Transcript
SPEAKER_00
0:01
This episode of The Strategist is brought to you by Stay Free Alberta. Stay Free Alberta is tested to absorb even the toughest independence feelings, like separatist tears. Visit
Zain
0:19
This is The Strategist, episode 1902. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Shannon Phillips. Hello, friends.
Carter
0:26
Good morning, Zain. Thanks for
Carter
0:28
for having us in the morning. Oh,
Zain
0:30
Oh, my goodness. I would have it no other way, Stephen Carter. Yeah.
Carter
0:34
Yeah. I haven't had even a sip of my coffee yet.
Carter
0:39
so early in the morning.
Carter
0:40
Shannon, are you... Carter's going to get revved up over the course of the next hour. Yeah, I'm hoping so, because this is going to be really low energy otherwise. I
Zain
0:47
I think we can bring something to the table that will give you something to talk about and really
Zain
0:52
really pump the energy through you, Carter. Shannon, did you actually get and follow the memo by bringing
Zain
1:00
bringing your mic while traveling? Is that what's happening? Yes. Oh, my goodness.
Shannon
1:04
I absolutely did. That's impressive.
Zain
1:05
Wow. Any checked luggage?
Shannon
1:10
Because I'm here for like a few days. And so, you know, a woman of my age with all the lotions and potions, man, you got to check the luggage. The
Zain
1:17
The thing was, if you put the mic, Stephen Carter, as you and I have experienced, at least I've experienced multiple times. you put that in your carry-on that shit gets flagged
Zain
1:28
every time every single time every time and uh they ask questions like what is this used for and
Zain
1:35
and how often do you use it it's
Shannon
1:36
it's never been flagged for me i think maybe there's
Shannon
1:39
there's something else going on there for one what do
Zain
1:40
do you think it is shannon you want to do you want to voice it oh i don't know i don't know i'd like to hear i'd like to
Zain
1:45
from you i'd like to hear what you think it is i'll
Shannon
1:47
i'll let you specialize uh
Zain
1:48
uh steven and carter um i'm
Zain
1:51
i'm done i'm done with it by the way i'll just say one thing uh the holiday spectacular well reviewed was
Zain
1:56
was it uh by me i uh i never listened to it but i felt i felt good about it did you feel good about it i
Carter
2:02
i felt pretty pretty shitty about it actually yeah you know you don't like it i you know i i always forget about white christmas and uh it always is such a monumental part of the show and we let off with it i can't imagine anybody listening through that part yeah and making it through to the next. Here's
Zain
2:18
Here's what makes it exciting, Stephen Carter, is we're going to go through all 10 of those questions again to see if you remember.
Shannon
2:26
No, let's at least do that at the end of the show so that the poor listeners don't have to sit through it. I
Shannon
2:32
I have encountered some
Shannon
2:33
some friends of the show over
Zain
2:34
last. Oh yeah. You're in Ottawa. If I, if I don't disclose your location, I apologize. Yes.
Shannon
2:38
Yes. Yes. I am in an undisclosed location in Ottawa, but, and, and people liked it. I think they, They enjoyed the ritualized humiliation of Carter, although they really didn't need it,
Shannon
2:50
it, you know, kind of confirm their priors. So, you know, maybe it could be at the end of the show next year.
Zain
2:57
editorial note that is at the three minute and thirty nine second mark being rejected. OK, fantastic. It will it will lead the show. In fact, it will be the only thing on the show next year is what I've decided. Guys, let's talk about the separatist referendum there. Their clock has started on their petition, signature petitions, and you are seeing online, through the news, through social media, that they're collecting signatures. And I've got two top-line questions I want to grapple with.
Zain
3:27
Number one, and we can deal with these as themes and have a conversation about them. Number one, is this number that they're reaching, this 177, Carter, roughly in that range, is it inevitable? equitable?
Zain
3:41
And question two, is it likely?
Zain
3:43
And I want to kind of then lead into a conversation of
Zain
3:47
why we think each of those things based on yes and no, and what folks
Zain
3:52
folks need to be doing if they don't believe in
Zain
3:56
in this separatist referendum at this moment, sitting on their hands and waiting for this group to do what they do in four months and then fighting the fight once it happens? Or is there something we need to do now? So I'm almost giving you the outline of the show as I I think of it. But let's start with the inevitability question, Carter. Is this inevitable? Lukasik got twice the number in one less month. Does that mean that this number, 177 in four months, is just inevitable for the separatists?
