Episode 1018: "Risk is rotten"

Zain 0:01

This is a Strategist episode 1018. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. What was going on yesterday? What did you guys do? Some backbiting? Some casual discussion in my family? What was this? Very mob-like, publicly airing out grievances against what I believe, and I think this is the legal term, the first family.

Zain 0:28

I got to tell you. Which I belong to. Yes, just to let you know. I

Corey 0:31

I have only one regret. Yeah, which is what? Only one regret, which is about the entire episode.

Corey 0:36

It's when we talked about how your mother-in-law wasn't going to invite us to your second wedding. I sort of failed to realize that she wouldn't be at your second wedding. Oh.

Carter 0:45

Oh. A little embarrassing

Corey 0:45

embarrassing for us. That

Carter 0:47

That is a little embarrassing.

Carter 0:51

Yeah, now I see what the problem would be. Yeah,

Corey 0:54

Yeah, we made a mistake there. Yeah.

Zain 0:55

Yeah. The problem would be you. um if there's anything that uh requires a second marriage it's our recording schedule which if you take the last two days it is every single day uh that is that is what we gotta put in the time yeah

Zain 1:09

marriage or a podcast did

Carter 1:10

did you not see how many new people came in like how many people came in on our little

Carter 1:18

our little you know uh

Carter 1:21

uh what's it called patreon that's it hundreds of use your words use your

Zain 1:25

your words carter you can use your words i know it's stopping you hundreds

Carter 1:28

hundreds of people came and joined uh and joined

Zain 1:31

joined up for the patreon they got some excellent technical analysis they got some unbelievable

Zain 1:40

they ever you should know i did not no no but but those who did told me that it was something and it exists so i'm glad what is this this i'm glad this

Carter 1:51

was the best feedback we've ever had on a hogan and carter ever

Corey 1:56

yeah well low bar but yeah okay well you're here now zane so put us back on the rails yeah

Carter 2:01

yeah let's move back you know what we're

Zain 2:03

we're not going to move on from from the topic we're certainly going to move on from that episode let's move on to our first segment our first segment gas light from our landlocked resources that is right stephen carter we need fertilizer we need guns we need our resources oh and maybe child care health care other sorts of care that are federally funded might find themselves under provincial jurisdiction let's talk about the sovereignty act within a united canada act i'm going to say act everywhere yeah

Zain 2:34

steven carter you guys gave a excellent patreon yesterday i'm just pulling your leg you guys walked through

Carter 2:39

thank you zane cory

Zain 2:40

cory i loved your interpretation of what why you read it charitably or why you tried to read it charitably what the impetus to do so would be um what your some some of your scenario planning if i can call it that or hypothetical scenario planning which i guess could be another name for this act um was in some ways in terms of how it could be applied but today i want to talk about the politics of it carter and i want to start here because the segment title i used was landlocked um resources but gaslighting stephen

Zain 3:08

stephen carter is this proposed

Zain 3:11

proposed sovereignty act i'll let people catch up in terms the guts of it. I'll let people catch up in terms of the Patreon and the technical analysis. We won't get into that.

Zain 3:19

Is this what was supposed to be Daniel Smith's mainstreaming of the Sovereignty Act, sanding down, perhaps even moving away from saying it's not a big deal? What political strategy do you think she is running? Because she seems to be running one of them, because today she came up with 15-second ads that they're running on digital that are about the Sovereignty Act and defending it even further. So whatever happened yesterday, whatever's going to happen a week from now, at least from whatever's in Daniel Smith's control, what we know is that it was deliberate.

Zain 3:51

So Carter, talk to me about what the political strategy here was in your mind now that you've had some soak time with it.

Carter 3:57

Well, I think the political strategy was that she wanted to keep her promise. And, you know, Corey and I talked a little bit yesterday about how the watering down of this that we were expecting that we had anticipated when we we talked about this last week, was that... Including

Zain 4:11

even the name of it, by the way, including even the name of it as being part of that watering down. But

Carter 4:17

But I think that the name was the only watering down she did. At

Carter 4:19

At the end of the day, the name

Carter 4:21

name changed and everything else remained the same. Because it was not this kind of walk back of the

Carter 4:29

Sovereignty Act that we necessarily had expected, or certainly we kind of teased that she would probably do, because that was in her long-term best interest. Instead, she moved it into the realm of kind of, are you kidding me? Like this is this is now Danielle Smith doubling down on an act that I'm not sure Albertans wanted and I'm not sure Albertans understand the implication. And she's given the NDP and the media all kinds of runway to define this act in ways that her and her minister, Tyler Shandro, couldn't actually do yesterday. They certainly couldn't define it. So the media have had a field day today defining it. And that's what Danielle Smith is pushing back against.

Zain 5:21

Of course, Corey, before I come to you, this segment is brought to us by our sponsor, Fair Airlines. Fair Airlines, the name has changed, but everything else remains the same. Corey.

Zain 5:31

Get it? Because it's okay. It's okay. I

Corey 5:33

I don't mind that. I want...

Zain 5:35

want... If there's anyone who wants to build a collection of all of them, I will be taking that in as our year-end episode, which

Zain 5:40

which is all of our slogans together. It actually might be a formal pitch package to

Zain 5:44

to Flare Alliance to finally officially become our sponsor. If someone does that, I'm afraid to give them 5

Carter 5:49

5% of the value out

Carter 5:51

out of your share, Zane. No,

Zain 5:53

No, no, no, Carter. That's not how this works.

Zain 5:57

Corey, talk to me about this. You've had some soak time with it.

Zain 6:00

Yeah. Talk to me about, like, you see this. You see how Shandro talks about it. You see how Smith talks about it.

Zain 6:08

You've been in these rooms where these conversations happen. Both of you have.

Zain 6:13

Do you see some strategy here? Like, now that you've slept on it a bit, where do you think the through line here is? Because they've doubled down on it today with these ads that say something like, you know, the Trudeau-Knotley alliance. They talk about that. Then they talk about Rachel Knotley says this is un-Canadian. They're like, no. no, what this actually is, is the most, I'm paraphrasing, the most Canadian thing, because it allows us to defend ourselves against Ottawa.

Zain 6:39

Do you think that message is lost? Do you think that's just the full strategy? Like, tease it out for me. Like, pick it out from amongst yesterday and the ashes of yesterday. Pick out what the strategy is, because that's what I want to really focus in on, and then talk more about if there's any strategic course in terms of how loud and perhaps over the top they've been with with this proposed legislation you

Corey 7:03

know i've been thinking a lot about the movie dave and you know the scene where they're just about to go in and kill that guy but they're early so they walk the halls and

Corey 7:12

and you're talking about how marcellus throws antoine off a building right

Corey 7:17

right he says that's quite an overreaction for touching a woman's foot yeah

Corey 7:21

he says well you may not have expected that reaction but you should have expected a reaction.

Corey 7:26

And to me, what I don't understand is they seem legitimately stunned that

Corey 7:33

that people have not embraced this with open arms, but instead have

Corey 7:36

have absolutely shit all over it. I mean, I think you would be very hard pressed to find even a friendly columnist who is saying that this is a good bill.

Corey 7:44

You have right wing columnists left, right and center saying this is not

Corey 7:48

not a good bill for a variety of reasons. And- And

Zain 7:52

And even going as

Zain 7:53

as far as saying in some cases, not to interrupt you, but saying this is not what we conservatives do. That's right.

Corey 7:59

Yeah. And I got

Corey 8:02

got the sense, both from quite a chipper or chippy, I guess I mean, news conference, plus the reaction today and some of the shade that was thrown even on social media about this today by the premier and the people around the premier.

Corey 8:20

They didn't expect this reaction. But

Corey 8:22

know what reaction they expected. Every time the Sovereignty Act has come up in the past nine months, people have reacted negatively to it. People have reacted very negatively to it. And yet the negative reaction seems to have caught them off guard. And they were doing cleanup yesterday, the minute they announced this bill. And that to me is truly stunning. So to your question, Zane, like what was the strategy here?

Corey 8:48

I think somewhere along the way, this became a box checking exercise. And I can sort of imagine the conversation where it's like, no, I said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And one of the things I wouldn't mind unpacking

Corey 8:59

unpacking along the way here is

Corey 9:01

is so often when you,

Corey 9:04

you, like this happens in all sorts of environments. Sometimes you are trying to argue, let's just imagine, for example, you're at work and you're trying to argue to your boss that they should, you know, they should take a strategy where they're going out and they're promoting your company to the world. And you're spending like three months trying to convince people of the logic of this.

