Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is a strategist episode 1803. My name is Zain Velji with me as always Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Am I talking quickly guys? Well, it's probably true because we have, Corey, I don't even have time for this.
Zain
0:13
Do it, but I don't have time. You don't have time. I didn't have time. Carter, this is an emergency episode. We
Zain
0:18
We were going to let this week just fucking go by, weren't we? Yeah, we were going to say screw it, but big news this week. But then it happened.
Zain
0:25
-hmm gil mcgowan is gone from the ndp leadership race oh my god it's gone well steven carter
Zain
0:31
we're gonna spend an entire hour on gil mcgowan now cory may have just said who
Zain
0:36
cory may have just said who but that doesn't that's never stopped cory in the past
Zain
0:43
don't even know if you're joking but i'm strapped in i'm ready for this he's gone and he needs to figure out what's next but yeah but who but
Zain
0:51
but what gil mcgowan cory don't worry worry about it because at least at least one of the three of us knows it's not gil mcgowan and that's stephen carter uh carter provide us the fact base on one gil mcgowan um you know what's happened politically to him uh in the last so can we start with who gil
Zain
1:09
gil mcgowan yeah and what's happened no no no hold on okay start backwards and
Zain
1:15
and then and then start with the then then end End up at the birth story.
Carter
1:22
Start backwards. So Gil
Carter
1:25
Gil is Gil's the recently failed candidate of the New Democratic Party of Alberta leadership, Alberta New Democratic Party.
Corey
1:34
We're off to a great start. Keep going.
Carter
1:36
He's also the president of the Alberta Federation of Labor and will often weigh in when not asked to on a bunch of different issues. years um he
Carter
1:47
faced re-election uh last year not looking like the even
Zain
1:50
even-handed this is not looking like the even-handed explanation in fact base
Corey
1:53
base i was looking this is not the fox news fair and balanced thing yeah this this is really established this
Zain
1:59
yeah what do you mean listen okay i was listening i mean listening intently for
Zain
2:03
for the facts and i'm not getting don't take
Corey
2:05
take your msnbc style slant to all
Carter
2:09
sorry i'm a little tired okay
Carter
2:11
okay that's the gil mcgowan thing just took the the energy right out of him i
Zain
2:14
i like gil i got to know gil he's a very nice man
Zain
2:18
man great guy doing an hour on uh gil mcgowan well
Zain
2:21
well seriously trust me that fucking felt like an hour with carter it's just okay
Zain
2:26
like an hour um um uh congrats to gil on whatever he's going to do next it was fun to get to know gil during his campaign cory people
Zain
2:34
people hate you uh
Zain
2:35
uh and they think you're wrong now the first thing is not related to the second thing people hate you regardless regardless but they
Zain
2:41
you're wrong about the pierre polliev letter now in the moment i would agree with you like
Corey
2:45
like you're thinking about two people on twitter is this is this what we're saying no this is
Carter
2:50
is the whole uh that's twitter it's discord oh yeah
Zain
2:54
yeah let's go after his heart let's go after his heart people yeah
Carter
3:00
i can't i can't even come on them how bad you had I was on
Zain
3:04
on Discord twice, and there's proof of it. And I've
Zain
3:09
I've heard that they've turned on you, Corey. They think actually your analysis that Pierre Polyev's letter, the one that he published in the National Post, was actually for business. They believe Carter on this. Am I surprised? I have to admit, kind of. I am surprised. Wait a minute. Yeah.
Corey
3:22
Yeah. The same Stephen Carter who predicted Jeb Bush would win the 2016 Republican
Zain
3:30
Guaranteed. I don't remember that ever being on record.
Carter
3:35
Jeb Bush needs to survive this primary and compete in a general. Jeb Bush is not surviving this primary. He's totally surviving this primary. Mark it down on your calendar, okay? Stephen Carter said today Jeb Bush is the guy.
Corey
3:48
Oh, don't worry. We're at the three-minute and 35-second mark. We'll fix that, Zane, don't worry. Corey,
Zain
3:53
Corey, do you want to apologize? Carter is the master of the double down. John, you are a more sane, rational, introspective individual. Will we be getting an apology or a course correction from you in regards to the pure political intent of Pierre Polyev's letter not being the business community, which you advocated for for a good hour, I would say, last episode? Yeah,
Corey
4:15
I for sure stand by it. I think what these people assume, because they are wrong, is that Pierre Polyev has some sort of like, really awesome deep ties to the business community. And if he was trying to deliver a message to 1000 business leaders at once, he would just go into like the WhatsApp chat called, you know, tycoons and just say, Hey, guys, this is the new strategy. But that's actually not how the world works. And here in the real world, when you're trying to communicate with a lot of people, even if that is fewer than all of Canada, Canada, then you use media like this. So, yeah. But people can't fathom that. They can't imagine that you would try to deliver a message through a newspaper to anybody short of everybody. And that's wrong. And it was a wrong idea supported by Stephen Carter, who is, and
Corey
5:06
I'm just checking here, regularly wrong is what I have. I
Carter
5:09
I am the most popular man on this podcast.
Carter
5:13
Wait, what? I have to take you two off.
Corey
5:16
But that's my popularity.
Carter
5:17
popularity. If you take you two out, I am the most popular man on this podcast, because Annalise, even though she hasn't been here for
Corey
5:22
for a long time. Yeah, I was going to
Carter
5:23
to say, she still
Corey
5:24
still tests very well.
Carter
5:25
well. She tests so well. Yeah. Yeah, we've got a lot of questions about her. Arguably,
Zain
5:29
Arguably, it should be just her, but, you know, we were offended by the results of the dial tests, and we have put her...
Zain
5:41
It's not looking good for either of you. So, Corey, no apology. In fact, the opposite. A lot of disdain for the listeners, a lot of disdain for the Discord. No,
Corey
5:49
No, just the listeners who agree with Stephen, to be clear. No,
Corey
5:52
No, most listeners. The rest of them are, I have got no
Zain
5:54
no reason. Disdain for the listeners is the subtitle of this podcast. Carter, any disdain you want to get off your chest before we move on to our first segment here?
