Transcript
SPEAKER_00
0:08
Welcome to the Strategist episode 1030.
SPEAKER_00
0:19
1030. I'm your host, Annalise Klingbeil, and with you, as always, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan. Is that peppy enough? enough i don't
SPEAKER_00
0:30
okay it's no zane you know what how are you guys you benefited
Carter
0:33
benefited from a way more professional content i
Carter
0:36
i did i think that we zane brings
Corey
0:37
brings a certain desperation that only comes from hosting hundreds of episodes of the strategist so we understand why you can't bring that energy but i
Carter
0:46
i can't believe i'm
Carter
0:47
here seems to be his primary energy well
SPEAKER_00
0:49
well he is not here right now i know it's
SPEAKER_00
0:52
me still stuck with me yeah
Carter
0:54
he sent pictures today though so
Carter
0:56
so he did big day for us when we get to see pictures he's
SPEAKER_00
1:00
he's doing well baby's doing well oh
Carter
1:02
oh shit yeah the baby was on the picture yeah so
Corey
1:05
i tell you my my wife always gives me a hard time because she'll be like how's zane i'll be like oh you sent a picture i guess everything's fine well did you ask no i didn't
Carter
1:13
i get the same conversation how
Carter
1:15
how is zane how's sariah doing how's everything going you know who's who's helping them no clue i didn't ask oh
Carter
1:21
there's a picture of a baby i figured everything was fine have
SPEAKER_00
1:25
have you guys like have you dropped off yeah
Carter
1:29
uh is that something you're supposed to do am
SPEAKER_00
1:32
terrible what's going on terrible
SPEAKER_00
1:35
he lives near a 7-eleven
SPEAKER_00
1:36
send him a gift card yeah
Corey
1:39
it's like an earls just blocks away he's paying
Carter
1:41
paying for the podcast he hasn't been here for a fucking month
Carter
1:43
he's still taking the cash
SPEAKER_00
1:47
he's got a baby now he's got a mouth to feed yeah
Carter
1:51
he's got a mouth not a thing that we have to worry about yeah
Carter
1:55
yeah it's a him problem you
SPEAKER_00
1:56
you gotta take you gotta take care of your friends have
Carter
2:00
you sent him cash yes
Corey
2:01
yes we do need to take care of our friends that's a great point no
SPEAKER_00
2:06
i've not sent seen cash nor a baby double standard no
Corey
2:10
no yeah it is a double standard i
SPEAKER_00
2:13
should give him some some hand-me-downs is uh is what i should do yeah
Carter
2:17
yeah you'd like that i've
Carter
2:18
i've got a lot i think you'd look great in your stuff very
SPEAKER_00
2:23
uh carter big question everyone's been wondering ruth how's ruth doing did she get her danny dollars uh
Carter
2:31
uh no she has not yet gotten her danny dollars but i'll tell you something my wife was pissed i did not anticipate the feedback from heather i knew Knew that there'd be no problem with Ruth, but the Heather problem was unforeseen. But apparently, Corey knew it was going to happen, gave me no warning at all.
Corey
2:50
That's true, I did. As
Corey
2:52
you were saying it, I thought, you know, I don't think your problem is Ruth, the person who doesn't even have a computer. Yeah.
Corey
2:59
But maybe your wife, who is the daughter of Ruth, I presume, and regularly listens to the podcast. She
Carter
3:05
She literally came into the bedroom, because she listens to it before I even get out of bed. she
Carter
3:08
came and just let me have it lying in bed i don't even know what's happening
Carter
3:13
i have no clue what's going on this
Corey
3:16
this is a great little picture into your life
Carter
3:18
life oh my god
Corey
3:20
it's what 11 a.m you're still in
Carter
3:24
hours working out living forever yeah
SPEAKER_00
3:30
heather is mad and ruth does not have her money she doesn't
Carter
3:34
a clue what's going on she doesn't even know she's due the money and i think that's the best part you
Corey
3:39
well listen i hate to actually talk about politics and strategy here but isn't this an interesting thing they were bragging on the uh day of this launch that 92 000 people had gone through the portal something
Corey
3:52
to that effect yeah
Carter
3:53
yeah it's over does that seem like a lot i'm not sure it does it doesn't seem that much at all and and when they went to when they
Carter
3:58
they were bragging that's
Corey
3:59
that's quite a drop when
Carter
4:00
when they were dragging about 120 i thought this isn't going to get anywhere near year the numbers that they think it's going to get great
SPEAKER_00
4:07
great segue it's not great great segue to our first uh our first segment which is going to be super short and sweet there were some hiccups as predicted with the danny dollars portal um are are we impressed with the 92 000 do we think it's going to keep going keep
SPEAKER_00
4:26
keep going up and how many people are going to not claim their money cory
Carter
4:30
cory do you remember how many people were originally supposed to claim it like it was somewhere in the neighborhood of uh what was it 1.6 million or something like that something
Corey
4:40
something like that but i'd
Carter
4:42
i'd be shocked if over a million people claim this money it's
Corey
4:45
it's going to take something else to happen um when back in times before when we used to run public opinion surveys steven
Corey
4:55
you remember and we would send out to a panel like an invitation. And then we would watch the initial surge of activity and then a trickling off. And then we would send a reminder and there'd be a lower peak and then there'd be a trickling off.
Corey
5:09
There's a certain math to it at a certain point. You can kind of tell from the peak and then the next day, what kind of arc that you're on. And to go from 92,000 on day one to let's just say 30,000 on day two, that
Corey
5:21
that doesn't speak well for for what's going to happen, at least not through the channels that they've provided. So the
Corey
5:27
government may very well have something like a direct mail campaign plan, they might do one of those telephone blasts, they're gonna have to try a lot of things. But this sort of underlines the problem with the with the policy. And just in general, how politicians sometimes view these issues, they assume kind of this knowledge of what the hell's going on in the world that the average voter simply doesn't have or care. And, and so they're gonna have to rely on folklore, people talking at bus drop-offs hey did you get your money i got my money today what money oh there's a portal you got to do this but you're right it doesn't speak well to the overall pickup and and ultimately if the money's not in your pockets you're not going to give government credit for the money do
SPEAKER_00
6:04
do we know if um the
SPEAKER_00
6:07
the money will come to people all on the same day like in terms of that chatter will it be like oh hey i'm at my job and all my friends are talking about their 100 that they got today or is it just like a slow trickle throughout the month well
Corey
6:20
we don't I don't know, but generally those things do happen on one day because they're all batched and they just, they send them in a batch and then it all moves forward. But God only knows, I mean, they've created this process from scratch. For all we know, there's one poor clerk being paid $15 an hour, just putting in bank numbers, praying they don't get a number wrong. Do I
Corey
6:37
I actually think that? That
Corey
6:39
That was a job I applied for. No, because Stephen's here. Carter,
SPEAKER_00
6:43
do you think this strategy will come back to haunt them?
