Transcript
Carter
0:01
No, I don't remember. I don't remember how we start these ones.
Corey
0:06
Um, well, it is a complex dance of you saying things and then welcome
Corey
0:12
welcome to the strategist episode 1848 G. My name is Corey Hogan. You
Carter
0:18
You know what we should have done a recording like we do with the you the people ones where we write a little script.
Corey
0:24
your name is steven carr not
Corey
0:28
not with us tonight is zaner annalise two hosts two
Corey
0:32
two hosts useless and yet no hosts useless
Corey
0:35
yeah strange that one huh standard carter
Carter
0:38
carter and hogan so
Corey
0:40
so how are you doing it's good to see you in another hotel i'm
Carter
0:43
i'm in another hotel this
Carter
0:44
is back to back you and me by the way i
Corey
0:46
i know yeah this
Carter
0:48
this is starting to turn into a trend only
Corey
0:50
only the people who spend six dollars know that though right that's
Carter
0:53
that's right that's right we gave them we gave them their episode you
Corey
0:57
know in our defense we um we knew that zane was a flake and we did ask the liberal leadership contenders to come and host this uh podcast and yeah
Carter
1:08
i didn't understand that none of them i mean frank bayless is getting no media at all one would think that this this has to count as some media he
Corey
1:16
he could have had the strategist bump didn't
Corey
1:18
didn't do it yeah
Carter
1:19
yeah do you remember that time we uh did the liberal strategy and then they won actually
Corey
1:23
actually that was a really good episode yeah we we often we're
Corey
1:28
we're not shy about pumping our own tires but i think that might have been we actually like we commissioned polling for that do you remember i know i know we had private polling yeah that told us a bit this
Carter
1:37
this is before we had people to pay us i
Corey
1:40
know that was just that was the unlimited joke budget that was just my money you know just is that your budget
Carter
1:45
budget money that paid i don't know
Corey
1:46
know it might have been yours i'm not sure i
Carter
1:48
i paid for one of the uh one of the live shows one time that
Carter
1:51
that that i remember you
Corey
1:52
you did you bankrolled a live show yeah
Corey
1:54
that was nice of you that
Carter
1:55
that was back when we didn't think we'd draw an audience yeah
Corey
1:58
yeah well fools we
Corey
2:00
we were kind of um we were young we were naive like our third episode was a live show so we
Corey
2:05
we had that man we
Carter
2:06
we were arrogant then oh
Carter
2:09
times would go back to that those days we
Corey
2:12
we can but don't worry oh we can live into now hey so uh no zane perfect opportunity to talk about not heading edgy but also maybe just alberta in general you want to talk about alberta i
Carter
2:22
i don't know what's going on a
Corey
2:24
a few things in alberta you're not even in alberta i'm
Carter
2:26
i'm not even in alberta i'm in british columbia right now sitting in another hotel room doing
Carter
2:32
for the masses with no light we're
Corey
2:34
yeah we can see that yeah
Corey
2:36
we can half see that yeah
Carter
2:37
yeah well i feel bad okay
Corey
2:40
okay so a few things have been going on in alberta But I think the one that we need to anchor this conversation around, because we've talked
Corey
2:46
talked a lot about Danielle Smith and her approach to U.S. politics. Maybe we'll get there.
Corey
2:51
Maybe we won't. Maybe we will. Maybe
Carter
2:52
Maybe we won't. We're not making any promises to these people.
Carter
2:57
not. These people don't pay us. Fuck all.
Corey
3:01
Promises are for people who give us $6 a month. That's
Corey
3:06
I want to skip past that right now, though, and go to what is, I think, maybe one of the bigger stories in Alberta politics, at least because of its potential. You know, we live in a world where people tend to throw around rhetoric like this could bring down a government, you know, the divine analogy. This is a government in Saskatchewan where they basically all went to jail. Like these things get thrown around and most of the time you just kind of roll your eyes and, you know, do one of those jerk off motions if you're Stephen. even i hate
Carter
3:37
i hate the the everybody calling for everybody's resignation all the time yeah i
Carter
3:41
makes me crazy you
Corey
3:42
you hate it i hate it you hate the heated rhetoric of like this is it this
Carter
3:46
this is like this is the end of the government they are completely without uh without any morality i
Carter
3:53
i hate that because
Corey
3:54
because usually it's not the end of the government no right but why don't we get to the actual issue here or at least throw it on the table why don't why
Corey
3:59
don't i do this hang hang on, hey,
Carter
4:01
hey, Corey, will you set that up for us?
Carter
4:03
That's a Zane Belgeism.
Corey
4:05
Well, look, I mean, the basic allegation, the summary of it is this. It is that the government of Alberta has been directing money towards people who have been doing favors for the government of Alberta. I think I can summarize it as simple as that. And the value
Carter
4:21
value of that— Can you do me a favor, buddy, and make sure we don't get sued, okay?
