some points.

Zain 6:16

They took significant steps backwards in terms of how they dealt with her. And now Elizabeth May is back. Stephen Carter,

Zain 6:22

lay it on me. Where's your head on this? I

Carter 6:23

I just think that Elizabeth May failed before, and she's here again to fail again. I mean, she just seems to be the most unaware politician,

Carter 6:32

unaware of her own drawbacks.

Carter 6:33

drawbacks. And frankly, the rest of the population is pretty aware of her now. We're

Carter 6:38

We're not looking to Elizabeth May to take us to the next generation of what the

Carter 6:42

the Green Party could be or should be.

Carter 6:45

We've watched over the last decade as Green Party policies have been absolutely

Carter 6:49

ripped away and gone to everybody, everybody

Carter 6:52

everybody else. And instead, you know, the Green Party stands still. The Green Party hasn't really pushed for a new structure. And it's kind of sad. It's pretty disappointing, frankly.

Carter 7:08

but, you know, I just can't imagine that she's going to come back.

Zain 7:14

Corey, you know, Carter said that Elizabeth May is not the person to usher in the next generation, the next suite of policies, that new face, the Green Party. Another person who was also saying that was, I'm just going to check here, fucking Elizabeth May. It was Elizabeth May who said that when she made way for a leader. And now she's back. And we talked about this on our Patreon run episode if there's a space can you blame people for opportunism is this just another person saying fuck it like we're in this sort of political mode of reuse recycle sort of yes great party joke um where we're just allowing people yet you're welcome two in a row like i'm killing it where we're allowing people to come back reinvent themselves or perhaps not even reinvent themselves but come back exactly who they were and say screw it there's a there's a need and I'm here and you know me. Let me just fill that need. What do you think, Corey? Am I being cynical? Is this just an opportunism and we should just like the Horvath thing now running for mayor of Hamilton, just put it aside? Or is there something fundamentally different here with Elizabeth May coming back after she explicitly said she needs to make room for others?

Corey 8:18

Yeah, well, I think that this will shed additional light on the period

Corey 8:24

period of time where she was in theory not leader, right? And make us look at that in a different way. Because the critique was always she never really left and that she wanted to be leader and she wouldn't get out of the way. And the fact that she's running for leader again right now, I think it

Corey 8:37

certainly provides some strong validation that that's likely to have been the case, you know, that there was a challenge with her not getting out of the way.

Corey 8:46

a couple of things. One is there

Corey 8:47

there are only two Green MPs right now. It

Corey 8:50

It does sort of make sense that your leader be in the

Corey 8:53

the House of Commons. And this is not exactly a political party where you can just run in a by-election and get your leader in you're you're basically down to a pool of two if

Corey 9:01

if you believe your leader should be in the house of commons you got to keep in mind the next election's not for many years so not

Corey 9:07

not nuts that somebody would be

Corey 9:09

be the leader there the idea though that she would come back in here i mean your reduce reuse comment was good i saw uh on twitter el heli picasso say say what you will but you can't question her commitment to recycling sort of feel that pretty good yeah

Corey 9:23

yeah pretty good Pretty,

Corey 9:24

Pretty, pretty, pretty uninspiring that we continue to use the same, the same leaders. And certainly if this was a vibrant green movement, you would imagine that new leaders would be coming forward. So this does create this sense of stagnation in the Green Party. I just, I don't, if

Corey 9:40

if you ever needed a sense that the Green Party is nowhere right now, you kind of nodded to the fact that there's some nomination requirements. requirements you know what it requires to become a candidate for the green party of canada

Corey 9:53

like national leadership i

Zain 9:54

i mean yeah laid

Zain 9:55

laid on us i actually haven't looked into this at all i just know there were some requirements 100

Corey 9:59

100 nominators from across the country 20

Corey 10:02

20 only 20 of which cannot be from your region and i think 20 have to be under the age of 30 is the only other rule there like this is not a serious party i've seen stronger nomination requirements in literally in in local contests, right? We will not let you call a contest unless you can sign up 500 members, 600 members, that kind of stuff. So not

Corey 10:22

not a lot of steam behind the Green Party of Canada, right?

Carter 10:25

Feels like a Zane Velji for leader opportunity.

Carter 10:29

But this is, you know, if the

Carter 10:31

the Green Party really wanted to be a senior party, a serious party, they would have gotten together at the beginning of this process and discussed who was actually lining up to be the a leader. You

Carter 10:41

You know, do we actually have leadership candidates? Yes or no.

Carter 10:44

And if not, then the party would have gone to Elizabeth May and said, you know what we need? We need a two year hiatus where you come back as a member of parliament and you lead as an interim leader for two years, which would enable us to recruit additional candidates who want to be the leader of a party who could do things like, I don't know, have a deposit, you know, like raise money for the party who could sell

Carter 11:07

sell a ton of memberships. That could be very good for the Green Party of Canada. And instead, they've backed into this situation where really Elizabeth May should be considered as nothing more than a caretaker leader. She is not taking them forward. She could hold the reins until the next election. But when you do

Carter 11:29

do have a party that doesn't want, you know, that there are no leadership candidates, and we saw this happen here in Alberta. with the Alberta party,

Carter 11:37

right? No one wanted to be leader. So they called their leadership. And then they were shocked to find out that no one actually submitted papers. The only one guy who kind of nosed around it got

Carter 11:47

got to be the leader. Didn't have to submit any papers. Didn't have to do anything.

Carter 11:51

That's what the green party has backed themselves into. Well done, everybody. You're supposed to be a national party. You have members of parliament. It's embarrassing.

Zain 11:59

Corey, this brings up an interesting point. You guys bring up two points I want to hit on, And I'll get to the second one later, simply because I've tried to bring it up over the course of the last couple of months. It's this concept I introduced earlier about recycling leaders. And why are we in this uninspiring moment, like more broadly, of the same pool within a decade, perhaps, just finding different opportunities and making themselves known? So I want to talk about that.

Zain 12:23

But Carter's other point here brings up another question, Corey.

Zain 12:26

And you've kind of been, I guess,

Zain 12:30

you've experienced this in some way or you've seen it. The question is very simple.

Zain 12:34

How do you know when a political party is dead?

Zain 12:36

And how do you know? Yeah, but how do you know when to kill it?

Zain 12:41

Right? Like, isn't there something to be said as someone who's an executive director of the Alberta Liberals?

Zain 12:46

They're dead, but they're still alive in many ways here in Alberta, in many ways being maybe like the six members they have.

Zain 12:52

But how do you know when a political party is dead? And we've talked about how leaders don't often leave on a high note.

Zain 12:58

Can political parties like just leave on a high note? When should they end? Like this conversation is interesting to me. Yeah.

Zain 13:04

Yeah. Give me some of your thoughts. Well,

Corey 13:05

Well, yeah. So there is a time a political party sort of hits a weekend at Bernie's mode where like they're clearly dead, but they're still moving. And

Corey 13:13

And I do think that the Alberta Liberal Party fell into that in its final years there. And actually, to tie these threads together, one of the things that occurred when that happened was, you'll

Corey 13:23

you'll recall David Swan was leader of the Alberta Liberal Party when they were the official opposition. David

Corey 13:28

David Swan resigned before the election. Russ Sherman became leader. Russ Sherman took them into the election. Russ Sherman resigned before the next election. David Swan became leader again. So there's a bit of a retread there as well.

Corey 13:40

Kind of a similar situation in you needed somebody who was a member of the caucus, or at least that was the perception and so

Corey 13:47

so on and so so forth. So, uh,

Corey 13:50

yeah, when a political party is not doing well, people

Corey 13:53

people start just trying to bring back the old leader, the old flag. Now there are, there are times, I mean, that, that actually the old leader, the old flag comes from John A. McDonald running again. There are times when it works, I guess is my point, but this is not one of those times I

Corey 14:07

I think, uh, for, for the green party of Canada, because normally in a situation like that, you still see a critical mass of of enthusiasm and energy and and people believe they're in the race and they're contesting i

Corey 14:18

think the big problem i have for the green party right now or the thing that i struggle with is like

Corey 14:24

like to your question of how do you know if they're dead you

Corey 14:27

you know there's this there's

Corey 14:29

if politics is not like business it's not like you must always be growing or you're dead you know there's there's ebbs and there's flows you're up you're down you keep the flame alive all of a sudden you strike voila you're bernie sanders and even though you

Corey 14:43

don't become candidate you create moment. That happens in politics in a way it doesn't in business.

