Episode 1886: Talking Turkey

Zain 0:03

This is a strategist episode 1886 my name is Zain Velji with me as always Shannon Phillips and look who decided to join us. Does anybody

Zain 0:11

ever eat the white bread

Carter 0:13

bread buns? Like they put them out. The

Carter 0:16

The rolls you mean? Yeah like does anybody eat the rolls at Thanksgiving dinner? They're

Carter 0:20

They're for the next day. It just seems to me to be a waste.

Carter 0:22

they're for the next day when you build a turkey sandwich. That's

Carter 0:25

With the cranberry sauce and the stuffing.

Carter 0:28

Which is just bread on bread. Bread and bread. At that point.

Zain 0:31

kind. This is the original content people tune in for, Carter. Oh, my God.

Carter 0:35

I overate, guys. Did

Zain 0:36

Did you? I don't

Carter 0:36

don't know if I can make it through this whole podcast.

Zain 0:38

podcast. Did you bite off more than you can chew?

Carter 0:40

Oh, no. I chewed it just fine.

Carter 0:42

I chewed it all. Is that what 28

Zain 0:43

28 campaigns does to you? Is that too many? 26.

Carter 0:46

26. 26. I had two drop.

Zain 0:47

You've released two. Two are gone. One of the orifices.

Shannon 0:57

This is going to make it harder, though, for me to win the bet against...

Zain 1:01

against... By the way, excellent Patreon, which Shannon and I, a few days ago, where we talked ATA stuff. I saw a bump

Carter 1:08

bump in the patrons. That's

Zain 1:10

That's good. Yeah, well, because we recorded. I don't know if it was about the cold. It wasn't a good thing.

Carter 1:13

It was, they went down. I was wondering

Zain 1:14

wondering what happened. Oh, they went down. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. That's not what a bump is.

Zain 1:18

I don't think that's... No, it's the opposite. Carter. Oh, it's a bump. Jesus Christ. It's a dump. Up is down. Carter. Yeah. you've decided to join us from the trail of 28 campaigns. 26. 26 campaigns. Sorry, I forgot that two of them disowned you.

Zain 1:34

We also made bets in terms of what that would look like for you. Really? In terms of outcome.

Zain 1:40

Do you want to throw a number out? Because we want to let you in on the action. We want to let you in on some of the action. I don't think that

Shannon 1:45

that he can do that right now. No,

Zain 1:46

No, no, no. Shannon, Shannon, don't stop him. He has done much more egregious things on this podcast than bet how many of his campaigns. Is this a patron episode?

Zain 1:57

This part can be.

Carter 2:00

for a Patreon episode, I'm not going to do it.

Zain 2:02

We could paywall your number card. Okay,

Carter 2:06

Okay, if you're going to paywall it, then

Carter 2:08

what it is is...

Carter 2:17

Yeah, there you go. Oh

Zain 2:20

Okay, if you are not a patron, you have to subscribe for that. Exactly. If you're one of the campaigns competing against Stephen Carter, put down your six bucks, get the answer, and

Zain 2:28

and then start thinking. Here's what I want to do. I actually want to talk about the weekend that was. Stephen Carter, this

Zain 2:37

this is a very important weekend as ordained by Stephen Carter. By

Zain 2:42

So I want to talk about Thanksgiving weekend. Okay.

Zain 2:44

It's importance in politics. Carter, you've got a theory about this. I want to revisit that theory. Shannon, if you have not heard of the Stephen Carter theory, it's not very complicated, but he will talk to you about it. And then I want to talk about three

Zain 2:56

three movements in Alberta. Carter, we've got municipal elections. That might be the most obvious. Right. I'm

Carter 3:02

with those. Yes. We've

Zain 3:03

We've got the ATA and

Zain 3:05

and their strike, and we have got this forever Canadian referendum, which by the way, their signature collection deadline, correct me if I'm wrong, end of this month, I believe. I believe. Yeah. Yes, it is. I want to talk about this Thanksgiving weekend in terms of the conversations at the table. Did they happen about any of these three topics? What they needed to look like for any of these three topics in terms of the municipal? We can dive into in and out of these as we wish. But I really want to kind of do a bit of a retrospective. And I'll start with you, Carter, which is very simple question. You have ordained the principle that Thanksgiving weekend in a fall election is the most critical weekend of the year. Do you believe that more, less, or the same, given our new political environment that you have been certainly welcome to over the course of the last year and a half? But I think we've all experienced in the last little bit. So give us, start

Zain 3:54

start us off there.

Carter 3:56

I think it might be the most important, this might be the most important Thanksgiving weekend in history for our municipal politics. Okay.

Carter 4:08

we've lost mainstream media. I'm not sure if you're aware, Zane, but we used to have this thing called mainstream media. People would tune in. They'd read the newspaper and they'd talk about it. In 2007, when I was running the Al Noor Kassam campaign, the mainstream media put out a four-page expose on Al Noor Kassam.

Carter 4:25

Killed us dead, as we deserve to be. But,

Carter 4:28

But, you know, the mainstream media ended us, not Thanksgiving weekend. But now mainstream media is a shadow of itself, right?

Carter 4:36

right? And then we had the Nenshi movement, right? Right. The Nenshi move was was in part orchestrated with social media. Well, I'm not sure if you two have been on social media lately, but there are no social media campaigns that are happening for the municipal campaigns right now. There's

Carter 4:50

There's some bought and paid for advertising, but there's nothing that's happening organically. So

Carter 4:56

the there is no social media anymore either. So the only thing that we're left with is friends and family getting together and discussing it amongst themselves. That is all we have left in terms of communication networks. Everything else is collapsing around us. And the Thanksgiving weekend is the opportunity for those groups to come together and to talk about the three things that you're talking about, plus whether or not Stephen Carter eats too many mashed potatoes.

Carter 5:24

And he does. He ate too many mashed potatoes.

Zain 5:28

have a question for you that might be bordering on a bit professional, a bit personal, which Which is, as

Zain 5:34

as politics has become part of culture now, if you accept that premise, that politics and we all follow politics like it's another cultural activity, kind of like sports. More of us are following it than ever before. The data bears that out. Are we more or less comfortable talking about politics, advocating for our positions in front of friends and family? And Shannon, I want to just get your take on this in light of this Thanksgiving weekend. And of course, if you have a take on this weekend as well, please feel free to chime in on that before we get into like the three sort of campaigns that I want to talk about. I want

Carter 6:02

want to pause it. Okay, well, I'll wait for Shannon.

Shannon 6:04

Shannon. No, no, go ahead, Carter. I want to hear what you have to say.

Shannon 6:07

I want to pause at

Carter 6:08

at something that I want your input on, Shannon. Okay? That's

Carter 6:10

That's what my question

Carter 6:11

question was. That's what they said. Yeah, but this is my theory. Is it going

Zain 6:13

going to be better? Oh, you have a

Carter 6:15

a theory. Maybe it's

Carter 6:17

My theory is that men talk the way I'm talking right now.

Carter 6:20

And men will say in the Thanksgiving dinner, I'm voting for Nahid Nenshi, I'm voting for Brian Thiessen, I'm voting for Corey Hogan. It's lunatics.

Carter 6:30

All the men, right, will just say exactly what's going to happen. Whereas I think that women take a more delicate and more kind of seasoned

Carter 6:41

seasoned approach where they kind of come in and they say, and the example I use is, have you heard of this Nenshi guy?