Carter
6:49
Yeah, I do. I think that if there's a big number of Albertans that were promised this that didn't get it, or kind of as we are finding out now, students aren't eligible for the money, for example, you know, those types of things really just kind of pull the program down. and um you know a program that begins off relatively favorable uh suddenly gets tarred you know if it's hard if if people aren't getting it if uh the people we think should be getting it aren't getting it as well then at some point it's just not a good program and i suspect that this is this is a bad you know you guys talked about how the the 600 bucks all at once would have been a different thing i i fought with you but between that and and not you know between not getting your six hundred dollars all at once getting it 100 bucks at a time and then maybe not getting it not it's not enough to talk about it's not an exciting type of thing so maybe maybe this is going to backfire uh which would make me of course tremendously
Corey
7:49
there's an irony because if it backfires and if it becomes negative media that may in itself remind a bunch of people to then go and and do it but i ultimately in
Corey
7:59
government we talk a lot about policy intent And we talk about policy and implementation. If the policy intent is to get money to people, this is a failure, and they should have just gone with the CRA. Or at least it's not the optimal outcome at this point. And you're right, Stephen, you're so right. The, hey,
Corey
8:16
hey, what did you do with your $600 as a conversation at the bus stop? Hey, what did you do with your GST check, essentially, like that
Corey
8:24
equivalent of money is not a conversation.
Carter
8:26
conversation. Well, and we talked about whether or not it would be identified properly, too. Like, is this something you're even going to identify? Or is it just going to be another $200 in your, or $100 in your bank account, and you're unable to even identify it? So I just think, you know, at
Carter
8:41
at a time when I think that the province made this decision so that they could show that Alberta doesn't require help from Ottawa,
Carter
8:49
Ottawa, I think that they're going to be wishing that they'd asked for it.
SPEAKER_00
8:55
let's leave it there like i said short and sweet we've got a lot to talk about a lot going on the shortest
Carter
8:59
shortest segment that we've ever done that
Carter
9:01
that was unbelievable i
SPEAKER_00
9:02
i said it's just no they're short before the meal that is it's a little appetizer we had to like cory has more to say
Carter
9:11
say look at him
SPEAKER_00
9:13
look at him he's cory what else do you have to say i
Carter
9:15
i got nothing no
SPEAKER_00
9:17
yeah the short and sweet we just needed to take control we're just testing you we're
SPEAKER_00
9:23
we're wondering how ruth was doing we had to like tie the loose end now it's the next don't let us run over you this
SPEAKER_00
9:30
this one has a good title this is this title appropriate action aka is a game over for someone in the premier's office i'm
SPEAKER_00
9:38
gonna walk you through this segment and uh this is gonna be a good one so listen up so we chatted last episode about the crown prosecutor and the premier smith drama she She said one thing, then another, then another.
SPEAKER_00
9:53
People can listen to the last episode for all of that. Both of you, if I'm remembering correctly, you kind of concluded that there's not really going to be repercussions for her. You're not convinced she called a Crown prosecutor. This was just a flex. I thought it was going to be over. No,
SPEAKER_00
10:10
twist. The story is not going away. So just a few hours ago, a big old scoop from two journalists, Meg Grant and Elyse von Scheele at the CBC. Elyse scoops everything
Carter
10:21
everything these days. So
SPEAKER_00
10:23
So does Meg Grant. They're wonderful. Meg and Elyse. Don't
Carter
10:26
and drag Meg into this. It's all Elyse. They're
SPEAKER_00
10:29
wonderful. The headline says, Alberta Premier's Office contacted Crown Prosecution about Coote's case's sources. I'm just going to read the very first part. It says, A staffer in Smith's office sent a series of emails, a series of emails to the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service about the Coutts border blockades and protests.
SPEAKER_00
10:54
So I want to jump into this, and I really want to go through the timeline here. You guys have both been in those back rooms. You've been in those premier's offices. You've been in those senior bureaucrat offices. The story, it drops from CBC about 4 p.m. today. I'm assuming a breaking news alert came out with it. so ding ding ding 4 p.m breaking news alert you're in the premier's office let's start with you carter uh what you you read the headline you read the story what happens next um
Carter
11:27
um well what happens
Carter
11:29
happens next is you get everybody in the office you find out exactly who who said what and what you know like if it's still an anonymous person to us in the premier's office if we don't know who it is We're going to have to try and find out very quickly. If we do know who it is, then that person's put in one room and
Carter
11:47
and a group of people is put into another room.
Carter
11:50
And the group of people in the other room.
SPEAKER_00
11:51
If you don't know who it is, how do you find out who it is? You go look at people's emails.
Carter
11:56
Yeah, you start asking around, you start finding what needs to be found. I mean, the ADMs and the DMs that didn't say a damn thing to the media, you know who they say stuff to? The premier's office.
Carter
12:08
you know, the, the, the minister's office, who, who was it that did this inappropriate thing is not something that is protected, uh, you know, from the premier's office. It's not like, you know, someone can send this email and, uh, the, the prosecutors are going to be like, well, I'm not going to tell you who it was. They're going to tell you who it was. And then you put that person in another room and you get their story. You make sure that it matches. You find every copy of the emails that were sent. You read them all. You try and figure out what level of exposure you've got. Then you go back and you talk amongst yourselves within the bigger group of what does this require? And it can require everything from, you know, being Carter, which I think is a new verb that we're going to be starting to put forward. You know, I got Carter in from the mayor's office and I got Carter from the premier's office. I think people are saying that being Carter
Corey
12:56
Carter for like a decade, that's not a new word, my friend,
Carter
12:58
isn't it? Okay. Well, well, okay, getting Cartered. And, um,
Carter
13:03
you know, so that could happen, uh, to someone, uh, if they have done, uh, if the sin that has been committed is, is large enough or more importantly, if it looks like the only way to get out from under this is to, is to push someone out. Um, cause
Carter
13:18
cause I think that there's a lot of times when, you know, you put someone on the chopping block, not necessarily cause you want to put them on the chopping block. You, you rather them stay. Uh, but the only way out of this particular situation is to offer sacrifice and this this situation feels to me like that's that would be the direction that we'd be going is what is the what
Carter
13:39
what do we need to do to put this behind us and how do we insulate and protect the premier because the other thing right now the premier is pretending like she didn't know this was going on i think that she knew exactly what was going on and it wasn't until um kind of the second or third day of the story Corey, when
Carter
13:57
when she started to backtrack, that she realized that she needed to have some insulation between her and this all these actions. So I'm anticipating that someone is going to be doing the, you know, going to be getting a significant severance package relatively quickly.
SPEAKER_00
14:12
So a lot of different threads to pick out here. Corey, I'll turn it over to you. But just as we'll
SPEAKER_00
14:18
we'll pick through a lot of it, but I do want to just stay
SPEAKER_00
14:20
stay focused on the timeline line thing right now so it's i could have done better on that i'll
SPEAKER_00
14:25
back well don't worry cory's gonna do it for you uh it's 4 p.m breaking news alert as as carter says you start figuring out who did this but can you walk us through i mean you've you've been that comms guy a statement needs to go out media are asking for that statement other media are trying to follow the scoop and ask for the statement like just walk our listeners through that um that timeline line of what happens 4 p.m story comes out then what so
Corey
14:53
what would normally happen is you bring the group together and
Corey
14:57
and um maybe you bring the person who is being accused of this and i suspect the premier's office probably has a better idea from like people will read that story and they'll be like i know exactly who that was even if they don't know because
Corey
15:09
because there's just there are things that you learn when you work in an office like that about personalities about habits about about about behaviors more generally.
Corey
15:18
So normally you would bring the people together.
Corey
15:21
You would bring the senior staff together, right? The directors in the premier's office, the political staff, any of the support you need from the public service. It would potentially include bringing somebody together like my old role, overseeing communications for the government. Maybe it would involve the deputy ministers who are affected, maybe some ADMs. The clerk would probably be involved in some way, shape or form, the chief deputy. Here's what's different about this one. And I think we need to kind of dwell on it for a minute here.
