Episode 1010: All the world's a thrust stage

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode 1010. And my name is Zain Velji with me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what is going on?

Zain 0:10

It is episode 1010. It is a palindrome episode.

Corey 0:15

That's not a... Yeah,

Zain 0:16

Yeah, I think it's

Zain 0:17

palindrome episode. That's not.

Carter 0:20

How about if we call it the CBC in Calgary episode?

Carter 0:24

episode? It's an anagram episode?

Corey 0:26

You guys are on fire. you you've written the nanogram in

Corey 0:30

in the heat okay hello

Corey 0:33

kill today are we gonna kibitz

Carter 0:35

because last time i wanted to get into things

Carter 0:39

i got we had things to

Zain 0:40

to cover okay what do you want to talk about fuck get it off your chest go ahead i

Carter 0:44

i got my tesla cory

Carter 0:46

cory did not get his electric vehicle so i'm like kicking his ass i

Carter 0:50

i think that's noted carter

Zain 0:52

carter okay okay now that that you're on the topic justify your tesla purchase do it oh

Carter 0:56

oh there's no justification i mean i just feel superior i feel superior to everybody else it's does

Carter 1:03

does it need anything more

Corey 1:05

you're helping to pay for the edit button on twitter that's it yeah that's

Carter 1:08

that's why i i am

Carter 1:11

exactly how many staff cuts are

Zain 1:12

are you uh yeah are you supporting how many how many uh how

Carter 1:15

how many severance packages are

Zain 1:17

are you funding with that tesla the

Carter 1:21

tesla is unrelated to the the takeover of uh twitter oh

Carter 1:26

oh wow it's so nice that

Zain 1:27

that you can compartmentalize life like that that's such a white privilege of yours dude

Carter 1:30

dude i've been i've been white for a long time i am totally good at compartmentalizing so um

Zain 1:36

um cory and i will judge

Carter 1:37

judge you based cory

Zain 1:38

cory and i will be judging you based on the answer to this next question steven carter what color is your tesla it

Carter 1:43

it is uh matt gray to go with my max a

Zain 1:47

a terrible terrible choice cory

Zain 1:49

cory what color should you have gotten Should

Zain 1:51

Should have gone white. And why is the answer white? Exactly. Exactly. The answer is white. The answer, Carter, was right in

Carter 1:59

I couldn't go white. No,

Carter 2:01

it's too much. Heather wouldn't let me.

Zain 2:04

Corey, you have pulled the plug on an electric vehicle. Is that fair to say?

Corey 2:08

Have I pulled the plug?

Zain 2:09

Have you pulled the plug on an electric vehicle?

Corey 2:13

At this point, it's been a year and a half without it. My life is sort of down to one vehicle. I don't think I need this. and it's been too long can

Carter 2:21

i just say like when is it pulling the plug and when has the plug been pulled for you you

Carter 2:25

you know like because if you haven't seen something that you purchased a year and a half ago did you really purchase it it's

Corey 2:30

it's all about when i ask for the deposit back

Corey 2:34

if i ask for the deposit back i pulled the

Carter 2:38

that's what control is

Carter 2:40

how big was your deposit

Corey 2:42

oh it was only like five hundred dollars it was

Corey 2:45

yeah i'm still gonna do it i'm and feel like i did something yeah

Carter 2:50

this is um this is excellent merchandise with that 500 let me

Zain 2:54

me tell you something i was at the alberta nbp convention okay and and yeah of course you were if there was a strategist merch table i think we would have sold a couple of pins and

Zain 3:03

and we'd have to create a couple of pins we would have sold yeah

Corey 3:05

yeah we don't actually sell

Corey 3:06

pins so get on

Zain 3:07

on that i feel like we need a low cost item that we can sell high volume high volume

Corey 3:13

volume low cost high volume i

Zain 3:15

i i feel like it i feel like right

Corey 3:16

right now that was the podcast itself that's

Zain 3:19

that's that's actually a good point the podcast is its own merch wow mind-bending um carter

Zain 3:26

carter uh there were many fans of steven carter at the convention many people approaching me uh going right into the to the conversation and saying listen i don't mind steven which by the way is a compliment it is the highest compliment for someone like you carter is that what passes as a fan these

Corey 3:42

these days yes it It does. Yeah. They

Zain 3:43

just, just don't ask who I am. They just say, I don't mind Carter. And you know what? I take it. I take it. I convert it into fandom. Carter, any response for those listening that were at the Alberta NDP convention? Um, uh, the three to four that approached me that said, uh, you are tolerable.

Corey 3:59

I think he's frozen. I think this smile is a little too unnatural at this particular moment. Oh, he's not even there. Wow. He's not even here anymore. Okay.

Corey 4:07

Well, he just texted us saying his computer shut down. Well, you know know what cory that's

Corey 4:11

that's that's on him that's absolutely on him

Zain 4:15

that's and you know i think that's one of the reasons that people

Corey 4:17

people must go on

Zain 4:18

on the show will

Corey 4:18

will go on i

Zain 4:19

i don't really don't give a fuck you

Zain 4:21

you know what we'll just start the show and then we'll just throw to him as soon as he comes back um and in mid-sentence i think we have to do that cory let's move it on to our first segment our first segment job growth that is right if you are in the ucp caucus cory there's a good chance you've got a new job that's true and if you don't that's

Zain 4:43

that's telling in its own right danielle smith has sworn in her cabinet today well the cabinet was sworn in she didn't swear them in so speak

Zain 4:51

27 member cabinet supported by 11 parliamentary secretaries four women only four women i would say in that mix no status of women ministry no labor ministry a lot of scuttlebutt a lot of conversation cory let's start with you when you see this list there's many ways to slice it and dice it yeah let me kind of put a few of them out on the table i talked about the

Zain 5:11

the paltry the number of of of women on this cabinet um considering so many people had a cabinet role um

Zain 5:20

um that's one way to slice it and dice it the other way is the mapping uh of these ministries in certain cases splitting up certain ministries um there's also who got certain ministries some perhaps head head scratchers or head turners around who is now in charge of what ministries and the political ramifications and what that says. And then, of course, we can talk about the volume of the ministries, what they mean, and the fact that there's a lot of what I'd call Kenny alumni as well. Where do you want to start when you look at this 27 plus 11 cabinet? What kind of screams at you first with your strategist hand on what

Corey 6:02

what screams at me first um

Corey 6:04

um well i guess the size right okay let's start there but like 1a 1a

Corey 6:10

1a would definitely be that it there was not a lot of change what danielle smith did in

Corey 6:16

effect to change the ratios of representation and the way that she managed all of these other personalities that wanted to be in cabinet without antagonizing people who feared they were going to be left out of cabinet, is she basically put everybody in cabinet. Everybody in the UCP at this point, maybe

Corey 6:34

maybe with one or two exceptions, is either a committee chair, a

Corey 6:37

cabinet member, or a parliamentary secretary. Everybody gets a title.

Corey 6:42

Everybody gets a title. And this also carried through to the senior official announcements. She was rattling some sabers earlier this year, suggesting there'd be changes at the senior official level. and

Corey 6:52

there really aren't i mean the expanded cabinet has actually meant more deputy ministers so she's brought in a

Corey 6:58

a couple of new faces but i i don't think anybody lost their job which i think is good i was worried that she would you

Corey 7:06

know do some damage to the public service that would be tough to undo but

Corey 7:11

uh this is a situation where um where

Corey 7:15

where largely she has managed to resolve all this the quandary she was in about who's in and who's out by

Corey 7:21

by just making everybody in and

Corey 7:23

and and that is the thing that sticks most out to me carter

Zain 7:26

carter we had uh the best two minutes of the podcast while you were away um it was um it was insightful it was content driven um it was uninterrupted uh it was cory and i is what it was carter your your thoughts uh before i get your thoughts on cabinet uh your response to those at the alberta ndp convention uh that we're talking about steven carter as being mildly tolerable your direct response to them and then i'll get your thoughts on the cabinet there's

Carter 7:52

there's a lot of drug use in the left fucking

Zain 7:55

fucking carter this is why this is why carter

Zain 7:59

danielle smith's got her cabinet everyone gets a job why not 27 plus 11 uh i told cory there's many ways to slice and dice it right you got the volume you got the size you You have the Kenney alumni. You can talk about who got what role. Put your strategist's head on. The way you process information, the way you process a cabinet is perhaps different than perhaps pundits or analysts or the media process a cabinet. When you look at this, as someone who's helped construct cabinets in the past, what jumps out at you? For Corey, it was the number and then the 1A around so many of the same people. What is it for you, Carter? Carter?

Carter 8:37

Well, I think it was the big talk coming in and then walking away from that big talk. I think that has to be... What's the big talk?

Zain 8:43

talk? What do you mean?

