Episode 1076: Alberta NNDP

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 1076. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's going on? It's Father's

Carter 0:10

Father's Day. Happy Father's Day, Zain. Your first official Father's Day.

Zain 0:17

This is true. It's my first Father's Day. Unlike you, Corey, you've had several Father's Days and several children. That's

Corey 0:24

That's true. Can I tell you, my daughter, my oldest daughter. wow just way to make it about

Corey 0:30

quickly yeah but go ahead that's fine go ahead she she was born in june yeah okay

Corey 0:34

okay and uh mother's day anyone familiar with when mother's day is in may

Corey 0:39

it's in may so the may before my daughter was born uh

Corey 0:45

uh my wife was suggesting perhaps we should do something to mark mother's day and i said well you're not a mother yet i got a lot of

Corey 0:51

of trouble for that i seem to recall

Corey 0:53

recall that i want you

Carter 0:54

you to say that on the podcast podcast i

Zain 0:57

didn't go i don't know no

Zain 1:00

was a different time it was a different it was a

Corey 1:02

a different time yep but father's

Corey 1:04

father's day occurred after my daughter was born so i got a barbecue for that particular father's day and

Zain 1:08

and when you say you got a barbecue tell me i've never used it for my children yeah no it's just you mean like oh you okay sorry sorry you mean you physically got a bar i thought he meant like you got a barbecue party was hosted in your honor yeah that's what i was trying to no i

Corey 1:20

i physically got a barbecue which again i've never shared or used for anybody about myself well yeah not

Carter 1:27

we've not been invited you have we seen okay

Zain 1:30

okay i need to be clear about this yeah

Zain 1:34

byproduct of the barbecue is the food made on the barbecue has that been shared with you for me no for me it

Carter 1:40

it only does vegetarian it's

Carter 1:41

it's never seen you know meat it's true you do each you do eat uh very

Corey 1:46

very shitty food you eat terrible now people are going to be thinking is this a real thing is he not letting the barbecue be used by other people i am one of of those people are you talking about this you think i'd waste three minutes i would say you you've eaten food off of that barbecue i've given you food from that barbecue before you

Carter 2:01

you invite him so

Zain 2:04

i have never okay i

Zain 2:06

i barely know where

Corey 2:07

where you live you have both been to my house and then on those occasions i have not been to your house

Corey 2:12

not been to your house this is a lie it was good wow

Zain 2:15

wow it was just powering right through the fact that i have not been to his house this is insane it was probably another brown person at your home moment okay

Corey 2:26

do you recall when i lived in that apartment there was an apartment i have pictures no i don't know

Carter 2:31

recall going to annalise's first birthday which

Corey 2:34

many years ago yeah that

Corey 2:36

wasn't in that apartment okay i'm

Carter 2:39

i'm just saying that we haven't been to your place for a long time i was invited

Zain 2:41

invited to your house but i didn't go you know what

Carter 2:43

what i think it is i think lori doesn't like it i think that's what it is if

Carter 2:47

if i'm honest carter

Zain 2:47

carter how was your father's day it

Carter 2:49

was great kids came over in the morning um then they buggered off quick which was fantastic

Carter 2:55

uh best part about being a dad with kids that live somewhere else is they leave

Carter 3:00

fantastic excellent yeah i'm

Zain 3:02

i'm very close to that myself so yes

Zain 3:04

he's almost six months old so we're almost we're almost there yeah

Zain 3:07

we're almost there yeah you you you you you are born uh you eat cantaloupe you hate it and then you leave that is the velge track uh that's how we did generally we have done you did

Corey 3:17

did it's what your dad did yes it's

Zain 3:18

it's what generations of us have done uh anything else carter oh there is actually one thing else cory and it's directed to you uh cory we have done it sunwing has no is no longer an airline west jet is going to roll it up into uh their their overarching uh business unit cory we did it again i don't know how we've done we're in a fucking hot streak here carter i

Corey 3:40

else like nothing else yeah we

Zain 3:42

we We are shutting down

Corey 3:43

down these airlines. The same strategy. No one's fucking business, man. If you never leave the gate, they can't come to the gate. Guys,

Carter 3:52

It works on more

Corey 3:53

more than one airline.

Zain 3:54

Carter, it's like an illegal screen by an airline. What do you

Carter 3:55

you think? First of all, the illegal screen shouldn't be illegal. That's the same joke

Carter 3:59

And secondly, let me tell you this. I flew on Air Canada on

Carter 4:06

I flew one way on Friday, and then I couldn't get back home, so I actually slept in an airport. port so if i'm pretty cranky uh i'd like us to start picking on uh air canada if that's at all possible what do you think no

Zain 4:16

no no no that's not what we do here what no that's not do

Carter 4:19

do i have any say in this podcast at all like i mean you never have i'm

Zain 4:22

i'm gonna you never have carter and you have no say in our next segment i need some segment in our first and only segment what carter core you're like breathing in before i am about to just i'm gonna kill him listen to

Corey 4:32

to those cake sounds like you remember just before we recorded

Zain 4:34

recorded cake sounds they're they're they're fork on plate sounds carter

Zain 4:39

carter why why why do you hold on now i have to ask you a question do you get cake for father's day is this a thing i should be expecting that my family isn't delivering cory makes barbecue for himself no we don't get cake no we don't get i got cake

Zain 4:54

no it's do you always get it's

Carter 4:56

it's a carrot cake with uh infused with beet and uh uh

Carter 5:00

uh sweet potato so So mostly it's like a cast. It is more than our

Zain 5:04

our first segment. Oh, God. Path forward, guys. Thank God. This is what he's wrecking

Corey 5:08

wrecking your audio for people. Yeah,

Zain 5:10

Yeah, this is this is good. It's pretty tasty. Carter, Corey, I want to talk about I want to talk about the NDP with the Alberta NDP path forward. Rachel Notley is back. She had a press conference this week. She said she's staying on as leader for now. I want to talk about what the strategy for the Alberta NDP is going forward. There's been a lot of speculation about leadership change and when and party policy and party name. But what I want to start is at a more fundamental level. I want to ask you guys, what are the right questions to be asking right now? Because the media environment is clearly focused on the questions that are big and existential. And you guys might lead me in that direction around party brand, party name, etc. But the questions I want to ask you to start with, Carter, are what are the questions the Alberta NDP should be asking themselves in this moment? Still off a loss, still trying to figure out who takes on certain critic roles, what their overall strategy is, heading into the summer, heading into the fall. So the question I want to ask you to start with, and maybe I'll give Stephen Carter the first shot at this and we can yes and it and build a list together, are what questions should the Alberta NDP be asking themselves right now, Carter? Carter. How

Carter 6:20

How do you get to financial security? Right. So elections are are costs, costly little endeavors. You

Carter 6:28

You know, I would imagine that the NDP did very well financially through the course of the election. And, you know, but there's probably still some some things that need to be cleaned up. And how do you get yourself into a financial situation where you're able to to run another election relatively quickly?

Carter 6:44

As I have said a couple of times on the podcast, money can I

Zain 6:47

I can Can I just interrupt you? Why do you say relatively quickly? Is there something that you're trying to tease out there? I'm getting there. Okay, okay,

Carter 6:53

okay, okay. I'll let you do it.

Corey 6:56

He was about to drop some

Carter 6:57

some wisdom on us. I was about to do the whole money is the currency of politics thing. Oh, my God. Now I'm not going to be able to plug the special mug.

