Transcript
Zain
0:01
Hello, listeners of the strategist podcast. Well, in fact, I should say, Patreon listeners of the strategist podcast. This is Zain Velji here. You know, we did mention that every once in a while we would include special content on this feed that is exclusive for our Patreon subscribers. Well, today's your lucky day because what you're about to listen to is something we dubbed as strategist overtime. This was part of our live show that we recorded on Sunday, April 10, in in Calgary.
Zain
0:30
After the live show, we had an intermission, and then we did something called Strategist Overtime, where we ran through a few topics of the day and then took some Q&A from the audience. So here's Stephen Corey and I batting around certain things like Boris Johnson in the Ukraine, Elon Musk on Twitter, Jagmeet Singh, Krista Freeland, and then we turned to the audience. They threw questions at us. I tried to repeat them into the mic. So in certain cases, you might be missing a few cues, but you'll figure it out. You're the smart folks. You're the Patreon subscribers. And for you, this exclusive Strategist Overtime from our live show in Calgary on April 10th.
Zain
1:10
Here's what we wanted to do for the next little bit. Misha, we'll get the next slide here. We know folks have questions. We know that you may want to throw out questions at us. Next
Zain
1:25
All it said is what I just said.
Zain
1:27
But before that, I wanted to talk to you guys about a few things that are happening in the news right now.
Zain
1:34
If the slides would move, there'd be pictures, but there's not.
Zain
1:37
Oh, here we go. Thank you, sir.
Zain
1:41
Let's talk about a few things that's been happening right now, and then we'll do some Q&A.
Zain
1:45
Boris Johnson meeting Zelensky in Kiev. Carter, it's been and called like a masterstroke by many, Churchillian moment.
Zain
1:52
Give me your analysis, rapid fire, let's just go through this and a few other topics. I
Carter
1:55
I think it could have been Churchillian if he didn't sound like an idiot.
Carter
2:00
You know, it was a great move, but then he kind of gets there and he's like, how you feeling? You know, what's
Carter
2:09
And I'm like, Boris, you can ask a question that isn't nationally sensitive, but makes
Carter
2:16
makes it look like you've been paying attention to world events.
Zain
2:20
So less the Churchillian. A
Carter
2:22
A little less. Well, Churchill probably would have come across the same, except saying, I need a bath, a cigar, and a broad. That's probably how it would have worked.
Corey
2:35
don't know how to haul that up. So I
Corey
2:38
I thought it was pretty interesting. Obviously, all politics is local. This was done for a local crowd. And he was very Boris Johnson on it. From his Boris
Corey
2:46
Boris Johnson-y ways to his big fucking thumbs up, he gave everybody for the camera, to the fact he was wearing a suit in a war zone.
Corey
2:55
pretty great. It was very much designed for people to say, isn't that neat? Sometimes I see him on Piccadilly Circus and now I see him in a war zone.
Corey
3:07
But it was for an audience. He was obviously keen to do this for a while. A lot of reporting on he wanted to get out there. He wanted to do that. I feel really bad for the chancellor of Austria. Does anybody know why?
Corey
3:17
He was there the same fucking day. Nobody cares.
Corey
3:20
So, yeah, I mean, it is interesting. And, of course, a G7 leader going to Keith is a big deal. Yeah.
Zain
3:28
Yeah. I don't know who would wear a suit when the memo was clearly jeans.
Zain
3:33
Okay, move on to the
Zain
3:40
Elon Musk taking a share in
Zain
3:44
I want to view it from the democracy lens, because this guy's been talking about free speech. This guy's been all about, should we change Twitter to Titter? Hilarious. He literally had a poll yesterday that was about that. This guy now could own up to 15% of Twitter. He's blown by SEC guidelines in terms of disclosing his 5% stake that he's taken on.
Zain
4:07
The whole concept of Twitter as the public fora, the public square, the democracy entanglements related to it,
Zain
4:13
What do you think it means with Elon Musk? And do you even agree with the premise there? Well,
Carter
4:16
Well, I think that we've long held, we have some good friends that work for Twitter, and we've long held, though, that Twitter has this romantic ideal of free speech that doesn't match with the reality of free speech. So when you just simply say that all speech should be free and it will regulate itself and find some sort of mean, that hasn't worked for Facebook and it doesn't work for Twitter. So there's too many attacks, there's too many false stories, there's too much misinformation on both on almost all of our social media platforms and it's all protected under this idea that Mark Zuckerberg and and Jack who apparently has a last name but who can remember they
Carter
4:57
they they believe in this idea of self-regulated speech that we in Canada have never really believed in we've seen we we know what happens when speech turns wrong and it turns into, well,
Carter
5:09
well, quite frankly, the world that we're suffering through at this particular moment.