Carter 8:44

big talk, I'm going to... We're going to have a totally different style and structure of government, but half the people who were left were left in place. Big ministries too. Minister Copping is still the Minister of Health. Minister Shandro, still the Minister of Justice. There were were big and i though those are just two that pop off the top of my head because uh i thought for sure a big one

Carter 9:09

taves is huge i mean taves you know here's this guy who ran against her with a totally different philosophy uh

Carter 9:15

uh who still has the controls to the purse springs i mean it is

Carter 9:19

it's kind of unbelievable when you unpack it so i'm looking at the people who stayed in the existing positions or stayed in in the positions of control and then i'm looking at the people who were brought back in right

Carter 9:32

right whether it was uh a lowen who was out a dreeshan who was uh who was out uh uh you know under under kenny and there was one more uh that's escaped my memory at this point but they were out out for good and now they're back into the cabinet and uh that is something i thought was kind of interesting because those people maybe didn't necessarily really expect to be back in.

Carter 9:56

Oh, it's Casey Maddow. Casey Maddow was not just out of cabinet. He was out of cabinet and disgraced. And then he was brought back in to be made deputy premier in a seat that I think you'd be nuts to even begin to believe they're going to hold in the next election. I mean, I think I would make Corey eat his own hat if he was wearing one, if Casey Maddow won the next election in Calgary, and it's a white bud.

Zain 10:25

I think what we do is we get Corey's deposit from his electric vehicle, and then we make him, we put that money on the table and make him eat his own hand. Why not? Patreon only. I think

Carter 10:34

Patreon for sure. Hold

Zain 10:35

Hold on, Corey. I want to talk to you about this. Yeah. There's many ways to slice and dice it. Let's get to Taves in a second. Because I want to use Taves as a broader strategy question.

Zain 10:45

The Maddow question opens up another one for me, which is, can you guys explain to me and our listeners the importance of the term deputy premier?

Zain 10:55

How important is that in the provincial government? When we look at deputy premier Krista Freeland, we see it's a pretty important title, but she's also scaffolded with finance minister, another massive job. Explain to me the function and by extension, the importance of this deputy premier title. She's got two of them, so that's unique in its own right. But talk to me about its importance, Corey, and how you process that with your years of experience and your wisdom, so to speak.

Corey 11:21

Yeah. So first thing first, Madhu wasn't out of cabinet. He was Minister of Labour. He swapped with Shandro. So it's not as though he rocketed out of nowhere. But

Corey 11:36

the Deputy Premier title, like the Deputy Prime Minister title, is not dissimilar in some ways to the title

Corey 11:43

title of vice president of the United States. It has no real authority by itself. There's nothing that says, oh, okay, I'm deputy premier. I guess that means X. It doesn't even necessarily mean you get to chair meetings unless the premier decides, right? So just like the vice president, the title of deputy premier is as big or as small as the principal

Corey 12:03

principal wants it to be.

Corey 12:05

And so it remains to be seen exactly what it means to be a deputy premier to premier Danielle Smith, very, very early days.

Corey 12:13

The deputy premier to Rachel Notley for a large chunk of the time was

Corey 12:18

was the Minister of Health. And she obviously had quite a bit of authority from being the Minister of Health.

Corey 12:25

But also in absence of Rachel Notley being there,

Corey 12:30

chair cabinet, you know, that's, you know, perhaps there were other duties thrown her way on the party side that I just wasn't necessarily privy to. But I

Corey 12:38

I think that's generally the model. Obviously, We have with Trudeau a much stronger model where he leans on his deputy prime minister in

Corey 12:46

in foreign affairs and obviously in her portfolio of finance and in ways that makes that seem really much more like an overall number two. But that's up to the principal. It's

Corey 12:58

It's what they want it to be.

Zain 13:00

Carter, when you were constructing the cabinet for Redford, tell me about the term deputy premier. Did you guys use it back then? I don't recall. Or was that Lukaszek for you guys? It

Carter 13:09

we used it as the dog

Carter 13:13

dog that we'd set onto our opposition. He was set out to defend us and to respond back in a bit more pugilistic fashion than the premier herself would be able to. And

Carter 13:31

And we used him quite frequently in that regard. And I think that that's often what you will see these deputy premiers premiers or deputy prime ministers being tasked with, you know, the, the strong defense or the laying out of the, of the trial balloons or things along those lines. They don't, you know, they don't have, there is no ministry, there's no deputy, uh,

Carter 13:51

uh, executive council, right? So the, the

Carter 13:53

minister often, you know, deputy, uh, premier deputy minister, um, usually has some other form within government. Uh, what, what it is that they are specifically tasked with will depend, as Corey said, from government to government. But ours was a fighter. We wanted someone who would fight for us. Casey Maddow, I'm not sure why he's there. And forgive me for forgetting the MLA from Lethbridge, but it strikes me that... Newdorf,

Carter 14:22

Newdorf, yeah. Him being there is

Carter 14:26

is just another... Well, he was with Danielle all the way. So I I suspect that both of these are, are reward positions and, uh, we will see how they ultimately get used, um, by the premier. Uh,

Carter 14:42

it looks like she's going to be the activist premier. I'm not sure that any of these cabinet ministers are actually going to be given, um, their own reins, uh, especially given the, uh, short run-up to an election. I'll tell you, that is another thing that parallels with this. We didn't, we had a short run-up and, uh,

Carter 15:01

weren't going to let any minister make the decision that could hurt us in our short run-up.

Zain 15:04

That is quite interesting. And Corey, jump in on this, and I'll follow up on that. Go ahead, Corey. Yeah, Carter

Corey 15:08

Carter brought up another point, I think, indirectly as to what deputy premier does, and it denotes a certain hierarchy, right?

Corey 15:16

right? This is like you're

Corey 15:17

you're almost saying within cabinet, this is a minister I'm making like a number two. too. And Jason Kenney didn't do kind of a precedence list even, because it's an optional thing where you can say, this is the order of the ministers, right? What

Corey 15:33

What he did is he had kind of his kitchen cabinet, the cabinet priorities committee, which was the, I guess what he would perceive as the more senior cabinet ministers. Rachel Notley had a full precedence list, like this is the order of the ministers. And of course, when you're deputy premier, you get to be number two on that particular right

Corey 15:52

it is also a way of saying all

Corey 15:54

all other things being equal this is this

Corey 15:57

is who's the next person in line right not necessarily like this is who gets to be premier after me but for the purposes of government and protocol this is who's next and

Corey 16:06

and so uh that is another one of those things and in that case you can think of it as like a pure sinecure

Corey 16:11

sinecure it's just it's just a bragging point i mean tom lukaszek has been eating out on that forever thanks to you know his tenure there um and because to most of the rest of the world it sounds really quite significant right

Corey 16:26

right it sounds like you're the clear number two neil

Corey 16:29

neil gray um was

Corey 16:31

was just dropping in like you know there is a parallel here it's almost like the office right it's you

Corey 16:37

you know deputy to the premier versus deputy premier it's

Corey 16:41

deputy to the premier is the minister or deputy minister of exec council you

Zain 16:45

you know okay carter i want to talk about strategy there is strategy here. There was strategy that was being played. Let's talk about this in two chunks, at least to start with. Let's

Zain 16:56

Let's talk about Danielle's strategy to something both of you mentioned, giving cabinet roles and or parliamentary secretary roles to as many folks as possible, including and perhaps especially her detractors, so her strategy. And then let's focus on the strategy of this other cohort and and let me let me um make it a little bit smaller the taves the sonnies the savages the schultz those who've been vocally critical of danielle smith whether it be about the sovereignty act or other things accepting cabinet roles so carter talk to me about her strategy do you like it by offering um your opponents and in this case like pretty harsh harsh opponents, like they were pretty clear about how they were opposed, not just to her victory, but to key pieces of legislation and how she did things. Talk to me about her strategy of offering cabinet roles to those folks. What do you think of it? Would you have done it? Brilliant.

Carter 17:51

Absolutely. You know, I mean, we brought in our, you know, Redford's opposition as close as we could get them and sometimes even closer than we wanted them. We brought,

Carter 18:03

was a big, it's

Carter 18:06

it's a big thing to bring your opposition in to give them real roles. I think that that's the question that still needs to be answered. I'm disappointed by the opposition. I thought, for example, Sonny

Carter 18:16

Sonny was given a very clear message from the people in the party that her vision

Carter 18:21

vision of where the party was going is not necessarily the vision that they they wanted. And I thought that she would, um,

Carter 18:29

don't know, be forced, but be

Carter 18:31

be willing to step outside of this existing, uh, you

Carter 18:36

you know, party. But

Carter 18:37

But obviously when you bring them back in, you, they, they remove themselves from, from the opposition. Now they're part of your team. And man, for Danielle, that's a, just a powerful move. Very impressive. Uh, the naming of the cabinet, I would say in, since she's been sworn in is

Carter 18:53

is the only thing that she's done. That's it's impressive.

