Transcript
Zain
0:03
This is Strategist episode 1889. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Shannon Phillips. Hello, friends. Wow,
Carter
0:10
Wow, we're getting into like years that I recognize. 1889, that's pretty great stuff. I'm pretty excited.
Zain
0:17
Well, Carter, these are large numbers. I
Carter
0:19
I was born in 1889. It's true. This is a great time for me. I'm living my best life.
Zain
0:27
Are you living your best life? I mean, this is not the episode to ask you if you're living your best life.
Carter
0:31
life. Living my best life, baby. We're going to do the accountability episodes, aren't we? We're going to do them live. We're going to do live shows. Is that what we decided? Are we
Shannon
0:38
we actually committing to this on the
Shannon
0:40
podcast? Yeah. We have not had a meeting
Zain
0:41
meeting about this. Shannon, that means nothing.
Zain
0:45
we can have the meeting
Zain
0:47
Let's have the meeting. Should we do this live? I think we should do it live.
Carter
0:50
live. I think we should do
Zain
0:51
do it live. The Stephen Carter accountability episode, maybe we'll bring a guest or two in. Yeah,
Carter
0:55
Yeah, I've been approached by a couple of potential guests already. Oh,
Zain
0:59
Oh, excellent. Yeah. Do you think any of your candidates are free? I feel like a lot of them might be. My candidates are super busy.
Carter
1:06
They're unable to make it.
Carter
1:08
Okay. Yeah, but I've been approached by someone who wants to be a special guest already that's fairly
Carter
1:14
fairly high profile. I'm pretty excited by it. Okay.
Carter
1:18
Yeah, it's not Corey.
Zain
1:21
Corey's not high profile. Well, I mean,
Carter
1:24
Parliamentary Secretary for Forestry or something, or Natural Resources. I don't remember. I wasn't paying attention.
Carter
1:29
Shannon, do you want to do this live?
Shannon
1:32
Oh, sure. I'll do it. I mean, availability is always an issue. So, I mean, if it's Christmas Eve, I'm probably available. But other than that, we'll see how it goes. Shannon's not going to
Zain
1:42
to be there, Carter.
Shannon
1:42
Carter. We have to do it fairly soon. I'm
Zain
1:43
Shannon, it is an accountability episode where we got to tell Stephen Carter that he's not as good as he thinks he is.
Carter
1:50
It's not true. That's not how it works. Okay. I
Shannon
1:53
actually have some good faith questions for Carter. Yeah,
Zain
1:56
exactly. They're going to have to wait. Good
Zain
1:57
Good faith. Including the therapy session. Good faith, Zane.
Zain
2:01
Speaking of good faith, that's maybe the title of the episode, as well as because we took a talk about good faith bargaining. Stephen Carter, it
Zain
2:10
it has not been tabled yet.
Zain
2:12
However, when we record, and I should tell everyone we are recording at
Zain
2:17
3.50 p.m. on Monday, the 27th of the
Zain
2:19
the October 2025. twenty five. But Bill two in Alberta, we were I was going to go across the board. I was going to go Doug Ford ads, Ronald Reagan. We were going to go all. But this just happened. So we have to talk about a bill to a
Zain
2:32
a legislation is supposedly embargoed until table. But if accurate, Daniel
Zain
2:36
Daniel Smith is invoking the notwithstanding clause to force teachers back to work.
Zain
2:42
Shannon Phillips, can you help us understand what this is? And then I want to spend the time with the both of you to understand the scope and scale of what this is from a political perspective and then i want to talk about the path forward here as we digest this news and understand it um today on on monday the 27th of october here in alberta uh
Shannon
3:01
uh okay well um basically
Shannon
3:04
basically the government has to invoke the notwithstanding clause uh
Shannon
3:08
uh in order to pass this legislation of get these people back to work um
Shannon
3:13
um because it is unconstitutional it is an unlawful piece of legislation and the government knows it so
Shannon
3:19
so uh you have the right within the the constitution that we passed in 1982 or patrioted i guess um that uh provincial legislatures or the federal government do have the right to override certain sections of the charter and uh those sections are our fundamental freedoms um our legal rights and our equality rights. So they have the right to override those. And the idea being in the original of the, you know, when the constitution came in, that that was kind of the way that they got the deal to
Shannon
3:50
to get nine out of 10 provinces to agree to the
Shannon
3:54
the charter. It kind of froze out Quebec, pissed off Lévesque, but at the end of the day, that's how the deal got done in 1980.
Shannon
4:01
So we have this, and it's sort of an escape
Shannon
4:04
escape hatch for any, you know, kind of conflicts between rights that might, or between legislatures or between, you know, legislature and parliament that might arise. It's supposed to be used extremely judiciously. And in this case, I don't think that you could argue that it is because it's just cutting off collective bargaining. The
Carter
4:25
The reason why we know it's unconstitutional is
Shannon
4:26
is because there's been a couple of different Supreme Court decisions upholding the right to strike as part of your right to collective bargaining. Your right to collective bargaining is captured under one of your fundamental freedoms, which is the right to free association we
Carter
4:39
allowed to freely associate to have this podcast we can question
Shannon
4:41
question uh whether the courts should uphold that but it's true we can talk to each other people can talk to carter even it's a it's a charter protected right but
Shannon
4:50
but i i we can also ban together uh and bargain collectively in our workplaces and the courts have said that like you don't really have that right unless you have the right to withdraw labor right
Shannon
5:03
right it's kind of a a fake right unless you have the right to take it to its logical end, which is, you know, we're not coming back to work until we have a better negotiated process for this collective agreement.
Carter
5:12
So those are the decisions
Shannon
5:13
decisions that we live under as a country. And there is one way to override them. And that's with use of the notwithstanding clause. And so that's what they've done. First time in Canadian history, Doug Ford threatened to do it with educational assistance a couple of years back, and then ultimately backed down due to public pressure.
Shannon
5:31
The idea is that we We don't override those sections of the Constitution because there'll be so much public pressure and so much scrutiny.
Shannon
5:39
Hard to have scrutiny when you're ratting through the bill in one day.
Zain
5:43
Carter, help me understand this, if you can.
Zain
5:47
Is there a way to send teachers back to work without issuing or without invoking, I guess is the term, the preemptive use of the notwithstanding clause? I know that's a lot of words, but is there a way that the government could have done this without the clause? I'm
Carter
5:59
I'm so glad you asked me that, Zane, because
Carter
6:02
explained it to me just before the podcast. Perfect. And now I'm able to jump right in like I am. She's
Zain
6:07
She's built your vessel, and I now want you to empty it on the show. Thank you.
Carter
6:12
Bottom line, and Shannon will correct me when I'm wrong, because ultimately, they needed the notwithstanding clause. If they don't put the notwithstanding clause in, then they run afoul of the courts, which have ruled on very similar type of ideas in British Columbia. Am I correct in that, Shannon? That's right. So I throw back to you, but ultimately, they have to go the route of the notwithstanding clause. They have to remove fundamental rights that are yours and mine that will not apply to teachers starting as soon as this act is passed. And I don't think that people really understand. I think that when you think of back to work legislation, you think, well, you know, the government can order someone back and that's fine. fine um but if you're having to invoke the notwithstanding clause then people start to wonder okay well what is it that we're giving up and i think that that's what ultimately
Carter
7:04
ultimately the public relations of this is going to be much different than the legal side and i'm going to stay away from the legal side too too much and throw to our resident pretend lawyer uh you know it's nice that we replaced cory our pretend oh my god with
Carter
7:17
shannon a pretend lawyer this
Carter
7:19
this is this is a step This is two steps in the wrong direction, and I'm really excited about it.