Corey
15:48
There was a leak, right?
Corey
15:49
right? And so you are going to see a slight variation of that. You're not going to bring senior staff together. I don't believe, not immediately. That's not the first conversation. The first conversation will be Danielle Smith and her most trusted advisors. You know, the ones she went up with, it would be, you know, her and Rob Anderson, and I don't know who else in that office who she would, you know, die in the trenches with. And they are going to put their heads together and say, who
Corey
16:14
who can we trust?
Corey
16:15
Who can we trust? And maybe not in those words, but they're going to say, holy
Corey
16:19
holy shit, we've got a real problem, but we've got another real problem. And that's the leak. And so what is going to be interesting about the next couple of hours from that 4 p.m. there is you're not just trying to figure out what happened. You're trying to figure out who told the media what happened. And that complicates absolutely everything that goes on in the next two hours. Okay,
SPEAKER_00
16:37
Okay, going to throw another wrench there, and this is purely hypothetical here, but let's say one of those senior people that is around you, one of your most trusted people, is
SPEAKER_00
16:47
is the person who did this. Yeah.
Corey
16:50
Well, it's a real possibility. The
Carter
16:52
The odds of it not being are actually relatively small.
Corey
16:56
right? Because who's going to send that email in the first days of a premiership unless they've got a little bit of sway and cachet? I just, I can't imagine a junior staffer. Well, they would be insane. Maybe it was a junior staffer, but.
SPEAKER_00
17:10
Okay. So hypothetically, premier
SPEAKER_00
17:13
premier polls are most trusted people. And one of them says, Hey, I did it. Or, Hey, you told me to do it. Or, Hey, we know that I did this. Like then
SPEAKER_00
17:23
what's our, what's our, what next? And keep in mind the, the, the clock here, guys, the timeline, uh, what, where are we at?
Corey
17:31
So what I, I want to, I want to grab this first card because my answer is pretty short.
Corey
17:35
If it is one of the premier's most trusted advisors, I would die in the trenches with you type people.
Corey
17:40
They offer their resignation. That's what happens next. Now, do they accept it? That's the conversation to come. But they would offer their resignation. And from there, say it was accepted, you
Corey
17:53
you would start talking about how you roll this out to protect the premier in a way that protects the premier. And if the premier didn't accept it, you would start talking about who's the fall person, frankly. Yeah.
Carter
18:06
But I also think that one of the things you're asking is, you know, when the news breaks about this, I think it'd be quite a failure for the premier's office not to know that it's coming on some level. Right. They would have, most likely, Megan and Elise had reached out for some sort of comment. We are going to be putting this out. This is what we have. We're going to be putting this out. So I think that the actual timeline that you're starting with, Annalise, starts probably
Carter
18:39
probably at 10 o'clock this morning.
Carter
18:44
I would think that the chief of staff, the principal secretary, and the premier start the meetings. And if it's one of those three that have done this, then they are trying to figure out what to do. Probably one of them is trying to figure out how to keep their job, if it's one of those three. uh and that's why i usually separate that's why i usually separate them from the from the group because their inclination because there
Carter
19:13
there is a pattern for senior senior staff to fall on their sword right like you resign rather than being thrown out um and there's
Carter
19:24
there's all kinds of reasons for that there's and we can go into that if you'd like but when you but at the same time most of the time especially when you've been in there less than one full steven carter um like
SPEAKER_00
19:39
long is the steven carter everybody knows how long this definition
Carter
19:43
definition i mean when you've been in there less than that i mean you don't want to leave no very few people are like i have to get out of here already um so there is kind of a a negotiation of uh how can we get out of this how can we you know what needs what needs to happen versus what could happen um do we really need to have someone falling their sword on this is this actually um you
Carter
20:09
you know worthy of that type of of ending and that discussion could take until that news breaks um because keep in mind i'm not sure the premier is sitting there going oh you know what we really need to do is lose one of my key staffers um you know this to corey's point this is not going to be someone three
Carter
20:29
three levels down this isn't going to be um you know the the
Carter
20:33
the executive assistant to the to the chief of staff or this isn't going to be i mean they're first of all in the premier's office there aren't that many layers
Carter
20:42
there aren't that many people so when you when you get like this these are close people and And someone's going to have to take the blame. I mean, in a perfect world, you'd find a way to blame Haasman,
Carter
20:54
Haasman, who left last week. We talked about that in the last episode as well. I mean, in a perfect world, you'd find a way to be able to blame the person who was already gone. But you can't manufacture that. You can't just make it up. It's got to be legit. It's got to be real.
Carter
21:11
I'm sure that they began with a bargaining stage. once the bargaining stage is kind of over once they've once they've decided that they're going to have to you
Carter
21:19
take some action then it's a question of what action is going to be taken and so no one wants to get fired in
SPEAKER_00
21:27
in in this case there's emails we know that there's emails we know the journalists have these emails from a source um we can probably i don't want to assume but but those emails probably have someone's email on it. Corey, is the move
SPEAKER_00
21:45
move that someone gets fired from here? And I guess on that manufacturing thread, as Carter said, yeah, it'd be great to be able to blame the guy that left last week, but how can you manufacture that if you know that the journalists have the emails?
Corey
22:01
For sure. And I don't know from the story we know they have the emails yet. They've clearly been described by a source and the source does have the emails. or at least it's strongly implied and i have no doubt the source here's what i believe and i don't know this but this would be trying to read between the lines here a bit i believe the source told the journalists exactly who it was and the journalist said well i don't i don't know if we can run with that quite yet right because that starts to get a little bit more dicey even if they do have multiple sources uh
Corey
22:29
uh so no i mean you can't you can't make ryan hasman the fall guy by the way got a new job we now know as a bit of a coda on that story um you can't make the person who was here last week the fall person because there is a paper trail like
Corey
22:42
there was somebody who was emailed there is a government server somewhere that collects some sort of that information and even if they deleted it and did the double delete thing and and all of that like there's just what are the odds that there's not a paper record of this in some way shape or form it's just impossible for me to imagine someone else can take the fall but
Corey
23:03
if that person who whoever did it like let's just say it's somebody they put their hand up with daniel smith and they say premier it was me i did this right uh and let's just pretend for a minute daniel smith didn't know that but i want to get back to that because i find that deeply improbable um well
Corey
23:19
well if they're not falling on their sword if they're like i did this but i think i should be able to stay well then yeah of course you got to to separate them to steven's point because at this point interests
Corey
23:29
interests are no longer aligned not not for sure not for certain right in any corporate setting for
Corey
23:35
for example if the board and the ceo or all of us if the ceo is facing an accusation and
Corey
23:40
and the board has the deal with it they're going to hire separate counsel for the ceo even if they don't believe it because you you've got to put up those walls you've got to start saying everybody's got to act in those interests and while it's not kind of corporate governance formality in that setting it's
Corey
23:54
it's for sure the same thinking i mean one of the the things that's interesting about politics is it does tend to move very fast you know crisis communications in the corporate world is like the norm speed in in politics and they're
Corey
24:07
they're going to quickly move through kind of the stages of grief right you know the the denial is no no way this isn't happening there's no email like that the anger my god we got a leak i'm so mad about that bargaining well we can work this one out we can figure out a way that you know this guy can stay or this gal can stay and you know they'll very quickly go through uh
Corey
24:28
the later stages um like depression and then acceptance because they don't have they don't have a choice they got to move fast but
Corey
24:35
but i guess what i'm trying to say here is there
Corey
24:38
is no option to blame somebody else
Corey
24:40
the only choice in front of you as the premier and i agree with steven what he said earlier you're going to know immediately who did it right like your
Corey
24:49
your only real choice is do you stay with them?
