Transcript
SPEAKER_02
0:03
This is The Strategists, episode 537. My name is Zain Velji. With me, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you?
SPEAKER_02
0:10
It's been really too long, Zain. It
Carter
0:11
It has been way too long. We have to get together more often. We
SPEAKER_02
0:15
We do. We do. Now, this was a double bill. I'm going to mention that. No,
SPEAKER_02
0:18
that makes sense. Otherwise, people will totally miss the episode. Yeah, we'll miss it. We did a double bill. This was like a Tarantino, whoever the other director was, film.
SPEAKER_02
0:27
I never remember the other director.
SPEAKER_02
0:29
A double bill. We talked federal politics in episode 536, so if you do not care about Alberta politics, number one, you're a horrible person, but
SPEAKER_02
0:37
two, go to episode 536. That's all federal. Let's talk about provincial politics here, and I want to get right into it. To our first segment, a
SPEAKER_02
0:45
a piece of shitstorm, a PC shitstorm, however you want to say it, let's talk about Bill
SPEAKER_02
0:53
Was it Bill 1? It was Bill 1. Bill
SPEAKER_02
0:54
1. going a little bit stir crazy here okay bill one was
SPEAKER_02
0:57
was the bill about corporate and union donations where cory referred to rick mciver as a fucking idiot if he had gone against this piece of legislation surprisingly
SPEAKER_02
1:08
surprisingly so it seems like that the pcs at least the ones that were left when the voting happened voted for this legislation to go through or
Carter
1:16
but then rick mciver yeah actually He actually said, well,
Carter
1:21
well, with the amendments, it made it more palatable.
Carter
1:28
This is a piece of legislation that has become less popular as we've moved forward.
Carter
1:32
So Rick McIver, when he said he opposed it, it was extremely popular. Now he's like, I can get behind it. It's less popular. This was the
SPEAKER_02
1:39
the exact opposite move he should have made. He should have actually supported it. And then when he
SPEAKER_02
1:43
realized that the caps were too
Carter
1:44
too high or whatever, he told
SPEAKER_02
1:46
to go fuck themselves. Listen,
Carter
1:47
unions can put their staff on campaigns and it doesn't count as a donation. I can get free space from a corporation. I mean, there's a number of loopholes that you
Carter
1:57
you can drive a truck through. And those loopholes are all closed at the federal level. This isn't something like, well, we didn't think of it, right? This is something where if you wanted a good piece of legislation, you only needed to look to the federal level that has shut down all of these things. Total miscalculation, Corey.
SPEAKER_02
2:14
What happened here? What do you think happened here?
Corey
2:17
It was the weirdest thing. The guy came out so strongly against it and the reasons he gave were, well,
Corey
2:23
well, they'll just donate as individuals and we won't have any kind of integrity in the system because we won't know they're funneling money. Not that they would do that because that's illegal. But they may need to do that. And then he says, now I can get behind this because corporations can't pay off loans. Like that – his original critique of the bill and the reason he got behind it were so misaligned as it's just – it's not even – like to call it fiction does injustice to fiction because we can find truth in fiction, guys. Oh, yeah. This
SPEAKER_02
2:53
was it? Was this hubris?
Corey
2:54
Oh, no. This was his caucus beat him up and he had to back down in the most humble way possible or the most face-saving way. The
Carter
3:00
The most face-saving way was I believe the day after
Carter
3:03
after he used the $125,000 example of the couple or the family. Just scraping by when he put forward his Facebook post saying, listen,
Carter
3:16
I apologize unreservedly. I mean, I've never seen a politician put forward a Facebook post to apologize for their behavior in the legislature before.
Corey
3:25
You've got to love a guy who in the legislature is so tone deaf that he says, I know these guys making $125K just scraping by. What about them? I am totally oblivious to the fact that's over six times the minimum wage, which he's fighting against an increase on.
SPEAKER_02
3:44
So you just chalk it up to the caucus, and I want to talk about that a bit more. You said that your
SPEAKER_02
3:49
your biggest critique about this was that this would be a way
SPEAKER_02
3:53
way for people to leave, to leave the PC party. Do
SPEAKER_02
3:57
Do you think that could have been part of the reason? I know we're getting a little bit into speculation, so I will acknowledge that. But do you think that's part of a reason why McIver
SPEAKER_02
4:03
McIver may have scaled this back and gone with a humble sort of apology? Well,
Corey
4:08
Well, I think it's
Corey
4:10
incumbent in the answer or inherent in the answer. If his caucus was so mad, maybe people were saber-rattling or at least saying, like, Rick, I can't get behind this. And maybe he started to think that was a possibility.
