Episode 1877: Zombie Files

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 1877. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Shannon Phillips, Stephen Carter. How are you folks?

Carter 0:10

I'm having a great day. I'm

Carter 0:11

I'm not gonna lie to you. It's a spectacular day today. Is

Zain 0:14

Is it? Is this a spectacular day? Shannon, does that same go for you?

Shannon 0:17

Oh, yeah. And you know, I had a really great interaction the other day with Tony at Mount Equipment Company, who said that he was enjoying hearing me on The Strategist when I was doing my return. So shout out to Tony. No,

Zain 0:30

No, we on the show like to do full first and last name. Does Tony have a last name so we can both address him by last name and dox him? Because that's what we also like to do. Ideally,

Carter 0:38

Ideally, getting him fired is

Zain 0:39

is really what we're aiming for.

Zain 0:41

Yeah. We're after you, Doug Wong.

Shannon 0:43

I don't know his last name. I didn't ask. I didn't pry to that level of detail, you guys. You're

Zain 0:48

You're going to have to

Zain 0:49

there yourselves. That's unfortunate. We've got fans

Zain 0:52

It's weird, isn't it? How are we now going to get to the bottom of Tony? Yeah.

Zain 0:54

Yeah. What do we know about him? Where did you say? It's an equipment company?

Zain 0:59

Mountain Equipment Co-op. Oh, my heavenly days. Mountain Equipment. What is this? Why? This is, once again, white people things. Oh,

Carter 1:05

Oh, my God. How do you not know about Mountain Equipment Co-op? It used to be Mountain Equipment Co-op. Okay.

Zain 1:10

Okay. Now it's the company. This is what threw me off. I heard mountain, I heard equipment, and then I heard company. What happened to co-op? Yeah, because they changed it.

Shannon 1:17

it. It's not a co-op

Shannon 1:20

Well, it got bought out. It was this whole thing. So, yeah. Now it's a company. Is this a socialist death note? It's still MEC, you know, but... I

Zain 1:30

I do not know what's coming. Yeah, it's... I don't like that. It's kind of sad.

Zain 1:32

It is kind of sad. But

Shannon 1:34

But Tony's still there. He's a really good guy. Was

Zain 1:35

Was Tony there from the co-op days and now he's there in the company days?

Shannon 1:39

days? I didn't... Again, I did not pry as to his employment history. You

Shannon 1:43

kind of left things out

Zain 1:44

really limited. We should

Shannon 1:45

should know more. A former politician.

Shannon 1:47

This small talk really went nowhere.

Shannon 1:50

Well, he was really excited about the strategist, so I was happy to talk about that.

Zain 1:55

That's fine. What did

Carter 1:56

did you say about us? Did you say

Carter 1:58

say we were pretty great to work with or what did you

Shannon 2:00

you say? No, I said I was surprised that anyone was listening to your show.

Zain 2:03

Yeah. Did you also tell them that we rarely

Zain 2:05

rarely confirm what time we're going to record and expect you to be there? Was that also

Shannon 2:09

also mentioned? No, we didn't get into that level of detail. Okay. You know, it was funny though, because I used to joke all the time. People would say to me, oh, people must, you know, like recognize you. And I was like, no, absolutely not. Outside of Lethbridge, nobody has any idea. Knows who you are. Sure. Because nobody knows who ministers are. That is a fantastic arrangement. But the only place where this was not true was the environment minister for the province was anytime I would go to a mountain equipment co-op at the time, people

Shannon 2:33

come up to me and want to talk to me about the environment. And it happened again, even 10 years post-ministerial life. So there you go.

Shannon 2:41

The climbers and the mountain bikers and the people interested in the outdoors are still interested in the outdoors. That's

Carter 2:47

That's right. The mountain bikers. Huh, Zane? Huh? Carter, I'm

Zain 2:51

I'm going to ask you out for a second, because I think we've got a scandal brewing that I need Shannon's opining opinion first, which is one young Corey Hogan, formerly of this podcast, now member of Parliament for Calgary Confederation. Shannon, you're familiar with this young gent. Carter, you're, of course, familiar with this young gent. He was on our most recent episode of Ministry of Podcasts. He is refusing to wear cowboy boots, Shannon, this stampede. There is pictorial evidence of this, and I'm going to call him out, but I actually, before I call him out, I want to actually get your confirmation that I'm right in calling him out for not wearing cowboy boots, Shannon. You

Shannon 3:27

You are absolutely not right. They are high heels for men. They are extremely uncomfortable. I would usually wear them on the first day because I'm not a high heels gal myself. I'm a cowboy boots gal. Normally, all you Calgary people are not wearing them in your daily life, so they're not broken in. It's part of the costume. Costume.

Shannon 3:46

It's part of the costume. That's the whole point. The whole thing, the whole costume part of Stampede is silly and ridiculous. So while I enjoy them as an element of, you know, sort of like men having to know what it's like to wear uncomfortable footwear, I don't really wish it on a nice man such as Corey. And you can still pull off your cosplay without your high heels.

Zain 4:09

This is insane. I don't know. From a former elected official.

Zain 4:13

Jesus Christ, Carter. I think emphasis on former.

Zain 4:19

Holy. We'll just let people assume by choice, but may not be. Who knows? May not have

Carter 4:23

have been. I mean, could she have gotten elected again? I

Zain 4:27

I don't know. With that stance, I don't think so. I

Carter 4:28

I don't. If this had been public information, there's no way in the province of Alberta. Carter,

Zain 4:34

are you going to help me call out Corey Hogan on this? Oh,

Zain 4:37

he would do this on the pod, but I thought he was fucking around because this is like a, is it third rail or fourth rail that he's touching here? This

Carter 4:43

This is the fourth rail.

Zain 4:45

rail. Fifth rail. Let's go with fifth rail, just to be safe. Fifth rail

Carter 4:47

rail of Canadian politics.

Zain 4:48

politics. Let's just go with fifth.

Carter 4:49

Right after, you know, I mean, he's not even wearing a hat the

Shannon 4:53

times I've seen him. Like, you have to actually, like, mail it in on some level. You don't have to wear the high heels, but you should actually have a hat or a good shirt. A good belt buckle would make up for it. He has a good belt buckle.

Carter 5:05

buckle. He does have

Shannon 5:06

have a good belt buckle. All right. If you've got a nice dinner plate happening, then I think you're good. Okay, so here's what I'm suggesting.

Zain 5:10

suggesting. Shannon's a softie for this shit, but we're going to get more pictorial evidence of one Corey Hogan in his stampede outfit as the days go by. He's hosting his own breakfast on Sunday. Carter, let's reassemble on this point and let's just do a check-in on how this guy is doing by, let's say, next episode. Sounds good. Because I think his high watermark has already been reached and it's only going to get sloppier from here.

Carter 5:31

No, I mean, already, I'm not sure he's going to get reelected. I

Zain 5:34

I mean, big question

Zain 5:35

question marks. Fuck, I don't know if he can. I am happy to fashion

Shannon 5:38

fashion police the whole thing, but I just don't think you have to wear high heels.