Corey 14:48

But you do have to ask yourself, not

Corey 14:51

so much what's the trajectory in the moment, but what's the overall trajectory of this political party? Why does it exist? And the test that I always encourage political parties to think about is, if

Corey 15:02

if tomorrow we were all struck dumb and nobody knew, like this political party, no political parties existed, would

Corey 15:10

would anybody come to the conclusion we need to create a Green Party of Canada?

Corey 15:14

What is the need that they are filling at this point that makes them necessary to the political conversation?

Corey 15:21

And I think that as green politics have become so

Corey 15:24

so much more important in this country, particularly when you look at the Liberal Party of Canada, because they've had the chance to implement it, but also with the NDP,

Corey 15:32

why does the Green Party exist?

Corey 15:35

Arguably, last election, they didn't even have the most ambitious environmental platform so

Corey 15:41

a political party is at risk of dying to answer your question it's because they no longer have a reason to exist and they are only being propelled forward and perpetuated forward by kind of the members that are still there you know the people who are there because of like tribal connections more than anything like

Zain 15:56

like nostalgia or something exactly

Corey 15:58

yeah and not because there's a need um

Corey 16:01

um because again you know if they're filling a need they'll ebb they'll flow maybe it's their moment maybe it's they're not but they'll survive somebody will carry the torch but

Corey 16:09

if they're not actually doing anything they will ultimately die

Zain 16:13

would you would you kill the green party or is is actually killing a political party

Zain 16:19

much easier said than done that it's always entangled with emotions it's always entangled with you

Zain 16:24

you know the diehards are going to be there is

Zain 16:26

is the best thing for the green party to reinvent

Zain 16:30

or kill themselves right now honestly like for as a political operation i

Carter 16:33

i think it's to reinvent invent. I think that we have a... As

Zain 16:36

As what? As what need? To Corey's point, what's the need?

Carter 16:39

I think that we have a need to link economics to green in a different way. I

Carter 16:43

I think that right now what we've got, the

Carter 16:45

the challenge that we've always

Carter 16:47

always had, and I think that what makes our Green Party different than, for

Carter 16:50

for example, the German Green Party, is

Carter 16:52

is that the German Green Party had success by linking together different kind of ideologies that made them more predictable and more more acceptable to the mainstream, because it wasn't just about a green policy. It was about creating a green society, a society that that was more sustainable, that had better, better

Carter 17:15

better platform, better. Our problem was that the Green Party of Canada decided

Carter 17:19

decided to create themselves as a right wing Green

Carter 17:22

And I think that and Elizabeth May, when it came in and when she came in, she

Carter 17:26

she wasn't very successful in walking away from that old Green

Carter 17:29

Green Party location of right wing policies. You have to go back quite a ways to actually find a platform that put them

Carter 17:38

them into, well, actually, you can't go back in our Green Party of Canada and find a left of center Green Party. It

Carter 17:44

It was always a really weird combination of left and center and right of center.

Carter 17:48

If we had the capacity to go forward

Carter 17:51

and create a Green Party that made sense, you'd have have a sustainable a

Carter 17:58

child care, education, health care all became part of what does it mean to be green? What does it mean to like what does it mean to relook at the way that we run our health care system?

Carter 18:10

We run our health care system where we don't take care of people when they're at their most vibrant. We

Carter 18:14

We take care of people when they're at their most unvibrant. Like, is that the way that we wanted to actually build it? I don't know. It'd be really interesting to have a conversation with a party that actually said you

Carter 18:24

you know what what would a better system look like we won't feed people but we'll replace their hips does that make sense is that a good choice you

Carter 18:32

you know is that the choice we want to run with be

Carter 18:36

what are you laughing at zane both

Corey 18:40

yeah they're both unvibrant is is really super

Zain 18:44

we'll feed people who have no hips i missed that last no no

Carter 18:48

no it's fine it's fine you know what you guys not understanding is part of my genius uh

Zain 18:54

i'm sure i'm sure someone appreciated i know they did

Zain 18:56

i just wasn't huge

Zain 18:57

this town just i just wasn't well

Zain 19:00

well we go beyond the town cory

Zain 19:03

cory from your perspective

Zain 19:05

talk to me about what you would suggest to elizabeth may she says that i'm i'm gonna run

Zain 19:10

she says the justification is actually exactly the one you gave is one of two people the other the guy doesn't want to do it.

Zain 19:16

I've done it. I can do it. Fuck, I'll do it.

Zain 19:18

I'm doing the co-leader thing because, you know, maybe I'll let some new talent on board itself. Maybe that person can be from outside of the caucus of two if the guy doesn't want to do it. Right. So, OK, there'll be a co-leader situation. What advice would you give her? If reinvention is the strategy, what advice would you give to a leader that's coming back that is a known commodity? Can someone who who is a known commodity, have

Zain 19:40

have another chapter that's perhaps fundamentally different, that looks different, that's politically different, that's policy different? How would you tell her to reinvent herself as she perhaps tries to reinvent the party that she wants to lead, Corey?

Corey 19:56

Well, there's a couple of avenues I think she could have taken. One,

Corey 19:59

One, she never would have taken because she would have taken a last election if it interested her, was just not running again or stepping down and creating the space for somebody to run in

Corey 20:07

a Green Party seat, right?

Corey 20:10

one that you pretend could be a Green Party seat like Toronto Centre, but an actual Green Party seat like Elizabeth May's.

Corey 20:17

And didn't do that, obviously. The other is she should have really leaned on her colleague to run.

Corey 20:24

Yeah, I know you don't want to do it. Yeah, I know you were just elected in Kingston. Yeah, I know you've got other things on your mind.

Corey 20:30

Doesn't matter. You got to do it for the party.

Corey 20:31

It's essential. I'm going to step back. Now, he

Corey 20:35

he probably doesn't want to do it in part because he saw that she was never willing to let go of the reins before. Like, why would you subject yourself to that? So she has somewhat created the situation she's now bemoaning that's forced her into being a leader, I guarantee.

Corey 20:46

But the third thing is exactly what Stephen said. I really liked it when he said it. The idea that she would just say, I'm willing to be interim leader for a couple of years.

Corey 20:55

I will certainly, and

Corey 20:58

and that in some ways meets her need for a co-leader. Oh, this is such an exhausting job. like i'm i'm willing to be

Corey 21:05

be the leader in the caucus context i'm going to put more power and trust into leaders can choose how much they want to do right she could say this is going to be the you know the national council or whatever i you know we at one point were quite well versed in what these things were all called because they were fighting like crazy but the national council can handle more of this the president of the party can handle more of this in terms of being a spokesperson sure

Corey 21:28

sure in terms of being the leader in the caucus absolutely for a couple of years as interim leader and then we can get this all done when it's time when we get a little closer to an election when it's time and

Corey 21:38

and in the perfect version of this you could then say and you know what they

Corey 21:42

they can run in my seat that

Carter 21:45

would be the that would be a bundle

Corey 21:46

bundle that would give the green party a fighting chance that

Carter 21:48

that would be fantastic because then she's she's

Carter 21:51

she's out of the you know then

Carter 21:52

then they've got a safe seat for the next leader and that's everything right

Zain 21:56

right right offering that up The actual electoral opportunity, the actual seat in

Zain 22:03

in parliament opportunity. Carter, you know, I've tried to bark up this tree a few times over the past couple of months, but the

Zain 22:10

the uninspiring leadership angle here, the recycling of folks, like, it's just,

Zain 22:17

am I just noticing it? Is it like when you buy a car and you just notice that car everywhere because you just have it for the first time and you're like, okay, well, I'm seeing this car everywhere on the road? Or is this like fundamentally a moment that we are seeing in Canadian politics right now, that

Zain 22:31

that politicians are making comebacks to lead across

Zain 22:34

across the board? And we've listed the examples, but the Alberta examples are apparent with the two, quote unquote, front runners. The Jean Charest example, Elizabeth May now coming back to

Zain 22:44

to lead a political institution or a party.

Zain 22:47

Are we in this weird moment? This has always been this way, Carter. Humble me a bit.

Carter 22:52

It's it's it's not. It is different now. It

Carter 22:55

is different now because there are fewer people who are involved in politics. And not only are there fewer people who are involved in politics, there are fewer people who want to be leaders of those political organizations.

Carter 23:04

And I say this knowing that we've got a seven-person race here in Alberta for the UCP, but

Carter 23:09

but that's for the premier's chair.

Carter 23:10

In British Columbia, also for the premier's chair,

Carter 23:14

the BCNDP have exactly one person running for for that role.

Carter 23:18

It has been handed down from Horgan now to Eby. So it's just going to be a handoff. No one's even running against him. They're not even going to use it as a party building exercise. The Green Party of Canada couldn't find anybody. So back comes Elizabeth May.

