Episode 1872: Diddlebuck, Alberta

This is a strategist episode 1872. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Shannon Phillips. How are you? Well,

Well, I'm doing great because Shannon's back and she's going to hold me to account. She's going to throw acronyms out like left, right, and center. We've already gone through 47 acronyms in the first, just waiting for you to show up, Zain. Just waiting for you. It was brutal.

brutal. Would AM and PM be considered an acronym for you? Literally acronyms.

Shannon, what's going on here? Why are you overloading Carter and his geriatric brain?

I don't know, because I assumed a level of facility of the language of politics that perhaps I was overestimating. And so I will take that under advisement and govern myself accordingly. Thank

Thank you. Okay, so the trouble begins when Shannon texts us FMM, Matt

I Google FMM. What do you get when you Google FMM? When

When I Google FMM, I am not allowed to report what I actually get back on my screen. I

You should Google it right now. Do it right now.

No, thank you. No, thank you. I'm going to do it right now. Hold on. I'm going to do it right now. FMM.

It's not a good thing.

It's not a good

You know what, Carter? You know why I'm doing this? Because Shannon told us it wouldn't be compelling listening.

Exactly. She's like, this isn't going to be good. But I said to her, you always take us in a good direction, and here you are. Wait,

what's the Fort McMurray Airport? Is that... YMM.

Is that... YMM, yeah. Again,

extremely compelling listening, you guys.

Just hold on. Hold on. Okay. Mexico's phasing out paper visitor permits, FMM. I don't know what that means. So that's one thing. Carter, I'm not getting anything. What's bothering you? Is it Father Michael McGivenly High School?

I'm just telling you that I don't know what FMM is going to generate when I Google it. It's not good. Okay,

Okay, well, First Minister's Meeting.

Oh, First Minister's Meeting. She's tipping away the punchline like that. I just need to get us out of this extremely painful introductory segment, you guys. You

You know what I like about Shannon is that she's also producing. Corey never produced when he was on. Yeah, Corey just fucking went with it. He just kept going. I like this, Shannon. This is good. Okay, we're going to chat about a lot of things, including the fact that we have some new numbers regarding separation in Alberta. I want to talk about the by-elections in Alberta, And then I want to talk very quickly on the federal scene, what we make of this past week with Carney and the King. How did that visit go? Was there anything material you took out of it? Let's start with the separatist question, because that is what we did spend a significant amount of time last time the three of us were together discussing. In fact, I think it's the only thing we discussed when we walked through what our prospective

prospective strategies would be. What I'd like to do is talk about the number. We now have a number. Janet Brown polling CBC have produced a number. it's 28%. That's where the separatist number stands. That number is not increasing from previous polling that Janet has done. But Carter, I'll start with you on this. The intensity of those that want to separate is deepening, intensifying. Yep.

How are you reading this?

Well, I'm reading it that when you have a group of people who already believe something, and then you decide to start pumping it up and making it more and more real, the intensity will change um you know this is the uh one of the principles of advertising is that in someone's open to the idea if you advertise with increasing frequency they'll become more and more open to the idea and i think that this is what danielle smith has enabled and and promoted by essentially advertising the idea of confederation or separation is that uh the more people who are those people who are open to the idea are going to become more ingrained uh as the as Daniela Smith makes it more and more real and opens up the pathway for it.

Shannon, I'll get to you in a second, but I want to follow up with Carter for a quick moment here. Are you more concerned? Would you be more concerned if 28 became 32 or would you be more concerned to hear the intensity of the group is getting bigger? As an organizer or strategist,

is it simply the top line that worries you or are you actually worried that this is intensifying?