Zain 5:41

Oh my God, Shannon, you're so wrong.

Zain 5:44

Carter, last time we talked, you were not aware who Zoran Mamdani was.

Zain 5:48

Are you now Zoran-pilled?

Carter 5:51

I am because I've actually done an article on it. This is

Zain 5:54

is why I'm asking.

Carter 5:55

You had no fucking

Zain 5:56

fucking clue who this guy was and then you gave a post-media interview about how he's exactly like Nenshi.

Carter 6:02

In fairness, that was the columnist premise. I know it was. And all I did was give examples of how Nenshi behaved And then he he he drew the connections. I I didn't have to. It was but I did. I did. I think I built up Nenshi. I mean, I think I made Nenshi seem pretty good to show up in the national the national newspaper. Not the real one, but the secondary one.

Zain 6:27

Shannon, are we right to be Zoran pilled with what's happening with his campaign and that outcome and that surprise victory? And before you answer, let me just show you some visual evidence of what I have here, which is a a child size hot boys for Zoran shirt. which can be seen on my son at Pancake Breakfast near you.

Shannon 6:44

Yeah, with no cowboy boots. Now, look, I think we are right on a couple of different levels. Number one, he captured attention. Number two, he's got all the right aesthetics, right? And his social media reflects how people want to consume information these days. Number three, you don't have to copy, you know, the policy offers, but you do have to have something that speaks to people and they need to be somewhat substantive he did that as well uh and uh he's also handled i think the attacks on him which are only going to get worse uh and more completely banana pants like the the the nonsense that showed up in the new york times yesterday i i i think um he's he's pushed them back in an effective way um

Shannon 7:29

um um like the uh woman sarah i can't remember her last name who was the first trans legislator out of delaware same

Shannon 7:36

same sort of idea on uh how to you know use your superpowers to jujitsu the bad guy's coming at you and

Shannon 7:43

and he's done a good job of that i

Zain 7:44

i like that carter uh any final thoughts on zora and mamdani the guy that you were following from the beginning before we move it on yeah

Carter 7:50

yeah i mean it was very evident that i was actually uh from the nascent elements of his campaign very involved yeah uh very involved so i'm happy that i've been able to offer some really insightful commentary no

Zain 8:03

no thank Thank you, Carter. I appreciate that. Let's move it on to our first and our only segment for the show. Fine, fabulous or fucked Alberta edition. Shannon, are you familiar with the premise of this segment? Have you ever listened to the show? Do you know what we're about to do?

Shannon 8:19

I actually don't know the premise of this particular thing, but I reject the premise. Okay,

Zain 8:22

Okay, well, fantastic. Thank you. It's not possible. Here's what we're going to do. I am going to run you through a series because it's been a while since we've chatted. There's a series of things that have happened in Alberta. We've had by-elections come and go. I kind of faintly recall you guys gave some predictions for by-elections. Oh, how'd we do? I don't know. We'll talk about that in a second. We've had the resurgence, perhaps, of the Progressive Conservative Party. We've had the Alberta Next panel. We now have a sovereignty referendum question, kind of. We'll talk about that. We also have our first chief

Zain 8:54

chief of the new independent agency police service.

Zain 8:57

Let's talk about all those things. And I will ask you, and I'll give you the story, which I kind of teased, and then I'll ask you for a particular character, political party, individual, is this fine? Is this fabulous? Or is this fucked? And Shannon, as I always say, there's no better way to get started than to get started. And let's start with this. Let's start with the by-election results. results three provincial by-elections are now concluding including the high-profile alberta ndp leader naid nenshi he's now in edmonton strathcona 82 percent of the vote check the ndpl also uh held on to edmonton ellerslie though with a reduced margin and the ucp retain old disbury three hills amid a split opposition that including strong showing from the alberta republican party although i will say not that strong 20 to 30 percent showing carter that you and i had speculated about when we chatted last time so shannon the character and let's just make look at the Alberta NDP.

Zain 9:45

They win two, they lose one.

Zain 9:48

Fine, fabulous, or fucked as it relates to the by-election outcomes for the Alberta NDP?

Shannon 9:55

I think it's fine. I mean, it doesn't quite cross over the threshold into fabulous, but it is fine. And what it tells you is that through a change of leadership, through all of these, you know, different, you know, changes in the Alberta a political landscape that uh the new democrats are fine uh

Shannon 10:13

uh in uh in edmonton at least right now

Shannon 10:16

and uh that it showed you that uh you know when the organization and the ground game gets turned up in a place like ellerslie where you know let's all be honest not a whole lot had been going on there uh since well forever um and so uh i

Carter 10:33

mean not intended to be a direct criticism of your your colleague rod oh

Shannon 10:37

oh there wasn't a whole lot going on there uh and so we

Zain 10:42

we uh we gave you the off-ramp we're like oh she probably means in terms of community vibrancy or just that it was just a cookie cutter no it's a very very

Shannon 10:49

very uh vibrant place and there's

Zain 10:52

there's a lot going on a lot going on there okay in

Shannon 10:54

in uh uh in millwoods and elsewhere but let's face it you know the uh the organized organizationally it wasn't exactly you know uh uh

Shannon 11:02

uh tight in in ellerslie prior uh but it showed that the new democrats when they activate that ground game there it is and it's uh they were able to deliver they were um

Shannon 11:14

able to you know like push back on a lot of the naysaying that and you know frankly i was a little nervous i i said on this podcast i don't know if they're five points down or five points up and you can't tell and they just had a federal election exercise size, where the Conservatives did very well, and in the same kind of neighbourhood where Armageddon, so he was expected to do really well, and he didn't. So there were reasons to be a bit tetchy there. And it was fine, right? The reduced margin, I think, is fine. It's a by-election. It's fine. And the same margin in Edmonton-Strathcona is also fine. In other words, when the electorate was introduced to Nahed in Edmonton, when people switched switched on to the fact that there was a by-election because most people are normal and they didn't probably

Shannon 11:59

probably realize that the official opposition leader didn't have a seat yet and all these other machinations right they're not us uh when they when they switched on they were like oh yes of course and they went and did the thing so everything is fine as for old stittsbury i also think that that is an indication of fine for the alberta ndp because essentially what they the points they put on the board were the same points they put in

Shannon 12:22

in the 2023 uh where there was a a decent growth in the outside of Edmonton and Calgary ridings, not enough, obviously, to be anything near a threat, but reasonable, and reasonable to, you know, buoy the base to maybe find yourself candidates and activated folks in school board elections or support, you know, really active women in municipal elections, this kind of stuff, right? This is the kind of thing that the party party wants to put out there and do and it accomplished so fine is it i don't know what fabulous would be in this context right like i don't know maybe a an overwhelming landslide in ellerslie which is probably not going to happen in a some kind of suburban riding or

Shannon 13:07

or um really tamping down that separatist vote and eating more into the the ucp and olds but like also

Shannon 13:14

also it's a june by election like what are you going to do so uh

Shannon 13:17

uh no it's great carter

Zain 13:19

carter shannon's going with the The package is fine for her, for the Alberta NDP. Fine, fabulous, or fucked for Stephen Carter? What are you choosing?