Zain 18:56

Corey, talk to me about her strategy of offering cabinet roles and having them eventually accept, which I want to discuss shortly, what you would have done if you were principal advisors to some of these folks that were previous leadership opponents, but her strategy to offer cabinet roles to these individuals. I can see there being upside, to Carter's point. I can also see there being downside in the sense, short runway. These are not necessarily allies. You don't really have it on lock, so to speak, with your homies. These are These are people that you may not necessarily be able to trust, so to speak, and they might stab you in the back the first chance they get. Your thoughts on her strategy to have her leadership opponents now almost exclusive, not exclusively, but almost all of them, I should say, in cabinet.

Corey 19:38

Yeah. When you're a politician, you can do a lot worse than resolving your problems by broadening the tent, which is what Danielle Smith has done. And she's invited them into the tent and she said, you

Corey 19:49

you have a place here. And Zane, what you've talked about there is like, but can we trust them? They weren't on our side before.

Corey 19:55

I think a lot of politicians take that to beyond

Corey 19:58

beyond its rational extreme and start excluding people who would otherwise be their allies and in doing so create problems for themselves.

Corey 20:06

And you're not wrong. Like you can create a future problem for yourself if you go too far with any advice taken to its extreme can cause you problems, right? You make your cabinet too big. Maybe it's going to be very unwieldy and not be able to deliver. Maybe people will be frustrated because they're broken into such small parts, they're actually bored and they have idle hands that are going to cause you problems down the road or start jockeying for different positions within the cabinet. Or frankly, when they quit, it's a bunch of cabinet ministers that quit, which seems more dramatic than a

Corey 20:31

of MLAs that quit. All of this is true. but

Corey 20:34

you know the the first rule of counterinsurgency and in many ways this is what this is and it's the same rationale is you have to decide who who is truly dead to you uh like uh like

Corey 20:45

like uh nixon was obviously to daniel smith he was removed

Corey 20:49

and had been a prominent kenny minister and

Corey 20:53

and who is redeemable and who can you bring on side because if

Corey 20:58

well let's let's just be really clear about this if as a politician all

Corey 21:02

all you do is you know only pick the people who are always with you your team will get smaller and smaller and smaller as someone betrays you so there's a certain magnanimity that needs to happen whether you are danielle smith building a cabinet or rachel notley building a calgary coalition you need to reach out to people who were not with you before and you have to say you are welcome here you are you are welcome to join me in a real substantive way and not in a bullshit way and

Corey 21:31

and if you're the minister not in a bullshit way means okay

Corey 21:35

okay that means you're at the cabinet table and

Corey 21:37

and so daniel smith has done that and

Corey 21:39

and i think that she deserves a bit of credit for that i agree with steven you know it's funny i would i also would sort of mark it as impressive and in fact steven and i had a conversation earlier today where we were all saying like yeah she's done a pretty good job of managing internal dissent We

Corey 21:54

might be grading on a curve because last week it looked like, holy hell, is this going to be like Liz Truss, but on the prairies? And, you

Corey 22:02

know, she's done a good job of avoiding that. And this is actually a pretty good, I think, illustration of something that we have all said in the past, which is she is not a politician without skills. And what she has done is she has sincerely brought people in and she's given them a place at the table. What happens from here?

Corey 22:21

TBD. But she has actually avoided kind of the first moment of maximum potential crisis because it was not impossible that a number of these slighted MLAs, you know, who were cabinet ministers or were former leadership contenders, said,

Corey 22:35

said, fuck it, I'm out of here. I'm going to go sit on the sidelines or worse, start something new.

Zain 22:40

You know, if she did end up or does end up being the Liz Truss of the Prairies, Zane Velji is a Rishi Sunak. And get your leadership posters. they are

Zain 22:52

are available they are multi-purpose they'll work for any party carter i have to talk about strategy of these candidates let's say you were the principal advisor to travis taves this is a guy who spoke out aggressively on camera at length about daniel smith's leadership about the sovereignty act about you know philosophically

Zain 23:09

philosophically we've we've said they're not aligned yet

Zain 23:13

yet he's the finance minister again, would,

Zain 23:15

would, when that offer came to him with, I'm assuming, a very charming phone call or note or conversation, what would you have advised Travis Taves Carter?

Carter 23:27

I would have told him not to take it. I would have told him it's time to go back to the ranch. This is not, you know, these

Carter 23:34

these people are taking things, I think, in the same fashion that the Donald Trump cabinet was taking Donald Trump's cabinet positions. If we're not here, she's going going to do some real damage. You know, the same way that the, the, the Trump guys all said, you know, if we're not there, this Trump guy is going to do some real damage, but

Carter 23:52

but the damage is still going to be done. And the damage now is going to be done to your reputation, Travis.

Carter 24:01

know, he could have, he could come back. He could, you know, there's a lot of different things that could happen, but now because he's hitched his wagon to Danielle Smith, Smith, anything that is going to happen in the future is going to come with an asterisk that says he was the one who moved over and supported Danielle. Corey,

Carter 24:19

Corey, are we in a different era

Zain 24:23

ability to normalize something quickly and not necessarily pay a price, perhaps for Schultz, Taves, Sonny, and others is that, you know what, fuck it. Let me just take the cabinet role. This will all normalize in a a second. We'll kind of smooth things over. This is just the way things are. What would you have advised? And I use Taves as an example, but we can use Sonny, we can use Schultz. What would you have advised him, especially after what they said in the leadership about Daniel Smith?

Corey 24:51

I think it is a bit different here than in the United States, because for starters, cabinet members are chosen from MLAs and our system is different,

Corey 24:58

right? There's deputy ministers who are there as well. And it's

Corey 25:01

it's not quite as simple, I think, as perhaps what Stephen Steven, is suggesting, maybe

Corey 25:05

maybe I'm not being fair to Steven's point here.

Carter 25:07

here. It's even simpler. It's even simpler.

Corey 25:10

If you're going to sit there,

Corey 25:12

let's put it this way. If you are going to turn down being a cabinet minister, an

Corey 25:16

an obvious next question is, why are you still here as an MLA?

Corey 25:20

Why are you still here?

Zain 25:21

Carter, you would have actually suggested these people leave, right? Just so I'm clear on the record. I don't mean to interrupt you, Corey, but just to get Carter's full thought here. You would have suggested Tave say no and say, I'm fucking done with this shit.

Zain 25:31

Time to go home. Well,

Zain 25:32

Corey, now that we've established that, keep going on your end.

Corey 25:37

Yeah, none of them were going to do that, whether

Corey 25:38

whether I think they should or not is immaterial. So it then becomes a question of what are you going to do with your time here? But because it's also that so much of the world, or so much of Alberta, I guess I should say, sees it almost as degrees of the same job. Like you're an MLA. If you're a better MLA, you get to be a parliamentary secretary. If you're better still, you get to be a cabinet minister. If you're best, you get to be deputy premier, right?

Corey 26:02

And there is this perceived hierarchy of all of this.

Corey 26:06

If you're going to be there at all, you want to be a cabinet minister. And I think that there's an understanding both within the party and within the public that sometimes

Corey 26:13

sometimes you are just there because you're supposed to be there as a loyal party member. So I don't think you take the hit the way that I think like the

Corey 26:21

the secretaries in Donald Trump's cabinet are going to take

Corey 26:25

because it's different, right? It's a different role and it manifests in different ways. It's not like our Westminster system. I actually think it'll be fairly easy to

Corey 26:32

say, yeah, I was a minister under the Danielle Smith government, but what would you have me do? Not be minister? I was there for the party and that's why I'm running for leader. This isn't a hypothetical 2023 UCP

Corey 26:45

UCP leadership race. I

Corey 26:47

do think in Taves' case, if

Corey 26:50

if I was running again, I wouldn't have taken the finance position. I would have said something along the lines of, well, listen, Danielle, I really appreciate that. I think finance is a big burden. I'm happy to serve in other ways right now, but I'm looking to go back to my farm, my

Corey 27:08

That's because I would rather not be part of the election to come, but

Corey 27:13

I wouldn't mind being part of the government to come. And if Danielle Smith decides to keep you up because you're not running again, that's one thing. But that's the one nuance I would put into this situation.

Zain 27:22

Carter, script some lines for me for, like, let's say Raj and Sony. You used her as an example. She's going to her next sort of meeting, her campaign debrief, right? And there's people on her campaign, senior people. And they're like, what the actual fuck are you doing, right? Like, this is not the type of person we wanted to lead. You said you were against this. Script me some lines for her. What is she saying to a community meeting? What is she saying to her supporters? Not to say that there was, you

Zain 27:47

you know, there's a big chunk. I'm just using her as an example. Like she sold some membership. She had some support. She had a bit of a constituency. She has her own constituency that she's, you know, presumably going to be running in. Script me some lines. What would one say to justify a decision like this? And the reason I'm getting so deep on this is I'm curious how these conversations go to do something that on the surface doesn't seem like it's congruent with what you did the week before, the month before.

Carter 28:17

Well, I would say two things. I would, first of all, quote the great Corey Hogan and say, any day in government is

Zain 28:23

is- Don't say great, please.