Carter
4:25
Oh, sure, that's a good
Corey
4:27
that's the allegation. Okay, thank you. and
Corey
4:30
and this allegation is in many ways unspooled in a letter from former ceo of alberta health services athana metzalopoulos who is a former colleague of mine right worked with her at the government of alberta and
Corey
4:44
and uh many former colleagues of mine are involved in this story in some way shape or form so i don't know if i want to get into like the specific details here right but
Carter
4:52
that's good we're not detail people that's
Corey
4:54
that's you know it's actually great cover it's great cover for not
Carter
4:58
any of the details the detail guys no that's right no this
Carter
5:03
this is the strategists
Corey
5:05
it's about half a billion dollars though it's suggested in contracts for private surgeries right being directed towards people who have shown favor to the government and in fact it is a business leader who um is
Corey
5:20
is tied to the turkish tylenol mini scandal here in alberta that's at at the center of it yeah
Carter
5:25
yeah i mean maybe not a mini scandal a legitimate scandal 75 million dollars for a product that was really never received and never used well
Corey
5:32
well look we can get into the definition of scandal i mean i think it's a bit of a a bit of an outrage that uh you know the cost per dose was so expensive and we ordered more doses than we could possibly need as a province and we ordered it in a way that it wouldn't come until after we needed it all of that i believe i mean we actually covered that in real time on this podcast this wasn't even like after the fact saying how crazy this was yeah
Corey
5:55
we said it at the time but
Corey
5:57
but there was never the suggestion at the time that money was like flowing in ways that were improper i guess that's what i'm trying to say when i say mini scandal well
Carter
6:06
well there's no other time yeah
Corey
6:10
now there's a suggestion or at least there's the insinuation out there that uh that money is flowing in ways that are improper because Because the heart of it is this skybox where you can watch hockey games from that people are invited to and all of that. I don't really want to get into the very specific things, mostly because the Premier has already threatened to sue people. I
Corey
6:33
you were alluding to that.
Carter
6:34
Premier Smith, if you're listening, our good friend Kerry Tate is who you're supposed to sue, not Corey and I. Corey and I are approaching this, in fact, as though Premier Smith is innocent, mostly to avoid litigation. litigation well
Corey
6:46
well look i actually think that's a pretty good frame because like we only know what we know we only see what's in the media here but the long story short is all of these allegations are floating around other conversations around the side as to what this might potentially mean but after many days of silence where even the usually reliable um
Corey
7:07
boosters shall we say at post media we're giving uh the gears to the premier and saying what is this what does this And you're right, Kerry Tate broke the story in the Globe and Mail. Credit where credit's due. The Premier released a statement on Twitter, on X, on Saturday.
Corey
7:24
And it was an interesting statement. I mean, I've not
Corey
7:27
not read statements like this in a while.
Corey
7:31
How can I say this? like we
Corey
7:33
we were talking a little bit about this before here again
Corey
7:37
we're working from the frame premier innocent does
Corey
7:40
does not actually inspire a lot of confidence that that is the case right like some of the word choices are crazy and so this is sort of what i'm hey cory yeah
Carter
7:50
don't get us sued i
Corey
7:51
know i know i'm trying to walk a line walk the line brother
Carter
7:54
brother walk the line but i gotta say
Corey
7:56
say like teach you how to do it yeah you know so the line the line in it maybe i'll maybe i'll just very quickly read you know it's not long enough that i can't read it so let me read it i'll skip over some show
Carter
8:08
show us your reading proficiency yeah
Corey
8:09
yeah i have read various media stories containing allegations regarding the procurement and contracting processes of ahs that's alberta health services they are troubling allegations and they should be reviewed as quickly as possible to that end i will be writing the Auditor General, Doug Wiley, to ask for an expedited review and his
Corey
8:26
findings on the issue. I have also directed my officials to ensure that any request for information from Mr. Wiley or his office is dealt with on a fully transparent and expedited basis. We need to get to the bottom of this issue quickly to identify any potential wrongdoing, correct it, address it appropriately. Okay, so far so good, right? Here's where it starts to get a little bit stranger, right? I have also asked that AHS's internal reviews be completed as quickly as possible and delivered directly to me so we could study the results and make improvements or adjustments to these processes until these findings are delivered ahs has paused
Corey
8:58
paused the contracting of surgical facilities under review and
Corey
9:02
and here's where it gets strangest still as premier i was not involved in any wrongdoing any insinuation to the contrary is false baseless and defamatory it then goes on to say basically hey i like i like trying to change ahs and deliver quality timely health care that's my goal i'm not going to bother going into that last paragraph that's in my opinion boilerplate but two things which i kind of paused on but let's let's really call them out yeah one is this is really serious so i've asked for the review to come directly to me yeah
Corey
9:35
right i gotta see it first gotta
Corey
9:38
review gotta see this
Corey
9:40
send it to me send
Carter
9:41
send me an index so i can see where my name is mentioned yeah
Corey
9:46
and the other is as As premier, I was not involved in any wrongdoing. You know, it doesn't say there was no wrongdoing. It
Corey
9:53
doesn't say even I was unaware of any wrongdoing. I was not involved in any wrongdoing. And
Corey
9:59
And then any insinuation, I mean, this is like, especially for a public figure, knowing where the bar is on this.
Carter
10:05
Oh, man. Yeah. Any insinuation
Corey
10:08
false, baseless, and defamatory. How
Carter
10:10
How is she going to sue someone? I mean, thank
Carter
10:13
thank God we're taking the position that she's innocent because she's going to sue everybody if if if she's worried about the defamatory statements that have been made so far. Because this is a this is one of those scandals that, you
Carter
10:27
you know, money is not going in the direction that it's supposed to go and being directed to spend money by the government of Alberta to AHS. chess i mean
Corey
10:36
and the suggestion is that her chief of staff at the time was at the heart of it right
Corey
10:42
which which not had nancy and the alberta ndp when they were going against this you know railing against this said effectively either
Corey
10:51
she knew and that's a very bad thing or she didn't and that's a certain level of incompetence i'm paraphrasing nancy at this point right yeah but you know the
Corey
10:59
the insinuation thing is pretty wild too like that's an interesting bar that's an an interesting interpretation but okay so that's all on the table now right let's
Corey
11:06
let's talk strategy oh
Corey
11:10
first thing i have my thoughts i want to get yours first how
Corey
11:13
how does a statement like this get written oh
Corey
11:16
you go and i'll go i had going and i go i
Carter
11:19
i had so many scandals i
Carter
11:21
i had so many um
Corey
11:22
um you were at least a few scandals well
Carter
11:25
well we know in fairness i was not the biggest ones i
Carter
11:30
mean if you recall we had the no meat committee do
Carter
11:33
do you remember i do remember the no meat committee no meat committee for those uh just joining us uh
Carter
11:36
uh was in 2011 2010 yeah
Carter
11:40
when uh a committee for uh the the elections i believe uh was supposed to meet every month and every every mla would get a thousand dollar stipend for attending those meetings unfortunately Fortunately, the meetings never occurred.
