Episode 1032: The smell of purpose

Annalise 0:01

Welcome to The Strategist, episode 1032. I'm your host, Annalise Klingbeil, and with you, as always, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan.

Carter 0:10

We're leaving that first minute

Annalise 0:12

Why did the two of you do the countdown in? I don't understand that. No, we didn't need

Corey 0:17

need to do anything. We worked with Zain for a very long time. Man,

Carter 0:20

Man, we had to cue him. Oh,

Corey 0:21

Oh, wait, we gave different answers. Oh, that's so bad. What

Corey 0:25

Do you want to switch? Yeah. Who?

Carter 0:27

We worked with Zain for

Annalise 0:28

for a very, very long

Annalise 0:31

long time the two people seem to be confusing

Annalise 0:35

yeah he's he's off the map

Corey 0:38

you know it's funny I've got three kids and I'm pretty certain that I was leaving them alone while I went out to the bar by the time they were three weeks old and Zane's still

Carter 0:47

hanging in there this whole parenting shit is really serious for him really serious that

Corey 0:51

that was a joke by the way before I get a bunch of tweets about that I

Corey 0:55

didn't leave them alone

Corey 1:00

Television is a fine parent.

Carter 1:02

Corey's house is filled with iPads. There's

Carter 1:04

There's an iPad for every kid plus a few others.

Carter 1:07

See, right there. There's so many. Got

Corey 1:09

Got one right here. There

Annalise 1:13

did you go outside this

Carter 1:13

this time, Annalise? What did you do?

Annalise 1:15

do? This time. This time. I did go outside. It was pretty

Annalise 1:19

pretty cold. Normally, that doesn't stop me, but I have a baby now, and he is a bit more sensitive to the cold than I am. yeah

Carter 1:29

but are you talking about jeremy farkas when you say you have a baby now like i did

Annalise 1:35

did go outside on friday with jeremy farkas quarter thank carter thank you for explaining that so that uh people people understand i just was confused yeah it was cold i was in daycare on friday and i went outside with jeremy farkas and my dog you could see

Corey 1:53

see why i was confused so So you're hiking

Corey 1:55

with former Calgary mayoral candidates and Stephen is, what were you doing, Stephen? I went

Corey 2:02

went for a fat

Corey 2:05

You've used that one already. No,

Carter 2:07

No, but that's all I have. I have skiing or

Carter 2:09

I have fat biking.

Carter 2:10

And today I went, well, there's no snow. I want to go skiing, but there's no snow.

Corey 2:15

I mean, don't forget slowly decaying, which is the thing I think of you doing the most. Oh,

Carter 2:18

Oh, it's not that slow anymore.

Carter 2:20

In fact, I'm stretching right now.

Annalise 2:21

now. It has decayed. okay yeah

Annalise 2:26

cory what do you do this weekend i

Corey 2:28

don't know i i have trouble keeping track there's a lot of kid activities i got many children many children who need to be places at different times i'm

Carter 2:36

i'm guessing uh dance was one of the things you needed to go to and uh well

Corey 2:40

well musical theater oh

Carter 2:42

oh nice one of

Corey 2:43

wasn't dance per se but there was dancing involved yeah

Corey 2:48

yeah there's swimming lessons there's birthday parties i

Carter 2:51

i I got to tell you guys, this is

Carter 2:52

is the best opening ever because Heather has also given our new dog, Ryder, a squeak toy. And

Carter 2:59

And I don't know if you can hear it, but he is squeaking the hell out of it. So it's going to be the best episode ever. Thanks, Heather. Yeah.

Corey 3:05

That's great. Way to dox your dog, too. Now everybody knows your dog's name on the podcast. What are they going

Carter 3:10

going to do? Take him?

Carter 3:14

Okay. It cost me

Carter 3:14

a fortune. He's gone through three pairs of shoes so far,

Carter 3:18

two pairs of Heather's glasses, and Okay,

Carter 3:21

do you want someone to take

Annalise 3:23

take him? I'm not saying

Carter 3:24

saying I want anything. I'm just saying if it happened, it's not the

Annalise 3:28

of the world. If someone needs a dog, talk to Carter.

Corey 3:32

sale. Dog shoes, never worn.

Corey 3:35

It's a sad short story I wrote for you right there.

Carter 3:40

plagiarized short story, which is even worse.

Annalise 3:46

Annalise, let's get this show on the road. Are we going to do a thing? We're jumping in. this beginning small talk guys i

Carter 3:51

gotta be honest we do better with zane i don't know why yeah

Annalise 3:53

yeah no it's you know why you know what carter i

Annalise 3:57

i read a uh i read an itunes review that said uh hey normally i just skip the first 10 minutes because it's terrible so uh i'm trying to keep it short you know short and sweet hmm

Corey 4:09

hmm that's ironic because uh we're usually well into the first segment in 10 minutes but

Corey 4:13

but yeah i still i still can't really dispute that no

Carter 4:16

no i mean 10 10 minutes counting, Zane. It's harder using this question.

Annalise 4:22

Okay, we're jumping in. The first segment today, it is called The Smell of Desperation or A

Annalise 4:29

A Good Idea That's Never Been Done Before?

Annalise 4:33

So 39 Ontario Liberals, including former cabinet ministers and recent candidates, they signed an open letter to Ontario Green Leader Mike Schreiner. It was released today, Sunday. the letter pleads with mike to be their leader it reads we are a group of ontario liberals who are deeply concerned about the state of politics in ontario goes

Annalise 4:57

goes on to say our politics are stuck in an endless loop of gimmicks and cynical games and it um it goes on it talks about why they're taking this unprecedented step compliments mike's career his principles it talks about climate change, healthcare, youth. And there's also a website, draftmike.ca, where people are urged to sign on to the campaign to draft Mike. They can also read the letter there. So just super quickly for those not super familiar with Ontario politics, Mike Schreiner, he's been Green Party leader since 2009. He won a seat in the 2018 election and became the first Green MPP in ontario history he was re-elected in 2022 and was again the only green candidate elected so the letter comes as the liberals are looking for a leader and at least four current liberal mpps and mps are actively exploring leadership bids they're just waiting for timelines and rules from the party and there's an agm happening in the next month or so so um that's my intro my question Question for you guys. And Carter, let's start with you. You've got some thoughts.

Annalise 6:04

What do you think of this draftmike.ca campaign and the open letter? I guess, what type of message does it tell people when you come out and essentially say, there's no candidate good enough to lead our party except this guy who's not even part of our party? You've got thoughts, Carter.

Carter 6:22

It's not a great message, especially when you're going from someone who, like a party that won eight seats in the legislature versus a party that won one seat in the legislature. Now, I'm not an expert in math, Annalise, but I think, correct me if I'm wrong, eight is higher than one. Is it not? You

Annalise 6:40

You got it, Carter. It's higher. I would also go

Carter 6:43

go so far as to say that 39 liberals writing a letter would be in excess of the key people in the Green Party. They could just take over the Green Party if they wanted, with 39 people, 39 key organizers, if they really wanted this guy, they could all just move over and support him. I mean, the strategy of something like this, the draft campaign, and I'll just kind of quickly digress over this direction for a second. It's a great strategy. The draft is a great way to start a campaign without starting a campaign. We did a draft campaign prior to him running in 2010. It gave us the opportunity to find a lot of volunteers. It gave us the opportunity to sign up a lot of potential voters. It didn't cost us very much. We grew our Facebook page. It was fantastic back when Facebook used to matter.