Carter
5:12
And Elon Musk deciding that he's going to jump
Carter
5:15
jump into the middle of the fray. I mean, I'm not cheering this the way I was when Elon started SpaceX and thought
Carter
5:22
thought he would send himself to Mars. I was a big fan of that.
Corey
5:30
Well, look, I think there has to be a cheaper way to get an edit button than than to purchase 10%
Corey
5:37
Just delete your tweets, repost my man. But I
Corey
5:41
think Twitter needs this like it needs a hole in the head. He is a lightning rod for criticism. You've mentioned that he blew past SEC guidelines, an organization he's already in hot water with basically perpetually.
Corey
5:52
It makes the regulation of Twitter seem even more inevitable and probably on an accelerated timeline, not just in the United States, but in the European Union and other jurisdictions because he's
Zain
6:07
Chrystia Freeland, budget reaction. We said that
Zain
6:10
that she was clearly trying
Zain
6:11
trying to use the packaging of
Zain
6:13
of a restraint budget while spending a shit ton. Carter, that seems to have caught wind in terms of that particular argument in the media after we did our reaction episode.
Zain
6:23
Are you still thinking that same way about this budget? How are you thinking about it with a couple of days' distance from it now?
Carter
6:30
Well, I mean, we did the budget reaction on the day of the budget. And it's hard to do that reaction because ultimately you're reacting in that moment without really seeing how the population is moving. The population and the pundits, if you will, the media, the
Carter
6:44
the opinion writers, the pundits, all
Carter
6:46
all kind of moved in the same direction we did, which was, hold on, you're saying that this is a restraint budget. We looked at the numbers. It's not a restraint budget. And then you start to see the spin, right? Yeah,
Carter
6:57
the packaging. Yeah, all the different spins, you know, total government spending is a percentage of GDP. Debt is a percentage of GDP, which Corey had spoken about quite a bit on the last podcast. And, you know, all of those are good metrics, but at the end of the day, there's a couple of raw numbers. And those raw numbers are how much money are we spending and how big is the deficit. And by those two metrics, it's a big spending budget. And we were really impressed that Christopher Freeland stepped forward and said, essentially, this is a restraint budget. And she said it with a straight face, which we thought was pretty unbelievable. And it turned out it was unbelievable.
Zain
7:35
Corey are you buying the package is the veneer like on this kind of is the shine coming off a bit is it or do you still feel like it's a strong message and this this story will kind of move on we'll just accept that this is what liberals do we'll just accept that this is what liberals with the NDP now do what
Corey
7:51
what do you think I
Corey
7:52
thought at the time and I think now it's still going to be a fairly forgettable budget nothing that's happened in the past couple of days changes that opinion opinion by me, in
Corey
8:00
in part because this
Corey
8:02
this happens. There was a 0% chance there were going to be no
Corey
8:06
no attacks on the budget. What occurs always, and you see it happen in places like Twitter First nowadays, is people feel around and they try a bunch of arguments. They throw a lot of things against the wall and they see where people
Corey
8:17
people who are usually onside maybe say, oh, that's different. That's interesting. And they stress test those arguments and then they go big. Then all of a sudden there's a column. Then all of a sudden it's in Candace Bergen's mouth 24-7. And so this
Corey
8:29
this is the nature of these things. This is how these things... Don't, Carter. Don't, Carter. I'm not doing it.
Carter
8:36
It was him. No, no.
Corey
8:40
We knew they were going to land on an argument. This seemed like the most obvious criticism.
Corey
8:46
you go. Here we are.
Carter
8:51
Who the hell was that? It got me in shit.
Corey
8:54
Don't get canceled, Carter.
Carter
8:57
Go ahead, Zane. Next question. Next
Corey
8:58
Next one. We'll throw
Zain
8:58
throw it on the board.
Zain
9:04
Jagmeet Singh in one of those photos.
SPEAKER_05
9:08
I don't know why we can't see it.
Zain
9:12
Corey, Jagmeet Singh, talk to me about him.
Zain
9:15
You have been pretty high on him in
Zain
9:17
in this NDP coalition liberal deal.