Zain
7:27
Corey would have still been on spelling out the notwithstanding clause for us,
Zain
7:32
talking about how somehow he was involved tangentially when at first, you know, he may have been in the womb or a very young child, but he was probably going to tell us about how he was involved
Carter
7:42
involved in some way. I remember when it came out in episode 42 of the podcast. He wasn't even born yet. Yeah, but
Carter
7:47
but Roy Romano was part
Shannon
7:48
part of the the crafting of the notwithstanding clause. And I'm probably the only person on this podcast who has a picture with Roy Romano. So I'm going to claim the degrees of separation on this one.
Zain
7:58
Sure. Well, we're going to give it to you. That is one you can take. Well,
Zain
8:02
Well, I mean, you have a picture
Carter
8:03
picture with Roy Romano you're allowed to talk about.
Carter
8:07
need help. I need. It's
Zain
8:14
What do you want to say, Carter? Nothing.
Zain
8:18
I was giving you space and time.
Zain
8:20
Okay. I'm not afraid of silence. I'm not afraid of it.
Zain
8:24
I'll let you fill the gaps however you wish, Carter.
Zain
8:27
Okay. You're good? Oh, yeah. I'm good. Let's move on. Okay. Shannon, question for you. Help me calibrate. I'm trying to understand how to calibrate in terms of how significant this is. I'm hearing unprecedented. I'm hearing significant. And I also want to tease the fact that there is a leaked memo memo that was provided to the broader media and political ecosystem a few months ago in regards to Daniel Smith using the notwithstanding clause on the trans legislation, the three trans bills. So this is not that, to be clear. That is still coming, this session. So there's a chance the notwithstanding clause makes a two-time appearance in the next, what, week?
Zain
9:08
Help me calibrate. I kind of have the answer internally, but help me give words to how I should be feeling about this in terms of the unprecedented nature of what we might be seeing here.
Carter
9:21
Yeah, I mean, but
Carter
9:23
more you use something, the less people are going to be worried about it, right? It becomes normalized. And I would expect to see, notwithstanding, notwithstanding, notwithstanding, I mean, I was joking with Haxson before you guys came because you guys are so tardy, um that uh you know why wouldn't you just throw it into every piece of legislation at this point right because the the alberta government is suffering exactly zero consequence from doing the notwithstanding clause every other government are you
Zain
9:49
you sure i mean it's happened seconds ago but i'm like what makes you so confident that that's the path we're going here zero confidence zero zero sort of um accountability or zero sort of uh political blowback here we're getting into the politics of it so talk
Carter
10:03
talk yeah i mean we had zero blowback on the trans issues um i don't anticipate that we're going to see any blowback on the teacher issues because you know what the end of the day and daniel smith is not wrong about this this is what this is what is extremely frustrating at the end of the day alberta parents do want their kids back in school what
Carter
10:21
what are they prepared to put up with in order to get their kids back at school are they prepared to put up with the notwithstanding clause well they were willing to put up with the anti-trans stuff are they prepared to put up with this um with this notwithstanding class being forced upon teachers and i think that because it's not them they're gonna and because it benefits them they're
Carter
10:41
they're gonna say fine it's fine it's fine as long as my kid gets to go back to school i don't care what the tools were that enabled that that's what my expectation is do
Zain
10:51
do you agree with this i mean we've seen recent polling and of course we know polling can fluctuate and that that public opinion is squarely on the side of the teachers here. Now, time is, you know, there's an erosion as it relates to people's patience, especially parents, as it relates to having their kids back in school. So I take Carter's point. I don't take it to the extent that he delivers it, which is that this will actually
Zain
11:13
equate zero consequences for the government. But what's your take here?
Shannon
11:17
There's a question of politics here.
Shannon
11:19
And it's not just a question of politics coming from the opposition, although they're doing everything they can.
Shannon
11:24
It is also a question for broader civil society and the broader labor movement. And it really depends on what the response is and how swift it is, how decisive it is, how it stretches across the economy, and how it reaches into people's lives, to Carter's point. And we have yet to see that, but we won't see it until they're moving through the stages of the bill, which is happening as we speak. And once it passes, I think we will see the labor movement take some significant steps. But it's a question of how actors use their power in the system. Power sloshes around a system. And it's not fixed at any one time. So, yeah.
Shannon
12:16
yeah she agrees with
Zain
12:19
well i i agree with both of you in the sense that i think this is the action is is seismic yeah i'm going to use that word and it potentially is doubly seismic although carter you make an interesting point around the political sort of absorption of it being potentially less the more it's used but unprecedented seismic okay that has just happened if not is going is happening while we are recording right now as i mentioned earlier These are leaked reports of the notwithstanding clause being invoked. You guys may know better than I, but Bill Cho has not been tabled just yet. However,
Zain
12:51
we're assuming that that is being fact. I agree with Shannon as well, but I think this is now about the response. Whether you were expecting it today or not, whether you thought this was going to be, you know, done slightly differently, whether this happens again next week on the Trans Right stuff, let's talk about the most strategic, optimal
Zain
13:09
optimal response, Carter. And I do want to include the groups that Shannon has mentioned. Let's talk about the New Democrats. Let's talk about labor. And then let's give the third bucket to civil society, which I think can include the broader populace, nonprofit groups, those that are tangentially related, unrelated to this, just people, people who are active, mobile, partisan, nonpartisan. I'll put that in the third civil society bucket. Shannon, I'm not sure that's how you would define them. That's how I would, too. OK, let's start with the New Democrats, Carter. Carter. And let's start with what they need to do as it relates to in the legislature and then outside of the legislature, because they'll have a process here, I imagine, and both of you can tag team on this. I imagine it won't be a successful process, but they'll have things that they do. What do they need to do inside the legislature here? And what do they need to do outside? And then let's go to union labor, union slash labor, and then let's go to civil society. Well,
Carter
14:02
Well, I mean, ultimately inside the legislature, they need to raise their voices and fail because ultimately they will fail in the legislature. So failing isn't necessarily bad. Failing is part of this. But when you fail, you must be able to point your finger at someone else and say that it's their fault, right? I failed, but it's ultimately Danielle Smith's fault. This is bad. This is going to hurt people. This is a bad direction to go in. So that's what I'm anticipating from inside. What I don't want them to do is to think that the whole world lives inside the legislature. I don't want them to start thinking the solution to this is filibustering the rest of the legislation or to try and hold things up or
Carter
14:52
or make it more difficult for the government to do other things. Can
Zain
14:55
Can I interrupt you there? They
Carter
14:57
They won't be able to.
Carter
14:58
I'm not talking about just this piece of legislation.