Carter 7:34

So that was a good piece. And if this was being done by Mike Schreiner by himself to actually get himself as the leader of the Liberal Party, then I don't dislike this strategy. It shows that he's got 39 key Liberals that will be on his campaign right from the beginning. That's a great strategy. However, if this is actually 39 Liberals reaching out to bring in Mike and he doesn't want the job, as he's saying in the media, this is beyond pathetic. This could be the worst execution I've ever seen. I wrote down here, and maybe this is an episode title, I'm just throwing it out out there 39 liberals or 39 morons i don't know i can't tell the difference it's it's really tight okay

Annalise 8:18

okay carter just back up a second you think there's there possibly he is the whole master man behind this and his oh

Annalise 8:27

think that's a possibility oh

Carter 8:28

oh with your stunning naivete welcome welcome

Carter 8:31

welcome to the to the podcast yes it is possible that this is being run by mike himself This is beyond possible is most actually likely. The most draft campaigns are being run with the full endorsement of the person who is being drafted. It is a pre-campaign. It looks like it's grassroots. It creates this huge amount of energy. I would not be surprised at all if Mike and his team, these 39 people, are all in cahoots about getting him to actually move from a party that can only win one seat to a party that can win 800% as many seats.

Annalise 9:08

Yeah, but what about his comments in media? How does he explain that I have no interest in this? You

Carter 9:15

You say something different and it's over. Can you take over with the naivete, Corey? I'm struggling with the naivete. Okay. I'm struggling.

Annalise 9:24

me how this actually works. You also think this draft is a great strategy, Corey. Is that what is on your face there?

Corey 9:31

Well, look, I think this is a pretty conventional strategy in many ways to have to be asked to do the job. You know, ask me three times is the old joke, right? right? Oh no, oh no. Okay, sure, I'll absolutely do it. You've twisted my arm. And if that is what it is, then

Corey 9:47

then okay, it's a fine strategy. I mean, we're all talking. The 39 liberals, by the way, I certainly don't know all of them or even most of them, but even a lot of the ones that are like liberal organizer, and you're like, what is that? They are known liberal organizers. They are people within the party with some sort of swing. So it's a baffling one if this is just kind of of like taking a flyer especially because there are four candidates in the race and holy cow did they leave their party looking bad if uh if schreiner doesn't come in schreiner didn't say

Corey 10:20

mean he said his focus is to continue the fight right and he has also made some comments i'm just trying to find the words here uh along the lines of i haven't seen anything that would change my mind right now yeah

Carter 10:33

yeah right like you know so

Corey 10:34

so there there is like kind of that the smallest of the doors open where perhaps like a big swing would allow would allow them to be like well i guess now i see like there's an enthusiasm for green politics that was never there before but you know you almost have to play this out with like the two scenarios right the one is is this uh shriner's brilliant play to take over the leadership of the third party the one that got the second most votes in in ontario and and really try to go for something or is this like a desperate appeal from an absolutely moribund Liberal Party that doesn't know what to do. And yeah, I don't know which one I'm more excited to talk about, because both are pretty interesting. But, you know, they tell such different stories. And I guess we won't know for sure for a bit. Although if I was going to put money on the table right now, my sense is, Schreiner does not want to be leader of the Liberal Party, and that this is essentially a cold call. Although I've never seen anything like that. let's

Annalise 11:31

let's play out those two let's play out those two scenarios and carter you can jump in here okay in terms of because there's two scenarios you're right but let's play out let's play out the one where he

Annalise 11:42

he has absolutely no interest um in

Annalise 11:45

in doing this at all what is carter

Corey 11:50

carter looks like he's gonna faint yeah

Carter 11:52

ever seen those um marriage proposals that go horribly wrong right

Carter 11:56

right you're at the baseball game and the guy's arranged at the seventh inning stretch to take his girlfriend out onto the pitch and he asks her to marry her and she runs away.

Carter 12:07

That's the equivalent of this. If they have not figured this out, if you're the guy, if you're the 39 people and you're asking this guy to marry you and you don't know he's going to say yes, and he runs across the entire stadium embarrassing you and embarrassing herself just so she doesn't have to say the words, yes, I'll marry you, then this is the most embarrassing thing that you can see in a political party please come and run i mean this is this is often done you will often see people reaching out and talking to prospective candidates uh cory and i have talked about his role as the official liberal um you know leader or not leader what was your title again

Carter 12:46

assistant the assistant um he was the assistant executive assistant in the party and i was an organizer so i would go and i would talk to people he wasn't allowed to but i'd go go and talk to people and try and recruit them to run for leaderships because um i would have a pathway that they could fit into um this is this is just if this is a flyer and you're doing the flyer in public it is seriously one one of the most embarrassing strategies i've ever seen but that's what leads me to believe these

Carter 13:18

these are legitimate people these are real people there is There's in my head, there was like, as I was reading the list of people, I was like, there is no fucking way. There's no fucking way that these are the guys out on the baseball stadium on one knee trying to propose to the woman that doesn't even like them.

Carter 13:34

It's just not going to be the case. Well,

Annalise 13:36

website too, right? Like when I first saw the letter on Twitter, I'm like, oh, this is weird. And then the draftmike.ca website, you would think perhaps there are conversations, but a few things there. Carter, you said this has been done before Common Strategy. Has it been done in terms of publicly like this with a leader from another party? Like, I think we need to be clear. These are two different parties. Well,

Carter 13:58

I think we have to exclude Raj Sherman from all of these discussions because Raj Sherman is literally, I think, run for every leadership in every party. But if you eliminate Raj Sherman, then it is fairly uncommon for one person to leave the leadership of a small party and become the leader of a big party. But on the other hand, part of this is we don't usually see small parties like this. We don't usually see small parties like this that have much in the way of leadership hope. I mean, most of the time what we see is a Green Party that's led by Elizabeth May. And people really don't even want her leading the Greens, let alone leading any other parties. So I think that this is it's unusual to be sure. But I don't I'm not sure that this is outside of all reasonable expectations. expectations and maybe cory you've got more thoughts yeah cory jump in there so

Corey 14:48

so i don't know of any perfect comp right i'll tell you that in the corporate world this happens all the time right you've got a small company and you've got a massive company but they say that small company has brilliant leadership and i'm i want that brilliant leadership so it all becomes almost a bit

Carter 15:03

bit of a reverse takeover right in

Corey 15:07

uh you know the example that immediately comes to mind for me is in 1942 when john bracken became leader of the conservative party of canada and changed his name to the progressive conservatives people misunderstand that all of the time they think it was it's like some sort of calibration or that they're progressive on social issues and conservative on fiscal no it was effectively a merger because john bracken was the premier of manitoba under the progressive banner which was a smaller banner but you know this was just after After the 30s, obviously, there was a big rise of labor movements. It was a different time. And so Bracken said he would run for leader and he was drafted in a kind of a similar fashion. There was like a draft Bracken campaign.