Zain
9:20
You've said that this could be the smartest thing he's done for himself, perhaps for the party.
Zain
9:25
couple days removed from that budget. You still feel that I
Corey
9:28
I do because I still think he gave up nothing because the media still asks him perpetually Do
Corey
9:33
Do they still have your confidence? Is this enough?
Corey
9:37
it's past his bedtime
Corey
9:41
The and and of course he gets credit for things the Liberals were going to do anyways And of course there are new things that the NDP wanted that the Liberals weren't otherwise be prepared to do such as the dental care Stuff so looks
Corey
9:53
looks good. Nothing's changed
Carter
9:56
Nothing has changed. Corey's is still wrong. And, you
Carter
10:00
know, I mean, I think that Singh gave up the ability to stand up and demand more. And that's where Canadians are right now, especially with the Trudeau government. I mean, even though the spending is there and the dollars are being spent, I'm not sure that we as a people are feeling like our lives are being monumentally improved by the
Carter
10:19
the federal government at this particular stage. And the dental care is so tepid.
Carter
10:24
It is so tough for this to be non
Zain
10:25
non-existent. So between the deal and the budget and the budget and now, your analysis still has not changed on this. You think this is a raw deal for Jagmeet Singh? Saying
Carter
10:32
Saying I'm a little different than Corey in that I'm consistent.
Zain
10:36
I wanted to give you room. I wanted to give you room. Let's move it on to the next slide.
Zain
10:41
Let's take questions from you guys. We want to talk about anything. If you've got questions about anything we've talked about, about the podcast, we are wide open. You could have used a hashtag. I haven't looked at it yet. So let's just do it old school. Shout it out. If you have something, I'll try to hear what I hear, kind of like an improv group, you know, be like, oh, give us a location, and then they'll choose a location they already had in mind. At least that's every improv show I've been to. I heard Ottawa. What did you hear? Okay, yeah, we've prepared a two-hour show about this, so let's just do that.
Zain
11:08
Throw out questions. What do you have?
Zain
11:12
Lay it on us. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00
11:13
Yeah, so I'm wondering what you think the role is in Calgaryan politics with some of the separatist movement. Right now, there's the Alberta Prosperity Project that's been meeting all across Alberta and I've seen some of the pictures there's quite a few people in attendance. Theo Fleury's there, Tamara Leach is going there, and I'm
SPEAKER_00
11:35
I'm just curious what you see as this, how is this going to impact our government here now and into the future.
Zain
11:42
Okay, separatist movement. I also saw on the other hand, let's grab a couple of questions at the same time, we'll address a few. Right there, yes.
SPEAKER_06
11:49
somebody advise daniel smith to come out before there
SPEAKER_06
11:53
there was an actual leadership race and in what universe does that actually work out well cory
Zain
11:57
cory will defend that for you great so we'll get that in a second okay let's do let's do separatist movement first the impact on alberta politics obviously with its its and it's been recent in the sense that you're seeing some of these formalizations but also not really you've had these strains for a while so their impacts and perhaps politics and i'll go further political outcomes carter you want to tackle it first well
Carter
12:17
well Well, I think there's been a nascent separatist vibe for quite some time, and it hasn't necessarily always manifested itself in this idea that Alberta should be a separate country. The way it's manifested itself, really, since Ralph Klein, we could go back to the Western Canada concept and things like that, but since Ralph Klein, what
Carter
12:36
what we really have is this idea
Carter
12:38
idea that we are being done wrong,
Carter
12:41
right? Because we're paying so much into equalization, we're being done wrong. and
Carter
12:46
and that manifests itself into us really feeling that we are better than the rest of Canada and that we're better than rest of Canada you know we you can see it when saying well we're the economic engine of Canada well you know where would we be without the oil sands where would where would Canada be without our transfer payments you know we keep giving all this money to Quebec we've seen this this movie for a very very long time and what has happened is the rest of Canada has collectively done what it has always done and basically basically told us to go fuck ourselves and,
Carter
13:20
you know, I'm sympathetic to that argument.
Carter
13:30
challenge is that there's a group of people and, you know, we saw it when we were consulting and we'd go into the oil and gas boardrooms and these people would be like, people just don't understand us, man, like if they knew how many jobs we gave, but what
Carter
13:42
what What we don't understand is when we're talking the way we're talking, it makes sense to some of us, but it certainly doesn't make sense to people in British Columbia, people in Quebec,
Carter
13:50
people in Ontario, people in Atlantic Canada.