Carter 6:48

Right. Have you heard of this Nenshi guy? I was has been my my ongoing thesis of how women transport move information from one to the other have

Carter 6:57

have you heard of him as such a non in

Carter 7:00

in your face kind of statement have

Carter 7:02

have you heard of what he you know have you heard of who he is and it's an open it's a door opening not a statement being made it's a door open for everybody to join the same conversation and I think that around Thanksgiving dinners women will make sure that the doors open whereas men may make sure the doors get slammed am shut and so that is my that is my theory

Carter 7:22

theory that i will offer up to shannon to jump in on and to tell me either how right or wrong i mean shannon

Zain 7:28

shannon we've given you three questions which means we've given you zero questions so you can have that in anything here carter

Shannon 7:32

carter is right but he may have been writer in the old days than he is now because i think polarization has taken over everything women and men to the point where you're not going to talk about it if you know i was just talking before with uh just break the fourth wall here with haxum uh who you know was just up in westlock i grew up uh outside of spruce grove and uh i you

Shannon 7:55

know if i was sitting around with relatives they don't talk to me anymore because i'm a new democrat quite literally um

Shannon 8:01

um like i don't have extended family and i used to uh but is that like

Zain 8:05

like actually like actually is that a can i can i can i dig in on this for a second is

Zain 8:10

is that a byproduct of you running and getting elected or getting elected not running

Zain 8:15

okay as long as we i

Shannon 8:16

i didn't have power as soon as we did um yeah so

Zain 8:19

so this was a 2015 sort of thing like post 2015 oh interesting it's

Shannon 8:22

it's been a decade since i've seen these people i'd

Shannon 8:24

i'd see them blow by on my mother's facebook where they you know talk about uh lynching me if i go to the family reunion seriously

Shannon 8:32

yeah but uh so you know but if i was if they were like half normal well i i i would uh probably just not talk about Right. But and I think, you know, the men in my life and even my kids wouldn't either.

Shannon 8:47

Right. And I think that that happens more if you're in mixed company. Now, if you're not and you're just among a bunch of just sort of lumpen, sort of vaguely center right, some progressive, some kind of chamber of commerce, state conservative, you

Shannon 9:01

sort of poly political family. I think at that point, Carter is right that women are more likely to be less definitive, except for when things get quite spicy. And since COVID, things have gotten really

Shannon 9:18

where everybody knows where everyone stands. Right. And, you know, we are at another one of these moments. It's not the municipal campaign that is making people feel polarized, but the teacher's strike might. Right.

Shannon 9:31

so you're going to get a little bit more tentativeness sometimes in mixed company. But I think overall, people

Shannon 9:40

people are just not like in mixed company. They're not talking about it. They'll talk about anything else. See,

Zain 9:47

See, I tend to agree with a lot of what both of you have said. And this is I was thinking about this earlier today. So let me tell you where I'm at. If this if this is helpful, Carter, in terms of you trying to refine this theory for the modern age. And I know we're looking back because the weekend has happened. But I mean, I wanted to talk about it so you can tell me what you're trying to do this weekend in some ways, which is why today, this evening is a good time to talk about it. I agree with you in terms of the importance of this Thanksgiving in terms of politics huddling together might actually be a banner year for a political Thanksgiving, at least from the confines of this province, at least three movements, campaigns, whatever's happening. Like there's no shortage of fodder. And then you could go down south if you wanted to talk politics. But I also agree largely with what Shannon said, which is that I

Zain 10:31

I don't know if and I'm going to paraphrase a bit and maybe extend on what Shannon said. I don't know if any of us are persuaders anymore. I don't know if these conversations are happening to persuade in a sense that as much as people are like, well, if I know where someone stands because they've been broadcasting it on Facebook or I have an inkling or I've heard it and I know where I stand. And

Zain 10:52

movement and bringing one along does not seem to be the point of thanksgiving, does not seem to be the point of gathering anymore. I still think there's

Shannon 11:00

there's persuasion, Zwayne. I really do. Because there's so much lack of knowledge to

Zain 11:08

Let me bring that in. So I don't know if people are persuading as much as they are simply, and we might be heading like forwards by heading backwards, filling the void of what's happening. And

Zain 11:20

this is the second level of my question to you guys, which is, if people are kind of sitting there where they're, Carter, there's not just a give a fuck factor, but there's a knowledge delta, which maybe was less the case before. How does that complicate or create a unique scenario when people are gathering on weekends like this one?

Carter 11:40

Well, I don't know. I mean, I think that, I

Carter 11:43

I still think that people gather to share experience together, right? Right. And and we're we gather to share stories. I mean, we gathered with friends tonight and we shared stories and some of those stories were political stories and some of those stories weren't political stories. Most of them were deeply personal stories. Right. Because ultimately, you know, some of the story, you know, how did everybody meet came up. Right. Like not personal in the sense of, you know, threatening. Right. I don't want to be threatened by telling a story. I don't want... Carter,

Zain 12:18

Carter, take me into this dinner a bit more. Is this friends? Is this family? Is this a combination? How well do you guys know each other? Take me into it. Bring me into the story.

Carter 12:25

It was mostly friends. My daughter and her boyfriend were there. A little bit of fun, but mostly friends. Listeners of the podcast, let's just say

Carter 12:37

that. You can have Stephen Carter at your Thanksgiving dinner next year for the low, low price of $1,500 a month in our our, uh, super duper sponsorship. Uh, anyways, um, strategist listeners. And, uh, we had a, a lovely chat and, uh, talked about all kinds of things. Um,

Carter 12:57

uh, but we also talked about politics and we did talk about the polarization, but because it was a gathering of friends and maybe because it was a gathering of friends, it

Carter 13:06

it was a gathering of all the same side of the same, of the spectrum oh

Zain 13:10

yeah so there was

Carter 13:11

was no um there was no argumentation of

Carter 13:15

of oh you support this person and frankly with all

Carter 13:20

all of us being deeply half the people at the table are working on the campaigns right like this is not i wasn't in in a i wasn't in the comparable situation that most people would be in on their thanksgiving but

Carter 13:31

i do think that we do We did still go through the exercise of sharing personal discussion points and what we're going to do, why politics matters to us. Not everybody at the table had the same political experience.

Carter 13:47

And they were interested in what we were doing and how it was happening. There was a lot of interest in things like signs being stolen and literature being

Carter 13:56

being pulled out of mailboxes and things like that. uh that was you know kind of the the stories from the trail that uh we were able to share that were different it's kind of like talking about us kind of like a mini podcast rather than rather than a um a traditional family dinner but

Carter 14:15

but i still think that people want to share something that's deeply personal and that they want to share what

Carter 14:21

what they're going to do they want to be leaders within those groups yeah

Zain 14:24

shannon i took i'm gonna let you in here because i also also want to summarize where i took your argument to a logical end you disagree with and i think it's important because you pretty much were saying that that

Zain 14:34

that that people gather but if they know where they're going to stand they might stay shut and i said well i don't think we're being persuaders anymore where do you disagree with me in terms of my thinking here um i

Shannon 14:43

i think we're filling in blanks for people right

Shannon 14:46

right i mean and maybe i'm just importing my own experience because that's the point yeah who is called upon to fill in the blanks for people even if it's like a municipal municipal campaign right or school board or whatever you know at uh various gatherings um i'm people are like well what you know do you know this person have you worked with them that kind of stuff right sure but we are all doing a a version of that even if you know you haven't been the mla for the region um you were all we're all like those of us who are a

Zain 15:15

a little most people listening on this podcast may be that person in their orbit

Shannon 15:20

and and that's That's where you can use Thanksgiving weekend and Easter to a certain extent as well, I think. And I think we saw this during COVID over Christmas and into New Year's when, you know, Jason Kenney had to eat shit over those Hawaii vacations and everything. Remember all that? Right,

Shannon 15:35

right, right. I mean, that was also a time when we were talking to people a lot and we were filling in blanks for people, right? And I saw that the Democrats did a good one. And you see this often over Thanksgiving and Easter weekends. Like, here's what to talk about over the dinner table, right? Right. Or here's some facts for you. Right. Here's

Shannon 15:52

guide. Yeah. Here's your little guide to, you know, here's the background. Here's the FAQ on this particular topic. I

Shannon 15:59

I think that's how information is shared among and probably among people who are more likely to agree with each other or at least be in the same sort of timeline. timeline right in the reality-based community because

Shannon 16:15

because but sometimes you can even reach people who are not in the reality-based community right with uh especially the more local the politics uh depending on how like terminally online they are uh

Shannon 16:26

uh you can usually kind

Shannon 16:29

you know break through and go okay but this person was a community leader at x or whatever and bring things down from you

Shannon 16:35

know what's in the uh what's what's in the what's in the air right uh and uh the the big wheels that maybe don't matter to a school board election sure

Shannon 16:44

sure i still think that's pretty rare because of uh uh just straight polarization carter