Corey
4:20
Certainly, if your caucus is mad and you're a leader but you feel like your caucus isn't going anywhere, you're not particularly inclined to change course. I
Carter
4:27
I mean, he threw it open to a free vote. out this was not a complete reversal and he made sure he wasn't there right
Carter
4:38
was were there threats of people leaving on this i mean there was certainly some speculation from other people um
Carter
4:45
i think it could have been used as an example for people to leave yeah
Carter
4:48
but there's going to be lots and lots and lots of reasons to leave the pc caucus in the coming four years
SPEAKER_02
4:55
Okay, so let me dig into the PCs a bit more, because we haven't spent much time on them since the last couple of episodes, and we've just kind of done a drive-by. But I want to talk about what
SPEAKER_02
5:04
what the summer may look like for the PC party. The debts are there. Everything still seems to be status quo. Is there any sort of evolution that the party makes this summer, Corey?
Corey
5:12
Rick McIver's lemonade stand, all summer.
Corey
5:14
We'll get there in quarters and dimes, guys.
Corey
5:18
I don't know. I mean, how
Corey
5:19
how does he do it?
SPEAKER_02
5:22
bill is really good. Has the answer to that question changed, I guess? How does he do it, right? We sat around this exact table talking about the hole they may be in, and if corporate and union donations come on the table, they're doomed. They're doomed. Are
Carter
5:34
Are they still doomed? Let's talk a little bit more about that.
Carter
5:38
asks for a political party to go into bankruptcy to pay off the bills. There's no assets. It's not like you've got disbursements
Carter
5:46
disbursements that can be made once they start selling stuff. There's nothing there.
Corey
5:50
Well, I'm not as down on their likelihood of survival now that Bill 1 has come out the way it has because it does allow corporations to loan to the political party. So whereas before I thought they were going to be in a situation where they had all this debt, it was unstructured, they had big problems, now they just need to find a benefactor with a certain largesse to prop them up. So they may have some really
Carter
6:11
good political power. Can I just ask you a question? What
Carter
6:12
What the hell kind of loophole is a corporation can loan? You
SPEAKER_02
6:16
You tell me that because I've never heard of that before. Maybe it's because I don't have the
Carter
6:20
knowledge around it. There's been some stuff like that around leaderships in the past. This
Carter
6:23
This is, again, one of the big loopholes that was closed in the federal laws. This was a majority government. Why do you think they wrote it
Corey
6:30
Listen, I don't want to get my facts wrong, but I've certainly heard that in some cases, some of the loans that the provincial New Democrats have had, they've always had a very large line of credit, and they're usually halfway up it. I don't know if that's true anymore. There is a ton of money, but those
Corey
6:44
those are backed by other entities. so yeah
Carter
6:49
yeah i mean a corporation could take many different forms that's
Corey
6:52
that's right union could
Carter
6:52
could be a corporation a
Corey
6:53
a federal political party could be a corporation right very
Carter
6:58
i mean i think that the
Carter
6:59
the bottom line is they're one rich guy away from they've enabled loans which is which is um an
Carter
7:06
interesting strategy for actually trying to control money in politics uh i think that politicians should
Carter
7:14
raise enough money like raising money is part of your viability sure
Carter
7:18
sure if you can raise money you're more viable now
Carter
7:21
now if you can't raise money you're not viable at all and
Carter
7:26
mean maybe that's a barrier to to
Carter
7:28
keeping people in the race but i
Carter
7:30
i don't think of that i don't i don't think of it that way when a candidate says well i can't raise any money because i'm not popular enough i say well then you're not popular enough to run you
SPEAKER_02
7:37
you know i want to i want to jump on a point you talked about and make a transition out of it you talked about the notion of viability and i want to talk about what's
SPEAKER_02
7:44
what's what's emerged from the pc campaign or what we've heard that's emerged from the pc campaign uh
SPEAKER_02
7:49
uh this last time around where voter
SPEAKER_02
7:51
voter id as you guys both know is a very important part of of a political i know where this is going and i am so excited and when it comes to viability what you talk about is when you id votes both at the door on the phone i'm giving a little bit of a primer to people who may not necessarily know is
SPEAKER_02
8:06
is you you figure out exactly exactly who's going to support you, their level of support for you, etc. Now,
SPEAKER_02
8:11
Now, so it turns out that on the PC database, their
SPEAKER_02
8:15
voter ID or indication of vote was only limited to PC, Wildrose, and other. So every time you went to the door, every time there was a call, if someone said they were voting NDP, you
SPEAKER_02
8:27
you did not identify them as NDP. They just were part of the ether of other. The
SPEAKER_02
8:31
The only parties that mattered were the PC or Wildrose. Large miscalculation in 2020, of
SPEAKER_02
8:36
of course, but let's talk about the craziness of something like this. Corey, I'll start with you.