Carter
4:19
No. In fact, it's still a tremendous organizing challenge. It's not the only petition that's going to be approved. I know that they're going forward with the coal petition as well. It'll be underway. It will have to seek 177,000 in four months. It is a huge organizing structure. It requires significant organizing capacity, and it requires the connection and the mobilization of a significant portion of the population. I don't think it's inevitable at all that they're going to be able to get the signatures. I think that the signatures, this is, you
Carter
4:57
you know, I said it before when Thomas was undertaking it. I said it was impossible. I will say now it is not impossible, but it is highly unlikely. I think all we have to do is look at the recalled MLA's petitions that are underway in, what was it? We figured out like 13 individual writings where they're being recalled. I don't think any of them are going to succeed. seed uh i think that we saw the lightning in a bottle with thomas and i'm not sure that we capture the lightning in a bottle the second time it's just a huge organizational ask shannon
Zain
5:32
shannon same question to you top line inevitability i
Shannon
5:36
don't think it's inevitable nor likely and i'll put a couple of details on what carter just said on the organizational side and then i also want to talk about the public opinion environment so
Shannon
5:45
so number one on org um
Shannon
5:48
lucasic had thousands of volunteers literally thousands uh and he had those volunteers in the most population dense areas of the province uh in edmonton in calgary you know and then of course in uh lethbridge medicine hat red deer uh and they were in places where people tend to gather in the the summer. And so the accessibility of those signatures, a lot easier just by dint of pure meteorology, let alone at population density. I just simply do not think there are enough human beings who support this in Didsbury and Three Hills. I just don't think there's enough of them compared to the large population events that Mr. Lukaszek attended in order to get his, like in his group, attended to get his signatures. There were, as
Shannon
6:40
as many, volunteers in this thing that I would say that they probably are going to be able to get signatures at least within the first month. That is to say about 10,000.
Shannon
6:53
And so I think they're in population-sparse areas of the province, and they do not have the volunteer horsepower that came out of the woodwork in the summer, and they don't have the timing either. Now, they also do not have the sort of the clipboard boomers that really pushed the Forever Canadian petition along.
Shannon
7:18
It also had the pop of Trump.
Shannon
7:21
It was very, very fresh in their minds. Now, the separatists don't have the pop of Trudeau at all. And in fact, they have a public opinion environment that's actually considerably softened on being mad at Ottawa. We
Shannon
7:36
We see this in almost everyone's data that, you know, if they've gone out and done work around the Memorandum of Understanding or alienation from Ottawa, you see that those numbers reducing in Alberta specifically due to Mr. Carney's actions. And
Shannon
7:51
And Mr. Trump is very likely in the first quarter of 2026 to pop his evil orange head back up with
Shannon
7:59
with a project of American imperialism, whether that's in Cuba or very likely Greenland. So I think that you're going to have that as a headwind as well, pushing against ideas of Alberta separation, far right ideas or ideas of 51st State. Carter,
Zain
8:16
Carter, I got a bit of your taste on likelihood, but give me a more expansive answer to likelihood of them succeeding.
Carter
8:24
Well, I think that I can't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, but it's like a thousand signatures per day. You know, it's 7,000 signatures a week. The first, the low hanging fruit is there. And we talked about this last time. You can go out and you can find your low hanging fruit and it's easy to do. too. But they've increased the rules and regulations around how you become a canvasser and how you have to verify the signatures. There's a lot more going on. And I just think that there's a higher probability that, first of
Carter
9:02
of all, you're not able to collect 177,000 signatures. Secondly, if you just squeak over the number, it's highly probable that 10% of your signatures are going to be disallowed because of some sort of procedural uh element i think that it's harder to do and it really thomas stands not as the example of how to do it necessarily as the the the you know just that moment in time was exactly right pardon
Zain
9:30
me the exception not the rule perhaps absolutely
Carter
9:32
absolutely interesting and i just don't think that i
Carter
9:36
mean i don't give a lot of of credit to the separatists in the first place right i don't think that they're uh that skilled in terms of their organizing and i don't think they're that skilled in terms of uh their political uh understanding um i mean they come from a place of of what i would consider to be considerable ignorance um uh we'll see um we'll see if the uh if they can actually get somewhere and um and reach 177 000 or really in order to be safe they really should be aiming for 200 000 and i just I just don't see them doing it. I
Zain
10:08
I just don't. I want to talk. I think we've talked a lot about, and Carter, you make an interesting point. Both of you do in the sense that we get so climatized to what just happened as being normal, right? We went from Lukasik, Carter, to, as you said, being impossible to now potentially the new standards. So we think about these questions of even people in our social networks saying, oh, these guys are going to get it, right? We're just waiting to have the referendum. Let's just wait. Of course, they're going to get their number. Then the referendum will happen. So there's something interesting to be said there about, like, how what Lukasik and Forever Canadian did was the exception, not the rule. That all being said, Shannon, a question I'm grappling with, which is we
Zain
10:50
we know how important the ground troops are. Like, we've talked about the 10,000 people. You've talked about even your mom and folks and boomers and parking lots. Like, I think we've talked extensively about that.