Zain 7:04

Here's what I want, Corey. I want a poster of that poster. Okay, that's what I want in the store very quickly. Carter, go back to you. But

Carter 7:12

opportunity to raise money should be grabbed. And I think the best way to grab that is to focus on something that I think is very real. And that is, um, Rachel

Carter 7:21

Rachel or Rachel Notley, Danielle Smith is going to be facing a leadership review. Uh, and for all we know, Rachel Notley will face a leadership review as well. But for now we're focused on, um, what's going to happen in the next little while. And for the NDP to be truly successful, I think they need to focus on, um, being ready should something happen at the Danielle Smith leadership review. you

Carter 7:43

know there's a very real possibility that danielle is not the leader very soon and uh not necessarily that we could go back into another election but that elections the the it's going to be fluid and that fluidity gives them all kinds of different opportunities and i think that the other thing they need to do is not focus on what the media wants them to focus on who's the leader what's the leadership process going to look like those types of things if rachel notley is happy to be the leader for the next um 20 to 18 months or 18 to 20 months um then let her be the leader don't worry about leadership politics and shit like that build the party up make yourself successful and strong and then you can start thinking about other things corny

Carter 8:29

corny wanted to jump in here yeah

Corey 8:31

yeah uh as carter was taught like so first of all my reaction when carter started when he started with money and you know and staying ready at first i thought thought,

Corey 8:40

what a bonkers top of the list, like, how fucking crazy is that? But it's actually 100% correct, in a way, and I might have phrased it a bit differently. But, you know, I have said before, and I'll say again, one of the reasons why I think the NDP was successful in 2015, is because they didn't allow themselves to get distracted by the same things the Wild Rose got distracted by, the Liberals got distracted by, the Alberta Party got distracted by. And this was a time when all of those organizations were actually political parties with representation in the legislature and could conceivably have become something right but they were way into the existential stuff that i suspect we're going to get into in a minute and i suspect a lot of the ndp wants to get into and the ndp were pretty clear on who they were they were pretty clear on what they needed to do and they were fucking dressed and ready for the bus and one of the things that has been the ndp's great success in the past 10 years in my opinion is they know know when it's time to put their pants on. And so it would be a real shame if as part of thinking about what NDP 2.0 is or 3.0 or however you want to kind of number it, they lost that. So there is kind of a foundational readiness. We are an organization that exists to fight elections, and we need to maintain that readiness, particularly in times of, let's

Corey 9:55

let's call it political uncertainty being kind of the baseline in Alberta. They need to continue to maintain a a certain amount of readiness and so i actually agree with steven like i when he started talking i was about to jump down his throat but he's actually right the first thing they need to do as a foundation before they start thinking about everything else think about this as like maslow's hierarchy of political organization needs right they need to make sure that they maintain their viability as a political organization and they're ready no matter what comes so

Zain 10:24

so cory i want to give you a chance to add to this list but can we talk about money for a second sure if you

Corey 10:30

it's not just money.

Carter 10:32

It's, it's, yeah, there's a number of different pieces. Let

Zain 10:35

me, let me talk about the messaging for money. Carter, I'll give you a shot at this first. Would it just be strict oppositional messaging that they've been used to over the course of the past four years to raise the dollars? Or do you, because do you have any other lever here? Do you have any sort of government in waiting for, exactly, but do you even need to play the government in waiting or like propositional element now that you're so so fresh off an election and you need to refill the bank? Are you just going straight after Daniel Smith as an extension of that strategy? Talk to me about the

Zain 11:03

the overall messaging for money. How would you start thinking about that?

Carter 11:07

I'd be showing the

Carter 11:09

the government in waiting structure. Still? Well, not

Carter 11:14

not still, because I just don't think that the NDP are particularly good at showing the government in waiting structure. I think that the NDP is particularly good at punching um and the punching has been solid i mean i like we like the negative uh messaging we were probably the biggest cheerleaders for the negative stuff that you guys did congratulations ain't i thought it was some really great stuff um but right

Carter 11:35

right now you need to actually show people what they're missing show you know like it's it's kind of an extension of what i was saying with the um you know instead

Carter 11:43

instead of shitting on the on the new cabin ministers set the expectations set the expectations out and that expectations needs to be set so that we can have some sort of um real

Carter 11:57

real ndp opposition party that says this is what the government would look like right the government would look different and that that to me is is what the ndp must do as as they go through this is stop talking about what uh

Carter 12:14

uh how the ucp is wrong And instead start showing what we would get as Albertans if the NDP were actually in government.

Corey 12:24

Corey, same question to you. Do you agree with Carter's take?

Corey 12:28

To raise money? No. I mean, I think that the work that he's described is work that needs to happen, and it will pay dividends. But to raise money, I think we have a rather tragic amount of evidence that what you do to raise money is you push people's buttons. and you make people feel as though the sky might fall if you don't get that $5 today.

Corey 12:48

Don't feel great about that. Like, as I say it, I'm like, man, what a downer. Maybe that's part of why we're in this situation we're in as a society. But I think we all know that that's what actually gets people to open their pocketbooks.

Zain 13:01

Corey, I'll give you an opportunity to add to the list. We've got money slash readiness co-created by both of you. Thank you, Carter. Yeah, no, no. Please tell us more about the cake, never. Never. Corey, what else would you add to money and readiness?

Corey 13:14

Well, once you've built there, you go up the list on the pyramid, right? What is the reason that you exist? Start talking about policy, start talking about your name, start talking about your leader. And I think those are the things that the NDP need to determine next. And maybe I'll put one that's almost, fuck, you know, again, my hesitation on all of this is, I saw a lot of political parties for a long time in alberta sweat these things a lot when probably what mattered most of all is that they had a sense of mission and they were ready to go which is what the ndp had and so the ndp could very easily backslide here into kind of the classic opposition morass that i think defined this province's politics for a very very long time explain

Zain 13:56

explain that to me like as if i'm a layman um on this particular point yeah what do you mean by this morass yeah

Corey 14:03

yeah i'll use the alberta liberal party as an example because of course i was quite close to that for those who aren't familiar i was executive director of that party uh some time ago when they were the official opposition and they were constantly consumed with what they needed to do to break out of where they felt stuck now they were stuck in a very different place where the ndp

Corey 14:24

some people think are stuck i'm not amongst them

Zain 14:27

them i actually think that

Corey 14:27

that you know but for a couple thousand votes we'd be having totally different conversations right now but there is um you know Maybe we need to change our name. We're too close to the federal liberals.

Corey 14:40

Maybe we need to do a merger with another political party. Maybe we need to just sort of rebrand and change the color of the political party from red to green. And it was all of these crazy schemes and all of these crazy things that ultimately didn't amount to a hill of beans, right? Because they weren't thinking about – they were thinking about electability in a way like you think of a game of risk. Like, well, if I just get this country and that country, then I can invade these other countries. But politics doesn't really work like that. Politics is really about stories. So I guess what I will say is, for me, it's actually less the philosophy and it's more the story that the NDP wants to tell. That's the important thing for me. And that, to me, is more important than brand. It's more important than leader at this point, assuming that leadership will just be a conversation that flows out of it. But if the NDP can resolve the question of the story that they want to tell about Alberta and Alberta's future, why they exist and why you want to vote for them, and that's not work that requires policy conventions. That's work that requires, you know, a strong hand at the till and like some directionality here. That, to me, that's

Corey 15:45

that's the most important thing that they need to figure out going forward. And the rest of it, fuck,

Corey 15:49

fuck, you can get lost in it so quickly, right? Like 75% needed on the bylaws. Oh, this group is mad. Oh, these caucus members are speaking out against it.

Corey 15:59

Find me the story about what Alberta looks like in 2070, and the rest of it's going to fall into place. Carter,

Zain 16:04

Carter, do you agree with Corey's ordering here? That story comes before brand, before – and brand in the most broadest sense, right? And we're

Zain 16:12

we're not just talking about – I think I mean brand, Zane. Like

Zain 16:16

tease it out for me

Corey 16:17

me then. Brand is not logos and brand is not

Zain 16:19

not – Agreed. That's what I'm saying in the broadest

Zain 16:20

broadest sense. In the broadest sense, brand, right? In the broadest

Corey 16:23

broadest sense, brand is when people think of this party, what do they think of? What do they think they're getting with this party? That's the fundamental question that people are going to have. And often that wrestling occurs through a leadership contest, but that to me is the most important thing that the NDP needs to figure out. So

Zain 16:39

So let me ask the question this way. Carter, is story slash brand, right? Is that ahead on your list, ahead of leadership certainty?

Carter 16:47

Oh man, leadership exists beyond, leadership is a reflection of brand. And leadership often does a very good job of defining brand.

Zain 16:55

Not the other way around?

Carter 16:56

It can define brand, but the brand doesn't, you know, I

Carter 17:01

I think that if

Carter 17:03

if you've got a good story, then people know what they're competing for, right? People would know what they're competing to lead. Right now, I'm not sure that, you know, if you asked six new Democrats what they were competing to lead, I'm not sure you get the six same answers. Yeah,

Corey 17:18

Yeah, that's the real risk. You

Carter 17:20

You know, I mean, right now there's a whole bunch of New Democrats running around saying that the reason that they lost is blank. Right.