Carter
6:03
I'm just always disappointed in Corey.
Carter
6:06
Okay. Pretty much a standard way of going. Okay, fantastic. There we
Zain
6:11
that's good. Let's move it on to our first segment, our first segment, flood prevention. Guys, I want to go into provincial politics. This is about Gilligan, isn't it? And I want to know what Alberta could look like in
Zain
6:23
in the visage of one Gil McCowan.
Zain
6:25
Now, Gil McCowan. McGowan. I know, I know, I know. But the more I get it wrong, it allows you to correct, which means that the name recognition just gets even higher. We've helped. This guy could win next time. You
Carter
6:37
You know what? He was setting up his next time. That's what he's going to do next. Listen,
Zain
6:40
Listen, here's what I want to actually talk about. I want to talk about, Corey, we have seen a lot of stuff on the provincial scene recently.
Zain
6:48
And we've seen Bill 18, 20, 21. We've seen a bunch go on. I actually want to skip the specifics because you guys did a great West of Center episode on the specifics. We actually discussed the specifics on a few of these bills. We'll get to them as they roll out, as they're rolled back, as they're modified, tweaked, whatever. We'll talk about it in due course. I actually want to get to strategy
Zain
7:08
strategy conversation, maybe even, Carter, a partially a tactic conversation, because many would characterize as to what Daniel Smith and the UCP are doing right now as the political art of flooding the zone.
Zain
7:20
And I want you to help me understand what this concept of flooding the zone is, where it's kind of come from. Is it relatively new? Is it a Trump sort of era creation? What are we seeing right now provincially? Would you classify that as flooding the zone? And how does one combat it and what are its limitations? Because while the NDP, aforementioned vis-a-vis Gill, are in a leadership race, the UCP perhaps are taking advantage of putting out a lot of big ticket items, none of which we can keep up with. So, Carter, talk to me about this concept of flooding the zone. When did you first hear of it? Are you a fan of it? What does it mean to you as a practitioner, as a strategist? And I want to spend a good amount of time on this particular political strategy that I don't think, I think gets a lot of buzziness, but doesn't get a lot of examination. emanation yeah
Carter
8:13
yeah i think that this isn't i mean certainly not the first time um that
Carter
8:17
that we've seen this i think that the probably the most recent example of of the flooding the zone took a little bit different format it was stephen harper's omnibus motions right where he would put together uh inside of the budget a whole bunch of different pieces uh legislation that would be changed right Right. And so you would have multiple thousand page bill that was one. There was an omnibus. It touched a whole bunch of pieces of legislation and it changed it. I mean, arguably, the Municipal Act Bill 20
Carter
8:49
20 is something of an omnibus bill. It's changing two different pieces of legislation, the Local Authorities Election Act and the Municipal Government Act. act um so
Carter
9:01
so it's a bit of an omnibus but stephen harper did massive omnibus pieces of legislation he flooded the zone by making it virtually impossible for one person to know every element of the bill that was before them and being debated before them uh so i i would say that this isn't a new tactic it is a tactic that tends to work uh because you are able to remove people's um ability to focus on something. One person, one opposition party might be arguing about one piece and then another opposition party would be arguing about just the simple logistics of the bill. So there's multiple ways that this can be argued against. And each of those different ways that it's argued against helps to water down the various pieces of opposition so it's it's not new it's been done many many times before um and
Carter
9:56
i i'm sure it's been done in alberta but i'm just i'm trying to think back i don't think it's a stelmac thing and i don't think we did it with redford stuff although we were doing a whole bunch of changes in
Carter
10:07
2011 2012 but i don't think we were quote unquote flooding the zone in the same fashion that uh we're seeing Smith take advantage of right now.
Zain
10:17
Corey, give me your understanding of its genesis from your perspective. I'm not asking for a birth date. But like I am asking for is this in your mind a pre Trump or post Trump sort of phenomenon and to use the simplest and perhaps the laziest political timestamp in that sense?
Corey
10:36
I don't think that Trump is the reason for it. I think Trump is a symptom of it. You see an awful lot of people pushing an awful lot of ideological policy, and you have an awful lot less regard for this notion of governing slowly and calmly, right? And it's interesting that Stephen brings up Harper and his Harper's Omnibus. One of the things I think about when I think about Stephen Harper is a guy who governed far less conservative than he was,
Corey
11:02
was, right? He decided, I'm going to go more towards the middle. That's how I'm going to win elections. in daniel smith we have an entirely different model of politician we have somebody who is happy to present themselves as a moderate and then run as as kind of like tinkering and experimentally right-wing a government as conceivable and so you talk about flooding the zone and honestly even the bill numbers tell you you're not wrong like the fact that we're talking about bills numbered into the 20s tells you it's been a pretty robust session of the the legislature yeah
Corey
11:37
it's also kind of been par for the course and she's been a leader like it's just thing after thing after thing and it was a little bit more reserved in that period just before the election but even then not really she was still doing a lot of stuff she was still announcing a number of things how she was gonna kind of you
Corey
11:55
you know fix health care in x number of days and yes she didn't blow up ahs then but it was you know she was doing she
Corey
12:02
she fired ahs is uh uh, uh, you know, leadership. And this has been a government that's been governing just like with their whole fucking ass the entire time that she's, uh, that she's been in charge here. Like she's really, really going for it. And so it's kind of tough for me to say that they're flooding the zone at this particular moment when it feels like there's just kind of like a pipe burst and the water is perpetual and it's just filling the area all of the time. And I get this sense that next semester or next semester, next session, you're going to see the exact same, right? You're going to see another 20 bills of experimental
Corey
12:39
experimental right-wing ideas, because that's the government we have right now. And I think that will continue to be the case until Albertans say, not
Corey
12:48
so much the government we want. But polling shows there's not a lot of punishment for Danielle Smith in the UCP right now. Carter,
Zain
12:54
Carter, let's examine this tactic a bit more. Would you call it a tactic or a strategy, actually? To me, like, that's not semantics. I'm actually curious about that question. Would this particular tool,
Zain
13:06
tool, as we've seen it, would it be a strategy or a tactic to you?
