Episode 543: It's an honour just to be nominated

SPEAKER_03 0:03

This is The Strategist, episode 543. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, how's it doing?

Corey 0:10

Really good. Can't complain, Zain. I

SPEAKER_03 0:12

I thought you'd have a better answer. We are 543 episodes in, and I thought can't complain and really good would be at the bottom of the pack of answers you give me. Well,

Carter 0:20

Well, I think we've worked our way through all the other answers.

Carter 0:24

And there were some highlights back there, you know, when we answered, you know, barely dressed.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

People like that one. Barely dressed. Yeah, it was a big one. Yeah. Interesting, considering we're all in the same room. Yeah,

Corey 0:36

it was 11 at night.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

I don't know how these things just happen. Guys, it is the middle of summer. I say that every time. Last four episodes, I've been like, it's the middle of summer. I need to understand how the calendar works. course. It is summer and politics is heating up. Yes, that is the worst pun ever. Oh,

SPEAKER_03 0:55

yeah. Really nice. But there's a lot to talk about. You know, there's it seems like at this point we're teasing things out, but there's still a lot of activity behind the scenes. And I want to get into some of the topics that we haven't been able to cover in previous episodes. So let's kick it off with our first segment called It's Just an Honor to be Nominated. I want to talk about our nominations that are happening in the federal parties right now. I want to talk about pathways to victory And to help us do that, we have a guest. We have a guest on the show, Alice Funke, who is the publisher of Pundit Guides to Politics. Alice, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

You didn't tell me I'd have to think up an original answer to that one.

Carter 1:32

There's a lot of pressure here, Alice. I mean, you just have to understand what we deal with on a week-in, week-out basis.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

basis. We would have balked at barely dressed as an actor. herself i'm

SPEAKER_01 1:44

i'm surprisingly adequate oh surprisingly excellent

Corey 1:48

good well that's that's no small feat when you're tracking all the nominations right now it's

SPEAKER_03 1:52

it's almost like a story in itself why is it surprising that she's adequate i like that it's very good okay i

SPEAKER_03 1:57

i want to talk to us about about something that we haven't been able to get to on on this podcast which is the nominations for the federal parties as they stand right now alice with your work on pundits guide you've been tracking the nominations as they come in for each of the parties provincially but also on aggregate so maybe give us a lay of the land as to where the nominations stand right now and then we can get it into a discussion of where we think they are

SPEAKER_01 2:21

okay well the three main parties uh have between 84 84

SPEAKER_01 2:27

84 and 91 percent of their slates done um and the ndp just announced like about 40 nomination meetings uh last week um

SPEAKER_01 2:39

um a number of them, a large number of them in Alberta, whereas you guys are probably aware they froze their nominations before the provincial election.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

three main parties are getting pretty close to being done. The Conservatives

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Conservatives seem to have been holding back a few seats. I'm wondering if we We could expect a few star candidate announcements. The Liberals seem to be done their target seats. And like I said, the NDP's major gap is in Alberta. And I would not be surprised if they were not holding back a few star announcements themselves. See,

SPEAKER_03 3:24

See, that's interesting. You're almost walking into what my next question is. And I see smirks on the faces of Stephen and Corey here. Here, let's talk about the nominations as it relates to the percentages and the star candidates. Guys, do you think this is possible right now that the conservatives are, are they holding out for star candidates or do they have star candidates? And I think those are two very different things.

Corey 3:44

I'm becoming pretty convinced they have star candidates. Their announcement a day has been pretty impressive. I'm wondering what 78 days of Netflix tax announcements look like, but I

Corey 3:55

I think we're going to find out. But one or two of those days will probably be the announcements of some candidates with some real chops. I think they know it's a weakness, and I think they're going to fill it. I

Carter 4:03

I think we've been talking about how they've lost a large percentage of their front bench. And Harper doesn't want to replace with a lot of the people who are running for the sixth time. It's time to put in some new blood and show a little bit of a new team. But one or two star announcements would be as many as I would expect. I certainly wouldn't expect anything more than that. Alice,

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Alice, what's your assessment on this? Do you think they have got stars in the pipeline waiting to be announced as candidates? Or is this, lack of a better term, a pipe dream for the Conservatives?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Well, they've been trying to recruit a number of the B.C. Liberal MLAs. Some have command, some have not.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

But the latest wild rumor in B.C. two days ago was that Nina Gruel was going to be DQ'd in favor of Kevin Falcon. and after some mad reporting uh it turned out that that was that rumor was not true on the other hand i didn't see her in any of the photos from the pm's rally in richmond so then that kept the conspiracy theories going for a while but does look like doug horn is going to run in james moore's old seat um of course they've got diane watts uh in south surrey white rock who is a big get for them um