Corey
24:52
Or do you hang them out to dry?
SPEAKER_00
24:54
And Corey, just the one thing that you said, do you think Smith didn't know this?
Corey
25:01
There is a saying in kind of legal
Corey
25:04
legal government circles, right? Ministers operate through their staff, right? And it's this general principle that if the minister has an authority, they can delegate it to their staff and they do things. But the broader point is, premiers,
Corey
25:16
premiers, ministers, they don't do things, they get people to do things. right daniel smith doesn't have time to write emails to to crown prosecutors and i find it hard to believe in the early days that something i mean let's put it this way if they wrote it in the early days without daniel smith's blessing any days but especially in the early days they absolutely deserve to be fired yeah
Corey
25:38
but i i suspect it
Corey
25:40
it is all part of an ethos of like well why don't you go check in on that file i'm not even you
Corey
25:45
you know i i don't know that but i i find it improbable improbable
Corey
25:50
improbable that somebody would act on their own in that fashion you're
Carter
25:53
you're shaking your head carter do you know how many files there are in the premier's office at any given time even on day one like on day one you've got so every minister gets a briefing book when they arrive as a in transition and that that you know how many ministers she's got it's 20 some plus so let's just say for 25 in the premier's office that's 25 briefing books plus all the other their briefing books you don't reach down to that level unless you have been told to reach down to that level you don't have time you
Carter
26:24
you do not have time to pick up the telephone and call when the minister like we had a um prison guard beat somebody at one point you know uh some guy got beat up by a prison guard um you
Carter
26:36
you know the minister has to deal with that the minister has to go get that information the minister has to bring that stuff to us because the premier's office just literally does not have time to reach down we do not have time to reach down and ask you know any questions of anybody unless we choose to make that issue our own so
Carter
26:53
so we chose to make issues our own we chose to make family care clinics our own we chose to make post-secondary our own we chose something else i can't remember oh 0.05 laws mad mothers against drunk driving of
Corey
27:06
course it was so we
Carter
27:06
we we would choose to make those issues our own and that was it everything else had to come from the minister's office why would this be an issue you don't choose to make this your own unless the premier directs you to make this issue your own you don't have time that's
Corey
27:21
that's a super interesting point so i've done transition before and and carter's right not only do you not have time not only are you drinking from the fire hose um you get big documents of priority decisions the things we want you to work on first and it's not like because it's my desire as cory hogan or my my desire is that, you know, the head of communications, it's because the clock is ticking. These things need to happen in this order. There's this international conference happening in three days. We need an answer on there is, uh, you know, this consultation that is legally required to occur by this date. You got to move and you work through it. And there's no doubt. And I don't want to pretend otherwise, um, that,
Corey
28:01
that, uh, that it's not like governments only do that, but to Steven's point, they, if
Corey
28:06
if they're doing it, it's because they want to do it. There's like an intentionality to it in those early days it's this is my agenda these are the things i want to do and um that's a that's a solid point it's not the kind of thing you'd be sitting around tapping your fingers against the desk saying well fuck it i guess i've got some time to write a crown prosecutor a note that's not the pace ever
Corey
28:26
of the premier's office but certainly not in the first month i
Carter
28:28
i mean could you imagine i mean i didn't
Carter
28:31
didn't have time to keep up with the stuff the premier wanted me to do right like the stuff that we had to do the stuff that the premier was saying This is important to me. It's got to get done. You know, we had a whole team. We had whole teams of staff. There's whole people within the, you know, the clerk's office, the deputy minister, deputy ministers. There are whole groups of people who are it's their only job to kind of help you do your job because it's so big and it's so hard to kind of get through and find everything. thing and we have very very small political offices by comparison to other other governments right so we are we are helped by the administration you literally can't reach out and
Carter
29:09
and and and grab onto this issue without
Carter
29:12
without direction i just cannot see that you'd have time so
SPEAKER_00
29:16
so on the did she know didn't she know and we'll get back into my timelines 6 p.m um daniel smith's office puts without a statement. She says she's never been in contact with Crown, she has never been in contact with Crown prosecutors, has no knowledge of any staff member doing so. And if a staff member did so, appropriate action will be taken.
SPEAKER_00
29:37
Walk me through again, back to that timeline question of crafting that statement and the language that is used and appropriate action and reading between the lines and all that. I mean, clearly they know a few steps down what's going to happen. Um, Corey, let's start with, let's start with you on, on, um, that statement coming out around six.
Corey
29:58
Yeah. So when I read the statement, let
Corey
30:00
let me tell you my first reactions and I'll tell you why my first reaction is, Oh,
Corey
30:06
Oh, I feel like this is a real thing. Like they at least have a strong reason to believe this occurred. Right. And, um, and this is the statement of somebody getting ready to take the next steps, because if you were going to just say this didn't happen um
Corey
30:20
um i think you'd be a little stronger i especially in this day and age with this media environment you'd be you it's the cbc writing a story about a right-wing government i mean it writes itself you know the cbc is irresponsibly posted gossip and this gossip is in no way substantiated i've never heard anything like this no member of my staff has done this um and and you wouldn't even bother with that if there was i would there would be serious consequences right so um
Corey
30:50
well okay maybe i shouldn't assume that level of competency but that's the approach you would take if um if you were if you were very firm it didn't happen but and this is the opposite this is a this seems like it might have happened
Carter
31:00
happened let's look at the very first piece the very first piece is to distance the premier from the action right
Carter
31:05
right if this did happen i wasn't involved i wasn't there yeah i didn't do it wasn't me if this didn't happen or if this did happen it wasn't me that that distancing of the premier is the telltale sign that someone's someone's about to go straight into the toilet um because that that's that's the only way that it works like it just doesn't work without you know the premier doesn't have to deny it if there's not some sort of truth so
SPEAKER_00
31:33
so someone is gonna get carters is what you're saying uh Oh,
Corey
31:37
Oh, we got an episode title. Congratulations.
SPEAKER_00
31:40
But, but timing wise, when does that happen? Right? Like it's okay. Late Thursday night. Do we bump that into Friday news dump Saturday? How long do we go before, before you get rid of someone?
Carter
31:55
In a perfect world, they'd be making their statement pretty darn quick.
Corey
32:01
I mean, Friday afternoon is the classic day for that kind of stuff.
Carter
32:04
You don't want to go into next week with this story.
Corey
32:08
oh no no um we
Corey
32:11
we we talk about kind of like the bargaining stage of grief here there
Corey
32:15
there is the possibility that they're like well they have a source but maybe they don't have the documents so maybe we almost get ready to do that but we don't pull the trigger unless we absolutely need to kind of thing that's a possibility i could certainly see that and there's a human element to that too particularly if the premier really does not want to lose the person involved right Right.