Carter
13:11
To me, I think it would be part of a tactic. I mean, I think that it's, you know, you've got a flood of information, and there's a number of different choices that you can choose on how you actually choose to do it. you can do a media rush you know where you go and you do every media interview you can possibly do uh you can even do podcasts if you're the prime minister uh and get people talking about podcasts how is it going by the way getting the prime minister yes
Corey
13:35
zane i saw somebody shared with me a tweet where you were praising the prime minister's performance in a video that's coming next i get way too thirsty just just pathetic like that's not going to get him on the podcast
Zain
13:47
oh okay one can't all about one
Corey
13:49
one can't just congratulate
Zain
13:50
congratulate their prime minister for getting getting something right once well
Corey
13:54
we'll get into it when it happens maybe you can oh
Zain
13:58
wow okay you wouldn't say that if he was here that's
Zain
14:01
that's fucking for sure we would okay carter carter you you would be half asleep okay um which is which is saying something considering well
Corey
14:11
well that's twice as awake as usual yeah yeah
Zain
14:13
yeah that's good i'm glad you got there faster than i did cory and cory you wouldn't fucking say shit you wouldn't say shit i
Corey
14:19
don't think anyone who knows me thinks that's true zane but you would not say shit like
Corey
14:24
if he was here right now what would you say i
Corey
14:27
would say i have found your government to be a little bit disappointing and that's a shame because you've probably broken middle of their own politics in uh canada
Corey
14:35
canada for a generation i
SPEAKER_00
14:37
shouldn't have done that i
SPEAKER_00
14:40
should have known better but i didn't and
SPEAKER_00
14:42
and i'm really sorry you wouldn't say that totally
Corey
14:46
totally i just i just did i'm gonna splice in the okay what are we at 1427 i'm gonna splice in the prime minister he's just gonna we're gonna remember these numbers you're not writing shit down you're not gonna remember this well
Corey
14:57
are you gonna cut in the
Zain
14:57
the jeb bush clip
Corey
14:58
clip tell me uh
Zain
15:02
334 if you did that 335 you'd look like an idiot
Zain
15:05
know what i'm rounding you know what you look like okay yeah carter he wouldn't say shit i know know that about him i
Zain
15:10
know that he would hey hey
Zain
15:12
hey cory is this a strategy is this a strategy
Zain
15:14
strategy or a tactic bring back the prime minister is is flooding the zones a strategy or tactic in your mind cory just this overwhelming of of of the the um arena with information so that people can't pay attention to everything so they get enraged about some things perhaps even the wrong things and
Zain
15:30
and then their attention scarcity of attention moves them on well
Corey
15:34
well is it a strategy or a tactic it's a strategy that's what i thought in in my well i think so i think
Carter
15:41
think it's a tactic you
Corey
15:42
you we can yeah it's probably a tactic i actually changed my mind i think it's that's what i thought but i don't even think that's what's going on i think you
Corey
15:48
know it's like the story of the scorpion and the duck frog thing you
Corey
15:52
you know you all know the story you're gonna tell me are you gonna tell me yeah go ahead yeah
Corey
15:56
you lost frog thing duck you
Corey
16:00
yeah yeah there's a scorpion and you can't go across the river with all three of them at the same time yeah i think is how it goes anyways it's in their nature is the point i'm trying to make they this is a very ideological government and they are trying to ensure that they get as much of their ideology out there on the field as possible and um that's
Corey
16:20
that's i i just i you know i don't think it's strategy or tactic in this particular case you're talking about
Zain
16:25
about daniel smith kids yeah no i'm i'm moving away from that i'm moving away i'm actually now talking
Zain
16:29
about okay i'm not talking about the analysis of this situation of using this. And Carter, to you, in Canadian sort of like history, have you seen this tactic, whether you agree that that's what's happening right now, I personally do, with Daniel Smith in the UCP. Have you seen this being primarily applied by conservatives? And do you feel like there's a reservation that progressives have on this tactic? Or have you seen it evenly applied?