Corey 15:47

If they added the word progressive to the conservative party, you know, title, and then it was progressive hyphen conservative for many years and the hyphen eventually dropped, I believe. So, I mean, that's the example that immediately comes to mind. there

Corey 16:01

are other times where you have seen even in alberta um daniel

Corey 16:05

daniel smith was leader of one party decided she would go and join another party not the same but again it's not impossible for a leader to move to a different party i guess is what i want to underline but you

Corey 16:17

you know it's um it's it's improbable it's very weird uh and it's very odd that they would see a guy who won one seat as as their savior right this is um this is somebody that in the debate they during the the ontario provincial election that happened last year a lot of people said nice things about his performance i was not actually one of them we had a we had a debate yeah

Corey 16:42

you know one and we basically said he seems deeply mediocre but you know the other ones are seeming really aggressive and unlikable but like he didn't you know wow either of us i believe yeah

Carter 16:54

yeah no he wasn't but

Corey 16:55

but he wasn't that

Carter 16:55

that good but he also didn't have that big of a platform like he was coming from the greens right um

Corey 17:02

well and so we made the comment at the time that a lot of the time these these third or fourth party candidates are really well liked because they are third or fourth party candidates it costs you nothing to like them you can be a liberal partisan and like the green leader you can be a new democrat partisan like the green leader you can be a pc and like the green leader because there's no threat there uh and so i think if you're weighing it simply on the fact that people didn't hate him at that moment you're you're using a bad fact base yeah what

Annalise 17:30

what what about the open letter itself um and i think you both have read it carter if you learned how to find it oh

Carter 17:38

oh so cold what is what happened between us annalise was it me calling you naive was that what the issue was

Annalise 17:47

probably didn't help so

Annalise 17:49

carter has read the letter you found it you've read it that the contents itself right because they're they're strategy they're doing it in this open letter format was there anything that stood out anything you think that's great anything that you think that's terrible in in that letter uh i'll

Annalise 18:04

i'll let either of you weigh in um

Carter 18:06

um i think that this politics you know we're dissatisfied with politics as usual is something that i always makes me bristle um this idea that you know politics is we've got to change the way that politics is done you know the alberta party took this line there's um you've seen it over and over and over again people dismiss the politics of you know the politics of as usual and they don't like the the

Carter 18:30

the negativity and they don't like you know what cory said earlier about it's really easy to like a third party leader because they don't attack anybody they don't get it or like a small party leader they don't attack anybody they don't get attacked they get elected because of their name and their leadership of a small you

Carter 18:46

know one out of 130 what is 134 seats or whatever the numbers are that you know good for them it's easy to like them it's easy but it's it's harder when you're actually someone that could form the government um it's hard to like somebody who could form the government so i i think that this politics as usual complaint politics as usual is how you get elected. You get elected by slowly moving the game and becoming better at the game. You get elected by being able to find lots of people who like you, which is politics. I got an argument today with the proportional representation people. Again, the proportional representation people are never going to succeed because they don't understand what they're actually arguing for or what they're trying to achieve. I think that this is the same thing that we see all the time with small parties small parties think oh we can turn everybody around they're all going to love us all of a sudden because we don't do politics the same as everybody else yeah that means you're a loser the rest of us do politics the way we do because we've studied the art we look at it and we understand how to win and that is that is politics as usual politics as usual is about learning how to win basing it on 3 000 years of experience in democracies um some of which have have gone south and some of which haven't very

Corey 20:06

very very high-minded i guess pivot at the end i

Corey 20:10

history of democracy listen

Corey 20:12

listen when i look at this letter there's one line in particular that stands out for me and maybe not in the way that the drafters would want it to it's that we all agree on one thing our party needs to rediscover a politics of purpose and principle

Corey 20:27

so the implicit point there is that they don't believe that the liberal party of ontario has has purpose or principle why

Corey 20:34

why are these people in the party then like like i and you know and that's not actually that rhetorical i mean they're in the party because they're in the party they're partisan but you know they are they're basically admitting there is not a reason currently for the ontario liberal party to exist and that is flooring like that is shocking that they can't even say like we know what our purpose is as a political party what are what is a political party without out of purpose it's just a vehicle for power that has absolutely no you know no spine no core to it and that's that's bonkers it does lead into a bigger conversation about what is the purpose of a centrist liberal party in 2023 they don't seem to know and

Corey 21:11

and that should scare the hell out of people that the ontario liberal party doesn't seem to or at least these organizers don't seem to know why they exist as a political party really wild cory

Annalise 21:21

cory what about those 39 names um that are on it and i guess like playing it out with the two different scenarios so either these 39 people are the

Annalise 21:30

the core members of the campaign team or you

Annalise 21:33

you know what in the second scenario and keeping in mind that there are other people that are you know respected amongst the liberal party that have said they want to run what happens to these 39 people under scenario number two

Corey 21:48

under scenario two this is the one where um

Corey 21:50

um where it is all just like a draft campaign that's that's accepted by him or a scenario what's

Corey 21:57

our what's our number in here yeah

Carter 21:58

yeah who can tell i mean she's as good at this as zane was um no

Annalise 22:02

what's what what does um i forget which one was one and two now i've just been so engaged you guys this conversation but what what what does it mean for those 39 people under the scenario that mike has nothing to do with this and right

Corey 22:17

right Right. So it means different things to different people. All of them will, I think, should give some sort of questioning to that, whether they have any kind of sense of judgment. I mean, to put out a letter that says we're a good political party, all we need is a purpose. Let me cold call somebody we believe has a purpose. I mean, that just seems to undercut their party immensely. immensely but uh it really depends on who you are on this list like we can start with lucille collard who is a liberal mpp like in the legislature i

Corey 22:47

i that's a problem right i mean you basically endorsed the leader of another political caucus for

Corey 22:54

for the leadership of your party i don't quite know what to make of that i'm sure her colleagues will be very interested in that and depending on how everything shakes out in the next bit she may be in a position where she almost most like

Corey 23:06

okay like there's four people who everybody knows is in the race let's say one of those four wins she

Corey 23:12

she doesn't even have the cover of like if a fifth person comes in and says oh this person actually ended up being better you know than Shriner like better than I could have hoped I wash away all of my previous sins it's like you knew this person was in the race you endorsed the leader of the greens because they had purpose and principle you

Corey 23:30

you know there's a there's a kind of read between the lines on that particular one there and you know that person you know this liberal one what are you still doing here becomes the obvious question so her life gets very complicated if you're a long-time liberal or former liberal mpp or former cabinet member or even former leader because they have one of those on the list too from the early 90s i i mean it's you know in political parties these things ebb and flow you engage more you engage less maybe Maybe you're done with them forever, but it doesn't, I don't think it changes a lot in your life. You know, Zach Armstrong, riding president, probably also, you

Corey 24:08

you know, will be reassessing some things. But like, you know, it really just depends on what your role is on this list. Does

Annalise 24:13

Does that list, Carter, give you any indication on which of the two scenarios this is? Yeah,

