Episode 1266: UCPConvention.com

Zain 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 1266. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, I honestly don't have the time, but we have to do it.

Zain 0:10

It is the first Sunday in November, and you know what we do, the first Sunday of November, Carter. You know it.

Zain 0:16

paying attention. This is, of course, just to be clear, Corey, and you know it as well, this is the first Sunday in November in years where there is not an American midterm or presidential election, in which case we would do it the second Sunday in November. So we'd, of course, you

Zain 0:31

the American tradition. But, Corey, what do we do on this first Sunday?

Corey 0:35

Is it our five-star drive?

Zain 0:39

No, it is not. No, no, that is more of— They should do that, though, right?

Corey 0:42

right? We should, we will. Give us five-star reviews. Yeah, okay, we'll think people

Zain 0:44

people can do that. Oh, you know what? We're supposed to do that in March. We didn't do that this year. That's fine. It's because you didn't have me reminding you. That's

Corey 0:51

That's right. Yeah, you're

Zain 0:52

you're always on top of those things. Carter, I do keep us on schedule on many things, including, do you know what this is? First Sunday of November. I believe

Carter 0:58

believe this is the annual domain cleanup, isn't it? It's the annual

Zain 1:03

annual Strategist Media Corp domain audit, Corey. Oh, yeah,

Carter 1:06

yeah, the audit. That's what you

Zain 1:08

you call it. We call it the audit. it. Every year we take stock. We look back through a lens of both nostalgia and cost efficiency to figure out which domain names we have purchased in the past year or so and which ones we want to keep. Now, unfortunately, we have purged zero domains as part of these. I

Corey 1:27

I keep renewing them, which is probably- In fact,

Zain 1:29

fact, I think our domain audit has given us ideas for more domain names than it has actually purged

Zain 1:34

any domains. it i

Corey 1:36

truly i wait for cra to audit us and me to try to explain uh that trudeau is fucking you.ca is a business expense like i'm not entirely sure how to do that well

Corey 1:47

that would be uh

Carter 1:47

uh but that sounds like an invitation if they audit you if they audit

Zain 1:51

audit you that sounds like that sounds like political targeting on my part and i think that that becomes a news story we hand that off you know what manila envelope

Corey 1:58

envelope to some of the people that listen to this pod i think i think we create a website and we point carter's monthly nut.com at it that's pretty good uh

Corey 2:07

uh yeah do we also own

Zain 2:09

own the cra's politically motivated.ca can

Zain 2:12

actually we will now let's buy that one and have a very large receipt when we actually expense that okay yeah let's just make it like comically sized can we actually spend another 50 on a comically sized envelope and receipt for that particular domain main name when we submit our... Feels

Carter 2:29

Feels like we can. It feels like we

Zain 2:31

we can do. It feels

Zain 2:32

like we should, thanks to the listeners.

Zain 2:34

listeners. And, of course, thanks to Canva, which, by the way, Corey...

Corey 2:38

Corey... And our sponsors.

Corey 2:42

Canva, sorry about the brand safety moment you're having right now. Oh, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah, that's good.

Zain 2:47

Corey, do you want to start us off with our annual audit of the domain names? Do you just want to do rapid fire like you have in the past, or do you want to linger on some of the ones that you particularly think we should start purging this year. Maybe

Corey 2:58

Maybe I just do some tree tops because we have a lot of them. Like, we could spend an entire episode just talking on the variants of bretandrews.ca that we own. So, you know, there's a few. I

Carter 3:07

never really appreciated what we gave him.

Corey 3:13

Who was he, but mainly why was he? Hey, listen. Okay, keep going. Brett Andrews lives in my heart just fine. I don't know why you've all forgotten. He was our 1,000th

Zain 3:20

,000th patron. I forgot about Brett Andrews. That's fine. You

Corey 3:22

You know what? But now you remember him again and you love him again. I

Corey 3:25

I want to get down to 999

Zain 3:26

999 patrons again. I want a lot of people to quit so we can

Zain 3:29

get back to this moment.

Zain 3:31

Okay, keep going. What do

Corey 3:33

Well, let's talk about, of course, the evergreen one, disgraced former leader Brown, which we actually bought before his most recent disgraces. You know what I think is actually a good investment? I feel like that one is flexible because

Zain 3:44

because it works for, we know a lot of Browns, right? So should an Andrew Brown or a Janet Brown or a Rob Brown or a Peter Brown ever choose to run for office? And they're going to disgrace themselves, which seems like their path. As leader. Yeah, as leader. Evergreen. I

Carter 3:59

I also like it. All I'm hearing is we can't get rid of that one. I also like it because

Zain 4:02

because if anyone Brown runs, we can also make it

Carter 4:08

Probably not. I feel like the first was a good

Zain 4:10

good enough reason to keep it, but the second one I feel like is just a cherry on top. Maybe a reason to get rid of it. We're keeping that one, Carter. We're keeping that one. What else do we have? Well,

Corey 4:19

of course, we also own westofcenter.ca. That one's

Zain 4:23

one's on a 50-year

Corey 4:24

I believe we have

Corey 4:26

an American-sized mortgage on that, a 50-year mortgage on that particular one, okay? We actually can't get rid of that one because we also have it on a bus bench ad in Chase. That's

Corey 4:37

We do have it. We've

Corey 4:38

We've got to hold on to that one. How have

Carter 4:39

have they not asked us for it back? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I

Zain 4:42

I know. So to fill you in on this, they have. they asked me live on one of the shows um last year uh and i said the paperwork was extensive and then they balked so i feel

Zain 4:53

feel like you know they tried i i got them with the bureaucratic nightmare this time so look how does that taste cbc medicine

Corey 5:01

inexplicably we also own cursivepolitics.com you know there's not a lot of uh domains

Corey 5:06

domains yes we do why

Corey 5:09

why have we not put that that one to use i

Corey 5:11

i we have it points to west of center's content does

Zain 5:15

does it actually i'm gonna look this up yeah it

Corey 5:18

does okay i think i well like west of center's content or west of center.ca west of center's content so west of center.ca points to the strategists curse of politics points to west of center oh

Corey 5:32

that's good which is true and it wasn't really planned but but it's making me laugh when I think about it. That's pretty good.

Zain 5:38

good. Yeah, pretty good. Yeah, okay. What else do we have, Corey? Keep going, keep going. Allmelons.ca. I don't remember what...

Carter 5:46

Because you guys were dissing all the melons, and I liked all the melons.

Zain 5:51

.ca? You were... I

Zain 5:52

don't remember the context.

Carter 5:54

You don't remember when I was, you know, talking about how great melons are, and you guys hated all the melons?

Carter 6:00

I would have preferred allmelons

Corey 6:02

particular arsenal. Allmelons. You are the one who said all melons, and then I just registered. I feel like most of these I have said.

Corey 6:11

I guess we're keeping it, because

Carter 6:14

at some point... Oh, yeah, that one needs to be kept. There's no way we're going to use... At

Carter 6:17

point. That's just... I

Corey 6:17

I don't know what that's pointing at, but we should check that out. Is it a .ca or is that a .com? It's a .ca. Do we have the .com on all melons? I don't

Corey 6:24

don't think so, but we should look into that. I feel like that could be a business opportunity if

Zain 6:30

Canadian melons, I don't think we're going to... Okay, keep going. What else do we have? um shahal

Zain 6:34

shahal cabal that was

Carter 6:35

was a good one too yeah that's a good one we got i've spoken to george about that he doesn't seem to like it as much as we do shahal cabal.com

Zain 6:43

.com and or.ca what do we have dot com i like that it's a dot com because i feel like if george is ever out of politics and he wants to start a cult shahal cabal.com i mean you'll probably need to expand beyond the canadian market um so i like it let's keep it for him i like that and i forget

Zain 6:58

the context may have been about basketball but uh no

Carter 7:01

no it was about him owning the northeast okay

Corey 7:04

well perfect then oh

Corey 7:05

great geez okay there you go yeah it's good uh we we already talked about carter's monthly nut.com i mean classic yeah can we forward that to another podcast content it

Corey 7:15

it currently forwards to a google calendar invite so yeah

Carter 7:18

yeah when uh when i actually reach my monthly nut uh which is really upsetting.