Carter 28:24

Okay. The spectacular Corey Hogan, the wise man that he is, that any day in government is better than a day in the back bench or in opposition. And

Carter 28:36

And by being at the table, by

Carter 28:38

by being at the table, my ideas that I brought forward, our ideas that we brought forward in the leadership are going to be heard by this premier. I'm going to make sure of it. And then I would say, this is, for me, not

Carter 28:54

not a wallflower position. This is, for me, a position of activity, of action.

Carter 29:02

I am going to tell Danielle Smith

Carter 29:06

when I think her ideas are right.

Carter 29:08

I'm going to tell Danielle Smith when I think her ideas are wrong, as

Carter 29:11

as a cabinet member should, and

Carter 29:14

and a member of her government. And I hope that she responds responds well to that.

Carter 29:18

That's what I did in the leadership campaign, and that's what I'm going to do moving forward.

Zain 29:22

bad. Corey, what's the most piercing attack against these individuals that have accepted cabinet posts? Is there one in your mind after attacking Daniel Smith so aggressively in the leadership?

Corey 29:34

Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, there's just hypocrisy, but that only gets you so far, especially in 2022, right?

Corey 29:41

Yeah, you would say, you said this, now we're in a situation where you seem to be willing to live with it. And I think where these people are particularly at risk is something like the Sovereignty Act,

Corey 29:52

made some pretty direct comments about the risks of the Sovereignty Act, and now you're voting for it? You're a cabinet minister.

Corey 29:58

Zane, you're voting for it. If you don't vote for a government bill, you're out of cabinet,

Corey 30:02

right? And everybody understands that's a requirement.

Corey 30:06

The best way to deal with it is very much along the lines of what Stephen was saying. I wouldn't go so far as he has on some of the kind of the innuendo about the leader that's not going to serve you well if it gets back to the leader i i would put it more along the lines of the

Corey 30:21

the basic archetype is i

Corey 30:23

i had a concern she addressed that concern and i want to be a productive member of this party so now it's like now it's all or is in and

Corey 30:30

and frankly it doesn't even matter in the world of rhetoric whether the concern that she addressed

Corey 30:36

addressed was actually the one you raised it just becomes like close enough stuff So in Sonny's case, imagine she's like, listen, I was concerned deeply about the Sovereignty Act, what might happen if it affected Alberta's economy here. But I've talked to Danielle and she's given assurances that it will reflect the rule of law and be tested in the courts and that we're going to abide by whatever happens there. there, right? Okay. Well, that actually doesn't address any of the economic peril you brought up, the chaos, but you have talked about a concern that you had and that she addressed it. And that's going to be enough for 99% of audiences. And only 1% are actually going to grind you on the specific details

Corey 31:13

and fuck them because the other 99% are going to be like, oh, she already answered the question.

Corey 31:19

it's easy. It's easy enough.

Zain 31:21

Carter, do you want to finish off on this point? I mean, there's so many things we could talk about in typical Daniel Smith fashion. She's thrown like 90 things in this cabinet announcement, the size, the volume, the parliamentary sectors. We won't get to all of it. I'll try to address a few more in the lightning round. But Carter, on this, on the strategy question of these MLAs, I find this very interesting. These cabinet ministers, once again, what would you script as the most piercing line of attack against one of them?

Carter 31:45

Against one of them? It's always easy to fall into line. It's always easy to fall back into $60,000 extra a year and a fleet credit card. And you fall back into line so quickly because you're whip dogs that care only about the party and don't care at all about Albertans. And we've seen that, especially now that, I mean, they all still stood there smiling one day after Take Back Alberta not only took, you know, took over the leadership, but now they've taken over the party executive. This isn't the party that Jason Kenney constructed. This isn't a party that reflects progressive conservative as well as Wild Rose perspectives. It doesn't look like the Wild Rose. It doesn't look like the progressive conservatives. it looks like uh an independence party that has been taken over uh by extremists and uh choosing to sit there choosing to fall in the line um it's what the weak always do too

Zain 32:36

too bad carter let's say it's like you you could do anything as long as you had and you were incented to do it for one side or the other carter nicely done we're gonna leave that segment there moving on to our next segment our next segment

Carter 32:46

segment i just get totally slagged like i think you just got you

Zain 32:49

you you did it's like yeah

Carter 32:51

you ask us to do these things and you're like hey

Carter 32:54

hey yeah you perform dance

Zain 32:56

dance carter just dance that's that's the only thing

Zain 33:00

thing you do um yeah you'll do you'll do anything for for for money is what i understand and and in this case

Carter 33:05

case this isn't even for money like we're getting like like

Carter 33:10

200 bucks i mean that's better than we were getting yeah

Zain 33:12

yeah that's okay well there you go thank

Zain 33:14

thank you carter um let's

Zain 33:16

let's move on to our next segment our next segment nothing conventional guys i want to talk about conventions we had dueling conventions we're sticking with alberta for today uh we had dueling conventions for

Zain 33:27

the alberta ndp the ucp they had an agm so slightly different more sort of businessy um one in calgary the ndp one in edmonton uh

Zain 33:35

the ucp uh before we get into the specifics as i mentioned to you guys i i was at the alberta ndp one of course as you guys know i'm helping on that campaign um but carter actually

Zain 33:47

actually Actually, let me start with Corey on this. Corey, talk to me about conventions, their overall sort of value leading into an election. You and I have been to a few of them together, including ones for the liberals in, I don't know, it's

Zain 34:02

it's been a while. I don't even remember where it was. I think it was Montreal, the

Zain 34:06

one. Montreal, that is correct. But Corey, talk to me about the value of these conventions, especially in an election year. How do they change? Are they overrated? Are they underrated? We'll get to that. But talk to me about their political value and what the party is trying to do by putting so much time and energy and resources into staging and scaffolding and presenting and molding this weekend to a room of folks and the media.

Corey 34:33

Well, there are going to be different views on this. For my money, the best reason to do a convention like the NDP did, which you're right, was almost like a campaign launch style convention. And I'm

Corey 34:44

I'm sure you could give much more detail as to the content than I could because I was in

Corey 34:48

in Muskoka enjoying 20 degree weather at a lake and not at any convention.

Corey 34:57

communications, we'll often talk about tentpole communications, this

Corey 35:02

this phrase, right? It's this idea of it's like it's the thing that holds everything else up. And conventions are a very good tentpole communication because they allow you to have a signature speech, which defines all of your issues. They allow you to bring out new branding, which the Alberta NDP did. They've got a new logo, which

Corey 35:20

which Zane, I think you had something to do with as a bit of disclosure here. Looks nice. I have notes on kerning between the A and the L in Alberta.

Corey 35:29

God. But you know what? It's okay. It's all right. It was pretty good for what

Corey 35:33

what I'd call strong amateur talent that you bring to the table.

Zain 35:39

I'm not going to engage with any of it. You know that. So just keep doing your thing. Keep doing your thing.

Corey 35:44

And it's a time to arm all of your team with the best campaign tactics and the best messages that they'll then bring forward. It's this event that the organization puts the energy into to say, these are the things we want to say. These are the people we want to present. The Alberta NDP had Todd Hirsch, who's an economist, was an economist with ATB, still

Corey 36:05

still quite recently their chief economist. Here's the look we're going to bring and here's the feel we're going to provide.

Corey 36:12

And you get to do that all in one event. And there's not actually that many events in politics where you get to do all of that and in a format that then communicates it out so plainly and so evidently to the people you then need to carry that message even further and that brand even further. So this is the tentpole value of a convention like that. and political parties do tend to see election year conventions as the moments to do that you'll often also see policy releases i'm not there were a few things i saw from the ndp but not like a platform that wasn't released uh

Corey 36:41

uh unless i missed it and if i did wow shame on all of you guys because uh zane that would be embarrassing there

Zain 36:47

there was a platform race carter talk to me about um don't talk to me about the excellent logo which is uh being received very

Corey 36:56

then look at the l and the

Zain 36:57

b it's deliberate okay we'll leave it there uh carter

Corey 37:03

to show that you're not too professional is that what's going on you want you want to seem a little folksy still carter

Zain 37:07

carter speaking of someone who's not too professional um you don't get bogged down in details um you know uh sorry i had to i had to pivot away from myself so i put it on you carter just so in case

Carter 37:17

case they're promoting aluminum that's what the they're promoting it's uh it's going to be a big industry here in alberta is the next no no

Zain 37:24

no one knows what you're talking about no one knows what you're talking about

Zain 37:26

carter everybody loves it memorable

Zain 37:28

memorable yes that's all i'm saying yes

Carter 37:30

um no people loved it oh

Corey 37:31

oh you know what it's like the fedex arrow you you can see it and then you can't unsee it this

Corey 37:36

this is this is your you want people to be

Corey 37:38

talking about the logo i get it now yeah

Carter 37:40

yeah rather than the policies uh

Zain 37:43

5d chess carter it's fucking 5d

Carter 37:44

5d chess you guys are

Zain 37:45

are stuck on all

Carter 37:46

all over you guys

Zain 37:47

guys are stuck on uno um carter talk to me about conventions talking about their political value did you ever when you were leading a you know a chief of staff to a premier when you were deeply involved in political but did you put significant