Zain
11:01
How important do you think the separatist message here is to create a broader social acceptability on separatism to be about not just about separatism, but about any grievance that one might have with Canada or with Alberta or their state in the world or their state of being and make that a reason to sign this referendum? How important do you think that the messaging here is? And then I'll kind of talk about the strategy of the message. I'm just trying to get a pulse check on messaging importance here. from from your well it's
Shannon
11:31
it's the only way for them to actually achieve their goal because they're going to have to get these soft separatists or these people who think of as a separatist referendum as a bargaining chip but not necessarily as a desired outcome um
Shannon
11:44
um it is those folks that they're going to have to get they're going to have to find them and they have to find them in cities because there are just simply again not enough population to be able to get to a thousand signatures a day out of rural areas, right? And it's just so much harder, so much more time consuming to find individual people or pockets of people. And so that message is going to be really important. And that's another headwind for these guys, because they cannot get along with each other.
Shannon
12:11
They're constantly infighting. And the other thing that the Forever Canadian
Shannon
12:17
organization benefited from was there was, you know, not really any infighting. It was there There were a lot of adults kind of in the steering committee, people of all kinds of political persuasions with a lot of expertise and a lot of experience in politics and in law and, you know, really good faith, great Canadians were kind of behind it, helping it along, ensuring that they won every single one of the legal fights, you know, the interpretations with elections, none of that horsepower exists in the separatists. And in fact, you're going to get competing conspiracy theorists and turf wars and all kinds of people live streaming their grievances and not a lot of organization. And so finding that message and that one messenger is going to be really, really difficult for them. And I don't think that they can find someone who can kind of straddle that world of the soft separatist or the, you know, the sort of like the person for whom the Venn diagram, you know, they're going to vote UCP and they don't maybe mind Carney too much. They're grumpy a little bit, but they want to send a message. Finding those voters is going to take a specific kind of message and mobilization. And I don't see that coming from a bunch of a merry band of conspiracy theorists. Carter,
Zain
13:36
Carter, what do you think of the messaging in parts here?
Zain
13:39
the messaging which importance yeah like it's
Carter
13:42
it's it's everything i mean when uh thomas did it he had such a simple message we're going to show them right i mean for all intents and purposes we're going to show them that uh you know albertans want to stay in canada and everybody was able to pick up that message and transmit that message uh on their own right they're uh Already, what Shannon's describing is a separation in messages already, all right? So there's the separatist message, we will be leaving Canada, and then there's the soft separatist message, which is we're going to use it as a negotiating tool. Both of those messages, they don't necessarily work together, right?
Carter
14:20
right? They're not easy to take. The hard separatist message is not well received by a significant portion of the population. and
Carter
14:31
and you know you're going to have to really work hard to attract the secondary message or communicate the secondary message which is even if we don't separate we can use this tool to get more from Ottawa we can redo the equalizer and then you get into places where the Alberta next panel is and the Alberta next panel it problem as well is how
Carter
14:56
how are we communicating communicating
Carter
14:59
all of these changes about Canada in a way that doesn't make us sound like we're separatists. To me, it's just all complicated, one problem on top of the next. And that's why I think the messaging structure is infinitely more complicated for the separatists than it was for the anti-separatists. I mean, if you look at Brexit, for example, Brexit was able to simplify their messaging to the point where the pro-Brexit people had the simple message and the anti-Brexit people had the complex message.
Carter
15:34
This way, this time, it's the other way around here in Alberta. I think that that complexity is going to be
Zain
15:39
be tough. Do you worry though, Carter, that the separatists could find a rich vein like Brexit did around healthcare or something? X amount of dollars back to the NHS was kind of the bus slogan. Do you feel like the separatists could find some sort of second or third degree removed message that appeals to a broader swath of people, including in our urban centers, that convinces people to say, yeah, you know what, fuck it, I'll sign up on board, which
Carter
16:04
which is... I mean, the equalization message is probably the simplest one, right? Every year we spend, or we send 13 billion or whatever the number is today, 13 billion dollars You know, over the course of X number of years, we have sent, you know, $200 billion to Quebec, right? Like big numbers that people would be able to see. And this is the genius of Klein.