The intensity will ultimately move the number, right?

right? The intensity will ultimately move the number from 30% to 40%. That intensity, because what we're doing is now we're activating social networks and people within those social networks are going to be more and more likely to be talking about separation. They are emboldened. They are seeing their premier talk about it. They are willing to talk about it publicly. Whereas before, if it was kind of a two or three on the Likert scale, it wasn't really something that they were going to talk about. uh now that it's number one they are absolutely going to talk about it uh they're going to talk about it within their own groups where it's which are easier to find because people are more engaged and more you know excited about it if you will and they will talk about it within groups that are not necessarily uh separatist leaning shannon

shannon 28 intensifying what do you think

Well, Carter has got it right in terms of how the ball keeps rolling, is that you increase that intensity. I would say, though, that there's still a good chunk of those folks, even in the intensity of it. It's really hard to tell whether the intensity is I'm pissed with the federal government, or I'm out of here, right? Because there's still a lot of separatist, curious, kind of half-formed ideas out there. Uh, you know, of, and, uh, the biggest one of which is, um, we

we need to be talking about this because we need to get our fair share, whatever that looks like, right? Fill in the blank on what that means. Um, you

you know, we need to be able to produce oil with wild abandon when in fact our production is as high as it's ever been. Uh, we need to be able to build, uh, you know, linear infrastructure in whatever direction we want, even though, you know, there are no private sector proponents for new projects uh so i think um it's part of that right like people are seeing it in this moment as a chip as a negotiating ploy that is how it is viewed out there uh on the landscape and it's possible that some of this intensity is just well actually we have to now because we're dealing with you know there's another few years of of uh liberal uh majority A de facto majority. I think what it also means, though, on that intensity is there are more and more folks, if you can go find them, willing to sign a citizen initiative to put that question on the ballot. That's where the danger lies. also with as as soon as that intensity goes up even if you have even if you're stuck in in around 28 that's money right

right there right that is fundraising ability good point

for the you know because if you care about something you're gonna put a hundred dollars down to back it

the two danger spots

spots but on the other side and I don't have it in front of me maybe you do Zane or Carter what's the intensity of the people who want to stay in Canada I'm

I'm feeling like that's pretty intense uh uh feeling you're not getting a whole lot of meh sentiment in there right if you want to stay in Canada that's like okay I want to stay here um and

and and to me that number is also important are there people kind of carving into the I don't know could go either way sort of category uh in which case that's also a danger zone uh for folks because That means there's persuadable people who can go into the crowd of, well, I might, you know, sign the petition or be

movable in some way if I, quote unquote, can get a better deal out of Ottawa. And that's where Carney's response to this really matters. And that's where Danielle's response to this really matters. She's got a fine line to walk, you know, how much she caters to this. uh but you know also uh skirts around it so that she can keep her caucus and her governing majority together shannon's

shannon's not wrong in the sense that this attachment to canada has also kind of gone up in the face of this but but carter can we zoom out for a second like and i'm almost asking you to play both strategist and citizen and i'll get you to do this too shannon in a moment which is let's just say this ends where this is balloted right so let's say i i take 28 i round it up to 30 and

i take 67 and i take the five percent and decide and say they break either way and i make it a 70 30 initiative a

a 70 30 referendum outcome

outcome for our province what

what like what i'm trying to grapple with like even like hearing feedback from our last episode um

um and then ignoring it which is what i do yeah

but but even uh but what does that mean for our province like i think one of the the questions i'm being asked is like okay like let's just say it lands here and this is the outcome it's not 5149 but 30 of a loud group showing up is still something like do you shrug your shoulders and be like that's the outcome let's move on or is this like a i shouldn't say forever fracture but a newly developed now quantified fracture in our society that we have to deal with carter it's

it's a it's a full fracture and we do have to deal with it it is it is going going to be more important than anything else that we deal with because 30% is enough to start driving people away. It's enough to start driving uncertainty. And as soon as you start driving uncertainty, you have to deal with it. You have to make things certain again. The best case scenario is that no one's able to get 170,000 signatures and everything kind of bogs down before we we actually get to a 70-30 outcome. Because the other problem, Zane, is it's quite a push to assume that we wind up in the exact same spot again.