Zain 9:28

And then you go

Corey 9:28

go and you go to the world and the world says, we actually don't want to hear from you right now, right?

Corey 9:33

right? But you've spent all of that energy trying to make the argument the other way. you've kind of forgotten about the other front and and this to me sort of smacks of this i think that danielle smith was so busy trying to figure out how she could do it that she failed to think about the audiences and whether they would actually like it when it was all said and done and and i she just got too tied up in the process itself and what i want to talk about at some point is i

Corey 9:57

i i don't think like what everybody immediately latched on to was the power she gave cabinet it

Corey 10:02

yeah i have a feeling they were never the point and i said this yesterday i think she's gonna back down on those eventually

Zain 10:09

pause on that point let's expand on the one you just talked about around the box box checking exercise steven carter um cory and i've worked with you professionally um you have a couple of superpowers professionally we know that one of which is to sell things and then have cory and i try to implement said things we've talked about this on the show multiple times you're

Carter 10:30

you're welcome by the way and and and i no no

Zain 10:33

no not accepted not accepted because stephen carter like like

Zain 10:39

like some politicians you've often sold things that are either impossible to implement either both impossible or very expensive to implement or um all of the above of,

Zain 10:55

and in this case, Carter, what do you think is going on? Talk to me about this concept of a box-checking exercise, where in politics, I think people might be surprised that there are certain moments where strategy is secondary, that just based on the HR, the people dynamics, the sheer momentum, that strategy actually has to be parked, that it actually can't be the compass that makes the decisions, that there are things like box checking exercises, or we just have to do something to show that we're moving in a direction. Talk to me about, do you see the Sovereignty Act as it was presented yesterday? If it wasn't strategy that either of you could pluck out and say, here's the through line, here's what I see. Was this a political box checking exercise? And expand on that. Have you, when you were chief of staff to the premier, had to do any of these in the past yourself?

Carter 11:48

Well, I mean, I think that you make certain promises that you You have to really

Carter 11:52

really take really take into consideration. And one of those promises is, you

Carter 11:56

you know, you know, sometimes the promises you can walk away from or you can modify them as you go along.

Carter 12:01

The one that jumps into my mind is we did a health care inquiry or a

Carter 12:05

a queue jumping inquiry when Alison Redford was elected. And we'd promised that it was going to be super

Carter 12:14

insightful. And we were going to get to the bottom of everything. thing um one

Carter 12:19

one thing leads to another we weren't able to do a super in-depth piece

Carter 12:23

piece and instead we just had to check the box and say that we actually did it so

Carter 12:28

so we created an inquiry that that was narrow in scope that was able to give us the outcome that we uh wanted um and

Carter 12:36

and and pissed a few people off but at the same time it it was an absolute requirement we had to say that we did did this thing.

Carter 12:44

We did it and we walked away from the

Carter 12:48

the potential problem. In that case, it was if we went too far, it would create internal problems. So we pulled back. In this case, I think that Danielle's done the opposite where she's probably gotten advice that she should have pulled back and she's decided instead to kind of double down and check.

Carter 13:08

I'm not really sure. I want to use the the language of checking the box, but she, she's, she's solved this problem by saying, I'm going to do it. And I, I've promised this, this is the action I said I was going to take. And I'm actually going to take this action. And sometimes I just think that that's, that's not the, the best move, um, that you should be making, uh, all the time. You, you, you don't necessarily actually

Carter 13:33

actually want to keep your promises a hundred percent of the time. So,

Zain 13:37

So, Corey, here's the struggle I have by putting this in the category of a box checking exercise, which is that they released it with the fervor and the ad spend and the messaging sort of prowess as if it were a strategic signature policy piece. Like, maybe either give me your theory of what happened or bridge that gap for me between how this could have become a box checking exercise, but also selling it as aggressively because you'd expect the box checking exercise, even if it was your signature piece of policy, you find ways to downgrade it, you found ways to take the teeth out of it, you'd kind of shove it under the rug. you can do various things with timing cadence etc even the policy itself which you guys talked about extensively yesterday but

Zain 14:20

but then they release

Zain 14:21

it the way they did like

Zain 14:22

like bridge that gap for me no

Zain 14:26

here's my theory i want to play that no problem back that level of confidence

Zain 14:35

i've just got this here's what we call inflating expectations for what's about to be said please Don't manage your

Corey 14:40

your expectations. I will tell you, with having no benefit of actually knowing what happened, exactly what happened. Oh,

Corey 14:46

Of course you will. Of course you will.

Corey 14:49

So Danielle Smith was sitting there with her advisors. She's already committed that Bill 1 is going to be the Sovereignty Act. And she says, we need a Sovereignty Act.

Corey 14:58

And I got to look like I mean it. I can't be weak. I can't be weak. But I've heard all of these people out there. And they've said, this would be very damaging. So we've got to find a way that's more than preamble, an act that sounds tough, but I don't really want to do anything right now. That would be really dangerous. So we need a way to sound tough without committing to an act. And

Corey 15:17

And we need to be able to say we mean it and that this is a really tough act. But remember, I don't want to do anything right now.

Corey 15:23

So the challenge I give you is we don't want to do anything right now, but this has got to sound really, really tough. It has to be real. It can't just be a bunch of preamble. It can't be that thing Corey Hogan was talking about two weeks ago where you just make a fake bill one that's about statements of purpose so

Corey 15:38

so somebody has this brainwave we'll

Corey 15:40

we'll just make it really easy to do it in the future bill one will be all about our ability to react very quickly you know it's like cocking a gun uh but it's not the pulling of the trigger so we're going to find a way that we can very rapidly take those fucking feds to task without and but we're not going to do it so people will be happy because we're not actually going to do it and

Corey 16:00

and then they they started to fret, but

Corey 16:02

but we're not actually doing anything.

Corey 16:04

And my base is going to be angry. So to your question, Zane, they decided to try to oversell the toughness of it because they thought it wasn't enough with that particular audience. But they were worried about the right-wing audience, which was, ironically, the wrong wing of the audience to worry about there. They didn't check it against their other audiences. They didn't think about how people who cared about procedure would care about it. They didn't think about how mainstream conservatives in downtown town Calgary would think about it. And they sure as hell didn't think about how the rest of Alberta would think about

Corey 16:33

They failed to understand the challenge that was in front of them.

Corey 16:37

I would bet a lot of money that's what happened.

Zain 16:39

Carter, react to that. You've been in these sort of rooms. You've been in sort of these decision-making frameworks. And sometimes that concept of a decision-making framework is too generous. You've been in these decision-making tornadoes where someone is tasked with an impossible task of trying to both communicate communicate something, do something, perform something. What do you, I heard you interrupt Corey or kind of comments just being like, oh yeah, was that an oh yeah of agreement? I could see that happening. I've been there. Talk to me about what you heard from Corey there and how you feel like, how plausible you feel like something like that could be.

Carter 17:13

Well, I think that that's entirely plausible. I think that, you

Carter 17:16

know, this idea of cocking the gun and making sure that it's available, you know, that very easily could have been the methodology by which they created this act uh i i obviously uh i was less there than than cory was i mean cory wasn't there at all and i was way outside of him so

Carter 17:35

so i we don't know exactly how this actually unfolded but

Carter 17:39

but can i can i ask it does seem entirely plausible

Zain 17:44

this cocking of the gun and and not pulling the trigger right let's just use that analogy you've You've said, is

Zain 17:51

is that a concession or is that strategy?

Corey 17:54

It's both. Anything you

Corey 17:56

you do ultimately can be wrapped up. The sum of your actions is strategy. It wasn't an intentional strategy is a bit of a different question.