Carter
16:55
You know what, I'm not sure I can come up with an example of the of a quote, unquote, progressive government doing it are you fucking
Corey
17:01
fucking kidding me he's about to jump in jump fdr
Corey
17:05
fdr first hundred days like
Corey
17:07
like that was wild are you kidding
Corey
17:08
me he's like the first government sorry
Carter
17:09
sorry why bad cory's right and i was wrong yeah
Zain
17:13
yeah but have we seen it recently
Zain
17:15
like and i'm not talking about this as like an ethics conversation where progressives are like a lot more buttoned up and like you know we're going to present the problem present the solution we're going to you know convince people and like you were going to maybe be a bit afraid of our shadow in terms of when we roll it out this does have a bit of like you know this this particular strategy or tactic whatever we want to call it does have a bit of fuck you here's what's going on energy to it which progressives at least in their modern incarnation have not had i
Corey
17:43
i just think you only think that because you're a progressive but if you were to ask people who have different politics they would say that the trudeau government had a lot of this energy they would say the obama government had a a lot of the same sort of energy yeah
Corey
17:56
i mean the governments in the 90s in canada in the united states no they were very middle of the road right in fact many people think co-opted by right-wing interests but it's
Corey
18:06
it's just it's where you stand do you remember
Zain
18:08
remember a time where even in recent memory where progressive governments have given you so much to chew on that you haven't actually been able to digest it i
Corey
18:17
i mean literally the trudeau government does that and we complain about it all the time that like run the tape the number of times we've said oh my god they did all of this and it's in advance of the budget what are they gonna
Carter
18:25
gonna do now i'm just gonna say advance of this budget but none of it's consequential
Zain
18:29
consequential or not a lot of it consequential in that sense or do you do you say like do you but
Carter
18:32
but i think you're i think you're arbitrarily drawing the line of consequential right because i could make the case that this you know uh bill 20 marginally consequential not not nearly as consequential as i think we could blow it up to be uh
Corey
18:45
uh bill 20 and pharmacare you think they're in different like orbits of consequential i
Corey
18:50
i mean i just disagree agree interesting carter keep going keep going i'll let cory
Corey
18:53
get on this in a second well
Carter
18:54
well now i'm just i can't remember what i was going to say well that's that's basically stunned
Zain
18:57
stunned by the intellect yeah stunned
Carter
18:59
stunned by the rudeness that
Zain
19:01
that rudeness and intellect he would not bring when the prime minister's here that's
Zain
19:05
that's for sure prime
Carter
19:06
prime minister he would totally bring the rudeness he would
Zain
19:08
would he would definitely not cory i'm
Carter
19:09
i'm talking about the prime minister okay well she's so rude yeah
Corey
19:13
yeah that's what we call an unclear antecedent zane yeah he said they and you assumed it was me but he was referring to the prime minister in either case um in
Zain
19:21
in either case steven was wrong
Zain
19:23
perfect hey just just to making sure we're clear cory
Zain
19:27
cory so applied progressives conservatives i get your point there but this this overall strategy slash tactic whatever it ends up being cory whatever we end up wanting to call it uh yeah the stractic yeah that's right that's
Zain
19:41
that's right that's good good podcast name too uh please buy it just in case it gets popular popular these things that are uh what does this say to you about about like modern day governing if anything does it say anything around like carter like i almost go back to carter's example of you guys were doing a lot of stuff in the back rooms but you weren't doing it publicly does this give
Zain
20:03
give you a sense of like where modern day governing is going and we're like modern day like winning the public trust and winning the public opinion is going with strategies and tactics like this becoming way more common yeah
Corey
20:15
i i think as i was saying it's a consequence of more ideological governments and we're in deep ideology time right now so you have an awful lot of things you want to do you have an awful lot of theories you want to prove so much of government in like the even i'd say 80s but for sure 90s and early aughts it was a lot of folks saying these things work don't fuck with them too much and if you are going to fuck with them fuck with them slowly but now you're seeing that people have very easily determined that going fast doesn't hurt them with their base like their base sticks with them in fact it energizes a good portion of their base that wants to see them do more and go further and and governments are doing this now like you're just you see an awful lot of ideology thrown into it and
Corey
20:58
and an awful lot of policy coming out the other side and and i don't think the two are unrelated and i just want to make this one final point governments
Corey
21:05
governments often go slow out of caution because they're not a hundred percent sure this idea is a home run yeah so you'll see this manifest in terms of we'll start with a pilot we'll see the results of the pilot we'll then go to a region if it works there we'll expand it across the entire province and if it looks good then we'll increase the amount of the benefit or something to that effect whereas
Corey
21:23
whereas governments right now are like they're jumping all the way to the last chapter of the book they're saying fuck it we're going all in
Corey
21:28
we're doing this we're giving giving it a shot. We're going to be legends. And I just don't know. I mean, I think it is a symptom of our times. And I'm not sure that it does, at the end of the day, make particularly good government. Carter, if
Zain
21:42
if it is a symptom of our times, do you agree with that, first of all? I need you to accept that premise. If you agree with it, then I can ask you the next question. If not, I'll go back to Corey.
Zain
21:50
And you'll be out of your own podcast.
Carter
21:55
Yeah, okay. I'll take it. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I agree. I was thinking
Carter
21:59
thinking about it for a second.
Zain
22:00
second. I could use the break.
Carter
22:01
break. A whore for airtime.
Zain
22:02
airtime. Just a whore for
Zain
22:03
for airtime. He doesn't agree.
Corey
22:04
Just to be clear, he does
Zain
22:06
But he's going to accept the premise. He wants the airtime. He
Zain
22:09
the airtime. Yeah, for sure. On this limitless podcast where we can do anything we want for however long we want. And we don't care how many listeners we lose along the way. Which is why I'm going to actually go back to the story of Gil McGowan. Carter, to the birth story, please. Gil
Carter
22:22
Gil McGowan was born in in 1964 to
Corey
22:29
Pardon me? Do you have his like bio up or something? No,
Carter
22:31
No, I'm just making shit up. That
Corey
22:32
That sounds believable. 64 sounds about right. It
Carter
22:34
It does, doesn't it? Yeah. Are you giving him a birth year?
Zain
22:40
giving him? That was within 20 years. That sounds about right. He gets off
Zain
22:45
off 1964 energy, I believe. If he would have said 69, 71, would you have believed him?
Corey
22:51
No, I wouldn't. Yeah, exactly. You would have. You actually would have. you're giving him credit
Zain
22:54
credit we've lowered the bar for carter so much on this part pod carter but thank you thank you that's uh we'll come back to you are you gonna ask me a question here's a question this
Zain
23:04
this almost fits into the fact that if we're getting more ideological governments that are going to flood the zone uh and with with more ideological policy heavier faster quicker using speed as its own sort of self-perpetuating energy then carter and maybe daniel swith is an example of this, even if Corey disagrees that she's not an example of flooding the zone, what she's done the last couple of weeks, which is, does it matter anymore the size of the mandate that you win or
Zain
23:30
or how you've consolidated power? We've always talked about consolidation of power as being such a important, and what I mean by that is ensuring you win the biggest mandate that you can and ensuring that you bring folks on side and you just, you know, you do the work of building the tents and healing the wounds and doing all that sort of shit. If we're talking about folks with ideology, as soon as they get power, going quick, fast into the last chapter, does the size of the mandate matter anymore to you? Is that an outdated political principle in some ways? If this was another episode, I'd go in the, why the fuck do we still do this segment of the show? But Corey's almost unearthed it for me. Does mandate size matter anymore?