Carter 23:34

Sure, we've seen people come back before. Joe Clark came back to try and run for the Conservative Party, the

Carter 23:39

Progressive Conservative Party, and

Carter 23:40

and did win against

Carter 23:42

against a lackluster field. um

Carter 23:45

um pierre elliot trudeau came back and won after 1980 but that was after the government club joe clark collapsed after six months before they literally were able to get the program back together and then he handed off to his heir apparent john turner and there was still a leadership uh

Carter 24:00

uh this is a this is a weird time where we are attracting a different type of people to politics because the people who are attracted to politics the people who get into politics politics, who are willing to put up with the bullshit of politics today, they're not necessarily as good as they once were.

Carter 24:21

we misremember. Maybe we just didn't know the

Carter 24:24

the cabinet ministers who served in Lougheed's cabinet and Bill Davis's cabinet. But

Carter 24:29

But I think that they were a stronger cabinet minister because they actually had control, number one. They wouldn't have come if they didn't have control. And number two, they weren't getting dragged through the fucking mud for going on vacation, for taking, you know, for for for for having money, for having a good job before, for having a second house. These people now get dragged through the mud if they're not every man. So what do we attract? Every man.

Carter 24:56

you think that's it, Corey? That

Zain 24:57

That last part, pick up on that last part, that

Zain 25:00

that like there's a demonization of a certain type of politician politician and a lot of people who've maybe had means or where politics was a capstone to a you know a quality career and in one of multiple sectors that that can no longer exist so to speak i'm

Zain 25:17

i'm curious about that and tell me if you if you disagree with it too i

Corey 25:22

i i only half agree with steven i think that it

Corey 25:25

it is certainly true that the the

Corey 25:29

mp has gone down in quality and And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that the options

Corey 25:34

options they used to be competing with to be an MP, well, there's three big reasons in my opinion.

Corey 25:38

opinion. I think we've talked about this before, but one is money.

Corey 25:41

So even though the salary of an MP has stayed relatively constant if you adjust for inflation for the past 40 years or so, that's

Corey 25:48

that's not true of any other salary. And it was at one point basically a one percenter's job to be an MP.

Corey 25:55

And now it's not. Now you're in about the 90th percentile, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at,

Corey 26:00

But it's it's all of a sudden not got that economic imperative. And you might be comparing it to, say, a vice president job at an oil company or

Corey 26:08

a, you know, like the executive director of a large nonprofit. And it's just not comfortable. Like you're all of a sudden going to be leaving

Corey 26:15

high paying job. You're going to be taking a pay cut to be an MP.

Corey 26:18

And that that has an effect to pretend otherwise is silly.

Corey 26:21

The other reason, though, and Stephen talked about this, too, is the power of an individual MP has decreased as we've centralized power in the leaders offices. we've gotten a situation where people are just less inclined because

Corey 26:33

because there's less they're able to do nowadays it's much more about carrying the party line which

Corey 26:39

which was always the case but without the benefit of then having all of this authority behind the scenes you know the power of the caucus the power of the cabinet it

Corey 26:46

it tends to be the staff around the prime minister in the prime minister's office that's going to be calling a lot of those shots the

Corey 26:51

the third x factor is actually tied into to some of this like it's all one big pile of shit here right but as people slam elected officials talk about them as corrupt cynically describe this as oh you just want it for the money and you're at the trough and all of that you're

Corey 27:08

you're also got to say i'm willing to accept that kind of abuse and with social media um you know that abuse is pretty persistent it's 24 7 your phone is is pinging with it constantly. So, yeah, the job is less desirable than in the past. If

Corey 27:22

If you accept that, then you have to sort of accept the consequence of that is you're going to have fewer exceptional candidates going forward.

Corey 27:29

But that's not to say there aren't exceptional candidates. I know a number of,

Corey 27:32

you know, of leaders, of senior politicians who are just amazing.

Corey 27:36

And often I think, why in Christ

Corey 27:39

Christ are you doing this to yourself?

Corey 27:41

But, you know, there are still people who are willing to do it to themselves because they think they can do a good job.

Zain 27:48

that's interesting i think it's carter jump in jump end us off on this actually carter go ahead i

Carter 27:52

i just i i think that you can find that individual who's still great um and you can find that person who's doing it for the right reasons but i think they're fewer and farther between i think that um i know that making a cabinet's heart uh you've got to balance a bunch of different things but you

Carter 28:09

you know every time i talk to people it's still about trying to find five or six good cabinet ministers instead of trying to find 2022 good cabinet ministers.

Carter 28:17

It's still a super hard thing to do.

Carter 28:19

And it probably speaks to all kinds of different things. But I

Carter 28:23

I don't mean to put everybody into the shit can, but there

Carter 28:26

there are far fewer

Carter 28:27

fewer good people. And I mean, I've

Carter 28:30

I've been up close with a lot of these folks.

Zain 28:34

Fewer and farther between. I think that's the right way to describe it, Carter. And of course, that's a segment brought to us by our sponsor, Flair Airlines. lines fewer and farther between. Let's

Zain 28:43

it on to our

Zain 28:43

next segment. What did you want to clarify? Do you want to clarify something? You know what? Just keep moving.

Zain 28:48

It's a great time, by the way, just to plug the strategist.ca. Not our sponsor t-shirts, available, very limited quantity on the drop shipping. And of course, these ain't for leader posters. We are seeing a leadership vacuum in this country. And there's something you can do to help. Number one, put your name on a ballot. And if that isn't something you are willing to do, uh

Zain 29:09

uh number two get a zane for leader poster it is versatile uh it is uh it

Zain 29:14

it is uh actually once you get a poster i'm officially declared as a leader at any race i i

Corey 29:19

i think actually that that does meet the green party's entry requirements just

Zain 29:22

a poster just a poster made on canva is probably enough

Carter 29:27

if we sold if we sold 100 posters we will register zane belgi uh for leader of the green party how's that just that's what we're gonna do 20

Zain 29:36

20 people from outside of my i'm I'm just going to look. Region. That's it. That's out of my region. Region. I just need 20 people.

Zain 29:42

Let's move on to our next segment. Our next segment, it's going to be him. Yes, we move from it's going to be May to it's going to be him.

Zain 29:49

Stephen Carter, new polling from Abacus Data, says that Justin Trudeau's approval rating is the lowest he's had since 2015.

Zain 29:56

Let's start here before we jump into the numbers.

Zain 30:00

tell me in the freakout meter,

Zain 30:01

which is a meter that we use on the show often, the freakout meter, the Liberal Party, the PMO, where are they on their freak out meter right now looking at these approvals looking at uh the peer roller coaster not the roller coaster i was going to say the roller coaster that was the conservative leadership that is now uh the train that is pure polyamory freak out meter where are they high medium low for the liberal party the pmo how freaked out are they right now they

Carter 30:27

they should be not freaked out at all this

Carter 30:29

this is the normal i mean if you look at that graph the graph is proceeding in a very, very predictable

Carter 30:36

he has been less

Carter 30:37

less popular with each successive year as he's been prime minister.

Carter 30:41

And I think that that holds. I think that that is, in fact, the way that it works now. You

Carter 30:45

You become less popular the longer that you're the leader. I would also say that when you look around the world, people aren't very popular right now if you're leading a country.

Carter 30:54

Boris Johnson was just thrown out. Joe Biden's got the lowest approval ratings he's ever had. had. Macron is a disaster in France, somehow managed to hold on, but his party was unable to. These things happen over the course of time. The only reason to freak out would be that if you expected him to lead you into the next election in three

Carter 31:17

three years, because I'd look at those trend lines and I would draw them out three more years. And in three more years, he's going to be just

Carter 31:25

just that much less popular. That's what you can predict.

Carter 31:31

you're asking yourself then, how do we arrest that trend line?

Carter 31:34

How do we change this?

Carter 31:36

Then you've got yourself a ballgame because

Carter 31:40

I'm not exactly sure how to do that.

Carter 31:43

Prime Minister gets blamed for all the ills and society.

Carter 31:45

Even when things are going well, there's always something going poorly. so

Carter 31:50

you know we've got high employment isn't that fantastic yeah but it costs me more to buy groceries you know we bought sausage today it's very expensive to buy meat today we can only buy sausage can't afford the the pure cuts like uh well like zane because cory's a vegetarian but the point is like i don't know how anybody can afford to be a vegetarian right now how much vegetables cost zane i had to plant a garden you

Carter 32:12

you know it's terrible that's what happens right Right. That's where we are. It's the prime minister's fault. So he's only going to become less popular. I think that they shouldn't be pulling any panic levers until unless they've decided that he's going to be leading them into the next election.