Carter 17:26

Well, there is no reason that they lost yet.

Carter 17:29

Right. There is no understanding of reason that they lost. I mean, certainly what

Carter 17:32

what we would put on the reason that they lost is that there was no stories being told. There was no common understanding of what the brand looked like. They would make that ideological. They would say, well, our brand needs to be ideological. Well, does it? I mean, what evidence do you have of that? there

Carter 17:47

there aren't many ideological parties in Canada that are actually doing particularly well right now but

Carter 17:53

but you know whatever we can we can have that conversation but it's not for now right now it's can you imagine the world that we want to live in under you know if it were an NDP government what is the thing why do we exist Corey's asked the question a number of times and I'm going to steal his question and the question is if our

Carter 18:11

our party didn't exist why would someone come

Carter 18:14

come to create it right and i may have bastardized it a little bit cory but it's

Carter 18:19

but you know right

Carter 18:21

the party doesn't exist you're in opposition it doesn't matter you didn't win right so you get the freedom to actually redefine what the party needs to look like um

Carter 18:30

um do that without leaving it to the next leader to do it right like you can't just say oh the next leader is going to do everything okay well you might wind up with a completely different party then if that's okay then then you should do that but

Carter 18:44

but right now i think that what we need to do is talk about what the experience that albertans actually want should be how are you going to achieve it and then allow um the next leaders leaders

Carter 18:57

leaders leadership candidates to compete for that under that brand structure let's

Zain 19:03

let's let's talk about this for a second cory i want to go to you on this um because actually give me your thoughts on overarching sort of story and brand reflecting And then I want to maybe rather than asking you guys to add to this list, spend a bit of time on this because there does seem to be, at least in the media narrative, a bit of a question around a tug of war around the NDP story go forward. So Corey, your thoughts and then we'll jump into that. that

Corey 19:25

well those are kind of where i wanted to go and that's somewhat the the thoughts that i want to put on the table here here's the thing about leadership contests leadership contests are an incredible vehicle for change i mean you can look at so many times when somebody takes over the leadership of a party and changes that party in rather fundamental ways right including in many cases the name of the party as we've seen next door in british columbia right all doable like Like leadership is a strong lever, but

Corey 19:52

but it's not the only lever. And the risk I think that sometimes exists when people start to put everything into the leadership bucket is if

Corey 20:00

there's that much that's on the table, you're going to have one wild leadership contest. Imagine a leadership contest right now with the NDP, where somebody is saying the problem is we didn't commit ourselves to our social democratic values. It says right in our constitution, our goal is democratic socialism. Did you even hear the word socialism during the conference? The reason we were successful in 2015 is because our job is to be there for the working person. And we lost sight of that. We came out of nowhere in 2015 because that was a platform that reflected a party committed to democratic socialism. And the last two elections, even though we faced these historically bad, historically unwelcoming to worker leaders, we instead went to the middle. That was a massive mistake. We betrayed who we were. And that's why we didn't see the success we saw in 2015. You're going to have people saying that. And

Zain 20:51

And on the far

Corey 20:51

far other side, you're going to say the problem with the NDP right now is our commitment. You know, like we have not managed to get rid of the shackles of our previous commitments and our previous worldviews that were much narrower. Things like democratic socialism. We've got to be a party that wants to be committed to the free market and the ideas of being almost like a PC-ish. That's not the words they would use. I was much more articulate on the other side, but they would find words like, we're going to be there and we're going to create prosperity for everybody. And the job of the NDP is prosperity through those market mechanisms that exist. And we get it. We don't deny economics. This is who we are as New Democrats. This is who we've evolved to be. And it's our job, actually, if anything, to be more thoughtful and more reflective of that middle-of-the-road Alberta that is where the base of power in this province and this country sits, right? Right.

Corey 21:43

And so now you've got a leadership contest and you've got a wing that's

Corey 21:47

that's literally socialism and you've got a wing that's literally small C conservatism. Revealing

Zain 21:53

Revealing itself in pretty stark difference, perhaps. Yeah,

Corey 21:55

Yeah, for sure. Because you've gone into this saying leadership is going to resolve all of our questions in this scenario. Right. Like you've

Corey 22:02

defined the party is so open that both of those wings can exist in the party. That's a super dangerous leadership contest. You might think it's exciting. You might think it's invigorating. I think it's a recipe for disaster when you're already in opposition, because what happens is you could easily see a split. Imagine that candidate on the right wins, and everybody on the left, you know, perhaps there's like 10 MLAs who agree with that position on the left. Maybe there's a standard bearer on the left. Well, now you've created a very weird tension in your party. And the NDP have historically been a very solid party, right? Like without those tensions. And similarly, the other way around, and we haven't even layered on the public personas here, where let's just say you are that candidate in the center, which I'm calling the candidate on the right of the NDP. And let's say you win at the end of the day there, but

Corey 22:49

but you barely win. And there was this whole wing of people who said, we want to be socialists, right? right?

Corey 22:55

Well, what does that do to your public persona as you start thinking about how to position yourself to the next thing?

Corey 22:59

And maybe that's fine. And maybe that's healthy. And maybe that's what the NDP wants. But if you start thinking about how you set yourself up for electoral success, and you remember that first principle of readiness, you want to be ready at all times. That's been the strength of the NDP.

Corey 23:12

I would caution you, you are going to surrender readiness for a year or two post a leadership contest like that as you figure your shit out. And

Corey 23:21

I think if you want to maintain readiness to

Corey 23:24

to tie this all back, you've got to start thinking

Corey 23:27

thinking about the story to tell what the NDP is, narrowing the band a little before you fire that starting pistol. If you put too much into the leadership contest, you might not have as much coming out of it. it.

Zain 23:37

Carter, help me with the how. Corey's made a very persuasive case. I suspect it's one that you agree with, because it is one that's in line with what you said, which is the current leader, however long she stays, should resolve the story question, should ensure the brand is solidified. Talk to me about some of the hows. How do you do some of these things before you either, and I'm speculating here, whether you kind of resign your post, whether you leave, whether you're kind of saying that, you know, it's time for a new leader. How do you solidify directionality? How does one actually do that on the heels of a loss where there's many, to your earlier point, this is why we lost narratives out there?

Carter 24:16

I'd steal it from Peter Lougheed. Peter Lougheed wrote out a, I think it was a manifesto of seven principles for the progressive conservatives back in 1967, I think. And, you know, Redford studied them and really kind of took them to heart. Unfortunately, we didn't live it as well as we could have lived it. But when you looked at those principles, it was an easy thing to do to kind of go back and say, well,

Carter 24:43

well, what do they mean? What do they actually mean in today's society? And can we live this reality now?

Carter 24:49

And I think we were very successful in living that reality. You

Carter 24:55

You know, our first

Carter 24:56

first throne speech, I think, still stands as a great document that articulated what our real values were. Unfortunately, then we walked away from those values. But if you were able to articulate several principles, it's not about policy. It's not about policy. Like, I just need to really push that out there, right?

