Episode 1825: Win or spin?

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 1825. My name is Zain Velji, with me as always, Stephen Carter, political

Carter 0:09

You were in the zone there, man.

Carter 0:12

You were in the zone.

Corey 0:13

He was like locked in. Of course,

Zain 0:16

talking and he was just staring forward. Drinkless Corey Hogan.

Carter 0:21

and he's ready to go.

Zain 0:23

No, listen, it's a Wednesday night. First of all, I'm not used to this, okay? And as you know this, I have a certain amount of disdain for recording and doing this podcast. Yeah.

Corey 0:32

Yeah. We've noticed. It's true.

Zain 0:35

Guys, we've got a lot to talk about. Is there any preamble you want to discuss, or should we just get that all out of the way? Well, of

Corey 0:41

of course, the return of West of Center means I'll be on West of Center on Friday. Why do you got to promote your other

Corey 0:46

podcast? If this is Friday, and

Corey 0:48

and you've got a choice between listening to the rest of this podcast and listening to me on West of Center- You're going to choose

Corey 0:54

Listen to West of Center.

Corey 0:55

Who are you on with? with i

Corey 0:58

believe i'm on with kelly criderman and lisa young okay

Carter 1:01

okay well they're decent at

Carter 1:02

at least you're not on with zane that

Carter 1:04

that just brings the whole show to yeah i

Zain 1:06

i i whenever i get on a show i just start edging the host out of the way yeah

Corey 1:11

before you know it before

Zain 1:12

before you know it i've come like oh my god where did this pension come from am i a cbc employee wait why don't i have a job anymore what's going on oh man why is that front street building affordable affordable housing you know these are the things that i start saying to myself yeah

Corey 1:27

like the little flex if you're talking about front street you know you're like your media in the know that that's why the cbc headquarters yeah that's

Zain 1:34

that's good you don't have to tell people they could look it up themselves this

Zain 1:37

this is a smart and educated audience

Carter 1:39

we've all been there carter

Zain 1:40

carter we've got so much to talk about i'm going to move it on to our first segment our first segment spin

Zain 1:46

steven carter we've got a list of things to discuss provincial federal not so provincial not so federal, maybe even American. We'll see how this goes. I'm going to throw out something to you guys. And you guys are going to tell me if this is pure spin, I'm

Zain 2:02

I'm going to give you a statement. I'm going to give you a story. I'm going to give you a statement. You're going to tell me if that statement is pure spin or

Zain 2:09

or a strategic genius, it's

Carter 2:12

It's going to win. And Carter,

Zain 2:13

Carter, we just got to get started. There's no other way. There's no other way to get started, but then just to get started, right? And Corey, you would agree that starting is the best way way to get started don't you not to do it but to do it oh i i agree completely stephen carter here's where we're going to start jagmeet

Zain 2:28

jagmeet singh is using the recent by-election results in winnipeg where he held on him and his party held on to the um with transcona riding and a strong third place showing in montreal to position the ndp as the signature alternative to the conservatives buying himself more time to separate himself from the liberals carter here's the statement statement.

Zain 2:52

Jagmeet Singh had a really good night during

Zain 2:56

during the by-elections. Is it a spin

Zain 3:00

is it a win?

Carter 3:02

I think it's a win. I think it's actually something that you can say that holds true. First of all, I didn't expect them to win Winnipeg. It was a touch and go there for a while. Yeah, that was part

Zain 3:14

part of the group text as well. Yeah, I

Carter 3:16

I saw that. They pulled it off. and uh you

Carter 3:19

you know so i was a little bit i

Carter 3:21

i i think that you know overall that was a very strong showing for uh for for jagmeet singh now keep in mind my expectations are extremely low but nonetheless i think that he did what he needed to do came in and and won uh won a seat and uh coming in a strong third i mean there was a what about 400 votes between the top three three uh top three candidates i was hoping you guys would would spin me on some uh some

Carter 3:47

some vote split but you go go for it we

Zain 3:50

we we don't need to we don't need to rehash we'll train like that that's not what this podcast okay sorry my bad we don't we don't we don't kill time by by talking about old things cory spin or win jagmeet singh had a good night cory i

Corey 4:04

i it's spin and it's the most dangerous kind of spin he is spinning himself he actually believes it his party believes it but But Stephen said everything there. Expectations were low, and he exceeded them. Congratulations, Jagmeet Singh. You won in a by-election by less than you won in the general.

Zain 4:22

was a 21-point win in the general, just so we're clear. Yes.

Corey 4:25

Yeah. And it ended up being about five points? Yeah.

Zain 4:27

Yeah. I'll just say not 21 points. Not 21 points. And

Zain 4:33

didn't win in Montreal.

Corey 4:33

Montreal. So you can talk about being 400 votes separated, and that's true. And there was the possibility he could have won, but he would have won – we're talking about Sauvé there. Not to be confused with Sauvé who won, but the Sauvé who lost. The Sauvé who lost, yeah. That's right.

Corey 4:57

would have been with 27 of the vote like this this is not the this is not the jack layton train of coming around the bend here this is not a recreation of 2011 and why this is so dangerous is if he actually believes that he is now the strong alternative to the liberals

Corey 5:12

and don't get me wrong in the next election he could end up with more seats than the liberals not really because of any great showing by the ndp but because of kind of a poor showing by by the liberals. But if he believes that and he gets cocky and he starts saying, well, maybe I'll go to an election this fall, and it makes that more likely in confidence votes to come,

Corey 5:30

well, that's dangerous. You want to spin other people. You don't want to spin yourself. And my feeling is that he

Corey 5:37

might have spinned himself here. Carter,

Zain 5:39

Carter, the story is Jagmeet Singh on by-election night. The question on the spin or win statement was, did he have a good night? Let me ask you you this question. And it's similar to what Corey's just alluded to.

Zain 5:52

Not only did he have a good night, he's now positioned as the alternative to pure Polyev's conservatives. And it's a winning strategy he's demonstrated to unite the left for those who are disillusioned with the liberals. Oh

Carter 6:05

my God. Is that pure spin? That's pure spin. Yeah,

Zain 6:08

Yeah, or is that a win?

Carter 6:08

win? That's pure spin. You held on to the seat. You didn't lose a seat. Congratulations. That's not not turning the world upside down on its head. The liberals beat you in Montreal. I mean, it's just, it's not even close to true. Not that spin needs to be even close to true, but that's just beyond, that can't even be spun. That is so far outside the expectation that that can't even be spun.

Zain 6:36

Corey, talk to me a bit more about this. What are the dangers of Jagmeet Singh beyond accidentally getting cocky and triggering or an election, but what are the dangers of him positioning himself as the alternative? We've talked about the pros. The liberals are down on their luck, all those sort of things in the past. Talk to me about the strategic pitfalls of positioning yourself, perhaps in the crosshairs, as the viable progressive alternative. Well, I don't

Corey 7:02

don't think there's any risk of that. I don't think Canadians are buying the spin, at least at this moment.