Corey
32:35
So I think that that's maybe it's a bit of a faint hope clause for them as well. But I agree. Like if you're still twisting on this, if there's other shoes to drop next week, you're you're doing it wrong. Probably I would say it becomes a figure out what you know. You got a pretty good sense of it. See if there's another shoe to drop. See what happens on Friday, but likely Friday afternoon is where somebody says some version of this email was taken out of context. It was done for these reasons. It wasn't illegitimate, but I've become a distraction to a premier's office that is committed to fighting with Justin Trudeau and not fighting with Justin Trudeau, fighting Justin Trudeau to stand up for Alberta's interests. And, you know, it'd be a classic statement like that. And
Carter
33:20
And then they just go and work on the campaign. campaign
Carter
33:23
they get picked up by the campaign and they're they're probably not even you know there may even be an opportunity for them to come back you
Carter
33:30
depending on how everything goes in in the in the election and that might be the thing that you're saying to them right now right going back to your timeline it's nine o'clock on on
Carter
33:40
on thursday night you're saying to them listen here's what i need i need you on the campaign anyways why don't you resign you
Carter
33:46
you know um don't it no no culpability, say, but you resign and that resignation enables you the opportunity to move into the campaign where I needed you anyways. And now we can make sure that we come back to government in these months.
SPEAKER_00
34:06
How much does that, sorry, Carter, how much does that hurt you? And again, hypothetically, we're thinking like someone very senior, you lose your right hand man a few few months in a few months before the election at a time when, and I think we talked about it last time we're hearing about cracks in caucus, et cetera, et cetera. Like how much does that person does losing someone like that hurt?
Carter
34:30
I'm really biased on this. I'm exceptionally biased on this, but I think that, um, I think Alison Redford and, you know, Joe Tegundek both suffered tremendously tremendously when they lost me. And that's my ego speaking, to be sure. And my ego would normally be much louder. But, you know, there is no question that Alison Redford's ability to respond and be ready for the next problem was diminished. Jyoti Gandek's ability to work with the mayor of the media has tremendously dropped. She's not in the media. She's not owning it in the same fashion she is weakened as a political person
Carter
35:08
person and and the same would happen when if ron glenn left ed stelmack the same thing happened when um oh
Carter
35:16
oh come on help me out uh trudeau's guy jerry
Carter
35:19
jerry when jerry butts left trudeau i mean these are important people that are leaving under or um stephen harper's guy the guy who was you know under the cloud of suspicion of paying paying um mike duffy's uh you know expenses back you know nigel or whatever his name was that that stuff when you lose those key advisors there's not there's not six more than waiting in the back there's a reason why that person was your key advisor from the first place that person got you there when you lose that person you no longer have the capacity you don't have the trust you don't have the ability to look into each other's eyes and understand what the the other person is thinking right that stuff develops over time and you can't just simply replace it so
SPEAKER_00
36:03
so cory what does it mean losing if again hypothetically if you lost someone like that and there's an election in four months well
Corey
36:12
well it means everything um i don't i'm not gonna
Carter
36:18
extol the virtues of stephen carter
Corey
36:19
carter it's not even about the person it's not about their skills when But when you lose your chief of staff, though, you are deeply exposed. And we talked about this as recently as, well, I don't know, four days ago. This is how the book goes. First, they come for the people that weren't there at the start. They're not true believers. That's the problem. Second, they come for the people around you. You're not being served well by your people. And third, they come for you.
Corey
36:44
you know, this seems to be like everything else these days going on an accelerated pace. uh and and maybe none of it's a perfect analogy but the people around you are your shield and let's put it this way you don't get to just start turning over chiefs of staff or principal secretaries or executive directors of policy or whoever this person may be um like that you don't you don't you when you start losing them people start questioning your judgment because there was was a problem with the first one and um if you lose one because of like outside pressure you
Corey
37:19
don't get to offer them up as a sacrifice again right that that is no longer available to you all of a sudden the toll gets higher and maybe it doesn't mean your job the first time but it means power it means authority it means all of a sudden you don't get to call the shots the way you used to because your shield is gone well
Carter
37:35
well and suddenly the other people the people who are after you the other people who are surrounding you, they might choose your next person, right?
Carter
37:43
right? This is the person you should have. Now you've got to divide it to loyalty, right? Is that person that was put into my office, is that actually someone who's serving me as the premier, or is that someone who's serving the minister of finance, or is that someone who's serving, you know, oh, why don't you use someone who's got experience? My guy is perfect. My guy knows everything. All
Carter
38:03
All of a sudden, now you're not getting that relationship, that key element, and that That foundationally shifts the power dynamic in the office. I mean, Redford lost her entire first office within six months. Every single person that came in was gone within six months and it never, ever recovered.
Carter
38:22
Didn't have a chance.
SPEAKER_00
38:24
Sure. Just another aspect I want to dig into this briefly is the leak part. What do you do about the leak? Again, that timeline, that office point.
SPEAKER_00
38:34
What are your next steps when you're in those back rooms, Carter?
Carter
38:38
Well, leaks are brutal. This leak came from them, whoever them is. This isn't an us leak. So there's us leaks and then there's them leaks. Ideally, all of your us leaks are orchestrated and controlled. We are putting our leaks out in a predetermined fashion, which makes sense for us. this is definitely a them link so them could be one of those staffers who's got mixed loyalties to another minister them could be um some people in the in the prosecutor's office who watched her back away and said fuck that i've got the email let's send it over right them but whoever them is you're never going to find them you never get to figure that out that's not the way the world works You don't, you know, to Corey's point, the world ain't the West Wing where you just you get to put, you know, Sam
Carter
39:34
Sam Seaborn or whoever, Toby, into finding out who leaked this thing. That doesn't work that way. So the odds of finding the person who leaked this or the people who leaked this, because keep in mind, it probably isn't one person. Generally speaking, you know, you have to have multiple sources to run a story like this. I think that them is done. So you may as well make sure, I wouldn't worry a lot about it, because them is the entire government. There is a huge, giant bureaucracy out there. And there's going to be a lot of people who just
Carter
40:06
just do their normal jobs, but there's also going to be a lot of people who are pissed with whatever you choose to do. Sure.
SPEAKER_00
40:11
Corey, just one last aspect to this, and that's that there are two parties. Let's say you're advising the NDP on this issue. What do you tell them to
SPEAKER_00
40:21
to do, to not do? What should the NDP be doing on this particular story right now?
Corey
40:29
the ndp should be very troubled by what they're hearing and i think we need to get to the bottom of some things but then they should step back like when your opponent is lighting themselves on fire you know just stay back like don't let yourself on fire in the process this this
Corey
40:44
this is just wild how many um you know how many threads that can be pulled on now by players that are other than the the ndp in terms of the media right okay all of a sudden now we know elisa has two new sources right like that's fucking fascinating i wonder where we're going to go from there like is this the only shoe to drop even on like the number of stories coming out of the premier's office because i'll tell you something you know we're not going to just get into spill the tea mode the number of stories i hear out of that premier's office right
Corey
41:15
buck wild i don't know what to believe but um but if if all of a sudden there's somebody who's giving primary source details to reporters get your popcorn folks it's gonna be crazy um but then there's the nuts and bolts of it there we already talked about it if there were emails there were emails you could look into those kinds of things if even like like we can make some speculative assumptions here but ones that are pretty well rooted it talks about sources say well
Corey
41:45
well unless those sources either a saw saw the email or b hacked whoever this is computer is somehow then you have to imagine that whoever this was stated that they did this in some way shape or form right and you know because otherwise it would be like too removed to to hearsay you'd have to be like i directly heard this person say this thing or i saw this email for multiple sources to kind of work on that particular one
Corey
42:13
and so that's crazy what what else might be happening there and how many of those threads can you chase down and then of course there's the shoe that may drop of resignation and and
Corey
42:24
and the the caucus turmoil stories that will come from that so there's a lot going on and if you're the ndp you don't need to make this look like it's just political
SPEAKER_00
42:34
card you've got some advice for the ndp let's hear it no
Carter
42:36
no i don't i have a question for cory hogan given
Carter
42:40
given your advice is the the exact same advice i would give given your advice is the exact advice that most political professionals would give in politics what action do you expect the alberta ndp to take on this issue i
Corey
42:54
i listen man i think that they they they have trouble with range right everything's an 11 for them and i think that's going to be a problem for them at this point you because you
Carter
43:03
you think they're going to do it and you're just being a nice guy because we we
Carter
43:06
we were mean to them on Twitter.