Carter 25:15

right? It's about a frame of looking at issues and how are you going to solve them. Now, you could choose to solve them ideologically. We approach things from a socially democratic point of view, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or you could choose to approach it pragmatically, right? It is no, there is no such thing as a one size fits all solution. Albertans are unique. Um, we are going to tackle problems with, uh, you know, like, so the conservatives would put fiscal prudence first. Well, the NDP may put, um, Albertans needs first, right? Uh, we will, you know, if we're, if we're going to balance off the long-term objectives versus the short-term objectives, that was one of lawyered strengths. He saw a longer term vision than just the short. You know, writing out a document like that could be the greatest gift that Rachel

Carter 26:07

Rachel Notley gives to the party, especially if she's thinking about leaving. And she has the strength now to

Carter 26:13

to enable the party to develop that without it falling into, you know, a set of, well,

Carter 26:20

well, I need this for my leadership, or I need that for for my leadership, right? She's still the leader. To Corey's point, and he made this, I think, in the last episode or two episodes ago, these

Carter 26:30

these people owe a debt of gratitude to Rachel Notley. They are almost all there because of the leadership that she brought, and if she wants to take a little bit of time to redefine what this party looks like in terms of story, in terms of meaning, in terms of rationale to

Carter 26:48

to the voter, to Albertans,

Carter 26:51

then she should be allowed that because that will then be the land on

Carter 26:55

which the next leadership will be conducted the

Carter 26:58

the next leadership would then be conducted on the land that she creates in this particular exercise so that's what I would recommend

Corey 27:07

could that work Corey? well it's interesting as you were giving that

Corey 27:13

soliloquy there and I mean that in a positive sense I was thinking to myself is there

Corey 27:18

there something like the George Washington and farewell address that's

Corey 27:21

to a politician like rachel not like not every politician could get away with it but she created this thing out of nothing and um and that would allow her to maybe say i'm

Corey 27:32

i'm leaving but i want to leave you with a few thoughts about how we got here and how we can push further and in particular i think it could be very powerful if it said things that were maybe not entirely what was expected it just it really also depends on what's in her head and what she sees as the potential direction of the party but uh i think that there is an opportunity and i think you don't have to wait until the minute you've announced your resignation to do something like that too uh but i think a piece where she sort of defined that future and said this is for all of us but i want to put down some of my thoughts on this like i'm not saying this has to be but i want to tell you where i am could

Corey 28:07

could really have a powerful anchor in effect and help help

Corey 28:10

help kind of keep everybody closer to that core going into a party uh into a party Zane,

Carter 28:15

Zane, ask Corey about anchoring effect and what it means when he says it.

Zain 28:20

Corey, what is the speech you're referring to, word by word, and what's the anchoring effect? Carter's asked me to ask you both of those questions, one of which may be mine.

Corey 28:28

All right. Well, the first is George Washington's farewell address, where George Washington sort of defined his view as to what he thought were the concerns facing the United States. He wasn't running again after two terms as president. There was no rule in the U.S. Constitution. He

Zain 28:43

He kind of set a precedent. He set a precedent

Corey 28:45

that everybody followed until FDR. And after that, they put in a constitutional amendment in the 50s, making it the law. But it used to just be a precedent. Somebody left after two terms as president. He talked about his concerns. You'll remember from the musical Hamilton, partisan infighting.

Corey 29:00

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. He was, you know, very leery of kind of foreign interference. He was, he was leery about a government that got too big. He spelled all these things out. He wrote this farewell address. And then he walked away. But because he was George Washington, the general who led the Continental Army, the guy who could have been a king, but decided to be a president of a republic and then step away. How remarkable that is, I think we forget, because it's now 2023. 23, but in, you know, the 1790s, how remarkable, or the 1780s, I guess, 1780s, 1790s, um,

Corey 29:34

um, to do that is really, really something. And, um, and

Corey 29:39

and so that's that in terms of anchoring effect, it's a psychological effect that the first thing put on the table tends to be the thing people react to. It's used a lot in bargaining, right? So the first offer, the second offer is going to be reacting to the first offer. And the whole conversation sort of revolves around that first to offer. The first thing people hear tends to be how they interpret everything else that comes after. And so by being the first to move, you've got a very powerful way to anchor the conversation. And Rachel Notley could do that with her party.

Zain 30:08

Carter, we don't know if and when there is an exit for her.

Zain 30:14

When would you do this? When would you do these, let's call it the Lougheed principles? When, how, give me a little bit more. And then my follow-up question to both of you as we stay on story for a bit before I get to our list of adding to different things and different questions to ask. So Corey, you can think about this too. Is there anything else a leader can do to solidify directionality? So think about that question. And Carter, maybe start answering a bit of the how as well from your perspective.

Carter 30:38

perspective. Well, I think that every election has the opportunity to begin the conversation of how do we change? Who are we and how do we change? And you can do that through any number of means. One is kind of the open conversation model where you go around to each of the constituencies where you had a candidate and you meet with their executive and you talk to them about what were

Carter 31:05

were the strengths, what were the weaknesses, you know, kind of real kind of party building stuff.

Carter 31:11

I think that has limited appeal. I think that what we're looking for, sometimes we all pretend that what we really need is more insight from the grassroots. Right. If we could just get more insight from from

Carter 31:22

from the every, you know, from the every man. This is not that.

Carter 31:27

This is how do we get leadership? Right. What is it that we actually want? And I, you know, sometimes I think politicians rely far too much on what the polls tell them they should be doing and far too little on what they as leaders wish to achieve. i believe

Carter 31:41

believe that people want to be led so lead right

Carter 31:45

right so rachel notley could go into a cave and write this and come back out and then start speaking it to her members now i don't think that that's necessarily the best way to do it but if you the other way of doing how would you do it would probably just be to assemble a team of people that

Carter 32:01

that rachel notley thinks the world of i mean she's she's already done this in part with with people like um oh what's his name from the bank uh former i

Corey 32:14

you're talking about you

Carter 32:14

you know so she's already done some of that work with todd hirsch now she could bring in um any number of different people who represent different wings of the of the uh of the alberta electorate and just craft that up i mean i think that law he did it with a small group of his his advisors and that's really all you need is just a small group group of people who have thoughts, you write it down. I wouldn't make it a speech. I'd make it, I would then explore how you would express this over the course of ads and stories and all the different tools that are available to us in today's communications

Carter 32:52

communications field. And I'd be just communicating the hell out of it.

Zain 32:58

Corey, add to that if you'd like. And then the follow-up question is anything else to lock in directionality that a current leader can do?

Corey 33:06

Well, she can, of course, there's so much she could do. She could, I'm

Corey 33:11

I'm not sure I would recommend all of these things. But one of the things, if

Corey 33:16

if we're going to continue on the idea of perhaps this conversation is a little too open ended to be healthy going into a leadership contest, and maybe it's not, maybe we

Corey 33:23

we shouldn't overblow voices

Corey 33:25

voices that we have heard of people saying the problem is the party failed to stay on its roots. I'll tell you, I've heard it from a bunch of people. I'm not sure if it's anything approximated in a majority view in the NDP. I just don't have that sense. But if

Corey 33:39

you want to take a few things off the table, take them off the table. If there's conversations about the connections to the federal NDP, and you'd rather just

Corey 33:46

just ask and answer them, call the question on it, resolve it now, right? Like, you know, there are ways to do that with your thumb on the scale or not, or to varying degrees that would allow you to say, okay, well, we've had this conversation. So this leadership contest is not going to be about the connection to the federal NDP. Either, remember, we voted on that and we did it and it's done and it's over. Or remember, we voted on that and we decided not to do it. So it's done and it's over. because no leadership contest it would

Corey 34:13

would be a very weird leadership contestant to say i know the party just dealt with that question six months ago but i want to deal with it again that's

Corey 34:20

that's that seems like a super weird approach to so you can do things like that and you can take things off the table you can define quite

Zain 34:25

quite literally call the question you mean to the membership literally

Corey 34:28

literally call these questions more incrementally moving along have these conversations in formal ways so that you're not polluting the overall leadership contest with it and you can define the scope of that leadership contest in other ways too and there's one big one we got to throw on the table here the

Corey 34:45

rules of the leadership contest you are the leader right now you you ostensibly control the executive right now i i say ostensibly because that

Carter 34:54

that won't last long who knows

Carter 34:55

it won't last long in a leadership environment yeah

Corey 34:58

yeah but you can choose how long do you need to be a member to run to vote how much is that membership is it going to be online is it going to be in person is there there's going to be a convention. You can determine all of those things now. And by determining that contest, you are going to have a massive effect on the outcomes. And if you want to have a more moderated one, where it's more about party loyalty and stalwarts, well, then delegates are your friend. If you want to have something that reflects more of the populist views of Albertans, well, then you're probably going to want to have one of the most open one member one vote systems possible.

Corey 35:32

I don't know. There's lots of choices for leadership contests. But right now, the other thing you can do is really define the terms in which that contest is run.