Carter 13:25

I mean, Shannon's just being weak. This is fabulous for the NDP. The NDP were rumored to be losing Ellerslie. They did not lose Ellerslie. They came in second in Old Stittsbury Three Hills. I mean, that is an achievement when the Alberta Republicans were rumored to be doing exceptionally well. um so

Carter 13:49

so overall i mean and and then she won his seat uh and gets to go in this is a fabulous showing for the ndp this it doesn't get any better than this and and there was a rumor of a uh potential you know fall election provincially that i think has gone away because things have gone so well for the ndp in in these elections i i was uh very impressed with how it all ultimately turned out not necessarily how the process necessarily unfolded but the outcome if we're

Zain 14:21

we're just looking at my process here just right just so i would have

Carter 14:23

have liked to have seen this been a more of a province-wide style of by-elections right where the ndp tried to make themselves more seen and heard province-wide with

Carter 14:32

message i think that they have a province-wide problem um so but if we're just going with the outcome it's fabulous and shannon's wrong when she says that it's just fine well

Shannon 14:42

well i'll tell you who's wrong it was carter in the last episode when he was predicting you know like oh it could be doom and ellerslie and like people who don't know what they're talking about we're predicting that because that would have meant a 24 point drop for the new democrats in edmonton and even in polling where yeah

Carter 14:59

yeah where we've seen them drop a few points here and there it's

Shannon 15:02

it's not a 24 point drop so this was just people grafting something else some other narrative onto what was likely going to happen in edmonton by

Zain 15:11

by the way before you speak i just want to say i appreciate this accountability and i want and i welcome shannon to bring it anytime could

Carter 15:19

could be in trouble that's what i said could i don't

Zain 15:21

don't know if you said that i don't know if you said the horse feathers that sucks that we don't have a producer that could probably pull the clip and if it doesn't align with what shannon and i wanted to be edited out it sucks yeah exactly exactly

Carter 15:33

sucks yeah the alberta new democratic party will Will you lose Stellars Lee? That is a prediction.

Zain 15:40

Okay, can I quickly ask you, Shannon, let me start with you. For

Zain 15:42

For the Alberta Republican Party,

Zain 15:44

I'm going to pull the number, 18%, 17.6-something percent.

Zain 15:49

Fine, fabulous, or fucked for them in the

Zain 15:51

the old Didsbury Three

Zain 15:52

Three Hills. If they're on their rampage to do whatever their eventual goal

Zain 15:56

goal is, what do you make of what they did? I think

Shannon 15:59

think they're kind of fucked. If they can't organize there there, in the hotbed of this sort of separatist activity, not for the last five years, but quite literally for the last almost 50, right? When was that Western Canada concept guy elected in a by-election in the early 80s?

Shannon 16:18

So, you know, if you can't pull it off there, then you are not pulling it off.

Shannon 16:23

When all of your so-called organizational resources that we were all supposed to be quaking in our cowboy boots about uh i are not is is not there uh there was no there there and by all accounts you know these guys are all you know backstabbing and fighting with each other and you know relitigating whatever conspiracy theory du jour uh so no i think they're probably fucked um but they might not be fucked for long it really depends on how they can uh raise money and uh um oh

Zain 16:52

fuck forever you're you're saying oh

Shannon 16:53

oh but fuck right now for this

Zain 16:55

uh carter you know one person who was not uh shaking in in his cowboy boots uh at the organizational strength uh cory hogan cory it was one cory hogan yeah carter are you also

Carter 17:05

also going with fucked on this absolutely going with fucked i'm not going with kinda i this is an absolute bad outcome for the republicans uh they they you know they put forward a strong candidate they were well organized i when i was driving on highway two we certainly saw more signs for for the Alberta Republicans than you saw for any other party. And yet they got beaten by the NDP, beaten by the UCP. This is an absolute fuck in a place where this would be the high watermark in Alberta for separatist sentiment, and they just weren't able to pull it off. And, you know, it bodes well for the idea of a referendum question. Can

Zain 17:51

I take a quick detour? And I wish I had the polling in front of me, but I'm going to go off what I've been hearing, which is the openness to separation number has been steadily increasing. Have the two of you also heard this? I'm hearing that it's now between the 30 and 40% mark. So I'm trying to understand the reconciliation of 30 to 40% openness with a sub 20% sort of results in what should be the high watermark historically has been a seat that this broader sentiment has

Carter 18:18

has won in the 80s. Reconcile that for me.

Zain 18:21

Like, does the average of those two is where we land with the referendum? Or am I overly simplifying the math here and projecting something that's not real? You're

Carter 18:29

You're assuming that everybody who is a separatist only sees themselves in the Alberta Republican Party. I think a large number of separatists see themselves in the UCP. Right.

Zain 18:38

Right. Within the actual home of it. Right. Right. Right. Shannon, any thoughts here?

Shannon 18:43

I would want to see how the question is asked and who's asking it. Because honestly, like, some of this is in the framing of it, whether how people are going to respond to it. I do think a lot of people still think of it as a threat or as a leverage point into Carter's point, then they're going to find their, their champion in Daniel Smith. And they're going to park it there. So there's two caveats there. The only thing I will note is on the socials, you do see a lot of AI-generated content. If you go into those right-wing spaces, there's a ton of

Shannon 19:21

of separatist content, right? And so there's money behind it. If it actually becomes organized money, I become a little bit more concerned. I'm not particularly right now.

Shannon 19:36

and because they also don't have one one

Shannon 19:39

question or one grievance really they're kind of all over the place right like and people who went to the town halls that the candidate cam davies had for the republican party in that by-election you know most of it was people you know being cranky about covid five years hence and so there's still a lot of that garbage there and as long as they're stuck in the mud there and not just putting forward one coherent this is the thing that i want and danielle won't get me and that's why we have to separate uh

Shannon 20:07

uh i i think it gets uh sort of mired in you know the sort of david parker weird world of you know people uh doing turf wars and worried about the world economic forum and all that carter

Zain 20:22

carter i'm moving on okay

Zain 20:24

okay character it's the ucp and danielle's in the situation the issue the

Zain 20:28

the issue is the resurgence of the progressive conservative party. UCP MLA's former Peter Guthrie, Scott Sinclair, both ejected from the caucus, are criticizing Smith's leadership, have historically. They're now planning to revive the progressive conservative party.

Zain 20:44

Their move aims to offer an alternative to what they describe as a divisive two-party system, challenge the UCP from the center-right. That's what they say. So, which is why I've positioned the character as being the UCP. Is this fine for the UCP? Is this fabulous or are they fucked? Assuming these guys are successful in any three of these scenarios. Fine, fabulous, or fucked? The resurgent PCs under these two gents. I

Carter 21:08

I think the UCP is fine. It's not fabulous for them. Getting pressured from both the far right with the Republicans and from the center right from a progressive conservative party could be very,

Carter 21:20

very, very problematic. Ultimately, that's how the NDP would be able to get the number of votes that are required to win an election.