Corey 7:07

But let's talk about the concerns in general, the risks in general, and then talk about the the risk specifically here. The risk always with you spinning yourself as you make bad decisions, whether that's you spin yourself that your opponents are hated the way you hate your opponents, or you spin yourself the way that you think you've got a chance and you allocate resources and writings where you don't have a chance. Those are dangerous things for political parties to do. They can't buy their own bullshit. They need to be clear eyed behind the scenes and they need to be able to say, that ain't going to work. That is going to work. This isn't working This has the potential to work and have a certain amount of authenticity

Corey 7:45

to that. They can't fall into their own press that they're selling to their supporters and that they're selling to everybody else. That's always the concern with spinning yourself. self. The concerns in particular here, if you want to go beyond the risk that he tempts himself into a general election because he thinks he's in such a strong position that he can take all of the liberals' lunch, right? The

Corey 8:08

The risk beyond that is that that delusion leads him to make tactical errors in terms of how he positions himself to the Canadian electorate if

Corey 8:19

if that is what he believes And if he thinks, okay, well, I can reasonably position myself as the left wing alternative. Let me just throw a lazy example to you here. If you say you

Corey 8:29

you are, if your assumption is I can be that person and that's what Canadians are looking for, and that's not what Canadians are looking for, or

Corey 8:37

or they don't believe that that's you, then you've run into a lot of trouble. So if you go and say, we've got to unite the vote, got

Corey 8:44

unite the vote to hold the conservatives to the account. And Canadians look at it and say, fuck,

Corey 8:49

fuck, I guess we agree. But we actually don't think you're the most viable alternative. So I guess we're gonna go vote, vote, unite behind the liberals. That's dangerous, right? You have spun yourself into actually just delivering the liberals message at that particular moment. So you've got to be a little alive to these things. And I haven't seen anything that convinces me that that particular message, that extreme message that you suggested of, hey, I'm the only person who can be this left-wing alternative, is going to work. And I would say it's pretty tough to say that when you're going up against a sitting government. They are always going to have that in their corner. Yeah.

Zain 9:24

Carter, one more take up from you on this.

Zain 9:28

What risks is Jagmeet Singh opening up by positioning himself as the alternative here? It seems like the politically obvious thing to do, but sometimes the politically obvious thing to do has risks that you don't anticipate or necessarily associate by putting yourselves out in front and leaning into things like this. Well,

Carter 9:46

Well, there's two things. I think that Corey's really articulated the risks of lying to ourselves. The lies that we tell ourselves are probably the most toxic. But the second is, you know, you got to spin something that's believable to the Canadian public. As soon as they reject your spin on one thing, they're going to start rejecting your spin across the board. That's where Pierre Polyev has actually been very successful. He's been able to keep his spin into the realm of possibility and probability. ability. The spin coming out of Singh, I mean, he's still polling in third place. He doesn't have a national army that can really win seats across the nation. I mean, how many seats can he win in Alberta? Well, probably the same number as the liberals. But nonetheless, it's not a real army that's going to launch him into being the official opposition. When we've seen the NDP being the the official opposition is because of a complete collapse of liberals, not because of strength from the NDP.

Zain 10:51

Carter, let's move it provincially. You want to talk provincial politics here in Alberta? I

Carter 10:54

I would like to. That's a very interesting idea, Zane. Let's talk about school construction.

Zain 10:59

Premier Danielle Smith announced $8.6 billion to build new schools to address Alberta's growing population and overcrowded schools. Her plan includes public, charter and non-profit private schools. Critics, including the NDP, argue the plan reacts too late to this easily foreseeable crisis and that the inclusion of private schools has drawn further controversy. Carter, here's your spin or win statement. People

Zain 11:24

People don't care what schools get built. They just want spots for their kids. And Daniel Smith's $8.6 billion school plan is a well-timed solution to relieve overcrowded schools amidst population boom. Carter,

Zain 11:38

Carter, charter, is that just pure spin and actually under the surface is a pure fail by Daniel Smith, or

Zain 11:44

or is this actually a win? I

Carter 11:47

mean, call me a sucker, but I think that building new schools is a great plan. And I think that people will say, if a couple of schools get built for charter schools, and if a couple of schools get built for private schools, I don't care as long as a school gets built in my neighborhood. Where things will go off the rails is if the school being built in your neighborhood, actually a school that is a private school, right?

Carter 12:11

right? That's where things will go off the rails. But as it currently stands, building more schools is a winner. It was a winner in 2012. It was a winner in 2015. It's a winner in 2024. So build

Carter 12:23

build all the schools you want to build. It's going to do well with parents with school-aged children.

Zain 12:30

Corey, accelerated permitting, fast track to get these schools built, $8.6 billion, I believe, over four years. Don't quote me on that. Might be three. Regardless, people don't care what type of schools. They just want spots for their kids. This is a well-timed solution to relieve overcrowded schools. Spin, Corey, or

Zain 12:47

or actually a win?

Corey 12:50

It's tough to call it a win because there's no money to put teachers in the schools, but I have to call it a win. I do agree with Stephen's analysis there. Generally speaking, this is a pure vibe test, but just people I've talked to in the past 24 hours, people who are varying degrees of politically attuned, they're generally saying, yeah, it sounds okay. And in fact, I was having one conversation with somebody where he was like, oh yeah, that's a lot of money for schools. That's really good. And I said, yeah, well, that's a lot of money for nonprofit schools. We never used to do that.

Corey 13:21

And they said, oh, it's not that much. Most of the schools will be public. And there was a general comfort with the ratio that was presented. And it's pretty difficult to make the more nuanced argument like, no, these other schools shouldn't get the money. They shouldn't. It should be for the public system, maybe not even the charter system. But there are a lot of people saying, well, the ratio seems sensible. So it feels like it's at least a short-term win. I

Corey 13:48

I do wonder when the rubber hits the road, if it's not just a question of,

Corey 13:51

is this school a private school in my neighborhood? I actually don't believe that's the biggest risk. I

Corey 13:55

the private schools will be generally put in places where there's pre-existing communities. You know, they're going to be magnets for larger areas because they're often built around a concept or a religion or a culture, right? And so they tend to have larger catchments. I think the bigger, and so you have the public and the charter schools out in the new build areas. I think the bigger challenge though is it's not clear how those prioritizations are going to occur. There's going to be a lot of people fighting at the table for their various pieces of funding and prioritization, but then there's not teachers. And that's the bigger problem. Like when you look at the operational dollars that are in education right now, lots of ways to look at them, but the simplest, plainest way to look at them is that we spend the least per student in this area of any province. and you can only claim look how good we are look at this alberta efficiency for so long before it just starts to look fucking unreasonable and and nonsensical and why is my child's class 28 kids why is my other child's class 29 kids these are kids in the fifth grade in the third grade in this case you know this these are big class sizes and it's

Corey 15:06

it's not going to solve a lot of parents problems and that's going to be kind of clear in three years i think that's the problem they have the timeline doesn't necessarily line itself up. And I don't believe it's really meant to. I think in some ways, it was always an

Corey 15:21

an air cover for bigger changes to education that include, as they would say, school choice, but really is also more private options.