Corey 7:27

I don't know what we... Okay, yeah.

Carter 7:31

This is one I feel like we should have put on video. Hey, like...

Corey 7:35

Why are we doing this, Zane? Can we do a different show, Zane? No, it's the first Sunday in November. Can you just do two more? Two more for us before I... All right, I'll do two more.

Corey 7:46

Trudeau is fucking you. Yeah, we've talked about that one.

Corey 7:49

Yeah, yeah, go on. Tellthedanielle.ca. we haven't even used that one what is tell the danielle that seems like well because she has she has tell the feds and so we have tell the danielle so yeah

Corey 8:00

oh that's not bad what should we do we should actually start a campaign at tell the danielle

Corey 8:07

take a little bit can you

Zain 8:08

airline related content i feel like we've got something to audit on the airline

Corey 8:13

do we not i feel like no we we actually have nothing airline related until now which now i'm gonna have to go purchase a bunch of them but it yeah

Zain 8:20

yeah don't we don't do we not have flair airlines f-l-a-r-e do we not have anything related to any of the other airlines it feels like kind of a fail on our part we

Corey 8:30

we might have dropped those after the last oh see here's the thing

Corey 8:32

thing we need to we need to we

Zain 8:33

we need to grab more cory please make that a task between now and when this episode is posted carter we're going to move it on to our first segment our first segment okay conventional wisdom stephen carter the ucp have had a convention it was in calgary yes

Carter 8:46

yes they did there

Zain 8:46

are three things that i want to kind of go through speaking of audits let's do this as an audit you're going to tell me whether this is important or not important if it's important we'll talk about if it's not important we'll put it aside okay so rapid fire let's just let's

Carter 8:57

let's just start this way giving me that kind of power

Zain 8:59

power no problem carter um the crowds the board control and the policies tell me which which of those are important which are not important crowds important or not uh crowds

Carter 9:10

crowds relatively i mean if we were to rank those i would i would say that the the policies are the least important important the crowd's the second least important and the control of the board by the take

Carter 9:23

take back alberta is extremely important

Zain 9:25

important for me same thing crowds just to contextualize it for people daniel smith ucp record number of people nearly four thousand people has been reported at their at their first agm after the election the board as carter mentioned take back alberta now getting more seats than they've had before on the board and the policies a list of them that we can go through to talk about that got passed by the membership, the record membership. Rank them for me. What's most important? And then we'll start there. And then you can tell me why the others find their place.

Corey 9:58

Yeah, look, I think that we're going to end up in the same place, me and Stephen here. Normally, I would say that that kind of crowd is impressive. But I actually think based on how the convention went down, based on some of the coverage of the convention, Even in the media, conventional media with people like Don Braid, the crowd number, which would seem impressive in one context, is going to seem alarming, perhaps, in the context

Corey 10:21

context in which we find it now. And that is when you get to the core of it because of the zeal of who was there and ultimately who was there. So because Take Back Alberta came in such force, because ultimately what they did that will have an ongoing day-to-day effect is take control of the board. It's hard not to say it's the board, but it is somewhat tied to the crowd numbers. There is a story here that's tough to kind of line up into your rankings of one, two, three, that is really about this

Corey 10:54

rather large group of people that have come and truly have taken over

Corey 10:58

over the UCP, you know, completely at this point, absolutely completely. The leadership, all of the executive positions, the policies that they're putting forward, and the tension that will now have to be grappled with by Danielle Smith, by the Premier's office, by the MLAs, and frankly, by us as Albertans, is what does that mean to

Corey 11:20

to be governed by such a group that has such extreme opinions relative to the Alberta baseline? line and look lots

Corey 11:27

lots of people outside of alberta think a lot of things about alberta but we've said this a million times and i'm going to say it again i'm going to underline it right now alberta is not actually by and large a particularly extreme place you've got to keep in mind that the ndp won the majority the majority of seats in calgary and edmonton this last election here and danielle smith didn't mention half of what she's doing right now that has

Corey 11:52

everybody Everybody cut up to an 11. And the things that she did, like the Alberta Sovereignty Act, were always deeply unpopular. And yes, we have apparently attention spans of goldfish in the province of Alberta. But that doesn't make us particularly unique in that context. But to have a government that is so not

Corey 12:09

not where the people of Alberta are, is

Corey 12:12

is really, really fascinating. And I think the political ramifications of that are going to be huge, frankly, over the next... Carter, talk to me about this. So, you

Zain 12:19

you know, I'm not going to go into deep dive on boards. We've done that on a previous episode, their value, how to take them over. In fact, I think we did an entire deep dive on how to take over a board from like, you know, in a very generic sense, obviously. Who

Carter 12:33

Who knew that David Parker was actually listening? Yeah, well,

Zain 12:35

well, you're welcome. You're welcome, David Parker. Carter, take back Alberta. They now control the board.

Zain 12:42

Answer me two questions. The question from the perspective of how important is this in terms of what we will see? And the second question, is there any denying their political influence going forward? Is that up for question anymore? more. That to me maybe is the most interesting question in terms of this PAC or third party group.

Zain 13:05

Is there any denying their political importance? Maybe start there and then let's talk about the importance of their positioning in the party and what we might see going forward.

Carter 13:14

Yeah, I mean, I imagine that you could very easily say, well, this doesn't really matter all that much. I mean, we've moved to a leader-centric model of politics in any case. uh so where the leader goes that's where the the politics goes and all these outside groups um you know they in the past they they flail about um they've been very unsuccessful in getting uh significant amounts of control historically so historic the history of this says not to worry right because in general um boards don't matter that much they they tend to follow leaders and And the leader is, you know, they've got all the powers of government. They've got all the powers of the caucus. And so because they control those two things, they're much more powerful than the board. And that used to be the case.

Carter 14:04

That was the case under Lougheed. It was certainly the case under Klein. But then it's been eroding, right? And the difference now is who controls when the leadership review happens? Who controls what the leadership review looks like? Who controls who has all of the delegates that they're pumping in? I mean, when we did the leadership review to keep Redford, it was a tremendous amount of work and we weren't faced with this level of organized opposition. This level of organized opposition is basically unheard of. Most of the time it is flushed out of the party and they go and they form something like the Wild Rose or the Alberta Party before that. Or, I mean, Randy Thurkelstein has been involved in, I think, two or three different parties being set up. It's really quite amazing that they have taken over the government party. That is the part that's amazing. And because of that, I think

Carter 15:01

think that Danielle Smith is going to be far more wary than the average leader would have been a few, I don't know, maybe a decade ago. I want

Zain 15:13

want to get into her strategy in a second. Corey, question to you.

Zain 15:16

Any denying their political importance right now or their political influence or their muscle? Or do you think this really makes it clear that they are a force to be reckoned with? Well,

Corey 15:27

Well, I don't think you can deny it. I do wonder if collectively, and maybe even specifically, Stephen almost overstates their influence at this particular moment.

Corey 15:38

Because, well, there's no question we've never seen in

Corey 15:40

in modern politics, a backroom organization with this kind of heft push itself around. The reality is the premier is still the premier. The government is still the government. Those things don't actually get beholden to the party. That's obviously a dynamic for her to manage. Stephen's absolutely right because they control the levers of the leadership contest. That is something that they can throw around and that's some heft that they can move. move but it's not it's not everything everything right like there are other components and there are checks and balances and i you know political parties are important particularly during campaigns i wouldn't want to suggest otherwise but they don't actually get to run the show you know they don't uh yeah

Carter 16:22

mean let let's go and check with uh with jason kenney on that because premier kenney how do you how do you feel about their ability well no no to this

Zain 16:30

point no No, no, hold on. Go ahead, go ahead, Corey. I

Zain 16:33

mean, I would say that the coming out party for Take Back Alberta was probably the Kenny leadership vote, so to speak, in some ways. But Corey, just to add that context, Corey, but you were mid-thought. Keep going.