Carter 21:29

But this is an imaginary

Carter 21:33

imaginary threat at this stage. That's why it's fine. You

Carter 21:37

You would have to have me imagine that this is actually successful.

Zain 21:42

Can you go down that rabbit hole for a second? I'll let both of you do so. Talk to me about the likelihood of success in your mind in terms of revival. We're talking Everything from party name to effectively being a destination for some of those disaffected.

Carter 21:58

I think if they'd been able to grab two NDP MLAs and two more UCP MLAs and put them all together into one thing and had a fairly substantive caucus, then I think that they would have had a chance. I think that two people, it's just too easy to dismiss. miss we've had i mean now the exception in the room of course is the ndp when they were down to two members in uh in brian and and uh rachel that you know they were able to be a successful party but they've had history um and and one could argue that the progressive conservatives have history but it's 10 years ago and i'm not sure that they have the strength to uh to come back and actually be a growing concern. I hope that they can. I hope they can. I think that a middle is very important. But I think it might be more of a threat to the NDP than it would

Zain 22:57

would be to the UCP. We'll talk about that in a second, because I want to ask both of you that question. But Shannon, I'll give you the same shake. Fine, fabulous, or fucked for the UCP. Let's start with them. If these guys are successful in starting up a progressive conservative party, what is it for the UCP? Well,

Shannon 23:13

Well, I think, first of all, it's fine because they need a ruling from Elections Alberta. And the legislation was written that people couldn't use the names of the legacy parties to avoid confusion, as Daniela put it in her press conference. But yeah, they explicitly did that, that nobody could resurrect those party names. And it's in our elections legislation. So best of luck to them on that. Number two, you know, if they wanted to get official party status, I don't think they're going to get that out of the UCP without two more.

Shannon 23:48

It is smart for them as those two independents, though, to have a party name associated with them. I just don't think it's going to be PCAA.

Zain 23:56

Well, let me ask a question about the NDP. Who gets fucked more with if this thing is successful, the UCP or the NDP? Shannon, I'll go with you first.

Shannon 24:04

I think it's the NDP, probably on balance. Hmm.

Shannon 24:08

Well, take 2019 when you had a united right. But you had the Alberta party that I can't remember what their province wide tally was, but I know what they put up on the board in Lethbridge West, it was nine points.

Zain 24:23

won by the NDP as like the simple plain alternative for anyone disaffected. Correct.

Shannon 24:28

I won by 226 votes in that election. Fast forward to 2023 and I'm standing on people's doorsteps and they go, I've always been a conservative, but I cannot vote for Danielle Smith for X, Y, and Z reasons. So I'm going with you this time. I used to be on, you know, the guy that you beats riding association or whatever. And I left the PCs and I parked it with the UCP for a couple of turns here. And now I'm out. Right. Right. It does give a release valve for those middle of the road voters that are the accessible voter pool in Calgary in

Shannon 25:02

particular. And so if there is an off ramp, I mean, the good news is, is that I think Nenshi can can occupy more of that lane maybe than than Notley could have just because of her historic ties to that, you know, really orange brand. Yeah.

Shannon 25:21

I still think that it gives enough people to go, oh, I'm allergic to the alphabet. I couldn't possibly vote for the NDP, but I'm going to go back to

Shannon 25:28

to a conservative alternative if they get any wind in their sails.

Zain 25:37

Carter, do you land in the same spot if it was who does this have more of a destructive potential impact to NDP or UCP? Are you choosing the NDP on this? Well,

Carter 25:46

Well, I think so. I think

Carter 25:47

one could go back to 2015 and say, well, ultimately the NDP won because there was two parties on the right that split the quote unquote right vote. But we know that vote split's not a real thing, that everybody starts from zero and they have to work their way up. And I think that the party that would be most likely still to form a majority government or even a minority government would be the UCP over the NDP. So I do think that this hurts the NDP more.

Carter 26:14

In the long run, there's a lot of water under the bridge. And I don't think that everybody who votes NDP is naturally an NDP voter. Whereas I do think that most of the people who are voting for the UCP at this stage are naturally a UCP voter.

Zain 26:29

Right. So this is to that earlier point about the simple sort of alternate. So, OK, in that sense, let

Zain 26:34

let me ask a very like plain strategy question to the two of you. Should the UCP not want this?

Zain 26:40

Should the UCP not like, you know, I know you're saying on balance, both of you, and you're both hedging a bit like in your language. But if you're the UCP, Carter, should you not just want this? Like it's another factor that the NDP have to deal with, especially as Shannon says, potentially in Calgary.

Carter 26:55

i mean i if i were the ucp i'd i think it'd be fine um i think it would be great to talk about the liberals and call the pcs the the liberals um you know the middle of the road uh centrist party and and uh equate them to the liberals but um the ucp seems to want to have its cake and eat it too they they want to be the they you

Carter 27:17

you know the rumor of a of an election they've got got a majority government. They

Carter 27:20

They don't need an election to continue to govern, but they just want to have more. They want to have more power, more ability to do things, more structure, and that means eliminating democratic opportunities.

Zain 27:35

Shannon, same question to you. Should the UCP not be pushing for this in some way? If they come to the same conclusion the two of you have, which is on balance is less helpful to the NDP than themselves, why would they not push for this?

Shannon 27:49

I don't think they need to. I don't think it's going to amount to anything anyway. The fact of the matter is, is that the use of the name is probably dead in the water. Non-starter.

Shannon 27:58

And the two MLAs that are, you know, kind of founding it are not exactly setting the world on fire, right?

Shannon 28:07

mean, they're fine, but they're not fabulous. So in my view, you know, like they're just fine. And the reasons for leaving were extremely disparate and not really grounded in, you know, anything particularly ideological. I mean, Scott Sinclair was like, I didn't get money for my highway, right? Like, I'm out, can't support this budget. Like, it was a bit silly. And for Guthrie, I think it was a bit more substantive. But I mean, there's no policy

Shannon 28:35

policy differences on, you know, like austerity versus, you know, robust health and public education system for him. You know, there's not those big differences. So in the absence of some compelling leader figure, I think that's not really going anywhere. And the UCP don't have to concern themselves with it.

Zain 28:54

and we're going to move on Shannon I'm going to stick with you on this the character let's go stick with Daniel Smith at the UCP on this

Zain 29:00

the Alberta next panel

Zain 29:02

as a piece of political strategies is fine fabulous or fucked and to fill in the gaps for those that don't know about this this is a new panel that the premier will chair tasked for gathering public input developing recommendations on how Alberta can strengthen its position within Canada and then study questions like the Alberta pension plan transitioning from the RCMP to provincial police force constitutional changes to the the Senate and House of Commons, federal transfer payments, equalization, immigration reforms to give Alberta more control, stuff that we've all heard about now put back into a panel chaired by the Premier and having some credible names that we have heard across our province, Adam Legge, Trevor Toome, just naming two, not picking on two, just naming two folks that I think folks listening might be familiar with, that will be part of this panel. So as an act of political strategy on the premier's part. That's the frame I'm looking at. Is this fine? Is this fabulous? Or is this fucked?