Zain 32:26

Carter, can I interest you in Islam? No pork sausages, no alcohol actually reduces

Zain 32:31

a family's household bill quite significantly. I mean, that is that was the original promise of Islam. It wasn't all the other stuff. It was actually reducing your cost of living. I mean, I feel like I can step in right now. And all listeners,

Zain 32:44

to you as well.

Carter 32:45

sausages, yeah. We had to go and get them from... Pork casing, though. Pork

Zain 32:49

Pork casing. Allah doesn't like the pork casing.

Zain 32:52

No, he does not. He does not, Carter. I'll give you a book.

Carter 32:56

get me a book. You keep promising me the Quran, and then I've never gotten one. I've

Zain 32:59

I've probably given you six to eight copies of it. Corey, you want to jump in on this conversation, or should we move on? I mean,

Corey 33:04

I think that when we talk about Trudeau and should the Liberal Party be...

Zain 33:09

you get there, can I just give a few top-line numbers just so people have some context, right? right?

Zain 33:13

33% think the country's headed in the right direction, which is eight to 10 points below where things were a year ago.

Zain 33:20

34% approve of the government's performance, down four points just this month.

Zain 33:24

And disapproval is at 51. The first time it's crossed the 50% threshold

Zain 33:29

since 2015 and the lowest since 2015. So I wanted to give folks some of that context before you two jump in. Back to you, Corey. Floor is yours.

Corey 33:37

Yeah. Well, Carter said, maybe this is the way it works now. It's the way it's always worked, right you stick around and people they decide that hey we we're sick of you we're we're not so interested in you anymore we're tired of these

Corey 33:49

these problems these other problems and you

Corey 33:51

you know it's it's one of those challenges that you have people forget the good things you do easier than they forget the bad things that you do you accrue enemies in politics and that is doubly so because you're in an environment where everybody is so quick to point out all of your faults results and so rarely will you know parties on the side whether they be you know media pundits or obviously your opposition are going to give you credit for anything good you did so you get less popular as things go along so you got to change the leader every now and then it

Corey 34:18

it it is a concern for the liberals if um if this becomes kind of like more durable or more final let's not anybody overreact over one poll trend

Corey 34:29

trend line is not great i would say that if you want to zoom out from 2015 you can see overall there's

Corey 34:35

there's just less enthusiasm for justin trudeau remember sunny ways you remember the idea that you know hope and change was that what we were all sold at a certain point we

Corey 34:43

we don't really get that once you've been prime minister for seven years the the feeling is just totally different and

Corey 34:49

and this is why people change leaders i mean this is such a conventional

Corey 34:55

now is my time to step down right we're so i i think in a funny way we're kind of almost used used to people stepping down only when they lose but uh

Corey 35:03

uh that's that's by no means a requirement and in fact it used to be i think much more the norm like oh i can read a poll oh i'm not gonna win this next thing i'm out of here right

Corey 35:13

brian malrooney didn't lose an election he left uh

Corey 35:17

john critchin didn't lose an election he left crudo

Corey 35:20

crudo lost election then unlost it but

Corey 35:23

but you know then he left because he he knew his time was up he knew he had he'd taken this into overtime as as much as he possibly could.

Corey 35:30

You don't need to lose to leave. And in fact, if it looks like the writing is on the wall, that's

Corey 35:34

that's when you should probably start thinking about the long-term health of your party and saying, okay, well, what gives us a shooter's chance here?

Corey 35:42

And so I think

Corey 35:43

think one of the interesting things is not, is the liberal party screwed? I mean, that's a funny question to ask so many years away from an election, right?

Corey 35:52

But if you're in the liberal party, if you're a member of the liberal caucus in particular, you must be sitting there They're saying, well,

Corey 35:59

well, we've got to think about the day after tomorrow here. We've got to think about what happens when there is no Justin Trudeau. And I guarantee you those conversations are ramping up because

Corey 36:10

People will start thinking, even if they're not trying to be, quote unquote, disloyal to the prime minister, well,

Corey 36:15

well, he's going to leave. Like he doesn't want to lose like this. And then what comes next?

Zain 36:19

But Carter, do you think those conversations are actually happening? You're saying this is fine on the freak out meter, but you feel like there's strategic conversations happening. We've talked about this a few months removed.

Zain 36:29

I want to talk about it again now. Do you think those conversations, do you agree with Corey, they're accelerating, they're happening faster?

Carter 36:34

I think they should have happened before the last election call. No

Carter 36:37

No one wins four. I

Carter 36:38

I mean, we have talked about this before, you know, I mean, and you can be egotistical enough to think you're the guy, you're the one, you know, I'm going to win four elections. But why would you bother calling the third election when you did? it um

Carter 36:54

you know like you're

Carter 36:56

you're gonna be you're gonna get a good decade let

Carter 36:58

let that's good i mean how long do you want to be prime minister and

Carter 37:02

and 10 years feels like a lot you

Zain 37:04

you know one thing you said previously on a previous episode i just want to recall it back here is that justin trudeau would get a huge bump after

Zain 37:09

after the pope's visit i'm just going to look at the data here and no that did not happen carter it actually is the opposite did

Carter 37:14

did he even do an event with the with the pope

Carter 37:18

It's a good question. I

Carter 37:19

I don't think he did. I think that he, you know, he, the Pope went to, um,

Carter 37:24

where did the Pope go after Alberta?

Carter 37:25

Um, yeah. So he came to Alberta, wasn't involved in Alberta and he went off to Quebec. And I don't think the prime minister was there to receive him. I

Carter 37:32

I think that the Pope came and the prime minister wasn't involved. And I was predicating my risk, my bump to

Carter 37:39

the prime minister, actually being involved and actually taking an active role role in a First Nations issue. And he chose to walk right past the opportunity.

Zain 37:49

Okay. Can I actually talk about this as like a, let's leave this overall bracket about Trudeau's polling open for a second.

Zain 37:56

from what you saw of the Pope's visit, how much it took in terms of the airtime in this country, the

Zain 38:02

the conversation, did you feel like there was actually an opening for the prime minister to get a polling bump? Like, can you be honest with me? Not like defending what you predicted wrong, right? Because you did predict wrong. I just want to make sure that's That's clear. But do you think from what you saw, there was actually a strategic political opportunity for the prime minister? And if so, what? I'm actually curious now that you mentioned this.

Carter 38:20

It was a five, six day story, five or six days about the pope's visit. I mean, the prime minister, everybody

Carter 38:26

everybody was covering it. Everybody's paying attention to it. It was big. It

Carter 38:29

It was big. And

Carter 38:31

And the prime minister chose not to insert himself into that story at a time when reconciliation is supposed to be one of his top issues. shows he didn't even bother to to be involved with what you've done would you have made

Zain 38:42

made an announcement that would have looked pretty heavy-handed like what would you i'm trying to go through it what would you have done i

Carter 38:48

i would have i mean i would have done something i would have committed something to to reconciliation there's how many lists how many how many lists how many things are still to be done on the truth and reconciliation report i think we've gotten exactly one thing done now and that is that we do a land acknowledgement before events good

Carter 39:06

good for us Yes. What are we actually changing?

Carter 39:08

Trudeau could have taken any number of those 99 recommendations or however many there are and actually done something on one of them, just

Carter 39:16

just done something on one of them. And he would have been able to do something.

Corey 39:19

This is a detour, but it's also not because I think this is an example of where people start saying, well,

Corey 39:25

well, we've got a lot of baggage about these things and why didn't he act in this way? And then people's brands sort of get sort of defined which is why it's a challenge to win carter

Corey 39:33

carter you always say nobody wins four but we have had four prime ministers who won four king mcdonald the first not in a row and i'll

Corey 39:41

i'll tell you another

Corey 39:43

that is that makes it almost 20 of canadian prime ministers because we've only had 23 prime ministers so like it's not insane that somebody would try to win a fourth election okay

Corey 39:54

but the challenge you have here is

Corey 39:56

is that you still accrue these damages and usually when you're You're getting that fourth one. It's because your opponent is really quite broken in a way that I don't think the liberals can count on the conservatives being for

Corey 40:06

for the next election.

Corey 40:07

And that I think that fundamentally is the is

Corey 40:10

is the point I want to make. Like, it's not it's

Corey 40:12

it's not a single team just out there on a field. There's another team. And that other team is helping define what the game is going to look like as well.

Zain 40:20

Let's let's talk about that for a second. You guys have a pen. I want you to write a few things down here. You have some capacity to write a few things down. OK, either on a computer or on a pen here.

Zain 40:29

I'll give you a second.