Carter 24:20

Yeah, I mean, members of the Legislative Assembly don't go out on a limb like this without knowing how it's actually going to end. And I mean, we can see that right here in Calgary, right here in Alberta, like we have a lunatic in the premier's chair and a lot of sane MLAs aren't moving because it's insane to take that type of action without knowing how it ends. So I think that these MPPs know how it's going to end because they've been in rooms with this guy and they can see that he's going to run. he just needs them to build up the the momentum otherwise the cost is too high cory's point is right on cory's point like if this mp you know if the current mpps um don't succeed in moving him over and there's not a fifth candidate they're done in this party they're done so they may as well just go sit as an independent right now or better yet move to the fucking green party he's

Carter 25:16

he's already the leader of the green party you

Corey 25:18

you know it seems obvious yeah hey this person has principles principles and priorities and purpose i don't know i mean like you could bring the party to them one of the things that i want to throw on the table is we're talking about it as one or two but reality could be very different there's there's shades of gray here like there is a version of this and i actually think it might be one of the more plausible ones where some number of these people have talked to schreiner and schreiner has been you know not not that enthused about it or maybe played a little bit coy or if you get a little bit further on the spectrum saying saying you tell me that the liberal party can change you tell me the liberal party can be the vehicle that i want show me right and then they say okay well now we're being asked to show why

Annalise 26:00

why why do that in public though like why not do that well you

Corey 26:02

you wouldn't i mean like this is like this is the thing about it yeah

Carter 26:06

that falls apart as you

Carter 26:08

would because there is no there's

Carter 26:10

there's no means to do this publicly like this can't be i

Carter 26:14

i mean sure it can uh there's all kinds of inept politicians and and inept political organizers. So I shouldn't say this can't be what it looks like on the surface. But if there's any intelligence behind it, this is not what it looks like on the surface. It is a leadership campaign that is up and running. And I would be willing to bet a nickel or two that by the end of this week, he's running in this campaign or

Carter 26:37

at least is looking a lot more likely to be running. He may hold out just to wait for the rules like the others are. um but this isn't going to be a story that goes away in one news cycle because he said it you know he said he doesn't want to be the leader of the liberals so

Annalise 26:53

so if that is what it is and this was all just a plot that i fell for and we've now talked about it for 28 minutes good

Carter 27:02

we yeah if that's what it is it's a great strategy if it's the opposite it is the worst strategy in humankind perfect

Corey 27:10

well you know when you say that it does make me think boy

Corey 27:14

boy it It better be it better be just kind of the fake draft that we always see, because otherwise a lot of people involved in the worst strategy ever.

Annalise 27:24

to leave it there. I'm sure that's one we will revisit in the future. Next segment. Happy anniversary, truckers. So today is Sunday. It's the one year anniversary of the Freedom Convoy. boy um to market dozens of people gathered on parliament hill during a snowstorm and they told reporters they were there to say in the share the same message as last year no more vaccine mandates they shouted freedom they waved canadian flags um i even saw a video on twitter where they were wrapping their tents in saran wrap because it was snowing saran wrap um and then closer to home protesters returned to coots on the one year anniversary of the coots border blockade so different things to pick apart here but my first big question for you two and cory we can start with you on this one it's

Annalise 28:19

it's been a year since um those initial protests and since then we've seen conservative leaders win leadership contests by appealing to these convoy supporters um i'm I'm thinking of Danielle Smith and Pierre Polyev here. Over

Annalise 28:34

Over the coming year or years, as these leaders face general elections, I guess, what do you think their relationship with the convoy looks like? And what should that relationship look like if they want to win?

Corey 28:51

Yeah, well, so on one hand with Danielle Smith, I think that the spirit of the convoy really really obviously propelled her to the leadership. And she's beholden to that group in a way. I actually don't believe Pierre Poliev is. I think Pierre Poliev won so commandingly and with so many people from so many walks in his party that that was maybe grabbing a little bit of extra enthusiasm, trying to put out some fires around the People's Party of Canada. But I don't think his leadership hinges on the support of those individuals. And if they walked away from him, he would still have his leadership. So, but both of them are going to listen more or less depending on the strength of that particular wing. And so one of the interesting things always when people try to mark an anniversary like this is you can really expose how weak you've become as well, right? Or how irrelevant you've become. And having a couple dozen people show up on Parliament Hill, I

Corey 29:46

I don't know how familiar you are with the city of Ottawa, Annalise. And Stephen, I know you're not because nobody lets you into

Carter 29:52

into Ottawa. i'm not allowed yeah no

Annalise 29:54

i'm not a couple yeah

Corey 29:57

protest of a couple dozen people is called tuesday like every day there are protests of of you know a small group of people trying to do different things so so that doesn't really show a lot of strength now on the other hand they're

Corey 30:09

they're they're what what are they protesting at this point what are they fighting

Annalise 30:13

fighting for vaccine mandates cory

Annalise 30:15

still i mean do you see any you tell me that they're shouting freedom freedom they're waving their flags and

Annalise 30:21

and they're mad about vaccine mandates still a year later well

Corey 30:25

well there's always somebody who doesn't know when the party's over and the keg is dry and and these people might be that right because like it's just not relevant anymore to most canadians and i think that there's a funny thing you know my wife and i were talking about this we were watching the um you know the knives out movie glass onion oh so good yeah

Corey 30:43

yeah good movie uh but uh there's like a whole thing about it like it takes place during the pandemic so at certain points they're wearing masks and whatnot we we were kind of commenting, kind of made us both feel sort of uncomfortable even watching it. Not because we're opposed to masks. We think it was absolutely the right thing to do and you should continue to wear masks in a lot of situations where they're necessary or helpful.

Corey 31:03

But because we just don't want to remember like a time that was really shitty, right? And I think that's true of a lot of Canadians. And so, you know, they're sitting there, they're banging that drum. I think even people who are sympathetic to the convoy don't want to talk about it anymore. They don't to flip the page they don't want to talk about what i think them perhaps even more than many of us think of as a deeply miserable time carter

Annalise 31:27

carter you do want to talk about this and you uh you've you've got some thoughts uh so

Corey 31:34

so he loves talking about miserable

Annalise 31:36

talk about this you you tell us well

Carter 31:39

well i think that you know cory again is his uh right which is again like it's three times i think in the pod cory and it's just pissing me right off do

Corey 31:49

do it right today they

Carter 31:50

they they have no momentum right they're dead uh i do think that they have a stench about them uh and so the the smell of the convoy protests despite the fact that they're wrapping themselves in saran wrap that smell is permeating across canada whether it was the coots protesters today or it was the ontario It smells like rancid meat. And that smell is sticking to certain people. And I think that the smell will stick to Polyev more than Corey is suggesting, because although he chose to and found support amongst many different groups, he also chose to find the people who were, you know, the lockdown, the trucker protest gang. gang and really i think it's a misnomer to call it the trucker protest i mean i think it was the i think or the convoy protest i think ultimately it it was too too much focused on uh racism too much focused on um you know what i'm losing because there's all these other groups and too much based on the the trump type of uh messaging of where's mine why don't i get mine too so i I find the group, because it's died so quickly, that stench is going to follow it. And I think that that stench is going to land on Pierre Pauliev. And maybe Danielle Smith, Danielle Smith a little bit less because we have a bit bigger group of people that are willing to abide by the stench of rancid meat. But that's about it. You know, I think this analogy

Carter 33:23

analogy went too far for you, Corey?