Corey
8:41
Oh, it's totally outrageous. And I've known parties on the other side to make that mistake. I know a 2009 by-election campaign, the Liberals in Glenmore did that.
Corey
8:51
identify Liberal or PC. That's it. That's all we care about. There's no one else that exists. And the Wild Rose won that election. Yeah, I mean, by
Carter
8:58
by what, 29 votes?
Corey
9:00
Very few. Yeah. It was a couple hundred, but it was... I
Carter
9:03
I think it was fewer than a couple hundred. It
Corey
9:06
really tight. It was very tight. And I'll tell you, on that last weekend, because I was there, I was working on their e-day.
Corey
9:12
think I was the chair of their e-day there.
Corey
9:15
On that last weekend, we were still swinging at the PCs with everything we had. And because it was so tight, you have to imagine it could have been an entirely different situation if we'd known where to point our guns, but we had no idea. So
SPEAKER_02
9:26
So let's talk about what
SPEAKER_02
9:26
what is the value of data in a campaign, but more so, let's talk, obviously, let's touch on the campaign, because I think that's important. But what's important afterwards, too? Carter? I
Carter
9:34
I come from a school of thought that you run campaigns to get data. That's
Carter
9:38
That's the only reason you run campaigns. And sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But you
Carter
9:43
data in the process. But you accumulate data in the process and that data is then used as your bottom structure for next year or the next election or the by-election. We
Carter
9:51
We have a by-election coming in Calgary Foothills in weeks, months. Yeah,
Carter
9:56
soon. Very shortly. Very soon. soon, and
Carter
9:58
the PC's data isn't going to have NDP identification on it.
Carter
10:07
That is mind-blowing. Now, how are you going to run a campaign against them?
Carter
10:11
There are, in my humble opinion, there are only three parties that can win that by-election.
Carter
10:16
which I think is a very slim possibility, the NDP, and the Wild Rose.
Carter
10:22
This is crazy. I want to jump
Corey
10:24
Last time I talked to you about the by-election.
Corey
10:25
-election. You know what? I'll save that. Go ahead, Corey. Well, I just don't want to let the PCs off the hook and not make fun of them a little bit more about how crazy it is. How bad it
Carter
10:33
it is to not have the data?
Carter
10:34
Yeah, well, because in 2009—
Corey
10:35
2009— This is apparently province-wide. Go ahead. That's my point. In 2009, we did that on a by-election, and I felt really stupid about that. We're talking about a province-wide campaign. They're a province-wide database. They said, I don't know if we want to pay that extra license fee to be able to ID more than two parties. You know what? Just get another category, and then we're good. We're covered. That's nuts. And how do you feel if you're, say, Mark Hladdy, who is the PC candidate in Calgary Mountain View? IDing votes, yeah. Oh, you wouldn't know whether to shit or go blind. You've got other with 80% of the vote. Yeah,
Carter
11:04
Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is a rookie mistake. Someone who doesn't understand that data actually matters in a campaign. Someone who thinks that campaigns are won or lost based on the last election
Corey
11:16
election you ran. Yes, and that's the point. This is like generals and politicians always fighting the last war.
Carter
11:21
Yeah, exactly. I mean, politicians, we need to figure out what the war is that is in front of us, not the one that we just ran. The 2011 campaign will not be the campaign again.
Carter
11:31
And then the 2012 campaign was not the 2015. And even the 2015 campaign will not be the by-election in Calgary foothills.
SPEAKER_02
11:39
Dynamics have changed. Things have changed. I'm going to move it on to our next segment,
SPEAKER_02
11:42
break a ledge, the NDP's first session.
SPEAKER_02
11:45
Let's talk about the overall performance of the NDP thus far. I want to get your top-line sentiments. Carter, I'll start with you first. always a skeptic about this ndp as
Carter
11:52
as soon as you become government you stop answering questions as soon as you become government you start pushing the decisions down the road as soon as you become government you have to take the policies that you have been talking about in an election campaign and say is this practical is this practical is this something we can actually do and the ndp are now the government and you don't get to play it being government anymore they
Carter
12:16
they are the ones who have to revamp i mean brian mason and uh rachel notley when they were a caucus of two were brilliant on the children's services file brilliant
Carter
12:25
brilliant absolutely fantastic at holding the government's feet to the fire fire they're now the government how do you make it better for children in this province let's do it today there's no sense in waiting you
Carter
12:35
you don't wait to make things better for children if it was going to be easy it should have been done you don't shoot from the hip either and no but apparently you know like i'm just saying they're
Carter
12:44
they're now they have to slow things down No, no, no.