Zain 16:51

carter i wanted to okay this is this is very helpful and i also don't want to lose sight of carter's point around personal stories personal narratives sometimes those tend to kind of communicate a lot more of the underlying politics and the value systems than the actual state it. Here's what I'm doing. Let's talk about the election sort of thing. But on that front, Carter, there was three streams I wanted to introduce. Let's start with the municipal elections. And one of the reasons we're recording tonight, and I'm glad we are, is I can ask you, did

Zain 17:18

did you have marching orders for your two parties around what your candidates and their surrogates and their volunteers should try to do this Thanksgiving? Now that it's over, can you walk us through what that was, what that looks like? Were there any orders or what you hoped would happen even if there weren't like walk me through a bit of that um if you're able well

Carter 17:39

well certainly we we wanted everybody in our orbits to be talking politics this thanksgiving weekend right um so our messaging was talk to your friends and family uh talk to them about politics talk to them about why this election matters in both calgary and in Edmonton, undecided is kicking everybody's ass, especially in Edmonton. It's like no one wants any of the candidates to win. So, you know, we wanted people who had made up their mind to support Tim Carmel or to support Brian Thiessen to be explaining to people why they had made up their minds. So that was our primary message. You know, this comes right hot on the heels of of six days of GOTV trying to get people to vote in the advance polls. So

Carter 18:25

you're trying to get everybody to lock their vote in and then explain to people why they voted the way that they did. So it's kind of a one-two punch. And then we have this weird week where we sit on our high knees and wait to see if everybody actually talked about it over Thanksgiving. You

Zain 18:41

You mean this week, like starting tomorrow, as in this week, yeah. Yeah,

Carter 18:44

Yeah, we don't, I

Carter 18:46

I mean, as much as I'd like to tell you, I mean, we used to have different barometers. right where

Carter 18:52

you could put a barometer on like facebook and see what people were talking about barometer on twitter and

Carter 18:57

and see what people are talking about i chatted with my uncle my uncle doesn't want to vote for for ryan t's and my uncle wants to vote for sonia sharp i'm so i don't see any

Zain 19:06

any of that i'm so interested in this can i dig i'm gonna keep digging and just to kind of find out and not to like fuck your campaign up by any stretch but just to get a sense of where are you I can do that by myself.

Zain 19:17

Yeah, well, two of them have gone. We'll see where this thing ends up next Monday. Yeah, exactly. Where are you going to these days for that trial balloon? Like, I'm trying to figure this out myself, right? Like, let's talk about our experience here in Calgary. Trying to figure out viability, what the herd is doing, what people are feeling, how people are doing things. I'm seeing a lot of, I'm seeing a few boomer Facebook posts or a few comments on some friends' Facebook posts, but there's no longer the drumbeat

Zain 19:49

drumbeat-like chatter. There's no longer the, this person, this person, this person. I keep hearing it. I keep seeing it. I keep seeing paid. I keep seeing it on my graph. Of course, we're no longer in a graph social media environment. We talked about this last week, Shannon and I. We're now in an algorithmic social media environment. So you could be on an entirely different plane than I. You could never hear about politics. So we're no longer on the social graph. ref, what are you doing to, like, who cares about how you're advertising? Like, that's tomorrow, yesterday's business, and one week that's already locked in. What are you doing to even get a sense of if anything is resonating?

Carter 20:18

Casting a vote like a fucking mad man. Is

Zain 20:21

Is that your biggest struggle right

Carter 20:23

Where would you find data? Like, I've looked on Google. Reddit seems like

Zain 20:26

like it's reinforcing, but I don't know if it's telling. Oh, great.

Carter 20:30

Yeah, Reddit makes me feel better. I go to Reddit and feel better. I go to our

Carter 20:35

Discord page and feel worse our discord fucking discord patrons you know make me feel worse um i go to uh google trends i go to my website statistics and i compare them to the website

Zain 20:50

website isn't it ironic though like and maybe this is exactly how it was designed that we've got more information than ever before but literally no knowledge and even less wisdom it's

Shannon 21:00

it's almost like you need to go knock on some fucking doors we're

Shannon 21:03

we're going with that too shannon

Carter 21:04

shannon we've got like

Shannon 21:05

like and identify your supporters it's almost like i i mean i don't know like there's only so many tools right and so i kind of go it doesn't

Carter 21:13

doesn't none of the fucking data but

Shannon 21:14

but everybody just tells you if they're undecided in a municipal yeah i mean that's

Carter 21:18

that's where you need it matters i can tell you right now it took us three months to identify our first jody gondek voter last

Carter 21:28

this election We're going around, we're, you know, we're identifying votes for both the mayoralty race as well as for the council races, right? Yeah.

Carter 21:35

It took us three months to identify our first Jyoti Gondek elector. And yet Jyoti Gondek in the polls is- Is second

Carter 21:42

Completely unrelated to what we're seeing at the doors. Like forget about our candidates, like our grassroots candidates. Yeah. Right? Our grassroots candidates, I know what their numbers are and I know exactly where they are. Right? But the mayoralty

Carter 21:57

mayoralty candidates, it's more kind of anecdata,

Carter 22:00

anecdata, right? We've got some data, but

Carter 22:05

but it's not enough. And then when the data comes in, the data doesn't match. The data doesn't match it at all. I can tell you our web stats are absolutely in line with what Jyoti Gondek's web stats were in 2021. In

Zain 22:18

In that successful campaign, just to draw that. In that very successful

Carter 22:22

And I don't think we're going to need 46% to win, right?

Carter 22:26

right? So I'm like... There's too many candidates. No,

Zain 22:28

No, no, the winner in Calgary might start with the two.

Zain 22:32

It might start in 20-something percent,

Zain 22:34

percent, to be clear. 28,

Shannon 22:36

I think if I were to build a campaign now, like let's say the election is in October of 2026, and my friend wanted to run for mayor, I

Shannon 22:44

I might take a bit of a different tack

Shannon 22:46

tack at it, just knowing what we know about social media now. And knowing what we know about, I mean, even in the last two years, what has happened to the media environment.

Shannon 22:58

And I would definitely do what Carter did with Gondek and hitch it to some larger topics, larger political forces, and then just ride that at the door, right?

Shannon 23:12

right? Right. And you could you could pull it off for a mayoral campaign, I think, to get the name recognition to go into, you know, like the good spots for the New Democrats to start off with all the good neighborhoods. There's plenty of them. The same places that were Corey tilled the soil as well.

Shannon 23:27

These are the same spots and there's lots of voters up in there and they vote, too. That's the other thing in your Kensington's varsity village, all these kind of areas like folks will go go get their vote on as opposed to other places. And I might build it from there. Because I don't see an alternative at this point. You're not building it on social media anymore, not in the first instance, if

Shannon 23:52

if you don't have any pre-existing name recognition or whatever. What you're saying

Carter 23:57

saying is you wouldn't form a party?

Shannon 24:00

uh i don't know if i i like i'm not sure if that matters i i mean you can uh tell me if that matters i i think it's it's good for fundraising purposes and those are the

Zain 24:11

the rules of the game

Zain 24:11

game so carter what you're saying is you wouldn't form a party i

Carter 24:13

i think the venn diagram of people who support housing and support parties are two separate circles okay

Carter 24:18

okay i mean your opportunity

Zain 24:20

is you could mobilize two very separate groups of people uh is it working oh

Carter 24:24

oh my god these These fucking progressives, I will fucking end progressives by the end of this. I am so fucking done with progressives. Are you not one in some ways? I thought I was. I thought I was. I am apparently not. The progressives have their own blood tests. I think Shannon's probably familiar with them. Yeah.

Carter 24:47

You know, I don't know that Shannon, as a former NDP cabinet minister, would reach the purity levels required in certain wards in Calgary.