Carter 33:26

Annalise liked it. Right,

Corey 33:28

Annalise? it fell apart yeah

Corey 33:30

fell apart like rancid meat yeah you

Annalise 33:32

you you went with that metaphor

Carter 33:35

well you got to commit this is one of the things we've learned annalise i mean you're still relatively new at this you got

Carter 33:41

got to commit to the bit right like that is our first rule so i can yeah and

Annalise 33:45

and you you committed um so i what was the point that you were getting at there carter you think the stench is still to poly

Carter 33:54

poly of especially i think the stench is going to stick around that's

Corey 33:57

that's That's so weird. I have no idea how you can say the things you said and come to the conclusion you drew there. So you think Danielle Smith has more support from the convoy, you know, is more engaged with it, and yet somehow it's going to affect her less and

Carter 34:11

and it's going to affect Pierre

Corey 34:12

Pierre-Paul Yves more. Because

Carter 34:15

I think that because they're Ontario and Quebec and the Maritimes in Newfoundland, I think that that is going to play way worse in those areas than it plays in Alberta. How can you say that Alberta is not its own little island of lunacy? I think that we are our own little island of lunacy. And to think otherwise is just kind

Carter 34:40

of ignoring the fact that we've got Danielle Smith as our premier right now.

Annalise 34:43

Corey, you think Carter's wrong based on your face, I can tell. I mean,

Corey 34:47

if we're sort of starting where we started, which is, where is convoy politics going to have a bigger effect? I think it's for sure in Alberta, right? And you seem to be looking at it entirely, Stephen, through the lens of like, well, the negative is not going to hurt her as much because it's Alberta. And I think that's ridiculous that you're thinking of it only in the downside sense, because this group did show it had significant power and momentum last year. It gave her the fucking premiership, for crying out loud. The power of that group matters in this province way more than it matters, way more than it matters in federal politics. It has already fundamentally changed politics in the province of Alberta, and it has the power to change politics again, depending on whether it shows up or not and how it shows up. Because if that group shows up, and they've got all of this cock and swagger, and they change the Conservative Party platform to something that's so deeply unpalatable to Albertans, and that's what we're talking about for 28 days during an election, they lose. lose if they are weakened that's

Carter 35:50

that's my point yeah the

Carter 35:51

the stench sticks to paul yeah and it doesn't stick to danielle maybe

Carter 35:55

maybe i should come up with a different analogy i

Annalise 35:58

you need a different uh

Annalise 36:01

uh different metaphor the stench is yeah

Corey 36:03

yeah yeah the stench is driving all our activity what about

Annalise 36:05

about the timing too though of the two like okay we're now talking about alberta

Annalise 36:10

alberta versus is federal and

Annalise 36:13

and the the timing of the elections is also different right we've got one election in the next couple months another probably after

Annalise 36:21

after that people's memories are short yes we're talking about this right now because it's the one year anniversary and there's a lot of think pieces and they're back there but how does that timing play into the um the

Annalise 36:33

the who the stench is sticking to carter run

Carter 36:36

just the more distance i mean but the more distance between the the rotting body and the election, the better. So, Polyev.

Corey 36:48

So, come to the conclusion. No, what

Carter 36:50

what are you saying? I'm saying that the stench sticks to, it's more of a negative in the rest of the country than it is in Alberta. It

Carter 37:00

It is less of a negative in Alberta. Which part are you missing on this?

Corey 37:05

It's like you walk right up to the most obvious conclusion conclusion and you you come to the opposite oh

Carter 37:10

oh my god how this

Carter 37:13

doesn't matter as much

Carter 37:14

got here the fighting has been intense intense

Annalise 37:19

people like it they say it's real it feels like it's not scripted is is this podcast scripted

Carter 37:25

card did you imagine thinking this shit was scripted like what would you be on oh

Annalise 37:32

god um okay so what what are our conclusions Carter, I'm still confused about what you're saying. So can you put it in simple

Corey 37:41

terms? Maybe drop the metaphor. Maybe the analogy is too much. I will explain it

Carter 37:44

it to you talking

Carter 37:48

In Alberta, there are more people who agree with the convoy and with the Coots protest, and they support Danielle. Danielle, because of that, her strength won't be weakened as much as

Carter 38:02

as Pierre Polyev's strength will

Carter 38:04

be weakened across the rest of Canada because

Carter 38:07

because of the pathetic nature of the convoy protests. Everybody's walked away from this thing. Everybody thinks it's pathetic, and Pierre Polyev still has to wear it. So my point is, now, Annalise,

Carter 38:20

did I make it as clear? This is

Corey 38:23

is insane. You just started,

Annalise 38:24

started, my point is, and then you didn't finish.

Annalise 38:27

Yeah, because I'm, I, my

Carter 38:30

point is this. Let me, let me. Hair sucks because of this. Danielle, who should suck, sucks less.

Corey 38:38

Okay. In Alberta, there are more people who support the convoy. Yes.

Corey 38:42

Convoy is a bigger issue in Alberta. Yes.

Corey 38:43

Yes. So logically, naturally, you have come to the conclusion that means it is less of a big deal in Alberta how popular the convoy is.

Carter 38:52

No, that's not what I said.

Carter 38:59

you know what you sit and marinate

Corey 39:00

marinate the listeners understand

Carter 39:02

understand the listeners understand and they're going to they're going to tear you apart on twitter hogan and annalise if it happens to you too it's happened to all of us okay you get used to it okay

Carter 39:15

you're going to just be ripped apart by our faithful listeners don't

Carter 39:19

don't even look at the discord sport next week it's gonna be tragic they're

Carter 39:23

they're gonna be all over you guys cory

Annalise 39:25

cory what do you disagree do you understand what carter's saying and do you disagree i

Corey 39:32

mean no one in the world could understand what carter is saying but i disagree with his if his fundamental thesis is pierre is in more trouble than daniel smith because of shifts in convoy politics i disagree i mean Pierre Palliev needed them less to win. Pierre Palliev has more time between the convoy and his election. I see no logical way you can come to the conclusion that convoy politics is more relevant to Pierre Palliev's future than Daniel Smith's future.

Carter 40:05

This is why I win. Of course it's more relevant to Daniel Smith's future. For his universities, making

Carter 40:08

making all the bank. This is why, right there.

Corey 40:14

You sure showed me.