Corey 18:04

I really think that she thought she needed to look tough, but not actually enact the things that the Alberta Sovereignty Act version 1.0 threatened. because

Corey 18:15

because when you get right down to it like i've i've i've mulled over this for the last 24 hours when you get right down to it you doesn't really fucking do anything right right right until they decide to do something else it's a tough statement of principles it gives them kind of the ability to move quickly but anything that they might have envisioned doing under there they could have done anyhow uh through the legislature through the legislative process um

Corey 18:39

um and so this is a way that that they tried to make nothing look like something, but accidentally in the process made something truly awful and really contrary to our parliamentary tradition. So I would bet they back away from this because I don't think they actually care about these powers. I think these powers were a gambit to try to look tough. And

Corey 18:59

And I think they miscalculated badly. Carter,

Zain 19:02

Carter, two things for you. Number one, I was disappointed you didn't jump on how how great fair airlines would be for a airline company based out of Alberta post-sovereignty as a fair airline within a united Canada. I could have used more from you there. Secondly, Stephen Carter, let's talk about what Corey mentioned earlier, this potential walking back of the extraordinary powers for cabinet. in it.

Zain 19:31

Could that have been designed on purpose?

Zain 19:34

That if we put that in there, get called out for it, then reverse course, the rest of the package looks like we took a step back and we could still get our thing done. Or do you think it was a fundamental misstep? I know your

Zain 19:48

question was to Carter. No.

Carter 19:49

Yeah. Hang on. What's happening here? Hey, now

Carter 19:52

now that undermines my no.

Carter 19:54

Now I have have to say yes i

Carter 19:56

don't want to say yes but i have to because you took the no side

Corey 20:00

tell us tell us why you didn't want to have to say yes there's

Carter 20:03

there's no time there's there's no time to do that this is hastily written hastily created do you

Zain 20:10

you mean there's what do you mean there's no time to do that i'm asking you was it done on purpose so that when they reverse course it take okay so explain to me why you're not well too

Carter 20:21

too many steps on their chessboard you

Carter 20:23

you know these these guys don't, they just simply can't look that far

Carter 20:27

far down the chessboard. They

Carter 20:28

They don't see that many moves and they're not writing their

Carter 20:31

their legislation to back away from it. I'm certain that this was crafted. I mean, maybe the person who crafted it is ahead of their political masters. I could see that happening. But

Carter 20:43

But given the way that Chandra

Carter 20:45

Chandra answered the questions and Smith

Carter 20:48

answered the questions, they don't know enough about this act at this particular time to

Carter 20:53

to have that many moves uh lined up on their chessboard they are barely

Carter 20:57

barely hanging on at this stage um and

Carter 21:01

and and really in i think really one of the most embarrassing fashions right we ran some stuff through quickly in in 2011 2012 uh but we were way more ahead than where they are at this particular moment cory

Zain 21:16

cory you know you gave that um network style speech uh a second ago about the premier in the premier's office demanding to her, you know, her crew or decision makers being, this is what I need, right? Do you remember the guts of what you were saying there? Like, I need to look, can you highlight that for us? So what do you think, what were her criteria again? Highlight that for us one more time, because I have a question.

Corey 21:40

Can't just be preamble, has to seem

Corey 21:42

seem real, has to

Corey 21:43

sound tough. It's got to look like we mean it, but I'm worried because we're not actually taking any action right now, that the right wing group that put me into this is going to feel like it's not sufficient. So got to find me a way to sound tough.

Zain 21:58

If you were Corey Hogan, one of the two leading Sovereignty Act wizards in the world, brought in to the Republic of Alberta to help answer that question, how would you have answered that question for her? You saw, if that is what you speculate happened behind closed doors that led to the legislation that you guys spent an hour plus on yesterday that the entire political media and opposing parties carried the conversation, carried the national political conversation today. How would you have responded to the premier with your framework of a sovereignty act if those things you just said in your preamble that were demanded by the premier, if you were one of these wizards of creating sovereignty acts, what would you have put in the guts of it?

Corey 22:42

That is an amazing question. I

Corey 22:44

I don't have a ready answer for that well can we work on it together let's work on it together i don't i don't

Zain 22:49

don't know if i want to do this project but like fuck it let's try and carter yeah if you didn't if you didn't figure it out you're the other wizard in this q a yeah i don't know if you figured it out you were going to be the second one yeah

Carter 23:01

yeah no i'm there's a big

Zain 23:02

big gap between first and second it's like every year tom brady and russell wilson but can i just

Carter 23:07

just say first of all yeah

Carter 23:10

that's really hurtful and

Carter 23:11

and secondly um you know comparing me to two people well past their prime very upsetting anyways uh

Corey 23:19

you think russell wilson's past his prime i don't know about that i

Carter 23:21

i believe everybody who follows the broncos thinks that he's passed his

Zain 23:24

his entire defense is yelling at him cory on the sidelines it's not

Zain 23:27

it's not looking good for him um

Carter 23:28

um there's my one fact by the way uh you're

Carter 23:34

you're asking you know your greatest strength in this zane is to ask us to to put in positions that Corey and I have never thought to put ourselves in. And

Carter 23:44

most of the time, I think we're relatively flexible and capable of putting ourselves into some really

Carter 23:49

really tricky binds. But a sovereignty act is not something that people generally write. There aren't many people who

Carter 23:56

apart as a sovereignty act expert. And so when you're asking us to try and think of how this particular one would be put together, I mean, one could imagine the way that Saskatchewan once

Carter 24:09

know this kind of saskatchewan first type of thing without triggering any specific um you

Carter 24:16

backlash i mean i think that scott moe's legislation didn't go nearly as far um

Carter 24:25

if you want to do the things that she actually wants to do you

Carter 24:28

you can't do that within the constitution that's why it was called the sovereignty act so

Carter 24:33

so many times the language of the title gives us the opportunity to slide backwards i don't think that this one does i think that if i were being asked to come in and advise her on how to do this i'd say you can't just appear to go hard you actually have to go hard that's the only way that this legislation works for you

Zain 24:53

don't but don't you think that's exactly what they did so

Carter 24:55

so carter isn't that what yesterday was like

Zain 24:58

like you know i'm not supportive of this thing i'm clearly on the other beside the equation but if that is your strategic answer you gotta go hard premier

Carter 25:09

in in their defense isn't that what yesterday was yeah

Carter 25:12

yeah but it's still tragic doesn't doesn't change the outcome doesn't change doesn't make it a better piece of legislation the fact that i'm

Zain 25:19

i'm not trying to i'm not trying to sand down the outcome i'm trying to get into the strategy question you're sorry killing me i'm not trying to kill you this

Zain 25:26

is just like what happened with mad

Carter 25:28

mad when mad when When Mothers Against Drunk Driving came into my office.

Zain 25:32

He's just self-owning himself just to give himself. And this is just so evident. Oh, my goodness. He's just like, he's just, he's like taking all the sharp elbows. He just, it's like the guy self-flagellating because he knows it's over for him. I did

Carter 25:46

did that just for Corey. That was for you, Corey.

Zain 25:48

Yeah, I know. I understand. I liked it. Thank you.

Zain 25:51

You gave the statement of what the premier wanted. How would you start to respond to this? We

Zain 25:55

We do these thought exercises because they're fun and they're interesting. no it's

Zain 25:59

there's alternative realities here that i think could be quite fascinating to understand from from the two of you yeah so sask

Corey 26:05

sask the sask first act is the model of the safe play right there's

Corey 26:10

safety in the herd you just say i'm doing that too and now look we're united west against uh against the ottawa elite who are trying to you know trample us down but we're not going to stand for that we're going to stand together

Corey 26:22

together on this now

Corey 26:23

now if you wanted to go a little little bit further well

Corey 26:25

well a lot further can i suggest a version of the bill a

Corey 26:30

a version with with triggers where instead of saying we're going to work it all out through cabinet later which is what they ended up with they say the alberta sovereignty act says we want canada to work but we know that uh canada requires us as much as we require canada or or some bullshit like that And so here's what we are almost preauthorizing as a legislature, creation

Corey 26:55

creation of an Alberta police force, the creation of an Alberta pension, the creation of, you

Corey 27:02

you know, Alberta income tax collection and actually go in the order of like, she

Corey 27:08

she wants all of these things, but go in the order that you think is like most palatable to Alberta and almost make them escalation points. Like, so we are putting the government on notice. If they do not agree to a new equalization formula or to have, you know, a constitutional convention about a new equalization formula by summer of 2023, we're

Corey 27:28

we're doing the police force thing. Boom, triggered. It's going to happen. If by December, we're not at point B, we're going to do the pension thing. and in that way you continue to tie it to the need for federal action and make it look less like you're taking a flyer and more like you're creating urgent action but you've also created a situation where it's going to happen anyways because the feds can't give you what you've demanded here

Corey 27:51

and so that's probably what i would have done if

Corey 27:53

if i was the kind of person who was trying to create alberta sovereignty act stuff uh

Corey 27:58

uh because what it is right now i think is um well

Corey 28:01

we've seen how it's played out let

Carter 28:03

let me tell you why i think yeah go ahead go ahead

Zain 28:05

ahead go ahead Russell Wilson

Carter 28:07

ouch I think she stayed away from that because the the challenge

Carter 28:12

challenge that comes with actually articulating what they want to change is that 90

Carter 28:18

90% of Albertans don't want to change the things that they want to change right

Carter 28:23

only her well I should say maybe 80% because

Carter 28:26

because only her 20% that have put her into this place

Carter 28:30

actually think about the equalization stuff actually are thinking about

Carter 28:37

know, the child care elements or the income tax or the policing services or those types of things.