Corey 16:46

Well, let's be really clear, though, that Jason Kenny still actually won.

Corey 16:52

And that was after, like, what is 52, but like the perfect storm, the perfect storm. Like, I think we all acknowledge that there was not a way things could have gone worse for Jason Kenney in terms of tensions within party, COVID-19, all of the shit that he had to deal with there. And Jason Kenney still actually got the majority of the votes at that particular moment, which I think speaks to the control, control's

Corey 17:16

control's the wrong word, the influence that a leader has over its base membership. You know, even

Corey 17:22

even at the end of the day, we're talking about 4,000 people who showed up. The UCP is a lot bigger than 4,000 people. Danielle Smith barely won that leadership.

Corey 17:32

There is more to the UCP than what we saw. But what's really fascinating is that

Corey 17:37

that we saw it in such like big, dramatic, front

Corey 17:41

front of house ways. Like, even when you have backroom organizers, you don't tend to see them take the stage the way David Parker and Take Back Alberta was. You don't tend to see them say things like, I came, I saw, I conquered.

Corey 17:53

Or a new chapter of

Zain 17:55

begins today sort of thing. Yeah,

Corey 17:57

Yeah, he tweeted, when he weedy weechy, right? Like, it's ridiculous. Like, who does that? Like, what is the high that this fellow is on? He feels

Carter 18:05

feels like he's taking some notes from me, actually. I feel bad

Zain 18:09

bad about it. I

Corey 18:12

where, but I'm like, God, Carter's

Zain 18:14

some competition here. Real Carter energy. There might be a new bad boy in politics that's in the Alberta State, Carter. Thank

Carter 18:22

Thank God we're taking some of the pressure off me.

Zain 18:24

I feel like his beard is better than yours, Carter. I feel like that's where, and he's much younger. This is a new and improved Carter. I'm telling you, there is the new Carter. Improved.

Zain 18:35

Listen, tell me this, Carter. I need a piece of analysis before I get into strategy.

Zain 18:39

Hold on. What else do you have to say? I feel like you said it all. I just wonder

Corey 18:43

wonder if he can get into the podcast rotation. Oh, I'm sure he can. I'm sure he can. We just

Carter 18:48

just have to ask. I mean, he technically is. Is he a strategist or a wingman? Well, I mean, he can apply

Zain 18:52

apply at davidparker.ca, which is a website that I suspect. I sure is taken. I don't think it is taken, Corey. If

Carter 19:01

If it's not taken and we don't have it by the end of this podcast, I don't even know who we are. Yeah, I don't know who we

Corey 19:06

know who we are. This is actually the whole episode. Hey, how much money are we going to spend this podcast, do you think? Not enough. Hey, by the way, I want to give a shout out to CBC,

Zain 19:13

CBC, our friend Rob Brown at CBC Calvary. He did a really good three and a half minute piece to give people a background on Take Back Alberta that folks can find. But Carter, I need a piece of analysis from you before I can get into strategy. Here's one thing that I've even struggled with, because

Zain 19:26

because I want to be both accurate and charitable, I guess, at the same time. Is Take Back Alberta Danielle Smith in the sense that are her values their values? like, actually? Or is she not that? And I'm struggling on such a simple question, because she hasn't necessarily been all that consistent, for lack of a better term, the last little while, right?

Zain 19:51

bouncing all over. So tell me this. They seem more ideological than where she is, but there seemed to be some intersection. Give me your analysis in terms of their relationship, because the follow-on question is her strategy alongside them and how she plays it. But if she is them there's very little strategy to be played so i'm want to get your sense on on your analysis here oh

Carter 20:12

oh she's just willing to sell herself to that particular buyer um and and you know there's there's all kinds of politicians who've who've attached themselves to groups that they feel will elevate them um you know the history of politics in canada is a history of watching politicians like attach themselves to um to quebec or attach themselves to protestants uh the the Protestants and the Catholics, um, you know, there's, there's been a history of elections in, in Canada that have been won and lost by the virtue of how people, you

Carter 20:48

you know, attach themselves and sell themselves to these groups. And sometimes it doesn't work and sometimes it does work. And in this particular case, uh, I think that Danielle has just simply decided that she's going to sell herself to this group um it doesn't match with her some of her ideological principles but i think at this stage she's far more interested in getting elected and staying elected than she is about doing anything with any particular value so

Carter 21:17

you know is is this her group i don't think so not the danielle smith i know but the danielle smith i know was also thrown out of the wild rose party because she wasn't right wing enough um she seems to be right wing enough for them now.

Zain 21:30

Corey, is that your analysis? This is a marketplace transaction. She's a buyer of what they're selling, either by force or by choice. Or do you feel like it's a little bit more than that in terms of alignment of values, ideology, or even policy?

Corey 21:46

I think that it's really tough to say it's one or the other neatly. They have got a symbiotic relationship going on. Obviously, Danielle Smith was a very essential part of Take Back Alberta's early victory. Danielle Smith herself was actively saying she would run against Jason Kenney, became one of the people who was immediately somebody in the conversation, I think far more than we appreciated at the time, to be sure. Like, you can run the tape on that. And we're like, oh, that doesn't seem like that's going to go anywhere. We were wrong. And she was an open, active individual challenging Jason Kenney and his positions in these areas. And so in some ways became the front of house for a lot of these same ideas. Obviously, a lot of that Take Back Alberta energy is what was required to get Daniel Smith over the top. We've already talked about the fact that it wasn't a very convincing win. It took many ballots. And if Take Back Alberta hadn't been involved, she would not be premier. year so there is a reality that's there too but i think that as both of these organizations started to feel themselves i mean daniel smith's organization and take back alberta tensions were going to be natural because

Corey 22:56

because you have a situation where take back alberta feels hey we got you there and you have daniel smith and he's thinking like hey i got myself here and so i'm sure at this particular moment there is uh you know still the same things that brought them together at the first time like in the first moment but i guarantee you that both of them curse the other on

Corey 23:15

on a pretty regular basis. Carter, so here's my strategy question.

Zain 23:20

She's not in an election year. She's, in fact, in her first year. She's in her first, you know, number of months here.

Zain 23:26

Does she need to spend any political capital distancing herself from these folks?

Zain 23:30

Does she need to spend any political capital doing anything with Take Back Alberta? From a brand perspective, from an actual sort of policy perspective, how would you play it if you were her i

Carter 23:44

mean if cory's right you don't really even have to play it i mean you just simply do what you want to do and let the chips fall where they may um and that would be great for danielle if cory was right i mean she'd be able to just do her own legislative policies she'd be able to do what she wanted to do like every other basically every other leader's office has done um you know you were watching it with with trudeau we watch it with all kinds of different politicians they're They're they're in charge. Doug Ford doesn't need to go to cabinet all the time to get to get his marching orders. He just gets his marching orders and off he goes. Except in this particular case, Corey's wrong, as he tends to be. And this is this isn't a regular relationship. This is a group that that that they

Carter 24:27

they know that they're in charge. They know that she can't win without them. And more importantly, they know they can put like

Carter 24:34

like the demonstration of being able to take over the board twice. that

Carter 24:39

that is a significant demonstration to do it one time when nobody expects it that is a major achievement to do it two times back to back when people expect it if

Carter 24:51

you're in daniel smith's office right now you're going back after this convention and you're saying they're going to want some of those things that were passed they're going to want you know trans kids pronouns to be you know off the record you you know this is going to happen and it

Carter 25:09

it it may not be danielle's thing she may not want it to happen but it will not matter because it's going to happen she is going to have to do the things that they want her to do because um they've got her right where they want her and if you keep in mind she was thrown out of the wild rose because she wasn't conservative enough. I don't think she's going to let that happen with this group. Corey, the

Zain 25:32

the phrase is, you know, used and tired, but keep your enemies close. But in this case, we're saying they're not enemies, but we're not necessarily sure if they're friends either. They occupy this interesting

Zain 25:43

interesting sort of, as you said, symbiotic terrain. What would your advice to her be in terms of how much, if any, political capital she spends on distancing and perhaps even bringing these folks closer in?