Zain 15:29

Carter, the story is Daniel Smith's investment in school construction. Here's Nahed Nenshi's statement. His criticism was, and not the statement, but the concept of of a statement or the paraphrasing, right? Did

Corey 15:44

write this? You have to disclose that. I

Zain 15:45

I did not. I did not write this. No, I have nothing to do with this so I can talk about it. His criticism was about Daniel Smith's construction plan. It's a reactive move. It should have been something she should have seen earlier. He also talked about what Corey did regarding teachers and that this is a plan that does not address the long-term education needs and will strain resources. He also talked about that this is the first time to his recollection that any provincial government invests in construction of private schools. Carter,

Zain 16:17

Win? Or is this just spin that may not necessarily land? What do you think? Corey, same to you in a second.

Carter 16:24

I think that this is a win as well. I think that this is the pushback on this is that there's not enough teachers to go around anyway. So you're putting a bunch of, uh, kids into too large of classroom. Um, but I think that ultimately it would have been better just to stick to, uh, this is too, this is too late. You know, it can't be too little too late, uh, cause it is a massive investment. Um, but it is too late and it happened on her watch and, uh, and it's going to be watered down by having fewer, uh, public schools and more, more private schools. But I think that he was on the right track with his, with his statement. I think that overall, this is two good communicators getting out and actually communicating pretty well.

Corey 17:10

Corey, Nenshu's statement, spin or win?

Corey 17:12

I think it's neither, right? Everything he said is accurate, so I can't call it spin, but it's not a win, right? He has fallen into a false dichotomy. He's actually playing the Premier's game here. He is saying the Premier is wrong. And instead of that, he should be saying, here's what would be right. Right. Why didn't he go out, for example, and say, yeah,

Corey 17:34

yeah, build $4 billion of schools and take the other $4 billion and fund $400 million a year in teachers for 10 years? That's what this system needs. I think there are ways that you can avoid the frame that the premier has created and also deliver the exact same message. Schools are great. We need schools. We need people to work in those schools too. And the balance is entirely wrong here. So let's not spend that money on private education. We've never had to in the past and it's still going to be there. Let's not put the money into charters. Let's put the money into teachers and let's be realistic. We're not going to build a billion of schools. That would be inflationary. We'd be bidding against ourselves over the next few years. So let's be sensible about in three years, let's build half those schools and have twice

Corey 18:17

twice the teachers or twice the teaching supports or whatever it is. Like you could find a message around there. And my fear for Nancy and the NDP is they have fallen into this box of opposition, which

Corey 18:26

which oppositions need to do, but oppositions need to be able to walk

Corey 18:31

walk and chew gum, deliver a message in a way that is actually

Corey 18:34

actually pushing their agenda as well and doesn't just seem critical, especially if something that, as Stephen and I both said, is probably going to be a pretty popular plan. People like the idea of building new schools. Carter,

Zain 18:45

Carter, help each of these talented communicators that you've said level up.

Zain 18:50

Make Daniel Smith's proposal a bit better and make Nahat Nenshi's response a bit better. Corey's already started on the Nenshi side of what would make it better, but level up Danielle's both either communications or what she's put out there. What would you as a strategist have recommended to level that up and then do the same with Nahat? And Corey, I'll come back to you on Danielle before we move on. I honestly

Carter 19:11

honestly think that if she'd taken down the number a little bit, like 8.6 billion is massive. They were already investing two, two and a half billion, something along those lines. That's

Carter 19:19

$8.6 billion is absolutely massive. If she'd leveled that down a bit and done some investment in the operating, as Corey has suggested, and now I'm just parroting Corey, that would have been great. But keep in mind that there's also a lot of problems that are coming around with healthcare, transportation, and other issues. This feels like she's taken the whole nest egg and spent it in one place. um personally i would have i would have come up with uh like if i'm going to do a giant uh tv you know tv show uh to announce something i'm going to announce a significant capital capital infrastructure program across the board just not with schools uh or i'm going you know so i'm going to announce um you know the rail plan or something along those lines does she get to do that again again when she uh finally settles on something vaguely resembling a rail plan um next year is that going to be something that makes sense i mean she's she's put an awful lot of her eggs in this particular one basket cory

Zain 20:22

cory anything to level up the smith announcement either from the rhetoric communications or outright what you put in the front window well

Corey 20:30

well the thing a lot of people have observed and i just want to throw on the table here that frustrates me as an observer of the smith announcement is the way that she blamed justin

Corey 20:39

justin trudeau for all of the people that were

Zain 20:43

aspect of it right right i

Corey 20:45

i mean as though we were not a province that a few months ago was saying the premier said let's double the population of alberta yeah

Corey 20:52

come on fucking over yeah

Corey 20:54

yeah literally ran a campaign to that point zane that said alberta is calling, encouraging people to move to Alberta, and then to say, oh, I don't know

Zain 21:02

know what to do

Zain 21:03

all these people. In fact, I don't know if you know this, but the campaign was actually called Alberta is Calling on WhatsApp, which was our international immigration campaign.

Zain 21:13

I don't know why they don't consult me for these things. That would have been actually a great campaign. Oh, thank you, Carter.

Corey 21:19

They're calling you right now. Is

Carter 21:22

Yeah, it was Alberta.

Corey 21:23

Actually, Alberta just booty calls. I don't know if you know this. Yeah, Carter, thanks for that Foley work right there, you know, adding the sound effects as we move along. Yeah, no, it's nicely done, Carter.

Corey 21:36

Yeah, well, she didn't have a great reason why the province spent the last couple of years trying to pull people here and then was totally caught flat-footed. And I believe she could have probably leveled up her communications a little bit more if she had been a little bit less – I

Corey 21:52

I mean, I know it's always easy to blame the federal government. I know the federal government's unpopular. I'm sure that message will land with a couple of people. But I think it's probably, I

Corey 22:02

don't know. I mean, actually, it's probably as good as you're going to get. But that really antagonized me as I was listening to that message. Carter, I'd be curious your thoughts because you have your hand up. So please, I'm tapping you in to save me on my point here. No,

Carter 22:13

No, I mean, I think it would have been great if she'd left out the inherently racist part too, right?

Carter 22:18

right? Alberta's always been able to welcome people who share our values. I mean, she tried to clean that up later by saying, you know, we value multiculturalism, we value people's different religions and the like. But, you know, there's a certain racism that we will only, you know, accept those who share our common values. And that became the

Carter 22:41

the defining moment of that particular, you know, part of her speech for me. I even kind of forgot about the attack on Trudeau and instead went to, why

Carter 22:52

why do we got to be racist? Why do we got to be racist? right

Carter 22:56

yeah when your provincial government's standing up and basically saying hey

Carter 23:00

hey we we've always liked those western europeans um you

Carter 23:04

you know it's not a good look for the problem so

Corey 23:05

so for what it's worth i didn't i didn't interpret it that way i interpreted it more as our values being conservative values and and it i didn't like that either but i felt it

Corey 23:15

it was more about yeah you're welcome to come here if you're a small government conservative it's almost like an old stocky comment in some ways yeah

Carter 23:22

it's it was racist cory i'm sorry you missed it it was totally racist well

Corey 23:26

well i'll tell you this well

Corey 23:28

well let me let me test this on you i guess was there a way she could have maybe spun it as a win instead of just trying to ignore the past and said listen we we know the growth of this province is so important to our long-term economic stability you know our place in confederation the ability to transition to the next economy as you know we've got to grow this province and we're being really successful at that but in order to keep up with that success we need to make some signature investments these are investments that are are going to pay off because our children and the children who come here are the people who are building the next Alberta. So let me tell you about these great plans I have to invest in education. Could she have taken that approach instead of things are fucked and it's Justin Trudeau's fault? Sure

Carter 24:08

Sure she could have, but then she misses out on her primary, I mean, her primary talking point, her only talking point is fuck the feds. That's all she's got.