Carter
24:11
No, no, it really doesn't. And I'll tell you why. Because political power is what you make of it. And when you invest, you invest in political power. So when you're using your political power, when you're when you're doing all this activity that Danielle Smith is doing, you are doing it for a political reason. And that political reason is often to grow your political power in the end game. I think that Danielle Smith is doing all of these things because she believes it'll make her more popular, not less. Now, that more popular may be with a very specific group of people who are going to go and do a leadership review in the fall of 2020, 2024. That might be all the audience that she tries to appeal to. Or she might be thinking, the municipalities are historically, historically unpopular. I think that's both true of Calgary and Edmonton. If we pick on Calgary and Edmonton, then we become more popular, because
Carter
25:08
because we point out their inadequacies. And
Carter
25:10
And I think that that That could be a way that they're generating more power. But I think that this idea that the slow build of political power, that's just been lost. Consolidation,
Zain
25:21
Consolidation, movement building in a way where you kind of stitch all the pieces together. No,
Carter
25:25
No, but like that's how things have been done. Today's world, and it's not even today. I mean, in 2010, Nenshi's got 1% of the vote with 63 days to go. And all of a sudden, 63 days later, he's winning the election. How does that happen? It happens because we have huge political culture shifts. You don't see, you know, minor slow growths. 2015, Rachel Notley comes out of nowhere to win the election. You know, even Justin Trudeau comes from third place to win in 2015. um these these vehicles this isn't slow builds anymore this is we are going to put together the coalition that people want and we're going to put the person in front of it that people fall in love with and all hell breaks loose obama
Carter
26:13
obama beats clinton right trump beats clinton um
Carter
26:18
um you know all of these things show a certain degree of of unbelievable zeitgeist shifting that is no longer built on the idea of slow, slow creation, slow cultivation of political momentum. And it's in fact, the people who try to do slow, who I think really fuck it up now, Alison Redford, Ed Stalmach, not necessarily Jim Prentiss, but, you know, like seeing these people who've, who've tried to move slower, who've done incremental change, when people are demanding significant societal change, change, they're
Carter
26:56
they're the ones who are going off the deep end and losing.
Zain
27:00
Corey, your reaction to that, because others might look at a multi-ballot 51% leadership win as a sign that I need to do less, I need to go slower, I need to be less ideological. Not the case with Daniel Smith, and arguably not the case with others. I ask you the same question, does mandate size and consolidation of power still matter in that sense?
Corey
27:23
don't think so i've got to tell you i was distracted for the first half of steven's answer because i was looking up gil mcgowan's age based on an edmonton journal article he was born in either 1967 or 68 so you know he just presents a little bit older than he is he's still got that 64 energy in my opinion but his answer as he got near the end was pretty compelling the idea that that slow builds are actually counterproductive, right? And I do think part of it ties to the way you led into me here, which is this idea of, is
Corey
27:56
is 51% good enough? Like, do you actually need any more in this day and age? And I think the answer is probably no, because we're in an area of negative partisanship. And so people will be like, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. Oh, you're my leader now? Well, fuck the other guys more, so I guess I'm on board. And the consequences of you... We've seen that play out so many times. Well, they have nowhere else to go, right? They've created such a gap between themselves and the other party. Their choices are retirement or getting behind the leader. You're not seeing floor crossing. You're not seeing moderation the way that you did before. And what tends to bring down the leaders is a lack of purity, not kind of a lack of pragmatism. So I think 51% is probably enough in this day and age because it's
Corey
28:41
it's kind of like, what the fuck else are they going to do? Right? Like, where are they going to go? As long as you're coming from the more extreme wing. If you win as a moderate with 51%, you're kind of screwed. good fucking luck but if you're coming from the more extreme side everyone
Corey
28:53
everyone just says well they're the leader you know and they'll talk a big game behind you know closed doors they'll grumble to their moderate friends on phone calls they'll text each other about how they'll get rid of her right after the election yeah i'm looking at you literally every conservative who texted me a version of that god leading up to the election and how
Zain
29:11
times as i on someone on the other side of the campaign heard that was being peddled at the door right constantly constantly oh yeah
Zain
29:19
That's fascinating to me. Carter, what other downstream effects are there if consolidation of power and mandate size don't matter anymore? Some that we are seeing already, observe
Zain
29:30
observe a few other things. I'm opening a different bracket for a second, just to be clear. And then predict a few other. When we enter a world where it's just enough is enough, and I mean that from Corey's perspective, like 51% is enough, what other sort of things that we've held true as conventional wisdom, held sacred as being part of the political process or the pathway towards building power and maintaining it, fall by the wayside for you?
Carter
29:57
i mean i think we're seeing probably the greatest example of it in the in the uh in the united states right now you know when was the last time we saw a truly bipartisan initiative um you know i mean biden was able to get a couple or three through and good for him but we're not seeing these these uh you know the the senate bringing forth a piece of legislation that shifts the way that people think about politics or um you know the the two co-sponsors that come together one from the republicans and one from the democrats those ideas are long gone um so the idea of cooperation the idea that that we are all acting in the good of the population um that's just lost it's completely gone so how does one uh move forward in that situation now you know is it is it happening in the same way in our parliamentary systems um to a degree yes uh in the provincial houses or the provincial legislatures, it's happening more there, but it's certainly not happening in the same fashion in the federal government because the NDP in their weakness decided for the moderate path.
Carter
31:07
Had the NDP decided to take a more power
Carter
31:10
power-thirsty move, which is what I recommended, then who knows where we'd be. Corey,
Zain
31:17
Corey, any thoughts on if we agree on this, what else changes? What else is
Corey
31:27
Well, I think we're just living. Just
Zain
31:29
Just on the consolidation of power, if mandate size doesn't matter anymore, what other downstream effects are we seeing or we might see in that case?