Annalise 40:15

ending there. may have

Carter 40:18

have argued against my own point there at the end but a little bit smidge okay

Annalise 40:23

and do either of you have anything else to say on this topic because i'm still i'm still confused carter

Corey 40:32

you're naive you're young canadians are confused canadians

Corey 40:36

canadians canadians are confused deep

Corey 40:38

canadians don't quite know what to think about this and there's the moment and in in the moment, we all hated it. Polling was pretty clear, right? The convoy bad, right? Which is part of why it was so baffling that the conservatives were so all in on it at the moment. But with time, as we all want to forget it, people, you know, the jury seems to be a little bit out on how people are going to think about all of this in the future here. And ultimately, I don't think Ottowans who had to experience it are going to think very positively of it. But I think most of of us won't think anything about it at all and um if if there's more canadians out there who are saying yeah in general that time kind of sucked and those people were mad that it sucked as it just blurs and fades into history i just i don't you

Corey 41:23

you know we'll see what people ultimately think about the convoy and the protests in ottawa but you know my answer right now is i suspect

Corey 41:31

they're not going to think much about it and those who do are just going to mash it all together with with a miserable time and sort of say, I guess it makes sense that they were there because we were all fucking miserable. And

Annalise 41:39

And do we think the one year anniversary is a one day story or these dozens of people are going to call their friends this week and it's going to slowly grow and we're going to be back to where we were a year ago?

Corey 41:52

doesn't look like it's got the same energy. The snowstorm helps, quote unquote helps as well. Makes it less appealing. They've got got saran wrap man yeah that's so good you know just as we're all taught in wilderness class right when you hit a snowstorm you you get out your glide or your glade a cling wrap right that's

Corey 42:13

that's the good stuff and then uh and then you're fine you

Annalise 42:15

you know about the outdoors no totally

Corey 42:18

yeah i mean look i can't help but you know be surrounded by it and sometimes it comes indoors because i have a very old house so i

Corey 42:26

don't know uh i just i don't think that it's going to become a thing again i everybody is so ready for it the ottawa police know that they would be disbanded if something like that occurred again just seems unlikely okay

Annalise 42:40

okay carter no last words from you

Carter 42:43

no i think i've made my point perfectly oh

Carter 42:50

i could not be more clear love

Annalise 42:52

love it um okay we're gonna move into the lightning round you're You're probably thinking, hey, that's a little early, but it's going to be a long lightning round. Here's the thing, Carter. I know you don't care about the audience. How can it be a long lightning

Annalise 43:04

round? Listen, I know you

Annalise 43:06

you don't care about listeners at all. I don't. But I do a little bit. And they gave me some ideas on Twitter of things we should talk about. Lots of them were maybe not enough for a full segment. so we're going to do like a kind of most

Carter 43:25

most of them i'm

Carter 43:26

aren't enough for even a question i've read those things on twitter some

Annalise 43:33

uh some of them are and um first we're going to start with one that is mine not um from twitter and then we'll move up yeah we're going to start strong um

Annalise 43:44

so first of all so lightning round again carter just a reminder the way i run it it's like fast answers it's not like hours and hours you think it's

Corey 43:54

it's lightning i just realized now you think it's like lightning like the bolts it's lightening like we unburden ourselves yeah but it's like it's

Annalise 44:01

it's like quick it's speedy

Corey 44:03

speedy this is the light i

Annalise 44:03

i like red no

Corey 44:04

no no it's the it's like we get rid of the weight that is in our brains it's the lightning round yeah well

Corey 44:11

yeah all this time you thought it was lightning in the beginning oh

Annalise 44:15

i told you i didn't listen to that many many previous episodes and then people were like at the end they just do this like rapid fire thing i'm like perfect love it um so the first one the alberta party had an interesting video endorsement they posted online last week um

Annalise 44:31

um carter did you see did you see this video no

Annalise 44:34

know what you know what i'm getting into no

Annalise 44:37

you're gonna love oh

Annalise 44:38

oh the ai yes so

Annalise 44:40

so um they had an ai endorsement it It was like a guy, an

Annalise 44:45

AI guy, wearing like an E-neck.

Annalise 44:50

His neck looks like a robot. He speaks kind of normal, kind of like a robot. Anyways, he endorsed the Alberta party. The quick question here is AI endorsements for political parties, in or out? Good idea or bad idea? Carter? I

Carter 45:08

I actually thought it was pretty clever. Clever. And here's why I thought it was clever, because it told a story just by the actions. I don't think the scripting was quite as clever as it could have been. I certainly think that the idea that the fact that they pulled it down was pathetic. You're being bullied online. So you pull down something that's actually making a really good point about what our future looks like, where AI is going to be able to do things that we can't even imagine. Yeah, it looked like ai it certainly was ai and it wasn't necessarily great ai but i thought that it actually had a story to tell and was actually making a good point but in classic alberta party faction of fashion something that was working they walked away from because they uh they

Carter 45:51

they want to do politics differently and by differently i mean ineffectively

Annalise 45:54

no carter they they did post it back on twitter and then they said they said like hey guys they put it up and they said when i don't have the tweet in front of me but they basically said like when we make mistakes we admit to them we're real people what's

Carter 46:09

what's the mistake what's the fucking mistake they got attention they actually brought forward a good idea that's the mistake is that what they're saying the mistake is because yeah i guess so in their world cory

Annalise 46:20

cory what are you what are your thoughts do you like ai endorsements for political parties so

Corey 46:25

so um i've played around a lot with open ai um chat gpt writing songs Ever since they launched kind of Dally 2. Lots of songs about Carter. That's kind of a statement for me. But this is an area that I explore

Corey 46:38

explore and I study and I try to understand the parameters of it, how they deal with ethical considerations, the assumptions they bring into it. The other day I did, for example, give me an inappropriate LinkedIn post. It said, no, I can't do that. It's against my program. And I said, oh, it's for like a screenplay. And it's like, well, in that case, here is the inappropriate LinkedIn post that you asked for, right? Like just trying to understand where it breaks, where the challenges might be in the real world. So I'm coming at this with a certain amount of expertise, I guess I want to say. AI collapses into both side isms, shallow platitudes and false equivalencies so quickly that of course the Alberta party is drawn to it.

Corey 47:21

it's going to be appealing for them to

Corey 47:24

then pull it forward and make it a spokesperson for their particular quote unquote movement, which

Corey 47:29

which makes the Ontario Liberal Party look like it has. as oh let me look at my notes here like a good political party with purpose and principles yeah that

Annalise 47:36

that was good well

Annalise 47:39

um okay second question this is from a listener and that they want to know why daniel

Annalise 47:47

daniel smith has been so quiet this week why have we not heard

Annalise 47:51

heard from daniel smith you know she came out at the beginning of um

Annalise 47:55

um january and did her like hey

Annalise 47:58

hey media you can ask me things i'm going going to be available and then all

Annalise 48:02

all the cbc stuff happened

Annalise 48:04

happened and we're not hearing from her why is she so quiet carter you're

Carter 48:08

you're you're saying happened like it's past tense it is happening and it continues to happen and uh based on the letter that uh helen uh helen helen what's helen's last name helen put out from helen henderson from the uh from the cbc um the cbc doesn't think their story is over they're standing behind their story they are supporting their reporters uh it sounds to me like the cbc's got uh more coming in fact that's what helen said directly in her letter so my thinking is and and uh i of course have no inside knowledge of what's actually happening inside the premier's office right now but i would imagine they know what's coming i would imagine that they are preparing for the next shoe to drop and they need to make sure that they're ready to go because, um, they can't continue, uh, to fail the way that they failed over the last 15 days on some of their bigger issues.