Carter 28:44

Most people, they don't want to actually articulate what these what the problems are with Ottawa. And this is actually something I saw today. Just, you know, I just been inundated on Twitter by right wing Twitter. Right wing Twitter has come after me today. And I'll tell you, they're not a great they're not a group of great thinkers, Corey. Not one of them could put put together a couple of examples that showed why Ottawa was screwing Alberta. Instead, they just want to be able to say Ottawa is screwing Alberta. It's Ottawa's fault. It's Trudeau's fault. Fuck Trudeau. And that's what she's actually aiming for. She's not aiming for action. She's not aiming for the outcome because the outcome is lost

Carter 29:27

lost in the little minds of these people who think that they've been somehow unjustly targeted by a federal government that exists within a world system. Oil and gas has gone down because oil and gas has gone down around the world. It has gone back up because oil and gas has gone up. I mean, Justin Trudeau can't be simultaneously screwing Alberta and enabling the largest surpluses we've ever seen in our history.

Carter 29:53

That can't be at the the exact same time uh that that situation it's just impossible to imagine but these people don't use logic they're not logical

Carter 30:03

logical actors so she can't list she cannot list all of those things uh that you just did because the gen pop will lose their mind cory

Zain 30:12

cory respond to her and then i want to talk about distinct audiences that that and how they should respond to this yeah

Corey 30:18

yeah well so let me make the pitch and i do want to stress i do not think these are good ideas you asked us to be able to to sell the sovereignty act i sure did or at least give it the best possible chance and the best possible chance does

Corey 30:30

does not even mean a winning chance all of the time good point because there is a fundamental opposition to the things that she is proposing in alberta but but

Corey 30:41

but we do know a few things one we know that albertans are deeply uh confused about equalization and

Corey 30:49

and that has been manipulated time and time again by politicians in this province we actually have one of the very few pieces of like um i guess i could say legitimacy for this in the fact that we held a referendum on the equalization the requirement to like have a constitutional discussion about equalization many

Corey 31:08

many more people voted than ever voted for danielle smith that's her attempt at getting legitimacy and if she says albertans voted for it albertans

Corey 31:17

albertans by the way by polls polls and voted for it albertans by the way uh you know by polls do want to change to equalization and we say if there are not changes to equalization we do these things and the box she then puts her opponents in is rachel

Corey 31:31

rachel notley is saying how

Corey 31:33

how dare you and she's saying what you don't want changes to equalization she's totally changed the conversation from one about alberta police and about alberta pensions to one about you what you you don't think that we should change equalization that is very difficult and that's uh that's difficult for rachel notley and that's firmer ground for daniel smith right

Corey 31:52

the second thing is uh it it has that same effect on the population as a whole all of a sudden they're not so much voting for an alberta police force which they don't like they are they are voting for or they're supporting right equalization

Corey 32:07

equalization changes which they do like and and so it changes the conversation in ways that i think are ultimately advantageous, which is not to say that they are net supported by the province, but it moves her to more firm ground because we know from poll after poll after poll, the things that she's actually got in mind, the things she's actually proposing are deeply unpopular. The popular things are the things she can't possibly deliver on, changes to

Corey 32:31

equalization. So why not use that to your advantage? Why not use that to your advantage?

Zain 32:37

Carter, why don't you think she and her government didn't go down the path Corey's suggesting here?

Carter 32:42

Well, I'm just grateful that they're not as smart as Corey.

Carter 32:45

Corey's idea is fucking great. If

Carter 32:48

If they'd done that, I think that we'd have a real problem. I'm effectively

Zain 32:51

effectively saying, use equalization as the tip of the spear, right? You know it's popular. You've had a, what was it, a referendum on it. You've seen some evidence, at least in a massive way, probably the best

Corey 33:04

It's the only thing you

Corey 33:04

you have legitimacy on too, because there was that referendum.

Carter 33:07

Yeah, and none of the other pieces have gone to referendum, right like the carter

Carter 33:11

carter all the other stuff's been behind closed you know a discussion of intellectuals of some sort carter

Zain 33:18

carter i don't want to just talk about the action i want to talk about the reaction talk to me about an audience that i think sometimes gets doesn't get enough play we talk about opposition parties talk to me about the real interesting position business audiences are in and i reflect on debbie edlin at the calgary chamber and her response being quite assertive saying the Sovereignty Act is not the answer, folks. I'm paraphrasing her just to be clear, right? That this is not the answer towards investment, incubating new talent, bringing and attracting companies here in that general spirit.

Zain 33:52

Do you think something like this, where it is being pummeled by all sides, gives stakeholders like business and others that generally are extremely cautious about how and where they weighed in to have an opportunity like like they haven't before with, should I say, minimal risk or de-risk? Talk to me about how these risk profiles are calculated, especially so close to an election for institutions that speak for larger swaths of the economy.

Carter 34:23

I am certain that Deb Yedlin's telephone line has been burned up after

Carter 34:29

made that statement on behalf of

Corey 34:30

of the Calgary Chamber I think,

Carter 34:32

think, first of all, she's absolutely right. This is not a way to build business. I think that anything that even smells a little bit like we're going down the path of separation, you know, despite

Carter 34:44

despite language to the contrary, anything that moves us in that direction is going to be seen as a negative

Carter 34:50

negative indication from business. business and Deb said that, but I'm quite certain that the cautious business folks in Alberta picked up the telephone and called Deb and said, this isn't the way we do it, Deb. This isn't the way we do it. And I know that because I'm sometimes vocal of the government of the day and I get telephone calls when I'm vocal in opposition to the government. So

Carter 35:15

So I'm quite certain that this is not some sort of big push. I think that this is Deb Yedlin, who is is, you

Carter 35:22

you know, I think a very smart woman who has got the

Carter 35:27

the chamber actually taking intelligent positions. But I'm not sure that this is necessarily the larger business community.

Carter 35:34

You know, we didn't see, you

Carter 35:37

you know, the Stampede Board take a stand against this. We didn't see CAP take a stand. We didn't see, you

Carter 35:43

you know, some of our larger business organizations didn't take take position on it. And I'm

Carter 35:52

that will be seen.

Carter 35:53

People will wind up siding on the side of don't take a stand because we're Calgarians and ultimately we work with our government. We don't try and oppose it unless it's the NDP, then we fuck them over. There's

Zain 36:05

There's a cultural piece here. There's a strategy piece here. There's a risk piece here. There's a timeline piece here. So close to an election. Corey, there's a soup that these ingredients are making. Walk me through it in terms of how you are thinking about at least the political risk aspect for an organization or an institution to speak up against something that clearly is getting panned by media and other stakeholders.

Corey 36:29

Yeah. I think Kathleen Petty was tweeting today about the hundreds of organizations that she implied CBC had reached out to who are all assessing it, right? They're all just reading it. They're assessing what it would mean.

Zain 36:41

big act. They're doing their research.