Carter
15:01
No, I know. But they can –
Carter
15:05
they think that the legislature is the place to do this, it's a mistake. they need to get their asses out of the legislature and into people's living rooms and into people and into uh places
Carter
15:18
places where they can talk to people what i have learned one of the things i have learned on this campaign that were that were just done yeah is that no one is paying attention to anything there
Carter
15:26
there is no news anymore there's no social media anymore there is only social networks and those social networks are concerned about so many things that if they don't start to talk about this massively in a in a hurry they're not going to they're not going to catch a wave people will not know the good news
Shannon
15:42
news is that this is national news uh
Carter
15:44
uh and for good reason watching the news the
Shannon
15:50
every once in a while stories break through and this is one of those situations for the for the opposition so
Shannon
15:55
so uh i mean what they need to be doing right now like literally right now as we record this and the legislation is being introduced uh is use every Every single opportunity they have for the leader to stand and look like a fighter,
Shannon
16:09
every single one, even if he is, you know, reading out an emergency motion, moving an emergency motion in order to slow down the gears, get that clipped, get it pushed out. He had a really great first question period. I
Zain
16:22
I thought so too.
Shannon
16:23
Really good. So clipped out. out uh and and i know they're doing that but like today needs to be something of a a war room style uh approach to every single time the leader stands up that he looks like a fighter um and to carter's point it doesn't everybody knows that the fix is in and uh at the point is the fight uh primary audience obviously uh being teachers uh and people who are you know directly affected by
Carter
16:52
by this but But just all Albertans, this is an opportunity for him to introduce himself.
Shannon
16:56
Now, secondly, what the New Democrats obviously need to do is use every moment that they have within time allocation, although the bad guys will, to again, make sure that the leader is up, right? Because when he gets to speak to a bill, it's for longer than the others. So get him up as many times as you can so that you get as much good content as you have of him standing in the legislature with people sitting around him, I'm nodding and pushing that content out over the course of this evening, because that will serve you in traditional media coverage. It'll serve you like in this 24 hours. Right.
Shannon
17:32
And like then you move after this, after they ram it through. But right now you have great examples of the leader saying smart things that most people agree with, that we know that most public opinion agrees with. so use every single you don't get these opportunities of people speaking directly to camera uninterrupted um you know for and being able to splice together two and a half three minutes you don't get that all the time uh this is a good opportunity for that and for lots of different pieces of content carter
Zain
18:03
carter do you disagree because you you said don't filibuster don't don't delay this thing if if shannon's saying fight i'm gonna i'm gonna sign a word to you you're saying fold and get out of the the legislature get
Carter
18:15
get out of the legislature you're going to lose get out of lose fast would be my would be my recommendation the government's
Carter
18:22
for you you're only getting
Shannon
18:22
getting an hour per stage right so you're going to be done by nine o'clock tonight so but at every stage you need to think about every stage of debate every hour or between you know suggesting we even truncate that you're suggesting
Carter
18:34
suggesting truncate that well i'm not saying truncate it just lose fast and then when you're done but but don't think that the world rests on on the feedback that you're going to get in the legislature. People don't want to see Nahid Linchi standing up strong in the legislature. People want to see Nahid Linchi in their communities standing up for teachers. But to
Zain
18:55
to be clear, though, you mean exclusively not in the legislature. Not in the—I want to make sure I honestly interpret what you're saying. I
Carter
19:02
I just don't—I just want everybody to be—I feel like the NDP have fallen into the trap all too often of saying that everything exists in the legislature if something happens in the legislature then people pay attention to it and i would argue that just because it happens in the legislature does not mean that people are paying attention to it this is not going to be a legislature
Carter
19:26
focused exercise it is going to be a focused exercise with people learning about it from their social networks where you know the t i want people when they go back to school on tuesday Wednesday, Thursday, whatever it is, when they're gathered in the playground to pick up their kids, I want them saying how shitty it is that this has happened, not how lucky they are that the government has put these kids back to school. That's
Zain
19:54
That's your goal. That's the sort of key messaging that you want proliferated on the streets. I've got a question for each of you, and then you can dabble in each other's questions. But for you, Shannon, is there a way for the NDP to extend this beyond, as we estimate, 9 p.m. tonight? Is there an equivalent of an American-style filibuster, speeches all night? Do any of those mechanisms exist as our resident former MLA? What do you know of and how do you interpret
Shannon
20:24
No, they can't, because what they did is they put on the order paper that the government, whenever they want, can limit debate at every stage to one hour.
Shannon
20:32
So that, too, is fairly unprecedented, although nobody has taken to the streets, to Carter's point, in righteous
Shannon
20:38
righteous indignation about government's use of time allocation and bill debate. it uh
Shannon
20:42
uh but this government's become uh
Shannon
20:44
uh has gotten awfully used to it it never used to really happen you know Klein I think used it on bill 11 uh and a couple of other bills uh back in the day and and it it was not something that was generally done uh starting with after um the first session for Kenny they started using it all the time because they didn't understand the rules as well as we did uh
Shannon
21:05
uh and in their first session they
Shannon
21:07
to sit through us giving long uh
Shannon
21:09
uh we made them sit it for you know 30 hours or something around bill hate that was the gsa thing and um taking away of i made that up so i just put it was really nice and
Shannon
21:19
and um um uh taking away people's right to uh banked overtime and and oh and the kids minimum wage the under uh under 18 minimum
Shannon
21:32
um so we we forced them to eat shit on that for a day and a half they didn't like it so now they just bring in time allocation all the time. So, no, it turns out it matters who you elect, and they can use their majority for all kinds of ridiculous undemocratic purposes.
Zain
21:49
So, to be clear, Nahid Nenshu will have clippable moments tonight, but he will not have an extended overnight sort of thing, as we have seen in other cases, or as we've seen late nights sort of. This will not be one of those moments, at least from how we see the confines of this are protected. Carter, my question for you is
Zain
22:06
is that Nahid Nenshi was not in the legislature up until, well, today when he is in the legislature. Is this one of those moments that when you look at it, would
Zain
22:18
would you have wanted Nahid Nenshi out of the legislature today? Given your strategy, your particular strategy, which is about lose fast, would you have wanted him outside somewhere doing something else? Or is it actually the most advantageous thing that Nye Nenshi is indeed on day one in the legislature, day one for him, I should say, in the legislature today as the official leader of the opposition? When
Carter
22:39
When he's outside the legislature talking about this, he needs to be in a position to say, I was there. I watched her do it. She did a bad thing.