Zain 40:32

tell me when you're ready, Carter.

Zain 40:33

Okay. Are you good? Very positive, 9.

Zain 40:42

Neutral slash don't know, 53.

Zain 40:53

Those are the public impressions of Pierre Pauly ever.

Zain 40:56

Jesus Christ. And if you're looking at that right now, Carter,

Zain 40:59

what's your like you've you've read you read like polls for a living i you i you and i've been on campaigns where you don't write the you sometimes write the polls you don't administer them but you read these things really quickly right

Zain 41:10

right like you've done you you and i've done this quite often yeah like our work context and the political first

Zain 41:15

first impressions you just see those numbers right now this is from the same coletto poll and

Zain 41:19

and you're you're you're analyzing that give me your top line thoughts and then number two what

Zain 41:22

what are you thinking if in your if you're on on Team Pierre right now if you see those numbers.

Carter 41:27

Negative side first, you're very positive and positive at 20%. So you're negative six all around, right?

Carter 41:36

Negative six isn't good. But

Carter 41:39

negative six isn't bad either. If you wanted to interpret this on a positive note,

Carter 41:44

how the hell has he got 53% neutral?

Carter 41:48

So normally what we're looking for in this is you're looking looking for how

Carter 41:51

how many people don't know him,

Carter 41:54

And he seems to have very few people who don't know him. What instead he has is a very large number of people who don't know how they feel about him.

Carter 42:02

How is that possible? After watching this guy be

Carter 42:05

be a public figure for at least a decade, he's been a part of us. I mean, he's been one of Harper's key spokespeople. He's continued on and he's

Carter 42:16

every TV at every moment, it seems. The

Carter 42:18

The guy's been releasing four minute videos, three times a week um

Carter 42:22

um you know how

Carter 42:23

how is it that

Carter 42:24

that we have 53 of the population neutral that's

Carter 42:28

that's the part that gets me because when i first looked at this poll i looked at the very positive and positive and thought he's fucking dead and

Carter 42:36

it's it's not because because if you've only got one in five people being very positive or positive about you you're really in trouble but

Carter 42:44

but 53 of the people being neutral means that you could see conceivably move them cory

Zain 42:50

cory i want to come to you in a second i want to come to you in one second it's so silly yeah

Zain 42:56

i think cory and i might be on the same page here possibly apply carter the the lens of as time goes on you dip lower as more exposure of you happens you

Zain 43:08

you know from the prime minister's perspective that

Carter 43:12

longitudinally When you're in power and you reach 100

Zain 43:15

If I'm spinning, if I'm spinning for Pierre, I could say 53%. We just need to hit two to one positive and we've got this thing.

Zain 43:23

The other side of the saying is like, look, the very negatives are your highest number. Very positive is nine, positive is 11, negative is nine. Very negative is your highest number. The trend is that the more that people get to know you, the very negative polarization is going to disproportionately win out.

Zain 43:38

How are you actually reading

Zain 43:40

reading these numbers? this is what i find interesting as time goes on where

Zain 43:44

where does this break i

Carter 43:46

i think that you have to make a conscious decision to make yourself more likable and the problem is the guy's not likable that's what you're pointing out we

Carter 43:52

we know him and we know him not to be likable um

Carter 43:56

that is that's us putting our frame over it i can't believe that people are suggesting

Carter 44:00

suggesting that this is um some

Carter 44:03

some sort of middle ground like i i don't know how people have a middle ground on the guy but they seem to have have it. Normally, what I would see, Zane, and I saw this when I did this with my candidate in Surrey. My

Carter 44:13

My candidate in Surrey had very

Carter 44:16

very good positives and some corresponding negatives. But because she had a very large portion that didn't even recognize her name, I knew that we were going to be able to push her positives way higher.

Carter 44:28

Because as you're introducing yourself to someone,

Carter 44:30

we tend to think better of them.

Carter 44:32

The challenge that Pierre has is that he's been in the public eye for 10 years and people are in the middle on them. I don't understand how they're in the middle on them.

Carter 44:41

Very confusing. Let's go to Corey. He has thoughts.

Corey 44:47

we live in a world with political parties, I guess, for fucking starters, like everybody's going to start with negatives that are like in the 10, 15, 20 percent range because you're going to hear, oh, he's a conservative. Very negative because

Corey 45:00

because I'm a hardcore new Democrat. I'm a hardcore liberal. And so So that's the reality. Anybody in any party that's

Corey 45:07

that's really in the mix right here in these partisan times is going to have big negatives. Look at what Aaron O'Toole's negatives were when he started. He instantly started also with some bad negatives. Now, of

Corey 45:18

course, you could point out that he then lost. But every

Corey 45:21

every leader you look at going back to

Corey 45:24

to times immemorial, if they're relevant, they have high negatives. If they're relevant, they have high negatives. That's just the reality. That's an interesting point.

Zain 45:31

point. If they're relevant, they have high negatives.

Corey 45:35

when you look at the idea of the very positive and the positive, I

Corey 45:39

I think that that's a foundation, right? And if you've got a bunch of people who don't know him, we've

Corey 45:45

we've all talked about Pierre Polyev's ability to stay on message. You two lunatics think he's good at communications. So why would we not think he'd be able to take that and he'd be able to spin a story? I mean, certainly we know he

Corey 45:57

he is able to deliver

Corey 45:58

deliver something consistently. And if he can read a poll, if he knows what matters, if he can focus group, he should be able to take that skill set and he should be able to get into the positive space. The other thing is, he's

Corey 46:11

he's not the prime minister. So the lens, the light, the anger, the antipathy, we

Corey 46:16

we talk about the longer you stick around, the more negative it gets.

Corey 46:20

That's true in a party sense for any leader, but that's more true in a general population sense for the prime minister than the opposition leader. People are focused on the prime minister all the way along. So I don't see anything in those numbers that would scare me if I was Pierre Poliev. In fact, I think those numbers would make me feel just fine. I wouldn't be worried about them at all.

Zain 46:40

that's interesting any rebuttal carter before i move on to my final part here i

Carter 46:45

just think that there could go either way i

Carter 46:47

i mean i i'd be i'd be worried that the fact that the guy's been constantly in the public attention and he hasn't gotten any pause and he's not getting more positive don't

Zain 46:57

what do you think of the the the increasing drumbeat of more sort of conversation

Zain 47:02

conversation about the conservative party and the turn they're taking with pierre like do you feel like that is of concern right now to him like that that this is a party that's you know many people in like toronto stars like it's going nuts and other places are like this is crazy and of course you might be like oh this is of course what they're going to say but

Zain 47:18

but the fact that you

Zain 47:20

his leadership is now perhaps ushering in without

Zain 47:24

without any sort of backtracking or plan for course correction um certain

Zain 47:32

do you feel like he he needs to be worried is particularly from like a, even a non-conventional sense that look, okay, these are fine in a historical sense, but I'm a very different candidate. I'm actually welcoming in a very different group of folks into my tent here.

Carter 47:45

Yeah. I mean, he's, he's trying to appeal to a certain subset of the population for his leadership. The, the, the, the

Carter 47:52

the plan that they have is that they will then appeal to another group of the population after he wins the leadership,

Carter 47:59

it's simply not going to be enough just

Carter 48:01

just to simply appeal to the right

Carter 48:03

right wing in Canada. The right wing in Canada is not as big as it is in the United States, and you have to have

Carter 48:09

have a bigger group.

Carter 48:11

I think that Pierre's people think that they can make a shift. I've said this before. I don't think they can make a shift. And

Carter 48:17

I think that the big the big challenge is if the if the Liberal Party chooses

Carter 48:21

chooses to shift back to the center or center right, which

Carter 48:25

which they've been a very they've been a very comfortable party and before

Carter 48:28

before under both Kretchen and and and

Carter 48:30

and even more so under Martin,

Carter 48:34

that if the Liberal Party makes a move to to go and grab some of those disaffected

Carter 48:39

centrists right right of center centrists. I

Carter 48:42

I think that you could see a real problem

Carter 48:45

problem for Pierre where he's stuck out on an island

Carter 48:49

with a group of rabid followers who expect him to behave one way, and

Carter 48:52

and he's unable to do so.

Zain 48:56

Corey, any final thoughts on this as it relates to the prime minister right now?

Zain 49:01

I didn't ask you about the freakout in the PMO. I asked Carter. I want to round it out with

Zain 49:05

saying what level of freakout do they need to have right now? Because you guys are on a similar page in terms of where this is historically tethered, historically pegged.

Zain 49:14

But freak out and political operations are very different. Where would you be right now in terms of your course of action in

Zain 49:19

in the PMO and in the prime minister's office?