Zain 36:44

They're doing their research. And you

Corey 36:47

you know what? I'm not going to throw stones. I absolutely understand why organizations would take that approach. I mean, for starters, if we want to be fair, none

Corey 36:59

none of us know what this actually means. We have the bill, but we don't know how it's intended to be used. And we don't know if this is how it's going to come out given given the ride it's been in

Zain 37:09

in deb's fairness in the chamber's fairness in fact that whole concept of murkiness and unpredictability was one of the sort of core points right is that this is this unpredictability of how it'll be used what it means all that sort of stuff

Corey 37:20

stuff is actually part of the point well and some of that you know there's an amazing irony here uh which is some of that unpredictability some of these challenges with the bill can be corrected through the legislative process which is why we use the fucking legislative process and don't let cabinet in the dark rewrite bills you know yeah um so i mean talk about a case study that proves itself here this is just crazy but uh you know the chamber's not wrong one of the things that i often get into debates about when we talk about this issue in particular and this environment that we seem to be actively fostering in alberta to be just as wildcard as possible is low

Corey 37:59

low taxes aren't everything i've said it before i'll say it again taxes

Corey 38:03

taxes were lower in in Quebec, corporate taxes, when all of those companies went to Ontario, right? Because low taxes are not everything, but it's not just Quebec and Ontario. Think about a bunch of countries that are struggling, barely democracies, not democracies. Guess what? They have amazing tax rates by

Corey 38:21

by and large, really great corporate tax rates. You can make a real killing there,

Corey 38:26

but it might all be taken away from you. It might all blow up in your face. So it's less like investing and more like gambling. And the point I really want to underline here is stability really matters. I had a finance professor and he had a saying, which was both very corny, but also very catchy, which is growth is good and

Corey 38:44

and risk is rotten. And generally in any financing decision, you're going to look for things with the lowest risk profile. We are increasing the risk profile of this province and on spreadsheets globally, we are becoming a worse investment. So I do think think it's the place of chambers of commerce to talk about these things sometimes that very narrow view of chambers can be absurdly frustrating right

Corey 39:06

right yeah but here we are seeing seeing something that that is pointing out a uh like a very serious challenge with uh with the particular approach that we are taking as a province right now and it's not just a danielle smith approach right

Corey 39:19

absolutely the worst worst implementation of it you

Corey 39:23

you know jason kenney did similar things Rachel Notley did things like, again, nowhere near the extremes. I'm not trying to create an equivalency here. But you talk about the no more pipelines or turn off the tap legislation.

Corey 39:37

What the hell was that? That's not a particularly stable environment either.

Corey 39:41

And we've been walking this path for a generation in the province, and it's time to step off of it.

Zain 39:47

Carter, I'm going to give you three doors to pick, okay? Yep. These are three doors that each have a viable, perhaps even potent messaging arc to take what we've experienced over the course of the last 24 hours and run with.

Zain 40:01

You can eventually combine them, but I want you to choose a door first and tell me which door, if you're advising opposing parties, other stakeholders that want to... Thank you so much. Yeah, one for me. Perfect. Let's move on. Cory,

Zain 40:19

I'll stick with Carter I'll give him some slack Carter, behind door number one is

Zain 40:23

democracy behind door number two is

Zain 40:29

behind door number three is the brand of Alberta

Zain 40:34

which is the most potent message

Zain 40:36

from this Sovereignty Act that you would run with around

Zain 40:42

you're opposing the Sovereignty

Zain 40:43

Sovereignty Act If you're opposing the Sovereignty Act, if your goal is to rile

Zain 40:47

rile up folks against it, between democracy at its core, which we've seen proof points of in a slightly different way in the United States as being a core message of their election, between

Zain 40:59

between anti-business, and this is kind of anti-business, anti-economy, and then between this risk profile thing, which Corey kind of brought up as that third door, around the brand of this place, the the risk profile of this place, the viability of this place, the magnetizing sense of this place. What door are you picking, Carter? I

Zain 41:16

right the first time. Tell me why. Door

Carter 41:17

Door number two, because anti-business is actually really powerful. I mean, keep in mind that we

Carter 41:23

we talked after the US elections about show, don't tell. And

Carter 41:29

And I think that the anti-business pieces of this will become very apparent as time wears on. on um whereas i think that democracy it's it's very fleeting and again um the

Carter 41:43

the the feedback i'm getting the

Carter 41:46

the feedback i'm getting is that a

Carter 41:48

a lot of people think that the anti-democratic party here is

Carter 41:52

is actually the um the

Carter 41:56

the trudeau uh singh alliance that trudeau singh alliance is the The reason why we have to be anti-democratic and that

Carter 42:06

that is guiding their opposition to this or their support of the Danielle Smith piece. So my view would be take the anti-business piece,

Carter 42:18

piece, run with that, because Albertans

Carter 42:21

Albertans understand business. We think we understand business and

Carter 42:25

and that will have a bunch of resonance.

Carter 42:29

Then that's where I would go. Now, Corey has chosen, of course, door number one, which

Carter 42:32

which is the democracy door. So I'm interested to hear how he thinks that will work.

Zain 42:37

Yeah, Corey, the democracy door. Now, listen, granted, different stakeholders have different outcomes. But from your perspective, as it relates to just as you see these messages, and we're seeing versions of these present themselves, right, over the course of the last 24 hours, Corey, what's the most intriguing or potent one to you?

Corey 42:56

guess it is actually door number three but i'm wondering if there's not a door number four that's not been articulated here yeah

Zain 43:03

yeah yeah what is it

Corey 43:03

it what is it four

Corey 43:06

this is this is all just uh you know broken it's outside the mainstream it's the opposite of what daniel smith's key message was in

Corey 43:15

in uh in the throne speech the pre-throne speech speech right the the the televised address, if she's trying to seem moderate and mainstream, these actions are not. I mean, you can point to, these are powers that, it's

Corey 43:27

it's not about democracy, it's about the irregularity of it, I guess is what I would underline, right? These are powers that we don't have because doing it this way leads to super bad outcomes. One of the things that I also think is evidence that this

Corey 43:44

this was not a planned, like floated out there and retracted and look reasonable

Corey 43:49

is simply just that, you know, like Carter talked a lot about how they wouldn't have

Corey 43:55

acted the way they did. They wouldn't have been confused by their own policy. They wouldn't have had to clarify it today. They wouldn't have had to salvage it, but also they

Corey 44:02

they wouldn't have created such an easy out for the NDP.

Corey 44:08

was never going to support the Alberta Sovereignty Act. They were firm on that from day one, but there are versions of an Alberta Sovereignty Act that make that a not entirely comfortable position for the NDP, but

Corey 44:19

but by creating- Kind of like what the Saskatchewan

Zain 44:21

Saskatchewan party did in Saskatchewan.

Corey 44:23

Exactly right, where this, I believe this is Sask NDP voted for the Sask. They did, they did vote for it. Crazy stuff. But instead, by creating this new superpower for cabinet that allows you to supersede the elected officials in the legislature, it's such an out, right? And it's so outside the mainstream it's so irregular it allows them to say we're

Corey 44:45

we're you know there's no way we could support this and and i think that irregularity of it all is door number four like what

Corey 44:53

what are we doing here like this this is all a little while and maybe that's your door three maybe that's the brand thing but i actually think it's door number one i

Carter 45:01

think you were right the first time cory i

Carter 45:03

i think that it's actually the way you're you're

Corey 45:06

you're gonna change my mind should have doubled down i'm

Carter 45:07

i'm a little disappointed because we've talked about this before and if you just stuck to, if you just stuck to door number one and then define democracy in the way that you're defining it,

Carter 45:17

defining the problems, I think you would have found that you were right on it. Because that is at its core, I think, what's wrong with the democratic principles of this.

Carter 45:27

And it is outside the mainstream. It is something that we've never seen before. And we should be afraid of this novel idea, which you've told us how many times, you know, beware the novel idea. And this is the most novel idea I think that we've seen in,

Carter 45:46

in, in our, like,

Carter 45:48

like, I'm trying to think, like, I'm thinking back to Klein's, was it Klein built 13 that developed all those, you

Carter 45:54

you know, it was the privatization of healthcare and it had all those big protests against it. Like what were the most contentious?

Corey 45:59

contentious? It was Bill Tan, I think. Was

Carter 46:01

Was it Bill Tan? It

Corey 46:02

It doesn't matter. What was the most the most

Carter 46:05

most contentious elements i know of our province this is one of them this might be the most cory

Zain 46:12

cory jump in here and i've got a question about novel ideas carter makes an interesting recall to one of your your classic hits classic points yeah

Corey 46:19

yeah so i'm a single issue voter and if any party agrees that bill numbers will just continue between sittings i'm

Corey 46:25

i'm gonna vote for them i i hate that we have so many different built-ins okay

Carter 46:30

good job that's it that's novel novel ideas

Zain 46:33

the concept the fact is we're sitting here november 30th this is the biggest deal in the province one of the biggest political stories in the country right

Zain 46:40

not exaggerating today but

Zain 46:42

this concept of a novel idea we don't know if the next election is going to be fought on the sovereignty act we

Zain 46:46

we actually because it is so novel how much would you if you're danielle smith be looking at this through that lens to say that yes it's the conversation conversation now, but I get more from it by May than I lose from it in November and December heading into one holiday season. Like I'm trying to think more so about the strategy of timing here and the strategy of the calendar. Any thoughts on that or comments on that?