SPEAKER_01 5:28

think they're pretty full in ontario we'll

SPEAKER_03 5:32

yeah that's interesting you mentioned bc cory what's your take i mean we've we've assessed bc as being one of the biggest battlegrounds in this election yeah

Corey 5:39

yeah uh well it's it's one of those pieces the conservatives are going to need to at least keep a piece of uh if they're going to win this election that um that falcon thing got us all excited we were so happy and you locked us down so quickly on that one three

Carter 5:54

strategists on the edge of their seats and then bam right in the head well

SPEAKER_01 5:58

well the gruel family has not had a very good record in this campaign because gurmont uh gray wall the former mp as you recall he wanted to run in cloverdale uh langley city and he was dq'd and then their son John Livgruel won

SPEAKER_01 6:16

won a contested nomination in the Mission Matsui Fraser

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Fraser Canyon seat. That's the one with the independent candidate flying the goose.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

I love that guy.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

And we have to credit you for being the first to find that a while ago.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Well, I found it, like, I found it, I was the first one to tweet it since June when they made it. And, again, it's just me researching candidates to add to the database.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

It's crazy what you come up with. But at any event, so Liv Gruel, the son, he won the contested nomination, and then they DQ'd him afterwards for,

SPEAKER_01 6:58

for, I guess, paying for people's memberships, if I remember this correctly. So she was the last remaining Gruel. And now this, I mean.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

I'm sorry. I feel

SPEAKER_03 7:10

feel like that's the title of our podcast. The

SPEAKER_01 7:12

The last rural standing, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

But so the problem for her is that this was of the Surrey seats that the NDP has targeted over the years, that one was number three. And they finally got to it this time with the nomination of a former RCMP officer, Gary Begg, who's very well known in

SPEAKER_01 7:37

in Surrey for his work on gangs. things so suddenly this was going to be a much tougher race for the conservatives and i think they felt uh

SPEAKER_01 7:46

uh some people felt that ms gruel perhaps might not be the strongest candidate to take on a candidate you know they really never had a fight in there before but now they do well

Corey 7:57

well let's jump into the realm of pure gossip any names kicking around i think about surrey there's some conservatives on council there anybody from municipal politics gonna make the jump any Any rumors?

SPEAKER_01 8:06

She has tweeted that she is running and that's that. And I know for a fact that she's been nominated. But if they were going to, I

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I mean, if they were going to replace her, well, gossip

SPEAKER_03 8:21

So I don't want to stop the conversation there because I think this is fascinating. But I think there's a question that I want to tease out here. here. What is the balance between getting

SPEAKER_03 8:30

getting a star candidate out early enough so that they're in place and working on the ground and identifying the votes versus making a big splash during the period or closer to the period? Corey, what's your take on that?

Corey 8:42

Well, the reason they're a star candidate is everybody knows them. That's the nature of a star candidate. It's not about getting them out ahead. It's actually getting their teams out and making sure their organization is functioning at a high level. As this campaign rolls on, You can't put a campaign team together in 20 days. So often what you'll see is a situation where there's a wake. You know, somebody is just doing a stalking horse or somebody otherwise putting an organization together. Because the other thing about star candidates is they're often in roles where they can't leave a year before. Political parties go through this like the seasons. It goes back and forth. After every single election, the political party who lost says, we're going to nominate earlier. earlier and then as the election gets closer they say well hold on maybe we want to hold a few of these back for star candidates there is no one right answer zane i guess is is the lame response i have but um

Corey 9:34

um it's it's going to if they're going to need to come pretty soon if they're going to come at all steven

SPEAKER_03 9:39

steven what's your take on this do you go early do you leave some behind what's the best strategic move that that you would advocate for when

Carter 9:45

when you got 338 seats you leave some behind You

Carter 9:48

You make sure that you can put, especially if you've got some stars you can throw into the cycle, it changes your news structure. And suddenly, if you've got a bad day with the leader, you slide in a star candidate two days later and you change the channel. So,

SPEAKER_03 10:05

So, Alice, do you think we should be reading into anything right now with looking at these stats? the Conservatives who called this election, everything was pretty much tailored to when they wanted this to happen, only have 88% of their candidates nominated. Is that something we should be looking into more broadly? Or is that just par for the course?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Well, I think each party has a combination of seats that they're holding back with some plan for and seats that they are needing

SPEAKER_01 10:32

needing to fill that are just no hopers. The Conservatives are really having trouble in Newfoundland and Labrador, for example. And it was really, must

SPEAKER_01 10:44

must have been a really unfortunate set of circumstances for them to DQ

SPEAKER_01 10:49

DQ John Crosby's son, Chess Crosby. I mean, you cannot imagine worse public relations for the Conservatives in Newfoundland. And I think my suspicion is that that Tim Power had put a lot of effort into trying to mend fences between