Corey 25:56

I think they're friends, but I think they they have different objectives, which overlap at times and don't at other times. And Danielle Smith is mindful of the fact that there is a broader province. If she wasn't, she wouldn't have taken the steps that she took during the general election to try to moderate her behavior, right? And in fact, she has made comments recently about like, oh, I'm really tired of this. I think she said like junior high stuff or something going on with some of the comments that were coming out of take back alberta take back alberta's entire reason to exist is not even about the ucp it's about we are going to bring a more hardline conservative view into all of these things which is is not i mean it's inherently in tension with the mission of trying to keep a government on the rails i think that's just a reality that there is here but i don't think that anybody look this moment matters and i think that alberta should be looking at this and saying what does this mean And Albertans should be thinking about how they want to make known to the government what they're willing to let the government do in these times, because even with a majority government, the public can have their voice. We've seen that with

Corey 27:01

with pushing back against private health care, when pushing back against Prentice's original approaches on gay-straight alliances, all of these things.

Corey 27:09

uh but it's just a moment it's a moment not too far after the election where danielle smith's troops would have been totally fatigued and if danielle smith is savvy she's going to spend the next six months to a year really thinking about how she balks up her own presence in the party she now knows the kinds of numbers she needs to get to a convention because she knows the kinds of numbers take back alberta is going to get she's got to start chiseling away at that she's got to get them more in her camp than in their camp and you know i think back to just after the election I was talking to a senior conservative and he

Corey 27:39

he was saying to me,

Corey 27:41

oh, this is, you know, hopefully now Danielle Smith can put some distance between herself and take back Alberta, right? Like she can put her

Corey 27:48

on the party. Those guys are going to drag us all into the ditch, right? right?

Corey 27:53

I actually believe that they probably want to do that, right? At least as an insurance clause, they don't want to be so beholden to David Parker. But that's not the kind of thing you can do overnight. And it's going to take some time. And I think that's now the work that she's got to find in front of her. Hey,

Zain 28:09

Hey, Carter, can we talk about strategy a bit more? I want to move it on from this topic. And yes, I will get to the policies in a second, because I know there's going to be a lot of people being like, but the policies. But I'm going to show

Corey 28:18

show up. I kind of think they're irrelevant in a way. Well, okay, go for it, go for it, go for

Zain 28:23

for it, and then I'll get to Carter on something else. Actually, you know what? Yes, go for it now, because I think my follow-up to Carter can actually include the policy question. Go ahead, Corey.

Corey 28:31

Yeah, I just, look, I think the policies are wild. I think that they, the rationales are quite a trip to read. Almost one by one, you think, what is this party? When you compare it to conservative parties in the past, I think there were like maybe maybe two or three that struck me as what would have been mainstream conservatism even like four years ago, right? Like this is like really quite something. And I'm really struck with how much they seem to import anxieties from the United States that simply didn't exist here, shouldn't exist here. Before

Zain 29:02

Before you go, and can I just read a few of these, Corey? Just so, can you hold that thought for us? Yeah, go for it. Let me just throw

Corey 29:06

throw a few on

Zain 29:07

on the table, just so people know what we're talking about and if they don't. Abolition of diversity offices in universities, banning race Race is a factor in admissions, ending transfer of transgender convicts to women's prisons, purging school libraries, the right to approve changes to kids' pronouns, freedom of doctors to ignore their professional associations, a right to keep guns, and a losing proposal on school vouchers. Just a sampling, and I'm not even giving you the depth that Corey was mentioning and the justification. But these are some of the things we're talking about. Corey, back to you on this.

Corey 29:37

well yeah and when you go into the justification there there seem to be fears about things that don't really exist in this country right like they are fully ported in narratives from like the fox news crowd and so like when i say these policies don't matter i guess i mean it in two ways one is like they're not in response to what's happening here in alberta so how can they be applied here in alberta at least in a sensible way but there's a few second like in the

Corey 30:02

the sense there's a few like

Zain 30:03

like you know the the obviously the the parental choice one

Corey 30:05

one that they're framing

Corey 30:07

yeah for sure and like but like some of the stuff about like we need to talk about there's literally phrasing and i'm skipping some words in between but like our god-given right to guns is a policy that's in there right like this is not this is not canada we don't have a second amendment you know well you know

Corey 30:27

it's just very very weird cory but

Carter 30:29

guess when you give your party over to these people it doesn't matter what's sensible but of course he's got a thesis that's what

Zain 30:35

what he's trying to make but that's my point

Carter 30:39

irrelevant they're not irrelevant if they're going to be acted upon and and we will see in a very short time this is my this is my prediction write it down put it you know you

Carter 30:49

know to note this spot in the tape yeah um this is when when uh we start to see um you know whether or not you're right or i'm right and i think we're going to see legislation um affirming parental rights we've already had i've already done my monologues on parental rights versus parental responsibilities um yeah steven i'm

Corey 31:12

i'm not disputing that's not what i

Carter 31:13

i mean when i say that's

Carter 31:14

what i mean when i

Corey 31:15

i say it's irrelevant that's not what i mean when i say it's how do

Carter 31:18

do you mean it's it's going to be pretty fucking relevant to the people When I say the specifics

Corey 31:22

specifics are irrelevant, I mean, it's because the entire thing talks about an ethos and a worldview that has now taken over massive swaths of this political party's base. It actually has nothing to do with these individual policies. There's going to be some of these things, some of them that don't even apply. There's going to be 100 others that weren't even passed as policy conventions. See, for example, like the solar panels. Oh, the solar panel one was crazy. It's like we need to pause on solar panels because they're going to destroy farmland, which is a widely debunked thing. But yeah, my point is, it's

Corey 31:53

it's not about the specifics. Step back and see the whole picture. The individual policies, talking about whether they're good or bad, they're basically all bad. They're irrelevant. What you need to keep focused on is not the specifics. We can't sit here and argue about the merits of a policy of a 15-minute city or not. That's what I mean. What I'm saying is you've got to see the whole fucking picture here. This is a party that has been entirely consumed, to your earlier point, Stephen, by this particular strand of conservatism. Carter,

Zain 32:22

Carter, address the policies, and in fact, address my follow-up question I was going to give both of you, which is, and I'm glad you put the policies on the table, Corey, because it actually allows a few options for this particular question, which is, how should the opposition react and what should they go after? after. Policies, individually or as a package, seem interesting. The board, you've got Danielle Smith's leadership and the phraseology and even her speech, which we haven't even gotten to, but it was largely rehashed from the throne speech, if I can kind of give it that from both the content and tonal perspective. So Carter, your thoughts on Corey's response, but then get me started on strategy for the opposition here as well, please.

Carter 33:01

Well, I think you want to really quickly figure out what your total narrative is like what is it you want to do like one of the things you see the the opposition doing is is bouncing back and forth between individual policies all the time right one thing one thing one thing one thing and always you you never really get to see the full connection what is it that we're trying what is the story that we're trying to tell and the story that we should be trying to tell is this is a party that's been taken over by extremists and these extremists are driving the province the wrong direction and we're going to stand up and oppose it not on each individual level you know if we go with cory's point of view and and he's not wrong he's just really poor at explaining it um if you go with cory's point of view what you what you need to do is you need to explain um how each individual part idea is is coming from extremists the only thing that i think i liked out of the entire weekend was danielle smith saying that uh she She wants to see rail between Calgary and Edmonton. You know, fantastic. We got one smart idea. Everything else should be tied to the extremists that are coming after the province. The extremists who want to create a province that we don't want to live in. Corey,

Zain 34:12

Corey, the opposition has been spending at least observably a lot of their time, this is the opposition NDP, spending a lot of their time on the pension plan. Should they just keep that going? It seems like that seems to be, you know, to Carter's point, something that they're being consistent on, extending beyond perhaps just a simple news cycle? Or is there meat on the bone here, so to speak, coming out of the convention that should be part of their focus and their narrative in the coming weeks and months?