Carter
16:30
When Klein was doing this, he equated how much money was leaving Alberta with how much money was going to Quebec. And that was a simple message that people understood. And, you know, that I think is the simplest message that they could grab onto and make it work. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that, or fortunately, I'm not sure that that's necessarily going to work for the separatists. I don't know that that's reason enough to separate from the country of Canada. Shannon,
Zain
16:59
Shannon, is there something in your mind that if the separatists, not to say you're guiding them, but if they were to distill one message down and use that principally, that they could have a greater chance, if not a chance
Zain
17:11
chance at hitting the threshold of success?
Shannon
17:15
Well, I think it would be something along the lines of send a message. And we'll have to consult stayfreealberta.com to see if they've actually tapped into that message. That's right, stayfreealberta
Zain
17:25
.com. That's right. It's a great
Shannon
17:28
So, people should have a look at whatever the separatists are up to there. I'm sure that's the right domain name. And I think we need to clear it up, whether it's StayFreeAlberta or StayFreeAB.
Shannon
17:43
Okay, yeah. So, that's an important source of information for anyone looking for more detail on what the separatists are up to these days. But, no, I think it's something along the lines of send a message, not unlike what Lukaszek did. But look, even
Shannon
17:59
when we did the equalization referendum in 2021, people weren't exactly going wild in the streets about it. Now, that was a time when things were overshadowed by a great deal of crisis having to do with COVID and overrun intensive care units. And so it might have been a special case. But even then, I mean, it wasn't really an overwhelming result and people didn't really pick it up and
Shannon
18:24
and run with it. And there was a tremendous amount of alienation with respect to the federal
Shannon
18:29
federal government at that time.
Shannon
18:31
The rich vein that I fear that they tap into is the vein of foreign interference. It is a prime timing for foreign interference in American imperialism.
Shannon
18:41
And certainly we saw that during Brexit. And
Shannon
18:44
And you're right, things were a bit more muddy until we saw foreign interference walk in the room during Brexit and clarify the mind for a lot of people due to a lot of meddling in the information system. We have an imperialist neighbor with imperialist designs on us. And so it is dangerous right now, not only to get the signatures. I mean, they may do some low-level interference there. But if this thing gets on the ballot, which the UCP government appears hellbent for leather that it's going to,
Shannon
19:25
that's what I worry about. out. And that's the message help that I worry that they will find. They'll find a little partner in the form of foreign interference.
Zain
19:36
Really, a really excellent point. Carter, it's March. You're sitting around your dinner table. You're talking to people in Calgary. You know, some circles are more progressive. Some circles are a bit more conservative. How do you know that this thing is starting to succeed in a Calgary context? What are you hearing from some of your light conservative friends saying uh that starts worrying you being like oh shit they're on to something these separatists like they're they're converting some of the people around you what what give me an example of what that could start sounding like in terms of the alarm bells that need to start ringing well
Carter
20:10
well i think it's it's kind of a mirror of what my progressive friends were saying um
Carter
20:14
um and that is you know i stood in line today for for 20 minutes waiting to sign the petition down in the open air in Kensington, not even in a storefront or anything like that, waiting to sign this petition.
Carter
20:32
they're still lining up to sign the petition in March, then
Carter
20:36
then there's headway on this.
Carter
20:39
They'll line up for it the
Carter
20:41
the first two weeks or the first month maybe, but if they're lining up for it in the third and fourth months, then then there'll be actual headway and when i think of my conservative friends you know most of my conservative friends are are not separatists this is a this is a very small subset i don't think i have many friends that are actually uh pro separation this is why you know the the it's going to be very very difficult for them to actually find the 180 000 people that they need but
Zain
21:12
but this one i think this is fundamentally my question though carter which is that i don't know if you're conservative friends or even you're a low information voter, needs
Zain
21:19
needs to necessarily be a separatist in order to agree with one of the slew of things that they throw at you. So as much as I agree, Shannon, that there's a lot of folks in this tent, some conspiratorial, others trying to seek a rich vein to try to maximize signatures, others trying to dilute it and make it about something, there is a world for me, and I'm curious to get your guys' thoughts on this, that these coalitions that say, if this is about the immigrants for you, then you got to sign. If this is about Alberta education getting too woke, you got to sign. If this is about equalization and us getting fucked over, you got to sign. And I feel like, yes, there could be internal friction with these groups, but
Zain
21:58
but could there not also be success where they all kind of try working to, not working together, working independently for the same cause ultimately? And this to me is a concern, Carter, is that, yeah, most
Zain
22:09
most of Alberta, the The polling says they're not separatists, but there are many people in this province with grievances that this could be a vehicle for. And we haven't even talked about the damage that the toxic sort of baggage this leaves behind, successful or not. We can get to that in a second. But I'm curious if you see any merit in that argument from an urban perspective where people start converting on some of these grievance
Zain
22:33
grievance issues simply. And there's a sophistication in that to say, if you're pissed about X, you got to sign.