Corey
31:40
if mandate size doesn't matter, and all you need is 51% of your party, which might be 40% of the voting population that
Corey
31:48
that wins government, which might be, from
Corey
31:51
from there, half of the people who could actually be eligible to vote, it means that you're representing an increasingly small group of people. and as long as you can mobilize them and you can get you know a very dedicated five to ten percent of the population absolutely willing to to go the
Corey
32:07
the whole distance for you that's
Corey
32:09
that's all you need that's all you need to take a government at this point five to
Corey
32:14
to ten percent of the population if you do the math really i mean
Corey
32:16
mean your point is
Corey
32:18
yeah like you you just need just enough to take over the party and as soon as you do that you have the whole party and then if you you just need just enough to get a bare majority of one seat and you do that you have all the political power and the consequences of that are very interesting right and you can kind of see the flow steps that you go through where you say what's the what's the party that can win and
Corey
32:39
and you know and it is the ucp and alberta kind of it seems more naturally maybe we'll maybe after an election too we'll think otherwise and what's the bare minimum you need to take over the ucp and and from there like all power flows and what a bonkers thing that is at this point we we have have all of these systems that were designed to i don't want to repeat our greatest hits but they were designed to democratize political parties right anybody could come in one member and then
Corey
33:04
then we have these systems that were designed to to really be efficient party machines and it meant the party whip became so incredibly strong and then we have this big divide between political ideologies and all of this is sort of created
Corey
33:19
created this situation where it
Corey
33:22
it doesn't take much to get a lot
Zain
33:24
Yeah, it's a really interesting world they're entering in. Carter, I want to take us back to the
Zain
33:33
And not specific to
Zain
33:35
to the Alberta NDP today, because Corey doesn't buy into the premise that what Daniel Smith is doing is flooding the zone, but I wanted to examine that. I took a detour. But I do want to come back to how do you strategize against flooding the zone?
Zain
33:48
How does one strategize against it?
Zain
33:50
Now, we've talked, and let me put one thing out of the way, which is we obviously know the strategy is not to punch at everything, is to swing at everything, try to make everything a big deal, elevate it, right? That's actually playing into the trap. That's like 101 of what they want you to do, which is overexhaust yourself, thin yourself out, nothing gets the attention that it deserves. That is part of the proponent's game plan to flood the zone. So we know that is the strategy. If I can safely put that aside.
Zain
34:20
How would you start thinking about it, Carter? What is the strategy?
Carter
34:24
Well, I mean, you just took my big strategy. That was going to be my big answer. Was
Zain
34:27
Was it going to
Carter
34:27
to be? Okay, well, that's...
Carter
34:29
You pick one thing and you go with it. You pick one thing, but you don't pick
Zain
34:32
pick everything and you go with it. Just to be clear. You
Carter
34:33
You pick one thing. Right.
Carter
34:35
You pick one thing and that one... So, for example, you
Carter
34:39
Rachel Notley, 2011, before the 2012 election. uh she
Carter
34:43
she and uh brian brian
Carter
34:47
you know brian they
Carter
34:49
mace mason yeah they were kicking the shit out of us on children's services and
Carter
34:54
and they owned children's services they were they were absolutely destroying us and there was literally i think nothing that we could do to counter their arguments and they controlled the agenda um and nothing we
Carter
35:08
were getting hammered every single day um
Carter
35:12
you know conversely i think it was smith and the wild rose that were in opposition at that time no they weren't anyways we were the liberals were in opposition cory's lovely party and
Carter
35:22
and they couldn't pull their head they
Carter
35:24
they couldn't pull their head out of their ass um
Carter
35:25
um they were all over the place and that
Corey
35:28
that the liberal party was less a party than a loose confederation of people who hated each other yeah
Carter
35:34
yeah well and just slightly less than they hated the progressive conservatives exactly
Corey
35:38
exactly just slightly um
Carter
35:39
um but the you
Carter
35:41
know the that focus compared to the to the to the rambling nature of the provincial liberals um it was really hard to deal with and if i was if i was sitting there today uh trying to figure out what to deal with the you know bill 18 2021 i'd probably say to myself which one's actually impacting people um i had some fun i chatted with lege today and you
Carter
36:06
just kind of wrote a couple of questions for them that I thought might be interesting to learn the answer for. And
Carter
36:10
And one of the answers, one of the questions that was not yet been asked, and one of the things I'd love to focus on if I was the opposition parties, is all of a sudden corporations and unions being able to buy local candidates again.
Carter
36:23
You know, to me, that is just, it's removing the ability for the individual to have response. I mean, can't do it provincially, can't do it federally but municipally local politicians and developers are going to be in the pocket the back pocket of developers one more time that'd be fascinating you know to to be able to pick something like that that actually might impact people um it
Carter
36:46
it may not it may not have any resonance at all but it was something that i thought when i was chatting with my friends at lege might
Carter
36:52
be uh an interesting omnibus question we'll
Carter
36:56
we'll see maybe it'll come up if it comes up you You guys are going to credit me, right?
Zain
37:00
no, no, for sure. Yeah, definitely. I was going to say no. Yeah, totally.
Zain
37:04
I usually bring in my yeses with a no.
Zain
37:09
No, yeah, no, I do that all the time. Corey,
Zain
37:13
right? If you realize the zone is being flooded, do
Zain
37:16
do you do? Yeah, I assume staying calm is part of it. But you have to attack. You have to oppose. How do you oppose? How do you think about it? Carter's strategies, pick one thing and
Zain
37:30
Is it just as simple as that or is there more to it?