Shannon 29:55

It's fabulous. This allows her to, you know, get out there, talk to people, really take the temperature on the ground of how much separatist sort of fervor is gripping the landscape out in the hills. She is able to, you know, just do retail politics, which she's quite write good at.

Shannon 30:13

And they can decide what they're going to do with it all in an offer to the electorate and if they have to do anything. All of this is just zombie file after zombie file. What wasn't contained in the initial offerings of the Reform Party back in the 1980s was contained within the various panels and other study exercises that have been undertaken by Ralph Klein onward, and

Shannon 30:38

and things that have been serially rejected by Albertans, police service, CPP, that kind of stuff. So I think it's smart of her to do it because they can do their, you know, have a little a la carte menu of the things that they actually want to do, if anything, at the end. And she's been able to rope in a couple of credible people and stick this, make them them wear some of this, right? Which is maybe unfortunate for them, but they're being well used by her.

Zain 31:12

Yeah, I want to talk about that part in a second, Carter. And Shannon's also alluded to this other element, which I did not mention for the audience, which is that they have to submit recommendations by the end of the year. And these may inform the referendum questions, plural, that the province-wide vote will more than likely happen in 2026. Carter, as an act of political strategy on behalf of the premier fine fabulous or fucked i

Carter 31:35

think it's fucked because it gives everybody the opportunity to rally around and rally opposition to uh the premier this is a number of unpopular ideas that have been around since the 1990s as shannon has indicated zombie

Zain 31:47

zombie files i love this zombie

Carter 31:49

zombie files uh this is these are not winners um you know some of them might be necessary i mean at some point we may have a requirement to do a provincial police force in lieu of the rcmp because the rcmp may choose to give up community policing that would be interesting that is not the case today that is uh an imagined future uh that no one has indicated and there would be a one would imagine a fairly long lead time on something like that but these aren't winners these are losing ideas that she just continues to press and at some point the expectation is that she's going to be able to get the right answer but generally people aren't changing their minds on these issues but can

Zain 32:29

can i can i ask you to interrupt you for one second on this well you just did okay so here here's here's a premise that that may not i actually personally don't believe holds but i am curious to explore for a second can you put a bunch of individual pieces of shit together put them in a different in a singular package and have the package be more popular than the individual pieces of crap the zombie files right these are these are losers You're

Carter 32:53

You're asking equalization to do a tremendous lift in that case. We've already had the panel on equalization. One will remember that Stephen Harper was the one who brought in the current formula. Oh, Stephen

Carter 33:07

Stephen Harper, the renowned separatist. um but this is this is the the challenges of the of the file is that you can't take you can't make something that is bigger than the hole in this particular case and that's why i think it's she's absolutely fucked she's trying too hard to force people into her positioning and ultimately it's going to be there's going to be a rebound effect i'm hoping that we get multiple questions but

Zain 33:33

but maybe the only way this is my question she she does this she puts this out she gets to tour I kind of see where the province, I kind of see where Shannon's coming from, right? Yeah,

Zain 33:46

The premier gets to do all the shit,

Zain 33:47

and you're saying, oh, no, it's not that that's what matters. You're going

Carter 33:51

going to go and shovel shit in all these different cities. You're not shoveling

Shannon 33:55

shit on any of these topics

Shannon 33:57

topics in Okotoks, Alberta. It's going to go just

Carter 34:00

wonder, is there an actual election in Okotoks ever? No one, it's all UCP in Okotoks. but the

Shannon 34:07

the wind and the sails of the separatists is coming from

Shannon 34:10

from those places oh

Carter 34:11

oh yeah we just saw old didsbury three hills and they they couldn't beat the end fucking dp the ndp for god's sake in rural alberta they couldn't beat the ndp i mean this is fucked fucked i tell you and shannon trying to turn it into like oh it's a nice little thing i mean fuck you shannon jesus christ Oh, dang.

Carter 34:34

haven't done that yet. I've been waiting to really hit

Carter 34:37

hit you with something. I think it

Shannon 34:38

it was pre-scripted. Yeah,

Zain 34:40

Yeah, I think the cowboy boots, your position on it has really, really got him animated. Really upset me. Really

Carter 34:44

Really upset me. This

Zain 34:45

This opens up the question of what do we think her goal here is? Can we talk about her strategic goal? Because I think Shannon's given me in her answer a good explanation of it, which is to kind of go out there and create the narrative. Shannon, tell me if I'm putting words in your your mouth right that there is a big separatism crisis and come back to the electorate and say we got to deal with this like that's the kind of like my findings have concluded the following it's almost like the responses to each one of these shitty policies is is is is the b track the a track is i've been out there all summer and there's a crisis out in our communities and i think there's that for sure because

Shannon 35:21

because she loves that right she's been talking about oh it's it's as bad as i've ever seen it she's trying to change her

Zain 35:26

her position on it so to speak like she's allowing allowing this to happen, and then also, like, donning the Canada flag.

Shannon 35:31

Sure. But what she's doing is she's both taking the temperature. She's, you know, kind of getting out there and going, okay, here's what the temperature is, but she's also playing around with the thermostat. She's

Shannon 35:42

And it allows her to use public money to do that and also make her caucus happy, because there's caucus out there in the hinterland who are probably getting an earful on this stuff. So, you know, when the premier comes, she hears people out. It allows them a bit of an arrow to the balloon as well, because some of this is caucus management. That's what the coal town hall for her was as well. Right. When the premier shows up and and, you know, either accepts the criticism or pushes back on it or or, you know, hears people out. It's it's received well by local MLAs. I put it that way. So she's doing that. But she also there was some polling. It was it was done by Janet Brown and it was leaked out by

Shannon 36:23

by the government. It was exclusive to the government of Alberta, and it was a couple of months ago, and it essentially showed a turning up of the dial, even on the zombie files that are otherwise quite unpopular, like CPP. Even Alberta Police Service was the only one that didn't have sort of like into majority territory. And so what she's doing is going out to, A, seeing if that is real or if she can make it more real.

Shannon 36:51

And there was a series of questions, equalization, all those zombies. Right. And they were, they did this. So they've used our public money to do some of that temperature taking. And now she wants to go out and play with the thermostat. And if she, you know, gets another kick at the can to, you know, use this to further grievances with Ottawa, all the better, but not necessary right now. That'll come later.

Zain 37:16

whole position. I'm sure she has. Shannon is flipping me right around. The man has never changed his mind.

Carter 37:21

Okay, I've changed my mind. Shannon just totally won me over there. Way to go, Shannon. That's some of your best work. Some of your best work. Some of your best reasoning.