Zain 24:59

can I dig into your Thanksgiving strategy a

Zain 25:02

bit more? Sure, sure. I've got three questions for you. Did you send out any written instructions to people? Are you going to follow up with them on the back end? And did you try to encourage anything around viability that I think one of the things your candidates, if I'm just going to make a plain statement, you can, of course, disagree with it. Struggle with is that they might be who people want to vote for. But the viability threshold is hard to read with at least the very few public polls that we have. Have you talked about how do you kind of get that message across? How do you let people talk about personal narrative to your earlier point? Talk about politics, not script them too much. And so how have you thought about this? And are you collecting any sort of anecdata on the back end to use YouTube? I

Carter 25:45

I think I'm wary of talking about viability. As soon as you start talking about viability, you sound not viable. You have to show it, don't you? You have to show viability. And the way that you show viability is to actually be viable.

Carter 26:02

helped us a little bit, the smallest of amounts, by saying that any of the top five candidates could win. um she but she didn't get a chance to analyze her own data on the cbc right that she posted a bunch of data on x which was really interesting and i really wanted people i don't think i

Zain 26:20

i saw i don't think i saw that myself oh no it's

Carter 26:23

it's fucking fantastic second choice is uh people who are open to certain candidates uh numbers fucking fundamentally change uh as soon as you start digging into that data about who's viable and who's not but i can't exactly do a uh

Carter 26:38

uh a beginner's course on statistical understanding um in my emails and it makes me sound completely

Carter 26:46

completely uh completely completely completely defensive yes

Carter 26:50

yes we didn't i agree we didn't we didn't do that we did send out emails and texts of what we wanted people to do um i

Carter 26:58

i don't think i'll follow up it's interesting I hadn't found a following up until you mentioned it.

Zain 27:02

I hadn't either until you said, well, now we just wait for people to sit on their hands and hope something happens, which sparked the question, why do we have to wait? Did you even try to anecdotally be like, hey, did you have convos? At least you're top tier.

Shannon 27:15

change mine. The question

Shannon 27:15

question of viability is for someone else. Good point. It's for an influencer to talk about and, you know, be the guy at the board with the red string, putting it all together, all the stuff that Janet Brown posted and interpreting it for people so that and pushing it out into uh a progressive universe if they had like that tour troy pavlov guy or whatever he's like what's his last name in edmonton oh yeah they had one of those in calgary um that yeah that's working

Carter 27:43

working out so well for me in edmonton we definitely

Shannon 27:45

definitely i mean maybe your candidate shouldn't stay stupid shit well

Zain 27:50

it's also it's all it's also a fascinating though someone with less than 5 000 and i don't mean this as an insult because this would include include myself and i think all of us instagram

Zain 27:58

instagram followers can pretty much be his own media outlet that drives narrative then media outlets are not driving with well-produced like influencer videos well

Zain 28:06

they're pretty well produced intellectually

Zain 28:10

okay well you we can we can talk out there okay carter we can we can talk about that i'll question question another question for you carter likelihood

Zain 28:16

likelihood that people talked about if political conversations happened this weekend what you and i at least maybe even shannon are branding one of the more important if not the most important alberta political thanksgiving do

Zain 28:27

do you think the municipal municipal election was uh top of the list in terms of political topics based

Carter 28:33

based on the information that's available to me at this point i would say it was probably it

Carter 28:38

might be the most important political topic in

Carter 28:42

in alberta but i don't think that it's an important political topic i don't think anybody was

Carter 28:46

was i don't think people were chomping at the bit to

Carter 28:50

about mayoralty and council elections uh

Carter 28:53

uh the give a fuck factor on this particular election we we had a 32 drop in uh advanced

Carter 29:00

in calgary i'm not sure what the percentage was in edmonton i think

Zain 29:03

think it was also down if i'm not mistaken oh

Carter 29:05

oh yeah it was down for sure

Carter 29:07

um but i just don't know what the percentage drop oh i said your thing

Carter 29:11

no i mean we're we're we're in this uh place where because no one has any information it's

Carter 29:17

it's not important and

Carter 29:19

and they're going to wind up going into the polls uh with the wrong for

Carter 29:24

for me the wrong poll the wrong question right

Carter 29:27

right the best question for my candidate is who's the best person to be the to be the mayor uh and it's going to be i think it's going to you know our great fear is it's going to be who can beat jeremy farkas or

Carter 29:40

joe t gondek who

Zain 29:41

who yeah you know who can stop evil however you define evil right

Carter 29:45

right and and my view is Well, the best person to do that is the best person to be mayor.

Carter 29:51

It's my guy. But if they're not engaged enough, we will see. I mean, we'll know. Probably the only metric that I can actually count on is the number of people on our website at any given time.

Carter 30:04

And I will know on Sunday and Monday whether or not we're going to be winning Monday night. Right.

Zain 30:11

That's fascinating. Shannon, anything to add on Thanksgiving in municipal before we jump into the teacher strike and what needed to happen there?

Shannon 30:20

Well, all I know is it's a good weekend for canvassing, not the Sunday, Monday, but the Friday, Saturday, because people stay home. They're more likely to stay home or be around than they, you know, obviously in the summertime people are gone. It's a long weekend where they're more likely to be around. That's

Zain 30:36

That's a really interesting point. They're, they're, they're not, they're not jetting. Carter, did you take advantage of that? Did your team take advantage

Carter 30:41

advantage of that? Oh God, yeah.

Carter 30:44

Everybody was out pounding the doors as much as humanly possible. This was one of our biggest weekends, both in terms of lit drops and door knocking that we've had. I mean, obviously you get more people at the end.

Zain 30:55

Crescendo anyways, but you made use of it on the ground as well. well

Zain 30:59

um shannon can i lead you to on the uh to to start us with the uh teacher strike how likely the first question is how likely do you think this was a topic of political conversation at the thanksgiving dinner table uh in terms of like not all topics but in terms of political topics right with municipal this the referendum question trump like all these other things are all in the political orbit so how likely do you think this was a top tier question and

Zain 31:25

and what do do you think needed to happen from the teacher standpoint this weekend in terms of that that conversation what do you think that they needed out of this weekend in that regard well

Shannon 31:34

well i think yeah it was probably more likely to be talked about if there was a a child within a two mile radius of the thanksgiving dinner table i think that it was far more likely to be talked about even in the municipal you'd

Zain 31:46

you'd rank it above just because the real world impact yeah

Shannon 31:50

everybody's you know and tomorrow morning we have to all figure out what we're doing again again uh and that's irritating right uh and so uh for sure the topic of conversation is going to be what did you do last week what are you doing next week uh to make sure that these people are not burning down the house right uh and so for sure that is on parents minds um and

Shannon 32:14

and i think teachers needed to make sure that people were armed with why they're on strike because i'm seeing more of of that right well what why isn't it good enough you know that kind of stuff so they needed to be able to ask answer those questions i think they're starting to with the the kind of the comms advice that we gave them a couple of weeks ago i've seen a lot more uh at teacher voices paired voices on ata channels as well as you know at teachers pushing thing and like people teachers who are active in their locals and just kind of active in their communities uh pushing out content and And I've also seen the New Democrats doing it. So people are doing what they need to do. And I didn't check the meta library. Maybe you guys did on

Shannon 32:57

on the ad spend. But I've seen more show up organically in the old algo. So I'm going to assume that there's some action happening there that's good.

Zain 33:07

Well, I also saw a pretty good produce spot. I think maybe a bit too produced, but it was a good concept. We went out to Cineplex, Carter, for the ATA. This was a take your ticket, uh, wait in line for students, uh, as the teacher gets overwhelmed at the front of the, the classroom sort of spot that they, uh, that they had. Uh, I think it conveyed the point. Um, I don't know. I haven't seen it run elsewhere, but also not a traditional, you know, sort of native TV watcher, unless it's sports or award shows like most people these days. Uh, but I thought that was pretty good. Also great movie recommendation. House of Dynamite is insane. And I recommend it to everyone. It is an absolute killer movie. Um, great. I might have some time coming out in about 10 days. It comes out on Netflix

Shannon 33:44

Netflix in a few weeks.

Zain 33:45

Carter, I'm going to get your take on where you peg the teacher strike above, below the municipal election in terms of political conversation in a second. I'm going to actually ask you a question just to take us back, because you didn't get a chance at a stab at this, which Shannon and I were discussing how long this goes. I maybe want to just start you there and then take you into this this weekend. We were kind of debating the merits of the government's back-to-work legislation as potentially being Bill 1, should this last until the 23rd. Do you think that when House is back, do you think this lasts until the ledge sits again? Oh,

Carter 34:21

do? I do. I don't see the provincial government stepping

Carter 34:24

stepping away from their existing bargaining position, and I don't see the ATA stepping away from

Carter 34:29

from their bargaining position. I think this very easily could go to the 23rd.