Corey
37:33
mean, that's the heart of it. And especially when you're thinking about the general public, you want to pick the things that resonate. And I do think that opposition's everywhere, but I will also say the opposition here in Alberta struggles with staying on a single message and then ping, there's the next thing. And they want to go talk about that for the next two days. Zoom! Over there, the next two things. And they've got to just sort of let a
Corey
37:57
a blow land, right? You've got to be able to talk about it in the media for more than one day before you desperately go cling on to the next media hook. I think it's, I would say, has it served you well? Right? Like, has it? Do you feel like you're controlling the agenda by always jumping to the next thing that you're outraged about? And I
Corey
38:16
I do think that the opposition needs a little bit bit of discipline in that sense. That's not to say that with everything else going on with flooding the zone, that you're not really aggressively doing that stakeholder outreach. And I do think that's the part of the equation that you can't forget, right? Just because you're out there talking about the thing that the most people want you to talk about, and you're delivering the narrative on the thing that the most people want, doesn't
Corey
38:40
doesn't mean you're forgetting about your stakeholders. And ideally, what you're saying to stakeholders, what you're saying to the public all says one story and you can put it in one story about yourself and one story about your opposition but at
Corey
38:51
at the very least you've got to make sure that you're focusing on it's
Corey
38:57
it's only most things are only going to matter to so many people and you do want to take advantage of that and go and talk to them and
Corey
39:03
and so you've got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time and you've got to know not everything's a media strategy and you got to know not everything's a stakeholder strategy strategy.
Corey
39:11
And it just takes a certain amount of discipline. We're
Zain
39:13
We're going to leave that segment there. But before we do, Corey, can you remind the listeners the timestamp that they can hear Stephen Carter making a prediction? They want to hold their hats on this for the 2060.
Corey
39:24
2060. Well, so here's the challenge. It's for sure 3.34.35. Yeah, for
Corey
39:30
That one's okay. But I was realizing the timestamp of 14.27 is going to move as a result of that prediction. So I
Corey
39:37
where that one's actually
Corey
39:38
actually going to end up, but
Corey
39:39
i will say five
Corey
39:41
be it's a long you really go on about how jeb bush is going to win the election that is true tell people to mark their calendars you were very adamant about it so that's gonna probably push it out the
Corey
39:52
the whole we might even play the whole episode i don't want you to say that you were taken out of context yeah for sure and that's they may even
Zain
39:59
1964 to find it
Zain
40:02
is the the non-birth year of one gil mcgowan yeah
Corey
40:04
yeah Yeah, do you think that Gil gives off more of like a 67 or 68 energy?
Corey
40:12
That's interesting. I was going to say 68.
Carter
40:13
Why would you say 68?
Corey
40:16
I don't know. Why'd you say 67?
Carter
40:18
Because it's a little bit more hippie and a little bit more stoned.
Corey
40:23
That's a fair point.
Corey
40:24
Do you know that Gil McGowan was releasing a big idea every now and then? Zane probably does, because even though the leadership race is over, he
Corey
40:32
like to. I actually
Carter
40:32
actually liked a lot of his ideas.
Corey
40:34
ideas. Are people going to vote? Are
Carter
40:35
Are people actually going to vote? Like, that's my big question. After the debate on Saturday, what's left to discuss?
Corey
40:40
Steven, I'm sorry. We got to stop. Are you trying to suck up to Gil McGowan right now? Are you fucking campaigning to get Gil McGowan's support?
Corey
40:49
I'm just saying. You're
Carter
40:49
You're campaigning on the podcast? I'm
Corey
40:52
I'm just saying. I really like those big ideas.
Zain
40:57
I'm telling you. Can
Zain
40:58
I tell you something?
Zain
40:58
something? Can I tell you something?
Zain
41:00
Took you fucking minutes, 35 minutes to fucking figure that shit out. Are you kidding me? Oh, my God.
Corey
41:05
God. How so? So disappointed. He had seven big ideas in theory, but he only released five. What do you think the last two were?
Zain
41:12
He said it in his webinar today. He said what it was. Oh, did he? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you watch the webinar?
Zain
41:17
Do you remember? One was about revenue, and the other one was about something else. I forget what the other one was about.
Carter
41:21
about. Revenue means higher
Zain
41:22
higher taxes. Oh, it sounds like it was. Yeah, I believe that. Higher taxes.
Zain
41:24
I believe so. I believe so. Oh, Stephen Carter. We're going to move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, The Art of Pulling Out. Carter.
Zain
41:34
Carter Corey. Corey's cringing.
Zain
41:36
Mississauga's mayoral frontrunner, Carolyn Parrish, announced on Instagram that she'd be declining all future debates in a social media post hours before she was scheduled to attend a sold-out debate on the housing crisis. Let me read you her statement. It's a very short statement, and I don't even care about the specifics of what's happening in Mississauga, although I suspect, Carter, you might actually know.
Zain
41:59
You don't need to know this
Zain
42:00
home, but actually, this is about political art and messaging. I find this fascinating. And she puts out this, what, this is a three-sentence, two-sentence statement. We're respectfully declining all debates. Our campaign will continue to focus on positive, productive approach engaging directly with Mississauga residents. Carolyn is eager to continue meeting with individuals and groups in the short time that remains until the election. We regret any inconvenience. She also then goes on to add that, you know, she was personally threatened, so to speak, at these debates. Her competition is going after her, being like, we can't trust her. You know, they ultimately
Zain
42:37
ultimately saying she's afraid to face the residents, face the people, things you would expect, they would say. Carter, we've talked at length about debates, about the low cost or no cost of pulling out of debates. But this is fascinating to me. Someone pulling out in such a public way rather than having like a I don't have a debate policy and then and then issuing a policy. What do you make of something like this in terms of how you say no, how you get out of something? Are you fine with this strategy? Two lines, we're not doing it, we're moving on. Is this a 24-hour story and it's over for her? I want to almost litmus test the current political world and how this strategy aligns with it.