Corey 38:00

significant weight in it or were you kind of like zane the kerning on steven's logos was always excellent top notch yeah

Carter 38:05

yeah we did excellent launches um here's the thing conventions

Carter 38:10

conventions matter more than people go

Zain 38:12

go ahead carter go ahead conventions

Carter 38:13

conventions matter a ton especially if you're able to draw people from all 87 riding are you

Zain 38:18

me are you actually or actually are you actually serious right now because i'm

Carter 38:21

i'm absolutely serious i

Carter 38:23

this is why i'm such a big proponent of the delegated leadership convention right when you are able to fill a room with people who are who care enough to drop 500 bucks out of their own pocket plus travel time plus the time that they're out of the office plus you know like leaving their families uh to come down to calgary or to go up to edmonton um to to or i'm just shocked that we had two conventions And neither of them were in the great city

Carter 38:52

city of Red Deer, where almost every political convention is held since

Carter 38:59

since the dawn of time. I love them. I think they're great because you get the people who care and then you give them the messaging. You give them the marching orders. They care more than anybody else. And that's what you

Carter 39:12

you want a political party to be. There

Carter 39:14

has to be an in-group,

Carter 39:17

you want to create the in-group within

Carter 39:19

within your political party of 1,000 people that will then carry your messaging forward to

Zain 39:28

And so, Carter, it's effectively a tool to kind of fill the gas tank, so to speak, right, for supporters. Give them, especially the most engaged, you'd probably call them the hyper-engaged, as you have in the past, right? Hyper, hyper

Zain 39:42

yeah. As they show up, you kind of leave them on the weekend with their gas tank full. Talk to me, but let's get specific. Let's start with the UCP one. This one was in Edmonton. They had a significant number of people, new leader. The key focus was, of course, Danielle Smith's speech. How did she do, Carter? Did you think she trampled on her speech? Do you feel like she kind of, with some of the key messaging regarding AHS and all these other things that she'd mentioned? What do you kind of make of what her convention in AGM looked like?

Carter 40:15

You know, for me, her convention in AGM was all about the response, not about the messaging. What

Zain 40:19

What do you mean

Carter 40:20

So it could have been tepid. It could have been divided. It could have been a lot of different things, but it wasn't because Travis Taves and who went up with Travis Taves? Brian Jean.

Carter 40:31

Jean. Brian Jean. You know, Brian Jean wasn't that long ago. Brian Jean was, it was actively known that Brian Jean had said that he would never sit in a cabinet with her.

Carter 40:40

Right. Never sit in a caucus with

Carter 40:41

Right. And now there he is introducing her as

Carter 40:45

as the leader. Oh, and if we didn't mention,

Carter 40:47

mention, he's also one

Zain 40:47

one of the ministers. He's got a ministerial portfolio.

Carter 40:50

this this is the great coming together, the the the kumbaya moment where everybody's singing along to the song sheet. When just a few weeks ago, just a few weeks ago, this seemed inconceivable. The applause, the the spontaneous applause, the this is our leader. You know, everybody's getting behind her. You've got to get behind her, too. We're not going to destroy this party over a terrible choice for leader. Seems to be the, you

Carter 41:18

you know, forget about the terrible choice. I'm just adding that, right? We're not throwing away this great party. We can't give the province back to the NDP. And the UCP is rallying behind Danielle Smith in a way that I thought would have been near to impossible. impossible um even three days before because three days before keep in mind she was in the midst of the apology tour the great apology tour and then on friday she names the cabinet we're all taken aback you know how can everybody be in cabinet everybody in that caucus has got a title like cory said every single person's got a title and so by the time they're all walking around all the mlas are happy all the constituents associations or constituency associations associations are happy because their MLAs are happy. And they're all walking around forgetting that just a few days ago, you know, Danielle Smith sat down with Rick Bell casting 15 Calgary MLAs to oblivion because we didn't need them to win. That was forgotten and everybody was doing the kumbaya. It's unbelievable. Very,

Zain 42:21

Corey, there's another element to the AGM for the the ucp that i think is quite interesting because we talked about the cabinet ministers the principal opponents of danielle smith accepting cabinet posts in her government the 27 plus 11 we talked about that there

Zain 42:39

there is also this other element which we've touched on in previous episodes but i think is worthy on hitting right now which is the election of uh the board and

Zain 42:49

and board positions And this group Take Back Alberta, a grass group group, you know, which coalesced against COVID rules, they were even paying the fees, according to Jason Markosoff and CBC, for a significant portion of the members that showed up to this AGM to ensure that they got the result they needed. And did they ever. They got that nine out of nine majority of those board insurgents, so to speak, from the more ideologically consistent perspective that Danielle Smith comes from. Talk to me from

Zain 43:19

from your perspective, having run a political party, the work and the value of something that is way down at the bottom of what we may have seen this weekend, which is the election of these values aligned board directors for Daniel Smith.

Corey 43:34

So boards in political parties matter.

Corey 43:37

They matter a lot more when you're in opposition. And

Corey 43:40

we should start as a bit of a foundation

Corey 43:43

other thing I would say is nine board members were up for election, nine were elected, but the board, I believe, is 18, so it was only half the board members- That is correct. Sorry.

Corey 43:51

I failed to mention that. That's correct, Corey. Yeah.

Corey 43:54

But that nonetheless dramatically changes the composition, especially given there are certain ex-officio members like the leader who are going to be involved in those board conversations.

Corey 44:04

And so clearly now there's a take back Alberta majority, I guess is the best way to put it, and that's going to have

Corey 44:16

party president, the party vice presidents and all of the various functionaries that collect all of these various titles, their

Corey 44:25

their authority is somewhat diminished during an election. It's kind of wartime. It's where you appoint a general and that general reports directly to the leader and it's go. And there's not an awful lot, I think, that is going to be materially different because Take Back Alberta now has nine board members. in this particular election cycle where it's going to matter immensely

Corey 44:48

is after this election particularly if daniel smith loses because this will also be the board that determines the leadership rules for the next contest yeah

Corey 44:56

in that particular moment um

Corey 44:58

um but that's not to say it doesn't provide value it also provides her a bit of a backstop against say constituency associations who might rebel try to do the same thing they did to jason kenney well

Corey 45:07

well then uh you Danielle Smith's board can do the same thing that Jason Kenney's board did to those constituency associations and push off these reviews and

Corey 45:15

and try to get themselves as favorable a situation as possible by the cities they choose and the rules that they determine. So

Corey 45:21

So it matters, but boards of political parties, especially in times of government, are a lot like bylaws

Corey 45:28

bylaws of organizations. People

Corey 45:31

People don't think about them until they matter a lot, and then they dust them off and they look at them. But I guess what I really want to underline, I wouldn't overstate the importance of that particular conquest, particularly given it happened right after a leadership contest.

Zain 45:45

Well, good point, Corey. It also says something, Carter, about the fact that Danielle Smith, in a very short amount of time, when you look at it, despite the mistakes, right, and despite the headline-grabbing, attention-grabbing, daily gaslighting, she's done a few things. She's now got a board that's got more of the take back sort of folks, values aligned with her or ideologically aligned to be more specific.

Zain 46:07

She's appointed a cabinet and she's well on her way, one would imagine, to getting herself a seat. But I do want to stick on this board level conversation with you, Carter, like your opinion on the significance of this board and what it means for Danielle Smith. Smith?

Carter 46:23

Well, I'll tell you, we didn't have the board when

Carter 46:25

when Alison Redford was elected.

Carter 46:27

We didn't get the board. We didn't put any effort into having the board.

Carter 46:30

board. We expected them to come along with us. Did

Zain 46:32

Did it cost you? You know what?

Carter 46:34

They didn't. In 2012, I remember the boards and we didn't have, not only did we not have those boards, we didn't have the writing association boards.

Carter 46:41

And the writing association boards are super important. You know, you would, you know, there was one writing association board and I can't remember which one it was, so I won't name the one I think it was. But they were sitting on $40,000 in 2012, and they were going to save it because they knew we were going to be routed and we weren't going to win any seats. So they were just going to save it for next time. And those

Carter 47:05

those are the types of decisions that are near to impossible to get around. If the board controls spending, and I haven't read the UCP bylaws to determine whether or not the board controls spending in an election.

Carter 47:17

But if the board control of spending, then the board really can kneecap the leader. And that's really tough to recover from. So by making

Carter 47:28

making sure that she and those who are aligned with her have control of the UCP board, and then hopefully that would trickle down if you're Danielle Smith to the constituency associations, you would have super strong relationships up and down, and you would be able to basically do whatever the hell you wanted.

Zain 47:46

Carter, let's talk about the NDP for a bit. So So, you know, the headline out of that convention, I mean, debatable, but I would say it was Rachel's speech, the leader's speech. And then this concept of, you know, as Corey mentioned, Todd Hirsch, economy kind of being a big theme. What do you kind of make of that positioning? The economy theme, you know, centered around Calgary, centered around this outreach to what the CBC article kind of called the light blue voters, the folks that were part of your camp, Carter, back in the Redford day, one might say.