Zain 24:18

Are either of you worried about the implications of what this means for the government funding things like like

Zain 24:24

private religious schools or schools in that regard. And I ask this because there's a lot of, Corey, speaking of WhatsApp, there's a lot of WhatsApp chatter in my hood about what this could mean for private Muslim schools that many of which, to be very crass and frank about it, do not adhere to some of the sort of normative social values that we've been talking about, very like against the LGBTQ agenda, as they call it, especially with the broader conversation on trans rights taking hold in the mainstream. Talk to me about your concerns there from a policy perspective, but also from like a political strategy perspective and what risks might lie in that regard. Carter, you're chuckling.

Carter 25:07

Well, I mean, wait till everybody finds out that when she says non-profit private schools, what she really means is basically Muslim schools, right? Islamic schools, you know, that's who's building these schools now. And, you know, personally, I'm pro

Carter 25:25

pro freedom of choice for schools to a degree, but I don't like religious schools. I think if you want to do religious schools, you do it on Saturday and Sunday like everybody else used to. But this is this is you know, this is really what would have happened? How would her message have been received if instead of saying we're going to build, you know, private religious schools, non I'm sorry, nonprofit schools across the province? And so she'd said, we're going to build not

Carter 25:53

-for-profit religious schools that are primarily Muslim.

Corey 25:56

Well, I mean, I don't know if it's primarily – like there will be a lot of other fundamentalist religions.

Carter 26:02

Oh, no. I don't think you understand where our population is growing, my friend.

Carter 26:08

I don't know if you know this next

Zain 26:09

next episode, one of you guys get edged out. We finally hit the tipping point. Yeah.

Carter 26:14

going to be population growth is is is i mean it

Carter 26:18

it and i'm not carter you

Zain 26:20

you can say they look more like yeah thank you carter for couching uh yeah they look more like me than they look like what he's saying could

Zain 26:28

yeah they look more like me than they look like you cory uh these immigrants man listen

Carter 26:36

listen i love immigration i'm the biggest guy in the world but this is this is the reality if she'd said that then i think we would have had a bit of a different experience but she didn't say that she's smarter than that so i'll

Zain 26:49

i'll let you make your point you're saying there's other i think you're saying religious organizations make your point i

Corey 26:55

i mean and not just religious but there are all sorts of groups for all sorts of reasons want to have all sorts of variants on what we would call our traditional approach to education you know through the public school system but

Corey 27:08

i don't know i mean it's such an interesting thing that she's done and i and why i think the ndp needed to focus up a little bit more on uh

Corey 27:17

uh on providing the operating funding for the public schools and and that is because we do know from polling that funding for private education is not actually very popular now it's

Corey 27:27

it's broadly held opposition to funding for public or private education and the minute you start poking at it it falls apart like if somebody says well what if we have exemptions for children with disabilities so they have special needs and so let's create a special needs private school you're okay with that and they go oh yeah okay well obviously that should be okay and then you say well what about if it's going to be the exact same curriculum and it's going to take burden off of the public system and it costs us seven thousand dollars a student instead of twelve thousand dollars a student ah that sounds pretty good right and you know it's not it's not like super strongly held but it is broadly held called, Opposition to Private School Funding. And I do think that there is interesting issues at play here that we're going to have to watch over the next bit. But I do feel like round one to Smith. She just said, I'm going to build a lot of schools. And the NDP risk coming off as,

Corey 28:18

I don't want you to build a lot of schools, which is not what they're saying, but that's what it's coming off as. Carter,

Zain 28:23

Carter, can we stick with Smith and give you another story on her? And can we hammer out two spinner wins on Danielle Smith? You

Carter 28:29

You asked the questions. We're just here to answer your questions. Carter, here

Zain 28:33

here it is. A recent Maru Public Opinion poll shows that 50% of residents in Edmonton and Calgary believe it's, quote unquote, time for a change in leadership, with only 32% of Edmontonians, 37% of Calgarians saying Daniel Smith deserves re-election.

Zain 28:48

Carter, here's a spin or win statement, the first of two.

Zain 28:52

This is troubling for Daniel Smith.

Zain 28:56

or is that a win?

Carter 28:57

I think it's spin. I mean, no one wants to have really bad numbers at any point in their career. But if you're going to have really bad numbers, a year after your last election win isn't that bad. She's focused on one thing and one thing only. If those 32% of people are the ones that are going to come and vote at her leadership review, then she's fine. He's

Carter 29:21

He's got all kinds of time to win us back.

Carter 29:23

You know, spending some money on the school system. I don't think that she should be particularly fussed by the downturn. And the other thing is, it doesn't really offer much of a choice. It didn't say, or this person, right?

Carter 29:38

right? Ultimately, there's a lot of people who don't want Donald Trump to be president until you put them up against Kamala Harris. Suddenly, his approval rating is 42%, but 48% of the Americans are willing to vote for him.

Carter 29:51

That's the way it works in politics. You don't have to be popular in general. You just have to be popular compared to the other person.

Zain 29:58

Corey, the spin or win statement is this, this being 50% of residents at Edmonton, Calgary believe it's time for a change, is troubling for Daniel Smith. Smith?

Corey 30:06

I spin everything Carter said, but let's also not forget the base fact that she didn't win in Calgary or Edmonton. Like, did we think that Calgary and Edmonton would be like, no, suddenly on board after all of this? And I appreciate that they did have polling over time and those numbers weren't as bad for Danielle Smith, but they're sort of predisposed not to support her, right? We know that from the last election. We know that from when people went into the fucking ballot box that calgary and edmonton are more likely to support the new democrats than the ucp and a

Corey 30:39

a year into a mandate is probably when you're going to start just really getting into that trough of unpopularity because you do the things that are unpopular for the first year or two and then you pivot back and if there's one thing that we have seen it's that danielle smith doesn't need a lot of time to pivot back she can she can redline this fucker right up until until the election and then apparently just put out an ad saying, no, actually, I'm going to fund healthcare. Don't worry about me. And Albertans will say, I guess we don't have to worry about her. She's a good

Corey 31:08

She's a good conservative. I think it's spin to suggest she's in trouble.