Carter
11:58
Everybody got paid, baby.
Corey
12:02
maybe not the scandal it sounds like because everybody got the same number of committee appointments, right? So people were paid based on committee assignments, but the reality was everybody just
Carter
12:10
just got paid. It was just a top-up on pay.
Carter
12:15
we did have to write a similar type of statement that said, you know, and we had to give all the money back. We said we're going to give back all the money. And that was, you know, that was our way out of it. But the point is, everybody's hands on deck when you're writing that statement. You're writing that statement with the input of lawyers. You're writing that statement with the input of the government. you're making sure that everybody's covered off so that you're not sounding like you have committed a fraud um because if
Carter
12:46
if you sound like you've committed a fraud i'll tell you something the next call is to the police right
Carter
12:51
right yeah and the police come in and they knock on your door we didn't commit a fraud we
Carter
12:55
we just took some money that we weren't entitled to that was important that was maybe the phrasing on that was a little phrasing
Corey
13:01
phrasing that was not that was not great but i you
Corey
13:04
you know i think
Corey
13:04
know what i mean
Corey
13:05
i do know what you mean and it was was interesting because on that no meat committee mlas from all parties were caught up in it like uh raj sherman and david swan were both on it for the liberals they both wrote checks back as a result but you know like realistically it was just part of their mla salary like it was just structured in such a way that committee meetings were a separate line item but but
SPEAKER_01
13:25
but it was a big thing it was a huge thing in
Corey
13:27
in alberta it became a scandal it it really is the moment where alison redford went from will she get 87 out of 87 seats to will she win this election which i mean you'll both you and i remember very well yes
Corey
13:38
we were running different it was
Carter
13:39
was polling so badly that when we presented the polling findings to caucus they said it was a push poll uh
Corey
13:47
caucus is uh you know kings of denial well
Carter
13:51
it was an ivr so i think they meant ivr and they just thought it was a push button yeah
Carter
13:56
and they don't know what a push poll is i
Corey
13:58
that's really i mean
Carter
13:59
mean your profession is politics why would you know that okay
Corey
14:02
okay can we can you say something really interesting because you talked about like lawyers and communicators in the room can i say in my experience in government and in politics which is you know not
Corey
14:14
not insignificant you know i've been here for a few of those statements myself there is a difference between a statement written by communicators run by lawyers and a statement written by lawyers run by communicators but also if
Corey
14:30
if it's not that serious it tends to be the communicators take first pen and when it's deathly serious the lawyers take the first pen so this
Corey
14:37
this feels to me like a lawyer is run by communicator statement absolutely communicators
Carter
14:41
communicators run by lawyers and made sure that the deaf you know that that the uh the the deniability was in there we wouldn't have put that in we
Carter
14:49
we wouldn't have put that in because it implies a certain amount of guilt of certain absolutely i mean especially when you parse the statement and you kind of go hang on for a second here it doesn't say she didn't know it doesn't say like we wouldn't have put it in um
Carter
15:02
um we would would have allowed
Carter
15:03
people to to reach the conclusion by
Carter
15:06
by writing something else right um one of the things that's missing is we don't have a scapegoat you
Carter
15:12
know a good political communicator would be pointing a finger somewhere else so fast your fucking head would spin um
Corey
15:20
yeah i think i think it would be pretty easy to say we all know ahs has been pretty chaotic and we all know that there's been troubles along there but a lawyer is going to say you
Corey
15:28
you have your fucking mind you can't You can't
Carter
15:29
can't point the finger at AHS and its problems.
Corey
15:33
problems. We're already in a situation where people are sending letters through lawyers. Like, this was a leak of a letter that Athena sent, basically,
Corey
15:40
basically, with 44 pages alleging these things, right? Oh, absolutely. You know, as part of a dispute over her being terminated by AHS. Well,
Carter
15:47
Well, and that's just it, too. Like, why Terminator? Like, why are
Carter
15:52
are you taking these types of actions in order to, like, if you're trying to protect yourself, you're doing the opposite of protecting yourself. I
Corey
15:59
mean, this is the other challenge with it all. And we we really breezed past it. But apparently some of this was known a little bit earlier. These concerns were brought by the CEO of Alberta Health, Athena Metzlopoulos, to
Corey
16:13
to the board. The board was poised to vote on it. The board was let go. She was let go. i i mean there
Corey
16:20
there are i'll just say from inside government sometimes these things happen because you're like oh my lord this person's off their rocker now that's not been my experience with just to be clear but like sometimes them doing these things is the thing that makes you say okay they gotta go right but like the combination of both her and the board it's
Corey
16:41
it's a little weird well
Carter
16:42
well you ever go fishing with dynamite uh
Corey
16:45
uh no no no no i mean does anyone do that it's a pretty crazy thing to do it
Carter
16:50
it is a pretty crazy thing to do but this is the political equivalent of going fishing with dynamite everybody who's touching this that's not guilty is getting hit with the dynamite yeah
Carter
17:01
right everybody else is is trying to like they
Carter
17:05
they didn't come up with any scapegoats they didn't push any any like the the this just doesn't make any sense from a political point of view i'm completely flummoxed by it i'm also completely flummoxed by the apparent lack of ethics um which uh has has to govern and govern you know government requires ethics and uh you know the old wild rose used to rail against it right yeah
Carter
17:30
and the wild rose crazies are now in charge and now they think they get to rob the piggy bank can
Corey
17:36
can i just say like Like, can I just paint a picture of this not being the government's malfeasance? Can I just, can we throw that out there just so I can get it on the record? Sure.