Corey
12:46
There's a ramp up to every job.
Corey
12:48
job. Oh, the apologist
Corey
12:49
comes out again. Look, the only thing I've seen them back away from is rent control. I think they've been pretty consistent in delivering what they said they would when they said they would. They're not backing down for minimum wage. Good, by the way. They are not
Corey
13:03
not saying they're not going to do anything that's in their platform right now. I haven't seen them soften their stances really at all. I think they've been pretty firm, pretty moderate in their approach. it
Corey
13:13
was ultimately not a particularly are you
Carter
13:15
you suggesting there was nothing in their platform on health care because
Carter
13:18
the minister of health's statement so far indicate to me that we're not they're not touching the administrative side and they're not making any significant changes well
Corey
13:26
well in their platform they said we are not going to make those administrative changes so i guess in this case in action when the government was declaring action the course yeah
Corey
13:36
yeah that's a policy and they're sticking with it they're being they're being true to their platform i i don't know Are Albertans
Carter
13:42
Albertans happy with the health care system?
Corey
13:43
I think Albertans are pretty tired of the health care system changing every two years.
Carter
13:48
I just think that Albertans would actually like to have access to health care. And I think that Albertans wouldn't want to spend 50% of their entire budget on health care. Who's going to argue
SPEAKER_02
13:55
argue with that? Who's going to argue
Carter
13:57
with that? I'm just throwing it out.
SPEAKER_02
13:58
out. Let's talk about this in the scope of what we've been chatting about before in terms of the pace of their agenda.
SPEAKER_02
14:04
You guys were both debating whether they should go fast or slow or slow and then fast.
Corey
14:08
fast. Because Stephen's now the one saying they've got to go fast. exactly yeah
Corey
14:11
you were the i
Carter
14:12
i was saying go slow to them i was but i'm just when we look back at the first session what marks it they went slow i didn't think really because i was going to be as small and as and as minuscule as it was because it was it was only about what they were doing this session i was i mean okay bill one bill two okay bill three and
Carter
14:32
and it's over right
Carter
14:33
right like there's no vision in that document there was no there's no oh
SPEAKER_02
14:38
oh come on we're gonna disagree
SPEAKER_02
14:42
I'll let you, we'll agree to disagree on that. We've hashed that out in the last episode. But let's talk about all the stuff they currently have on
SPEAKER_02
14:48
on the table that are either making headlines or that they're dealing with. And it's quite a list. I mean, everything from Bill 1 to minimum wage to the climate change to energy regulations to the whole notion about the residential schools that you brought up and aboriginal relations and what that opens up.
SPEAKER_02
15:03
I mean, there's a lot going on. So
SPEAKER_02
15:05
let's talk about the strategy of this. Is your first session in government, a summer session with the interim supply bill being the main thing you wanted to do, is
SPEAKER_02
15:13
is it good strategy to be, I'm going to use this term, fighting all these wards on multiple fronts? Well,
Corey
15:17
Well, yeah, I was just going to go there. You think that they're not doing enough. I think, if anything, I have a fear they're doing too much. They're opening all of these fronts, and they're getting hit by all of these people. Now, they're being hit on Twitter. They're not being hit in the real world, but the
Corey
15:34
the storm clouds are looming, man. And there's a lot of angry people out there who are starting to coalesce around some ideas. The
Carter
15:39
The angry people will really come to bear in the fall when the budget gets presented. And I'm interested. Did I miss it? Did they say when they were going to present the budget? I heard it was October. Yeah.
Corey
15:51
Yeah. But I didn't hear a date. Did
Carter
15:53
Did I miss that?
Corey
15:54
If you did, I missed it too. I'm
Carter
15:57
I'm interested to see because I think there's going to be a backlash the day that that thing is presented. And if it's presented before October the 19th, that's
Carter
16:03
that's going to be interesting to me. October
Carter
16:05
October the 19th, for all of our listeners who just listened to the last podcast, the federal podcast. I don't think they're completely disengaged,
SPEAKER_02
16:14
So what am I hearing you say there? You don't think this is a multi-front war, Carter. Is that what I'm hearing you say? I'm
Carter
16:18
I'm hearing, I mean, the residential school thing seems like it's an important thing, but it's a statement.