Carter
43:09
So you think they're going to do it.
Carter
43:11
They're going to take action that they shouldn't take. I'm putting words in your mouth, but
Carter
43:16
but is that what you think?
Carter
43:18
Thank you, Mr. Hogan. That is in fact what you think. Thank you. Back to you, Annalise, in the studio.
SPEAKER_00
43:22
studio. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for jumping in there. On that, everything is an 11. It's a nice segue into our next segment. So we'll wrap that one up. Next segment, the
SPEAKER_00
43:32
the words that shall not be said in Alberta, but I'm going going to say them just transition um so i i do i know our friends at the ndp on twitter carter they've been uh waiting for us to dive into this um yeah we're
SPEAKER_00
43:48
we're going to talk about the just transition or should i say sustainable jobs i don't know what we're allowed to call it here in alberta um i think you guys have talked about this before on the podcast it's an issue the ucp have been talking about for a while um but it really blew up earlier this week and honestly i think we would have given this a bit more time if today's um news from the cbc didn't happen so just basically the gist a black locks reporter wrote about a 2022 federal briefing document that was picked up earlier this week by rick bell david staples don braid all three of these post-media columnists came out with articles that like heavily quoted smith um and said in the neighborhood of 200,000 jobs will be eliminated in Alberta. The
SPEAKER_00
44:33
The feds, they're in reaction mode. They clarify the memo was taken out of context. It's not policy. The numbers have been misinterpreted. They referred to the overall size of the workforce of these industries, not just job losses. So all of that happens. Then, and this is just where I want to dig in on the strategy side, Rachel Notley comes out swinging to Don Braid. So in a Braid column the the next day she says she wants Trudeau to totally put the brakes on the just transition plan and the emission cap so and Carter we'll start with you this is a change of course from what the NDP has been saying on this issue was it an overreaction yeah
Carter
45:12
yeah it was an overreaction I don't think that there was any card that could be played that was going to make this good again
Carter
45:18
again it's one of those situations where the NDP seemed to think that being in the cycle is better than not being in the cycle or something like the fight was between trudeau and um and the ucp and for some reason the ndp bought into the argument that trudeau equals the ndp and they jumped in and and they they they now have clarified they're not for the just transition they're not for the they fell into the misinformation they allowed the fact that three post column post media columnists got the numbers completely wrong, got completely spun. I mean, the fact that Staples and Bell get spun is nothing. I mean, you just wave a sausage in front of Bell and all of a sudden he'll write whatever you want. But,
Carter
46:02
But, you know, the idea that Don Braid got spun on this, the kind of the grandfather, the great-grandfather, the great-great-grandfather of the Canadian media, I mean, that's unbelievable. When you read the report, and believe me, a minister minister in the, in the UCB government sent me the report because they're like, this is what the report says. And they were indignant. There was indignant. What do you think of this? I read the report.
Carter
46:28
I read the report. I'm like, what
Carter
46:29
what the fuck don't you agree with? Like, what, what am I supposed to, first of all, it's not a prescription. It's a start. It's a discussion. It's a starting point. It's a starting point for the discussion. The prescription is how do we put workers that they're going to be facing a transition into some sort of a protection. And the only way to read this that I think it was actually 2 million jobs, Annalise, that were going to be lost, over 2 million jobs are going to be lost through this program. The only way to interpret it is to put the exact same framework as what we've got going on in the coal industry. The coal industry is collapsing. And because the coal industry is collapsing, people are trying to help out the workers. But it's not going to be the exact same collapse of the oil and gas industry. It doesn't go from 100 to 20 or 100 to zero in just a couple of years. It's just absolutely bananas. And the fact that the NDP chose to buy into this weakens their position, doesn't gain them any votes. They acted 10 days too late. They look like they're whiny, snivelly little children, and they are making a huge error that just shows me that their decision-making structures are have broken forget about the decision is this going to be the election issue no it's not the fact that they still haven't figured out how to make these decisions that's the problem monologue
SPEAKER_00
47:51
tell us what you really think there carter uh i'm always
Carter
47:54
always pretty laid back and held back you know do
SPEAKER_00
47:57
do you think though but you're
Corey
47:59
you're well known for your reserve yeah by
SPEAKER_00
48:00
by them by them weighing in are Are they helping it become an election issue, which is exactly what they don't want?
Carter
48:08
I think that the reality is that they don't get to choose what the election issue is. You don't get to say, oh, I don't want this to be an issue, so I'm going to agree. That's not the way the world works. The way the world works is if the other guys choose to make it an issue and you fight on their land, if you fight on their issues, you have made that an issue. If you move on from it and turn the issue to something else, if you are able to control what the issues are, instead of acquiescing and just folding like some sort of cheap pup tent, then you actually are in control. But the NDP have never been able to own an issue because they're always flailing. They flail from one story to the next story, to the next story, to the next story. And that has been our critique of them from the beginning of this escapade. They feel like the best way to be opposition is to oppose everything that is being done and being being said. And that might be fine in the first two or three years of a mandate. It is not fine in an election. It does not win you government. See the Conservative Party of Canada.
Carter
49:10
It just doesn't work.