Carter
17:45
when we're doing it, is the color of the sky pink?
Corey
17:50
All right. So obviously there were procurement challenges. Maybe they were isolated to one person. In terms of the board and the CEO, maybe the government had soured on the CEO. Maybe things were awkward. maybe at that point the ceo starts trying to to create almost a reason like look at this this
Corey
18:09
this happens in jobs i'm certainly not
Corey
18:11
not saying it happened here okay just want to be crystal clear on this uh but then they say oh she's got to go and so uh many people will know that andre trombley is the deputy minister of alberta health is the administrator of alberta health services having replaced the board and the interim ceo of alberta health services he's right do
Carter
18:30
do you think he gets all three checks that's what i mean it's it's
Corey
18:32
it's like pokemon he's gonna catch them all right i know andre pretty well i've known i worked with him for a long time um a pretty competent guy i just have to say but you could easily imagine where they say oh geez well she's gotta go so uh we will just replace her and actually andre we wouldn't mind you being the administrator too now that's where it's a bit of a jump like why but the minute you do that half half the board of ahs is deputy ministers like colleagues of andrew yeah
Corey
19:04
andre so at that point do you not just say well that's an awkward situation so we'd have to let half the board go anyways so why don't we just make andre in charge you know charitable
Corey
19:15
but that's my charitable read right now yeah
Corey
19:16
so if that's what happened and that's how we ended up here is that so crazy yes
Carter
19:20
yes it is crazy it
Carter
19:22
it is it is nuts it is not the way that this the the things should go weird
Carter
19:29
souring on the CEO is one thing. Souring on the board is another thing. Yeah.
Carter
19:33
I've seen both of those things happen. And you know what? Ginning up a reason to hold on to your job is a skill I never acquired.
Corey
19:43
Yeah. That's a real failing of yours.
Carter
19:46
Yeah, it's a failing of mine particularly. But,
Carter
19:48
you know, I mean, this
Carter
19:51
this doesn't strike me as something that's ginned up to hold on to a job. this strikes me as something that is legitimate and real and when you put everything else into that filter then the legitimacy and the realness of this takes apart takes away from the capacity to say you know this is something that could have happened through non
Corey
20:13
so let's just clean up what you said like when you say legitimate real we don't know what it is but like we're saying there's smoke it's strange it's certainly not proper in terms of process and procedure even if it's not illegal that's what you mean at this case right because we don't know enough to make the broader claim i
Carter
20:30
i see the litigious claim and what i am blue lights i see red and blue lights in the future here don't
Corey
20:35
don't you no jesus christ just stop just stop you don't see
Carter
20:42
i can it's all serious we just don't know no
Carter
20:44
no i don't you're gonna you're you're so afraid to getting sued i've been serious it's not that hard it's
Carter
20:49
it's not that hard we're
Corey
20:52
we're not we're not doing that um okay
Corey
20:55
so back to the situation like we're going to continue with our frame of like what should the government have done so we talked a little bit about it we deconstructed we talked about statement written by communicators run by lawyers versus statement written by lawyers run by communicators anything else you want to say on that before you want to say what this should have been well
Carter
21:15
think the question is really predicated on whether or not the premier feels she's innocent which
Carter
21:19
which we have stipulated as part of this program as part of this program you know for the purposes of this program she's completely innocent in which case um she needs to do more than just a simple uh tweet uh demanding that a report be laid upon her desk and that the auditor or general get involved if the uh if
Carter
21:40
there is no merit to the complaint uh then there's no problem calling the police right why wouldn't you call the police right call the call the fire down on your own hole right like let's go let's make sure that this thing is absolutely 100 clear and it's not like they can be expected to actually finish the uh finish the investigation before your next election anyways there's only two and a half years um i'm
Carter
22:04
i'm anticipating that it's going to take at least what three four years to get through this uh based on the current speed and progress of the rcmp on on other investigations that are political in nature this feels like it's you know if if if if the premier honestly didn't know what's going on then she should be absolutely furious that one of her staff put
Carter
22:25
put her in a position where she could go down for it well
Carter
22:29
A staffer's job is
Carter
22:31
is to protect the principal.
Carter
22:34
And this is the exact opposite of protecting the principal.
Corey
22:44
I mean, I think that you've unspooled a lot that's true there, right? I'm not so convinced I would call in the RCMP. I'm not really sure I want to create the precedent that whenever I'm accused of something, I'm calling in the RCMP.