Carter
22:42
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that that's more the Alberta Next Panel type review that gets people saying, yeah, maybe we do need an Alberta pension plan, but I'm not sure. I
Carter
22:53
I think that the solution, the proposed solution of separation is so significant and so outside of the Canadian context that I'm not sure that, I go back to what Shannon said at the the beginning of the podcast when she said there is a you know the the they're going to need to capture some light separatists right some people who want to use it as a as a negotiating tool and i just don't know because the solution is so extreme i just don't think that they're going to be in a position to do that now i also said that brexit was going to fail um i said that pretty clearly i also said that trump was going to lose um you know these things have do have a way of of capturing the will and attention of the normal people quotation
Zain
23:35
i call them low information voters like and i'm actually kind of worried about that that in the sense that there's a lot of people who'll be open to the grievances that are introduced here yeah
Carter
23:42
yeah exactly i i'm very i'm concerned about it as well but at the same time i think the proposed solution is just too extreme shannon
Zain
23:51
shannon can i go back to a point you made this government being hell-bent on getting this thing on the talk to me about that like do you think that makes this process kind of moot or irrelevant in the sense or is there anything they can do to ensure this thing finds its time with the public okay
Shannon
24:08
i mean like i think we need to understand what their motivations are and how what game they're trying to play where the public opinion environment for the other stuff is so the to the first uh to the point that carter was just uh responding to i think what we need to understand about uh cpp or rcmp or that kind of basket of grievance issues is that almost none of them rise to the level of even 50 so if the ucp themselves are at a 50 public approval uh rating public support those basket of issues don't rise to that uh they are not super animating for more than about 30 of the population right and so you have uh even within the ucp coalition uh it's you know those are still uh at positions that are not necessarily held by the majority of them right
Shannon
25:01
so i mean that's the the the first kind of sticking point if you were to kind of port them all into the separatist petition you're still not necessarily getting to the the level of of uh a public support that you need the public support for staying in canada is between 80 you know 80 78 yeah
Shannon
25:20
uh and so you're getting you know that's a good chunk of uc peers it's all of the new democrats um but and so uh you've got more voters to play with to sign the thing right um now as for the the provincial like why would the ucp then like by that logic why would
SPEAKER_00
25:38
would they be pushing
Shannon
25:38
pushing to get this on the agenda maybe the cpp referendum maybe the cops want to uh in the fall because they feel the need in order to keep their coalition together their party together to uh essentially let the air out of the balloon and
Shannon
25:54
and and that is uh as i understand it the motivation that they can't keep that 20 percent uh of folks within their tent And without finding a way for them to have some kind of outlet, like basically you need to let the toddler tantrum it out and
Shannon
26:15
and then you can kind of move on with your day.
Shannon
26:18
And that is the approach. You know, I have questions about the politics of that and whether it just means that you're going to lose some of your rural seats or win some of your rural seats by five points or ten points less than you otherwise would. uh and how like why um you think that you know there are uh the seats to that you need for your majority or in any way shape or form threatened by a separatist uh breakaway faction i guess they uh you know have has evidence public opinion polling and others and seed analysis to show that that might be the case um or that their caucus might uh uh break apart but uh that's what's motivating it on
Zain
26:54
on that before i come to you carter do
Zain
26:56
do you think it's enough of a release least valve Shannon to allow them to have this four months and the signature collection period, or do they have to get it on the, do they have to gently nudge this thing on the ballot for their,
Zain
27:11
their base in some way? I
Shannon
27:13
I think the best case scenario and probably what they're hoping for is that these guys are not going, I mean, they can't organize a two car parade. So getting 177,000 signatures tough.