Zain 37:31

reasoning. What is the Premier trying to do, Carter? What do you think her core objectives are? I think

Carter 37:36

think that the phrasing

Zain 37:36

phrasing that she's sharing- And I don't want to forget, by the way, about the people she's brought into the mix. I'm not going to forget about that, but yes. Well,

Carter 37:42

Well, this idea that she's playing with the thermostat once she's taken the temperature, this is the playing with the thermostat part, And that's the part I can really get behind with Shannon. She is trying to turn up the temperature. She is trying to light the province on fire and ultimately try and ride a wave of separatist fever. And that's why I think it's fucked. I think that ultimately Albertans are going to be more loyal to the province of Alberta than that. Yeah,

Zain 38:10

Yeah, but, okay, so if you think that's the play, let's be clear on where you think she's going. So she's dialing up the temperature, and then she rides separatist fever, right, using your term, against separatism, right? Like, is that, I just want to be clear where you think she's going, like what her second and third- I have no idea where

Carter 38:26

where she's going. I don't believe she's riding

Zain 38:27

riding against separatism. You don't

Carter 38:29

think that's going to be played two and three? I'm told that

Zain 38:31

that there are- That she dials it up, says there's a crisis, and says she needs to quash it? I

Carter 38:34

I literally was told today that there are board members on UCP boards that are very pro-separatist and

Carter 38:41

and they are trying to keep

Carter 38:42

keep these people in line. And the way that they're trying to keep these people in line is to play the game. And they're playing this game and this game is ultimately something that cannot succeed.

Carter 38:54

It will not succeed. And it might be the only way that the NDP under Nahid Nenshi get

Carter 39:00

lucky enough to win the election because Nahid right now isn't building himself up an army to oppose the UCP, but an army may form to oppose this separation nonsense that Danielle Smith is playing with. she's playing with fire she's turning up the thermostat in an already hot room and it's going to catch on fire and that's where the that's why it's fucked in my opinion and why i've turned my mind again and shannon was completely fucking wrong okay

Zain 39:31

okay i'm gonna go to our last question here and then i want to talk about stampede yeah weren't

Carter 39:35

weren't we supposed to do a tight 45 like what the hell's happened we're

Carter 39:38

39 we're good what

Zain 39:39

fuck are you talking about just you get into to a fiery rage. You can't even read the red time stamp with the thing that's just glowing in front of you, which says 3951. Had a good day

Carter 39:50

day going and then Shannon

Carter 39:51

started spouting off about fabulous.

Zain 39:54

Shannon, Mr. Thomas Lukaszek, he has had this idea for this question, this referendum question as part of Forever Canada. He filed this question, which is a pro-Canada, I always get this confused, so you guys are going to help me out, right? Right. This pro-Canada referendum question, which is, do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada? That petition question was now approved on June 20th, just before Canada Day. And now he must he must collect signatures that take effect on July 1st, must collect nearly 294,000 signatures within 90 days. Rather than the lower threshold that has been applied that the premier has made way for the separatists to kind of do their question. And Lukaszek is now got there first, got his question approved. Now is to collect signatures to put this on a ballot. OK, is

Zain 40:45

is that is that is that is the fact based correct from what you two understand so far?

Zain 40:51

As it relates to Daniel Smith in the UCP, is the fact that Lukaszek is here with this question fine in

Zain 40:58

the way he's trying to do it and his steps ahead, as we've explained in broad terms? Is this fabulous? Shannon, this is a goldmine for spin. This is great. Or is this fucked? Oh, my God, real danger to whatever her agenda is. And I've been speculating here what her agenda is. Fine, fabulous, or fucked, as it relates to what Lukaszek, he's up to, and this broader Forever Canada movement, which I'll call for from now on, what they're up to with their referendum question.

Shannon 41:21

It's fine on a Likert scale that goes further over to Fabulous for Thomas Lukasik and further over to Fox for Danielle Smith. I think getting to that 293 or four or whatever it is, is going to be nigh

Shannon 41:38

nigh on impossible. Absolutely

Carter 41:41

Absolutely impossible. 90 days from

Carter 41:43

pretty much. yeah so

Shannon 41:44

so i i but it will uh i provide momentum it will be a counterweight it will give people something to do and a reason to go uh to these stupid town halls that she's having across the province uh it'll give you

Shannon 41:59

you know it will give civil society something to do it'll give uh the raging grannies a piece of paper to sign when they show up uh and so i think that uh is is bad for smith It also does give a bit of a gift to the New Democrats. It's a great way to go around canvassing this

Shannon 42:20

to be collecting signatures, I would be, because

Shannon 42:22

because otherwise, why are you standing on my door, right? Like for a lot of voters, they're like, usually you should have something for voters to do when you show up there as an incumbent. incumbent uh

Shannon 42:30

uh and so i i think it's good for them uh and it also places i think

Shannon 42:37

think uh the ndp leader uh in a place that of authenticity for him right

Zain 42:42

he is on the canada side of things yeah

Shannon 42:45

very good on the captain canada stuff uh and so uh it provides an organizing sort of uh ethos principle reason for being uh over the summer and a counterweight to uh these the silver to next stuff carter

Zain 42:59

carter fine fabulous or fucked for the ucp the lukasic uh drive that's going to happen now to collect these signatures which is a hybrid and we'll talk about what we think the the

Zain 43:07

the outright reality is of of this situation um overall but give me a fine fabulous or fucked first i

Carter 43:14

i think it's fucked for them i think that they're really screwed if you're the ucp because the the uh the question isn't going to get 293 000 signatures uh there's just no way we were talking talking about $177,000 as being nearly impossible. $293,000 just is ridiculously hard.

Carter 43:35

And I believe the legislation prohibits another question from being circulated for six months or 18 months. On

Carter 43:46

months, 18 months. I can't remember what the numbers are specifically, but it does prohibit it. Now, one could make the case, and I suspect the UCP will, will, or the separatists will, that because the legislation changed, this means that the timer should start again. So they'll submit their question under the second timer. But I think that they're really going to have a hard time getting this question through. And ultimately, it's going to remove it from the citizens part of the referendum. However, it doesn't necessarily stop the province from doing it. So the UCP is now going to have to bring the question themselves. themselves and now that there's been a positive framing of the question i suspect the ucp will have to bring the positive framing of the question so they're a bit fucked um because i i still believe that danielle smith wants to turn us into a u.s state uh this is my new it's my new theory

Zain 44:40

we'll explore that later so here's my here's my reading of it you

Zain 44:44

you don't want to explore no simultaneous drives to collect on the same or similar if it goes to a referendum question It's a year-long waiting period before a new petition on the same issue can be considered. But the decision maker

Shannon 44:59

maker on this is Elections Alberta with judicial review, as I understand it. I

Zain 45:03

I think, yes, you're right. Elections Alberta,

Shannon 45:06

Alberta, in my experience anyway, I mean, at this point, you know, has been gutted of most of its teeth.

Shannon 45:14

So, you know, they may just do what the government wants, and then somebody's going to have to have the resources to put it to judicial review. view.

Shannon 45:21

So they might just rule in a way that is contrary to the public interest and no one will do anything or care.

Zain 45:27

Let's focus back in on this Forever Canada process.

Zain 45:31

you've been around campaigns. You've been around what timelines on campaigns look like. This is now clock started. This is a campaign.