Zain 35:42

Carter, Corey put a few things on the table. Can I ask you to answer a few from your perspective now putting on your strategist hat? Not necessarily your strategist for the current questions you need to ask, but strategist hat for answering some of those questions. We heard about party relationship to the federal party, even party name as part of it. Talk to me about your thoughts on both of those. Too early to make any of those declarative comments right now from your perspective? Would you hold back on those? Would you do them right away? Give me your thoughts on the strategic impulse you have in terms of what the party now needs with those two questions. Yeah,

Carter 36:17

Yeah, I mean, I don't have a particularly strong point of view about, you

Carter 36:22

know, I don't understand why the provincial party and the federal party are the same party. It confuses me. It's not the case in other parties. And it does open you up to a criticism. So if Rachel Notley want like if she wanted that to be off the table, then I think the way to do that is to answer the question, why is this good?

Carter 36:43

Right. Not why does this exist, but why is this good? And then tell me a story about why it's good. Let me tell you about when Ed Broadbent was the leader of the federal party and my dad was the leader of the of

Carter 36:55

of the provincial party. Let me tell you how it worked then and how I'd like for it to work in the future, because Because it had value. And

Carter 37:02

And the common value that it had was that it actually said across the country, from coast to coast to coast, that

Carter 37:10

that these were the values of the New Democrats. And that definition enabled us to cut corners and to tell people exactly who we were. you

Carter 37:20

you see you see what i did there i made it a story right

Carter 37:23

right i made it a story and i said this is why it was important and then i was able to then articulate that and i think that that's still the building block that needs to be put in place for the for the uh for the alberta ndp

Zain 37:40

cory do you have any thoughts on the answer to the questions you've kind of raised so

Zain 37:43

so let's talk about anchors in a

Corey 37:45

a different sense uh and

Corey 37:47

is in a both a positive i'm going to start with the very positive sense one of the other reasons why the ndp were competitive in 2015 and why they won that election is there are new democrats from coast to coast to coast and they will roam from coast to coast to coast and go to those saying you worked with them right like during

Corey 38:05

elections they will come and they will work on the campaigns and then they'll move on to the next campaign in some cases or they'll get

Corey 38:11

get jobs if the ndp win in some cases and you know know whatever it is but like there

Corey 38:15

there is a infrastructure nationally a social infrastructure that immediately strengthens the new democrats when they run right you might be the leader of the third party in the middle of nowhere on the prairies as rachel notley was and all of a sudden you've got a viable credible strong campaign team in 2015 as people come in who have really you know they've had power they've been in big campaigns and you can immediately put something credible together right that's a real strength it

Corey 38:45

it is an anchor the other way too though right like it is the ndp and so like you've got to determine whether that anchor up in terms of the support that it will always allow you is something that is more valuable than kind of the anchor down that we're seeing from brand where maybe there's a ceiling because of the name new democrat right open

Corey 39:04

open question open question i'm actually not opining on the answer to that today in terms of what i think because we've certainly seen that ceiling be higher even in the last 10 years than where it seems to be currently but you know there is there is a moderating influence in ways positive and negative to being part of a larger organization it's like pooling risk is probably the best metaphor here so i i don't know how you package that for the membership i don't know how you make that sexy but if you're thinking about the long-term viability of the organization has to be be a consideration that you are part of a team, a national team of people, and you are always going to have a certain level of viability as long as you are.

Zain 39:43

You know what I want to do? I want to actually talk about this in a future episode in terms of how you would go about making that decision strategically,

Zain 39:50

strategically, tactically, even mechanically within a political party. So I want to save this broader conversation. But is it fair to say for both of you that this particular particular party name conversation, party identity conversation, where would that rank on the list of questions you are suggesting to the NDP in terms of asking today? Where does it fit in your order of fact, Corey and then Carter? Fuck it, zero. It's the last

Zain 40:14

thing you do. And you know, this is- If you're going to do it, it's the last thing you do. This is one of the top three questions that are being swirling

Corey 40:18

swirling around right now,

Corey 40:20

right? Yeah, and it's the last thing you do. You

Zain 40:21

You don't get distracted by

Corey 40:22

by it. If you're going to do it, it's the last thing you do because it is the package, right? Again, Again, we've been here already this episode, it needs to be said, your logo is not your brand, your name is not your brand. If you change the name now, and you are still the same organization, and I'm going to continue on that same track, perhaps in the leadership contest, there is a big conversation about how the goal of the party is democratic socialism. And that's a big debate. And that's a debate now being held under the new name. That new name is tied to that conversation forever. But if that's a conversation that has had, and at the end of that leadership contest has decided to set aside that purpose in the party, well, isn't that rebrand the perfect way to kind of put the bow on that for the public and say, now we are a little bit different, right? If you even want to go there. And I'm not convinced you need to go there. But my point is, you

Corey 41:11

you don't change the package of the product before you change the product, if you're thinking about changing the product. And it sounds like people are thinking of changing the product. So it's as simple as that. It's like, it's foundational stuff here. That is the last thing people should be thinking about right now. They need to be thinking about who they are, before they think about how they present themselves. Because those questions naturally flow from each other.

Carter 41:34

yeah. I mean, imagine that you were creating some sort of new airline, right? You

Carter 41:41

You don't just take

Carter 41:42

take a discount brand and slap it on a WestJet plane. You have to find the right reason. The brand structure will be defined through all of this, and that brand structure is then going to be lived, right? Right. So my

Carter 42:00

my thinking is, if you if you want a new brand, then

Carter 42:05

then it's got to be developed through new vision, new structures, new, you know, and I would begin the new brand construction with

Carter 42:16

with Rachel Notley right now.

Carter 42:17

Right. And again, I'm not talking about name. I'm not talking about federal affiliation. I'm talking about where

Carter 42:24

where this party is supposed to go and what is it supposed to achieve. achieve right is

Carter 42:29

is this going to be the party that that is a great opposition because that was the brand that they lived for the last four years and that could be the brand that they live because that was also the brand of the 70s and the 80s like it was a great opposition that was their brand that was what they did they held law heed to account no one thought of the new democrats in alberta as a party that could govern we thought of them as a party that would hold law heed to account well if that's your brand then put that stake in the ground but if you want to be a brand that can govern albertans that reflects then the values of albertans because i find personally it's easier to get elected when people think that you're on their side um then i think that what

Carter 43:10

what you do is you start to develop that new brand right now today because that brand is going to take it's going to take you know 18 months to 24 months for rachel notley to get her head around it to wrap it up it's going to take another six months through a leadership at that point for the leadership contenders to understand what it is and it's going to take the full four years from now until the next election for people to have confidence that that brand is actually what they want to buy the next time they go to the you know to the to the ballot box to

Zain 43:43

that's a good episode title of course i i should be mentioning this episode is brought to us by Flair Airlines. Flair Airlines from the ground up, rarely up from the ground. Thank you.

Zain 43:55

They give me these amazing lines every single time. Can

Carter 43:58

Can we just slag Air Canada instead? Because I'm really pissed. No, we

Zain 44:01

we can't. No, no, we can't. Our sponsor doesn't let us do that, Carter. Corey,

Zain 44:05

let's get back to the list. This whole thing has been a list building exercise and we're at two things on the list. Yeah,

Zain 44:10

Yeah, we're not. We've got money slash readiness and we've got story slash brand. We've talked about name. name we've talked about leadership a bit maybe i'll kind of give you a few other things that could go on this list how you deal with candidates and critic roles uh you know how you think about future sort of um overarching connections we've talked about that to the federal party which almost falls into the same category perhaps it doesn't um but one would think as as the name bucket anything

Zain 44:37

anything from that list or anything else that you would add to these list of immediate immediate questions you are asking not existential or long-term but immediate today questions

Corey 44:47

well i think one

Corey 44:49

one of the things that steven said at the top is still really good advice which is like cool your jets a bit which is not how he said it but i'll say it that way you

Corey 44:57

you i believe pretty firmly that you need to capture your feelings after something like this like you need to say like okay well what do i think in the moment like i've got to write this down i've got got to get it. I got to understand how I felt before it

Corey 45:10

drifts into myth. I think we've already seen it drift a bit into myth. I'll tell you, as I've said on this pod, I don't 100% buy the narrative that is firming up around why Rachel Notley lost the election. I think that's

Corey 45:24

that's a little simple and it's not backed up by the data that we have available publicly at the very least. Right.

Corey 45:30

But you want to capture those immediate sentiments.