Shannon
27:23
And so I think what the UCP is likely banking on is they don't make, put this on the ballot but they uh but the government themselves uh puts a number of these you know grievance policies the separatist policies right so the government themselves will put the separatist policies uh to referendum in the fall uh but uh not the concept of separation and so you know they're uh uh they're going as far as and because you know like the the premier's opposite soul of separatists as well uh
Shannon
27:53
uh so you know they really want to do this uh but they they they know that they're going to have to only go halfway.
Zain
28:03
mean, I was going to say, my question was going to be, do you think the UCP pay a political price here? I mean, the ultimate political price is like this fucking succeeds twice over.
Zain
28:12
They get the signatures and then there's a vote. Like that's a huge political price. However, in more conventional political terms, like this is something no one on the 80% of Albertans, 70 to 80% are not asking for, not wanting. Do you think, given the conventional dynamics of paying a political price, the UCP pay a pricier for spending so much political capital energy time on this?
Carter
28:33
Yeah, I certainly hope they do. And when and where, you
Zain
28:38
When and where? At the ballot box in the next election, or do you think there's an interim political price they pay?
Carter
28:44
I think that their popularity, Daniel Smith's popularity and the popularity of the UCP will go down if this thing starts to actually get momentum. But I don't think that necessarily, it all depends on how successful the campaign is in and of itself. If it starts to push off those softer conservatives that are voting UCP because they just can't see themselves voting for the NDP, right? They just can't see themselves voting for them the second time because the world price of oil dropped during Rachel Notley's first term. So obviously, you know, Rachel Notley is a terrible premier in the NDP just to destroy the economy.
Carter
29:25
I think that this is a potential problem for the for the UCP if it starts to pick things up, because I think those voters will shift away and just say, Jesus, you know, because the problem is what? what shannon alluded to a second ago which is there are separatists in the premier's office the separatists exist you know this there are separatists within the caucus um danielle smith is doing this to appeal to that 20 percent of albertans she has almost every decision that she has made uh has been about the 20 percent not about the 80 percent and the fact that nahed nenshi and the ndp haven't been successful in in capturing that is really a testament to their failure um but now maybe this is the the piece that starts to push uh people back to the ndp um or at least into some sort of middle zone uh with the alberta tories or some other uh vehicle that we can't even imagine yet um maybe that happens i i don't know but i i do think that there there is a political price that should be paid by the ucp for flirting uh with separatism um ultimately
Carter
30:38
ultimately i think that the conservatives in great britain uh paid a price for brexit uh a significant price it took a lot longer to pay than we thought it was going to take uh but it did take a long but it did get paid and one dreams that eventually the conservative you know the the republicans in the united states will will have to to reckon for their uh their Their larger flirtation with Nazism, with Trump, and that payment will be due at some point. But we don't know. It takes a lot longer than we think it should take.
Zain
31:15
Shannon, I want to ask the same question to you. I mean, Carter, if the political price for Brexit was that 10 years later you guys lose government and then a more conservative government ultimately wins after Labour this election, that doesn't seem like a political price at all to me. I know that's not what you're referring to, but that's probably the dynamics of UK politics right now. Now, Shannon, the same question to you, like, what's
Zain
31:34
what's the political price the UCP pay here? And I also want to touch on the Nenshi question, which is that given now that we're in the throes of this four months that the signature collection is on, what do you think the NDP need to do, if anything, at this moment for this particular question of separation and this referendum?
Shannon
31:53
Protect Canada and protect Alberta by staying in Canada is a good message for the New Democrats because they can say it with their full chest in a way that Danielle Smith cannot
Shannon
32:04
because she's got the problems within her caucus, but also she doesn't believe it herself. And so, you know, it's an authentic message coming from the New Democrats, and I think they're in good shape. And I think that any time you're talking about a positive vision for the province, then you're in an issue set that
Shannon
32:23
that is good for, you know, sort of progressive adjacent voters. And any time that Danielle Smith is spending her time alienating
Shannon
32:30
alienating soft Tories is good. That's what led us to the 2023 result, was
Shannon
32:36
was people who could not, who did not vote NDP in 2015. They did not vote NDP in 2019. But in 2023, by the time Danielle Smith came along, there were aspects of her agenda, whether it was the CPP or refusing to wear a ploppy or whatever other extremist nonsense, sense you know uh privatizing health care that they could not go along with and so keeping it uh keeping those folks reminded uh of of uh potentially why they they uh either led to the new democrats their vote in 2023 or regret uh sticking with the ucp in 23 those are the voters uh that uh that the alberta ndp needs to uh be laser focused on and those are the seats that the New Democrats need to be laser focused on. There is a problem, though, and part of that is this Alberta Tory party.