Carter
13:53
Maybe in Saskatchewan, but who knows what they think.
Carter
13:58
what we find ourselves is this, every once in a while, the
Carter
14:03
the lack of respect from the rest of Canada manifests itself where we go, well, fine,
Carter
14:08
fine, we're gonna take our ball and go home. right
Carter
14:11
right and and then the little separatist pod pops out and it never really has gotten over 15 to 20% right
Carter
14:19
right it pops up and then it then it ultimately scurries back to the right wing where
Carter
14:23
where it has devolved from what's interesting this time is the wild rose independence party for me which
Carter
14:29
which is connected to I can remember the the prosperity initiative that that
Carter
14:32
that you mentioned in the question those
Carter
14:34
those two things together could
Carter
14:36
could be meaningful in a number of ridings in the the forthcoming
Carter
14:41
forthcoming election. It may be good.
Carter
14:45
good. It may be the separating of the vote that the
Carter
14:49
the NDP could use to win a couple more seats, or it may be very bad in that we start to see MLAs
Carter
14:54
MLAs elected to our legislature who are openly advocating for
Carter
15:00
from the rest of the country. Bottom
Carter
15:02
Bottom line, it's all based on misinformation, and
Carter
15:04
and it's based on on a false narrative of who Alberta is and where we fit in confederation.
Carter
15:09
And the people who believe it tend
Carter
15:11
tend to believe that we in Alberta are better than the rest of Canada, and I just fundamentally believe that's wrong.
Zain
15:20
analysis, and talk to me about what the political impacts could be.
Corey
15:26
So you ever be at a grocery store and you see a display and you think, that looks great from a distance, and you walk up to it and you're like, He's like, oh my God, dog food, I'm not going to eat that.
Zain
15:41
problem. I have to say, he was also working on that. Yeah, he was
Carter
15:44
was just like, fucking
Zain
15:46
dog food, I ain't going to eat that. He had very variations
Carter
15:48
Yeah, I'm just kidding, no, you nailed
Corey
15:50
The fundamental problem with selling separatism in Alberta is it doesn't make any fucking sense. We're surrounded by Canada.
Corey
15:58
how is this going to make relations with Canada better when we're not part of Canada? And, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions and there's these notions that, well, then they'll be legally obliged to run a pipeline through B.C. Because that's how the world works, of course.
Corey
16:11
No, I mean, none of this makes any sense and it doesn't kind of pass muster. But it is what Stephen said. It's kind of like a it's
Corey
16:16
it's like a childish reaction, almost a peakish reaction, like, well, screw you, too, then, if you don't appreciate us. And there is something real rooted there. Right. Like there is there is a real anger and frustration in this province. And it goes to a lot of things. there's misinformation. I mean, I saw some economists in the crowd here and when you talked about we pay into equalization, I think that Trevor had to be restrained.
Corey
16:45
Oh, by the way, birthdays. Jennifer Winter, are you here?
Corey
16:50
Do you want to tell Stephen Carter happy birthday? Because it's coming up in June and I just I want to make sure okay
Corey
16:56
okay good happy birthday Jennifer it's
Corey
17:00
it's just it's you know it's not it's not rooted in nothing but it's not rooted in anything real and it's and it's an impossible dream of these people doesn't mean it should be ignored doesn't mean it should be ridiculed we should talk to people we should try to understand how to minimize those frustrations but it's it's a crazy idea I
Zain
17:18
I had their Daniel Smith question be
Zain
17:19
be charitable is there any good side for for Danielle Smith to announce that she's running for leader prior to a leadership race being established?
Zain
17:29
I know you've got some defenses. Carter, I'm gonna ask you to bend your mind a bit, too. What could be the strategic defense of that move in that lane she
Corey
17:37
she picked? It's the first mover advantage, right? It's you don't even wait for the starting pistol, right?
Corey
17:42
right? You go before the starting pistol. I know I'm muddying things because we used starting pistol earlier. We used starting pistol to start the closing argument. That's correct, yes.
Corey
17:53
know, the first thing that you want to do in politics is you want to make sure people know you're running. You want to announce. You want to get those people. There's so many relationships
Corey
18:01
relationships that are built on campaigns. So many campaign workers come in the door. But, Corey, aren't elections
Corey
18:05
during elections, though? Like, isn't
Zain
18:09
where elections are won, Corey?