Corey
49:14
You know, I don't agree with everything Stephen said there. I do strongly agree with one thing, which was that if this is what you're going to do,
Corey
49:22
it was 10 days too late. What in the world were they doing? I want to expand a bit on why I think that is so deeply problematic um for
Corey
49:31
for what this was 11 12 days after this started to become a story in some way
Carter
49:35
way shape or form for
Corey
49:36
for 11 12 days you had people who are generally supportive of the ndp take stances saying daniel
Corey
49:44
daniel smith you're blowing this out of proportion daniel smith this is actually about supports for jobs this is supports for workers what are you talking about why are we acting so wild about these things here and there is 11 12 days of that on social media media of that commentary and even like comments to editors whatever you want that is now so deeply awkward as the leader of the ndp has said no i actually have a problem with this
Corey
50:08
right and that's a challenge for a couple of reasons it's a challenge because well
Corey
50:13
well first of all all you need to do is see the glee with which the ucp reacted to den or to rachel notley's position to maybe give yourself a bit of pause but they had their operatives going around and their supporters saying, hey, X, I found this tweet of you from three days ago. Do you still believe this? Or do you stand with me and Rachel Notley against this just transition? And just trying to make things awkward for everybody there. So that's a problem. I mean, it's a communications problem. You've kind of exposed yourself in unflattering ways as a bit of a movement, because it's not just about the leader. It's about the candidates. It's about the partisans more generally. But it's also an internal problem because you've managed to make those people feel bad and feel frustrated. And frankly, a lot of them see it as Rachel Notley backing away from environmental protections, despite Rachel Notley's words really being more about what were the feds doing putting this in an election right now. And let me just say, I don't doubt for a minute that Rachel is opposed to the emissions caps. She has been for a long time. I don't doubt for a minute that she is furious that the federal liberals decided they were going to do something that would intervene in the Alberta election at a time when she's trying to manage her own narratives here. i don't doubt that i
Corey
51:34
i am baffled why it took 10 days to come to that message though and cause all of the collateral damage that was caused um because well i don't agree with carter that this is just a net bad strategy overall it
Corey
51:48
it was a late strategy and a late strategy is always a bad strategy yeah so this
Carter
51:52
this is what i don't understand cory i mean uh this is so late how can it be good i mean sure i'll take you you're you know i'll take your side i'll you know whatever it's not not gonna not gonna sink anything but it didn't it came too late to be effective it um it undermined existing positions it didn't win any voters over it's not gonna come it's not gonna end anything it's just you know it just changes the the tone and tenor for a moment or two and then they're still gonna be back do you think they're gonna walk away from pat trying to tag um rachel notley with justin trudeau for the rest of the campaign no
Corey
52:29
no i mean they didn't they didn't stop for a beat they were still doing it that evening and um realistically well
Corey
52:35
well yeah i mean that's the other problem because for 10 days people are going to observe this and they're going to feel it and they think maybe rachel notley's that wild about uh coming against the just transition and a lot of people will view it a little different like i get what they were trying to do they were saying i don't want to spend the next four months talking about this fucking thing we're just going to yank it off the table right now we're going to move on but
Corey
52:55
but um it does limit your range of motion too so it's
Carter
52:59
it's not the way the politics works you
Carter
53:01
you don't play one card and then and that's the end of the other guy's cards well
Corey
53:04
well look i'm agreeing with you on this front it limits their range of motion because if now they want to bring out something that's about protecting workers and it looks at all like the just transition plan which is still going to probably come out at some point right well then what
Corey
53:20
what do you do i mean that's a that's a future problem but it's a it's a problem And if it's, you know, if it's a conversation that just gets brought back in because of your future actions, you may have made your situation worse. Like, we just don't know enough about what the NDP strategy is. But that's a real possibility to Carter,
SPEAKER_00
53:34
Carter, let's say, let's say you're advising Trudeau, when, when
SPEAKER_00
53:38
when do you tell him to that the just transition legislation should come? Like, what's what's his play here?
Carter
53:46
justin trudeau should pull the legislation he
Carter
53:48
he shouldn't put it through in this session he doesn't need to um they've got all kinds of things that are already going i mean you could put pieces of this in the budget and just walk away from the from the language which is i think uh what wilkinson wants to do anyways walk away from the language and and focus instead of on a large project focus on small projects um this isn't a vote getter in quebec uh it's a vote you know It's what needs to be done to take care of a population. It's not something that needs to be done for politics. So my view, if I were advising Trudeau, I'd just say, you
Carter
54:24
you know, no gain, no loss. Just push it off to the next session. Let's try and stay out of this gong show of an Alberta election.
Corey
54:33
So I think that's the smart approach. But let me tell you what I actually think would be kind of fun to see. Okay.
Corey
54:40
them plowing ahead with like the simplest piece of legislation you have ever seen we are putting aside five
Corey
54:47
five billion dollars to support workers who lose their jobs as a result of any changes in the economy and just
Corey
54:55
just watch what happens like watch the opposition watch the not opposition when people say why didn't you pull this rachel notley wants you to pull it well because i i you know i work for all canadians i don't work for rachel notley and this is the the right thing to do and this is why we're moving forward here i
Corey
55:09
think a that doesn't hurt rachel notley right
Corey
55:13
b it allows you to stand up and sort of be your own man on this particular issue i'm
Carter
55:17
i'm not sure that it doesn't hurt rachel notley i think that it wouldn't have hurt rachel notley if she'd continued to stand where she was but now she's she's on an island she's opposing opposing Justin Trudeau. Um, she's
Carter
55:30
she's still getting attacked. She still owns the, the, the Trudeau, um, not Lee ally unholy alliance that they're building for her. I just don't, I don't agree that it doesn't necessarily hurt not Lee. On the other hand, I
Carter
55:45
I think that that would actually be a pretty strong leadership, um, on behalf, you know, you know, from the, from the prime minister sister and let me we like seeing we we want to see more strong leadership from a person that we've characterized many many times is not the strongest leader let
Corey
56:01
let me throw two other ideas at you here one
Corey
56:05
call it the just transition legislation just transition five billion dollars for workers right like
Corey
56:11
like just lean into it fucking hard and
Corey
56:14
then the second one is this make
Corey
56:16
make it a transfer to the provinces oh
SPEAKER_00
56:18
oh my god walk
SPEAKER_00
56:19
walk us through walk us through that uh walk us through that cory because
Corey
56:25
what do you do like are you gonna reject money like
Corey
56:29
you're gonna turn down the money as a transfer to the province not a direct federal spend that's money for workers it is a one-line bill in this case just make it as uncomfortable as possible to be against the just transition oh
Carter
56:42
oh man like making it in such a fashion that you couldn't say well there's there's uncomfortable hooks right or there's there's uncomfortable just
Carter
56:49
the barriers it's just yeah
Carter
56:51
yeah here's 10 billion dollars here's how we're going to distribute it you know boom it's done okay
SPEAKER_00
56:57
let's let's play that through let's uh cory let's play that through that that happens it happens right before the election uh what do you advise rachel to do and what do you advise the smith to do i
Corey
57:10
i advise rachel then to say well if that's what he means that's fantastic fantastic right i rescind my previous statement and what i would uh what i would advise danielle smith to do is uh the same but she can't like for her to all of a sudden embrace it it would be very difficult she'd
Carter
57:26
she'd be stuck but i think notley's a little bit more stuck than you're giving her too but uh you
Carter
57:31
you know i mean on the plus side i do think that notley would at least get a heads up from the prime minister's office that they were going to do this so they could soften they could soften the backtrack which they
Carter
57:40
they would need to do okay
SPEAKER_00
57:42
well cory's got a good little strategy there uh hope the feds are listening let's see it happen they
Carter
57:49
they always listen well
SPEAKER_00
57:50
well perfect great you guys have a lot of listeners i've learned uh this past week kudos
Carter
57:55
kudos yeah thanks for doing your fucking research like i
Carter
57:59
listened to one like one half of one episode one time i I didn't look up any charts or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00
58:08
surprised that I was not a Patreon. And I'm like, oh, I didn't even mention how few other non-Patreon episodes that I have recently listened to. I used to listen back in the day, Carter. We've talked about this.
Carter
58:21
Yeah, then blah, blah, blah, child,
SPEAKER_00
58:22
blah, blah, blah. Then I had a baby. Then my podcast taste changed. Stopped listening to murder shows. Stopped listening to political podcasts. Hung out with my baby.