Carter
22:56
You've been accused of things for the last 18 months. for the last two years you've been accused of things this is not new to be accused of things being accused of something that has this type of connotation is new billion
Carter
23:10
is beyond the pale a half billion dollars worth of expenditures what one-fifth of which or 75 million of which every
Carter
23:20
every cow every albert knows was lunacy this
Carter
23:26
this is the tylenol the children's talent it was absolute lunacy right and now let's put it all together and you tied it together with the red string and it's not really that much red string
Corey
23:37
well can i say this is actually what i think is is one of the challenges that danielle smith has is let's just say if let's just say something happened it doesn't even need to be like the biggest things that are claimed right with her staff and all of that if
Corey
23:49
if this becomes a thing if there are red and blue lights at any point even if she was a hundred miles away from this particular situation the challenge she has between the hockey tickets and the turkish tylenol is that people are just gonna they're gonna do the red string thing and they're gonna say well like look at all of these connections here like it's just it's way you know it is character it is known associates right like i mean it's like one of those things in like a police procedural this is a known associate of danielle smith i
Carter
24:18
i said to a friend of mine today that everybody's going to get painted with the the same brush even if all they did was take a ticket to the to the box they're
Carter
24:26
they're going to be treated to whatever is found to be the worst sin committed by the cohort right
Corey
24:31
right i mean that's the risk yeah whatever
Carter
24:33
whatever the cohort has done to this stage everybody who's going to be guilty of the same sin because they were playing for the same team i
Corey
24:40
mean daniel smith is very much in the splash zone i guess we would both agree oh
Corey
24:46
so the challenge that is is let's go back to this statement here and some of the conversation that was had how do you get out of the splash zone in that situation i don't think this statement does that no
Carter
24:57
no the statement doesn't go nearly far enough first of all i think you need to have you need to make sure that you are painting a villain whoever
Carter
25:04
whoever the villain is going to be there are two people in any good story there is a protagonist and an antagonist if you want to be the protagonist you must define who who the antagonist is that is the very i mean simple literature reading your kids a story at night there's a good guy and there's a bad is it yeah
Carter
25:21
right you're going to tell a story to your kids in the car to make the the long trip exciting they're the good guys there's a bad guy good guy who triumphs over bad guy so
Carter
25:31
so danielle did not set that up she needed to have a bad guy or at least the potential bad guy.
Carter
25:37
And she didn't do that.
Carter
25:39
And the second piece is she really didn't tell as much of a story at all,
Carter
25:45
right? Remembering that this is one of our constant criticisms of Rachel Notley. We learn by stories, right?
Carter
25:52
right? The story that is being told now by Nahid Nenshi isn't that good a story, but it's still much more of a story than Danielle Smith told us. Danielle Smith should have told us the story of an AHS that's out of control, an AHS that was being run by people
Carter
26:11
people who didn't have the competence or the character to make sure that this type of stuff didn't happen.
Carter
26:18
you know, this is clearly
Carter
26:20
clearly an AHS problem.
Carter
26:22
But I think that one of the reasons she didn't tell us this, Corey, and Corey,
Carter
26:25
Corey, I'm going to whisper it to you, it's
Corey
26:31
No, no, no, no. Listen, it's
Carter
26:34
If you whisper something, you
Corey
26:35
you can't get sued for it, right? Can I make a broader point about this? Sure, that'd be great. Please. Can I make it broader? Please.
Corey
26:42
When you are constructing a statement like this, one of the challenges you have is you worry about where it might go and you don't want to put yourself into a corner. You don't want to make statements that you're then going to have to walk back, right? right you're trying to make it durable because you know what they always say is like it's the cover-up that kills but like in this case the broader point is like if you say something and then tomorrow you have to say the opposite because you were just loose with your words it starts to look like a cover-up even if it was just an accidental fuck-up so when i say it's the lawyers run by communicators that's when language gets super tight when it gets super specific you can't say that you can't say that you don't know that for sure you absolutely must stick to this line very carefully here and um and and so i've
Corey
27:29
i've been on the inside there you've been on the inside there what often happens is you sit and you don't know where the next hit's coming from you don't know what the next shoe to drop is you don't know what information might be out there that you don't know or sometimes you there is information out there that you do know and you don't know if anybody else knows it and it creates very very interesting very narrow communications for
Carter
27:49
for the purposes of this podcast we were assuming she was innocent i
Corey
27:53
still am you know like i think
Carter
27:55
think but if she's innocent then she's not worried about the information that she doesn't know because
Carter
28:00
because she knows that she knows that she hasn't done any there's no wrongdoing on her behalf no
Corey
28:06
no no no no i disagree with that because i think even if you're sitting there knowing you did nothing like listen that the police came to my house today and said we want to talk to you about a bank heist that That happened in downtown Calgary. Where were you at this time? Okay, thank you very much. I'm going to go on my way. And then it started to be reported out there like, oh, there's a bank heist. And it looks like Stephen Carter might be involved. And Corey Hogan's a known associate of Stephen Carter, right? Yeah. I'm putting out a statement and I'm going to be like, I wasn't involved at all.
Corey
28:35
Am I putting out a statement that says, and Stephen's innocent too?
Carter
28:41
But just for the record, I'd have lawyered up really quickly instead. said i'd
Carter
28:45
i'd be dollar bill stern baby lawyer
Carter
28:48
lawyer because i don't know lawyer
Corey
28:51
because i don't know because
Corey
28:52
don't know so if
Corey
28:56
only know what you know yeah
Carter
28:58
but here you don't know what
Corey
28:59
what other people are doing if
Carter
28:59
if you don't know what other people are doing and you think that they've been doing something wrong that's
Carter
29:04
that's where you're fucked that's
Carter
29:06
that's where you're fucked that's
Corey
29:08
that's where i'm fucked in this story too then because like you clearly robbed that bank I
Carter
29:12
I obviously would rob a bank. I'm a bank robber.
Carter
29:15
Because my face is so, you
Carter
29:18
know. So generic white guy. Generic white guy. It'd be like, could you imagine trying to pick me out of a lineup? They'd have like five of us and we'd all look the exact same.
Corey
29:26
Yeah, Dominic Cummings would go down for your crime.
Carter
29:28
Dominic Cummings, Mike Bullard. Oh, he's dead.
Corey
29:32
Well, it's perfect Patsy then. Patsy!
Carter
29:36
Aaron O'Toole goes down for this. Yeah.