Corey 47:13

You know, in some ways it's the same as the finance professor said, risk is rotten.

Corey 47:18

And so when you talk about novel ideas, they are inherently risky.

Corey 47:22

People have not thought a long and hard amount about things that are new and so their opinions on it are not deeply entrenched and their opinions uh

Corey 47:31

can be pulled away very very easily you know if i come to an idea and i put one minute of thought into it and then carter says here's eight reasons why your idea is stupid

Corey 47:41

i'm probably going to say oh okay it's probably a dumb idea even

Corey 47:45

even that's not been my

Carter 47:46

my experience yeah that's

Carter 47:47

that's not been my experience usually

Carter 47:49

usually what you say is why are you such an asshole and then you just do what you want to do anyways that

Zain 47:56

that sounds actually like knowing you a

Zain 47:58

a lot more accurate that sounds it sounds very

Corey 48:02

but if i had spent my entire life thinking about something and stephen carter had eight bad ideas i

Corey 48:07

i would ignore it yeah

Corey 48:09

right and and so there's a volatility that comes from bringing in crazy notions that is is quite dangerous for a government i think more dangerous for a government than an opposition because

Corey 48:19

because um you know, there's, you're

Corey 48:22

you're just under so much more scrutiny as a government. So that new idea that's not been fully thought out, you're going to have a thousand stakeholders telling you what's wrong with it. When you're in the opposition and you bring in a crazy idea, you put it in your platform, you got your 300 bullet point platform of all of the exciting things you're going to do.

Corey 48:38

People aren't really paying attention. And

Corey 48:39

so if you're in the government and you're throwing out novel idea after novel idea, there's

Corey 48:44

there's a lot of, there be risk, right? Seem to recall risk is rotten.

Corey 48:50

You're better off with a different strategy, especially just before an election. You're gambling at

Corey 48:58

at that point, right? You're just taking that chance that nobody cares. Here's

Carter 49:01

Here's what I'm hearing from both Corey

Carter 49:03

Corey and I, and Zane, I think that we're going back to your doors. And I think that if you were to take this idea that it's just too far outside the norm and

Carter 49:10

and package it for

Zain 49:11

for both the end- This door number four that Corey's kind of talking about, yeah. Well, and

Carter 49:14

and it really is doors number one and two all together, right? It's outside the norm. It's outside of our democratic principles. It's anti-business. It's going to do the exact opposite of the things that we're hoping it will do. And

Carter 49:28

And that's how I think especially the NDP could

Carter 49:31

could attack this, because I

Carter 49:35

think people will melt away from it when they give it a moment's thought. um and

Carter 49:41

the premier's own actions right now smith's actions of already

Carter 49:46

already backing away and spending so much time explaining how it's supposed to work is just going to undermine her general message well but

Zain 49:53

but but this is an interesting point then carter so so to my question as we kind of delves back into this conversation of novel topics cory how do you make a novel topic sticky if you feel like there's a political advantage for you as some of the opposing parties to keep this alive live? How do you make a novel concept sticky, knowing that there's not just risk for the government, that there's perhaps risk for you, that this can just float away into the ether as quickly as it came into it? Well,

Corey 50:16

you've got to continue propagating it and you've got to control the narrative about it.

Corey 50:21

And that's always your job in communications, but the imperative is that much higher, right? Like if you are the government and you're talking about the benefits of a low tax environment, you're a conservative government talking about the benefits of low tax environment, retirement, you

Corey 50:34

you can drop that message for a month and come back to it. You can go do other things and you can come back

Zain 50:38

back to it and you

Corey 50:39

you don't need to risk that

Corey 50:40

that people will have fundamentally changed their view on taxes in a month.

Corey 50:44

But if you are not actively maintaining and curating the conversation on a novel concept over the course of a month and other players are on the field and they are, it's

Corey 50:53

it's going to be an entirely different concept viewed in an entirely different way by the time you get back to it. So it forces you to stay on that matter. So one of the trade-offs you need to consider when you're bringing in novel concepts is, do I actually have the time and energy to invest in this to the level I need to control this conversation? And

Corey 51:11

And the amount you need will be different depending on the controversy, depending on the number of opponents, all of those things. But it's something you've got to keep in mind. This

Carter 51:19

This is going to destroy the rest of the legislative agenda, right?

Carter 51:22

right? Because this becomes the thing that overwhelms everything. You can actually question everything else in these terms until

Carter 51:29

such time as we determine this law is in some fashion going

Carter 51:34

going to need to be changed because the federal

Carter 51:37

federal government's involvement or something along those lines. Everything

Carter 51:41

is up in the air because this thing is so weird and so outside the norm.

Carter 51:49

That's how I would approach it. And I think that if

Carter 51:51

if the NDP did that, they'd find themselves in a pretty good spot.

Corey 51:56

Yeah. You know, that's the other thing, and it's worth talking about, is the NDP's approach here. And I will just say this. There was a bit of a slip up, and Rachel Notley cleaned it up very quickly. But that's not going to stop the clip from going around where she suggested maybe Trudeau would be in the right to disallow this bill. Right?

Corey 52:16

I think, really, not to state what is probably quite obvious at this point, and certainly I feel like the NDP has already come to this conclusion. It's putting the pressure on the wrong place that's putting the conversation in the wrong place. And what the NDP need to emphasize is that the UCP have supported this. And, you know, we

Corey 52:39

we can't, it's a, we're not interested in relying on Ottawa to solve Alberta's problems. We need UCP

Corey 52:45

UCP MLAs to stand up. If they will not, we need different MLAs to stand up. And you've got to make it part of a story about why people need to vote for you rather

Corey 52:55

rather than, you know, rather than risking that you're setting up the fight all of a sudden to be Daniel Smith versus Justin Trudeau, who is, you know, very unpopular in Alberta. So, you know, keep the pressure on the right place and the pressure should not be on Trudeau.

Corey 53:11

Trudeau. It should be on the UCP MLAs if you're the NDP. partner

Zain 53:15

partner i've got one final question for you which is i'm going back to that question that both of you said no to immediately do you remember what this question was it was hey could this be a strategy that they purposely yeah you know uh put this thing in so that once they remove it it normalizes it even further right like that sort of what's

Zain 53:37

what's the name for that strategy do we have a name for it because it should be named we've the times that is brought up um i want to actually talk about for as we quickly end this episode on this concept of does that strategy happen more often than we think carter or is it just a piece of convenient fiction that this political strategy of being three chess moves ahead putting something in then letting people gravitate towards that removing it and then letting the core thing that you wanted slip right by does

Zain 54:06

does that actually happen happen, Carter, as a pure practitioner of this art, of this craft, of this world? Does that happen? Or is that a Hollywood version of what we like to talk about as strategists, as a three-dimensional chess move on the board? I want to end this segment with that question in mind before we move it on.

Carter 54:27

I think it happens more in the States than it happens in Canada. I think it happens more when you have to negotiate the passage of a bill.

Carter 54:33

Because in Canada, we don't negotiate the passage of a bill.

Carter 54:38

the bill is presented in the legislature. The

Carter 54:41

The majority of the legislature or the house is going to vote for that bill. They

Carter 54:46

They will go through their committees. They will go through their various processes and the various readings in order to make sure that the legislation gets better.

Carter 54:55

when you are negotiating the passage of a bill, and this could happen more in a minority legislature, minority parliament, But it certainly happens in the United States. You would throw in a red herring element so that the red herring can be dropped from the bill. Right. And so we've seen that with Joe Manchin. A

Carter 55:15

A couple of things that he's asked to have put in a couple of things he's asked to have pulled out. It

Carter 55:19

It looks like he's got to win. You

Carter 55:20

You know, everybody knows what the deal is. Everybody knows that something

Carter 55:24

something was put in to give him something to pull out.

Carter 55:26

And that I think happens in the States. I just don't see it happening in a place where you

Carter 55:31

you don't have to negotiate the passage of the bill. The

Carter 55:34

The passage of the bill, you're not negotiating with the general public, right?