Zain 45:39

Give me a sense of what the most realistic landing spot for this group looks like in 90, flash forward 90 days from now. And you don't have, there's obviously the binary do they or do they not get the signatures but there's other elements of successful and sometimes unsuccessful campaigns on outcomes that build tremendous community resources power potential etc so give me a sense of paint me a picture of 90 days from now what's the what's the high watermark in terms of what this group could accomplish if they do things well if

Carter 46:06

if they do things well i think they'll get 60 000 signatures and what else what else

Zain 46:10

else will they have talk to me about volunteers talk to me about across they'll have they'll

Carter 46:14

they'll have grassroots roots volunteers who have collected the signatures they'll hopefully uh collect them in the proper way as you know the recall gondek volunteers ultimately wound up collecting six with 60 some thousand or 50 some thousand signatures that were disallowed because they weren't allowed they didn't follow the proper procedure so

Carter 46:33

so hopefully they they at least follow the proper procedure they the the the the

Carter 46:40

the likely scenario and this isn't the best case scenario zane but the likely scenario is maybe the opposition to the question want like pick up this this particular question and say we can still win with this question um and sorry just

Zain 46:55

just to be clear for the audience and myself the opposition to this question would be the separatists the

Carter 46:59

the separatists pick it up and say we're going to go out and collect 270 000 signatures because we can do that and we know that this question will we can still succeed with this question and this is our chance but But realistically, I think separatists combined with the Kazakhs people wind up collecting somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 signatures. And the best case, the best case outcome for this is that there's the question was considered and now is moot for whatever.

Zain 47:30

Shetton, you want to hazard painting me a picture in terms of what you might think would happen 90 days from now as they go on their signature drive? Like, you don't have to give me numbers like Carter did, but I'll let you have a take at this if you'd like. Yeah,

Shannon 47:40

Yeah, I mean, in my head was 50. If the Recall Gondek people collected 60, and you would be driving through Calgary and you'd see them sitting at the side of the road with a little sandwich board, right? There were some organizational resources behind those signatures. They were in mall parking lots and all that kind of thing. um

Shannon 48:00

so uh yeah 50 or 60 uh probably 90 days is very short period of time particularly in summer so you're going to have to do most of it in september when people are around and paying more attention and even then i think volunteers are going to find that as soon as they're going to door to door or standing in mall parking lots or whatever the case may be you're going to be standing there explaining to people what

Shannon 48:20

what the hell you're doing there because like the information environment is such that people actually don't know a lot about this and

Shannon 48:27

and without advertising money behind it that's again another problem sorry carter go ahead i

Carter 48:32

was just going to say you know the numbers on this are actually pretty staggering so if you go door knocking and you get it's 33 one-third of the people uh answer the door and one-third of the people um actually

Carter 48:45

actually sign the petition which is where we are right

Carter 48:47

right what is the number that they're trying to reach 290 000 give or take 290

Zain 48:51

290 some 94 i believe isn't yeah

Carter 48:53

yeah so you multiply that by nine homes that you'd have to door knock to get one signature that means they'd have to door knock two million six hundred and ten thousand homes in order to generate the total number of signatures that they're looking for that's

Shannon 49:06

that's the mall parking lots yeah it's where you're gonna have to

Shannon 49:09

to do this there's no

Carter 49:09

no fucking way there is zero fucking way that this thing actually goes forward i will bet i

Carter 49:16

i don't want want to bet a million dollars because i don't have a million dollars to lose i will bet a thousand dollars to

Zain 49:21

this is important to

Carter 49:22

to anybody anybody wants to bet a thousand

Zain 49:23

thousand okay fine well

Zain 49:26

make carter lose.ca that's where you can submit your form to to take on steven carter we're still collecting uh last meal at swiss by the way shed it how many how many people have had their last meal at swiss chalet you've probably missed this entire no

Shannon 49:37

no i saw that part um uh and And

Shannon 49:44

is it an Alberta number? No,

Zain 49:45

No, it's a Canada number since the founding of the restaurant, and it's not by food poisoning. Jesus, I've clarified all the things for all the people. Oh, like you have

Shannon 49:52

have to have had the big one, right? When you go home kind of thing. Exactly.

Zain 49:55

Exactly. This is correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zain 49:57

Okay, like how many

Shannon 49:57

many individuals? Oh, I'd say about a thousand. Oh,

Zain 50:01

a number. Show your work.

Zain 50:02

Yeah. Now, part B of this contest, if people are expecting, we have no way of proving these these numbers. So people are going to have to actually find out the number and then come back to us and show us that their work is right. It's not going to show up in coroner's reports. That's how you get my signed Swiss chalet hat that we're promising. Let's move it to our over, under, and our lightning round. I've got two questions for you, and they're about two very different things. Question number one, Shannon, I want to start with you. And I want to go flash to the Alberta Next panel for a second, because I said we're going to address this, which is the amount of people and the quality of the people that Premier Smith has been able to wrangle into to this panel and my simple question is can one say no to the premier when the premier calls is the explanation for why someone with this credibility of i'm not going to pick on these guys but tomb or leg who are public figures that we know just have to say yes when when the premier calls and the question is can you say no to the premier when the premier asks you to do something and phrases it and you know perhaps believably so that's for the good of the province

Shannon 51:03

uh i would say that if you're the business council it's much harder than if you're independent academic and

Shannon 51:09

and if you're an academic you can say no and do uh say no all the time to all kinds of things uh and so i think there's a distinction there um i do think that there is also a distinction though in having a speaking role or not um and uh you know invalidating things And so that's the distinction I would make for that as well. And, you know, that can make it tough to be, seem

Shannon 51:37

seem to be validating some of the ideas that were in that Alberta Next survey, which are pretty far offside mainstream opinion for anyone.

Zain 51:46

Carter, what's your take?

Carter 51:48

My take is that the people who are on this panel are disqualified from having opinions in the future. You think so? You absolutely. You've been a chief

Zain 51:57

chief of staff to a premier. It's hard to say no to you and or a premier if you as a chief of staff. You certainly can say

Carter 52:04

say no when the future of the province is at stake and you're being asked to serve with people like Michael Binion. You know, like the list of names on this list. The Bedfellows

Zain 52:14

Bedfellows is fascinating. If you Google some of these people. Who else are you going to be

Carter 52:18

be with here in this conversation? This is bullshit. I mean, the

Carter 52:22

the president of Whitecap Resources is going to be, you know, is going to come across as a come out with with, you know, a reasonable position on how Ottawa has impacted his industry. Like it's are you fucking kidding me? This is bullshit. And and the people who want to be taken seriously. I ran into Trevor Toome yesterday and I apologized to him profusely for calling him a shill. anyway she's a total fucking shill for being on this panel i'm that you know it's it's very upsetting to me that people that i have respect for uh would actually take this position and it will be disqualifying in the future the way that you know steve allen used to be someone that was respected and then he's he served at the whim of danielle smith to write the report that she's already wanted from the beginning and that's what this panel is you know trevor tomb is trying to to pretend that he's actually going to be able to listen to the to the input it's bullshit he's going to be he's going to have an overweighted with rural and um you

Carter 53:28

you know if you're really reflecting what the population's saying the population is going to be absolutely skewed this is the problem with engagement you don't get the full fucking population you get the wackadoodles the 20 of the population that already has believing in conspiracy theories he's going to to get the anti-vax crowd that's who he's going to get at this fucking panel what's he going to do well they don't believe in vaccinations but they do believe in an alberta police force fuck off hey