Carter 34:34

And I might argue that perhaps it should, that maybe the teachers do need to be in a position where they strike long and hard for the working conditions that they need.

Zain 34:50

Interesting. Shannon, have you changed your mind at all upon our most recent recording or just kind of seeing after we recorded, we got an understanding of when their next sort of loose meeting would be, which is tomorrow, Tuesday? Where's your head on this? And I think this will inform kind of what maybe the Thanksgiving objectives for both sides needed to have been.

Shannon 35:10

Well, we'll kind of know a little bit more on Tuesday, Wednesday, what the government's own polling is telling them. Right. You can always tell what the polling is saying by how people behave themselves and what they say publicly. And so far, Daniel Smith was out of the province last week. She left it to Horner and Nicolaides. They didn't light up teachers the way I thought they might. I thought that they would turn it up to 11. And they didn't. They were pretty quiet. And that tells me that the government polling is telling them that there is actually a public appetite to meet the teachers' demands. And so what the government's going to want to do, at least that was probably what it was telling them last week, because they didn't go, you know, like I had sort of said, well, you know, they'll go full.

Zain 35:55

full. As DEF CON partisan as they could have. Yeah.

Shannon 35:57

Yeah. And they didn't. For them, they didn't. And so that tells me that their polling is telling them that people are actually feeling the pinch and there is a certain amount of sympathy for public sector workers out there that is not really the Alberta that I am used to or that I know or that maybe any of us are used to and things have changed.

Shannon 36:20

I've seen some other polling that we can't really talk about that tells me that maybe there's a little bit more public sympathy out there than I would have given, than I would have guessed at had I not seen the polling.

Shannon 36:33

And so I think by tomorrow... Sorry, to be

Zain 36:36

be clear, public sympathy for? For

Zain 36:39

For teachers, got it. Or for public

Shannon 36:41

public sector workers more broadly. Right? More than I would have guessed, more than I have ever seen in the past. And so that tells me that normal, ordinary, run-of-the-mill people working in the public or private sectors are feeling the pinch and they are feeling a sense of, yeah, everybody's getting a raw deal out there, right? Because their housing and grocery costs have gone crazy. And so I think

Shannon 37:07

think we will know what the government's this weekend polling tells them, because that's the other thing about a long weekend in a campaign, is you have a bit longer to go get a polling sample, and it's a normal time to go out into the field.

Shannon 37:25

And I think we'll see if the government changes their tone, because the formal bargaining starts again tomorrow,

Shannon 37:31

right? And so we'll know a

Shannon 37:35

little bit more maybe by the end of tomorrow or Wednesday if the government's going to change their position, if

Shannon 37:41

if they're going to go harder, if their pollings told them that Albertans are getting sick of this shit and they want the kids to go back to school, or we

Shannon 37:51

we will see if the government actually softens and they're actually losing it in public opinion. opinion i

Shannon 37:58

less dug in on my previous view that

Shannon 38:03

that it was sort of a 50 50 i think maybe the teachers were starting it better than 50 50 carter's kind of cute on this as well uh

Shannon 38:10

uh and i think you might be right about that uh because i think i was just sort of uh thinking about this in in ordinary run-of-the-mill albertan terms where you know uh uh things are just a little little bit more center right than in in most places i i don't know if that's the case so uh we might see we might see a change of attitude and an attitude adjustment from the from the government by tomorrow uh and then we will know whether they're going to go back or if we're all digging in carter

Zain 38:42

carter what what to this point and

Zain 38:44

and i appreciate your your sentiment on this in terms of what your prediction is what

Zain 38:48

what where do you think the teacher strike ranked this weekend in terms of political topics and what do you think the teachers needed to do this weekend and then i'll ask both you about the government side on this it

Carter 38:57

was number one with a bullet if you have kids if you do not i mean in the group that i was with tonight not

Carter 39:03

not a single person had a child in school age oh

Zain 39:06

oh interesting so it didn't did it come up then not at all really because you guys are all municipal focused we

Carter 39:12

we didn't care literally

Carter 39:13

literally didn't care right

Carter 39:15

right and that didn't impact our lives at all But

Carter 39:17

But I suspect that if you had children or have children, it's

Carter 39:22

it's just not going to matter. It matters so much, whereas it doesn't matter to the rest of us. So

Carter 39:31

those who are engaged are highly engaged. Those who are not engaged are completely disengaged.

Zain 39:39

What do you think the teachers needed to do this weekend? What do you think the message needed to have been? And Shannon lays out it needed to be a rationale of why they're striking, reinforce that, make sure that is clear so it is not accepted on the government's premise of simply these teachers get paid a lot, which is what the government argument has been at this point.

Carter 39:55

They needed to make sure that they appeared to be on the parents' side and

Carter 39:58

and the children's side, not

Carter 40:00

not the government being on the parents' side and the children's side. At this point, it is binary. Either the government is working for the kids and for the parents or the teachers are. And right now, I think that the teachers are coming across as though they're working more for the kids and for the parents. And therefore, I think the teachers are winning.

Zain 40:21

Carter, what did the government need to have happen this weekend? You know, they were aware of the same sort of congealing. Shannon made a great sort of case around even the drumbeat of when polling might occur or has occurred and the response that we have seen from the lectern or podiums by government representatives, ministers, and otherwise. What did the government need to have happen this weekend if they wanted to come out on a better side of a Tuesday morning with the current teacher strike? They

Carter 40:44

They needed to tell a story that says that this government actually cares about children and education. education.

Carter 40:49

They needed to tell a story that we would believe. It's the same as getting this government to say, well, I care about healthcare.

Carter 40:57

First of all, do

Carter 40:58

do we believe that you care about healthcare? And secondly, can you tell me a story that makes me believe it?

Carter 41:03

And so I don't think they even tried. I don't even think they gave a shit.

Zain 41:09

You don't think they laced up for this weekend? Not

Carter 41:11

Not at all. They are not in the game. Was that a mistake?

Carter 41:18

I mean, it would be fascinating to watch a government that first of all i don't think they give a fuck so you know but it would be fascinating to clarify clarify

Zain 41:26

clarify what do you mean they don't give a like i want to make sure i'm clear on this they don't give a fuck

Carter 41:30

fuck about being perceived to be the right you

Carter 41:33

you know group for the parents and the teachers all they give a fuck about all they care about is their base all they've ever cared about is their base the 20 25 percent of albertans that are keeping danielle smith in power that's all she cares about and their kids are all homeschooled

Carter 41:52

playing with the purple crayon well

Shannon 41:53

well it's not it's not going to affect her leadership review at the end of november uh in any way shape or form and in fact if she is more hawkish on teachers all the better uh

Shannon 42:05

uh carter is right it's not even her voting base it's her activist base that she has to pay attention to. And obviously, that

Shannon 42:14

that means the separatists and their various representative cranks and caucus. That's what matters. And she is in a window of a leadership review as well. And so she knows that if she,

Shannon 42:27

that's why maybe going, like waiting, going to war with teachers or legislating them back makes her look strong.

Shannon 42:34

And it's a nice way to start the session.

Zain 42:39

Carter, what would a government that wanted to play over Thanksgiving weekend have looked like?

Zain 42:45

Because we think of governments as big, unruly, often not very nimble organizations. So you think, OK, the paid spend like that just keeps going. But what what else could a government who actually wanted to lace up for this weekend may have fully recognized that they're in the war that they are? or may have cared more, to both of your points about, you know, the perception of the situation they're in, what would they have done? What would you have advised that government to do? Every

Carter 43:13

Every MLA would have hosted a town hall on education, and

Carter 43:16

and they would have had talking points about how important education was to this particular government and how important parents are and how making sure that we get the best possible deal with teachers right now will ensure the longevity of this system moving forward. And if we gave them the wrong deal now, the whole system could fall apart. The

Carter 43:37

The system needs to be protected. And that's why the city, the province of Alberta has decided to put draw a line in the sand, because if we let the union get everything that they want, this will in some fashion hurt our chances of having the system that we need.