Corey
18:14
Yeah, well, you got me there. So I guess I just give up.
Zain
18:20
I ask you to do this all the time, but be
Zain
18:22
be charitable to her strategy.
Zain
18:25
Try to justify it for me. What do you think she's trying to do? Is it what Corey was saying? I don't mean to undercut him,
Zain
18:30
but is it what she's trying to do, which is establish herself as a contender early?
Corey
18:38
This is an audio medium, Steve. Yeah, you gotta
Carter
18:43
I think back to
Carter
18:48
when I was trying to earnestly achieve something, right?
Carter
18:55
And instead of earnestly achieving it, I may have prematurely ejaculated.
Corey
19:01
I don't know where this is going.
Corey
19:05
If this is a metaphor, I'm very
Carter
19:10
Anyways, I think I've made my point.
Zain
19:18
Okay, I think we're gonna lose listeners after this. I can't believe they came back. Yeah, that's very weird
Zain
19:24
More questions. What else you have? I got a gentleman in the red shirt here I'll take you first and I'll take the gentleman right there at the master after I'll get both your questions at the same time Lay it on us
Corey
19:37
Great question got a 770 on the GMAT. That's 99th percentile. They don't count like the points after that So I
Corey
19:44
I like the thing is 99.99, but who knows
Corey
19:48
For those people who do not listen, who have no idea,
Carter
19:51
what the fuck was that
Carter
19:52
that about? Never explain the bit. Move on.
Zain
19:57
Lay it on us.
Zain
20:04
was a serious score as well.
Zain
20:06
let him say otherwise.
SPEAKER_05
20:07
Is the NDP ready for whatever happens to the UCP for this coming election? Like, have you prepared a strategy for, like, who ends up becoming the U.C.P.?
Corey
20:23
I don't know what's going on here.
Zain
20:25
Okay, I'm going to repeat the question for those who didn't hear it. That was a good question. The question, tell me if I'm paraphrasing this correctly. Are the Alberta NDP ready for whatever happens in the next month or so with the U.C.P.? whether that's a scenario of Kenny regaining his position
Zain
20:43
Jesus, what the hell are you doing, man?
Zain
20:47
And or another leader. Corey, take it on first, because Carter's decided to.
Corey
20:56
Are they ready? Well, I mean, that's a question better posed to the NDP.
Corey
21:02
But I'll tell you something.
Corey
21:06
I don't even know what's going on anymore. It's really, it's
Corey
21:11
it's one of those things where there
Corey
21:14
there are so many unknowns, it would be tough to say that you're fully prepared for whatever is to come.
Corey
21:19
And right now what you want to do is make sure you're preparing for a number of possibilities. You don't want to go all in on Jason Kenney. Scenario planning, so to speak. Yeah, exactly. It's almost those decision trees that you would put out. Lisa Young has them on Twitter right now. Now, I've shouted out a lot of University of Calgary individuals.
Corey
21:37
There's also, you know, there's just like embracing the unknown and not locking yourself too much into a strategy, which is another reason to do what Stephen recommended earlier, which is stay out of it. Don't get too close to it. Don't start putting out your strategy now. Don't lock yourself into things necessarily because you don't even know what's going to be coming next. You don't know what kind of flavor you're going to want to put on these things going forward.
Corey
21:58
Are they ready? I see signs that yes, they are, and I see signs that no, they're not. I
Corey
22:02
I see signs that yes they are because they have shown themselves to be very nimble on these things and they're one hell of an opposition like they are so great at taking the news of the day turning it into a baseball bat and reenacting the scene from untouchables with Jason Kenney's head which
Zain
22:17
which is uh which is from Dave of course it's
Corey
22:19
it's one of the Dave yeah um are
Corey
22:23
are they are they not I I often think that it's not been about storytelling it's not about where you go next so I'm not sure Carter jump in here with both. No.
Carter
22:32
No. What was the question because what he said didn't match the question that I heard Well, it's question.
Carter
22:37
Well, the question was is the NDP ready to fight the next what was it
Zain
22:40
it again? It was it was scenario with the scenario bits if I'm understanding
Carter
22:54
that's a totally different question you asked if they were ready what
Carter
22:56
what the fuck are you doing man you're making
Carter
22:59
It's like working with Zane over there and over here.
Zain
23:05
I repeated the question that I heard, and then Corey answered a version of that. Carter, do you want to answer a version of
Carter
23:10
of any of those questions? They're not ready. They're not anywhere close to ready. Next question.