Zain 31:12

Let's talk about what her response is, Corey. Let me give you another spin or win statement. So, Danielle Spence's response to this unfavorable polling, she claims that she's solving problems rather than creating them. This is kind of like her response, that she She isn't too worried. So this demonstrates strong leadership under pressure, and this could turn public opinion in her favor. Is that spin or is that a win? Do you like her response? That

Corey 31:38

That is wild. The UCP has been in power since 2019, for starters. At a certain point, can we please, right? It's one thing to blame Justin Trudeau for oil and gas market access, things he actually has a play in. We're talking about education. We're talking about healthcare. care we're talking about things that the province has

Corey 31:58

has a hundred percent ownership in and you got to own the problems at a certain point and yes i understand you've only been premier for two years three years how long has it been man it feels

Carter 32:06

feels like forever feels it's you know these are city models

Zain 32:10

yeah jason who what yeah

Corey 32:12

but it's now been enough time you don't get to do that for so long and i do think actually people people

Corey 32:18

people do know that right like you can't say it was the ndp's fault forever. At a certain point, you're going to own your own actions. Carter,

Zain 32:28

Carter, is this spin that she's solving problems rather than creating them? And that's like good leadership ultimately. And that's kind of a message back paraphrased. Is this spin that that's going to not necessarily land or work? Or is this actually a winning statement by

Zain 32:45

by one Daniel Smith?

Carter 32:46

I don't think it's spin because I think Especially when you look at the context of it.

Carter 32:51

The context of it is I'm having trouble surviving in the cities. If she'd actually

Carter 33:02

actually seen a balloon, then she could say, yeah, I'm solving problems and people are giving me credit for it. But instead, it's you're

Carter 33:10

you're sucking wind and she's saying, well, I'm solving problems. Well, that's not what the public thinks. The

Carter 33:16

The public thinks you're not solving problems. The public seems to think you are the problem. So it is definitely spin.

Zain 33:23

Corey, I'm going to go to another local story. And I'm actually going to get even more local. We talked provincial. Can we talk about the city, our city for a second? There is a massive infrastructure project here, the Green Line. We've talked about it multiple times on this show.

Zain 33:40

think you meant was. Sorry, was. This is actually a conversation about was.

Zain 33:45

Carter, here's the context in the story. Corey. Corey, I'm going to go to you first on it. Calgary City Council voted to wind down the Green Line LRT project after the government of Alberta withheld the $1.53 billion in funding that it promised. This decision will cost the city $850 million in wind-down expenses, adding to the $2.2 billion in sunk cost without a single kilometer of track built. Corey, here's the spin or win statement.

Zain 34:12

The decision to wind down the Green Line project with the city absorbing the 2.2 billion in sunk costs was the necessary and only step to further the financial risk for the city.

Zain 34:25

Is that spin, bad

Zain 34:27

bad statement trying to support something, or is this actually the right statement, a political strategic win?

Corey 34:35

I got to tell you, Zane, this whole frame, I never know if it's spin or win because it can be losing reality and it can be winning spin. spin.

Corey 34:45

do I feel about it? I feel like it's brinkmanship. It's brinksmanship, right? Like they are trying to say, it's

Corey 34:52

it's just going to be terrible as

Corey 34:54

as a result of this. And they're probably not wrong that this is really, really bad. Do I believe this is the only path forward for the city? No, I don't fucking believe that. I remember, I'm old enough to remember when Mayor Gondek said, we're going to have to cancel the arena deal. It's not going to be an arena deal do

Corey 35:11

you remember that steven we

Carter 35:13

in fact cancel that arena deal and

Corey 35:15

and then do you know what happened there

Corey 35:17

was a new arena

Corey 35:17

deal it was a great great arena brand new amazing arena deal a

Corey 35:21

brand new arena deal more expensive bigger bells and whistles like you wouldn't believe yeah

Corey 35:26

because you brought a

Carter 35:27

300 million the we we felt like we needed to you know dip in and contribute a billion you know that's the kind of kind of fucking math we do with the city of calgary well

Corey 35:37

well look forward to some more uh political math coming your way because i'm i i think that a project like this almost because maybe i'm wrong i i hope i'm not but i feel like it's almost too big to fail i stand by we're

Carter 35:51

we're gonna have something

Corey 35:52

something and it's not going to be as good as it could have been and it will probably be more expensive in some ways although those costs can be moved on and off books as we saw with the arena deal based on things that are considered infrastructure or not. But

Corey 36:05

But I don't believe this is the end of the line for the green line. I did a line.

Carter 36:12

Very, very clever. Carter, the spinner

Zain 36:16

statement. This is the only move that the city could have taken. It's necessary to stop and avoid further financial risk. Is this all just spin? Or is this like a particular sort of political right strategy from the city here? The

Carter 36:29

The city had to shut it down. The city had no choice but to shut it down. Now, Corey's not wrong. I think that there will be something vaguely resembling a green line, but

Carter 36:39

but the city of Calgary isn't the one who's going to be footing

Carter 36:43

footing the bill for it. It may use a lot of the same infrastructure. It may not be a total $2 billion or whatever the numbers are that have sunk costs, but it's not going to be

Carter 36:58

be the city of Calgary's project. It's going to be the province of Alberta's project. And that may not matter in the overall scheme of things, but it does matter in terms of how the city of Calgary is viewing it. This isn't the city's project anymore. And for them to move forward would

Carter 37:13

would have been foolhardy because

Carter 37:16

they don't have the money to backstop any of the commitments that needed to be made, nor can they tell the federal government that they are in a strong position. So, there was no other choice but to say, we're done and hand this over to the province. And I don't disagree with Corey. I think that this probably means something weird is going to happen with the province. But I just don't know what that something weird is.

Zain 37:46

Corey, go ahead. I've got a question for you, but you want to jump in? Yeah.

Corey 37:48

Yeah. The other thing I'd say is this, we

Corey 37:51

we have to remember this is a very moment in time thing. And next year there's a municipal election in Calgary and council could change. They could have a different mayor. That mayor could be more willing to make a deal or have a different rhetorical bend in terms of their engagement with the province. And new mayors like to win if there's a new mayor. And in that situation, there might be a way that they can declare victory based on a deal that was previously dismissed by the city. Happens all the time.

Corey 38:18

And I do believe there's

Corey 38:21

there's just a lot of impetus. All of the parties have reason to want to get something out of this at the end of it. The city needs this infrastructure. The province doesn't want to go into a provincial election looking like they killed the Green Line and wasted billions of dollars. So there's

Corey 38:36

there's space for a deal there. I think that's possible. I do ultimately believe that the hit that the province seemed to want on the project has been delivered. Now I had Nenshi, just another tax and spend liberal.

Corey 38:52

This line that just ballooned in cost, we came in and we saved it.

Corey 38:57

They've done the first part. They need to do the second part. Because they want to do the second part and because they have the power of the purse, I

Corey 39:03

I think odds are good we'll get there.

Carter 39:05

Yeah, let's be clear. The question was, is this winner's spin on the city having to shut down? The city had no choice but to shut down the Green Line.

Zain 39:16

They shut it down. They shut down the project. They absorbed the costs. As any particular councillor, do you see a strategic value on staking your reputation on the future of the Green Line, continue to campaign for it, talking about its need or necessity? necessity? Or do you feel like in this limbo, you're actually opening yourself up to a lot of risk, right? There's two ways to potentially look at it. A lot of people are abandoning the project, so there's space for you to lean into it as a defender of public services, infrastructure, this particular line. Then there's also the uncertainty. You don't know what happens next, and it could actually end up being a very different project with an uncertain timeline. How would you advise folks to deal with this in-between project that was the hallmark of many people's political careers, if not political advocacy?