Carter
16:23
It's a simple statement. It's a simple statement that is read. It is the right thing to do. We were wrong to do it. I'd like to see some, you know, some
Carter
16:31
some other statements made by maybe a church or two. Just throwing it out there. Any church in mind? Just your church. Your church,
Carter
16:38
not Zane's church. Your church. But, you know, these were
Carter
16:43
were things that were done years
Carter
16:45
years and years and years ago that were wrong, that we should apologize for and move forward from. That's a relatively easy thing to do. I'm interested in what are we actually going to do today? The royalty review.
Carter
16:57
We'll get to it six months from now, but we're going to do consultations. Minimum wage. Why wasn't that on the agenda? Why didn't it just get done? Well,
Carter
17:03
we've got to go do consultations.
Corey
17:05
there's a lot of different ways you can phase it in. There's a lot of different things you can do for businesses to help them with that transition.
Corey
17:12
And you don't want to be doing these things if you don't need to do them. So what? Is it the right
Carter
17:17
right thing to do or the wrong thing to do? It's absolutely the right thing to do. And I'm going to ask a question
SPEAKER_02
17:19
question here. Carter, am I reading between the lines almost in the sense that if you were controlling the reins right now and you had this chance with Alison Redford again, you would just do things as chief of staff? Is that what I'm hearing you say? I
Carter
17:30
I was chief of staff for Alison Redford. We did a couple of things that I was really proud of. We restored education funding. Notley's done that. We restored age funding. It doesn't need to be done twice. It's already been done, so you don't need to fix that. But there's other things in children's services and in human services that are messes that need to be cleaned up. Now, maybe they're doing that at the ministerial level. I hope that they are. The children in care issue is a major issue that we need to try and figure out. Balancing privacy, balancing parental rights, and Notley and Mason are experts at it. And the last thing that we did was we introduced the family care clinics. And we were in the midst of trying to redefine
Carter
18:13
redefine how primary care was delivered to Albertans.
Corey
18:18
You know, that's a pretty funny example when you're talking about the government needs to get things done. Because where are these clinics that you guys promised? Cancelled by Jim Prentiss. A thousand times you promised those things, though, during the campaign, prior to the campaign,
Carter
18:32
after the campaign. We had some implementation problems with our ministry. I've got a much simpler question
SPEAKER_02
18:36
question here, a much simpler question. I'm hearing Carter almost debate the value of consultation right now, which is just intriguing to me. As a new government where we've argued they need to go to the
Carter
18:44
the middle ground. Have you gone to a community
SPEAKER_02
18:46
community consultation? I never have, so I will never claim to have gone to
Carter
18:49
to one. If you go to a community consultation, here's my challenge for everybody who's listening to the podcast. podcast in the next eight weeks to 12 weeks not going to be as many during the summer as there normally are go
Carter
18:58
go to a community consultation in your neighborhood about
Carter
19:01
about an issue in
Carter
19:02
in your region so
Carter
19:03
so let's do a community i'm in inglewood we're doing two new bridges so they just did community consultations now
Carter
19:08
now the bridges are falling down falling
Carter
19:12
need to be replaced what are you consulting me on do
Carter
19:16
do they or do they not need to be replaced they
Carter
19:18
they need to be replaced if they stay Stay where they are. Will we potentially fall into the river? Yes, you will. Replace the bridges. Why are you consulting with me? Get the job done. I
SPEAKER_02
19:28
I think what we're arguing about here is whether consultation should be a means to understand process and how to get things done, not whether things should get done. What
Corey
19:36
What a detour from where we were talking about.
Carter
19:38
about. I know that, but I just
SPEAKER_02
19:39
just wanted to –
Carter
19:40
Consultation drives me crazy because we consult on things that we're going to do anyways, and we call it consultation. All we do is we pull up our listening
SPEAKER_02
19:47
listening – Kind of just wants the government to do shit. Okay, and just do it at a million miles per hour. That's fine. Listen,
Carter
19:50
Listen, if the government was elected to do things, do them.
SPEAKER_02
19:54
I'm moving it on. Okay, I'm moving it on. I think I've lost the plot there.
SPEAKER_02
19:59
would you rank the Wild Rose right now in how they've performed in their first week or so?