Shannon 43:56

and i mean they are up in the air on on on a paid spend um if they uh cared a little more they would humanize a bit of that advertising and they would put it into different spots uh and uh they would make sure that uh they advertise their asses off on the 30 bucks a day that people with kids under 12 are getting as well right we care uh about your kids we care care about how this is leaving you in a lurch. The union doesn't care.

Shannon 44:28

So here's your $30 a day. Here's how you apply for it. Here's how you get it. And really beat that

Zain 44:36

Carter, I'm moving on to our third one. And maybe this is where you want to issue your apology.

Zain 44:40

The Forever Canadian referendum petition has declared publicly that they've hit 80% of their goal. And this was a week ago, if I'm not mistaken, at this point, 230,000 of the 294,000 needed. Do you want to make a statement of apology, a prediction retraction, a prediction adjustment, a limerick for Thomas Lukasik? Any or all will be accepted in the space of time I'm giving you right now.

Carter 45:07

I am right. They

Carter 45:08

They will be disqualifying a huge number of those signatures. You just wait. You just wait and watch, my friend. There is no way that Thomas Lukasik will be successful. I am, instead of doing the three things that you've described, I am doing the classic double

Zain 45:25

Hinting underneath that, Carter, is that you were hoping that your double down is correct. You're not actually predicting your

Carter 45:35

Jeb Bush needs to survive this primary and compete in a general. Jeb Bush is not surviving this primary. He's totally surviving this primary. Mark it down on your calendar, okay? Stephen Carter said today. So hold on, hold on. Jeb Bush is the guy.

Zain 45:48

Just to be clear,

Carter 45:49

I want to just be clear. This is where Haxem

Carter 45:50

fucking cuts in the Jeb

Zain 45:51

Jeb Bush. Yeah, yeah. Don't do that, Haxem. He's probably already done it. He's

Zain 45:55

He's probably not done it. He's probably done it before. You know what he's going to do? He's going to do it beforehand. No, he's not

Carter 45:57

not going to do that. He's not going to do it.

Zain 46:00

He would not do it. He would not do that.

Carter 46:01

that. He would not do that.

Zain 46:02

Did you know this, Shannon? Carter predicted Jeb Bush would be president.

Zain 46:06

you've heard it. Okay, good.

Zain 46:07

You've heard it too. I wasn't sure if we ever used that clip before.

Shannon 46:10

No, but also, before we started recording, I was needling Carter for being low-energy Jeb. Because he'd eaten too many mashed potatoes. I did eat too many

Carter 46:21

many mashed potatoes. But

Zain 46:22

through it now. This is the second Jeb Bush reference

Shannon 46:25

reference tonight. Carter, why are you still

Zain 46:28

still down on this? Shane, I'm going to come to you in a second. It's a bad idea.

Zain 46:33

Bad idea? Okay, I'll let you have another go at this, if you want. If you actually want to give a sincere another go, now that you've seen, because we haven't had a chance, the three of us, to discuss this since Lukaszek and co. have announced that they've got $230

Carter 46:46

We should not be talking about this topic. If you want to take an actual topic to referendum, do the coal mines. Do something opposed to privatization of health care. Do something to support teachers for

Zain 46:59

for Fox 8. So it's gone from he won't be successful to we shouldn't be talking about it.

Carter 47:03

Well, he still won't be successful. successful do

Zain 47:05

do you not think 230 000 signatures qualified or unqualified is an impressive feat

Carter 47:10

if they were there what

Carter 47:12

what are you doubting i don't understand i doubt it all gosh

Zain 47:16

gosh you really do hey i really do that

Zain 47:19

that part i can actually like are you being genuine about that part you actually doubt it all doubt it all

Carter 47:25

why it's an astronomical feat and

Carter 47:28

and have you not

Zain 47:29

not seen every boomer in your life in every crevice of this city trying to get your signature i have and i don't go out much i

Carter 47:38

i know i know i i have i've seen them everywhere and

Carter 47:46

know you're not saying but they're out there active mobilized doing their thing yeah but now now i see where i used to see lineups of 100 people i now see someone you know vaguely waving a clipboard of people have you signed have you signed have you and everybody walks by saying i've already signed i've already signed yeah okay

Zain 48:03

okay carter okay you're we're not gonna get anything out of you shannon any revised

Zain 48:09

narrative any revised conversation any praise any curiosities any any anything now that you we because we haven't had a chance you and i as well to talk about this this uh sort of 230 000 that they they say that they now have and then i'll get to what their goal of thanksgiving should have have been, because there are deadlines coming up in 15 days.

Shannon 48:31

Yeah, I mean, well, it was quite frankly, knee slappingly hilarious to hear Daniel Smith talking about how Thomas Lukasik is the problem with separation now.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

I'm doing everything I can to prevent

SPEAKER_00 48:42

prevent a vote, because Mr. Lukasik's vote is a yes,

SPEAKER_00 48:48

yes, no question. It is a separatist referendum. He may be trying to characterize it differently it

Shannon 48:54

was just gaslighting of the absolute finest uh highest order can you explain this to people because

Zain 49:00

because i'm not sure how many people caught this so

Shannon 49:02

so she i was

Shannon 49:03

was she was some scrum i think i i i don't know exactly uh what the context was but uh i think she was reacting to the news that they had uh 230 000 signatures and she essentially said well we're talking we we have to talk about separation now because Thomas Lukasik is forcing us.

Shannon 49:22

so, it was just, it was one of those moments where, you know, you feel like the Will Ferrell character in Zoolander, like, am I taking crazy pills? So she's going to do that. Okay. I think it's fantastic that he's met the 230,000. I think that Carter was right in his initial rants on this, that the last

Shannon 49:47

last segment of signatures are going to be really, really hard to get. But there are a lot of people showing up at these teacher rallies, and I've seen people with their dutiful clipboards at these teacher rallies. And people are really digging in because they really want to get it done. And so I am seeing a level of seriousness that there is no way to be clear that the separatist yokels will be able to achieve. There's just no way that they will be able to get those signatures in the proper form and then have them notarized properly in all the different steps. And they are significant to

Shannon 50:29

to be able to get their stuff on the ballot. Now that I've seen what the actual process is, because my mother is one of these people, it's a wild process. There's actually a lot to it.

Shannon 50:40

and uh i i i don't see uh the uh the david parkers of the world being able to pull that off uh at all or whoever the uh the latest social media grifters are that have taken this cause um so uh if anybody's

Shannon 50:56

anybody's gonna do it it's gonna be them oh

Shannon 50:59

oh boy they've got another 50 000 to go though right in like i

Shannon 51:03

i don't know 20 days or whatever yeah

Zain 51:05

yeah since when since when they announced that But, you

Zain 51:10

where was this as a topic on this Thanksgiving in terms of the political topics being discussed? Does this get wedged in between the municipal? Is this not a hot button topic? How do you kind of assess it? Shannon, I'm going to come to you on the same thing. And then what did this group need to do this weekend on this

Carter 51:29

Well, I'm certain that every single person who's collecting signatures went to their own

Carter 51:33

own Thanksgiving dinner and made sure that everybody had signed up.

Carter 51:37

Um, but I suspect that everybody in their family had already been hit and

Carter 51:40

and that their, the total number of signatures gathered this weekend was, um, was

Carter 51:45

was very, very small because the group of people who sign it, there's, there's fewer people available to sign at the end. We talked about this before. With

Zain 51:53

With the number this high. Right.

Zain 51:54

Right. I think the math, the math, you're correct. The,

Carter 51:57

The, the, the, you know, you're going to go to, you know, we had 12 people at our dinner tonight. Of

Carter 52:01

Of those 12 people, how many people haven't signed?