Corey 45:33

I'm not sure you want to act on those immediate sentiments i think you need to know what they are so you don't forget them and misremember them but you also need the benefit of time and distance to say what's real and what's not what did we only think was real in the moment and and steven was alluding a bit to this too like people have theories we're gonna the elections like this can be unpacked for the next four years you know in terms of after the fact okay why did we do well there why did we not do well there what misled us into thinking we were going to do well there in some cases right And you've got to build this out based on data, some of which will not become fully available. And I guarantee you that poll by poll analysis, even in kind of like this quantitative sense, has not been done yet. Like people have not crunched the numbers on this fucker. We haven't gotten that demographic data we often get in the final report from Elections Alberta. None of that stuff exists at this moment. So you can't tell me the work has been done. you

Corey 46:26

you need a little bit of moment nothing

Corey 46:28

nothing in life is as good or as bad as you think it is your victories are not as sweet your defeats are not as sour you need a little bit of time and you need a little bit of perspective on this so that you don't overreact and do a bunch of crazy shit and break what was a party that was really close to winning as we've said multiple times

Corey 46:48

doesn't mean you don't change means you need to sit and be thoughtful about the change and be Be very intentional about the path that you take.

Corey 46:56

Never mistake action for direction. Make sure you have a direction first.

Zain 47:01

Carter, I'm going to throw something else out there and almost go back to a point that I think you did a very articulate, you made a very articulate note about, but it was a drive-by comment, and I want to make sure I understand it clearly, which was about leadership. You're a hired party strategist for the NDP, and the Rachel Notley conversation to you is murky right now. You don't know when. She hasn't told you. Are you okay with that? Or do you need to write your story? Do you need to script out the four years today? As you think about plotting and planning for the future as part of your immediate questions, talk to me about how you're processing that leadership question as it relates to, once again, I try to put a fine point on it, what

Zain 47:39

what you care about for your party less so what the broader media cares about in terms of a conversation point. How much do you need to know about leadership? Not very

Carter 47:48

very much at all. I need to to know you

Carter 47:50

you know it's kind of like when you you go and you're working for a corporate client right you

Carter 47:53

you go and you work for a corporate client and uh you

Carter 47:57

you know you find out early in the gig that the person who hired you is on thin ice and probably won't make it to um the next you know like the contract renewal period well

Carter 48:07

well okay that's fine you know when will they go doesn't matter you gotta you gotta do what you gotta do and the thing that you've got to do is make sure that you've got relationships throughout the organization. And that's the way I would approach it if I was managing the strategy for the NDP. And the questions I would ask would remain the same.

Carter 48:27

The questions are, who do you want to represent? What do you want to be known for? How do you want to be viewed? What would be the best thing for you to hear at the end of this exercise? How do

Carter 48:39

do you want people to perceive you? And there's some common answers that we see all all the time in politics and i and one of them for example would be well

Carter 48:46

well i'd like to feel like we're doing the best that we can for alberta families okay

Carter 48:50

is that dependent on rachel notley no not at all no simple answer i like simple answers simple answers are probably the best ones so if you wanted to you know and i'm just going to answer some of your other questions that you asked earlier in that frame i'm just going to assume that we all agree that alberta families are the thing that we're talking about not alberta seniors because there was a time when we talked about alberta seniors but let's assume that alberta families are the ones that we're actually talking about. Well,

Carter 49:15

when we appoint those critics, what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to try and put people who have the family structures that tie into the ministries the best, right? So I'm going to probably appoint someone with children into healthcare. I'm probably going to appoint someone with children into education. It'd be great if someone who maybe was recently in post-secondary education, you know, Najwan would get appointed into energy because she's an energy person. And the fact, for example, that, you

Carter 49:43

you know, the energy file is

Carter 49:46

is represented outside of Calgary, but Najwan, like you would, you'd be able to talk about family at every level, right? Najwan created and supported her family because of the energy industry, period, right?

Carter 49:56

But energy industry is bigger than oil and gas, right?

Carter 50:00

right? So you, you create family ties all the way through because in

Carter 50:04

in a perfect world, these are simple stories with simple understandings that everybody can implement and so your critic roles should reflect a simple a

Carter 50:11

simple through line right

Carter 50:14

rachel notley leaving irrelevant rachel

Carter 50:17

rachel notley staying irrelevant tell

Carter 50:19

tell me what you want to try and establish what's the brand direction that we wanted to get going on and then we'll flush out the rest later and that's how i'd answer these very tactical decisions that need to be made because they do need to be made it's not like you can't have critics but you don't really need critics until when

Carter 50:35

when when are they going to go back in the lead into the ledge cory like

Carter 50:39

like october i don't

Zain 50:41

know i don't know if we know

Carter 50:41

know yet yeah october

Zain 50:42

i think we know speculation for fall yeah who the

Carter 50:46

mean maybe the individual mlas care but

Zain 50:52

cory your thoughts on leadership as a as a quote-unquote party strategist in this scenario right that i'm i'm hypothetically putting you in do you really need to know the the entire four-year arc so you can plan for it today or are you okay like carter just being like quote

Zain 51:07

quote carter irrelevant on both sides of the equation yeah

Corey 51:10

yeah well i wouldn't say it's irrelevant obviously your strategy is better if you understand more right say all the time good strategy comes from good analysis so understanding a pretty foundational piece like oh is the leader staying or going that's that's not irrelevant and i i think that uh that's pretty important if you're trying to optimize your strategy. But that said, a lot of the time, optimal is not available to us, right? And you have to build in optionality. And as a strategist, I think one of the joys of my, I truly believe this, like I like more when the problem is really messy, like when there's

Corey 51:45

things that you got to kind of figure out. Why? And it's like, well, because that's the puzzle of it. That's what makes it a crossword. That's what makes it interesting to me. It's like, Like we want to do X, we want to do Y, we want to do Z, but you were constrained by conditions one through 12. Like that's, that's fucking fun. Like that's, that's actually what's interesting about strategy. Would

Zain 52:03

Would this actually be an interesting problem for your brain, right? Like this particular one in front of you? Oh,

Corey 52:09

Oh, I think anybody's, but you know, there are things that you can do to sort of make your job a little easier as a strategist there. And the first is to say, all right, all right, all right, all right. We got to, we got to clear some stuff off the table here. We got to, we got to un-muddy some waters. you might decide to leave, you might decide not to leave, right? But there are some things that will be common on both decision trees. Like you imagine if you decision tree them out and how they're going to act on caucus, how you're going to act on, you know, critic appointments, which I suppose could be part of caucus, how you're going to act in fundraising. And if you're going to act the same way on the leave and not leave paths in those areas, well, that's easy. Take it off the table. Then you know what you're doing there. That's super simple, right? And then you're left with a relatively small bucket of things that you have to decide what you're going to do with because you act differently depending on whether you're going to leave or not leave so things like your farewell address we were just talking about obviously

Corey 53:01

if you're not saying farewell you're not doing a farewell address but it allows you to sort of narrow uh

Corey 53:07

uh the scope of what's in play and sort of like

Corey 53:10

like i said clear that table and then focus on those things which can become the strategic drivers and the okay we're going to move this way together until this point then we're going to have to make a decision by this day, or else we're going to have to give up this thing. That's the nature of strategy. You're working with constraints towards goals.

Corey 53:28

That's fine. But you just want to clear the table as much as possible. And a lot of things on the table will be the same whether you're staying or going. I think that's the common ground for me and Steven.

Zain 53:37

Carter, we've talked about readiness slash money. We've talked about brand slash story. We've punted, both of you have punted things like name and overarching sort of connection to the Fed party. In some ways, we've talked about leadership in terms of what's possible and what's optimal and what, Corey, I think I like your phrasing, what optionality you may have on that and what you can actually understand.

Zain 53:58

Anything else, Carter, if you were to round out this list that you'd put on as a strategist brought in to help the NDP, that you'd say, this is another question I'm asking ourselves right away, because I either want to solidify it, I either want to resolve it, I want to put it in stone. There's a reason for it, but I'm asking it right away here. I'm not asking it in six months. I'm not being indifferent about it. I'm asking it today. Anything else for you, Carl?

Carter 54:25

I think I would ask a simple question.

Carter 54:27

What are you actually willing to change, right?