Carter
43:16
Tell you what, this strategy is a hell of a lot more effective when you don't actually, you know, make comments that are embarrassing and diminish your own candidacy. If you say this at the beginning, and this is one of the reasons I think that the CPC candidates never show up for the first debate. If you don't show up for the first debate, then it doesn't matter, you know, if you perform poorly. Carolyn Parrish performed poorly at the at the first debate. She subsequently says, I feel threatened and I'm no longer going to participate in the debates. It puts a question in the voter's mind. Is she not participating because she says stupid things or is she not participating because
Carter
43:55
because she is being threatened? And I'll tell you something. I've worked with a lot of female politicians, a lot of, you know, and they get threatened. They get threatened way more than they should. And, I mean, the appropriate amount is zero, just for the record. I was going
Carter
44:11
going to say, let's see if Stephen
Corey
44:12
Stephen cleans that up is
Carter
44:13
is what I was
Corey
44:13
was thinking. Yeah, way
Carter
44:14
way more than they should. It's disproportionate. It's disproportionate, the threats that are faced by female candidates. It's noteworthy to note that Deepika Damerla is in second place, also a female candidate in Mississauga. And she was at the debate today. So I suspect that Carolyn Parrish was more concerned about herself saying something ridiculously stupid than any particular threats that may or may not have been uttered towards her. Carter,
Zain
44:41
Carter, Corey, just to add a bit more color to this. So at the previous debate, this candidate that has just pulled out of the debates said about refugees, quote, they have a bed, they get a meal a day, and they sit around smoking cigarettes all day because they have nothing to do. It's a waste of energy. It's a waste of our money. She says that at a debate. She then subsequently announces that this is her new debate strategy, which is to not do debates. I knew Carter would know the context. I was going to add it in between the questions. But Corey, the art of this, how would you do it if you were her, right? Like, you know, she clearly now has a policy of not doing debates any longer because she's not good at them or she doesn't want to do them based on her track record. But if you had to clean up this mess, how would you do it as a political practitioner for her on her behalf? I'm looking less for analysis and more for like a strategy for her that would perhaps maybe be a bit more elegant than what she's presented here.
Corey
45:38
Oh, interesting. So not so much can you get away with avoiding debates because clearly you can in these charged times, right? Everybody will forgive their candidate for all sorts of sins. But what's a more elegant way to get out of going to the debate, right? I mean, she could have done the classic. She walks up to the lectern. She reaches for her phone at one point and says, oh, I'm sorry, I got to take this. and then says the hospital and then bolts out of there i think that would be like a lot of intrigue that that's pretty good i like that a lot and then if people ask questions you say i'm
Corey
46:10
i'm looking for privacy in this moment please right and what do you do with that yeah
Carter
46:13
yeah what can you do a little privacy you just you gotta do it you
Zain
46:16
go with the one-sided phone call the classic one-sided phone call classic one-sided phone hang
Carter
46:21
hang on let's see if i can get off this hang on i'm gonna see if i get out of this podcast the
Carter
46:29
guys listen i gotta go okay
Corey
46:32
okay hold on let me try it i
Corey
46:33
i i believe it cory you try
Zain
46:35
do you do it first though yeah you do it first okay this is sorry
Corey
46:38
sorry this is cory
Corey
46:38
take one sorry sorry my wife's one side of phone call times it's obviously important i just gotta take i wouldn't normally but she's called three times in a row here okay take it though you gotta take it hey hello
Corey
46:50
sorry slow down what okay
Corey
46:53
okay i'll be right there all right that's
Corey
46:56
that's all right all right just this
Carter
46:57
this is better okay
Corey
46:59
sorry guys i gotta i
Zain
47:00
no here's here's here's here's what's wrong with both of yours here's the thing it's a one-sided phone call which means that the audience doesn't know and needs to be informed by you about out everything that's being said on the other line so let me show you how to do it oh
Zain
47:16
oh shit guys i need to i need to take this quickly yeah
Zain
47:23
no stage four that sounds bad
Zain
47:29
oh it's it hasn't got there yet you
Corey
47:32
see you see what i did there yeah
Carter
47:34
yeah that's really good
Corey
47:36
yeah okay that's good you know what that was smart there's
Corey
47:39
there's a certain craft that
Carter
47:40
that reminds me me of that time that time that zane said he was in the hospital and he couldn't record that
Corey
47:46
was a good six weeks uh
Corey
47:49
uh okay okay well so we've given three great reads you could use any of them there and so that's that's strategy one that's strategy one for getting out of the debate do you have anything else well
Corey
48:00
well strategy two is you
Corey
48:02
you you say i am willing to debate but not in this format and then you create unreasonable format demands and then when they They say, no, we're absolutely not doing that. You say, well, fuck you. You're the coward, not me.
Corey
48:15
And I think that's more of a classic, frankly. That's the standard art of doing it. Do
Corey
48:19
Do you want to reenact it with me and Stephen right now? Would that help? Because I thought the reenactment part was strong for us there.
Zain
48:27
I'm fine. Yeah, yeah. Please, please. Carter, you can call action whenever you feel like it.
Corey
48:36
Hi, Stephen. I know we're supposed to debate tonight, but listen. I just saw a Twitter tweet about how you are being fed the information while you're on the stage. I'm about to put a Twitter post about this. I'm sorry, but I just got to call you out for your bullshit. And so I'm saying that the next debate has to be done naked, so we know nobody's feeding you notes.
Carter
49:01
greatly disturbed by this. I'm assuming, in fact, you will also be naked?
Corey
49:08
No, no one's accusing me.
Corey
49:12
of having those notes okay oh
Carter
49:15
well actually now knowing that you're not going to be naked that does make me feel a little more comfortable so i think i
Carter
49:21
i think uh i am prepared to show up naked um there's
Carter
49:26
there's one more thing i
Corey
49:26
i do need you
Carter
49:27
you to debate uh
Corey
49:27
uh also hearing that you've been using performance enhancing drugs that are activated by heat so
Corey
49:33
so we will need to blow cold on your genitals the entire time
Carter
49:39
god because my genitals have been overly inflamed and i've been struggling quite a bit with my overheated genitals so i
Carter
49:49
don't know how you knew that but right now i've actually cut the crotch out of my underwear and i've taken my pants off so so
Corey
49:56
so so we're agreed my My intelligence is good. There's no reason to dispute. Oh my God, stage four.
Corey
50:05
So I think I just decided this is a Patreon episode, guys.