Carter 52:07

you know you're you're just down to fractions now and how many of them will sign you

Carter 52:11

you know that have you know if you haven't signed to this point are you going to uh

Carter 52:16

uh i know that thomas has an rv now so

Carter 52:18

so i mean that's probably going to settle things what

Zain 52:22

what do you mean he's an rv now i have no idea what you're talking about oh

Carter 52:24

oh he's in there he was in he was driving an rv oh he's

Zain 52:26

he's got like an rv like a branded rv okay okay okay yeah yeah

Carter 52:30

you know what if you You've got to steal back, you've got to steal the tactics of the COVID warriors.

Zain 52:38

Okay, Carter, just so negative. Still

Zain 52:42

Oh, just raining on every parade possible.

Zain 52:47

Shannon, where did this rank in terms of political topics this weekend? Did it catch the radar? You don't think it did, do you? No, I

Shannon 52:52

I think this topic pops up whenever the separatism pops up. But right now, Daniel Smith is playing nice with Mark Carney. on topics related to pipelines and other things, pathways, CCUS. And so as a result, this has come down. She wants to set these fake time markers, like the Grey Cup was one, and then of course when they're going to apply

Shannon 53:18

apply to the regulatory process in May of 2026. But I suspect that she wants to set Grey Cup as a time marker so that she can go into her convention and yell about how we're still getting a raw deal, yada, yada, yada. He hasn't got the

Shannon 53:31

the tanker ban, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Shannon 53:35

And but she's not doing that right now. And so therefore, the push to sign the petition and to seek it out and to be a good patriotic Canadian has kind of come down a little bit as the other steps come up.

Zain 53:50

I'm going to leave this segment there, move it on to our over, under and our lightning round. I want to revisit this with our final question. But Carter, let me start with a completely different area, which is Prime Minister Mark Carney. This weekend, this week, I should say, this weekend, not this weekend, this past week, met

Zain 54:05

met with Donald Trump.

Zain 54:08

There was a lot of praise for Mark Carney from Donald Trump. Praise.

Zain 54:12

Carney did not come back home with any tariff relief of any kind, no deal of any kind. Give me a letter grade on Carney's week a la Trump.

Carter 54:21

What did he say about Trump? Trump,

Zain 54:24

a... Generational transformative, something like that?

Carter 54:27

Transformative, I believe. I think

Zain 54:28

think he said that the first time. Honestly, I don't remember. I

Carter 54:31

I think he was damned by faint praise, right?

Carter 54:33

right? Transformative isn't necessarily good.

Carter 54:37

You know, I think that Mark Carney is very careful with his language with Trump. He chooses words that he won't necessarily understand 100% and that could be interpreted positively, but also could be interpreted negatively. I think that Mark Carney is continuing

Carter 54:53

continuing to play a very good game with Trump. Unfortunately, we're continuing to play a game with Trump, and

Carter 55:00

no one wins playing games with Trump. We need to get this game over with. It needs to be done, and we need to

Zain 55:07

to move on. There's a Kuzma review coming. I think the games have just begun.

Carter 55:10

That's right. God, it's a gong show. Would you

Zain 55:13

you have just taken a high price and gotten it off the table? I mean, this is now asking you hindsight quarterback stuff. Okay, so then what do you mean by get the games done? Like, I get the first part, Carney's playing a good game. Then what's the second part? If this is like get it over with, what do you mean?

Carter 55:28

I just wish we could be done with it. It's a wishful thing. You

Zain 55:31

You wish, okay, okay. It's not a strategic thing.

Carter 55:34

I don't have a better strategy than Mark Carney. Mark Carney's strategy appears to be the one, the best that anybody could come up with at this people.

Zain 55:43

I think you're actually maybe right there. I think one of the reasons the opposition are going so hard is that they've got no alternative. To that point, though, Shannon, I want to give you a shake at this. Letter grade, give me one, in terms of his week. The praise was back and forth, as Carter alluded to. The deal, nonexistent. The relief, nonexistent.

Zain 56:02

How are you grading Carney's week with Trump?

Shannon 56:05

Well, they didn't go down there with the expectation of getting anything, really. They

Shannon 56:10

essentially had to take his invitation because, you know, they'd sort of been sending texts back and forth, so it was time to meet IRL kind of thing. That was literally, I think, how it all went down. So, okay.

Shannon 56:24

And the good news is, is that Carney didn't have to make any overt concessions while he was there. However, there is a bunch of rumbling about new heavy truck tariffs and a couple of other things in the auto industry that are still very live. The worst thing that came out of it was, of course, Lutnick's Chatham House rules leaked

Shannon 56:48

comments that we're not going to have an auto industry anymore. So that's 106,000 direct jobs and another half a million indirect jobs that is going to kick us straight in the teeth. And so the loser for Carney was not the Oval Office visit. He did what he had to do, right? You have

SPEAKER_00 57:07

have to go and,

Shannon 57:08

and, you know, like, just bite down on the whiskey rag And just get through an absolutely horrible, you know, amputation of your dignity when you go into that Oval Office. And that is what it is. And, you know, he makes out better than most and better than anyone else that was on offer at the end of April to Canadians.

Zain 57:31

I know this is lightning round. Oh, sorry. Keep going, Shannon. Sorry. Not

Shannon 57:35

so lightning. This is lightning round.

Carter 57:38

I got confused by your answer.

Shannon 57:40

Sorry. Sorry, I got confused. You

Zain 57:41

You mean the first part of her answer. You mean the first part, because she's just gotten to the butt.

Shannon 57:46

But the rest of his week was, frankly, quite shitty. Doug Ford is getting restive, and domestically, he's going to have to start to communicate a little bit better on what he's doing to have people's backs. But, I mean, the external stuff is great. The internal is going to start to wear.

Zain 58:09

i tend to agree with you on this shannon but you've brought up a point that i want to ask carter about and you in a second which is shannon brings up this point that he didn't have to make concessions carter how often is it that that politicians protect

Zain 58:19

protect things but get no credit for them right in some ways carney has made the situation better the 51st state comment while being made is not no longer like i want to grab your state like it's more so like i want canada to love us again i want like that is has been a change of tone he's protected certain things and in fact gotten at least a rhetoric to a certain level but no credit provided for that like we don't look at that as anything to give a grade to talk to me about that in terms of your experience in politics just more overall or any reflections on what shannon said there around uh not having to give shit up uh in in a sense you

Carter 58:51

you don't get political credit for things staying the same you get political credit for change um but then we don't like change right

Carter 58:58

right so it's it's it's a It's a little bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of situation. But when things are remaining status quo, people always say we want the government to stay out of our lives and just kind of, you know, meander along. Just fuck off and yeah,

Carter 59:12

yeah, yeah. Yeah, just leave me alone until such time as we need the government. And when it comes to dealing with the tariff monster down in the States, we need someone to stop the lunacy. and uh unfortunately stopping the lunacy sometimes means not making any progress at all because we're not falling further behind but

Carter 59:35

but that just that just doesn't play it just doesn't play and

Zain 59:38

and you can't force it to play can you have you

Zain 59:40

you tried to force it look

Carter 59:41

look at that ladies and gentlemen i bring to you status status

Zain 59:45

status quo who's shannon your reflections on this the political credit or lack thereof i should say on on uh carter summarized it well on status quo or keeping the a piece you

Shannon 59:54

don't really get credit in politics you might get recognition you might get respect uh

Shannon 59:57

uh begrudging uh or you'll get blamed but you don't get credit uh it's not a thing and you shouldn't look for it um you might get recognition that uh you did something uh but it's not necessarily yeah uh that you know in in a certain specific scenario like i'm thinking here is uh when rachel notley uh took us through the fort mcmurray fire right

Shannon 1:00:18

and she emerged uh from that that crisis with uh recognition uh and respect as a leader but not credit right and it wasn't vote determining either uh at all no

Shannon 1:00:30

and so um what you need is recognition that here is is you know and respect and carney has that uh on on the international stage but

Shannon 1:00:41

but politics isn't about the international stage or

Zain 1:00:44

or necessarily recognition or respect in that sense either in terms of what's vote-getting, yeah. It's

Shannon 1:00:49

It's about what's happening with EI.