Carter
29:38
Yeah. I mean, there's thousands. Absolutely. Thousands of us.
Corey
29:42
but you know so like you do get in a place but like let's go back to this statement and dissect it this to me shows it's a premier's office that doesn't feel fully in control of the issue doesn't have a full sense of what the facts are doesn't know what's going to get out there next yeah that is how it's written right now of course
Carter
30:00
you know so allowing
Carter
30:02
allowing that statement to go out when you don't know when you don't know what the next thing is that's a problem problem
Carter
30:08
like you can't like she's made it worse before making it better yeah
Corey
30:13
yeah well and here's the other challenge she has because we've talked about just the words here but this is the only thing she said on this yeah
Corey
30:19
that's that's the other challenge my understanding is she is slash was in panama she's now in washington dc right
Corey
30:26
she has made many statements about the u.s tariff situation both before and after if you go on her feed you'll see all of those have pictures and they're designed to look big on the
Corey
30:36
feed and this one's designed to look small on the feed right and
Corey
30:41
it's starting to feel a bit absurd it's starting to feel a bit absurd that a half a billion dollar allegation has only been addressed in this particular fashion doesn't it
Carter
30:49
it oh absolutely i mean that's a lot of money like
Corey
30:53
yeah i mean that's one of those numbers that's so big people have trouble processing the oh
Corey
30:59
the size of the challenge here well
Carter
31:01
well let's just say for shits and giggles you
Carter
31:04
you and i were involved in a fraud that had about 500 billion or 500 million dollars sure
Corey
31:08
sure absolutely just you know allegedly allegedly
Carter
31:11
allegedly first of all we would be we'd be small minnows right
Carter
31:15
we wouldn't be doing the whole thing we're just going to get a small what we're going to get two percent we're just going
Corey
31:20
going to wet our beak yeah two percent each absolutely ten
Carter
31:22
ten million dollars each ten
Carter
31:28
we're not we're not we're not people who we're not overly greedy greedy two percent feels good to us yeah take two points on the back end sure
Corey
31:36
sure oh my god that's pretty modest and that's 10 million dollars right yeah
Carter
31:41
yeah this is exactly when it gets to numbers this big and
Carter
31:44
and and what do you think the profit line would have looked like on that 75 million dollar tylenol deal yeah
Corey
31:51
yeah well let's not even bring that one in right we just don't know enough about it but like the point is
Carter
31:55
is now i'm just saying what does the profit line look like that on that like
Carter
31:58
like what is the it's got to be a hundred percent
Carter
32:00
at least a hundred has to
Corey
32:02
to be a hundred percent margin at
Carter
32:02
at least a hundred percent margin given
Corey
32:04
given given that the government was over a barrel yeah one of these things in a hurry was willing to take these extraordinary steps has to be has to
Corey
32:12
and also just looking at margins like pharmaceutical margins can be like 90 in some cases exactly
Corey
32:17
exactly not usually for a commodity like tylenol but but
Carter
32:19
but this is just it how hard is it to make you
Carter
32:23
what is it acetaminophen or whatever what's in tylenol
Carter
32:27
yeah i mean how hard is it to make it's nothing it's nothing this is this is a known compound that everybody's been making and you just have to like
Carter
32:36
like holy shit 75 million of it i
Carter
32:39
i can't imagine how much you how much real tylenol you'd be able to buy for that just
Carter
32:49
okay my point is just simply this yeah
Carter
32:51
yeah that when you start to deal with numbers that are that large the
Carter
32:54
the amount of incentive to
Carter
32:58
to start to to behave or misbehave becomes insane it
Carter
33:02
it is insane which
Corey
33:03
which is why for contract the bigger the contract the more safeguards you put on it right absolutely
Corey
33:08
absolutely so that is
Carter
33:10
is why you don't have people being directed from the premier's office to hand out on
Corey
33:14
on half a billion dollar contracts yeah well
Corey
33:16
if if that were to happen but like we again we don't know i just want to be really clear on that right There are a bunch of things that are stated.
Corey
33:24
Nobody knows. But now the Premier's Office is going to have to deal with this. At the very least, there's going to be an Auditor General report.
Carter
33:29
You know what, Corey?
Carter
33:32
think we've made a real mistake here.
Corey
33:34
What's the... Doing this podcast. I
Carter
33:37
I think we should have assumed that she was guilty.
Carter
33:40
We might have been a little more careful.
Carter
33:42
We might have been a little bit more careful with our words.