Corey 34:40

yeah look i think that it

Corey 34:43

is so easy to get distracted by some of these policies but i guess i would have two cautions for an opposition that wants to make a lot of hay about them like there is a bigger story and you can use this as a proof point but it

Corey 34:55

it takes nothing for danielle smith to make the comment that jason kenney made about i believe it was an abortion resolution i could be wrong but there was a resolution that came out of a ucp convention with kenny was leader who said like i'm just not going to do that right like that is the leader's prerogative and so if you go too far out on the ledge you actually give danielle smith an opportunity to look moderate look like she's reigning in the parts of her party that are very extreme how high of a risk is that in

Zain 35:18

in your mind i

Corey 35:19

i mean it depends like but but that said and

Corey 35:23

and you want to you know you want to stay focused it depends on the issue but you want to stay focused on the things that are actually moving moving with the public and i think that one of the things about the cpp as we know it is likely to be something that is a little bit more significant and resonant doesn't mean you entirely ignore it uh and certainly you want to use proxies to kind of push the premier onto the record on some of these things but you're

Corey 35:46

you're gonna have to let her make a move before you go in too heavy because otherwise she can just retreat from them right so carter

Corey 35:54

carter eager to get in

Corey 35:55

here go ahead yeah

Carter 35:56

yeah the point is though um go

Carter 35:58

go after things that are actually happening you don't need to go after things that are hypothetical you don't have to think go after things that are coming up in at some point in the future um

Carter 36:07

um you've got bills in front of the legislature and this i think is one of the things for for opposition parties in general uh in general go after things that are real and are actually happening don't go after things that are hypothetical or could happen People generally don't worry about hypothetical or could happen. They worry about things that are happening. And it sounds like from this convention, there's going to be a

Carter 36:32

a ton of different things that are actually happening that will reinforce the point that the province is being taken over by extremists, that the premier's office has been taken over by extremists. you don't need to make shit up you don't need to go after um other things you don't have to go after things that might happen in the future go only after go only after things that are actually happening we're

Zain 36:55

we're gonna leave this segment there move it on to our next segment our next segment cory are you here for it are you here for it it's called life comes at you quick we have to talk about justin trudeau it was

Zain 37:09

it was a trickle and then it was a few it was a few voices and then it was fractures within the party. And now, Corey, this past week, it seems to be everywhere.

Corey 37:19

That Justin Trudeau... This is the way it always has... We, like, again, run the tape. Yeah,

Zain 37:24

Yeah, no, and... Let's

Corey 37:25

Let's take a victory lap, Stephen. Let's take a victory lap. Life comes

Corey 37:27

comes at you quick, Carter.

Zain 37:28

Carter. That's why it's called that. And I want to just start here with the top line question. Is it over?

Zain 37:36

From your strategist brain, less so your analyst brain, let's just start here. Is it over? Because I want to actually spend spend a few minutes on strategy for Justin Trudeau, helping him out. And helping could be helping him see the door and see the picture, or helping him could be a final pathway. But I need to ask you the top line question with everything you've heard, everything you've seen, the Coletto numbers that are out there, the narratives that are assembling your past history and seeing how the downfall happens. Corey, I'll maybe start with you. Is it over?

Corey 38:07

If it's not the end, we can see the end from here right like this your point is a really important one zane in the summer at

Corey 38:15

at the time of the cabinet shuffle we were still saying like yeah but nobody's gonna force him out you know like that was still a conversation that was out there in the public in a big way that's not the conversation that's out there anymore you have uh you have voices that are a little bit more a

Corey 38:31

a little bit more willing to challenge the status quo you have pundits who are just going out and saying this is not really going to work you referenced a poll by abacus David Coletto, was doing media about, there was a Toronto Star article about it, which effectively says the liberals, like the liberal voters, are

Zain 38:48

are saying no, not him. Yeah, so

Corey 38:50

so it certainly has become a roar. It's no longer a whisper. It's no longer the muttering in the hallways. And it's following the most predictable of paths. So right around, we kind of anticipated that in the winter of January. You said October. No, no, you guys said October.

Corey 39:05

Oh, there you go. Good for us. I remember this.

Zain 39:06

this. this. You said if this

Zain 39:09

like this in October, I'm hitting the panic button or some version of that, to be clear. Corey, keep going. Well,

Corey 39:16

Well, here we are. And we said that it would start with people saying like, look, he's not being served well by the people around him. So that's always kind of like the next big domino to fall. Like a staff shakeup, I 100% predict at this point, if he's not just going to resign in the next two months. If he's looking to hold on, I expect a kind of a more significant staff shakeup to occur. And yeah, and then there are no more levers to pull. You have shuffled your cabinet, you've changed your team. I'm predicting this happens at this point. And then what? What do you have? You have only yourself. So this is the trajectory that takes us to a leader taking a, as we say in Canada, walk in the snow, deciding no longer to be leader in the next couple of months here. It really does feel like it's on that course right now it doesn't feel like there's an easy way off that course there's not

Corey 40:07

you would have had to have played a lot of error-free ball for the last couple of months with poll numbers this low but you're not you're fucking up left right and center um we talked about the carbon thing ad nauseum there's been a lot of people who've reported a lot of acrimony in the liberal caucus over this particular matter it's

Corey 40:27

it's now out in the open like like we're in open dissent times here and there's not a lot of paths back from open dissent very few leaders manage to do it some do christy clark immediately comes to mind very few do carter is

Corey 40:41

is it over yeah

Carter 40:43

yeah i mean it's over uh and and we we we told we said it was it was going to over when he did his last shuffle we said that he needed to be able to uh start to see a recovery um because his confidence alone that only he could beat Pierre Palliev in the next election wasn't going to defeat Pierre Palliev.

Carter 41:06

I'll tie it in. Just driving towards

Carter 41:11

And parties don't like failure. Parties really resent the idea that they're going to lose. Imagine that you're sitting in caucus right now and you look to one side of you and look to the other side of you and you know that half of you are gone.

Carter 41:24

That's not a very comfortable feeling. I mean,

Corey 41:26

mean, if you're charitable based on the polls. Yeah,

Carter 41:29

Yeah, I mean, that's your best case scenario right now. This guy's got to go. You know, so Corey's to Corey's point, if we if we

Carter 41:39

we do not see a staff shuffle in the next, I don't know.

Carter 41:44

Like it has to happen before Christmas. Yeah.

Carter 41:47

So if we didn't see a staff shuffle before the before Christmas week

Zain 41:50

week in November, and

Carter 41:51

and anticipate that the staff that's remaining with them are writing his resignation.

Corey 41:56

Yeah, I agree with that. It'll be end of session, two weeks. That's when the staff would write their letters of, it's now time for me to move on. Like, it won't be like a public firing. Like, this will be people who are given the opportunity to leave on their own two feet. give

Zain 42:08

give me a sense okay so i you guys i sense what the next step is if he's going to stay or if he's going to try to get one final shot at it and when i say shot i mean you know have one final go at it internally uh from a let's see if we can rebound any of this but cory the one question that still remains from the summer is

Zain 42:28

is the question of who who's

Corey 42:31

okay so that's another interesting development of this yes and this

Zain 42:35

this is what i want to get into actually just How about you get into it rather than me trying to tee it up? Go ahead.

Corey 42:39

I'll just say, like, Mark Carney, for one, is now actively saying things like, oh, I have not closed the door, and I think it would be interesting because I understand how markets work. Lifetime politicians don't necessarily know how markets work, right? You actually are hearing what was backroom chatter become media chatter. It is

Corey 43:00

is quite a step, I have to say, for Mark Carney to say the things that he said to the media. Yeah, that's a conscious decision of somebody who says – And give an exclusive to Marika Walsh

Zain 43:08

Walsh at The Globe. It was like, I'm going to give you an exclusive. It wasn't just a, hey, this is like – it was planned, orchestrated. That

Corey 43:15

is a decision made by somebody who thinks there is for sure a leadership contest coming, right? And no longer worries about how the current leader might feel about such comments. Because the last time he

Zain 43:27

he showed up was six months ago. And just before he was going to the Liberal Convention and just said in six different ways that he still supports the prime minister. Very little of that this time.