Carter 54:30

right? What are you willing to change and for what potential outcomes, right? So for example, are you willing to change your storytelling

Carter 54:38

storytelling capacity, right? Are you willing to shake it up a little bit and start telling

Carter 54:46

telling the stories that we've been critical of Rachel of not being able to tell. Are you, you

Carter 54:55

you know, what are the things you actually want to do? Are you willing to distance more from Jagmeet Singh? Are you willing to take on previous policies that the NDP may have held? What is it that you're willing to change? You know, because there may be some things that are just simply off the table and um

Carter 55:16

what if i were to say that you know like if there were things that you if

Carter 55:20

if i was to recommend that you change them you could win then

Carter 55:24

then would we actually change that conversation would you take something off the i will not change this pile if i said you know i think you can win if you take that off the pile um so what you know because Because life is a series of compromises, and as you know, now that you're a father, you don't get your way all the time.

Corey 55:44

But you do get your own barbecue. This

Carter 55:46

This is what I'm told. Nobody

Carter 55:46

told you that, but you do. Yeah, you get your own barbecue.

Carter 55:50

Yeah, so what are you willing to change? And even

Carter 55:53

even if you say you're not willing to change something, would you reconsider it if it meant actually winning the government? government. Because there are certain hills that people

Carter 56:04

people will not cross to win the government. I mean, not in conservative land, but in

Carter 56:10

in other less principled environments, I suppose. But

Zain 56:13

But Carter, what if that willing to change is one of the things that Corey's mentioned that kind of falls into a leadership? It's too late. Are you putting it in today? Because you want to know the guardrails today for the party? No, I want to know the

Carter 56:24

brand of the party today. I want to know where we're going to take the party. Because if the brand is being completely completely established by the next leadership crop then

Carter 56:32

the next leadership crop could be

Carter 56:35

fuck i don't know take back alberta could take it over i don't know fuck they're the most powerful uh political organization in the in the province right now why wouldn't they take over all the political parties um you

Carter 56:47

you know just for shits and giggles if for nothing no other reason um so

Carter 56:53

you know if you if you want the election if you want your leadership to be conducted under a set principles, then to Corey's point, you need to anchor those principles into the organization now. And then the rest, you know, someone could still conceivably campaign on,

Carter 57:09

on, I wish to undo this set of principles. But now they are trying to undo the set of principles. And that's just harder than trying

Carter 57:19

trying to, you know, if

Carter 57:21

if there are no principles, it becomes a lot easier for someone to waltz in and to take potentially take over a party.

Corey 57:29

React. And I totally

Corey 57:30

totally agree. Listen, a leadership contest that can determine the NDP being anything between the Pam Barrett NDP of the 90s and the Stephen Mandela Alberta party of like last election. Like if that's all on the table, that's

Corey 57:45

that's really, really, that's really dangerous. That's really dangerous for this province. That's really dangerous and really messy. And it just needs to be a lot more narrowed than that. And I think that that's actually the best gift. If Rachel Notley's thinking of leaving, she could give her party a little bit more focus on that thing. And to Stephen's point, it's not like it can't be undone. But you built this party. In very ad hoc ways, it has changed fundamentally. Start codifying some of those changes. Start putting together that Rachel Notley manifesto almost. Like, this is what

Corey 58:17

the NDP became under me. I hope you will continue on a journey in this way. I now leave it to the membership. Something along those lines. Would you go further and

Corey 58:26

say, this is my

Corey 58:30

Then you've poisoned literally everything that you said before that in that memo, right? Because then it looks like something different. You want to look like the party statesperson. You want to look like, I've done my bit. I'm not choosing a candidate. I will support the

Corey 58:44

the person who comes next as a good former leader does.

Corey 58:48

This is what I believe, and now I leave it over to you. I've taken this party as far as I can. there's

Zain 58:52

there's there's probably many people listening at least some people listening saying well isn't the most obvious way to continue on and solidify directionality by choosing your successor and i just want to for those who could not see it and that's all of you these two said the exact same thing when that same millisecond which was god no immediately like it was a like a visceral reaction for both of you can we spend a bit of time on this carter i'll let you kind of opine on this particular element why why it seems like the short it's short circuits and i maybe short it's a shortcut to all of this what you've been talking about all these lessons i listen here's a person if you like me like them why not that because that's

Carter 59:29

it's temporary it's it's weak right what you want to do is actually build something that is strong enough to survive a process strong enough to survive the the you know meeting the enemy on the field if you will right and the only way to do that is to enable the enemy to take the field right

Carter 59:52

Jason Kenney was coming in to take over the Progressive Conservative Party

Carter 59:57

were tools that could have been used by the Progressive Conservatives to actually stop that. They didn't put but they weren't strong enough to do that because they didn't have any values or any strengths that they actually stood for so it was very easy to come in and take over the party if we'd actually been a stronger party that actually reflected some of those values that Alison Redford had actually put forward forward or you know even the ones i mean jesus we lost lahid's values uh so quickly under the klein regime um but you

Carter 1:00:27

you know if you if you have actual values and you can actually show people what they are then you don't need to control it from outside it is stronger when you don't you will weaken the organization by putting your thumb on the scale

Corey 1:00:42

yeah i think for me in some ways it's it's that but there's also some more foundational simpler things you are the leader you control the election it looks like your thumb is on the scale then and that calls into question the entire process that follows the minute you make some bold decisions like that that's a real challenge like the minute you the person who controls the apparatus that is running this contest makes a decision about who's going to lead the apparatus it looks like the fix is in it's done you've undermined party democracy you've undermined the legitimacy and the credibility of your leader. And that's a real problem here, right?

Corey 1:01:17

There's a bigger, more high-minded case to make as well, which is, you know, organizers choose leaders.

Corey 1:01:23

Leaders set principles. And if you want to be a true leader, set the principles. Don't try to choose the leader. Well,

Carter 1:01:28

Well, and look what happened in the BC NDP, right? I mean, it was supposed to be a simple, easy handoff. You know, they're going to hand it off to David Eby. He gets himself all ready to go. Everybody else decides that they're going to stand down. They're not not going to challenge. And then out of the blue, out of the woodwork comes this candidate whose name escapes me, but she's from the environmental movement. The environmental movement has some strength. They're able to put forward a solid and compelling case as to why the BC NDP need to think about different priorities. And all of a sudden the BC NDP, in order to hold on to the party itself has to actually kill her candidacy, which make them look weak, made EB look weak, and it undermined the overall, you know, strength and direction of the party. It had the exact opposite effect that it should have had by having a strong leadership process with a strong party.

Corey 1:02:24

One final point, a little more prosaic.

Corey 1:02:28

You're Rachel Notley, you choose your leadership candidate, that leadership candidate loses. What does that say about everything else? that you've done and built,

Corey 1:02:36

right? It's a disaster if you want to be establishing the party in a more foundational way. Leaders are transient. What we're proposing Rachel Notley do is something beyond one leader. This

Corey 1:02:45

goes back to how Stephen opened this question, right? Or his response to it. It's almost too small, right? You were trying to set the overall direction of this organization, but if you say this should be the direction and I choose this leader and that leader fails, you didn't set your direction at

Corey 1:03:01

all, right? Right. Like that you you have basically undercut your ability entirely to step away from leadership and say, in a bigger sense than leadership, this is how I define this party.

Zain 1:03:11

Having the style or diction of prose lacking poetic beauty prosaic for those at home that don't know what it means, which I suspect is is most not me. I knew it right away.

Zain 1:03:22

Did you know right away? But thank you

Zain 1:03:24

explaining the different type of telling me this is where brown people actually tell you definitions of words that they. uh

Zain 1:03:29

uh cory anything else to add to the list before i move on to the over under the light i i mean i'm i'm sure there'll be a million

Corey 1:03:34

million things over the next bit but that's

Carter 1:03:36

oh i'm sure we're doing a second conversation just the one we

Zain 1:03:39

we are moving on to our over what

Carter 1:03:40

what are we doing the why'd you lose segment uh zane when's that gonna happen i've

Zain 1:03:44

i've given you the same answer multiple times the alberta party was a fucking machine we couldn't deal with carter okay why'd you lose how many

Zain 1:03:52

many times how many times carter i've

Carter 1:03:54

gone through it a couple times you

Carter 1:03:56

you know cory hasn't done anything so he hasn't had to but uh yeah

Zain 1:04:00

yeah that's right it's great cory just talks i just talk i call carter hey carter uh over under a lightning round advice to those that

Zain 1:04:10

that are thinking of running for leadership for the ndp they don't know if it's going to open up they don't know it's going to be a job in the near future distant future at all available within their time whether they're in or out of caucus generic advice you would give them as a strategist of high regard guard what would you tell them um

Carter 1:04:27

um keep your powder dry do not wind up in a situation where you're suddenly the next um jim denning uh where you're looking like you're gunning for the the existing leader um rachel's earned as much time as she wants to make the decision and if she doesn't make the decision on your timeline well fuck you because you're the you're not the one who who did all the heavy lifting that she just has gone through um that doesn't mean you don't make Make telephone calls and chat with people. I mean, be

Carter 1:04:54

be friendly, but don't be an idiot.