Carter
33:45
But by presuming she was innocent, now we put ourselves in a real pickle. yeah
Corey
33:49
yeah we have we've actually caused more problems that way it's a great point okay we we touched on it briefly the nenshi
Corey
33:56
response which is almost like the
Corey
33:59
the nenshi response came before the
Corey
34:03
you know the premier's rejoinder i guess we'll call it but
Carter
34:06
the thing with the nenshi response is is the man has never found a way to say two
Carter
34:11
two words when 200 will suffice
Carter
34:17
it lacks a soundbite doesn't it jared
Carter
34:19
jared wesley who said that the the the definition of a really of a real scandal is one that can be written in a single tweet yeah
Carter
34:27
and then he wrote the single tweet about
Carter
34:29
about this about this particular scandal and
Carter
34:32
and i don't have it in front of me i don't want to misquote him um but it
Carter
34:37
it was a banger of a tweet and
Carter
34:40
and i thought to myself you know what you
Carter
34:43
know who should have written that tweet
Carter
34:45
Nahid Nenshi should have written that tweet he would have he would have had the ability to define this entire thing I got a note from Christina Gray today which makes no sense to me at all this is a leader all the way issue I
Carter
35:00
I got a quote I got an email from Christina Gray that was paragraphs long
Carter
35:04
explaining this whole thing to me if you take paragraphs to explain this you are losing this this war yeah
Corey
35:12
yeah like wesley's tweet which i just pulled up here is allegedly you know so this is him stating like this is how you would summarize it in one tweet right be the scandal right jesus we should have started with this can i say can we we should have started with this do you want allegedly
Corey
35:27
yeah let's just okay
Carter
35:32
this is episode 1848 strategists episode episode 1848 g i'm stephen carter and with me as always cory hogan why
Carter
35:44
why don't we open up with that jared wesley tweet yeah
Corey
35:46
yeah uh allegedly smith's staff pressured health care officials to approve over half a billion dollars in private health care contracts to a businessman who bought them seats in nhl luxury boxes in return for the favor then smith fired a ceo who tried to investigate pretty
Corey
36:02
good but way better summary than we did gotta say i'll tell you jared much better if
Carter
36:07
if it's only the bottom seats for the playoffs do
Carter
36:10
do you think that's all it is i
Corey
36:14
again carter so careful tread careful here like we just don't know but even that like those things are worth thousands of dollars seats like that yeah
Carter
36:26
remember the profit margin
Corey
36:28
those are the allegations. And so this is the challenges that we're now facing here. Right.
Corey
36:33
So here we are.
Corey
36:35
Right. We're now talking about Nenshi. Nenshi's response wasn't pithy.
Corey
36:40
It was, however, I think, a pretty good prosecutorial laying out of the case. I actually thought
Carter
36:46
thought he was pretty good. I think if we had 12 jurors in a box who
Carter
36:49
who had to pay attention, right,
Carter
36:51
right, at the risk of the judge throwing them out and into jail for contempt, I
Carter
36:58
think those 12 people would have paid attention. All
Corey
37:01
Tell me I'm wrong. You're not wrong. Tell me I'm wrong. And your point about like the emails and all of this, it's true. And actually I'll say another challenge people have with, with allegations of scandal like this is the longer your, your explanation, the more you come off, like you've lost your mind, right? That you're just piecing together random things and like, you're picking up this piece of the scandal and that piece of the scandal. And, and, and what Jared points out, I think rightly is like when you can put succinctly and everyone like just sort of gets it like, oh, that's it. Like that's the scandal.
Corey
37:36
That's the real power. And
Carter
37:37
power of this needs to be this needs to be the defining factor. Right. We need to learn from Pierre Polyev on this. Right. Pierre Polyev has said this is where, you know, the carbon tax, the carbon tax, the carbon tax. And it's all been the carbon tax. And of course, the weakness of that is now the carbon tax is gone. But this scandal never goes away. This scandal is there for the remaining two and a half years of Danielle Smith's tenure. And if you do this right, if you set this up properly and you start just simply saying a half a billion dollars for a few hockey tickets and Lord knows what else.
Carter
38:14
They got a half a billion dollars at the contracts, Corey, for a few hockey tickets and Lord knows what else.
Carter
38:21
See what I did there?
Corey
38:22
Yeah, I do. And, you know, in many ways, I think that Smith's tweet about defamatory allegations was aimed at an audience of one. yeah
Corey
38:31
and it wasn't you i think it was not hidden in she i think that she was trying to imply that she would sue not head for oh that would be spectacular i
Corey
38:38
mean it would be wild you
Corey
38:40
you know what this scandal this quote-unquote this alleged scandal needs though what
Carter
38:46
oh it needs a gate i don't
Carter
38:47
don't hate the gate or i
Corey
38:48
i don't you know it doesn't need to be a gate it could be something like smith backs instead of kickbacks that's not a good one it's not a good one
Corey
38:55
you know know what we
Carter
38:56
we this is where we really need zane he
Carter
38:59
can be pithy he
Corey
39:00
he can be kenny
Corey
39:03
that's not been my experience no
Carter
39:05
you know what now that i'm thinking about it yeah
Carter
39:07
the this is one of the joys of doing the carter and hogan episodes right like look at this sucker 39
Corey
39:16
yeah so so much rich content here okay god
Corey
39:21
so where do the ndp go from here they need what do they do start
Carter
39:24
start they they they need to start over they need to define this again and make this exclusive and just go at it every single day and then when they get into the legislature they got to go at it every single day there is nothing else but this there is no concern like today there was a uh an open house talking about the uh the the you know the the the coal mining on the eastern slopes interesting fantastic another situation i would totally behind it in fact i'm
Carter
40:00
i'm behind it i don't think that there should be coal mining on the eastern slopes of the of the canadian rockies does not fucking matter only thing that matters is danielle smith and her government gave a half a billion dollars worth of work to a company that in In exchange, it appears, or the
Carter
40:19
same company that gave them hockey
Corey
40:25
Figure out a phrasing that gives you that legal shield, and you use that exact same phrasing. Every
Corey
40:31
Like, you don't need to struggle the way Stephen and I are to talk about being allegations. Just find the way to say it, and say it, right?
Carter
40:36
right? I think I said it better earlier.
Carter
40:39
But then I saw the look on your face, and you went a little green.
Carter
40:43
I was like, well, maybe I'm a little close to getting sued. Well,
Corey
40:45
Well, you know, this is a podcast that we're going to have to run by lawyers, but it's not like the lawyers are going to write the podcast. So, you know,
Carter
40:51
we're still in that ground. We're
Corey
40:53
We're okay. No, we're not going to run this by lawyers.
Carter
40:55
lawyers. You know who we should call?
Corey
40:58
I hear he's got some free time. He's
Carter
41:00
He's got some free time and he's still, still
Corey
41:04
QC. Casey, I guess now.