Zain
22:46
Right. So even bearing witness today is helpful for him to be in there. bearing
Carter
22:50
bearing witness but keep in mind this is not going to boil down to procedure right
Carter
22:54
right and this is my fear right and this may be where shannon and i differ maybe we're not uh but bottom line my fear is that people are you know that we're going to try and make this a process problem and people are instead going to say my kids are back in school problem right like my kids are in school ergo it is good um for
Carter
23:14
for you know and the ndp are fighting to keep my kids out of school so i am not happy with that right the ndp need to be able to thread the needle where they're able to say that the process and the not you know the notwithstanding clause are trampling on on our on albertan's human rights and
Carter
23:29
and but at the same time we want kids back in school but we want kids back in school under the right circumstances and this is the wrong circumstances um you just have to be very careful because i think that the large a large majority of people while they do support the teachers will support having their kids back in school shannon
Zain
23:48
shannon let's talk about the ndp outside strategy carter's talked about it network effect get out into networks he actually even said he's planted a flag on a goal that whenever they're back wednesday thursday that it should be about you know look what that fucking government did not i'm so glad my kids are back okay i want to get you your comment on that i
Zain
24:05
i also want to get your comment on does the ndp's focus here stick solidly a hundred let's just use let's just give it ratios a hundred percent in the teacher's bucket or
Zain
24:16
or do they devote any of that energy resource time allocation to the notwithstanding clause overreach of rights bucket which is much larger much broader might have different access points for people that might not be in
Zain
24:28
in the teacher camp so to speak so i'm kind of curious to get your take on both do you agree with carter sort of planting the flag of in the next couple of days it needs to be about you know people in the parking lot blaming the government And then are you deviating any resources to the notwithstanding unprecedented nature bucket of messaging?
Shannon
24:45
No, the media. Well, on the latter question, the media will do that for you. They will go around saying unprecedented a million different times. You don't need to. You need to focus on what are the kids going back to? they're
Shannon
24:54
they're going back to the status quo and the status quo sucked and is the status quo is the reason why parents were on to on the teacher's side in a to use an overbroad word unprecedented way in a albertans taking a pro-labor uh sort of public opinion orientation so i think um you
Shannon
25:13
don't need to be explaining the constitution it's boring carter told me that and he's right Right. There's no question that people don't like the classroom composition, the class sizes, all of those things. Parents are keenly aware of them. So continuing to talk about that.
Shannon
25:34
And, you know, the government took steps so they would never have to be accountable for that. They would never have to fix it. And none of that's going to change unless you boot these guys out.
Shannon
25:43
That's got to be the way that this is communicated. As for the NDP, I mean, obviously they have this session and, in fact, this couple of days to
Shannon
25:56
to be looking like they're fighting the
Shannon
25:57
the UCP in there. And that is fine. That is their job. That's what we pay them for is to sit in the big green chairs on the green carpet and,
Shannon
26:05
and, you know, stand up, sit down at the appropriate time and cast votes. That's what they got elected to do. So that's what they will do. There are opportunities, is all I'm saying, to, you know, effectively communicate to the public that you are a fighter. I give you Pierre Polyever. If you doubt me, it's not an ideological thing. He used the house to great effect. You can use the house, right?
Shannon
26:26
right? People who run around saying, oh, the house doesn't matter. The house doesn't matter. It does matter, or it can. And so I don't think, I hear a lot of political practitioners often say that stuff. And I just go like, okay, yeah, Pierre Polyever totally sucked. uh and he absolutely did not you know um essentially run himself into a a 20 point lead until he wasn't uh but he used the house for a lot of that but he
Carter
26:52
also used videos for all for a lot well that's the thing he also used the ability to communicate outside
Shannon
26:59
a hundred percent he used it all he did it all in
Zain
27:03
so this is interesting i i'm i agree with both of you i'm kind of merged these points how did the ndp showcase undeniable
Zain
27:10
undeniable dedication, enthusiasm, work ethic on this file outside of the House. It's done tonight at 9.
Zain
27:19
And I'm speaking both strategically and tactically here, so go wherever you'd like. But how do they show that level of dedication that turns oppositions into governments or gives oppositions like this one a chance to be government? Because there is obviously a political basis here in terms of their reality. Carter, any ideas that you may have in terms of how they showcase that dedication? And we've seen things in the past. Let me throw things out right in the in the United States. They've done live streams of the Democratic sort of establishment, you know, staying up all night and, you know, you know, doing midnight sort of things. I think the NDP has even done versions of that here. But I'm kind of trying to get into how do they tap into that level of dedication, enthusiasm, commitment, like we are the ones leading this parade sort of thing.
Carter
28:01
Well, number one, the number one thing is to make sure that there is no competing communications issues. This is one of the things that we've taken the NDP to task for on a number of times. They have a singular
Carter
28:13
singular point of contact. This is another thing that Pierre Pelletier does very, very well, is he has a singular point of singular vision, and he's going to go after that one point until that one talking point is done. And this talking point is the teacher strike. It has to be the single thing that they're talking about from now until such time as it's resolved in some sort of equitable fashion or until such time as they've lost. And they could very well lose the battle here. But right now, they're not losing the battle. General population thinks that this may be the wrong thing. They have to come out and show people why it's the wrong thing. And they have to have their singular talking point. This is what it's about. every single mla i don't care if you're the the the critic for whatever um
Carter
28:58
um you're a critic for health care uh i mean i'm seeing headlines today about health care interesting
Carter
29:05
interesting the health care system may shut down oh that's fascinating it's
Carter
29:10
it's a later thing it's not a now thing the now thing is that we are focused on the teacher strike we are focused on bringing that out singular focus shannon
Zain
29:20
shannon any any any final thoughts here because then i want to go to unions and i I want to split that in two. I want to talk about the union, ATA, and I want to talk about the union and labor movement. So any final thoughts on the NDP inside or outside strategy?
Shannon
29:32
No, I mean, I think watching the caucus materials, they've all been doing exactly what they need to be doing. They've all been on message. They've been attending things.
Shannon
29:42
things. They've been talking to teachers. They've been highlighting their constituency work. They've been highlighting constituency teachers. That's their rock and roll duty. They've all been doing it.
Shannon
29:51
The only note I'd give is just give me more. Give me more different types of content. Let me see maybe some paid content. I think now is the time for that sort of thing.
Zain
30:01
Let's talk about the ATA. Can we start there? So any teacher that does take the labor action, including work to rule during the time, could be fined up to $500 a day with the organizations facing a half a million dollar a day fines if they do so. Carter, can
Zain
30:18
can I start with you on this? Sure, sure.
Zain
30:21
the only choice here for the ATA to call their bluff or do they have to send teachers back to work? I
Zain
30:26
I think they have to send
Carter
30:27
send teachers back to work. I think that there's a consequence to not. There's other things that can be done, work to rule structure. There can be time in classroom. There can be all kinds of different things that they choose to do. They can slow things down. They don't have to approach the workday. I would imagine school school sports are going to be off the table. I would imagine a number of clubs are going to be off the table. This is not going to be the scholastic experience that children have come to expect. To
Zain
30:58
To be clear though, Carter, this says any labor actions, including work to rule, will be issued that 500 and a half a million.
Carter
31:06
Got to try that.
Carter
31:10
Even defining what a work to rule looks like.
Carter
31:15
I think you got to take that type of thing. You can't continue the strike. The
Carter
31:19
The strike is a half million dollars a day plus $500 per teacher or whatever the numbers are that they're creating, pulling out of their asses here, the provincial government. Yes.
Carter
31:30
I don't think you can continue the strike as is. I do think that we can see, uh,
Carter
31:36
ATA call on their, their ideology,
Carter
31:39
ideology, you know, the other unions, which I know is coming in a separate question. Yeah. So I'll leave that for now, but I think you have to go back to work. Uh, I don't see any model whereby not going back to work is, uh,
Carter
31:52
in the best interest of teachers.