SPEAKER_02
20:05
really high. They have
Corey
20:07
have been a hit a day on the government. They've been driving all sorts of these small stories that start to accumulate into a feeling about the government. What the PCs did so poorly in the election, personalizing it and making it small. The Wild Rose are running. They're kicking ass on that. Today I saw, I
Corey
20:26
I don't know, Shannon Phillips. Wrote
SPEAKER_02
20:28
Wrote a foreword or
Corey
20:28
or something. No, co-wrote a foreword and then was given credit as. She encouraged me to write this book. Shame on you, Shannon Phillips, for encouraging people to write. What are you doing? Why would you get somebody to express opinions on
Carter
20:43
on print? Listen, when you're encouraging someone like Mike Aduma to write a book, and you're now the Minister of Environment, you do have some splainin' to do. Oh, come on. Did you say splainin' without the E? Splainin' to do. Okay, so let's picture. Because
Carter
20:54
Because I think, I mean, I really like Shannon Phillips. I'm on the record saying that on this podcast. Really? I wouldn't
SPEAKER_02
20:58
wouldn't notice. We'll probably have to get together the hours of audio that you guys are just... This
Carter
21:03
This is a mistake. The Wild Rose were the only ones to point it out. It would have been better to point it out during the election. I'm throwing it out there. there but you know it's been pointed out now and it has impact and it's it was it was the story of the day it was the story and they they have had the story of the day more days than they haven't i agree so was greg clark and
Carter
21:24
and i ride his butt on it all the time because it's small ball now
Carter
21:29
now the problem with the wild roses they're completely defined as this brand as
Carter
21:32
as as as the small ball guys the guys who pick up that shannon phillips wrote co-wrote a forward in mike aduma's book if
Carter
21:41
if you're going to be anything but the wild rose you need to have a bigger broader vision the wild rose is these are these negative guys these negative nellies who throw up small little objections they're ezra levant um you
Carter
21:54
you know on a tractor that's
Carter
21:55
that's who these guys are you think small mall doesn't
SPEAKER_02
21:57
doesn't get you to government but it gets you to opposition i i find that fascinating Ezra LeVant
Corey
22:01
LeVant on a tractor.
Corey
22:04
That's just a total... That's an internet meme waiting to happen. That
Corey
22:07
That is an internet meme waiting to
SPEAKER_02
22:08
to happen. Okay, I want to talk about another issue that the NDP faced this past week.
SPEAKER_02
22:13
Their chief of staff, Tony Clark, to human services was also a registered lobbyist. Another find, I believe, by the Wild Rose. Well, this is a great bridge.
Carter
22:22
I thought... And Ezra LeVant bangs on it and bangs on it and bangs on it. They're the same people.
Corey
22:27
This is the storm clouds I was talking about. These people are starting to, it's
Corey
22:31
it's a permanent campaign and I worry about the New Democrats in that they have to cope with governing after 44 years of somebody else governing. Can you
Carter
22:39
you explain to me this? I mean, Tony Clark's a registered lobbyist. Well, hold on.
Corey
22:43
Let me get through that point.
Corey
22:45
So they've got their heads full of all of this stuff and somebody's got to be thinking about this campaign because the opposition to the New Democrats, which is pretty angry
Corey
22:55
angry right now and growing angrier by the day, has
Corey
22:57
has decided it's permanent campaign time. And I think this may be the first permanent campaign we've seen in Alberta, because I get the sense right now in the first session that
Corey
23:06
that this is not going away, that they're just going to get angrier and louder. And I don't think we are anywhere near a Bob Ray situation right now. But if they want to avoid a Bob Ray situation, they need to start
Corey
23:17
defining those issues, keeping the definitions that existed. Because don't forget, the New new democrat platform individually tests very well with albertans they need to they need to defend that ground they can't have just their opponents out there uh and i know it's twitter and twitter seems stupid but you can't just have your opponents out there screaming about how the minimum wage is so terrible this minimum wage increase will destroy jobs and not really have any response because don
Corey
23:40
don braid may realize these arguments are stupid but if he's getting five tweets a day from five different twitter trolls saying how come in your article you didn't mention this, it's just going to start to sink in and it's going to seep in.
Corey
23:52
The New Democrats need to have somebody minding the campaign infrastructure. I think now going forward and just really dominating on these issues the way they did during the campaign. Carter,
SPEAKER_02
24:01
Carter, do you agree with that? Does this need to have a continuous campaign infrastructure on the grassroots to push their issues forward?
SPEAKER_02
24:07
I think that there's going
Carter
24:08
going to be a continuous campaign. I think that there always has been a continuous campaign. I don't recall Alison Redford winning
Carter
24:16
winning in 2012 and getting a coast you
Carter
24:19
know there was attacks every day and they started to bring her down and they did bring her down that
Carter
24:24
that was their stated goal and even though i think the wild rose would have preferred to face off in the election against allison redford their problem was that they actually caused the resignation of
Carter
24:34
of allison redford and
Carter
24:35
and well i mean in hindsight it worked out just fine for them but
Carter
24:38
but that is their bigger challenge um
Carter
24:42
these permanent campaigns are going to be in place because people have seen in the past they work so
Carter
24:47
so they're going to keep working and the problem is it's all small things let's
Carter
24:51
let's let's let's just dig into this for a moment tony clark had a job yeah
Carter
24:56
right he was a registered lobbyist for i can't it was the afl yeah
Carter
25:00
the afl gil mcgowan's afl i think that's what we should refer to it gil mcgowan's afl sounds like a movie he's
Corey
25:07
he's He was a registered lobbyist.