Zain 53:57

hey carter uh my second question is uh best stampede uh political tactic you have seen just just dial down the blood pressure oh

Carter 54:04

best stampede political tactic that i've seen yeah

Zain 54:06

yeah it could be it could be we're a couple days into stampede i'm not even coupled this is day one but you know know it's already begun if you've done it carter and i know you have yeah

Zain 54:15

and or this cycle for me i'll tell you my personal favorite is those calgary party uh lamp posters that chima came up with that idea great idea by chima

Carter 54:24

chima chima is a genius yeah

Carter 54:26

coming up with that idea yeah

Zain 54:27

yeah no that is the

Carter 54:28

the best idea i've ever seen for a stampede

Zain 54:30

stampede i was told to say that and i told it would get under your skin yeah

Carter 54:33

yeah i really look at your face it really fucking bothers me i'm trying I'm trying to not let it bother me, but it's really upsetting.

Zain 54:39

don't have no idea about the backstory, but I know he did it. I know he did it.

Zain 54:44

Carter, but the question is real. I do think the question is fun.

Zain 54:49

What is a political tactic that you have seen, novel or otherwise, that you find to be intriguing for a Stampede or Stampede-like gathering?

Carter 54:57

I think it's really difficult because at the end of the day, most of these events are uniform. And you do them, you know, like every politic, we've, we've talked about the politics of Stampede before on the podcast and everybody

Carter 55:08

everybody has to do the same things. You go to the same events, you run into the same people, you have the same conversations, and then you move on to the next event. And, you know, the joke is, yeah, you know, oh, you're stalking me. Oh, you're following me. We,

Zain 55:21

We, by the way, should direct people to that episode because Corey gives some very good advice that you can now apply to Corey. To

Carter 55:27

To Corey, yeah. But you have to do it. You have to do the thing. So I don't think I have a what's a great tactic other than you have to do the tactic. Sure. This is what you have to do. And

Zain 55:41

And I guess, and I should have phrased my question, but either a tactic in terms of what you've seen from politicians, from political parties, from others. Shannon, I'll expand the scope to you to have you, you know, wide berth on here, wherever you'd like to take it in terms of Stampede or Stampede-like event political tactics you've seen that you find interesting, impressive, novel.

Shannon 56:01

It's the first year in 10 years that I don't have to do Stampede and I'm not going to. And it is glorious. I cannot tell you how glorious it is. And I'm not doing any of it and proudly so. So but it is important to note that Carter is wrong on this because you don't have to do the traveling cocktail party after a couple of these things. You can stop into one or two of them and then you can leave that behind. You don't need to be looking, sitting there at two in the afternoon, watching the same, you know, vice president government relations get shit faced at two

Zain 56:38

two in the afternoon.

Zain 56:39

You're talking about as an elected official. You don't have to do it. You don't

Shannon 56:42

don't have to do it. after you do a couple of them you should just leave and uh in my view the best tactics were once we got away from that glorified pedal bar that is uh those those um those the lobbyist circuit right they are just uh appalling uh after a little while just all these you know gr people getting shit faced at two in the afternoon on a wednesday it's stupid and it's not work and uh Nobody should subject themselves to it. Instead, what the New Democrats started doing a few years back that I thought was really smart was they started doing local, you know, out in the great beyond. So one at Killarney, one at the Glenmore Reservoir, one, you know, wherever, right up at Confederation Park, you name it, of community events with MLAs or candidates or, you know, writing association people. And it was a reason for the MLAs to go out and canvass and say, hey, I'm having a thing, right?

Shannon 57:40

right? And there's food and sometimes it's morning and sometimes it's afternoon. noon um and uh because stampede is a time of of uh the community engaging in calgary in neighborhoods not necessarily down on

Shannon 57:55

on stephen avenue and on the stampede grounds and in the associated uh bars where the you know you go eat canapes and and watch uh uh business people you know wear costumes and get drunk um and so there's much more to stampede than that and embedding oneself and community is a really important thing to do. Number two, fundraising. If all those drunk people are going to be there at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, you can charge them $350 to come to an event in the evening. That is the best use of your time during Stampede. Wow.

Carter 58:23

How wrong can Shannon be in one

Carter 58:25

one episode? Holy shit. For what you

Zain 58:27

you could tell me, Shannon, was there any meaningful GR actions or conversations you had at any of those events that led to advancement on files? She was Minister of Environment.

Carter 58:39

curious, like, there are

Zain 58:40

are probably people who

Zain 58:41

spend time on hosting, who spend time on setting up these events, who spend time doing these because it's what they've done. I'm actually curious from a former elected minister and official, like, did you feel like, you know, I know at some point you're like, I'm not doing these anymore, but were they of any value to you, any nutritional value to you in your gig as a representative?

Shannon 59:01

yeah. That's why I said go do two or three of them and then get the hell out.

Shannon 59:05

Because, you know, it is good to make connections with these people to give out your phone number to say, yeah, absolutely, I would take that meeting. Because some of those, you know, meetings are important. And some of those folks are important. A lot of business does get done at Stampede. But there is a threshold. And after that, it is diminishing returns. turns um and so do one or two of them or three or four and stack them up and get out uh was my view on it because after a while you know and as the week goes on people get a little bit looser and drunker and that is i used to say to people i'm like no i'm not having a drink at two o'clock in the afternoon on a wednesday i don't drink at work i don't know what you're doing um like it got so your personal popularity

Carter 59:50

popularity was so high yeah

Zain 59:51

yeah you know this is this judgy

Zain 59:54

claims to be a minister of the crown.

Zain 59:57

being a real asshole

Shannon 59:58

asshole to me. I just found it to be, you know, like if we're at work, then we're at work. And if we're not, then we're not. But there is value in obviously some of that relationship building. And let's face it, those happen at those lobbyists. That's interesting. So

Zain 1:00:12

So you would go in, go hard, and then be like ghost, like not ghost, but like I'm done, right? No, and

Shannon 1:00:18

and then I would go do community stuff after

Shannon 1:00:20

after that. And I would spend my time, you know, know at those breakfasts were like you know working the the the lineup talking to people there like normies right not uh some vpgr uh for some midstream company um but uh i would go and help uh you know calgary mlas and like let's go do things or you know work the crowd there like in other words like talk to voters uh

Shannon 1:00:42

uh people who vote

Zain 1:00:47

you're just angry i think you should just have the better take within you no

Carter 1:00:50

no my take was fucking fantastic it was in keeping with the ethos of this entire program which is and she's just shat down our throat which

Shannon 1:00:59

which is what like an uncritical slavish devotion to Stampede

Carter 1:01:04

oh yeah that's what we're known for is that what we're doing here oh my god yes

Zain 1:01:09

yes yes the Stampede co-op or corporation I don't know which one it is we're going to leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1877 of The Strategist my name is Zane Velger with me as always As always, Shannon Phillips, Stephen Carter, and we shall see you next time.

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