Zain
31:54
Shannon, this is poor hosting on my part. Can you help? I should have gone to you first with helping us define work to rule. Can you help us understand what work to rule is in its broadest sense? I know Carter's talking about this application here. What is work to rule? And then the same question to you.
Zain
32:09
Does the ATA call the bluff of the government or do they have to encourage teachers to go back?
Shannon
32:16
uh so we're to rule in this context like uh essentially well in all contexts it means only what's uh the actual what's laid down in the collective agreement that you will do right
Shannon
32:26
the kids and i were talking about this and they were rattling off all the things their teachers do would this
Carter
32:30
this be in would this be out
Shannon
32:31
out and my answer to them was i don't know it i don't know because i don't know what's in their their uh collective agreement right because the kids were like oh does that mean putting grades in power school so that you can read them does it mean sending out the weekly you know email and this quiz is coming up i don't know but those are examples of
Shannon
32:50
in addition to any of the you know lunchtime supervision like some of those other things
Carter
32:55
all kinds of stuff
Shannon
32:56
stuff all kinds of stuff um yeah clubs sports but but even before you get to clubs and sports uh there's you know just other things that teachers do like sending sending me a weekly email that may or may not be happening anymore. Really, that do affect kids' learning experience. There's
Shannon
33:18
no question about it. There's a reason why teachers do these things, because they help kids learn. And
Carter
33:23
And parental experience within the education system.
Carter
33:27
The parents are as much participants as the students in some regards, right? Right.
Carter
33:33
So parental experience is going to fundamentally
Carter
33:36
fundamentally change, in my opinion, at this stage, whether that's work to rule or not. I'll let the courts decide. But if I was working with the ATA right now, I'd be saying we're going to be doing the
Carter
33:46
the relationship between teachers and parents is foundationally going to shift.
Zain
33:51
What do you think the ATA should do, Shannon? Should they encourage teachers to go back or call the bluff? Stay home. Don't go back. We're all out.
Shannon
34:00
How much money you got? Yeah. Well,
Zain
34:03
where actually the ATA financials might be worthy of digging into. And I'm saying only quasi-facetiously because we've talked about the Chen and Yunai, about their advertising and that pipeline and what this money is for in some cases. There
Zain
34:17
There is money. There is millions in the bank. So I'm going to just throw that out there from what we understand and what we know. Not
Carter
34:24
Not so much money that the teachers got strike pay.
Zain
34:27
It's true. Not so much money that the teachers got strike pay. But the question is, what is their move here? This whole sort of frame is response. Going
Zain
34:35
Going back is the move
Zain
34:37
move that's been mandated to you.
Zain
34:40
But at the same time, do they also have to, and I'm kind of adding a secondary question on here, Shannon,
Zain
34:46
if they give in, is it kind of over for every other union here in some ways, which kind of leads into the bleeding question of the other unions? So in some ways, their decision is not just for them.
Zain
34:56
It's obviously for their kids and for their students, But it's also for the movement in some ways. Are they wearing that burden or can they take
Zain
35:03
take that off their shoulders and say, we're looking after ourselves here? How do you think about this if you're in the movement right now?
Shannon
35:10
It certainly is. And it's not just for Alberta. Doug Ford backed down and now folks are saying, oh, you can just do this. Well, that will open up a whole permission structure for labor relations in every province in the country that feels inconvenienced about bargaining.
Shannon
35:28
for sure. I mean, but talk about rock and a hard place. We're talking millions and millions of dollars a day and potential jail time.
Shannon
35:35
Now, is there money? Probably. They've got a building, so they've got money.
Shannon
35:40
And, you know, they've always been a well-resourced organization. But wasting millions, tens of millions of dollars on fines, just to make a point, that's a that's a pretty tough one when there might be other options for them they can uh uh you know litigate on what is uh work to rule and what's not and make things pretty uncomfortable they can work with other unions they can um they
Shannon
36:11
they do have some ability to you know mobilize and make the
Shannon
36:16
the shoes pinch for the government um but those are fairly far off now
Shannon
36:22
So, the choices are not great choices, and it's designed when government interferes in free and fair collective bargaining to redound to the benefit of the employer.
Shannon
36:33
That is why we don't allow it, because in order to have workers anywhere near the same playing field as employers, you have to make sure that there's not somebody behind the employer with a hammer.
Zain
36:50
broader labor movement, the term general strike has been thrown around.
Carter
36:56
Yeah, it's not going to
Zain
36:56
to be a general
Zain
36:58
Explain to me what a general strike is in this case. I don't know if we necessarily need to go further beyond then suggesting that this would be all public sector folks taking on strike positions.
Carter
37:06
positions. The idea is that everybody who has a contract with the provincial government would be walking out in solidarity. I don't believe that that would generate positive outcome for the unions. And I think that it would be deemed illegal relatively quickly. It might work for a day, but it's not going to work for a week. So, you know, the problem that Shannon has described with the hammers on one side and not on the other, that certainly is, I think, part of the problem in this particular case. Could there
Zain
37:40
be an outcome, Carter, where it's not just money that's being wasted, but on the back end, when you have other unions in a potential strike position, if
Zain
37:51
if you get it together and
Zain
37:53
and you all wage public campaigns, that you come out of this better?
Zain
37:58
Not just trying to like, you know, you come out of this actually better. Correct
Carter
38:02
Correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, this was kind of, I think people were thinking that the nurses and the teachers could be facing the same labor action at the same time. Right.
Zain
38:10
one other one, I think paramedics may have been thrown into there, but don't quote me on that. I'm just going to go with
Carter
38:14
with nurses and teachers
Carter
38:16
teachers because those are the two that I can recall off the top of my head. You know, and when the nurses signed, I think it was a big victory for the government. Because imagine a situation where the nurses and the teachers were on strike simultaneously. Yeah.
Carter
38:30
Your healthcare and education systems are shut down. Now, in
Carter
38:36
in a wildcat general strike, this
Carter
38:40
this could be catastrophic
Carter
38:42
catastrophic for the government. I just don't see how that happens in
Carter
38:47
in this province. I think what we would see is smaller actions that happen from time to time. And those smaller actions happening from time to time will be noticeable,
Carter
38:58
noticeable, but not so broad that the
Carter
39:03
the government and labor relations boards needs to bring down significant hammers.
Zain
39:10
the small actions that Carter mentioned seem logical. They seem like they're incremental steps. Are we out of the era of small incremental steps? And I don't mean to insult Carter's strategy here, but in some ways, there is a case that one could make that
Zain
39:26
that if the teachers go back, that we enter a very dark period of what bargaining rights means in Alberta, period. In Canada. And you extended the frame, and I apologize. I agree with you, to the entire country. So we look back then, five years later, ten years later, and we're like, fuck, I wish we hadn't done those incremental things. things, that those incremental things didn't actually stand up to anything, that it didn't create the shock in the system that we needed to. And
Zain
39:55
And I am disagreeing with Carter's sort of approach here, but I'm not trying to push it on you. But I am trying to get your sense of it into sense of a general strike. Your thoughts on it?