Zain 1:04:58

Be friendly, don't be an idiot, keep your powder dry, and fuck you was the advice from Stephen Carter. All tracks, yeah. All tracks. Corey, would you just want to copy and paste that or you have something else to add? Look,

Corey 1:05:08

Look, that's always good advice in a situation like this. The other thing I think as a follow on to this conversation we've just had is as a leadership candidate, your instinct will be everything

Corey 1:05:19

everything should be settled by the leadership. because now you are you

Corey 1:05:22

are putting on that cloak in your mind and you're imagining yourself as leader and you want to make decisions as leader and even though you are not leader you will start thinking well she can't do that that should be up for the next leader to decide you're wrong there's too much on the table right now you're in a very dangerous place and if you aspire to lead this party you do not aspire to lead a party in such a wide open leadership contest because the prize you are after will be fundamentally fractured if

Corey 1:05:47

if things go awry in that particular leadership And it doesn't take a big imagination to imagine things going fundamentally awry in that leadership contest. So you want to help her kind of settle the things that the party needs to have settled. You're in the tent, you're in the caucus in this scenario. So fucking figure it out together. Acknowledge the fact she's still leader. Acknowledge there are still decisions to be made and acknowledge that an open field that is this open is

Corey 1:06:12

is actually more danger than opportunity.

Zain 1:06:15

Corey, I'm going to stick with you for this next one. Putting your proverbial party strategist hat back on, how do you deal with any advice just out there or any sort of experiences you may have had? How do you deal with star candidates who thought they're going to be cabinet ministers and now the best thing they're going to get is a critic role in the opposition benches for the next four years? Your thoughts on that, I'm asking this as an over-under lightning round question, but I'm curious if you have more to say, say it. But your thoughts or general advice from a strategy and party management perspective where you've recruited stars they may leave you for other pastors they may not stick with you and sort of speak next cycle um one would imagine but your overall thoughts on that it's

Corey 1:06:55

it's tough i mean they're going to make like 60 grand less a year than potentially they would have if they were in cabinet yeah

Corey 1:07:01

yeah hopefully if they were i mean we've had conversations about stars i'm not really sure there were any like true like

Zain 1:07:07

like let's just let's just let's just use the term high quality right yeah quality candidates all

Corey 1:07:12

right well here's the thing you've got to you've got to remind them that there's a bigger story and there's a bigger puzzle and there's a bigger picture and there were never guarantees and i'm sure you never guaranteed them anything if you were rachel notley right but

Corey 1:07:24

but there's never guarantees in this particular thing and you want to know one of the biggest challenges with stars and this is worth unpacking on another episode and i'll just say high quality these

Corey 1:07:34

are people who are coming from walks of life where they're used to an awful lot more authority than they're going to find in the legislature legislature frankly like

Corey 1:07:40

like it's a real shift to go i think about and i'm not saying this because of any conversation or any insight with either directly with luann metz or indirectly but like going from like a respected physician to being a backbench opposition mla boy you

Corey 1:07:57

know that that speed change can kill you right and you've got a you that's going to be a challenge in its own right for people to deal with you know you've got the samirs you've got the najwans you've You've got people who are used to doing things a certain way. And don't forget, even on their campaign, they're the big dog. People are coming in every day saying how great they are

Zain 1:08:14

doors. They're hearing how they're loved.

Zain 1:08:16

And now it's a different world.

Corey 1:08:17

And it's a different world

Corey 1:08:18

world that is full of abuse from the public that doesn't pay particularly well, that doesn't have the levels of authority you even thought you were going to have in cabinet.

Corey 1:08:28

I mean, fuck, it's tough, man.

Corey 1:08:31

But that's the nature of it. Carter, any advice?

Carter 1:08:33

Yeah, I mean, do a quick reality check. if you were that big a star um i'm just gonna throw it out there you probably would have won um you know like you would have helped them actually win the election you weren't such a big star that the election was won so how big a star do you think you actually are because you're not so my recommendation uh do a great job in your critic role uh you weren't promised a ministry you probably weren't going to get there and try not to suck you fucking idiots

Zain 1:09:04

so hold on you weren't big enough of a star to win the whole election i

Zain 1:09:09

know amazing you didn't outshine the leader and with the whole star you think you're a star you lost fucking loser

Zain 1:09:19

okay wait wait these are people who have won just so i'm just so

Carter 1:09:22

so you know no no you didn't win because you're not government people they're not government they're just they're just people people sitting around talking bull your coattails were so big were

Zain 1:09:33

were they yeah talking

Zain 1:09:34

talking bullshit i just want to let anyone in the in my friends the alberta new democratic party that are listening steven carter is available for a one-day contract if you want this

Carter 1:09:45

at first oh i'm sure they're you know what i know that there's people in the leadership they want they would want me to say that oh

Zain 1:09:52

oh fuck this core carter back to the fuck you strategy carter i'm sticking with with you for this last one um any progress on getting us to rail car restaurant for our next episode yeah good question

Carter 1:10:00

question yes good question progress yes

Corey 1:10:06

that was a patreon by the way so if you're listening to this and you're thinking what are you talking about go to strategistpatreon.com part

Corey 1:10:12

part with six dollars you'll get the access to the back several

Corey 1:10:16

that'll all make sense uh

Carter 1:10:17

uh emails will come back i'll tell you right now you're wrong about the 300 a month thing so

Carter 1:10:22

so we're gonna have to buy it for the 400 400 grand listen

Carter 1:10:28

we are okay i've already signed up uh cory for the mortgage so cory

Zain 1:10:32

cory can we start can we start a kickstarter or something like that listen here's here's the skinny we want to buy the danielle smith rail car restaurant turn it into podcast studio and then move it you

Carter 1:10:43

you know the worst part is we're gonna be in a bidding war against all these high highfalutin donors that want to get around the donation limits so it's

Carter 1:10:52

it's going to be tough guys yeah

Corey 1:10:53

yeah unfortunately a lot of our money right now is tied up in traditional advertising yeah

Corey 1:10:58

yes yeah but it's

Carter 1:10:59

that'll pay off i think it's already paying off cory yeah

Carter 1:11:02

so there's been no fucking progress is what i'm hearing you say no well there's no not really but okay

Zain 1:11:08

okay well thank you thank you for wasting all that time uh cory any any uh final appeals to to now the broader audience around why we want to take this this beautiful historic real car restaurant which is up for sale uh and maybe possibly rent um and turn it into one of our you think

Carter 1:11:25

think it is how

Zain 1:11:27

how much is it

Corey 1:11:27

it how much is

Zain 1:11:28

is it how much is it if you

Carter 1:11:29

you know tell us

Carter 1:11:31

was just reading yeah okay more than 350 a month how much i don't know exactly

Zain 1:11:36

it's an extremely confusing listing well

Carter 1:11:38

well what do you expect i mean they're down in high i mean the the guy who's listing it you know not not you know nice don't

Zain 1:11:44

don't don't don't give a cell phone number okay cory anything you want to yeah okay

Corey 1:11:51

okay do you want to anything you want to add on this i'm just saying there are a lot of open areas in che around rotary park i think we could easily plan i think the chase

Carter 1:11:58

chase place to go with it i'm totally on board for that i'm just i would remind you we don't have railroad tracks all the way to

Carter 1:12:07

to where we want to put it

Corey 1:12:08

it that's a good that's

Corey 1:12:09

that's a a fair point is it a good point it's a fair point it's a fair point that's

Zain 1:12:13

that's good we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1076 of the strategist my name is zane belger with me as always stephen carter cory hogan and we'll see you next time

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