Carter 55:38

right? Why would you put yourself into the position of weakness?

Carter 55:42

You're not negotiating with them. So come

Carter 55:44

come out with the best bill possible and then pass it because you've got the strength to pass it within your caucus. pockets. And that's probably the most disappointing element of all of this is

Carter 55:53

is that every single UCP MLA stood

Carter 55:57

stood and voted for this piece of shit. And

Carter 55:59

And they're going to have to wear this for the rest of their lives. Tyler Shandro is wearing this for the rest of his life in the same way that he's yelling at doctors in his driveway.

Zain 56:10

talk to me about this strategy. Is it real? Is it fictional? Does it exist? Give me your take on it as we round out on a question that is which is more broad than particular, but intriguing to me as it relates to the craft of political strategy. Yeah.

Corey 56:25

Well, it's just, it's bargaining, right? It's a very standard approach in bargaining and a lot of political

Corey 56:31

political craft, particularly in the States. And the reason why you see it a lot more in the United States is historically there's been a bargaining component to it. It's okay, I need to get these votes. So I'm going to have something in this bill that I can then negotiate down from. And if you think about it in terms of positional bargaining, which is where you see it as much more zero sum, then you create the space by having things you can give up, right? And so you have more things on the table, you can give it up. Now, there are broader views of bargaining. I'm not trying to simplify bargaining as a general concept, but it

Corey 57:02

it sort of makes sense, right? You have your opening position. They

Corey 57:06

They have their opening position. You know your walkaway position, what you're not going to accept below. And you can't have your opening position be your walkaway position. So you put

Corey 57:15

put in additional things and you're willing in to strip them out. In an environment where there's more bargaining, that is far, far, far more common. In a parliamentary system like we have, when you have a majority government, those kinds of tactics seem like they're more trouble than they're worth. And it's one of the reasons why I can pretty quickly discount it. Because who's Danielle Smith bargaining with? In

Corey 57:34

you could say the public, right? But not really. She can set whatever term she wants on this. And so why would she do it in a way where she has to then retract? That's what we would call, to continue the bargaining metaphor, bargaining against yourself. You put the first offer up and you're putting the second offer up because there's not really anybody but you who can change the outcome here.

Zain 57:54

We're going to leave that segment there, move it on to our final segment, our over under, our lightning round, and Stephen Carter, our words of wisdom. Sometimes in the over under and the lightning round, we like to shove in some nice little words of wisdom, a

Zain 58:08

a sentence or maybe two that you leave these political leaders with. And let's start with one that we haven't talked Talked a lot about Stephen Carter, Justin

Zain 58:16

Justin Trudeau. What advice would you give to Justin Trudeau every time he hears the word sovereignty act? He's already made a quote today about it, saying he's not looking for a fight. What advice would you give to Trudeau as he finds

Zain 58:30

finds himself involved with

Zain 58:33

with what Daniel Smith is trying to do here at home in Alberta?

Corey 58:40

It's not a visual medium. Oh,

Corey 58:43

Yeah, it's a podcast. Keep

Carter 58:44

Keep your mouth shut.

Carter 58:47

Keep your mouth shut.

Zain 58:49

Practically, he's asked follow-ups. He's asked over and over again. Another member of the press gallery asked him, what does he actually say? I get the concept. I appreciate the concept.

Zain 58:59

What would you tell him to say?

Carter 59:00

This is all hypothetical right now. There's been a lot of reactions out of Alberta. It's their issue, and it's up to them to decide what's going to happen.

Zain 59:08

Corey, would you add to that? Would you delete that? What are you telling the prime minister to say? Script those words for him.

Corey 59:14

I would maybe even go a little further and say, listen, Alberta is a very important part of this country. But this is a matter in front of the Alberta legislature. And I'll let the Alberta legislature weigh in on it there.

Corey 59:28

Do I have opinions? Sure. But they're far less important than the opinions of Albertans. So why don't you go talk to some of them?

Zain 59:34

Same question, Corey. I'm going to start with you, Danielle Smith. Next time she has a mic in front of her, if she isn't apologizing, let's assume that isn't it. And she isn't course correcting or clarifying. And she's got a free sort of comment on the sovereignty act.

Zain 59:48

Madam Premier, how do you think it's going? And we're looking forward to the next step. But what is she saying?

Corey 59:55

Well, I think it's going great. I've been talking to Albertans who are finally relieved. We're finally standing up to Ottawa here. And geez, if the NDP doesn't want to stand up to Ottawa, if they'd rather stay with Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh in the in the Notley-Trudeau-Singh Alliance, that's their decision. But I was elected to stand up for Albertans, our caucuses behind this. We know we need some more tools in our toolkit here. Yeah, I'm absolutely open to finding different ways we can do this, but it's non-negotiable to me that we're going to stand up to the Notley-Trudeau-Singh Alliance. And if there are other ideas about how to stand up to the Notley-Trudeau-Singh Alliance, I'd love to hear them i'm not wed to the tactic i'm wed to the outcomes and that outcome is putting the notley trudeau singh alliance in its place you know what carter

Zain 1:00:45

carter you know why he's uh first on the bench for the uh wizardry

Zain 1:00:49

wizardry of the sovereignty act he just showed you why yeah

Zain 1:00:54

all it's in his dna all

Carter 1:00:56

gonna all i'm going to do is

Carter 1:00:58

is add what are you gonna say

Carter 1:00:59

you need to just throw in the only way we can recover our alberta advantage is to take control from Ottawa.

Carter 1:01:07

And if he just throws in that little fragment of a sentence, his was perfect.

Zain 1:01:13

Carter, Rachel Notley, next interview she does about the Sovereignty Act. How do you think it's going in Alberta? What are your feelings on it?

Carter 1:01:21

I think that it's fascinating that already we've got business speaking out against it. We've got columnists speaking out against it. We've got Albertans speaking out against it. This is a fringe idea from a fringe politician that is designed to put Alberta into a small box that we cannot work without the rest of the country. Imagine if British Columbia had passed this act when I was trying to get pipelines into Tidewater. I remind people, I was the only one who was able to get a pipeline to Tidewater. We

Carter 1:01:53

We got it done because we worked with British Columbia, not against British Columbia. If

Carter 1:01:57

If you want to actually succeed in this market, if you really want Alberta to succeed, you can't just simply fight with everybody with fringe ideas. This is a fringe idea that is fighting with everybody and is gaining traction with none.

Zain 1:02:14

Corey, extend on that, add, delete, make

Zain 1:02:17

make your comments if you are Rachel Notley and you're talking about this sovereignty act now that it is revealed to the public and what she would say

Corey 1:02:26

Well, this is considered an entirely different constitutional order. It's considered an entirely different relationship with business, with government, and

Corey 1:02:35

and with partners and institutions across the country. Enough is enough. It's time for Albertans to have their say. say

Corey 1:02:43

fringe you know the fringe ideas language by all means take steven's language there but just say albertans need to have their say it's time for albertans to have their say and

Corey 1:02:53

and and just hammer on it and don't get distracted by it and you know one of the things is you've got to find a calibration where you're not you're

Corey 1:03:01

you're not suggesting like you don't care but you also don't want to seem like you're like for me there's a funny calibration that needs to happen where it's like Like, this is infuriating what is going on because Albertans have never been able to weigh in on these things.

Corey 1:03:14

But this too shall pass. May will come, Albertans will have their say. And, you know, you can project a confidence and, like, it's very important Albertans have their say there. I'm not saying I'm going to win the election, but

Corey 1:03:27

think in some ways you don't want to play into this game where you're just swinging at whatever she puts out this week. This one's big, this one's different, but

Corey 1:03:35

but you've got to watch out.

Zain 1:03:38

Corey, the last one's interesting. I don't want you to script any lines for anyone, but I want you to have your lines for what you'd say in a confidential conversation.

Zain 1:03:47

The half a dozen UCP MLAs, most of them were leadership candidates against Danielle Smith, who talked about how this would be dangerous, constitutional crisis, would be threatening our energy sector. director, these are all quotes that they have said about the Sovereignty Act and today are on the rolls as being those that supported it moving forward. What would you want them to know? Carter said something interesting, which is like, you'd have to wear this for the rest of your life. I don't know if that's hyperbolic or not. Where would your head be at? If you were for their best interest, what

Zain 1:04:20

what would you tell them? Would you tell them something to the extent that these don't have to be options, that this is novel, this is how you get out of it? Or would you say something to an extent of what Carter said, which is you made a big mistake here. You need to backtrack. Like, how would you be messaging them today or talking to them if you had that direct line of communication?