Shannon
40:05
Well, I mean, if you think that it's going to cost millions and millions of dollars and invoke potential jail time for the ATA with a bunch of affected members and the majority of their membership behind them and you still think that's too difficult try it on a bunch of members who have just gotten a collective agreement or are in active bargaining uh that is to say the hsa um because una settled but hsa is still in bargaining thanks
Shannon
40:32
thanks for the info yep
Shannon
40:33
you know like they're not going to be doing that uh and so they're just And even AUPE that has new leadership as of last week, I
Shannon
40:45
I don't think they're going to be, that the new president of AUPE is going to be starting off her tenure with facing millions of dollars of fines and going to jail.
Shannon
40:55
It just is, and they have, at
Shannon
40:58
at least with the public sector side in AUPE, they have an agreement in place. So,
Shannon
41:03
So, I mean, talk of general strike feels like it's, to me, it's felt like it's been thrown around a little bit without understanding what bargaining is and what unions are there to do and how the labor code works.
Shannon
41:16
There may be some province-wide actions taken, maybe even that might incur fines for some of the unions. That may happen. But is it going to be long and sustained? The penalties for doing so are severe.
Shannon
41:36
And the reason for those penalties is that we are supposed, the trade-off for workers is they're supposed to have bargaining and good faith on the other side, again, with
Shannon
41:45
with balancing the teeter-totter in labor relations. mobilizations and so um
Shannon
41:51
i don't hold out a huge amount of hope i think they're going to have to do public mobilization that
Shannon
41:57
that leaves us with public mobilization what
Zain
41:59
what does public mobilization need to look like i i had the opportunity to see that 30 000 teachers all wearing red outside of the day of the throne speech which was a sight to behold carter
Zain
42:10
carter are you saying more of that are you saying Are you saying bigger than that? Are you saying more diverse than that? What does public mobilization in this moment with these potential downstream impacts, not just to the labor movement, but we haven't talked much about the notwithstanding clause and what it means to rights overall, let
Zain
42:31
let alone what it means to trans rights in a number of days with the potential being invoked again.
Zain
42:37
What does public mobilization need to look like here? What does allyship need to look like here? I
Carter
42:42
don't think it can just be we protest in front of the legislature. We go to this, you know, we go to McDougal. I don't think it can just be that. I think it needs to be, you know, 50 teachers standing outside the elementary school at pickup and drop off times talking to parents. I think it needs to be one-to-one communications where the individual teachers are given talking points that they are going to be delivering to the general population. Yes, we are back to work. No, we are not happy. The
Carter
43:12
The conditions here are not satisfactory for your child. That has to be expressed directly to the parent so that the parent understands it. so that they're not just talking about how great it is that their kids are back to school on Tuesday or Wednesday or whatever day. I think that that's what, when we're talking about public mobilization, we are actually talking about parental mobilization. Don't worry too much about the public. The public will follow the parents. The parents are the most influential generation, right? Because they move up, down, sideways. You know, Shannon's far more influential than I am because she's got kids and social networks in school, right? And that social network that revolves around school is probably one of the strongest social networks that exists. And the teachers need to activate it. What I would say, the
Carter
44:06
the very first thing we're going to do is that no one goes into the school until such time as the first buzzer rings and they're standing out talking to parents as they're doing drop-offs and pickups.
Carter
44:18
That would be the first thing I would say. That's our first mobilization. And we do the exact same thing. The last buzzer of the day goes, teachers walk with the students and they go straight outside and they wait for the parents to arrive for pickup and drop off. Because all too often, I don't, you know, elementary
Carter
44:33
elementary schools, you know, how many people stand around the park having a conversation when they're picking up their kids. Absolutely. And it is the most powerful social network that exists. And there's never any teachers there.
Carter
44:46
The teachers don't go there because the teachers are wrapping up their day. If you put three teachers in that conversation, it foundationally changes the outcome of this mobilization, to use your word, Zane, that needs to occur. So that would be my talking
Carter
45:04
talking point. And if teachers don't want to do it, then
Carter
45:07
then they're missing out on their only real chance to change the outcome of this. Because my great fear is, if you don't talk to the parents, if you're not mobilizing the parents, you're going to get steamrolled by, thank God my kid's back in school.
Zain
45:22
Shannon, I have your say in here. What does mobilization need to look like? And we're now venturing into the civil society conversation too, right? So we talked about in the sense of the broader public here, because I think that's where mobilization comes in, unless you two have a different approach for the civil society aspect or supplemental approach, and we can definitely talk about that. But your take on what mobilization needs to look and arguably more importantly feel
Zain
45:47
over the course of the next number of days and weeks as a response to this invocation.
Shannon
45:55
I think from the NDP, the broader labor movement, the teachers, everybody involved, it needs to be out in the space of communicating. Everybody needs to be doing paid. I want to see so much paid that I'm starting to get sick of it. Like, I want to see it a level of saturation like the government tried to do when they wanted to take
Shannon
46:16
take away our CPP, right, on every available channel. We know that costs them, I don't know, $7 million or so.
Shannon
46:22
Between all of those organizations, there is an ability to absolutely saturate the province in every corner. And I would like to see that happen. happen. What Carter has described is a peer-to-peer, you know, sort of communication strategy that is brilliant and should absolutely happen. You know where it should happen the most and the teachers that should be the most supported to do it are in the Edmonton Donut ridings and in five or six ridings in Calgary.
Shannon
46:52
And parents there should be then mobilized and And pushed by teachers and pushed by, you know, by, well, I mean, push themselves, whatever. But there should be specific focus on those seats. And I think we all know why. Because that's the path to power for the New Democrat. And
Shannon
47:10
those are the seats where most, like, you're most likely to get UCP MLAs who are actually have any clue what time it is.