Corey 49:24

reputation, your ability to rebound, the antipathy that can grow over time, the vibe people might have about you, whether or not it's deserved. These are all interesting things that any prime minister's office needs to deal with. the

Corey 49:38

when do they hit the point where it's not really that manageable for you as an individual and you've got to be thinking about the party and you've got to be thinking about your legacy and ideally you know your

Corey 49:49

it looks better for you if if your successor wins than for you to lose right and so you've got you got to look at all of this and you got to ride it all out uh but it's you know there is a point of no return there is a point where people think you can do no right and the trudeau government i'm not i'm not saying we're there uh but i will observe for example stephen carter went on a bit of a side show about what the hell why didn't the prime minister do x y or z trudeau

Corey 50:14

trudeau greeted the pope at the airport with the gg but there is a moment now where people are just saying i assume he fucked up because he's a fuck-up and

Corey 50:22

and and if you get that reputation and that thing carrying on too more too long and it's it's about more

Corey 50:27

more than the stephen carters of the world but people are just feeling that then

Corey 50:30

then your time is over and you got to go i

Corey 50:33

i think it's over and

Corey 50:36

so you've got to make that assessment at a certain point actually

Zain 50:39

actually as we finish off carter you think his time is over try your best to tell me the case in terms of why his time isn't over right

Zain 50:47

right now with the time that you have isn't over isn't over isn't over

Zain 50:51

you can you can address numbers you can address the pipeline you can address the moment you can address his prospective contender. Why do you think his time isn't over? Make the argument for the other side, because there's many people that are going to be making that argument.

Carter 51:04

There is only one reason why he should stay on as prime minister, and that is because he's not done yet. He needs to tell us what he's going to achieve next. What's the next thing that he's going to do? Is it going to be tackling inflation? Is it going to be pushing for a better social social safety net? Is it going to be fixing the First Nations issue, which has dogged Canada since our inception?

Zain 51:27

I'm making this your job. I'm making this your job to tell us why he's running again. What is

Carter 51:32

is the reason? I think he needs to choose one of the above.

Carter 51:34

Pick one of the above. Tell us why, Justin Trudeau, you're going to stick around. Because we haven't heard a vision from him for a year and a half. He had a visionary budget. He put forward his child care plan, which I think we will all agree worked very, very well in that moment. He did what he said he was going to do. He brought us a childcare plan. Well, the electorate demands

Carter 51:56

demands the next thing. The electorate demands what's next. So Justin, just tell us, pick one thing. Personally, if it were me, I'd be picking the First Nations issue. The

Carter 52:07

The First Nations issue has not been solved in our country. We have not seen significant progress under Justin Trudeau. And it is the biggest

Carter 52:15

biggest issue that dogs us in federal politics.

Carter 52:18

Whenever we want to do something like a pipeline, whenever we want to do something like a

Carter 52:22

a social services project,

Carter 52:25

whenever we want to do something at all, we

Carter 52:28

we come back to our First Nations and the imbalance that exists between those who are subjugated

Carter 52:36

subjugated to reserve, put into difficult positions. positions and then we don't have any any real pathway, any way of ensuring happiness and ensuring fulfillment. And that has created all kinds of problems. Well, when are we going to fix it?

Carter 52:54

Are we just, you know, and by we, I do mean the collective we, the relationship that needs to exist between the First Nations and the governments is

Carter 53:02

is significant and it's going to take lots of time.

Carter 53:05

Justin said he was going to take that on. I'd say, you know what, you

Carter 53:07

you get an extra four years for me.

Carter 53:10

You get an extra four years for me because you need the time.

Carter 53:13

So what do you need the time for? What is the next thing you're going to actually achieve? And you can pick anything.

Carter 53:19

You really can. There's a lot. It's a big country with lots of problems.

Zain 53:22

Gaurav, add to the case of why he should stay.

Corey 53:26

Well, he should stay if he thinks that he

Corey 53:30

he can change things for the better still, right? Relative to the alternatives. And I think that the problem is people's egos get in the way And

Corey 53:38

they start thinking they are the only one who can do these things that Stephen is talking about here, when in reality, there might even be better champions for

Corey 53:45

for some of this, because some of the baggage that our

Corey 53:47

our prime minister has, for example, going surfing on our first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, to name an obvious one, and carry on the

Corey 53:54

the issue that Stephen was talking to. But,

Corey 53:57

But, you know, you've

Corey 53:58

you've also got to realize that sometimes

Corey 54:00

sometimes it's not about, you

Corey 54:03

you know, governments, there's

Corey 54:05

there's change fatigue. It's a real thing. And sometimes people aren't looking for governments to perpetually ride, you know, newer, crazier waves and climb taller mountains. And we might be at a moment where we're looking for more 90s style government of, okay, well, we're a little freaked out about inflation.

Corey 54:21

Deficit actually may just drop to almost nothing over here, but we'll see. We're looking for fiscal management.

Corey 54:28

And you got to know where people are. And actually, when you talk about the liberals and used to be comfortable on the center right, that's because the liberals used to be very comfortable, and it remains to be seen if they still are, of moving to where the public was on these issues. right and uh and

Corey 54:43

and in the 90s you

Corey 54:45

you know we were at a point where everybody wanted to cut we

Corey 54:48

we we had a situation here in alberta where we had a general election where the pc leader

Corey 54:54

leader was a fellow most will know named ralph klein and

Corey 54:58

and he was he was his main opponent was a guy named laurence decor for the liberals who actually ran to the right of ralph klein he talked about deeper cuts and he ultimately lost because he was saying he wanted to restrict access to abortion to simplify things

Corey 55:12

you know, but the liberals have, uh, have federally had a bit of a knack for kind of drifting to where they need to be, where the public is remains

Corey 55:18

remains to be seen whether they've still got that gift.

Zain 55:21

I'm going to leave that segment there, moving on to our final segment or over under in our lightning round, Stephen Carter, we do everything for you. We do it for you. Here's, here's a yes or no question. Um, that clearly requires more. Thank you, Carter. I appreciate it. Carter, what do you go with?

Corey 55:36

I'm going to go with it's complicated. Uh, yes, in some cases, is but not i agree i

Zain 55:41

agree completely let's move on to our next question uh cory i'm going to start with you on this one uh yes or no can the prime minister go on vacation anymore uh

Zain 55:50

reason i ask is

Zain 55:51

is because the pm is headed to costa rica with his family for a few weeks seems totally fine it's totally fucking reasonable it's august uh

Zain 55:57

uh but of course he must fly on a royal canadian air force plane for security reasons even for personal travel and

Zain 56:03

and it's cost fifty seven thousand dollars the crew must spend nights in san jose etc this is all listed in a uh

Zain 56:09

uh canadian press article uh and of course now the reason i asked the question the way i did cory is as

Zain 56:15

as the article goes on it ends with by

Zain 56:18

by the way the premier uh the prime minister had a scandal with vacations in the past in 2016 if you forgot people every time every time he uh does anything uh as it relates to spending time with the family just so you know this also happened with him uh and he's got this relationship and history of vacations what do you think of this like i know i ask it as a yes or no question but i'm mainly trying to get your thoughts on this uh can the prime should the prime minister take vacations anymore?

Corey 56:41

So I think that I've got a bunch of thoughts. The overriding thought is this is so fucking dumb that people are mad that the prime minister of Canada, a G7 country, one of the largest economies in the world, you know, multi-trillion dollar economy, by the way, larger economy than Russia. I like to remind people all of the time. And we always talk about the economic heft of Russia and

Corey 57:01

they're worried that it's $57,000 is being spent on his security if he's going to a foreign country on vacations.

Corey 57:08

Like, get your heads out of your asses. It's expensive to

Corey 57:12

It's more expensive to run a bigger country, a more important country, a more powerful country. That's just fine. He should be allowed to do those things.

Corey 57:20

It's a bit ridiculous that we even get kind of hitched up on. And his staff will have to go in the hotel. What's the alternative? Like, what's the alternative here? Camping. You just say that he's locked out.

Carter 57:29

out. We just get

Carter 57:29

get him a fucking tent.

Corey 57:33

Pitch a tent, PM.

Corey 57:34

Rideau Hall has some big grounds, just sort of drift into them in a pup tent. Absolutely. But

Corey 57:41

But I think that one of the things that is interesting about our prime minister is,

Corey 57:47

and it's very Canadian, like we travel globally, but in the United States, the president generally

Corey 57:53

generally just tries to take his vacation in

Corey 57:55

in the United States. and maybe you'll bolt on something to a trip into Europe or something like that to

Corey 58:01

to try to avoid these issues. And I wonder if, unfortunately, we're not in a similar situation where the prime minister should have just picked a place in Canada to

Corey 58:11

it's August in Costa Rica. That sounds awful.