Carter 48:19

well the people who are back in there

Carter 48:21

are there anybody is there anybody left in my camp no

Carter 48:30

mean i just think that this camp like danielle's

Carter 48:32

danielle's put everybody into her camp like it was brilliantly done and

Carter 48:36

and the creation of one camp um

Carter 48:39

um you know i don't think i see any remnants of ralph's team i don't see any remnants of stalmac's team i don't see any remnants of redford's team uh arguably i'm not even sure that i see any remnants of jason kenny's team um

Carter 48:53

what do you do with that right

Carter 48:54

right how do you how

Carter 48:56

how do you manage like she

Carter 49:00

right and the thing that kills me is that this was such a mind like compared let's compare and contrast to the minor victories that were held by um the last uh

Carter 49:12

uh cpc victors right when you know before pierre poliev you know andrew sheer wins by a little bit but he doesn't really establish himself as the leader the way that danielle has established herself and and then right after comes um it's

Carter 49:27

it's a bad names today uh

Carter 49:30

otul otul aaron otul and he he doesn't put the controls but danielle smith in the space of basically three weeks wins the leadership gets sworn in names her cabinet uh which includes everybody and

Carter 49:43

and now everybody's on her team at the at the mla level and

Carter 49:46

and then she flips over to um

Carter 49:51

you know the the the ucp leadership

Carter 49:53

leadership and she has that too like there's nothing left of any opposition yeah

Corey 49:57

is that how you're assessing it cory jump Jump in on this. I mean, well, you asked a different question, but I think Stephen- I did, but Stephen's now proposing- When have I ever answered

Carter 50:05

answered the question? Stephen

Corey 50:05

Stephen has put something on the table that I think is worth talking about. Yeah, jump into it, please. The thing about that contrast is you've got to keep in mind, and I'm sure you're all keeping this in your heads, and some of you are probably even yelling this. The difference is Danielle Smith is the premier.

Corey 50:20

So she was able to do this in quite a sequential, logical way using the powers of being the premier. She gave cabinet positions out. That means an awful lot more than shadow ministers. She can hand out goodies like that, for sure. So she gets them, which allows her to get the room in the AGM, which allows her to get the board. There's just so many more levers to pull when you are in power, and it gives you so much more range of motion. Not to kind of take away from the fact that she did a very good job of taking this stepwise. Even on Friday, I'm going to announce these cabinet ministers. I can't even necessarily get them sworn in. But once my cabinet is known, then

Corey 50:57

then they can all say nice things about me at the AGM. People can walk around at the AGM feeling good. And then here we are, you know, the next week and all of these pieces have started to get into place because Stephen

Corey 51:08

Stephen is right. The fact that she won with such a relatively small percent of the vote and

Corey 51:14

and she is getting this kind of like immediate control over the party is notable.

Corey 51:19

Now, she did it because she's in government. I think that's the major

Corey 51:25

that alone is not enough. She

Zain 51:28

had to also navigate it well, which she did. Carter,

Zain 51:30

Carter, jump in on you, because it's almost like you're trying to compare the experience to Redford in some ways, and you're saying that you didn't have many of these pieces early on.

Carter 51:38

No, I mean, it's very easy to say it's because of government. I mean, and certainly government does have the perks, but it's

Carter 51:45

it's about the party, right? We didn't think at all about taking over the party because we barely snuck into office. And even though she barely snuck into office in much the same fashion, right?

Carter 51:55

right? Ours was the second ballot. Hers was the sixth ballot. But we snuck in by the skin of our teeth, both of us, right? The Redford and Smith.

Carter 52:04

But Redford didn't have time to

Carter 52:06

to put, you know, to think about or time or resources to think about what would happen at the AGM the next week or whatever it was. We didn't have our AGM the next week. It wasn't timed like that. But we certainly didn't spend a moment's thought about who should be the party president. Bill Smith was the party president. We're going to keep Bill Smith. That was just the way it was going to go. We weren't going to, you know, Kelly Charlebois was no friend of Alison Redford's by the end. But what we're going to do, throw Kelly Charlebois? We didn't have that kind of stroke. Like Danielle

Carter 52:36

Danielle Smith barely won the leadership, but now she's firmly in control of everything. everything and i

Carter 52:44

may not like it but i am impressed i'm

Zain 52:47

i'm getting whiplash i'm sure you guys are yourselves what the fuck is happening between last episode and this one um knowing that this carter is going so hard in the pain cory um daniel

Zain 52:58

daniel smith what we're giving her three weeks now that carter now that carter has blessed her with his uh with his magic touch what are

Zain 53:06

we giving her cory

Corey 53:06

cory i do want to take

Corey 53:08

let's talk about the one yeah round

Zain 53:10

round out that but the The economy focus, the leader's speech based in Calgary, your thoughts on that?

Corey 53:15

I thought that it's the things you need to do, right? I could quibble about some of the timing and some of the thinking. One of the things about, okay,

Corey 53:25

okay, this is just getting into deep critic mode, and it's unnecessarily critical, frankly, because I think by and large, they put together a pretty compelling package for the weekend. But Todd Hirsch being announced as a speaker, for those not in Alberta, that's kind of a big deal. Like Todd Hirsch was the chief

Corey 53:40

chief economist for Alberta Treasury Branch, which is the largest financial institution based in Alberta.

Corey 53:50

the idea that he would then be helping the NDP with their economic platform means something. He's so recently retired and he's very well regarded by the business community. And for him to come in and provide those kinds of bona fides was really, really cool and really important. And I'm sure it was a thrill. for the convention goers um well

Corey 54:10

well for some of them i'll bet you some of them thought it was like who is this kind of you know neoliberal guy who's now talking to us you know these dyed in the wool new democrats but actually

Corey 54:20

actually maybe that underlines my point the

Corey 54:22

the audience for the todd hirsch announcement was the public the audience he

Corey 54:28

he got was the convention and i think that i wouldn't have released news

Corey 54:32

news as big as todd hirsch on it on such a busy friday where cabinet is coming out so So that's the big public news. There's another AGM going on. I would have saved that for this week or for a moment where you could make that the story of the day, right?

Corey 54:46

right? And so I think that on some of those smaller tactical points, I think guys just got too big for their stomach and they thought, we're going to do all of these amazing things at the convention. That was a component I would have moved into a standalone communications piece, because I think it is a pretty big deal,

Corey 55:00

to your point about the economic drivers here. In

Corey 55:03

In terms of the rest of it and the package they put together, yeah, I mean, it's a package that is focused on the things that matter to Albertans. It was in Calgary. There was this updated brand that was okay. I mean, the kerning between the A and the L was a little bad. But besides that, it was pretty nice looking. And, you know, it looked certainly more modern and gave some distance from the federal NDP. And no

Corey 55:27

no complaints, really well done. At these things, there's always a thousand small fuck-ups behind the scenes. I don't know if that was the case with this one. I'm just guessing based on a career in politics and government.

Corey 55:39

complaints. I thought it was really well done on

Corey 55:45

I just think that they've got to think about it in terms of audience and communications, landing with the people who need to hear those things at the right time. And that's where I would maybe offer

Corey 55:55

offer some suggestions. questions.

Zain 55:57

Carter, let's round this out on conventions. Talk to me about the NDP, Calgary, economy-focused leader speech.

Carter 56:03

Well, I mean, I think that the leader speech was good. I think that Rachel Notley continues to be a very strong public representative of the party. I think that the staging choices were fascinating, kind of the thrust stage that put her out into the middle of the into the middle of the hall you know i love that rest

Corey 56:25

rest stage you know

Zain 56:25

know i can't walk yeah it's

Carter 56:27

it's almost as good as a general

Carter 56:30

it's called a trust it's

Carter 56:32

it's you fucking neanderthals have you did you not study theater it's called a thrust it's right we didn't

Zain 56:38

didn't we didn't pay twenty thousand dollars to the university of calgary to study theater and then when

Carter 56:42

when i went to school it was 450 a course like it was nothing like it was nothing how

Corey 56:47

how many courses did you need to take out of curiosity how many courses on yeah

Carter 56:51

took eight i think okay

Corey 56:52

okay you took eight to graduate you

Carter 56:55

eight courses to graduate you

Carter 56:57

you didn't graduate did you

Corey 56:58

you oh my god you

Carter 56:58

you did not graduate i got i got a big okay shut up there was a thrust stage and i think that she did very well on that stage she owned that stage i do think that it you know i think that sometimes the uh ndp is far more interested in being

Carter 57:16

being the best NDP it can be and not necessarily the best competing for government party that it can be. I don't ever sense from the NDP this

Carter 57:25

this bloodlust for victory that I think we can feel at the UCP conventions. And we certainly felt that bloodlust for victory when we were with the PCs. And arguably, I think that we had it with the Nenchi campaigns and the Gondek campaigns.