Zain
47:21
the the question i have regarding parents i'm
Zain
47:26
i'm curious if parents play a very distinct role carter was talking about the role teachers play to parents if parents want to let's say make
Zain
47:36
a protest mark of their own withholding their child from school something like that i'm just thinking out loud here right just as we try to absorb it what unique role can parents play here both symbolically but
Zain
47:48
but also like strategically in a sense can they band together is there something is there an avenue for them because i i'm i'm wondering if there is they have not necessarily been organized in that same way as obviously the political party or a labor movement have either of you want to take a shot at parents and their unique sort of role in organizing them into structures carter from a campaign perspective yeah
Carter
48:13
yeah i mean i just think that the uh the only thing to do would be to focus on calling your MLA. I mean, I don't
Carter
48:24
don't think it's reasonable to ask parents to keep their kids home. I don't think it's reasonable to say we're going to educate the kids at home. I don't think it's reasonable. I think that the reasonable elements of I will support you when band is canceled, I think they're prepared to do that. I think that parents are are prepared to pick up their kids a little bit earlier uh instead of having a volleyball practice but i'm not sure that parents want to participate in anything
Carter
48:54
anything larger than that because ultimately the schooling is required this
Carter
48:59
this is why i'm so fearful if
Carter
49:01
if parent because parents very easily can fall into the thank god we're back camp that's
Carter
49:07
that's why we need to see that one-to-one communication now and i think that the the drive should be pick
Carter
49:14
pick up the phone and call the mlas because the mlas are ridiculously sensitive to this kind of shit um
Carter
49:23
they don't get 150 phone calls a day if
Carter
49:26
if they got 150 phone calls a day they'd shit their pants so
Carter
49:30
so start doing that start giving giving them a reason to shit their pants um and you
Carter
49:37
you know i i take a small difference with shannon with i appreciate the donut i appreciate the five or six ridings in calgary but i think this can have just as much impact in rural alberta as it has in urban cal you know calgary and and suburban uh edmonton i think that this can have tremendous impact on mlas that have never fucking had had any impact before they they just generally don't have to sweat any decision that this government is making if they if we finally we have to put so much pressure on this government that it is in con it is inconvenient
Carter
50:18
inconvenient to the extreme to be doing this type of action right
Carter
50:22
right now it is just not hmm
Zain
50:25
i want to i want to kind of close off talking about two groups Actually, one is not even a group. One's the country. And I'll talk about that second. But I want to talk about a group that will probably get, unfortunately, Carter, overlooked, but will still be married to the Notwithstanding Clause, which is the trans rights organizations. organizations. And I'll assess, I'm helping Skipping Stone, a Calgary-based trans rights group, or assisting individuals with programs and services and advocacy. But Carter, how does the allyship work here? This is a notwithstanding clause that is unprecedented, that admits that what we are suggesting would not stand up to the courts, potentially being used back-to-back. All focus of the NDP, as you guys have both discussed, should be on the teachers. teachers, what happens to trans kids here? How do they get protected in this broader sort of fight that we're having? And I want to talk to you both about messaging before I leave as well. But Carter, your take on this small group, for sure, but vulnerable and often overlooked, and seems to be the case yet again with our political dynamics in this situation. Yeah,
Carter
51:31
Yeah, I mean, I've got a ton of empathy and challenges. I mean, I mean, a small
Carter
51:38
small group like the trans children and trans community in general has been easy to target with the notwithstanding, because ultimately, you know, they didn't come after me, right? The old adage, it wasn't me, I wasn't impacted. Yes.
Zain
51:57
Yes. And also, and to be just to add on top of that, a group that other minority groups are okay picking on a broader divide and conquer strategy. And I speak of my broader Muslim community in which the transphobia is at extremely high levels. But frankly, it's a divide and conquer strategy to have one minority group pick on another so that you can go back and forth. And the main sort of instigator of this in this case, the government can kind of do their thing. So I want to just frankly acknowledge that brutal political reality as well. The
Carter
52:28
The best case scenario for the trans organizations is that the notwithstanding clause returned to its place of this is a bad thing to do.
Carter
52:37
If we can societally make the notwithstanding clause untenable, then
Carter
52:44
great news for trans groups. my fear and i and i i retain this positioning and i've repeated it i think three or four times people are going to see the ends and they're going to say that the means were justified right
Carter
53:00
ends justify the means it's going to be the outcome that they they the the ucp is counting on and then
Carter
53:08
then they'll be able to then the notwithstanding clause isn't this great big horrible piece of legislation um but hopefully i'm wrong hopefully i'm wrong shannon
Zain
53:18
shannon what do you think here for for the notwithstanding clause 2.0 potentially coming later this week early next week uh being applied to trans groups trans individuals uh
Shannon
53:28
uh i i think that on this one uh we already have uh there's a reference case before the supreme court around uh what are the parameters of judicial review when i when a government uses the notwithstanding clause that's happening in the in the context of quebec's bill 21 um
Shannon
53:44
um and to my mind a lot of what if alberta does it um a lot of the pushback should come via the courts um because they are such a small a group of folks i mean you're going to get broader mobilizations during pride and other moments where civil society uh comes together but really um
Shannon
54:06
um like with same-sex marriage 20 plus years ago uh
Carter
54:09
uh the victories came through the courts now
Shannon
54:12
now it's not just uh like on these three pieces of legislation i think the one that is probably the most likely uh to have some variance is the one that gets between parents and kids and medical decisions and has the state insert itself uh between sorry uh between uh parents and doctors uh and it essentially uh
Shannon
54:34
uh takes away the right of parents to choose certain avenues of medical treatment for their kids. That is certainly,
Shannon
54:42
certainly, I mean, obviously, it impacts our fundamental freedoms, but it also affects parental responsibility. And that might be the one where there's enough wiggle room to
Shannon
54:55
to find a way for the the courts to be able to apply judicial review and reconsider this one.
Shannon
55:05
I do think that resources should be, obviously
Shannon
55:09
obviously people should give generously to those legal pushbacks because that's ultimately where the pushback will come. There's not a lot that can be done in the context of a legislature once again, if this gets run through.
Zain
55:27
talk to me about messaging before I talk about the pressure that the rest of the country can provide to Alberta, if any.
Zain
55:34
The message for the NDP is squarely focused on teachers, both agreed. Message for the ATA has to be focused on teachers. Where does the union messaging, if I'm kind of using the pie being 100%, focus between teachers and the unprecedented nature of the notwithstanding clause? And then what is the broader sort of civil society sprinkling need to look like in terms of teachers versus unprecedented nature of something that that fundamentally acknowledges that our rights are being taken away?
Carter
56:02
Oh, boy. You know, I'm
Carter
56:05
I'm not even sure I know, Zane. I
Zain
56:08
how do you think it will shape out? Even if you don't know, even if you're not like waving a magic wand and saying this is what Alberta needs to look like next week in terms of the response. how do you think it will shake out in the sense because i'm curious about this myself the clause is hard to explain but once you understand it you understand how crazy its application in a case like this is it's like as soon as people get it like what the fuck and it's exactly that's that's my interpretation that's how i feel about it when you when you understand it so i'm curious how you think even if you don't get to wave the wand carter how you think it shakes out between this being absolutely about teachers versus this being about something more than teachers you
Carter
56:45
you know what what i think honestly honest
Carter
56:47
honest to god i think that the government's going to win this i
Carter
56:50
think that at the end of the day that the unions and the um the this is this the civil society the the progressive side um isn't going to be able to put together an argument that defeats the ends justify the means um and and that the message that we're talking about in a week is going to be the ends justified the means and that's
Carter
57:14
that's going to uh
Carter
57:16
uh be what parents glom onto i don't care my kid went back to school and i think that we'll see um the
Carter
57:26
the you know the unions have a harder time explaining why the notwithstanding clause is bad than
Carter
57:34
than the government has a
Carter
57:36
a time explaining that getting kids back in school is good.
Zain
57:40
Shannon, what does the message need to look like or what do you think it will look like broader than the NDP focused on teachers, the ETA focused on teachers?