Corey 43:39

Well, he's now, and he's like, don't get me wrong, he hasn't actively said Trudeau must go or anything like that, but he has now actively presented himself as an alternative to the sitting prime minister. He can pretend he didn't, but that's exactly what happened this week. Carter, do you agree that that's the analysis here?

Zain 43:53

here? And what I'd also say that's happened this week, and it really seems to have crystallized this past week, is that the, and the Coletto numbers can prove this over a course of time, that it's not necessarily about who's next, you know, the liberal voters just want Trudeau gone, right? The who question, they're happy to figure that out. Like, they're happy to kind of be like, fuck it, we don't care. It just can't be this guy. versus the big hang-up, perhaps in the summer and even earlier on, where there was initial rumblings of Trudeau's weakness was that, well, he's better than anyone else that could potentially replace him. That qualifying statement, Carter, seems to have now been removed from the equation.

Carter 44:30

I mean, that statement's just patently false at this stage. I mean, there are very few people who could do worse than Trudeau at this stage because he's in such a negative situation. situation. He has watched the party. He has led the party as it has gone into a free fall in the polls. And there's a time that you can say, well, the polls aren't everything, right? There's the polls shift, polls change, polls move. All of these things are true. Polls do do all of those things. But when you've got a picture over time that is telling this consistent story, the polls aren't going to get you out of this. You need a significant shift to get out and the significant shift at this point is the prime minister's head that's the only thing that's that's available to them uh again you know you try and figure out what could you do well what are the what are the other options all you know we could do a cabinet shuffle we just did a cabinet shuffle we could we could get rid of some staff yeah you can get rid of some staff but who's left to get rid of who's who's the person high enough on the uh on the list that actually is in a position to you know in some fashion signal that the the the thing's going to turn around we you know our last episode was called the d team um by

Carter 45:44

by the way cory genius work on the d team description if if if people haven't uh got patreon uh what are you doing like this this this episode alone and and for

Zain 45:57

those that you do please uh unsubscribe so we can get to 999 and then get back to a thousand and so we can buy

Carter 46:04

It has no impact

Zain 46:06

impact on me. People won't do it. People, they might do it. You're

Carter 46:09

You're bitter because you're getting paid less, but you're getting paid less because you don't do as many episodes. The pay equity episode

Zain 46:17

underrated, undervalued, and way too good for this show. Okay. Keep going. That's fine. That's fine. I should be paid. I should be paid triple.

Zain 46:24

should get my agent on this. You

Carter 46:25

You should barely be paid at all. Anyways, my point. Wow. My point is this. there's there's so there's so little left to do um there is no i mean if you can't replace jerry butts into how many years we did you

Zain 46:38

an entire episode maybe three months ago saying oh maybe it was less than that find another jerry i don't think any moves have been made to do that

Carter 46:45

no it's and there's no other jerry to get so

Carter 46:49

the only thing left is for him to leave it's a sad state but he had a good run he had a very good run you

Zain 46:56

you know it's it's it's for anyone anyone who's wondering um about the time stamp i don't have it in front of me but um carter did tell a racialized man that he should be paid barely nothing just a few seconds ago and i just want everyone to note note that hey hey hey cory uh carter brings up something i i i don't want to get into a whole stretch

Carter 47:12

stretch i'm still struggling with the racialized man thing who is it who did i do that to oh

Zain 47:17

oh it's so nice that you see me as one of your own um yeah cory what

Zain 47:22

what should the strategic goal for trudeau be here and i could get into a whole strategy episode but i actually want to focus on the goal, right? I want to focus on what the goal should be. So, let's just say it's either him leaving or not leaving. I actually kind of don't care at this point. He must acknowledge that the walls seem to be coming in on him, that the options become more narrow. So, what are you trying to save, right? If the proverbial sort of like ousting is happening, is it about legacies, about final points of policies, about protecting your people? What should his strategic focus and goal be in this case with the fact that, you know, this is the current scenario because there's many things that one can focus and there's many distractions um what do you spend your last ounces of political capital on is perhaps a different way to ask it that's

Corey 48:06

that's an interesting question and you know as steven was talking and i just sort of reflexively as he does say these things like it's over it's done these very absolute comments i'm i'm really torn i'm of two minds because part of me agrees a hundred percent like listen this this trajectory is so fucking clear. It's really hard to argue. And as I've already said, it's really hard to come back from it.

Corey 48:27

just don't know that it's 100% done. But I think one

Corey 48:33

one of the things that he needs to understand, by he, I don't mean Steven, I mean, Justin Trudeau here, he needs to understand what his goal is here. Because he is chasing a number of goals at the same time, or at least it feels that way right now. So if his concern is legacy, well, then last week was about the dumbest thing i've ever seen right because he's blowing up one of his core pieces of policy if the next person the next man or woman did it that would have way less damage to his legacy than him doing it right now uh if his goal is to hang on well

Corey 49:05

well then he's not exactly playing that particularly right either is he you know like because he's not doing the things you need to do to hang on which tend you know fundamentally to be a reshuffling of things in a more material sense and building towards like a strategy like it feels like he's just running too many scenarios at the same time and well i think it's important in politics to keep your options open like this is advice i'd give to anybody in almost any strategic situation right like you don't want to you don't want to senselessly narrow the options in front of you

Corey 49:35

at a certain point you have to ask yourself if by not narrowing all you're doing is is kind of blowing yourself it's just burning

Zain 49:41

burning you're not on nothing nothing yeah

Corey 49:43

yeah like you're using capital to to keep everything open and as a result you're not moving forward in any direction yeah and

Carter 49:49

and i think that's step one yeah he's gonna figure out what he wants to

Zain 49:53

what would that be yours what would your suggestion be carter be more prescriptive for me for

Zain 49:59

him what would i've just listed you legacy policy people i don't even know if that's not

Carter 50:04

there's no time left for legacy there's

Carter 50:07

there's no time left for uh figuring out how you best get out of this um the truth of the the matter is that this thing is over now and are

Carter 50:16

saying he's got no political

Zain 50:17

political capital left to do any of these things it's over it's

Zain 50:21

over that is bold it's

Carter 50:24

over how long does he have before he has to step down in your mind because in mine he has six or eight weeks yeah

Corey 50:32

yeah my mind it's the end of february just because there's so he's

Carter 50:35

he's got so what do you what can you accomplish you can't put money much more onto the order paper for this session you're

Carter 50:41

you're not going to be in your session when you come back after christmas yeah

Carter 50:48

there's no legacy okay okay

Zain 50:50

okay can i can actually this is what i wanted to spend the time on so legislatively it's over okay i'm going to push that aside is

Zain 50:57

is it over in every other category so legislative is just one part of it right

Carter 51:03

what's he going to do go to india like you know like is he going to do a giant uh is he going to know create world peace like imagine what the outcomes would be he doesn't have those you know people who are on their way out you know who knows you're on the way out everybody everybody fucking knows you're on the way out you're toxic people can sniff your your impotence they and they smell it and they know that you're impotent sniff your

Corey 51:33

quite the phrase yeah steve but

Zain 51:35

but But when you add

Zain 51:36

add .ca to it, it's quite the domain.

Carter 51:45

because we're getting checks. By the way, as I mentioned earlier,

Zain 51:48

earlier, Rob Brown's got an excellent three-and-a-half-minute video on Take Back Alberta, which is available at sniffyourimpotence.ca.

Corey 51:56

I thought that for sure would have been at disgracedformerleadabrown.ca, but that's not.