Carter 57:42

that you have to feel like you will lie down in front of a tank to win. And I think that sometimes the NDP comes across, and some may feel this is an unfair criticism, but

Carter 57:53

but they come across like they are far more interested in being nice to one another than they are to picking an enemy and going for it. And I think that still that smell for blood is what I'm looking for from the NDP as they move

Carter 58:09

move into the big leagues.

Corey 58:12

Corey, do you want to respond to that before we round it out here?

Corey 58:15

Yeah, I mean, if it was $450 a class and you took 10 classes and you did it for four years,

Corey 58:21

that's pretty close to $20,000. How

Zain 58:23

How many courses on Thrust

Zain 58:25

How many courses on Thrust Stage is that? First of all, I went to...

Zain 58:29

And at what point was it not called

Carter 58:32

I studied commerce and then my... You studied commerce and you

Corey 58:36

you couldn't do that math.

Corey 58:39

We're going to leave it there, move it on to our lightning. carter you you

Carter 58:44

i'm not even talking to you too anymore just are over under and

Zain 58:46

and are lightning round steven

Zain 58:47

steven carter are you ready are you in or out steven carter on daniel i

Carter 58:52

don't believe you do this for me anymore i'll tell you that

Carter 58:55

i think that that has been for you

Carter 58:57

do i think that has been a bullshit thing

Carter 58:59

thing for a number of months and i wanted to bring it up in today's the day let

Zain 59:04

bullshit thing for a number of months for airlines carter cabinet are you in or are you out on daniel smith's cabinet you've talked about the process but but you have to now give me an in or out a binary like crystallize it for me i

Carter 59:18

i am going to take the schrodinger's answer i am both in and out simultaneously because i am in if i am daniel smith because she did a great job of getting the the lemmings uh to jump off the cliff with her um good for her as an albertan i am out because i expect more from my elected representatives than to be limit lemmings jumping off of a cliff this is not the way i want to see my government conducted um but here we are this is the only this this is the weakness um that is prevalent in the in the ucp koi

Zain 59:53

koi are you in or out on the the daniel

Corey 59:55

daniel smith cabinet i

Corey 59:56

i am also gonna give

Corey 59:58

give an answer built around the idea of schrodinger's box here but

Corey 1:00:02

but for me we

Corey 1:00:03

we just don't know we haven't opened it yet so i can't answer that because we still need to see how some of these things are gonna unfold now early indications i think i hear some meowing in that box i think it might work out i think this might be a pretty good strategy by daniel smith someone

Zain 1:00:16

someone who got a sound like someone who got a 450 theater degree go ahead head cory keep going okay

Zain 1:00:23

okay first of all

Corey 1:00:24

all you know what i don't

Zain 1:00:24

don't give a fuck i'm

Corey 1:00:25

i'm moving excellent yeah i'm

Corey 1:00:27

i'm sure it's an

Corey 1:00:28

excellent degree uh you just need to pair it with the university he was just a terrible student don't hold it against the university

Carter 1:00:34

university calgary baby cory

Zain 1:00:35

cory hogan overrated underrated missing ministries uh in daniel smith's cabinet labor's one of them uh we were you know the um what

Zain 1:00:46

what was the other one uh that she was missing Status of women. Status of women. Yes, thank you. Overrated or underrated that she's got ministries that she's outright axed in your mind?

Corey 1:00:58

think overrated because ultimately those things still exist. They just get put into different parts. And yes, you can say, okay, well, that's concerning. There's no longer prominence given to a group called labor. And what does this mean for labor relations? But the actual functions that the government was undertaking, they still exist somewhere in the government. It's not as though these things disappear. It's a deputy minister is going to have different associate deputy ministers reporting to them or assistant deputy ministers.

Corey 1:01:26

And that'll be that. that except

Corey 1:01:28

except for the case of status of women i think it disappearing actually probably means it actually disappeared and that's a bit concerning but i need to understand more about the organization and whether they were moved into different parts of um uh

Corey 1:01:42

you know culture or whatever we're calling culture this week because god knows it's had a lot of names and i

Corey 1:01:46

steven and i's tenure um

Corey 1:01:49

and that one really was about signaling the government's interest in making sure that status of women is represented at all of the tables you know whether it be Deputy Ministers' Council, whether it be Cabinet, whether

Corey 1:02:01

whether it be any of the intergovernmental situations and activities that go on in the government day

Corey 1:02:09

And for it to be demoted

Corey 1:02:11

demoted from Cabinet existence, period, is not a great sign if you're looking for your

Corey 1:02:18

your equity. But so much of this is the paint you put on it, not the car itself. itself and

Corey 1:02:26

we'll have to see how those cars still drive carter

Zain 1:02:29

carter quite same question for you overrated underrating the the missing ministries labor

Zain 1:02:34

labor status of women i think there's a few others changed mocked around maps but the missing ministries overrated underrated for the daniel smith cabinet i

Carter 1:02:42

mean it's quite something isn't it i mean you've got the largest cabinet

Carter 1:02:46

really in in in recent history um and you leave these two things out i mean it just very clearly signals what's important to you and what's not. Danielle Smith is basically taking the same line as Alison Redford.

Carter 1:02:58

Both of them said, you

Carter 1:03:00

you know, we are the women in our cabinet and that

Carter 1:03:06

don't need to worry about balance because we're the premier.

Carter 1:03:09

So we don't have to worry about- What do you think of that

Zain 1:03:11

that line, by the way? And while you're on it, what do you think of that justification that Danielle Smith offered that, you know, if you're looking for gender balance, you're not going to find it because we've got me and

Zain 1:03:20

and four strong women.

Carter 1:03:24

we, I didn't like it when we did it. I don't like it now.

Carter 1:03:26

Um, it's not about strength of the women. It's, it's about, uh, representation. And it also just this massive implication that the four strong women that you have, I mean, you only have four strong women.

Carter 1:03:40

I'll guarantee you this, all the men that are in that cabinet aren't strong.

Carter 1:03:45

we, we could spend some time picking them apart if we wanted to, but, uh, I'm quite sure that the the listeners from Alberta, have their own scorecards as to which male ministers are strong or not. I mean, Jesus Christ, her deputy premiers together

Carter 1:04:00

together may be sharing a brain. So who the hell can even know?

Carter 1:04:06

honest. Why are you?

Carter 1:04:08

Too honest. My bad. Why

Zain 1:04:09

Why would you? Why would you do that, Carter? Don't do that. Which

Carter 1:04:13

Be honest, be right. I can't remember. remember carter

Zain 1:04:16

carter sticking with you on this um let's move to municipal politics very quickly we're learning tonight that ottawa has elected a new mayor and mark sutcliffe who has defeated uh katherine mckinney uh the the two-term counselor uh sutcliffe had 51 of the vote mckinney with 38 the reason i mentioned this carter is

Zain 1:04:35

is because the liberals the federal liberals um and in some cases the ontario liberals the liberal camp the overall liberal brand was split on who who they were endorsing for mayor. Many, including the Catherine McKenna's and the Mark Carney's and the other notable sort of liberal types, were going with McKinney. A smaller number, I think one, Yasser Naqvi, went with Sutcliffe. I kind of want to talk to you about this as an overrated, underrated question as related to what this means for the liberals. As the majority of them leaned in on a candidate that didn't ultimately win in the heart of Canadian politics in Ottawa. You might tell me this is the most overrated thing of all time. You might tell me that there's something quite underrated about this, that the Liberals might be losing their touch or their level of connection, so to speak, with the candidate that lost by double-digit points. Overrated, underrated, Stephen Carter.

Carter 1:05:34

Corey and I have railed about this for a long time. I mean, cabinet ministers come in or members members of parliament or MLAs, and they make

Carter 1:05:40

make an endorsement into a race, but they're not really bringing any strength to it. And it doesn't really matter if it's in the municipal standpoint or if it's at the leadership race. These people,

Carter 1:05:53

people, we're not doing a good enough job building our constituency associations to actually mobilize actions. And so whether it was Mark Carney Arnie offering his individual endorsement or Catherine McKenna offering her individual endorsement of Catherine McKenny that.