Corey
25:09
quits. He was research director, too. He was. He was registered as a lobbyist because a certain percent of his work involved lobbying activity. But it's not like...
Carter
25:18
He wasn't going and knocking on the door every day. But
Carter
25:20
he was a registered lobbyist. Now, my understanding,
Carter
25:24
he went and knocked on Gil McGowan's door, Gil McGowan's AFL, and said, I
Carter
25:30
I am resigning. I'm going to go work for the government. By
Carter
25:32
By the way, I'm still a registered lobbyist. You should try and take me off of that. he
Carter
25:38
washes his hands crosses over and becomes the minute chief of staff to Human Services a big job and Tony's a really you know he's a smart man he'll be able to he'll
Carter
25:46
he'll be great at this but
Carter
25:49
now we find out that Gil McGowan didn't
Carter
25:52
didn't change the lobby registry here's
Carter
25:54
here's my it's an administrative form it's a form yeah
Carter
25:58
you need to submit a form is
Carter
26:00
is this a capital case he's a registered lobbyist and he works for the government no
Carter
26:04
no he's not he was a registered lobbyist he now works for the government yeah
Corey
26:08
yeah the paperwork was not filed the
Carter
26:09
the paperwork wasn't filed get
Carter
26:11
get down off your high horse mr levant get back up on that tractor you
Carter
26:17
know like this is what's driving me crazy i
SPEAKER_02
26:20
feel like if we put our collective energies together esther levin could be the next john deere okay i feel like he's
Carter
26:25
he's got a future in front of him but
Carter
26:28
this is a self-inflicted wound
SPEAKER_02
26:30
right like this Oh,
Corey
26:31
Oh, no, I don't think this is self-inflicted because so many of these things are just going to be out there and sort of happen. I don't think you give credit enough to the Wild Rose here. They're finding these incredibly small issues and they're advocates and they're supporters and they're building them up brilliantly because what they're doing is they're taking them and they're making them up
Corey
26:49
Yeah, well, let's put it this way. If this Tony Clark thing had been first and Mark McQuaid Boyd's chief of staff second, the Tony Clark thing wouldn't even have registered. People would be like, who
Corey
27:00
cares? The paperwork wasn't filed. But because of the way they've been rolled out, now it's like, oh, wow, they have a problem with lobbyists going to government. They're building a narrative.
Corey
27:08
They're building a narrative. Right. And I think the Wild Rose are going to continue to hit hard on those things. I do think this is the first – you know, Alison Redford, half of her campaign, her permanent campaign, was against her own party. This is different. And I just do not think any of these parties are ever going to let up. Well,
Carter
27:25
Well, they continue on. I mean, there is lots of fodder left for them to find in each individual NDP MLA.
Carter
27:31
We don't know anything about them yet, and we will be learning about them. And
SPEAKER_02
27:34
And this conflict of interest story is interesting because it continues. I mean, Lou Arab is another individual that's facing this same sort of like, oh, you're lobbying or you're communications director at the same time you're husband
SPEAKER_02
27:46
husband to the premier. I think this is a narrative, and I think Corey's right. Right, that certainly
Carter
27:50
certainly seems to me... Colleen Klein,
Carter
27:52
of the sainted Ralph Klein in Alberta.
Carter
27:57
whispered policy initiatives to her husband the entire time they were married, and
Carter
28:01
and she became a major proponent for
Carter
28:03
for First Nations people in Alberta. She became a major proponent for children in Alberta. Her
Carter
28:09
Her lobbying efforts of her husband were never documented, they were never registered, but they were incredibly beneficial to the people of Alberta. I'm
Carter
28:17
I'm not going to judge Lou Arab because
Carter
28:20
because he's married to the Premier and may have a thought in his head.
Carter
28:25
That doesn't bother me at all.
Carter
28:33
person works for a union?
Carter
28:36
Give me a break. We're making something out of nothing here.