Carter 40:04

Well, for me, I would jump in and say, I'm still going to support the Green Line. I'm going to support what the Green Line turns into. And I'm going to fight like hell to make sure that it stays the project that the city of Calgary requires, not the project that the province of Alberta wants. The province of Alberta wants us to build ring roads. We've already done that. now we need to build the actual infrastructure that goes where people are not where roads want you know not where uh it's easy to build um so just because it's easy to build somewhere doesn't mean we have to build it there and i would i would advise any councillor that wants to get re-elected uh to start fighting for that um but

Carter 40:45

but i've also seen a bunch of councillors that just have folded like pup tents and those uh those councillors i think uh are are really they were willing to to sell the city of Calgary down the river, and they've done so. So I think there's an opportunity to build a wedge between these two groups of councillors, and I'd

Carter 41:06

I'd be on the pro-Greenline side if I were part

Carter 41:09

part of the wedge.

Zain 41:11

Corey, there's a lot of non-Alberta listeners, so I'm going to try to simplify this from just a political frame, and you guys can tell me if I'm wrong. A popular thing that

Zain 41:19

that is no longer, that could once again be, but is in a a limbo.

Zain 41:24

How do you, as a strategist

Zain 41:27

strategist or as a politician, support

Zain 41:30

support abstract popular thing that could come back without minimizing downside risk? That's the heart of the strategy question for me.

Corey 41:39

you. Yeah. I mean, we're in the middle of a bun fight now between an awful lot of people, and there is probably space. I'm even thinking about that Maru poll you were just talking about, about where there was a huge chunk of people who wanted to see a change of leadership. And as Stephen rightly said, you'll often see the

Corey 42:01

you know, the approval is so much lower than the actual vote they end up getting because people tend to vote against things more than they're voting for things at this particular moment here.

Corey 42:09

There is a pox on both your houses line that's available to you where you can orient yourself more towards the green line. And in fact, you can even take more of a round out of the province and stand with with the project, but also not really own the project the way so many people at the city have been trying to do so far. And, you know, I think it would be relatively effortless for a counselor who hasn't been too in the tank one way or the other to go up and say, well, maybe not even a counselor, like an outsider say, we

Corey 42:38

we are a city that has forgotten how to do things. Like we used to do things. We used to build infrastructure. We used to host Olympic games. We used to get get shit done. And look, the province isn't right to cancel this project, but the province isn't wrong. This project has become a

Corey 42:56

a white elephant in many ways. And we need to get back to the basics in this city. We need to deliver for citizens. We need infrastructure. We need facilities. And we need to have a get it done attitude that we seem to have lost as a city. And we've seemed to replace with an addiction to mega projects and starry-eyed, like, Let's build an arena here. Let's build a green line to a standard that we can't possibly support over there. I do think there's a line that you can take there. And then at the end of the day,

Corey 43:26

I could imagine as a counselor down the road, position yourself as, see, now I brought the province back and I brought the city back and we've got this great new project and I'm taking credit for it.

Corey 43:34

I do think that lane is actually pretty easy for people. Any

Zain 43:36

Any reflections on that before we move it on? And I want to take it federal after this. I

Carter 43:40

I mean, I reject the premise that we couldn't sustain this. I think that had we not been thrown curveball after curveball by the provincial government and been able to put this fucking thing in the ground when we wanted to, this was a totally sustainable project. I'm

Corey 43:55

I'm sorry. I thought I was under the impression that we were giving political speeches, not whiny bureaucratic speeches from Stephen Carter.

Carter 44:03

Oh, no, I'll whine if I want to whine.

Zain 44:05

Oh, Carter, you are a specialist in whining. Carter, final word. It's my party. Advice to advocates. I'm always curious about third party organizations. And in this case, there's many. And so I had it laid out the very simple sort of like popular, gone, maybe not gone abstract. What advice strategically would you have to third parties that have been unabashed advocates for this thing, for its building, for its construction, for its future prosperity and access that it would have? Do you take a pause? Do you regroup? Do you keep going? How do you retool when something is in such limbo? Is this white space opportunity? Is this you go dark if it goes dark? How would you even advise folks that are thinking about pushing on this file and making sure that it ultimately happens? Well,

Carter 44:56

I'd say don't stop.

Carter 44:58

It's not, I mean, overall, it's not over. Define what elements of this project actually matter, right? And I suspect we're going to get a six and a half, $7 billion project that takes us further than we wanted to go, that doesn't have something key in the downtown core. And I don't know what that is, because I'm very intrigued with how they think they can get in to the downtown core without going underground. My understanding, and I'm not an expert in this, Corey, you probably are, buildings don't move. So I'd be fascinated to see how. I'm not 100% certain. But if I was an advocate, I'd be taking

Carter 45:40

taking a breath, taking a moment, but then saying, okay, we got to go again. And Corey's lines about we're supposed to be a city of getting things done. And we continue to be stopped by this provincial government. I would take a far more adversarial line. I think that one of the reasons we got screwed on this is that we weren't behaving like Dave Brancanier. Dave Brancanier used to take Ed Stelmack and Ralph Klein to the woodshed and just beat them about the head and get whatever the hell he wanted.

Carter 46:11

And same with Stephen Mandel, some of the strong mayors we've seen in Alberta history. Strong mayors that we've seen across the country. The stronger the mayor, the more the province has to listen.

Zain 46:23

Corey, advice to advocates.

Corey 46:27

I'm going to read you a headline here. I'm going to ask you if it sounds like advocates are winning okay

Corey 46:32

okay i'm also going to read you the first line of the article sure dozens

Corey 46:36

dozens rally to save green line as council considers projects future i

Corey 46:43

don't worry because dozens like you know that that could be anywhere from that could be a 24 people to 2 million right because you know that's that's dozens do about 100 people took to the steps of calgary city hall on Monday to

Zain 46:55

to try to keep the

Corey 46:55

the green line lrt project on track so

Zain 46:58

so you're saying not you're saying not 2 million

Corey 47:01

this is for those who are like listening from elsewhere who just think of calgary as some random place on the prairies this is like 1.7 million people live in metro calgary 1.8 even i think now right yeah it's big and a hundred people is all you could fucking muster you want to talk about these save the there are probably more save the green line groups than people who showed up at that fucking thing they are showing their weakness on this particular issue so if you You want to be a third-party advocate group that is actually going to be successful?

Corey 47:30

Don't do rallies. Don't fucking do this. Don't do rallies. You have actually shown the province that there's nobody out there championing this thing at this particular moment. You've got to find better tactics. And you have done great disservice to the cause by having such a weak rally.