Annalise 49:02

mean, you don't think the, um, the statement from Smith saying that the story was a defamation was a good strategy, Carter?

Carter 49:11

I think that, um, first of all,

Carter 49:13

premiers and premier, you know, you don't get the cry, uh, defamation, um, when you're sitting in the premier's office that's just lunacy um but secondly i think that they're i think that they misunderstand where they are in the overall story cycle uh they think that they're at the end and i think that they're just at the beginning yeah

Corey 49:34

yeah that's really well put they they assumed that when the shoe didn't immediately drop that they were out of the woods and they got cocky in a hurry and they had a lot of swagger but there's a lot of reason to believe and

Corey 49:46

and we talked about this in our last couple of episodes if we know nothing else we know the cbc has more than one deeply planted source in the ucp government i would not be bringing this kind of swagger if i were her okay

Annalise 49:58

okay um next question also

Annalise 50:01

also from a listener can

Annalise 50:02

can you talk why are

Carter 50:03

are we doing it like because

Annalise 50:06

i care about the audience more than you do carter and people have questions they want you specifically specifically you carter to talk about nova scotia politics go you

Carter 50:19

know i saw this and i thought to myself i better prepare for some sort of uh nova

Carter 50:24

nova scotia question and then i didn't uh and you know what i don't even feel bad no one gives a fuck about nova scotia politics actually

Carter 50:32

actually that's not true we do cover it when we do election when there's an election there

Corey 50:36

but between elections We didn't do a great job this time.

Annalise 50:40

Corey, is there something happening in Nova Scotia that we should be aware about?

Corey 50:45

There's always something happening in Nova Scotia. Happening place. Going through a lot of dynamic change right now because pandemic. The Maritimes did such a good job, I think, of keeping COVID numbers down. It became such a draw and it's obviously very beautiful. And when you could work remotely, it brought in a lot of people. So a lot of the pressures we're seeing in the rest of Canada are kind of hitting Nova Scotia shores in a way that they haven't for the first time in a long time, with increased costs, you know, what that means for the communities around there. They've got a PC party that seems to be taking the different model from the Conservative Party federally, and that they're becoming more moderate, more P than C, right? right? With Houston. I think there's a lot we could potentially draw from there. And, um,

Corey 51:29

you know, now is probably not the time because such a disservice to Nova Scotia to just put it out in the lightning round, really. I mean, I thought you had some respect for our listeners and Elise, but, uh, I guess it'll have to wait for another day. Maybe when Stephen is load of shit,

Carter 51:45

was so low. What did you chat? Did you type that in in the chat gpt before you fucking answered is that what you did is

Carter 51:53

that what that was no

Corey 51:58

i spent the first nine years of my life in nova scotia i have some nova scotia roots here and uh i'm happy to talk about my home province at a later date when you're actually up to we

Annalise 52:09

we do a whole episode on it um this

Annalise 52:12

this is a quick yes no question and it says is it more likely that zane's new baby will get a new computer before carter does well

Annalise 52:22

well here's the thing yes no carter well

Carter 52:24

well here's what i understand my

Carter 52:26

my understanding is that zane uh is not available for tonight's show because he was actually doing online shopping to try and buy his new baby an ipad uh he learned that from cory very early in the game you know young children are are able to work on ipads so given

Carter 52:43

given cory's propensity to buy ipads for children i'm not sure why i didn't just ask cory for another ipad but yeah

Corey 52:49

yeah i got like three within eyesight i'm in my kids playroom

Annalise 52:52

playroom baby gifts guys um

Annalise 52:55

um listen we're still angry

Carter 52:57

angry about that because we had to actually go out and buy a fucking baby gift because of you you're

Annalise 53:02

you're blaming it on me it

Carter 53:04

it was your fault we didn't get we weren't expected to do anything it

Annalise 53:08

i brought it up

Annalise 53:09

and then you have our relationship i don't i don't care about listeners i don't care about the audience and then people were saying you guys are mean why haven't you gotten him a gift and then you came to the peer pressure and you got him a gift cory what gifts did he get you nothing didn't

Annalise 53:21

didn't get me nothing annalise

Carter 53:22

annalise you had a baby last year did he get you anything nothing

Annalise 53:25

nothing not off yeah

Annalise 53:28

okay We've got a couple more important questions, Carter. Here's one. How can the NDP leverage interest groups like unions in the lead up to the election?

Carter 53:44

it's become much harder because of the new laws that I think they brought in and then the UCP strengthened the prohibit donations to election financing from unions. Unions at this stage are basically hamstrung to communicating only with their members, and even then, it may not be wise for them to be communicating about election issues lest they be referred to the elections commissioner. So my thinking is that if they hadn't used the union membership lists and the union communications options last year when the Elections Act didn't apply in the same fashion, then they really are going to be in trouble. Because almost every one of those options for using unions

Carter 54:37

unions and using labor and other associations, almost all of them are gone because of the Elections Act and the changes, especially that the UCP made. So my sense is they probably didn't get their shit together, but the unions probably did. So there was probably some communication from unions to their membership through last year that they're hoping will carry into next year or this year, I guess.

Annalise 55:04

Corey, do you have anything to add to that one?

Corey 55:07

Yeah, look, there are interest groups. Find common interest. It doesn't necessarily need to just be about ads and spending money and having volunteers on lists. Open doors, make statements, encourage their sharing. The fact of the matter is unions, other interest groups, they include, they have their own machines,

Corey 55:26

machines, right? And they have their own groups and their own identification and their own group interest. And in politics, you're always trying to assemble coalitions of those groups. And these are more organized than most. So by all means, continue to treat them as very important stakeholders within the process and move forward. Just know that Stephen's right. The rules are now a little bit different as we've gotten closer to an election, but it doesn't need to fundamentally change things. And simply because there are limits and reporting requirements doesn't mean there's not still value. But

Carter 55:53

But I want to jump on that because what you're saying, like now

Carter 55:56

now you get to treat them like every other social network, right? So when you're campaigning at this stage, politicians should be focused on accessing different, as many social networks as they can, whether it's the neighborhood hockey team, the neighborhood soccer team, the cricket team, whatever they may be, or union members in the region. If there happens to be a disproportionate member, number of members in your, in your riding, bringing those union members together, that's accessing the social networks. And that's what, that's what they can be doing all the time. And that's probably the most effective, uh, the most effective use. I just would be very, very careful, uh, to make sure that you're not overstepping the, uh, the shitty rules. You want to make sure

Corey 56:40

sure you're reporting any of that stuff. This is, this

Carter 56:42

is terrible rules, but you know, uh.