Carter
41:05
now. Casey now, yeah.
Carter
41:07
I had difficulty with that switch.
Corey
41:09
Yeah, I know. Because you want to say, and the Sunshine Gang. Yeah.
Carter
41:12
Exactly. It's hilarious. yeah
Carter
41:16
we're of a certain age when we come up with kc and the sunshine
Carter
41:20
how many how many people in our podcast listening i
Corey
41:23
actually probably a lot of them yeah
Corey
41:25
know that's just life hey so okay we
Carter
41:27
we should promote the discord though we should promote you know being a patron yeah
Corey
41:31
yeah six dollars get the discord have we done our
Carter
41:34
our job is lit you guys got to be on that you
Corey
41:37
you got to be on the discord you got to find your way to the discord uh
Corey
41:40
uh we're breaking stuff there all the time um okay so we got the nenshi response the
Corey
41:46
the ndp response we're gonna call it we've got smith in a bit of trouble right
Corey
41:51
how about the media what do you do with if this if you're the media now where do you go first of
Carter
41:55
of all what is this let us give props to carrie tate for breaking the story once
Carter
42:00
for getting the information because
Corey
42:02
because we did that but we can do it we're
Carter
42:03
we're doing it again we're giving props because props are free and that's the type of stuff that we give away you
Corey
42:08
know what free shit unlike the discord which
Corey
42:11
is six dollars props
Carter
42:12
props are free um
Carter
42:16
problem is how do they how much more can they continue to invest in it now it's the globe and mail if this was post media this thing would be over already
Carter
42:26
it's the globe and mail so i suspect that we're going to see an awful lot more chasing by carrie tate and her colleagues and they're going to go after this like uh uh shit on a stick no they're They're going to go after this. Is that a
Corey
42:37
a saying that anyone has ever used before?
Carter
42:39
before? No, I'm lost on my sayings.
Carter
42:43
I don't know what idiom to use.
Carter
42:45
Okay. Here's the thing. Shit on a stick. I think they're going to continue to do it, and they're going to continue to push, and they're going to find more stuff, because I think, you know, Carrie Tate has been the one who's been the closest to this UCP government and seeing how they actually are working. and uh it's no surprise to me that she's the one who's broken the story okay
Corey
43:08
okay you talked about one more thing i wanted to try to get in there which is this is not the only thing that the ucp is dealing with right now right and so the coal mining oh yeah is
Corey
43:18
is also getting pretty big mla is having to cancel coffees with constituents and whatnot because there's so many angry constituents out there yeah
Corey
43:25
who do not want to see it's
Carter
43:26
it's a seven eastern slopes
Corey
43:27
slopes seven to three issue yeah
Carter
43:30
right like it is a big fucking issue and danielle has tried to hide it um maybe tried too hard to hide it because she unleashed this ahs thing but this is the
Carter
43:41
the the coal mine stuff is huge if
Carter
43:44
if they go ahead with this they're going to have um they're
Carter
43:48
they're going to have a lot of angry constituents and i don't know that the ndp can win in every place it's going to be angry but i suspect that they can win in some and
Carter
43:59
and uh i don't know if you followed the last election cory uh
Carter
44:03
uh but it was pretty close pretty
Carter
44:07
few hundred more votes here a few hundred more votes there suddenly uh rachel notley's not practicing law i'm just saying well
Corey
44:14
well it's interesting to me because you wouldn't normally think that the writings on the rockies with the exception of of Banff-Canmore or Banff-Cochrane, whatever it's called now, right, is
Corey
44:26
is in play. But this
Corey
44:29
this could at least mess things up for the UCP in some challenging
Corey
44:33
challenging ways, right, where they're playing some defense. And certainly it's one of those issues that while it's intensely felt in the communities that are affected, it's also felt in the cities. Like you don't have to work real hard to walk
Corey
44:45
walk around Calgary and see signs where people are mad about this. One of the reasons people like to live here for those of you not here is the proximity to the rocky mountains and the and you know the landscapes and the outdoor living never
Corey
44:57
never been my thing no
Carter
44:59
no i'm not really sure why i'm
Carter
45:00
here i mean but
Carter
45:01
maybe that's why zane can't record maybe
Carter
45:03
maybe he's lost in the rockies maybe
Carter
45:06
he would be he would be having a hard time finding his way out he
Corey
45:09
he would you know what it's both not at all likely but very likely if he tried yeah
Carter
45:13
yeah exactly i heard one time he went to canmore i was worried for him
Corey
45:18
yeah canmore is like a city but even then i am worried they still
Carter
45:22
still call it the town of canmore hey do
Corey
45:24
do they what a fraud they're trying but it's
Carter
45:26
it's a fraud it's a city for sure it's
Corey
45:28
it's a city for sure yeah yeah okay
Corey
45:31
okay so we didn't say anything substantive about coal mining but it's
Carter
45:38
there you go strong
Carter
45:40
oh is this the end i
Corey
45:42
i mean do you have anything else to say i
Carter
45:47
thought you looked good tonight thank
Corey
45:53
i'm not returning that compliment just i'm
Carter
45:55
i'm wearing my sweater oh
Corey
45:58
oh is that what that is
SPEAKER_01
46:09
He doubles down, his mom is proud The currency, he's really loud He's Carter, he's pretty smart
SPEAKER_01
46:22
Kinda knows it, disdain for Carter He always shows it, he's Hogan Hogan, means
SPEAKER_01
46:34
and Hogan, they're here's for you, to give you the takes, and you're here for them too,
SPEAKER_01
46:45
Carter and Hogan, they're here's for you, to give you the takes, and you're here for them too, Zane's
SPEAKER_01
46:58
with Carter and Hogan