Shannon
33:32
That might give the release valve to some of these soft Tories that in 2023, they didn't have. The Alberta party was kind of nowhere in 23, as opposed to 2019, when they did scoop up eight or nine points, something like that, and were very much That's another option. That is a strategic problem for the New Democrats. And I don't know how that's going to, you know, work itself out. But the best way to guard against it is to suck up all the oxygen and get a bunch of attention as the alternative to some of this, you know, far right grievance politics and favorite dreams. Carter,
Zain
34:16
Carter, if I make you campaign manager of battling against this signature petition initiative,
Zain
34:25
what is the first thing you're doing?
Zain
34:26
You said it's not inevitable, and you said it's not very likely. So are we mocking these people? Are we organizing something pro-Canada? Are we bringing the Lukasik team off the bench? Are we stitching coalitions together to make sure this isn't successful? Are we running interference? interference what is the strategy to make sure that yes
Zain
34:46
yes this is not likely to happen and that this does not reach the referendum stage you
Carter
34:52
know i'm inclined not to do anything i'm inclined to to take the lukasic side of this and just kind of shut them down and just have them have them stay out of the way because i think that one of the challenges is you don't want to draw you don't want to throw fire on this or gasoline on this particular little itsy bitsy tiny little fire that started um you know when you like for example let's say that you uh you show up and you start mocking these folks uh when they're collecting you know suddenly that goes online and everybody is outraged with you right i think that this is something that is best left alone uh allow you know the separatists to try and build their fire into something that that is strong enough to actually capture all these signatures uh but don't be throwing gas on it i just don't see the upside uh for the the the pro-canada movement to being involved if you want something to do go join corp lund's thing um you know that that to me strikes strikes me as a lot more um a lot more positive than trying to uh
Carter
35:55
uh message against this messaging against something can be really fraught
Carter
36:00
fraught and i would just i just soon ignore it i would i think that what
Carter
36:06
what is it they say that uh you
Carter
36:08
you know the worst the worst is the worst emotion is indifference well then let's hit them with as much indifference as humanly possible uh
Zain
36:15
uh shannon i fired stephen carter because he collected a bunch of my money and told me to do nothing as his strategy yeah
Zain
36:21
are you gonna give me any different advice if i'm making you the campaign manager of ensuring that that this 177 is not successful?
Shannon
36:32
Well, not only 177, I think they'll just trip on themselves. And that's a good thing, leads them to it. But, I mean, there is a world of organizing that needs to happen and that can happen on, that can add to the Forever Canadian initiative, and that's around these issue campaigns.
Shannon
36:50
The government wants to put things on the, to referendum, that are profoundly unpopular. And so if I'm the New Democrats, plus the, you know, the anti-separatists, I am taking, you know, a couple of months to plan my air and my ground war to mobilize again, you know, as, and
Shannon
37:11
and well, it depends on what the referendum question is, you know, do you want to pull out of the CPP? No.
Shannon
37:15
Right? Do you want to get rid of the RCMP? No. And I am figuring out how to mobilize that 70 to 80% of Albertans against the, and branding those as separatist ideas, branding those as anti-Canadian ideas, and that are more to the point, though, and less esoterically, about taking something away from you, right?
Shannon
37:39
right? Because the only way the separatists essentially succeed is if the message punches through that I'm getting something from this. And it's not about taking something away.
Shannon
37:50
And the same goes for those issue campaigns. The politicians, the civil society people, everyone needs to be mobilized around Daniel Smith is taking something away from you. Something that is a key to the good life for you, whether that's your community security, your pension security, whatever.