Carter
58:31
baby. Makes sense. yeah
SPEAKER_00
58:33
uh so let's move into our lightning round um
SPEAKER_00
58:39
i'm just gonna do a little restructuring because i well i wanted to chat about this but we're gonna move it to lightning round it's uh preston manning's new 253 000 job that was announced today uh
SPEAKER_00
58:51
uh he for those who haven't heard he's going to be the head of daniel smith's covet 19 response panel announced
SPEAKER_00
58:58
announced today press press conference no news conference um let's i i guess the lightning round part is like what why are we why are we doing this why are we giving preston manning 253 000 tell me in a sentence cory you go first yeah
Carter
59:16
yeah cory you go
Corey
59:18
people are always being hard on the conservatives for their stance on the environment but their commitment to recycling is laudable
SPEAKER_00
59:26
carter you're you're one sentence why are we doing this um
Carter
59:30
um because we want to have an outcome that is already predetermined and uh preston manning is uh our kind of guy when we want an outcome that's already been predetermined okay
Corey
59:42
guess theron flurry was busy yeah
Corey
59:44
he's less expensive than
Carter
59:44
than steve allen um i i don't know like what
Carter
59:49
what do you do with this perfect
SPEAKER_00
59:51
perfect fucking tragic lightning
SPEAKER_00
59:53
lightning round short and sweet and the next two are fun ones wait
Corey
59:57
wait are we actually doing did we actually listen to what she said yeah
Carter
1:00:00
yeah are we breaking down what's wrong what's
Carter
1:00:02
with what's going on both of us just answered her question yeah
SPEAKER_00
1:00:07
yeah look at that you did it in one sentence i asked the question short and sweet it's a lightning round this is short and sweet so
SPEAKER_00
1:00:13
so what makes her effective
Carter
1:00:14
effective and zane so ineffective so
Corey
1:00:16
so many things i imagine zane's sitting there right now just with a single tear rolling down his cheek is
Carter
1:00:21
actually going to listen as
Corey
1:00:22
as his vision for the 22 minute lightning round dies he's
SPEAKER_00
1:00:26
he's cuddling his baby he's he's eating his skip the dishes that his other friends have purchased for him uh he's having a good time okay next question moving on i
SPEAKER_00
1:00:38
i haven't actually told you guys this but we're gonna finish up this episode i'm gonna go to sleep wake up tomorrow and guess what i'm doing i'm spending all day with jeremy farkas for those uh unaware not from calgary former city councilor um he ran for mayor he was not i
SPEAKER_00
1:00:56
kicked his ass i
SPEAKER_00
1:00:59
yeah he he has now seemingly become a professional hiker
SPEAKER_00
1:01:03
hiker slash raiser of funds for non-profits um i covered jeremy farkas back in the day when i covered city hall i've got some thoughts anyways we're doing a hiking interview for my sub stack that's my uh my one plug for my sub stack so lightning round question for you um let's do this as like a yes or no and the question is carter we'll go with you first has jeremy farkas you know he did like his his 4200 kilometer whatever it is um hike on the pacific crest
Carter
1:01:37
trail you run an outdoor sub no
SPEAKER_00
1:01:39
no but how long it's it's very long he did his like super long hike now he's doing like his summits in winter he's had a lot of time for reflection yes or no has jeremy farkas actually changed or is this a publicity stunt
Carter
1:02:00
and no uh it
Carter
1:02:02
it is a publicity stunt there is no question you don't do this without trying He's trying to get publicity. He's getting a tremendous amount of publicity. No, he's still a political animal. He still wants the publicity. And that's why he's doing this. Like he could just climb 25 mountains. You've probably climbed 25 mountains. You didn't attach it to a fundraiser for the Alex trying to raise money for them. You just climbed the mountains. You didn't say, you know what, I'm going to go on a hike. I'm going to try and get coverage for this hike. you go on your hike you write your sub stack dozens of people read um you
SPEAKER_00
1:02:38
know like thanks carter that
Carter
1:02:42
but you know like he's
Carter
1:02:45
he's doing it for the publicity he's doing it for the ego stroke he's doing it for the future political up outcomes so yeah i mean he's
Carter
1:02:52
he's matured perhaps but he hasn't changed it's still the political animal that's driving that's driving his choices okay
SPEAKER_00
1:03:00
okay Okay, well, I'm gonna have a lot of time tomorrow to chat with him about this. But Corey, turn it to you. Yes or no?
SPEAKER_00
1:03:07
Has he actually fundamentally changed?
Corey
1:03:12
don't know how you go through what he went through and not fundamentally change right like being elected at such a young age getting the spotlight of being this right-wing media darling really kind of leaning into it and and digesting and feeding off that almost like a like a wrestling heel on on city on you know city council for a while uh running for an election losing
Corey
1:03:37
losing that election from somebody who kind of came out of nowhere as the gondek campaign did you were like the presumptive you were probably doing
Corey
1:03:45
doing your best not to measure the drapes but you were probably mentally measuring the drapes and it seemed like the city was going to kind of flip more right wing after the nenshi years and all of that and then to lose and and you know i i didn't i only knew him from afar i've gotten to know him a little bit i sense his loss actually and i i i like Like Jeremy, I think he's a pretty introspective guy. I think he's an interesting guy. And yeah,
Corey
1:04:08
do I think he's changed? Sure. We would all change with situations like that. Not me, baby. Always, always advertise. Constant.
Corey
1:04:19
Yeah. You, man. There was a time in 2015 when this podcast launched, you were the right-wing guy on the podcast. Damn right I was. Everyone's like, oh, Stephen Carter, that right-winger on the strategist. Yeah. You've
SPEAKER_00
1:04:32
changed. Then the right
Carter
1:04:32
right wing left me. Do you remember when the right wing left me and became crazy
Corey
1:04:40
People change, I guess is my point. Okay. I don't doubt and I believe strongly in the human capacity for improvement.
SPEAKER_00
1:04:47
Powerful words. I barfed into my mouth when
Carter
1:04:50
when he said that. Powerful
Carter
1:04:51
Powerful words. You give two?
Carter
1:04:51
Is that just me?
SPEAKER_00
1:04:56
that was, okay. Last. You taste the
SPEAKER_00
1:05:00
Last one. i've got one more for you okay listen
Carter
1:05:04
i'm losing i'm losing my focus yeah
SPEAKER_00
1:05:06
yeah this is a good one city of edmonton it held a contest to name its snow plows they announced the names this week there's some pretty good ones uh amr sleet snow he connor mcblade it control salt and delete eat so my my question for you here is this was in edmonton if uh if
SPEAKER_00
1:05:30
if you were to submit if calgary had this contest and you were going to submit a name for a snowplow in the city of calgary what are you going to name that snowplow carter you're out first it's
Carter
1:05:42
it's a fucking snowplow that would be my name cory
Carter
1:05:47
cory would do that with the street sweepers it's still a fucking street street sweeper that's also my name i
Corey
1:05:53
i i would name them after all of the imaginary friends that have reached great prominence you know pokaroo bing bong from of course
Carter
1:06:02
course you know that pixar
Corey
1:06:03
pixar movie yeah tyler durden spoilers for 1999's fight club for you there because we don't fucking plow snow in this city we just wait for the next chinook that's
SPEAKER_00
1:06:13
that's the right answer i was i
SPEAKER_00
1:06:15
i was not expecting that but that's good yeah that's sure he had more time
SPEAKER_00
1:06:20
no at first his answer at the beginning i'm like no not no but then the end where's this going
SPEAKER_00
1:06:26
you hit it but
Corey
1:06:26
but you know i land it stuck
SPEAKER_00
1:06:28
uh we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 10 30 of the strategist my name is annalise clingbeil and with you as always stephen carter and cory hogan