Corey 56:46

Oh, we can go into them. Like, I got to tell you, so in my time in government, they must have opened the Election Act four times,

Corey 56:52

maybe five, because it was just whack-a-mole, right? Like, the thing is, and we've talked about this on the pod, but I just want to kind of say again, we went from what was more of a principles-based approach, which is the way everything else in the world is going towards in

Corey 57:04

terms of accounting and whatnot, which is, you know, you've got to maintain the spirit of these things. And we're not going to write out a bunch of very specific rules. We're just going to say you can't act in a shitty fashion. And we went to a rules-based approach where we delineated everything you were allowed to do. But in the process of doing so, we created a guidebook for everything you're allowed to do. And people started looking for loopholes and ways around it. And because it was no longer principles-based, right? Like, this kind of collusion is bad. And then it became this kind of collusion in this way is bad. They're like, well, how about in these other ways then? You know, in this way, that way, the other way. And the number of unintended consequences that were created and had to be addressed time and time and time again. This is the problem whenever you have a rules-based system. And maybe we need one because we're in such steeply cynical times. Principles don't seem to be carrying us very far. My goodness, the Ontario Liberal Party apparently doesn't even have any, if you listen to these open letter writers. But it

Corey 57:57

it causes its own set of problems, for sure. But

Carter 57:59

But this is, I mean, and we should probably do a whole episode on the Elections Act and how it's been morphed because it's also the Federal Elections Act. Because they created these rules of how to do these things, you know how many TPAs there were in 2012? Zero. Didn't need to be TPAs. All the money went to the parties. The parties then used the money to talk about their principles. And now there's TPAs all over the place. And each one is, you know, was given the rule book by Elections Alberta. And now there's almost as much money on the TPA side as there is in the actual parties. Totally bastardizing the system. them and

Corey 58:42

when you consider how much more money is in the parties than there was in 2012 as well like just you know it's quite a quite a sea change in terms of third-party voices

Annalise 58:52

yeah lots to dig into there and we can um we

Annalise 58:54

we can do that in the future not right now last one i'm not going

Carter 58:57

going to because it was an audience question and we don't give a shit about the audience you

Annalise 59:01

you just don't care right annalise

Annalise 59:03

you two don't care i do a little no

Annalise 59:06

do like cory cares carter does not care zane

Corey 59:09

zane doesn't care okay carter

Corey 59:11

carter really doesn't care zane just pretends not to care yeah and i care but only out of a sense of professionalism but i actually have the most disdain okay so that's that's kind of because you're a professional you can

Corey 59:20

pick a spot i said

Annalise 59:21

said i care a little um

Annalise 59:22

um so the last one a

Annalise 59:25

a little last one is someone wants um your takes i i'm gonna read this directly but there's some uh some

Annalise 59:33

some shortening they can't

Carter 59:34

can't even write can they they can't even fucking write you can't

Annalise 59:37

can't even read it aloud i'm gonna say the shortened things because it is the character limit carter your takes about the government's about face to reach out to the feds about the just transition and ask for a f to f with jt a face-to-face with justin trudeau this goes against the bluster and verbal confrontation approach which was an epic fail IMO, in my opinion. Carter, what's your take?

Carter 1:00:03

the United Conservative Party told Justin Trudeau, we don't want your resources. We don't want your money. We don't want to help the 10,000 people in Calgary that are out of work, the 30,000 people that are out of work in the province that lost their jobs, not because of regular ebb and flow of the economy, me, but lost their jobs because of the changes that occurred in the oil patch and in oil and gas. People say, oh, there's lots of jobs in oil and gas. There are jobs in oil and gas. They're not the same jobs that there used to be. And the people who've been orphaned, the people who've been left behind are the ones that, you know, the geophysicists, the geologists, the senior engineers, the people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, they had been working for these companies for 20, 30, 30, 40 years. And now there's no jobs for them. And they were making real good money, but not enough to just stop working for the rest of their lives. And now the government is going back hat in hand because they recognize they need the federal government's resources if we're actually going to make a difference in these people's lives. And that's why I was pissed at the NDP, because the NDP are supposed to care about people. And they should have stood up and said, I don't care what the fuck you call it. You got to make sure that we're taking care of the the people who've been left behind by the changes that have been made whether it's in the coal industry the oil industry the gas industry whatever industry is shifting we got to try and make sure that we're not leaving people behind because as the alberta party accurately pointed out ai is taking all of our jobs cory

Corey 1:01:38

no no no no this this might actually be brilliant no

Corey 1:01:42

this might actually be a brilliant move by daniel smith and it's a brilliant move only made possible by rachel notley coming out in opposition to these things right because now it's the old only nixon could go to china argument right this is a deal that danielle smith can make without getting the blowback and her ability to make it now is freed up by rachel notley opposing it because if it had been a case where danielle smith then went to

Corey 1:02:08

to you know imagine rachel notley did not take the step she took and danielle smith said actually now i want to talk to the prime minister. Everything Stephen said would be right, right? It would be all of a sudden it's an about face. They're finally coming around to a reasoned argument that the NDP was at for a long time. It becomes a difficult thing for them during the election. But because Rachel Notley opposed it, opposition became universal in the province of Alberta. Danielle Smith then had the ability to say, we all hate it, but now I'm offering you the olive branch. Let's sit down. Let's make a deal. And if she makes a deal, she takes off the table the idea that she can't work with Justin Trudeau. Like, it actually rat fucks Rachel Notley and the NDP rather brilliantly, if you're the UCP, if she manages to pull something off here, because they

Corey 1:02:54

they won't know whether they're coming or going. And the challenge that the NDP will have with their own base will be like, let's just play this out. Let's say Daniel Smith gets a deal. What are your choices as Rachel Notley? You applaud the deal, you oppose the deal. deal what's

Corey 1:03:06

what's going to happen internally the ndp if they oppose a deal what's

Corey 1:03:09

what's going to happen internally in the ndp if they support the deal like it it is the reason why rachel notley making the decision she did in terms of opposing those federal supports was such a dangerous tactic was because it wasn't actually her view right and it splits her party as a result no amount of nuancing and saying i didn't say i opposed it i said i opposed it at this time is going to help because we'll be talking about a deal at this time yeah

Carter 1:03:35

yeah i mean that's a really good point cory i mean

Carter 1:03:39

they really did screw i mean both of us acknowledge

Carter 1:03:42

acknowledge that a large portion of this is because the ndp took the position that they took if the ndp don't take that position then this moves not on the table and i don't necessarily like this move for danielle smith i think it's It's still, you know, the wrong tone, the wrong tenor. But your point about Rachel making this available is super, super strong, which again, just pisses me off.

Corey 1:04:12

You'll get over it. You'll get

Annalise 1:04:13

get over it. I'm so angry. See,

Annalise 1:04:15

that last one was a good listener question. So listeners, more questions like that.

Annalise 1:04:21

We're going to leave it

Corey 1:04:22

it there. So implicitly what she's saying is, implicitly

Corey 1:04:25

implicitly she's saying listeners whose questions were not like that, pick

Annalise 1:04:29

pick up your socks. And what she's

Carter 1:04:30

she's saying is the

Annalise 1:04:31

the first four sucked.

Carter 1:04:33

first four sucked, but this one was okay. Well,

Annalise 1:04:34

Well, I didn't read all

Carter 1:04:35

them, Carter. After you reworded

Carter 1:04:37

After you reworded it. I

Annalise 1:04:38

I didn't read all of them either.

Annalise 1:04:40

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1032 of The Strategist. My name is Annalise Klingbeil, and with you, as always, Stephen Carter and Corey Hogan.

Carter 1:04:52

Transcript