Zain
38:07
i'm surprised both of you think that the strategy right now is to effectively not do
Zain
38:12
do anything active against
Zain
38:14
these folks i i directly directly
Zain
38:17
to say like even if in a pro canada way like uh what would you do i don't know that's why i'm asking you i'm just surprised i
Zain
38:24
don't have the action but i'm surprised the momentum is is to is to or the movement is is to say nothing on this like it's just kind of i mean
Shannon
38:32
mean you could you could do some town halls or rallies or stuff but like rallies i mean just ask the convoy crazies get pretty fucking tough in february uh in alberta right like so there's some of these things that that uh make it difficult you
Shannon
38:46
you could do around the town halls but to what end yeah right
Carter
38:49
right we want you to come together and do nothing that's
Carter
38:52
that's yeah that's it's just it's
Zain
38:54
hard i guess i guess let me let me let me pause it a thought if if the separatist pathway beyond the low hanging fruit is through the urban centers, right, or at least a sliver of the urban centers, is there something you can do to create an immunity response there or inoculate there as a pro-Canada movement? And part of me thinks it doesn't need to start, maybe not end, at anywhere beyond people once again demonstrating their canadianness and ensuring that that you know you you as a as a convoy of separatist signature collectors coming into the big centers will not be met positively that that that even any license for social acceptability does not stand here when you come to us in late february march april right
Carter
39:46
maybe the one thing that you could do is organize around the olympics
Carter
39:50
Right. And really, really build a pro Canada feeling during the Olympics. You know, everybody watches the Olympics, build the pro Canada experience around the Olympics. That might work. But again, why? The pro Canada experience already happens during the Olympics. All you have to do is amplify it. Just let it be what it is. And those people who are pro Canada will be more pro Canada after
Zain
40:18
Olympics. let me ask the question slightly differently okay
Zain
40:21
is there any let's
Zain
40:24
let's say your objective primarily remains the same to stop these folks but you've got a 1a objective which
Zain
40:31
which is what can you do to grow your movement at this time while these folks collect signatures is
Zain
40:37
is there anything you could do that kind of takes what they're trying to do with the collection of alberta separatist signatures and advance grow accelerate your movement as a canadian movement let's so i I phrased the question slightly differently, right? Goal one still remains the same, but I've given you a 1A goal. Does that change anything for you, Carter?
Carter
40:54
Yeah, I think that you could do a lot of interaction with how great you did and communicating with your volunteer subset.
Carter
41:01
So, you know, you can communicate with your volunteers and say, just a reminder, you guys did an amazing job on our separatist, our anti-separation piece. Look at them struggle. Look at them have difficulties. We did the extraordinary. you are the reason that we did the extraordinary thank you for everything you did uh just a reminder that uh you know here's where we are in our process here's where our process is uh don't you
Carter
41:30
know you don't necessarily have to bring up or push the ante so much as pushing the the reminder that because there there is a process that is supposed to still unfold i think in the the legislature is there not that's right yeah um so until such time as that process is done i think you can double down on it shannon
Shannon
41:49
well that's the one place where you have a bit of leverage that's the one place where where folks can uh where the forever canadian people and like uh there's a there's an organizing inflection point and that's around uh putting pressure on the government uh to have the forever canadian petition language read out in the legislature and voted on in the legislature uh per the legislation um and uh and that is uh you know daniel smith and her caucus and her cabinet should not be able to walk onto the floor of the legislature uh starting at the end of february uh without having to answer the question are you going to do this and how are you going to vote
Shannon
42:30
and there can be some public pressure there as well right there can be you know depending whether dependent there can be rallies constituency constituency office does if they if they want to do it um it's that might be worth uh doing because it is uh it's a wedge point for the government and it's a place of discomfort for them carter
Zain
42:46
carter my only on over under lightning round question as we wrap up is this on a scale of one to ten with one being nothing even
Zain
42:54
though one is one and not right because we also have zero we have zero available but one is nothing this
Zain
42:59
this is no impact and ten being maximal impact of the negative variety how bad is it for alberta if we have this uh petition signature collection succeed and we end up with a referendum question where would you peg that on that one to ten scale it's
Carter
43:16
it's an absolute fail um if we did that it would be you know it would it would fail as what number
Carter
43:23
pardon fail is what number card well fail is there's a pass fail okay
Zain
43:27
okay yeah and what
Carter
43:28
what number would you
Zain
43:28
you would be assigning to i can remember that one to ten scale where one means uh one One means zero, and
Carter
43:33
and ten means ten.
Carter
43:34
And that failure will resonate through the entire government, I think.
Zain
43:37
Okay, so that sounds like a nine to me. Shannon, on a one to ten, where do you peg this?
Shannon
43:43
I'm turning it up to eleven. It's very bad. It is very bad in a moment of American imperialism. It is very bad. Right, a dance
Zain
43:50
dance partner is now emerging,
Shannon
43:54
It's really, really bad. We have not been able to inoculate our social media and our information environment in any way, shape or form. This is rolling out a red carpet for the worst, you know, elements and the worst ideas, the worst kinds of policy interactions when we're talking about immigration or other ideas that have been, you know, sort of here to forefringe. We are in grave danger if this happens. We
Zain
44:24
We are going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1902 of The Strategist. My name is Zayn Vilji. With me, as always, Shannon Phillips and one Stephen Carter. We shall see you all next time.