Zain 47:45

Carter, is this a time to show the province that there is a parade of people wanting this thing? I mean, there's clearly not, Zane,

Zain 47:53

go on. No, no, no. know but you you make i make your point right about the advocates and the or the lack thereof physically at this rally point taken rallies

Zain 48:01

one tactic sure sure but is this the time to show let's just say there are tens of thousands court right tens of thousands of people who want this thing is this the time to show that um

Zain 48:12

um this thing was pulling in

Carter 48:14

in the 80th percentile like this is a big this is a big deal people want this thing and you but they don't want it to the point where they're going to show up at a rally. It's not like they're, you know, I mean, it was hard to do rallies for the Olympics, let alone rallies for this. I mean, people

Carter 48:31

people don't get excited about infrastructure that way. You have to force it in a different fashion. You have to use different tactics. And I think that if they get

Carter 48:38

get creative, there's some tactics and there's some pressure that can be put on. But ultimately, the tactics and pressure are going to have to come from city council, not

Zain 48:53

Carter, are you okay to go back federal? Is that where your comfort zone

Carter 48:57

zone lies? Dude, I follow you. I

Zain 48:58

I follow you. We're at the 48-minute mark. We're making good time. We're getting through a lot of questions. I'm actually very impressed, mainly at myself. Carter, here it is. The conservatives are preparing a non-confidence motion to force a vote on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government, focusing on the carbon tax.

Zain 49:17

The Blackboard Network confirmed that they will not be supporting this motion. Stephen Carter, the

Zain 49:22

the spin or win strategic question is the Conservative Party's decision, right?

Zain 49:26

right? The Conservative Party's decision to push a non-confidence motion centered on the carbon tax is a bold and strategic move

Zain 49:34

despite the bloc's refusal to support it. Stephen Carter, is this a spin, pure

Zain 49:41

Or is there some sense of win here? Is there some sense of, you know what? Call the question. Call it on the carbon tax. Do it once. Do it often. Rinse and repeat. Carter, spin that's useless. Win that strategic.

Carter 49:53

It's absolute spin. I mean, absolute uselessness. Here's the thing about winning something. You can actually count this and see whether or not you won. You're going to lose. so there is no standing for Canadians and whatever words you want to use or whatever words you want to throw out there this is losing this is taking something you could do you could have done it last year you could have done it the year before you can do it you can do a confidence motion every time you get the opportunity to bring a motion to the floor you can do that but

Carter 50:27

if you're going to lose each and every time it's bad fucking political strategy and this is bad political theater by Pierre Palliev have cory

Zain 50:36

is this a failing spin or is this kind of a strategic win i

Corey 50:40

i have i've got in my head

Corey 50:44

a crazy notion that i'm just gonna throw out there yes

Corey 50:49

what if the block decides next week

Corey 50:52

to support the motion yes

Zain 50:54

yes they've said they won't but they could but what if they do okay

Zain 50:57

okay like i would say this

Corey 50:59

the block is probably better positioned to gain seats than any other other party besides the conservatives. They've shown it earlier this week. They may end up as the official opposition after the next election.

Corey 51:10

If you go out there and you say, oh, we're not going to support such a foolish notion, right?

Corey 51:15

And then the NDP goes in and says, well, we're going to support it because we don't, you know what? Or we're even going to abstain, right? Like we're not going to be there.

Corey 51:24

We're out. We're not supporting the government on this motion.

Corey 51:27

And then on the day of, the bloc finds some pretext to say, well, I was very offended. I was in the lunch line at the parliamentary cafeteria and Justin

Corey 51:35

Justin Trudeau saying, oh, Canada with English lyrics instead of French lyrics. And I'm out. We're out. We're voting now. The pandemonium you would create, you would embarrass the shit out of the NDP. You would have to do like a reversal or you don't. And you're in an election. Like, are we not in fuck around time? Are we not in

Zain 51:55

Jagmeet left, we are in fuck around time.

Corey 51:57

So I just feel like even though I don't actually believe that's what's going to happen next week, I think everybody is

Corey 52:04

is forgetting what these precarious minority governments can look like back in the days where Chuck Cadman's saving you at the last minute, right? Like this could all still get interesting this fall. Carter, do you think- I don't think that we should say, oh, well, a party said something one week, so it means they're going to do it the next week. I just don't believe that should be operating procedure at this point. Carter,

Zain 52:23

Carter, do you think the Bloc is having serious, we could be official opposition conversations right now? Would any political party in their position...

Carter 52:53

Who does the Bloc Quebecois want in government and what type of government serves them best? Because right now, I just don't believe that a large conservative majority government, even with the Bloc Quebecois as the opposition, serves the Bloc Quebecois at all, right?

Carter 53:07

right? I mean, Corey's playing fucking games

Carter 53:13

I understand that. It's like he sat down with a game of risk or something like that and he's trying to roll 12s

Carter 53:20

12s or something. just

Zain 53:22

just walk us through that right why would why would a political party necessarily care who's across the aisle if they're in it for their own self-interest walk us because your

Carter 53:32

your self-interest is better served when you're the when you're the gooey bit in the middle when you're the gooey bit in the middle you get to do what jagmeet singh did which is which is do a supply and confidence agreement or you get to do what they're doing now and say oh justin what would here's here's our our list of demands here's our list of them we got dental now that's great here's what some of the things we'd like for quebec they're

Carter 53:55

they're going to go in and they're going to they're going to bring a list of demands and they're going to get most of their demands if they have a conservative majority government which i think is the predicted outcome if this thing fell next week um they get get nothing nothing

Corey 54:11

don't know for the leader that's

Corey 54:14

that's all they get okay

Carter 54:17

tell your office it's

Corey 54:20

it's i mean it's always complicated with kopeck paul i mean obviously philosophically in a traditional left white right sense um the um the block is closer to the liberals right yes

Corey 54:33

you think about things in terms of national identity and what some of the objectives of the true believers in the bloc caucus might think i

Corey 54:41

i don't know i'm not sure anybody's thinking an

Corey 54:44

an independent quebec is happening next year or the year after or anything like that necessarily although i continue to be not 100 convinced that's not a bit of a sleeper issue coming our way but if you have prime minister pierre pauliev doesn't

Corey 54:59

doesn't that in some ways create a tension that's more likely to support your long-term independence ambitions

Carter 55:07

Are your long-term independence ambitions real long-term independence ambitions, or how do we get the most shit for the least amount of trouble?

Corey 55:18

Why not both? This parliament's almost dead. The bloc's not going to get too, too much out of them at this particular point.

Carter 55:25

They've got a couple years left, or they've got a year left.

Carter 55:28

And if there's a liberal leadership, maybe they get two years.

Zain 55:32

can't see it happening. Final question. I'm going to dictate to you what you each will take. Carter, you're going to take the win. Corey, you're going to take the spin.

Zain 55:42

I don't even need to set the stage.

Zain 55:45

The Liberals lost in Montreal.

Zain 55:48

Stephen Carter, the Liberals set expectations properly. They didn't have a bad night despite the loss, proving they could remain competitive in a difficult political environment. Corey,

Zain 55:57

Corey, you're taking spin because I'll give you a breather. Stephen Carter, you're taking win.

Zain 56:03

Tell me why Monday

Zain 56:05

Monday night for the liberals was

Zain 56:07

was a win, strategic

Carter 56:10

work hard for me.

Carter 56:12

To come in second by

Carter 56:14

by 200 votes when everybody knew you were dead in the water. Well, except you weren't dead in the water. You were competitive. And if a couple of things break your way, you're winning that election.