Zain
23:15
I also, okay, I see the floor. I can't see any of the balconies. If there's questions there, please yell them out.
Zain
23:21
Yeah, lay it on us.
SPEAKER_01
23:23
You're talking about vote splitting within the conservative movement. Is that something that you've also seen in your political careers within like the left like to me? That's never been a conversation. Why does it exist on the right, but there's never talked about coalition between You know liberals and NDP aside from what we've seen at a federal level with you know, like these kind of steps forward Vote
Zain
23:43
Vote splitting on the left. Okay. I got that one. What else do we have on
Zain
23:46
on the ground here? Yes, sir with the mask
Zain
23:49
Not invited. Okay, so batting one down
SPEAKER_07
23:56
Stephen and Corey, you each have five minutes with any comedian politician, and they have to listen to your communications advice. Who is it, and what do you tell them about it? Okay,
Zain
24:05
Okay, we got that one in the can. I'm going to take a few more questions, try to get these rapid fire as we wrap up here.
Zain
24:11
Five minutes in paradise. Okay, I'm hearing this talk, and I'll come back here in a sec. Lay it on us.
Carter
24:15
Considering the disarray of the UCP, what happened to the Alberta party?
Zain
24:23
Now would have been an appropriate time to walk off stage, Carter.
Zain
24:32
You know, Corey, two out of the three of us on this stage don't drink,
Zain
24:36
drink, and you would be surprised.
Zain
24:37
Finish your question, sir. What happened? And I got a dot, dot, dot, and Carter did his little stick there.
Zain
24:48
we go. Vote splitting on the left. Do we see it? Do we not? I want rapid fire on these. Go, Carter. There's
Carter
24:52
There's no such thing as vote splitting that just reduces the number of votes that you need to win. If you can't win, you just lost.
Corey
25:00
Oh, there's been so many conversations in Alberta going back. They were largely, so I would say that the Liberals and the Alberta party and the Green party wasted a lot of energy talking about how they could combine efforts or not. And they were busy playing that game. Meanwhile, the NDP got their pants on and won the 2015 election. They
Carter
25:18
They did not win the election. They, Prentice lost the election and they- You
Corey
25:22
You don't believe in vote splitting, but you believe in it.
Carter
25:31
Sometimes you don't win the election. Alright,
Carter
25:34
Sometimes the other guy loses the election. In 2012, I did not win the election with Alison Redford. That's for fucking sure.
Carter
25:44
Carter, Carter, Carter. 62 seats, four seats. Five, five,
Carter
25:50
one of them was Raj Sherman, so do we count that? Are we re-litigating
Zain
25:54
-litigating 2012? What is this? What the fuck, man?
Zain
25:57
This is a relevant podcast, Carter. For the now, five minutes, any Canadian politician that
Zain
26:03
that you could download your advice to, who would it be?
Zain
26:05
Who would it be? Yeah. And they have to take my advice? Yes. Mark Carney.
Zain
26:09
To do what? Run for the next liberal leadership. Interesting.
Zain
26:12
Corey, five minutes, any Canadian, this is not a politician, Canadian politician that
Zain
26:17
has to listen to your advice, who would it be and why?
Corey
26:21
Don't run for the Liberal League.
Corey
26:24
Now, that's not where I would have gone originally, but I
Corey
26:26
I needed to clean up some things from the other side. I don't want to go to church
Zain
26:29
church next time. To help the person who paid $35 to ask that question, can you give her a real answer?
Corey
26:33
Yeah, the actual person that I would talk to is Jean Charest, because I think it is so fundamentally important for this country for us to have a functioning, middle
Corey
26:41
middle-of-the-road, conservative option, and the way they're running that campaign right now
Corey
26:47
basically guarantees that's not going to happen. and they are running it as though it was 1995 and nothing has changed since then and it's time to figure your shit out here. And so it's gonna take an overhaul of strategy, it's gonna have to take an overhaul of tactics, an overhaul of policy, actually why do I like him now that I think about all of this? So
Zain
27:06
on, can I just say overhaul of strategy, tactics, politics, is that also your Alberta Party answer?