Zain 52:00

No, no, no, that's sniffyourimpotence.ca. Okay,

Carter 52:03

look. Oh, God. you

Corey 52:05

you know it's so interesting to me i okay

Corey 52:07

okay you are struggling with the liberal aren't you i am

Corey 52:10

am struggling with carter's absolutism i am too well here's here's the challenge that i i am just going to articulate right one the reason why his absolutism i'm not so 100 sure about is this it's justin trudeau's party in any way that particularly matters right now even if he has lost the confidence of people around him in increasing amounts here like i i was very active of course in the federal liberal party for for most of the aughts and you know the early 2010s there i'm not really anymore and in part because the party has kind of shifted in ways that are not fully i'm not super enthused about all of the time i'm not opposed to them other times here but the liberal party of the past and the liberal party of today aren't actually that similar like the liberal party of the past the one that i think about and paul wells was writing a little bit bit about this in the last week which has got me thinking about it was was this really weird messy like factional thing that had all sorts of cynical components ideologically like pure components and like the intermingling of them and these regional interests and this kind of balance and you'd have these personalities who you're like like it's so weird to think of it there was like party

Zain 53:18

party and like in its realist there

Corey 53:19

there was a pro-life caucus in the liberal party very recently recently right like there were hard right-wing conservatives in the liberal party under that liberal banner at certain points there were also very left-wing people in it and it's not that anymore like it is it basically got beaten down to a nub after the subsequent elections of dion and then ignatyev and then kind of fumbled through the ray periods and then justin trudeau rebuilt the whole fucking thing in his very shallow image i'm sorry i'm not trying to offend liberals out out there but like it became the party of like hope and great hair and you know we're going to be this moderate middle and we're going to do the things that you think

Zain 53:57

think it actually became quite a progressive juggernaut in the time that it that it held

Corey 54:02

power i do because i think that that was like the west wing storyline that was called for at that particular moment i'm going to be totally frank and you know that insincerity is part of the thing that sort of bothered me and um you don't think that's because so many things at

Zain 54:15

at his core well

Corey 54:16

well for fuck's sake like let's talk about all of of the policy promises that were made that were walked back i don't even know if i'd be able to get past the electoral reform cynicism i don't even know if i would get there because do you remember the refugee the syrian refugee thing how outraged he was during the election and how we had to do more and then he won the election and 30 fucking seconds later he changes his number to the number that he called basically stephen harper a racist for putting out there so yeah i think that this has been his party to the core for the last bit here for a very very long time and so it's hard for me to imagine that this party is somehow going to reject the organ that that

Corey 54:55

it is you know like it's just like

Carter 54:57

like a penis i'm

Corey 55:00

i'm getting animated here but i gotta tell you like it's hard for me to imagine that it's like oh yeah okay so justin trudeau's done so we're now we're just gonna go go back to the way it was there is no going back to the way it was the liberal party is a fundamentally different beast it

Carter 55:14

it will do what every what every political party does and that is be defined by the leader once it's created by in the by the new leader the new leader needs to come in and have the opportunity to find it in their own in their own image and here's the thing cory like the absolutism is there because it isn't his party anymore that's

Carter 55:32

that's gone his party is over it's

Carter 55:35

it's not It's not his party.

Zain 55:40

his party. I have to agree with Corey on this, Carter. It's his party until it isn't. And it's

Carter 55:45

it's gone. You know what, guys? A marriage is working until a marriage doesn't work. And this marriage isn't working. And then you do a cabinet

Corey 55:52

cabinet shuffle. Yes, we

Corey 55:56

I don't know, man. It's going to be an interesting one to look back on. So

Zain 56:00

me go back to Carter before I end this episode with the final segment. segment. Carter, does he have enough political capital to do anything? And if so, what?

Carter 56:10

He has enough political capital to get into 2024.

Carter 56:17

That's all he's got.

Zain 56:19

That would be your advice. If you were sitting down with him today, that would actually be your advice face to face. You're telling me. My

Carter 56:26

My advice to him would be, it's

Carter 56:28

it's time to go.

Carter 56:31

How do you want to leave? Do you want to be be do you want to be dragged out of your bed you

Carter 56:34

you know do you want to lose this is helpful

Zain 56:36

helpful this this is political capital that he spent how do you want to leave keep going do

Carter 56:39

do you want to do you want to leave do you want to leave under your own steam or

Carter 56:44

or do you want to be you know essentially handed hand the keys over to pierre polyev there is no means available to recover from this there is no means there

Carter 56:55

there is nothing there is no legacy to be built first of all politics isn't about building It's about building a legacy. It's about earning a legacy. So you don't get to just build it.

Carter 57:07

they're coming for him.

Carter 57:08

And they're going to get to him, whether

Carter 57:11

whether they get to him before the election or they get to him after the election. And it is infinitely better for him not to be the guy, you

Carter 57:18

you know, the captain going

Carter 57:20

going down with this ship.

Carter 57:22

It's just infinitely better for him.

Zain 57:24

Corey, you wanted to comment on this, around the how to leave, perhaps?

Corey 57:29

Well, look, I think it's always good for a leader to leave before they're told to leave. And I don't know that just because he's told to leave, he would have to leave. But it probably makes sense to stop and say, realistically,

Corey 57:42

realistically, reasonably clear eyed, can I turn this around? And you've got to think about your legacy in more than the number of elections you've won, trying to beat dad's record, that kind of bullshit here. His legacy, he's got to think of expansively, is that he has changed the Liberal Party. He has created a Liberal Party that is in many ways more progressive, I would argue is in many ways less robust, right? You know, certainly not the big tent party that it was at one point. But he's changed that party. And he has changed this country. There's a lot of things that the Liberal Party has done. I've said this before, and I'm not walking back from it with my shots at him here. he is probably the most transformational prime minister of my lifetime you know for good and for ill he's done brian

Corey 58:28

yeah i mean but you know it's it's interesting even that he's in the conversation for that after

Corey 58:33

after the 90s and the early 2000s and the late 2000s and early 2010s where governance was kind of you

Corey 58:41

steady as she goes moderate not doing big swing stuff. But he's got to think about how he sustains that. And his legacy is not going to look that great. And I think in many ways, it will be seen as a bit of a blip in electoral politics if the Liberal Party goes back to being as irrelevant as it was the minute after the election where

Corey 59:04

Michael Ignatieff came in third.

Corey 59:06

He's got to think about his legacy. And even if the Liberal Party looks like it's going to lose even if you don't believe it's winnable you've

Corey 59:14

you've got to salvage as much of this as you can if you want to have a legacy that sustains going forward we're

Zain 59:19

we're going to leave that segment there moving on to our final segment carter are over under in our lightning round um we do it for you we

Zain 59:25

do it for you carter thank you carter you know the same conversation or a similar one is starting to happen in the united states because david axelrod the former obama campaign veteran has come out and said wondering musing i guess less so saying music

Zain 59:38

music If Joe Biden should still be the Democratic nominee, it's all but, you know, expected that he's going to be until it isn't overrated or underrated in your mind, Carter, that that Biden is getting questioned about his second poll numbers against a surging Trump.

Carter 59:56

think I think it's a big thing. I mean, I think that any time a sitting president is questioned like this. But, you know, I think that there

Carter 1:00:03

there were other people who pointed out articles that question whether or not Obama could be could even conceivably be Romney around the same time. This isn't the highlight of a president's, you know, electoral strategy. This is a low point. I think most presidents are at the low point at this time. And, you

Carter 1:00:25

you know, hopefully Biden pulls it through and, you know, doesn't fuck up too much because the idea of President Trump coming back is just, I

Carter 1:00:33

mean, I can't believe that people in the United States are even thinking about this. Corey,

Zain 1:00:37

Corey, overrated, underrated, the calls for Biden to potentially reconsider being the Democratic nominee heading into 2024?