Carter 1:06:12

It didn't work because it doesn't have the ground game behind it. It doesn't. When it used to work, it was about ground game coming to the table. We bring you lists. We bring you data. We bring you door knockers. We bring you identified vote. We bring you votes. And now it's it's intellectual and it's bullshit. it doesn't have any force to it we

Carter 1:06:34

we bring you our

Zain 1:06:35

our name so to speak and this

Carter 1:06:36

this is this is the thing that i want you know my fist is raised and my teeth are ground together because this is what i want to see from the fucking ndp too this is about fucking elections and it's about fucking winning cory

Zain 1:06:53

cory do you want to take a breath on carter's behalf yeah how about you do that take a breath on his behalf

Corey 1:06:56

behalf and then answer

Zain 1:06:57

answer the question here for me overrated underrated what this means for the federal liberals uh

Corey 1:07:00

uh over i don't think it means that much but it means something for politics i actually agree with almost

Corey 1:07:07

almost everything carter said uh in terms of the mechanics at least maybe not his views of some of the personalities involved but

Corey 1:07:14

uh carney and mckenna neither actually are you

Corey 1:07:19

party power brokers they're both retired i mean carney was was never there right and mckenna was never there so yeah the list is a carney butts and mckenna yeah

Corey 1:07:29

uh and jerry butts is not there anymore like these are people who are not actually even there and so how

Corey 1:07:36

can you possibly read too much into what it means to the liberal party the only person on that list you've mentioned who is actually in the liberal party picked the winner yeah

Corey 1:07:44

so i think i think we're okay i

Corey 1:07:47

think we're okay to say that this has not fundamentally fundamentally up you know ended our view of the power of the liberal party in this country based on that now

Corey 1:07:59

why doesn't it matter because it's just a name and what does it mean it's like one social media hit how many votes could it possibly move steven's right these

Corey 1:08:07

these things used to matter when it came with the

Corey 1:08:10

the machinery to actually get votes and that just doesn't happen anymore

Zain 1:08:15

cory i'm going to start a final question with you um the british people and more specifically

Zain 1:08:22

the conservatives in the uk have picked their new prime minister they had a chance but they didn't take it um because poster sales weren't going so well in the uk but they picked rishi sunak uh instead of me yeah

Zain 1:08:32

yeah and i actually to be clear zayn velji who's on that poster is not me it's a character uh zayn velji people will get it eventually um it's it's replaceable i'm very very different person, very different people. They chose Rishi Sunak as

Zain 1:08:46

their next leader, as their next prime minister. Corey Hogan, you know, we'd recorded an episode, what seems like three weeks ago, where we're giving Liz Truss some really solid advice. And the next morning, she was gone. Let's give Rishi Sunak some advice. What advice would you want to give Rishi Sunak on this Monday, October 24th at 9.39pm? Because who the heck knows what's going to happen in UK K politics. What advice would you want to give him this evening as he embarks on his prime ministership?

Corey 1:09:15

One foot in front of the other, look at where your predecessors fell down.

Corey 1:09:20

And it was a lack of caucus support in both cases. I mean, there were fundamental problems behind that, but they could have weathered a lot if they had caucus. So spend some time, get caucus on board. We're already seeing signs that Sunak is doing that. He was much nicer talking about Liz Truss than Liz Truss was when she talked about Rishi Sunak after

Corey 1:09:40

after the last leadership race concluded. But

Corey 1:09:42

But be aware that caucus is just problem one. Problem two is the membership, which did not even get a say in this because caucus set rules that were so aggressive there

Corey 1:09:52

there was only one person on the ballot. They had to have 100 MPs supporting them. Rishi Sunak was the only person who hit that threshold.

Corey 1:10:01

there was no choice for the membership. So you've You've got to think about how you can build some legitimacy with them. You've got to think about how you can build some legitimacy with the general

Corey 1:10:09

general public. Now, many UK

Corey 1:10:12

UK conservatives have kind of gotten into this apologist mode saying accurately, like, we don't have a presidential system.

Corey 1:10:20

And therefore, what they

Corey 1:10:21

they say is we elect governments, not prime ministers. And, you know, the prime minister can be changed out whenever because you've still got a conservative government.

Corey 1:10:29

Well, that's not even actually true. You

Corey 1:10:32

not governments and not prime ministers.

Corey 1:10:35

And if the MPs want to own this, they can own this, but they can't have their cake and eat it too. And I think the public will tire with this idea that they're like, well, shucks, I got to support them because they're the leader, but

Corey 1:10:45

but also we're not a presidential system. So start thinking about how you can build some of that legitimacy and how you can modify maybe the way the UK Conservatives talk and act that

Corey 1:10:55

that really sort of makes

Corey 1:10:57

makes clear that this government is still a legitimate government.

Zain 1:11:01

Pretty good advice by Corey Hogan. You know, Stephen Carter, I'm going to ask you the same question before I do that. You know, Rishi Sunak seems to be at least in touch with, if not BFFs, with one Jason Kenney. Kenney kind of tweeting today saying that, listen, congratulations to my friend Rishi Sunak, who, by the way, in 2014, wrote this glowing sort of, I would say, almost profile about Jason Kenney and his ability to, you know, persuade

Zain 1:11:27

what they called minority voters and community connections, so to speak. Quite an interesting piece if you look at it. But Carter, that's an aside. The question is simple.

Zain 1:11:36

If you're Rishi Sunak today and you're receiving a phone call from Stephen Carter, the Canadian Dominic Cummings, what are you telling Rishi Sunak as he embarks on his prime ministership?

Carter 1:11:49

The job is big and it will not be done quickly. Liz Truss has proven that. So you're starting at an unbelievably low level.

Carter 1:12:00

That's where we need to see a, you know, they need to grow one step at a time and try to hit what, you know, the analogy that I often use is just base hits, not home runs. And that's what, that's what, that's what Sunak

Carter 1:12:15

Sunak is going to need to do if he wants to be a prime minister past the next election.

Zain 1:12:20

Carter, I have to say, I'm going to, I'm going to, I should end the episode there, but I'm not going to.

Zain 1:12:24

There was a lot of love for your commentary last episode when you talked about in moments of crisis, they throw the job to a woman to be like, look, we gave it to you.

Zain 1:12:33

It's easy to kind of extend that and say now they've given it to a racialized man. Does that hold here? Or do you feel like this is different considering his class, his background, his education, his pedigree? Or does this kind of extend on the Stephen Carter theory of in moments of crisis, this guy doesn't get a honeymoon. What fucking honeymoon? He enters it, to your point, at an extreme low. Does it extend to your theory here, or is that a stretch? Am I putting words in your mouth? I'm curious to get your reflections on this before we close out.

Carter 1:13:01

Listen, the British love hunting foxes, right? They love hunting foxes. They caught the first fox too quickly, killed it, and now they're throwing the next fox out. I mean, they're still hunting the fox. This guy's in a lot of trouble. And the dogs are right on his heels. And I think that that is what they've done. They've handed it off to a racialized person after a woman, um not because in

Carter 1:13:25

part because the white guy they were they were literally at the end of anything vaguely resembling a talented white person like

Carter 1:13:31

like like they think boris johnson almost came back zane like that is that is yes you

Carter 1:13:38

you know talk about white privilege jesus christ the guy drove the government to the ground basically kneecapped this her success his successor and still was has talked about like he had a chance um yeah this party ran itself into the ground and yeah and you can't extend um this theory of of handing off to women to racialized people as well cory

Zain 1:14:00

cory finishes off here i've opened up the pandora's box on on sunak um taking over uh the racialized component after a woman his bff friendliness with kenny and just you know tie whichever bow you want and then we'll we'll end this thing i

Corey 1:14:15

mean i don't i don't know No, Rishi Sunak is so privileged and from such an elite cast

Corey 1:14:22

here in the United Kingdom with, what, 700 million pound fortune or something along those lines. Yeah. It's worth a lot less after

Zain 1:14:30

after Riz Truster's move and really making that pound

Corey 1:14:33

pound go down. That's true. It hurt him a lot that she was prime minister for a while.

Corey 1:14:38

I'm not entirely sure. And obviously, he has aspired for this role for some time. he was certainly you

Corey 1:14:45

you know i i don't know i'm just i'm not 100 buying into that i can understand the argument i'm not saying it's wrong i'm saying i'm not 100 sure that's the case here i actually thought if

Corey 1:14:55

if i were him i wouldn't have been rooting for liz trust to lose because now he is in a bit of a jam in that like seems

Corey 1:15:02

seems like he's the only one who's going to have that role um and before the next election and that that next election is likely to have the uk conservatives go down

Corey 1:15:11

here's my prediction though i want to i want to end with a prediction okay wow you

Zain 1:15:15

you want to put

Carter 1:15:16

there this is good unsolicited prediction this is good

Zain 1:15:19

good do we have a we don't even have uh let me do it it

Zain 1:15:22

it is now time for a

Zain 1:15:25

cory prediction i can't do it i can't do it but go ahead

Zain 1:15:28

it wasn't bad it wasn't bad yeah that's nicely done okay okay

Corey 1:15:35

will be be Pierre Poliev's high commissioner to the United Kingdom after

Corey 1:15:39

after the next Canadian election.

Carter 1:15:41

That's a two-in-one prediction. It's

Carter 1:15:44

a two-in-one prediction. It's a three-in-one.

Corey 1:15:46

It's a three-in-one because he will

Corey 1:15:49

will be sent because of his close friendship with Rishi Sunak, who will still be prime minister.

Zain 1:15:57

that happens, you've got to retire. You've

Zain 1:15:59

You've got to hang up the phallic microphone. You've got to hang up all your microphones. He's

Zain 1:16:03

He's going to hang it up.

Zain 1:16:05

that's it we're gonna that's a wrap on episode 1010 of the strategist my name is Zane Belger with me as always Corey Hogan Stephen Carter and we'll see you next time

Transcript