Corey 1:04:39

You know, and if I'm looking out for their best interest,

Corey 1:04:44

it's tough because it sort of blends with what I would expect of anybody in that situation, which is that you've

Corey 1:04:52

you've been acting like politicians and that's fine

Corey 1:04:55

fine if that's all you ever want to be. If you want to carry somebody else's water, if you want to follow around somebody else's cause, but if you want to be statespeople, you

Corey 1:05:04

you want to do good for this province, it's time to take some personal risk on here and

Corey 1:05:09

and not just fret about whether you're going to be elected after the next election. and

Corey 1:05:13

and frankly the the you know the arc of history does bend towards justice and people people look fondly on people who stand up to bad ideas people do not look fondly on people who let them slide

Zain 1:05:28

carter the question here turns out to be if

Zain 1:05:31

if i'm and then tell me this is overly simplistic will

Zain 1:05:34

will this be historically seen as a bad idea or a novel concept that had a short shelf life right That's the gamble that some of these folks need to take. It's a version of that. It's not those exact words. It's not that exact sentiment. I get it. But will this go down historically as a terrible thing? And in the moment, we all feel like it is in that column because

Zain 1:05:53

because we're living in it. Or

Zain 1:05:54

Or will this be a novel concept? Because people are living in it. So they're like, of course, this will be that long-term terrible thing. So the question I'm trying to balance here is when you're giving this advice to folks, folks, how would you phrase it and where would you come at it with in terms of even the analysis of the moment?

Carter 1:06:12

Well, I mean, I think that politics is about principles,

Carter 1:06:14

right? So when I'm talking to people, I've been talking about what is your principle?

Carter 1:06:18

What's the principle that you're trying to fight for with the Sovereignty Act? Why is it that you ran, right? Corey, I

Carter 1:06:26

I said earlier that you're going to carry this for the rest of your life. I mean, every piece of legislation that you carry

Carter 1:06:31

is for the rest of your life, even the novel concepts, even

Carter 1:06:35

even the things that you back down on for all kinds of good reasons, those

Carter 1:06:40

those things you carry with you for the rest of your life, and there'll be all kinds of things that people remember. A number of people were remembered for serving on the no-meat committee.

Carter 1:06:52

They lost. A lot of people lost their seats because of that one single issue that

Carter 1:06:56

that didn't haunt anybody for three years, that just suddenly

Carter 1:06:59

suddenly appeared at the very end.

Carter 1:07:04

I wish that more people would think back to what their principles are and

Carter 1:07:09

what do I want to be remembered as? And do I want to be doing what

Carter 1:07:13

what everybody else says is a great thing? What

Carter 1:07:15

What did my caucus members say? Or

Carter 1:07:17

Or do I want to do what I consider to be right?

Carter 1:07:19

My problem right now, not a single member of the governing party is

Carter 1:07:23

doing what they think is right.

Carter 1:07:25

They're doing what they think their leader wants.

Zain 1:07:29

Boy, finish this off on this one.

Corey 1:07:32

there are ways to do the right thing without leaving the caucus, without leaving the United Conservative Party.

Corey 1:07:38

You know, you can stand up, you can have your voice. How in the world have we not talked about Jason Kenney?

Zain 1:07:43

Kenney? We're at like one

Corey 1:07:44

one hour and seven minutes

Zain 1:07:46

Oh, it's the final question. Oh,

Zain 1:07:49

Oh, do not worry.

Corey 1:07:50

Well, I will say, you

Corey 1:07:52

you know, people will have different views of that.

Corey 1:07:56

But you can retire.

Corey 1:07:58

You can be a voice in caucus. So you can say, I don't want to be a minister. I'm happy to be a UCP MLA.

Corey 1:08:06

you know, that does require you to get a little bit less prestige and a little bit less money.

Corey 1:08:10

If you're not willing to put it all on the line, are you willing to at least put your comfort on the line?

Corey 1:08:18

be, you know, stand up for something, stand up for your leader doesn't mean you need to oppose your leader, but it means you've got to have some honest conversations about what's going on and what that might mean to

Zain 1:08:31

Corey, I'm going to stick with you for this final one.

Zain 1:08:33

Jason Kenney, he's gone. He's made a statement. He takes a swipe at the left. He takes a swipe at the right. As he leaves, he leaves literally as the new legislation is announced, makes an announcement right thereafter. I'm vacating effective immediately. immediately, give

Zain 1:08:52

give me a score on the political strategy between one to 10 for Jason Kenney in terms of how he leaves and what he says when he leaves. And what he frankly doesn't say what he leaves. Is this a political masterstroke in the way he did it and the message he sent? Or is this high drama, Hollywood style, Netflix, you know, house of cards stuff that didn't really deliver the impact? Where was it for you on a political strategy of the exit? And we'll talk about Jason Kenney more in future episodes, but leave me with that thought.

Corey 1:09:27

If what he wants to do is maintain a range of motion and allow himself to have any variants of comeback, right? Whether it be being

Corey 1:09:37

being the high commissioner to the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Pierre Poliev, as will 100 happen or

Corey 1:09:43

or if it means running federally again someday or

Corey 1:09:47

you name it this

Corey 1:09:49

this was good he did a he did a good thing here he has managed i think to in one move like there's going to be a lot of people who say don't let the door hit you on the way out let's not let's not pretend it will be universally accepted but

Corey 1:10:01

but there will be a lot of people who say yeah

Corey 1:10:04

yeah okay well he was the only one who stood up but also the people who are on you know in the inside of the party they

Corey 1:10:13

they don't have to put up with him actually voting against it you know like he he walked the middle ground here and it will not be entirely satisfying to most people but

Corey 1:10:21

but i think it was smart because it provided the most range of motion going forward whether that even be things like board appointments and the like and even the note like a lot of people have been saying like you know you started this fire and it got out of control and it's a bit much for you to be blaming the left as much as the right and all of all of that commentary fully expected fully understood but again it created space for him to do whatever he wants to do next he hasn't burned himself with the conservative party uh but he has not uh but you know on his way out he's managed to get a few people who were kind of done with him to be less done with him

Zain 1:10:59

political score for jason's kenny on a one to to 10 in terms of his exit? What are you giving him?

Carter 1:11:02

Well, I'm completely done with him.

Carter 1:11:04

You know, and the reason I'm completely done with him is he said he was going to vote against the Sovereignty Act. And instead, he ran out the door with his tail between his legs, like some sort of, you know, little whip, little puppy that done, you know, didn't want to stand up to the big bad bully. And now he's, you know, wetting himself running down the fucking street.

Carter 1:11:24

This is who Jason Kenny about

Zain 1:11:26

Talk to me about that hypothetical. Let's spend a few minutes on this let's say he had stayed in the legislature voted no and then had done exactly what he did thereafter it was going to be gone he's

Carter 1:11:36

he's going to be gone you know whether it's january or whether it's december or whether it's november he's out the fucking door why not

Zain 1:11:44

not stand with a

Carter 1:11:45

a degree of principle why not stand with a degree of this is wrong he said it's wrong and he could be an an example to these weak-willed uh mlas with no backbone no balls no capacity to stand outside of their own little squad their own little team on their own he could have done that and been an actual leader and instead he has decided to fucking run out the door with his tail between his legs like a fucking and you know what i don't want to talk about jason kenny again i don't want to see jason kenny again i don't even want to hear about the the cyclist whose name is jason kenny i want him to retire too because i don't want to even think about this guy because he's so fucking weak so

Corey 1:12:30

so great example about how his action was a rorschach test because

Corey 1:12:34

because there is a version

Corey 1:12:37

where you look at it and you say this

Corey 1:12:39

this is more than what he said he was going to do he said he was going to vote against it but he's so fucking mad he quit uh

Corey 1:12:44

uh you know and put a bit of a poison pen down on the whole system so look i mean you're

Corey 1:12:51

you're gonna see what you're gonna see in this but But that is, in some ways, the genius of the move. Like, he's created a bit of range for himself.

Zain 1:12:59

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1018 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. And we will see you next time.

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