Carter 56:26

election. I mean, this is why this is a win. This is not spin. This is reality. no one expected you to do well in uh in winnipeg and you didn't good you know good for you but when when it was a three-way race in quebec um you know despite the fact that the national media was shitting down your throat every 15 seconds um it still was close it was very very close and if the national media hadn't written you off right off the bat uh this is a this is a a tremendous victory uh for the liberals uh one out of two ain't bad you

Zain 57:02

you know cory steven carter was was uh dictated to take the win now one of the things i noticed in his response was

Zain 57:09

was a lot of spin well

Carter 57:11

that's what win is like the spin that was even

Zain 57:15

even carter's win which was a spin or a win spin

Zain 57:20

was his spin was his win it was a win a bulk of it was spin was it a spin or

Corey 57:30

or was it a win i think his win was a spin but it was a win of a spin right yeah

Carter 57:35

yeah see there you go he's a win of a a spin yeah

Corey 57:40

cory getting back to you spin

Corey 57:42

spin tell me why fucking spin

Corey 57:48

all thought that the bottom had fallen out of um the liberals in

Corey 57:54

in the toronto st paul by election where their vote went down there like

Corey 57:59

vote went down nine points it went

Corey 58:02

went down 15 points in Le Salamard-Verdun. It's actually worse. It's getting worse, people. Liberals, you are doing worse. I know it feels like, oh, we were in second. Oh, we were in that fight. That's better than before. No, it's not fucking better than before. It's worse. You lost more votes in this by-election than you lost in the previous by-election. Things are getting worse. You can try to tell yourself second place is great. You can try to tell yourself that there are different results at play. It got fucking worse. It got worse there. You had a bad night on the prairies too. Elmwood was not your friend either. It's getting worse. Things are bad. You're going to lose the election. At this point, the only thing Justin Trudeau has going for him, ironically, is the confidence supply agreement fell apart. And so nobody thinks they actually have time to replace the leader either there's just this grim nihilism

Corey 59:00

nihilism fatalism that is just blanketed over the liberal caucus more and more of them are just feeling oh let's get it done with you know we're going down this path let's just all go down together ours is not to question why ours is but to do and die into the valley of death rode the 338 candidates right it's fucking

Corey 59:19

fucking over and so i'm sorry yeah

Corey 59:22

yeah the the idea that they had a good night is nothing but spin or even not a terrible night.

Carter 59:27

Yeah. Truth is he, he nailed, he, he nailed that.

Zain 59:32

Carter, let's move it on to our over, under, and our lightning round. We do it for you and it's almost your bedtime. Um, and we don't want to get in the way of that. Steven Carter. Are you in or out on a spin or win?

Zain 59:44

Yeah. I loved it. You're

Zain 59:46

in on spin, uh, or win a Corey in or out on spin or win.

Corey 59:49

Um, I'm, I'm so out. I still don't know. what

Corey 59:53

what i'm supposed to pick yeah

Zain 59:54

yeah yeah it's carter his brain um has been really kind of it's sluggish you're not mutually exclusive it's

Corey 1:00:03

he's just been he's been just a coach

Zain 1:00:05

coach in this binary ivy nba universe and it's just really ivy uh oh my god here he goes go ahead tell us tell us number one in canada probably number 98 well they're number two in my heart to

Zain 1:00:17

delaware online was probably beating you okay

Carter 1:00:21

saying big deal You're a big deal. You're a big deal in both Calgary and Western. UFC and Western. You're such a big deal

Zain 1:00:29

deal online in the NBA

Corey 1:00:30

NBA world. Did I ever mention

Corey 1:00:32

mention that I was the gold medalist in my NBA class? Yeah, you did, but you weren't

Corey 1:00:35

weren't the valedictorian, right? It was close.

Corey 1:00:40

Someone likable. It doesn't matter. Are

Corey 1:00:42

they doing better than you?

Carter 1:00:44

Everybody's doing better than me. I mean,

Zain 1:00:46

mean, maybe. I don't know. Oh,

Zain 1:00:47

Oh, you don't keep track of the person to beat you up?

Carter 1:00:50

I just think he's just He's just not going to admit it on the pod. Okay,

Zain 1:00:53

Okay, do you have a Google alert on the valedictorian

Corey 1:00:55

valedictorian just to see how they're doing? If they've got any... I have a Google alert for me, the person who should have been valedictorian. Oh,

Zain 1:01:01

Oh, interesting. Okay, yeah. Carter, he totally has a Google alert. He's got a whole team of people.

Carter 1:01:06

Why would he have a Google alert on him?

Carter 1:01:10

I mean, I have a Google alert on me, obviously.

Carter 1:01:14

Supposedly just to track bad news.

Zain 1:01:21

Bad night, by-election night.

Zain 1:01:24

Good night frame, eh,

Zain 1:01:26

narrowed the gap against the NDP in a strong hold.

Zain 1:01:31

Bad night frame, didn't

Zain 1:01:32

didn't come up with a W. What do you think? What's your take?

Carter 1:01:35

The conservatives should have won at least one seat. And the fact that they didn't makes it a bad night. And that's just simple math. These are the guys who are supposed to be able to compete across the country, and they're not ready to compete across the country yet. So bad

Zain 1:01:52

bad night i did not think you'd go with bad night cory by election night good night bad night for the conservatives

Corey 1:02:01

don't know uh i don't think it was a good night but i don't think it

Corey 1:02:05

it was a bad night we

Carter 1:02:06

we don't get paid to pick to walk down the middle of the line yeah this is fucking

Zain 1:02:10

fucking the patrons give them some red here man they need to cocktail

Corey 1:02:14

cocktail chatter for their dinner parties good night because it was a bad night for the liberals

Corey 1:02:20

that's a good night for the Conservatives. And it was a deceptively – it was a deceptive night for the New Democrats and that makes them more likely to make mistakes that will be more likely to make you prime minister earlier. So I'd say a good night for the Conservatives.

Carter 1:02:34

Wow. I'm so wrong.

Carter 1:02:36

God, he's terrible. We're

Zain 1:02:37

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap. Blocking the defense. God, he just can't pick a lane. You know what it is. It's because it's what had been taught at the number one MBA school in Canada. Yeah, I did my SWAT analysis. The number two valedictorian choice of that number one school. We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1825 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belgey. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:16

becomes novel a man so transcendent at his speed you grovel you saw Jeb Bush before you did his prepper plans helped us off grid he brought us facts with his sharp wit he showed us truth there's no vote split he's the great man who taught us all that it doesn't matter big or small Your campaign can do better When you have access to his angry scent And Stephen Carter

SPEAKER_00 1:04:05

name so generic, it then becomes novel A man so transcendent, at his feet you grovel

SPEAKER_00 1:04:37

Stephen Carter Political mastermind Stephen Carter As identified by the national folks Stephen Carter political mastermind steven carter as identified by the cbc political mastermind steven carter welcome for nancy steven

SPEAKER_00 1:05:01

steven carter welcome for redford steven carter steven carter welcome for beyond deck steven carter

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