Corey 1:00:46

I think the one call is overrated, but I think this is a really underrated and really important question. And it's not dissimilar, as you said, to what we were talking about previously, because there

Corey 1:00:58

there seems to be a belief that Joe Biden has that only he can beat Trump because he's beat Trump in the past. And I just don't buy that for a lot of reasons. And if it looks like he's going to face the kind of electoral environment that he's going to face, I'm not saying he can't beat Trump. I'm saying, why

Corey 1:01:17

why are you tying one hand behind your back, Democrats, electing or making your nominee such an unpopular leader at such an existential time for American democracy? you've got to be putting your best foot forward here you've got to be giving yourself every opportunity you can to make sure donald trump does not return to the white house because this is not about four years at this point it's not it's just not and if that means you've got to start exploring other options if that means you need to have a robust nomination process where you can have

Corey 1:01:50

you know the newsoms duke it out with the uh jeffries or whoever right like let's just let's let's just have this out and let's find a nominee that maybe Americans can get at least a sense of a clean slate with, because it just looks like too much fatigue, too much baggage, too much, and it's time for Joe Biden, who's had one hell of a career and did beat Trump once, to also know when

Corey 1:02:15

when to leave before he's told.

Zain 1:02:16

Corey, I'm going to stick with you for this next one. Justin Trudeau in Washington, D.C. when asked about what Canada should be doing with the current situation in Israel and in Palestine, says, you know, we need to cease. And then, of course, pauses. We need to see a humanitarian corridor and exit. He kind of has this Freudian slip. Yes or no? Should we be reading into that more and around his true intentions and what he may want? Or are you just giving him a pass on this particular one?

Corey 1:02:42

I mean, I, in general, have thought it's like, it's just the kind of thing you always see in international relationships. People do it because it's how you find a way to get people to agree to things that they've rejected before but like what is a humanitarian pause if not a ceasefire like a ceasefire literally means you stop firing it's it's kind of all there in the word right so why do

Zain 1:03:06

do you think the semantics is this like an international law thing that maybe i don't i'm not illuminated on i mean

Corey 1:03:10

mean it that's that's part of it like a ceasefire has like it means certain things but i think in it's also because people have said like we're not gonna you know we're not going to cease fire right and so like you cease fire is all about stopping shooting again literally in the words there humanitarian pause changes the onus to the humanitarian actions that would occur so it's not about stopping firing it's about finding space for humanitarian activity and so this rebranding serves not just that kind of legal purpose but it serves a purpose in the court of public opinion the way you're going to talk about these things do

Zain 1:03:46

do you think humanitarian humanitarian pause as a comms branding guy, just from that strict, like narrow vantage

Zain 1:03:52

vantage point, good or bad? I think

Corey 1:03:56

think it's good. Not because I think it's poetry, but because it allows people to, with communications, you're always sort of thinking about your goals. And one of the goals here, obviously, is to allow people to get to yes, that's part of a quarantine. Sometimes it means also saying things in a way where people don't instantly have to say no. So the most famous example of this of course is the cuban missile crisis where there was a blockade of cuba well a blockade is an act of war under the rules of war right so they didn't call it a blockade because

Corey 1:04:26

because if it was a blockade well then all of a sudden it's an act of war against cuba all of a sudden cuba's allies need to be triggered yeah to

Corey 1:04:34

they called it a quarantine

Corey 1:04:36

what the fuck was the difference none but it allowed people to make the decisions they needed to do, and it gave the space for a diplomatic solution. So, words matter a lot, all the time, and they matter a lot in particular in international politics, where sometimes doors get closed because of words, doors open because of words. So, I applaud people looking for different ways that they can get people to yes on the things that they want to do, that could save people, that could help civilians. Carter?

Zain 1:05:03

I do. Are you reading more into the Justin Trudeau struggling to say ceasefire and pausing halfway, or you're just saying, it's a stupid question, Zane, move on?

Carter 1:05:13

i mean i don't read very much into it from the point of view of what trudeau was intending i think that the truth is that the international community is trying to figure out a way to minimize i'm not even going to say stop civilian deaths i don't think that that's actually this the the goal that the international community has has settled upon i think they're They're trying to minimize civilian deaths, understanding that they know who the Israeli government is. They know what the politics of the United States are. And with those two big variables

Carter 1:05:53

variables so very well known, I

Carter 1:05:56

I think the best we can hope for is a humanitarian corridor,

Carter 1:05:59

corridor, right? Whatever words are created to get

Carter 1:06:03

get people to stop killing civilians for a little while. Carter,

Zain 1:06:06

Carter, final question as we end the episode.

Zain 1:06:10

At the UCP convention, there is an article written, CBC, Jason Markosoff has a good piece of analysis on the CBC. At the end of the article shows a photo of a woman shopping for more Alberta, less Ottawa t-shirts or sweatshirts in this case that were being sold at the UCP convention. And the kind of the subtext on this photo said like these sold out relatively quickly, which makes me ask you this question, Carter. Political merch overrated

Zain 1:06:36

overrated or underrated in your mind? We've seen a rise of it with the online shopping ability, with the ability to brand yourself, make people walking, talking billboards for your campaign or your movements, or in this case for a slogan that is nicely designed. but political merch in your mind as a campaign practitioner overrated or underrated as we close out the episode underrated

Carter 1:06:59

underrated i think that people uh need to be able to show which tribe they belong to and you know being able to buy merch that that clearly identifies which team they're on which side they fight with the the groups that they're with um you know now the

Carter 1:07:17

the design of it zane was was fucking horrible. I wouldn't be caught dead in that sweatshirt. But there's actually weird stuff about how bad design works really well for right-wingers. Yet another failing of the far right.

Zain 1:07:32

Corey, do I have to start with the design for you on this particular sweatshirt? We could describe it to people, or they could see it at morealbertalessottawa.ca. I mean, it's there.

Zain 1:07:43

completely our choice. We could describe it, or we could send them to more Alberta, less Ottawa, so they can see it. Corey, take

Zain 1:07:54

take a crack at the design if you'd like, but more importantly, I do want to get an answer from you, overrated, underrated on political merch.

Corey 1:08:02

mean, people do buy it to signal their support of a cause, signal the fact that they're in a tribe. I fucking hate it. I think a lot of normal, I'm not saying I'm a normal person. I'm saying in addition to me hating it, I think a lot of normal people see it as a big red flag that you should run away the other way because this person is

Corey 1:08:20

is going to suck. They're going to be boring. They're going to be so much on one side of an issue. They're not going to have any kind of thoughtful conversation. My personal feeling is the only thing worse than political merch for your body is political merch for your car, right? Bumper stickers. But, you know, people like it. People want it. People want to show their causes. they want to express their causes this is not new this is the same reason people buy like 10 tree shirts to show that they bought a shirt that then resulted in people planting 10 trees you know uh we we wear our causes all of the time we do are you wearing 10 tree right now i'm wearing 10 oh my god you

Zain 1:08:59

you okay cory we need to start a company it's called negative 10 tree okay what we're doing is for every shirt you buy we actually go out and we kill 10 trees affinity matters to people affinity just hang

Carter 1:09:09

hang on a second okay is this a good time or a bad time to promote the merch store at uh www.westofcenter.ca we sell

Corey 1:09:16

sell we sell shirts although you want to know something yeah and because of my personal tastes on this yeah none of our shirts say have the strategist logo on this is true because i would be very embarrassed to wear the logo of well we do have that baby

Zain 1:09:29

baby shirt that's got the strategist logo that was

Carter 1:09:34

was a great shirt we did yeah we've also got posters on it so i

Corey 1:09:39

but that's you know what i don't know why i draw that line because i would actually be fine with like political

Corey 1:09:43

political like a poster or something on a wall in my office because we

Zain 1:09:46

we don't take this thing seriously me

Corey 1:09:49

me no but like i've just i don't know why i personally draw that line i'm fine with political merch in your home office or whatever the idea that you need to walk around and make yourself a billboard for the cause that's It's, I

Corey 1:10:02

mean, I don't want to judge you if that's your thing. No, no, no, but Corey,

Zain 1:10:05

I have to, let me ask the second order question here. If you're on the other side of it, running a campaign, would you not want that to happen more often?

Corey 1:10:15

Exactly. You'd want them to. Yeah, I would.

Corey 1:10:17

And then I would think less of them.

Carter 1:10:20

We're going to leave it there. That really sums up our relationship with our audience. That's a wrap on

Zain 1:10:24

on episode 1266 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. and we'll see you next time.

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