Corey
28:39
with that. And I did see some people take the opposite position, like Paul Simons, which I was a bit surprised by. I am surprised
Corey
28:45
that. Saying, oh, no, listen, there's just going to be too many conflicts down the road. What's she going to do, divorce him? No, I think she wants Lou to leave his job. Why? He's
Carter
28:54
He's not going to leave the position
Carter
28:55
behind. He's not going to leave the ideas, the ideals, and the values behind. How entrenched are
Carter
29:02
you to your job?
Corey
29:02
job? People have spouses, and spouses have jobs. And the reality is, no matter what Lou was doing, if Lou had a career, that this attack could be made, and it's going to be unfair in all of these cases. The reason why the Wild Rose Lake make it so much is that Lou works for a union. And as a result, you get to say, Kewpie, Kewpie, Kewpie. They have the ear of the premier. It's right there. But come on, man.
Corey
29:26
It's the New Democrats. That union is going to have access
Corey
29:29
access to that party in any case. They're going to be able to put those positions forward. And it's not like Rachel Notley has accepted all of Kewpie's positions carte blanche. No.
Carter
29:38
No. And you know what? But it's not like – this is a couple that share these values. Lou Arab has access to the premier and doesn't need to register as a lobbyist to have that access.
Corey
29:51
Thought exercise for you. Say they met right now with Lou lobbying her and they fell in love and got married. Would people be calling for him to quit his job? I don't think so. No.
Corey
30:01
So what are we talking about? What
Carter
30:02
What we're talking about here is actually the
Corey
30:09
Oh, yeah, the Sorkin movie. The
Carter
30:12
before the West Wing.
Carter
30:15
An American President. Yes.
Carter
30:16
We are discussing the plot of an American President. Ladies and gentlemen, listening to the podcast, there's your homework for the week. Wow, that just came to the point. Watch
Carter
30:24
an American President. I feel
SPEAKER_02
30:25
feel like we did that really well. That's amazing. I thought this was going to be the Seinfeld episode, but we actually talked about nothing. No, we just got deep, dude. We got there. We got there. Okay,
Carter
30:33
Okay, I want to move it on to our final segment, the lightning round.
SPEAKER_02
30:36
Okay, are you guys ready? Yeah. Rachel
SPEAKER_02
30:38
Rachel Notley and the NDP's performance on a scale of 1 to 10 thus far as government Carter?
SPEAKER_02
30:45
Brian Jean and the Wild Rose performance as the official opposition so far. Carter? 7
Corey
30:50
9, but as a government in waiting, 5 Oh,
SPEAKER_02
30:54
Very interesting I like
Carter
30:55
like that. Nice, I like the way you divided the two roles Yeah, it's very
SPEAKER_02
30:58
very nice Yes or no, Brian Jean's small ball attacks eventually lead to a larger narrative or a larger attack. Carter, yes or no?
Carter
31:09
think it's already starting to come
SPEAKER_02
31:12
Does Lou Arab have the same job by next week?
Carter
31:14
Yes. God, I hope so. I hope so.
Carter
31:17
Could you imagine if the genders were reversed?
SPEAKER_02
31:20
the genders were reversed.
SPEAKER_02
31:22
Good point. That's a very good point.
SPEAKER_02
31:24
Okay, if you were to give two lines of advice to the NDP for this session going forward and this summer going forward, what would it be? Stephen Carter.
Carter
31:32
the summer or for this session? Both. Give
SPEAKER_02
31:34
Give it to me together. Give me one, whatever
Carter
31:36
whatever you want to do. Listen, if it's for the summer, enjoy the corndogs. If it's for the session, just
SPEAKER_02
31:39
just get her done and get the hell out of it. Get her done. I like that. Corey?
Corey
31:43
Don't pick too many fights. Keep focused
SPEAKER_02
31:45
focused on what you're
SPEAKER_02
31:45
you're doing. I like that. If you were to give some advice to Wild Rose for this session, Corey, what would it be? Go pick a lot more fights.
SPEAKER_02
31:53
Get a picture of Ezra Levant on a tractor.
SPEAKER_02
31:56
Final question to both of you. Who would you want to co-write your forward in your book, Stephen Carter? Co
Carter
32:00
Co-write the forward on my book. Look, it's probably got to be Alan
SPEAKER_02
32:11
Corey Ogut, who would you get to co-write your foreword? And no, you can't say Shannon Phillips, please.
Corey
32:18
Well, let's see. I guess I'm going to have to pick somebody who I'll ultimately absolutely regret down the road. Somebody who I'll be ashamed to know. So Stephen Carter is the doctor. what a
SPEAKER_02
32:33
that was a he pulled a carter that is it that is episode 537 of the strategist i am zane belch as always with me steven
SPEAKER_02
32:39
steven carter cory hogan and we will see you next time