Shannon
57:49
The through line here is that you don't have any power because Daniel Smith took it away from you. You
Shannon
57:55
You have a shitty education system that you want to speak out about as a parent. Nobody cares what you think because uh daniel smith will decide uh you have a a health care system that is busting apart at the seams even though you think uh you uh public that it is your number one uh political concern as per every uh public opinion survey doesn't matter she doesn't care what you think you're
Shannon
58:18
you're not going to get what uh speaking up doesn't matter uh you know asking for your individual liberty doesn't matter in the case of use of notwithstanding clause for trans people None of those things matter because Danielle Smith will decide, because
Shannon
58:32
because she's decided to take up that power for herself, for her own ends, and to push forward with her priorities rather than yours. You
Shannon
58:41
You don't matter to her. And I think ultimately it's a broader values question. And the things that you want to live in a good society are not going to be things that you get from this government. it
Shannon
58:55
uh and ultimately that's what they got to be the through line for everybody uh in the in the next week or so i hope uh that i see all channels um that kids are going back to overcrowded classrooms that are uh far too complex for anybody to get a good education you're
Zain
59:14
you're you're you're shaking your head carter you disagree with the strategy or you disagree that that's going to be be the reality i'm
Carter
59:21
i'm just i i want to live in shannon's world shannon's world sounds like it's a great place i'm
Shannon
59:27
i'm trying to be as optimistic as i i can i'm usually the person who like rains the poor cold water on leftist dreams but here i am trying let
Zain
59:36
let me end with this shannon i'll start with you any value or do you think any impact maybe that i'll put it that way that external pressures outside of the four walls of our province could have on alberta whether that that be teachers from across the country whether that be other provincial governments whether that be the feds whether that be media whether they etc etc etc you get the point mass
Zain
59:56
mass protests elsewhere do you feel like any of that could have an impact here yes or no carter final question to you right after shannon not
Carter
1:00:07
no i don't i i totally agree i think that the problem is that albertans feel like they're uh we're a unique species um and the rest of the country doesn't matter uh what they think uh and fuck them if they think so except
Carter
1:00:21
except maybe saskatchewan carter
Zain
1:00:23
carter i'll end with one final follow-up for you you are the one who who admittedly voluntarily said that you think the government's going to win this what can they do i'll give you a one week timeline to fuck this up for themselves in a week if you feel like they are going to be the victors in these raw political terms that we often talk about on this show then
Zain
1:00:42
then what can they do to themselves or to others to fuck up a victory on their part carter allow
Carter
1:00:48
allow anybody but the premier to speak to this
Carter
1:00:51
whereas i when i when i talk about getting the entire ndp talking about uh the same talking points i want everybody talking about it when i'm talking about the ucp the best communicator they have on their bench is danielle smith if she's the one out there in the front talking about this she will make parents believe that this is in their best interest we're
Zain
1:01:13
we're gonna leave it there What a, yeah,
Zain
1:01:15
yeah, what a truth bomb of an episode. As we just start rolling, the entire thing changes, and I'm sure we're going to revisit it. We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1889 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Shannon Phillips, Stephen Carter, and we shall see you next time.
Zain
1:01:33
Okay, Carter, we got more information, so we're back. We have to come back. Yeah, we're back. We have to come back. Because we, it's cool. We're
Carter
1:01:38
We're letting information change our discussion points. You know what? This is so off-brand.
Zain
1:01:44
This is off-brand because information should not – you're going to double down. This might be the rare time you don't double down. I'm actually curious to see what you're saying because this is kind of unrelated information. But we've just learned that the premier is leaving for Dubai today. So, like, this – so just to be able – today is Monday, October 27th. The bill is billed to, not with standing clause, invoked, teachers back to work. Daniel Smith is getting on a plane and saying, fuck you to Alberta, going to another oil-rich destination, which we can talk about in its own course. But Carter, the reason I wanted to come back is this kind of interrupts the Stephen Carter model of things, doesn't it? In terms of what the last thing we talked about was the government was headed to a W.
Carter
1:02:25
The only thing that could fuck this up is if Daniel Smith's not here to message it, and she's not going to be here to message it. And the clown car that is the UCP caucus being left alone without adult supervision to try and communicate this. Oh my gosh,
Zain
1:02:40
Daniel Smith's the adult in this situation, Carter? Really? Listen,
Carter
1:02:43
Listen, Daniel Smith is a spectacular communicator. We can find
Carter
1:02:46
find fault in what she communicates all day long, but she communicates things clearly and in ways that I mean, her whole, you know, know i just take the number of students and divide by the number of teachers and you know
Carter
1:03:01
fuck you danielle but that is the simplistic shit that people buy into and without danielle smith around i don't think that the the rest of the caucus the clown car that is her cabinet uh is necessarily going to be able to to carry this in the same way that because they're not going to have the the tools of danielle smith are
Zain
1:03:19
are you taking away the w from the government here is I'm now
Carter
1:03:22
now saying it could end in a draw. Oh, interesting. Shannon,
Zain
1:03:26
may have felt differently in trying the inevitable government win that Carter has suggested, but is this a big deal that she's leaving on the heels of this?
Shannon
1:03:35
Holy hell, is it ever.
Shannon
1:03:37
This is a massive deal. She is going to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to go live. Oh, Saudi as well.
Shannon
1:03:44
She's going to go meet with a bunch of people who invest in sovereign wealth funds, you know probably the same people who gave jared kushner two billion dollars for looking the other way on uh kashogi um
Shannon
1:03:53
um no like look this is disgusting so she can go like hang out in the sultan's palace but meanwhile the rest of us uh are stuck here with 40 kids in a classroom it's ridiculous uh and uh it's it's a beautiful uh opportunity for uh you know the exact message that i was talking about uh
Shannon
1:04:12
you don't get good health care at education uh danielle smith gets whatever she wants uh and in this case uh she you know she gets to go uh uh hang out in the you know with the glitziest richest people in the world uh and talk about you know oil company investments and all the rest of it it is ridiculous her primary job is to be here managing a health care and education system uh and she's not doing it um and there is no doubt in my mind uh that a a good case for like redford on steroids a level scandal that could be made here well
Zain
1:04:47
well let me let me ask you this then because this also goes back to another sort of theory and i think this is both of your sort of models of response here for the ndp should
Zain
1:04:55
should they be paying any attention to her leaving because this then distracts from teachers right if the hundred percent of the pie is teachers does any of it come back to daniel smith leaving and the saudi and the uae stuff carter or are you Are you just laser focused on what's happening here? Or can you make
Carter
1:05:11
make this one and the same? Daniel Smith doesn't care about teachers so much that she fucked off to Dubai.
Carter
1:05:17
More to the point, she doesn't care about your kids so much that she fucked off to Dubai. She fucked off to Dubai. She fucked off to Saudi Arabia. She's taking a two-week vacation in the desert so that she doesn't have to deal with your kids. she's doing this on purpose because she doesn't want to be the one held holding the notwithstanding fucking pile of shit this is why she's going notwithstanding
Zain
1:05:41
notwithstanding of course is also the name of her one woman play at the riyadh comedy festival uh
Zain
1:05:46
uh which is part of the holdovers that she's yes yeah that's good do we have anything more to say yeah you're welcome do we have anything more to say here because this is this this changes some things it doesn't change others i don't want to keep you guys too long we'll revisit this i think
Shannon
1:05:59
think we just recorded this segment so that you could have that Riyadh comedy oh
Zain
1:06:03
oh yeah that's right that's right that's right I didn't get anything good in yeah you're welcome you're welcome we're good we're wrapping again Stephen Carter Shannon Phillips we will see you next time