Carter 58:15

awful. Yeah, no one wants to be there then. Yeah, that's a terrible decision. That's why it's only

Zain 58:19

That's why it's only $57,000. You

Zain 58:22

to know what the real rates are? Oh, my goodness. You want to go in December? ever?

Zain 58:25

And that's not going to happen, Carter. Carter, should the PM be allowed to take vacations? Should he take vacations from a political strategy, political tactics lens? Should he be taking vacations, Carter?

Carter 58:35

Yeah, he should be taking vacations. And yes, the cost is going to be higher than when I take a vacation.

Carter 58:41

Yeah, I don't give a shit. Take a vacation. And you know what? He needs to get on an airplane and he needs to take staff with him.

Carter 58:46

And that staff needs to be able to respond to whatever threat happens. Because you know what? We're a fucking sovereign nation. And that means that it's going to cost us some money. You know who doesn't bitch about how much things cost? The Americans, when they throw their president on a 747 and he flies back to Mar-a-Lago every weekend to go golfing 27 times. It doesn't matter because at the end of the day, we need to have the prime minister of a G7 country being able to respond immediately. You know, these millennials, these young people who want to be able to shut things off when they go somewhere, the prime minister of Canada doesn't get to shut shit off ever. that means we need to be able to call him be able to get things to actually happen this is bullshit bullshit and it's bullshit we did this we did a retreat to jasper in the off season and we went to the jasper park lodge and people lost their shit because we paid 85 a night in the jasper park lodge suck it up it costs money to run a government stupid asses there's

Corey 59:48

stuff that i don't know who's

Corey 59:50

who's the drive-by on millennials halfway through that and also the wrong

Zain 59:53

wrong millennials wrong generation i don't think you're talking about millennials also 85 dollars anybody

Carter 59:58

anybody anybody younger than jasper

Carter 1:00:00

jasper barclay what is the provincial government when i was i just

Carter 1:00:07

just don't even know

Corey 1:00:08

know what to say to that 85

Carter 1:00:09

85 dollars so you

Zain 1:00:11

fuckers do we guys put on like probation after the flight? Okay, Corey, go ahead. Sorry.

Corey 1:00:16

I tend to feel similar to the way Dwight Eisenhower did, which is that presidents, prime ministers, they should take vacations. These are stressful jobs. These are big jobs. You need time to recharge. Vacation is important for anybody. It's a chance where you can have some of your best thinking, frankly, walking through the sweltering hot jungles of Costa Rica, apparently. But frankly,

Corey 1:00:38

I don't think our politicians take enough time off i think they they put on this martyr complex they do the wake and grind culture thing it's ridiculous

Zain 1:00:46

ridiculous even here in this article it the last line is the pm will continue to get briefings don't worry guys like don't worry yeah he will continue to get all these briefings like honestly he's gonna be glued to his ipad it's just i don't know why he's going like the article pretty much was like i don't know why he's going he's gonna be glued to his ipad like it's fine like he's gonna have great cell reception like he's always available like you can call like text him like he's available guys i

Zain 1:01:06

i agree it's just kind of fucking weird like the reason i phrased the question that way is because i think i wanted to give you guys an easy answer which carter never takes and have this discussion uh

Zain 1:01:14

uh carter i'm gonna stick with you yes or no are

Zain 1:01:18

are the leading contenders i'm leading in air quotes in the ucp leadership race predict

Zain 1:01:24

predict for me are

Zain 1:01:25

are they gonna just go further right and just try to compete with danielle now is that what the name of the game over the course of the next i don't even know how many weeks guys six weeks looks like like right now leader membership deadline in a couple of weeks is

Zain 1:01:37

is the name of the game just to outright danielle at this point or

Zain 1:01:41

or am i wrong carter yes

Zain 1:01:42

yes or no don't

Carter 1:01:43

don't play the other team's game um i think that if you're you're brian gene you're gonna go to the right because you have nowhere to go uh but if you're sonny or schultz or um i hear uh even taves uh taves tried to play danielle

Carter 1:01:57

danielle smith's game the other day and he just looks like he's a weak softer

Carter 1:02:01

softer version of it play Play something that the other guy isn't playing.

Carter 1:02:05

So jump the other direction.

Carter 1:02:07

That's one of the things that you'll find all the time in elections. If an election is about the other guy's issue, you lost. So

Carter 1:02:13

So don't respond to the other guy's issue. Make your own issue. Make your own weather system. And this is what all the candidates need to do that are running against Danielle Smith. Because right now, she's running away with it.

Zain 1:02:26

Corey, is there time and room to create your own weather system right now?

Corey 1:02:29

Look, Stephen is absolutely right. Right. Elections are about making the issue salient where you're the obvious answer. That's why we talk about setting the ballot question. You want it to be so the question on everyone's mind when they go into that box, you are the clear answer. And if the question on everyone's mind is how

Corey 1:02:47

how outside of the mainstream to the right can we get?

Corey 1:02:52

Travis Taves is not the answer to that question. I don't even think Brian Jean is the answer to that question. It seems pretty clear Daniel Smith is the answer to that question. And so why you would play this game of one-upmanship with her is

Corey 1:03:02

is way beyond me. You need to think about a way that you naturally provide a strength that they cannot.

Corey 1:03:08

And so for them to chase her on this is ultimately self-defeating. And I think that you

Corey 1:03:14

you can see everybody's sweat on this issue. You can. Yeah.

Corey 1:03:18

But they cannot panic in this sense. If they want to get if they want to pull up the plane out of this tailspin that every other campaign seems to be in, they

Corey 1:03:27

need to take a deep breath. They need to look at the voting base out there and say, how

Corey 1:03:31

how do we make ourselves the answer to a question? And how do we make that question salient in everybody's mind?

Zain 1:03:37

quebec is unfair to alberta companies we do the same to the we do the same to quebec companies that have special relationship with trudeau and the quebec government uh

Zain 1:03:45

uh and then there's a big picture of snc lavalin with an x right over to

Corey 1:03:49

to brian jean's tweet today exactly brian

Zain 1:03:51

brian jean i was gonna say who said it daniel smith or brian jean brian jean seems to be the interesting case here because he he might be the only one that serves

Zain 1:04:02

serves himself well by playing daniel smith light, Corey? Is that right? No,

Corey 1:04:08

Not unless you think you're somehow going to be in front of Danielle Smith on a ballot, right? Because your vote, you'll come off sooner and then your votes will all just roll up to Danielle Smith.

Corey 1:04:17

I mean, the thing is, again,

Corey 1:04:19

again, you're not going to, if

Corey 1:04:21

if she's better at it, even if you get yourself in that game, you're just going to be off the ballot first. So you can't be playing the same game. But you know, let's just step back. this has kind of become crackers even

Corey 1:04:32

even people that i thought would take kind of a sensible approach to these things you know let's zoom out a little bit here let's rewind the tape back

Corey 1:04:39

back to when jason kenny was dropped as uh as leader or when jason kenny decided he didn't have enough support to stay on here we

Corey 1:04:46

we talked about uh there's a real you know if there's two people in the race and it's taves versus gene it could split the party because it could be people who support jason kenny versus not we said the best chance of that not happening was lots

Corey 1:04:57

lots of people in the race because

Corey 1:04:59

because then it becomes less clear that

Corey 1:05:01

that the battle lines are all about jason kenney or or even moderate versus more extreme i think all of that has ended up being true i think the party is much more likely to survive uh into the next election uh

Corey 1:05:13

uh because there are so many candidates but the problem that everybody is now facing in the in the ucp is that they're

Corey 1:05:22

they're all just sort of

Corey 1:05:24

i think reacting to a different contest than they thought i guess that's what i'm trying to spit out here you know it's pretty clear that when taves came into the race it was i'm going to be the guy who can unite it look at all of the people i have from both sides of the caucus here clearly are apparent right

Corey 1:05:39

right i think sonny came in and said i'm

Corey 1:05:41

i'm a moderate i can i can engage communities that have not historically been engaged by the party or have been engaged but then sort of dismissed and i can be that change that alberta is this is a diverse province

Corey 1:05:51

province this This is a diverse country, and I welcome more voices than that historic old white man's club that has traditionally run conservative options in Alberta.

Corey 1:06:01

Alberta. So everybody sort of came into this election being like, that's what I want it to be, and I'm going to do this.