Corey
27:13
My Alberta Party answer is if we were all struck dumb and we had no knowledge of any politics and
Corey
27:21
people were saying we've got to create political parties no one in their right mind would come up with the idea of the Alberta Party and that's the fundamental problem of the Alberta Party I'm not trying to be shitty but they've they've always tried to make a virtue of we're some left we're some right we're some center you're some nothing it's just like it's it's not it's not a cohesive ideology you need to think of a reason why the Alberta Party exists before anybody's going to consider the the Alberta Party, and the idea of just a name that genericizes so grossly to the point you are literally, what do you stand for? Alberta. I mean, that's the shallowest thing I have ever heard, and I'm on a stage with Stephen Carter in Zaneville.
Corey
27:57
Carter, Alberta Party. Let's just walk
Zain
27:59
walk past it. It's fine. We'll deal with it.
Carter
28:01
it. I don't think I have the energy to
Carter
28:03
to deal, I mean, it's hard, because
Carter
28:05
because at the end of the day, I do think that we need a middle-of-the-road kind of conservative, progressive conservative conservative style of party, and that doesn't exist anymore in Alberta, and it feels like there's a massive opening. Why did PC work
Zain
28:16
work and Alberta party didn't?
Carter
28:18
Well, one believed in politics and the other one believes in unicorns and fairy tales.
Carter
28:23
I think it's more complicated
Corey
28:25
complicated than that. It's not more complicated
Corey
28:29
That's a better sound bite when you do it that way, but there
Corey
28:32
there was a PC party in the Alberta party salad days, right? There was a PC party. We stole
Carter
28:39
stole all their policies and ran Alison Redford.
Corey
28:42
Well, so there you go. I mean, like, this, again, speaks to, like, what is the void you're filling and what's the conversation you want to be having with people? And I was invited. There was the, you want to speak about worlds colliding. There was the weirdest leadership dinner that the Alberta Party did in 2015. Oh, I remember this. Hotel Arts.
Corey
28:58
Arts. Yes, that's right. And it was, and they had, instead of having the leader speak, they wanted to put a panel together, which they put their leader on,
Corey
29:05
which is weird because you're kind of reducing your leader to panelist and the panel included myself and Danielle Smith and
Corey
29:14
and there were speeches about the Alberta party at the start and saying some people say oh the Alberta party you're like the PCs and I say no and they say you're like the NDP no we're
Corey
29:23
we're a little like all of them and that's not that's not cogent and I think that cogent is what was fundamentally missing I want to
Zain
29:29
to take a couple more questions questions, about five minutes left.
Zain
29:33
hear one down there. Yeah, lay it on us, sir.
SPEAKER_05
29:35
Yeah, so somebody talked about the emissions reductions and simplification of the budget. There's some of the back and forth between Nixon and Schiphol. Do you think some of that might help Kenny or help the UCP? As
Zain
29:49
As well, how do you find the NDP's response? Emissions reduction question, I got one there. Anyone?
Zain
29:56
I'm going to go back first. What
SPEAKER_05
29:58
What kind of relationship should Notley have with the Trudeau-Jemmeet duo?
Zain
30:02
duo? Okay, on the coalition, and third one right here.
SPEAKER_08
30:07
You talked about Kenny's base and that speech being directed towards his base, and you've described the social conservatives and the progressive conservatives. I don't think either of those groups are his base. Who do you think is his base?
Zain
30:18
Let's start with that one first, and then we'll go wrap around, so we'll go with the Kenny base. First, who do you think is his base? I
Carter
30:24
think his base were what we thought of as social conservatives for a while and then what has evolved is another group of social conservatives who make Kenny's group of social conservatives look normal and so
Carter
30:37
so that is an evolution that's occurred since he since he brought the two parties together his
Carter
30:43
his base his base is tricky right now but I think his base ultimately is what attracted an awful lot of people to the the old Progressive Conservative Party, and that is people who want to be in power.
Corey
30:55
Corey, want to hit that one quickly? Yeah, I think that his base has become establishment conservatives, the old PC class that you'd see in downtown Calgary, and certainly when you see some of these leaks of, you know, the membership harvesting, not harvesting, but trying to get people to go to their general meeting and all of that, right? It's emails from oil CEOs to their companies saying, hey, if you want to go, this is free, right? And that is old school PC politics for sure. But that's because there has been this new further right group. And there is a fear that what comes next could be really unpalatable in
Corey
31:28
in many, many senses. The
Zain
31:30
The other question I want to hit is emissions reduction. Did you guys hear about this? I'm not familiar myself, so I missed the back and forth on this one.
Zain
31:36
emissions reduction just in generally?