Zain 1:00:52

No, very, very insightful. There's an

Zain 1:00:55

Very insightful from both of you on that. Carter, Carney bringing up Keystone XL. Is

Zain 1:01:01

Is this a silver bullet A++ grade that many are giving it? Or is this not that in your mind? And just to give people the political context, Smith wants a pipeline. Eby doesn't want a pipeline going to the West. Carney brings up, as has been reported by the CBC, Keystone XL, maybe this solves an American problem, maybe this solves a domestic national projects problem, which is why many people have been calling it an A++ silver bullet style thing. Stephen Carter, what strategic grade are you giving it?

Carter 1:01:31

Well, I'll tell you, for a magician, this is a fantastic misdirection, right?

Zain 1:01:37

It's a misdirection. I

Carter 1:01:38

I think that this is, you know, look over here in

Carter 1:01:41

in this hand, it's completely empty, But this hand has something going through Quebec.

Shannon 1:01:49

Keystone's not Quebec. It goes to the States, Carter. No, I'm saying

Carter 1:01:52

saying that's the one I'm hiding. I don't want anybody talking about a pipeline through Quebec. I don't want anybody talking about a pipeline going through British Columbia. Look at this hand. This is the hand where we're all going to go to Keystone. Keystone's not going to happen. Not going to happen. But this

Carter 1:02:09

this is a misdirection. That's all it is.

Zain 1:02:12

Shannon, he does not give me a letter grade. He rarely answers the question.

Carter 1:02:15

What was the question?

Zain 1:02:16

Letter grade on what this play is for Carney. 86%.

Zain 1:02:20

Okay. Shannon, what is it for you? I'll take percentage form. I'll take letter grade form. I'll take deep dive analysis. All rules are out at this point.

Shannon 1:02:29

Oh, I won't go down the rabbit hole of pipeline economics, but Keystone XL doesn't really help Alberta's bottom line or the federal bottom line. There

Shannon 1:02:37

There is less of a proponent probably than whatever's happening with the West Coast one. Because TCE Energy divested all of its assets to a smaller company that isn't a pipeline

Shannon 1:02:51

pipeline developer in the same way that TCE and Enbridge are.

Shannon 1:02:53

It may even make the low cost or the low price for bitumen for Western Canada Select lower and

Shannon 1:03:03

and may create more economic problems for us now that we have TMX. And so that's a problem. um

Shannon 1:03:12

and but uh it's fantastic for making basically danielle smith quote and i i loved her response she kind of tried to pour cold water on it but she can't pour cold water on any pipeline so she had to hum and haw and and do a little dance which i thought was awesome uh because it showed the extent to which pipeline politics is mostly kabuki theater there are no proponents no one is paying to do any of this and even if you do repeal the tanker ban to go to the west coast the fact is is that you still have section 35 of the constitution that's still a thing that exists you can repeal every climate related regulation that you want and

Shannon 1:03:52

you still will have the indigenous nations along the route and at terminus who remain firmly opposed to the west coast option.

Shannon 1:04:02

So neither is a great option. The good news is we have TMX. It is not quite full. It could take more capacity. The BCNDP has said that they're supportive of dredging Burrard inlet to get more boats in and out.

Shannon 1:04:18

You know, I would be shocked if they were not even neutral on expanding TMX again so that we could get more access to Asian markets. To my mind, And that's the smart thing, but it's not a bunch of fucking memes. And so, therefore, nobody's interested. We're just, you know, busy doing, to Carter's point, magic tricks with this topic, rather than understanding what our transportation reality is in a carbon-constrained world, because it remained carbon-constrained. So there's

Shannon 1:04:53

I would say it's actually a pretty good one on Carney's part, though. I gave him an A.

Zain 1:04:58

Look at that. Maybe she got there. She did get there. She got there. Wow. Do you want me to ask you a more complicated final question, or do you want to leave it there, Carter? No, no. Let's do a more complicated final question. I'm going to start with you on this. We talked about Thanksgiving. We started with Thanksgiving. We spent most of the episode on Thanksgiving weekend. Let's end it here, which is, I can't help but notice one observation, which is not novel and not unique, but I think is interesting to maybe bring up to finish this off, which is that all three of the things we discussed could either compete with each other, I'm I'm talking about the municipal elections, I'm

Zain 1:05:29

I'm talking about the teacher strike, and I'm talking about the referendum petition process, could all compete with each other for attention, or they could all complement each other.

Zain 1:05:39

And I'm curious just your general take on that as closing off, Carter, which is as they go forward in the next number of days, and in certain cases, number of weeks, depending on the process and the outcomes, do these movements like this, when they're trying to capture limited attention across a media enterprise that is fractured or eroding, or has eroded? Do these movements that are similar and potentially touch the same people

Zain 1:06:03

as an overlap compete or complement? And how are you as a practitioner or a follower of this stuff, thinking about these things today, drifting off one thing versus another, making it your own thing? Do you feel like you're in competition? And Shannon, I'm going to ask that same very open-ended question to you in a second, but I'll let Carter go first.

Carter 1:06:20

Well, I don't think there's any secret that in Calgary we're trying to connect with anti-Danielle sentiment. Um, that anti-Danielle sentiment comes from, uh, the petition and separatism. It comes from the teacher's strike. It comes from a number of different areas. We are trying to tap into that, not doing it as much in Edmonton. Um,

Carter 1:06:43

you know, will those, so you get kind of, uh, a natural experiment. Will, will they work? Uh, will they not work? I mean, both could fail. Both could be successful. We don't know. But I do think that there is an opportunity to tie them together. And ultimately, you

Carter 1:06:58

you know, I think that with the teacher strike, I think that Thomas Thomas's little train got a little bump.

Carter 1:07:04

So, you know, we'll see. I mean, it'll be interesting to see how it all ends up. But I do think that working together would would would be in everybody's, you know, in the progressive side's best interest. What I think is of note is that we didn't talk about the NDP once this week.

Zain 1:07:21

You mean we as in the collective? We are on this episode. I did.

Carter 1:07:26

Oh, fuck. You're expected to talk about the NDP all the time. I mean. I thought they did a really good job. That's why I talked about them.

Carter 1:07:32

didn't even listen to you, really. I mean, what are we talking about here?

Carter 1:07:36

I mean, realistically, does

Carter 1:07:38

does the third person matter?

Shannon 1:07:41

We had a great time last week, so no. No,

Carter 1:07:44

No, not so much.

Zain 1:07:49

Shannon, your thoughts on this, right? And even if you want to broaden them out to the broader political horizon, I'm like, we are going to see more issue-based movements, whether that be labor, whether that be whatever. How do they coordinate with one another? This is maybe an interesting time and point. We've heard even from campaigns in Edmonton, Carter, you can attest to this or not, that certain

Zain 1:08:09

certain mayoral campaigns in Edmonton have had a nice bump themselves based on the teacher strike and their alignment with them or their natural alignment with them. So how do kind of movements work or not work with each other? And how do you think this compete versus complement piece is playing out, Shannon?

Shannon 1:08:24

Well, I don't think they're competing at all in the progressive universe. And to our very first point, if you're on that side of the ledger, they helped you kind of figure out, OK, who are my municipal candidates? Who's my school board person? You know, are they the person who's showing up in my algorithm saying we have to stand up to Daniel Smith and we need an effective advocate for public education? OK, now I understand. extent. I'd never heard of this person before, but now they're telling me what I need to know to mark my X, right? And so it's a portal. Any of these things

Shannon 1:08:55

things are sort of, you know, they're a gateway, and then they reinforce each other. And unfortunately, we reinforce it,

Shannon 1:09:04

and the algorithm reinforces it. But if you don't play that way, and if you're one of these municipal candidates who goes out there and saying, oh, I don't want to, you know, take a stand on danielle or don't you know i i want to be not not as a you know these kinds of people and i i saw them a couple of their campaigns crashed on the rocks in 2021 because they refused to do this um

Zain 1:09:25

progressives that didn't win

Shannon 1:09:26

win uh because they they didn't

Shannon 1:09:28

didn't tell the voters you know very basic

Shannon 1:09:31

things uh on what they uh what they could expect from right

Shannon 1:09:34

right uh and it is a nice shorthand. And I imagine it will only continue.

Zain 1:09:41

We are going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1886 of The Strategist. My name is Aidan Velge. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Shannon Phillips. We shall see you next time.

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