Corey 1:06:09

Danielle Smith just started putting out a bunch of shit, and they all started reacting to it, and she started rising in the polls, and they started saying, oh my God, she's rising. I got to be more like Danielle Smith. Smith.

Corey 1:06:18

And everybody has lost the plot. And I don't mean that in kind of like the flip

Corey 1:06:22

flip way we often use it. They have lost their own plots at this point. They are now reacting to Danielle Smith's plot.

Corey 1:06:29

And that is a sure way to lose an election.

Zain 1:06:33

Carter, you wanted to

Carter 1:06:35

we also explained why last time we chatted. I'm not sure if it was on a Patreon special or if it wasn't. But when

Carter 1:06:40

when we chatted about why is because everybody's trying to just get their signatures and their and their hundred twenty five thousand dollars or whatever the number was they lost track of actually running the leadership campaign because the barrier to entry to this leadership campaign was so high that they forced everybody off their talking points and put them into simply trying to survive that's not any way to run a leadership and now we're watching as uh the party coalesces around the most extreme candidate and

Carter 1:07:08

there's not enough time you've You've got two weeks left to sell memberships. And yeah, I mean, I wouldn't fall into the trap of trying to be Daniel Smith light. I would go the exact opposite direction and hope for the best. But that's all you got. All you got

Corey 1:07:22

Can I tell you this, though? The

Corey 1:07:24

The exact opposite direction is not just being Daniel Smith's question, but the opposite side of that question. It's defining an entirely different question, right? Which is why I ask, Corey,

Zain 1:07:34

Corey, if there's time for that. Is there still time for that in some real meaningful way?

Corey 1:07:40

I have to believe yes, because a couple of things. One is there are a lot of UCP members. Think about all of the numbers that joined just for the leadership review. Those people still exist out there. And lest we forget, Jason

Corey 1:07:51

Jason Kenney actually won that review with 51.4%. As you remind us

Zain 1:07:56

us often, yes. You've

Corey 1:07:57

You've got a big chunk of people, the majority of that chunk, support a more, Or it's so weird to think of Jason Kenney as the now more moderate benchmark, but it seems to be the more moderate version of the UCP.

Corey 1:08:10

I have no doubt Danielle Smith is selling memberships like crazy. I have no doubt that that's been the case for many months at this point. But

Corey 1:08:18

But there are six other candidates who are conceivably selling memberships. and

Corey 1:08:23

you start with that big foundation that ucp membership as it existed and

Corey 1:08:27

and you count the fact that you've got six candidates versus one daniel smith if you find a better ballot question

Corey 1:08:35

victory is possible you know you've got a huge pool to play with here and you can think about these things a lot of interesting ways and yeah you should still do the work of trying to disqualify your opponents but you

Corey 1:08:46

you know you can't dwell on these things it's like you've

Corey 1:08:49

you've got to find proxies You've got to work through other channels. You can't make your campaign about the other person's things.

Zain 1:08:56

Corey, I'm going to move it on to our next question. I'm going to start with you on this one.

Zain 1:09:02

who would you rather be?

Zain 1:09:04

And I know every time I introduce the prime minister into the equation, you guys always say it's better to be the prime minister. Well, based on the discussion that we've had, I'm going to see if I could change your mind. Would you rather be the

Zain 1:09:16

the prime minister or would you rather be the juggernaut that is Pierre Polyev right now? this week who would you rather be you've

Zain 1:09:22

you've seen his negatives you've seen them as historic lows are you going back to the basics and saying being prime minister is better than being anyone else are you saying you know what there's

Zain 1:09:31

there's a chance i'd rather be pierre poliev this week cory who would you want to be uh

Zain 1:09:35

uh i'd like to be pierre poliev because i wouldn't

Corey 1:09:37

wouldn't want to go to costa rica in august

Zain 1:09:39

that is correct that is the right answer carter um

Zain 1:09:42

um who would you rather be you're pitching a tent i see and i did not mean it that way as soon as it came out of my mouth i realized it was it was it was a wrong carter

Carter 1:09:49

carter highly inappropriate yeah

Carter 1:09:52

would i like to hear polly f

Zain 1:09:53

f or justin trudeau who would you want to be this week i'd

Carter 1:09:56

i'd want to be one of justin trudeau's staffers going to uh puerto rico without or going to costa rica without wanting to in the middle of into a heat wave would

Corey 1:10:06

rather yeah go ahead please corey can i give you my real answer now yeah

Zain 1:10:10

yeah lay it on me because

Corey 1:10:10

because it is actually justin trudeau for

Corey 1:10:13

for a couple of reasons justin trudeau um

Corey 1:10:16

gets to be prime minister for a couple of years still he does have the ability to write his own legacy his next act will be interesting i

Corey 1:10:24

i have no doubt he's still a relatively young man and

Corey 1:10:27

and uh the other thing is like i

Corey 1:10:30

don't want to be misunderstood i think pierre polyev has got this

Corey 1:10:33

but we don't know yet that pierre polyev's got this so let's not get way too ahead of ourselves some of the membership numbers that dropped and it was just a good reminder to me that in the conservative party of canada good reminder to me i hope good reminder to all this

Corey 1:10:46

this is a point system

Corey 1:10:49

canada count for a ton uh

Corey 1:10:51

uh you know ontario is going to be an interesting mess i suspect polyev's got this on points on the first ballot but

Corey 1:10:59

you know if not i'm not going to be floored either you

Corey 1:11:01

you know if it's a little bit tighter just based on the way the system is based on the fact that this very system gave us erin o'toole um

Corey 1:11:10

i be floored i don't know So

Corey 1:11:12

I sure wouldn't be measuring the drapes if I'm Pierre Polyev yet. I've got to win this leadership. I probably am.

Corey 1:11:17

Then I've got to win an election in several years.

Corey 1:11:20

That's a huge X factor. I'd much rather be the person in power right now.

Zain 1:11:25

Corey, final question. I'm going to start with you. Jason Kenney, it's Sunday night. It's 10 o'clock at night. He's, you know, he's winding down. He's looking at the calendar. He's gotten his opportunity to meet the Pope. but

Zain 1:11:37

he's also examining and looking at the shit show that is this UCP leadership race. What

Zain 1:11:42

What is he saying to himself?

Zain 1:11:45

And what is he thinking, Corey? What is his like one line mantra to himself as he observes the UCP leadership race from not so afar, but certainly a bit afar? What is Jason Kenney saying to himself, Corey? He's

Corey 1:11:57

He's thinking, I'm better than all of these people. This is terrible, right?

Corey 1:12:01

right? God, I wish I hadn't resigned. I wish I'd been able to, I don't know if he would actually want to run, but I think that it would be hard for him to sit there, as talented a politician as he is, love him or hate him. He's got, we've

Corey 1:12:11

we've talked about his tactical genius quite frequently.

Corey 1:12:15

to look at what's going on and say, oh, my God, like this party I created is going to just be handed over to

Corey 1:12:21

to a bunch of people who are tripping over themselves to say how desperately they won't, you know, do anything with the World Economic Forum. Like, what has this party become? It

Corey 1:12:31

It must drive them absolutely bonkers.

Zain 1:12:34

Carter, what is he saying to himself and what is he thinking on this long

Zain 1:12:38

long weekend holiday as he as he observes from afar, but not so far, the UCB leadership race?

Carter 1:12:45

You know, we are often punished for our successes, and I suspect that Jason Kenney just feels like he's being punished for putting

Carter 1:12:52

putting these two parties together that never belong together. together um i

Carter 1:12:56

i suspect he feels a tremendous amount of regrets and uh you

Carter 1:13:01

you know mourns that which he thinks he could have done in the future um

Carter 1:13:04

um but also a little bit of spite perhaps you know good luck to you you fuckers i would be surprised if that wasn't uh one

Carter 1:13:11

one of the thoughts running through his head on

Zain 1:13:13

on that last point is there anything to be said that this crazy field helps kenny from like uh we talked about glory and legacy from a legacy perspective from a overall overall, sort of like how he's viewed perspective, Carter, and then Corey very quickly?

Carter 1:13:28

Corey just described Jason Kenney as the moderate.

Carter 1:13:32

We're going to think of him better

Carter 1:13:34

after we see Danielle Smith.

Corey 1:13:36

Corey, do you agree with that?

Corey 1:13:37

Look, the day he

Corey 1:13:40

I said, people are going to look back and say,

Corey 1:13:44

I kind of lament this, and he was a pretty good leader, and I wish he was there. And

Corey 1:13:47

And it's because of all that's come since. Yeah, I

Corey 1:13:50

think that's already happening

Corey 1:13:51

now. Yeah, for sure I do.

Zain 1:13:53

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap up on episode 999.999999 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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