Corey
31:39
Oh, yeah. So there was sort of dueling kind of communications. Nixon put out an
Corey
31:45
an op-ed that basically, you could hear his voice as he was reading it. I feel like he read it himself. Like, frankly, this is ridiculous, or something like that, right? And then the federal minister said, retract, please, because you're inaccurate about some of these facts, to which his office then replied, yeah, sure we are, but, like, who cares, right? But
Corey
32:04
But ultimately it came down to, the criticism was, if I can nutshell it here, Nixon said, you're trying to reduce, like, kneecap this industry,
Corey
32:13
Gilles Beaux said, actually, under our plan, you know, the number of barrels goes up significantly. So that's not accurate. And he says, yeah, but it's going up less than we want it to go up. That's basically the pith of the argument here.
Corey
32:26
Artful. Yeah. What does this mean for all of the parties involved? It's kabuki theater. They're all playing to their bases. They're all just trying to give a show for the people who came. Carter,
Carter
32:35
Carter, anything to add to of that i
Carter
32:36
just just add that um there's
Carter
32:38
there's a there's a disturbing trend with the the alberta ucp and that is that they don't really care what the facts are they're
Carter
32:45
they're going to tell their story jason kenney jason nixon um
Carter
32:48
um a number of their the ministers they just make up the statistic they need to support their their argument or
Carter
32:54
or they look at you know they cherry pick their data and
Carter
32:56
and they say this is what's really happening we
Carter
32:58
we saw it with covid we see it with with emissions and
Carter
33:01
and that type of of misinformation from government,
Carter
33:04
it's no longer spin when it's lying.
Zain
33:07
I'm gonna go with the last question here. I'm sorry, folks, we can't take more. We wanna jump out of here very quickly. The question, Carter, is the last one that I heard here, which is the Rachel Notley relationship with the Trudeau-Jagmeet
Zain
33:19
supply and confidence agreement. If you were advising Rachel Notley on how
Zain
33:23
how she should deal with that, what would it be? Would it differ from how she would deal with the federal government to begin with? What would you tell her?
Carter
33:32
Justify that? Tell me a bit more. It's after 10.
Carter
33:35
Justify it. Here's how you justify it. The federal NDP is toxic.
Carter
33:43
That brand is toxic in Alberta. There's a few places in Edmonton that it does okay, but even in places that are 65% likely to vote for the provincial NDP, they can't win an NDP seat at the federal level. The federal NDP is not the party that Rachel Notley should be defining herself by. She should be looking west at what John Horgan has done with his NDP party, which is to define the NDP in his image,
Carter
34:09
image, and Rachel Notley should be defining the Alberta NDP in
Carter
34:13
in her image, not in Jagmeet Singh's. And as far as Trudeau goes, he's just not popular here. Why would you bother to try and have a relationship there, even a negative relationship? That's not where your votes are. Where your votes are, you know, going after Jason Kenney when it's time to go after Jason Kenney or going after the new Conservative Party when it decides to fall apart. Corey,
Zain
34:35
Corey, how much does it bother you that Carter says NDP party? A lot. I stopped it! I stopped it!
Corey
34:43
10! We're all sitting here waiting to jump on you. Five
Zain
34:46
Five hours past bedtime. Corey, finish
Corey
34:50
us off here tonight. The
Corey
34:52
The relationship that should exist is the same as any premier that carries the stripe as a prime minister, which is to say, in
Corey
34:59
in that job, it's not about your party, it's about your province, and you've got to have a healthy distance between them. Obviously, that unpopularity of Trudeau and of Singh is something that Jason Kenney plays on a lot. It's made easier by the fact that the NDP, of course, is a combined, you know, it's
Corey
35:16
it's a federation. There's the federal party, there's the provincial wings. But that was true of the liberals for a long time. And that was true of the Conservatives for a long time. It doesn't need to define you. I don't think you need to take that bait. You need to keep a little bit of distance. There is a group of Albertans who will always believe that Rachel Notley is in some sort of sinister coalition to destroy the oil and gas industry. But guess what? They're not going to vote NDP. They're not accessible voters to you if you're the NDP. Keep your eyes on the fucking prize. The distance that you provide to those people is based on what they can do for you and your province, not on the politics aside.
Zain
35:51
I'm sorry we couldn't get to everyone's question. Thank you for hanging out with us on this overtime. Really appreciate everyone being here. Really appreciate you all listening. Have a good night and safe travels home.