SPEAKER_01 11:08

between the Conservative Party and the Crosbys, and this was a good foot

SPEAKER_01 11:15

foot forward to make. And the fact that his candidacy would be rejected, I mean, someone

SPEAKER_01 11:22

someone made quite a racist comment on Twitter the other day that

SPEAKER_01 11:27

David Cochran retweeted out there, but they're basically saying, you know, They're going to have to go overseas to find someone who will run for the Conservative Party in Newfoundland. I mean, they've got one candidate on the West Coast, and that's it. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

That's fascinating. I want to move it on to the NDP. You know, Alice, you touched upon the NDP having a bulk of nominations happening here in Alberta. Guys, we saw that there was that freeze that Alice mentioned during the provincial election. Is there a chance they can get any star candidates here, or do they just take whoever at this point? Well,

Corey 12:01

Well, I think they've already done an okay job of getting star-ish candidates in some of the ridings here in Calgary and in Edmonton. You do? Really? Well, they've got Kirk Heuser in Calgary Confederation. He's a name. He's a name. They've got Gil McGowan, the president of the AFL, up in Edmonton Centre. Also a name and a well-known personality to any political watcher here in Alberta.

Corey 12:23

When you look at it, I don't know how many more so-called stars you could expect in Alberta. It's not like they think they're going to run the tables here, but in some ways that election was a bit of a funny blessing, wasn't it? Because they had a lot of people nominated who, well,

Corey 12:40

well, I don't know how many actually, I'd have to check the numbers, but they lost a few of their nominees to the legislature.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah, so they lost three candidates to the legislature, one in an Edmonton suburb and two in Calgary. So

SPEAKER_01 12:56

So what we've had since the Alberta election is that they've been swamped with people wanting to be vetted. And, you know, they would be serious candidates and or longtime party activists who might not have the star quality of Kirk Hauser, but would be well known within their own domains or, you know, at least be quite respectable. And they've got a lot of contested nominations. This is the thing. Edmonton Greaseball was contested. Edmonton Centre was

Corey 13:30

was contested. Edmonton Calgary Confederation was really contested. I live in Confederation. I'm on the NDP mailing list. You guys can make your own assumptions as to why that is the case. and uh the

Carter 13:41

the orange apologist rides

Corey 13:42

rides again the uh the number of the number of emails i got the amount of enthusiasm robo calls phone calls door knocks from candidates uh there's just a ton of people who see an ndp nomination as a as a path to a job now it used to be something that you did as a favor to the party in calgary but they're they're taking it very seriously both

SPEAKER_01 14:04

both both seats in Red Deer are contested, and

SPEAKER_01 14:09

and they've also, on the First Nations front, they've actually recruited some pretty

SPEAKER_01 14:14

pretty strong candidates. Cameron Alexis, the recent

SPEAKER_01 14:19

recent AFN regional vice chief, and

SPEAKER_01 14:22

and also the young guy up in Edmonton Manning, Aaron Paquette, who is involved with Autumn Wapiskat and Idle No More, the artist.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

Wow, that's interesting. Now, a question Question for you there, Alice. Is

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Is this current crop of NDP candidates that you're seeing, Alberta and outside, are they part of the party sort of movement? Or are you seeing the NDP's viability extending to candidates that were not part of the institution to begin with and are bringing in people from the outside as they speak?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Oh, yeah, I think that's certainly the case. This weekend, there will be a six-way nomination for the NDP in Notre Dame de Grasse, Westmount. to run against Mark Garneau. This will include a former deputy minister of social services from New Brunswick, a Montreal city councillor, the former justice reporter for the Montreal Gazette, and a trustee on the Montreal English Language School Board, in addition to an Algerian doctor and another environmental

SPEAKER_01 15:26

environmental activist. Like, it's, it's, the Montreal media can't get over it. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

Wow. I mean, that has not made its way here. At least I have not heard that. But that's interesting. Carter, Corey, any takes on that? What you see of the viability of the NDP in terms of the breadth of their candidates? Well,

Corey 15:45

Well, there are leading factors and things that you should be watching if you want to see where party support is going to go down the road, such as candidate interest, volunteer enthusiasm, money. Some of them are easy to measure, money. Some of them are not, enthusiasm. But that's all very positive for the New Democrats. And I think it speaks to what we've been seeing for the past six months, certainly since the Alberta election, which is there's a real spring in the New Democrats' step right now. And it might be coming at just the right time.

Carter 16:14

Well, just the right time is good right now for getting candidates nominated. We'll see how they feel when this mega election ends. But I do think that the spring is in their step. And I think that that is absolutely noticeable in the type and quality of candidates. It's one thing to nominate a full slate of candidates. It's another to be able to point to candidates and say, that's a star that won a contested nomination. So

SPEAKER_03 16:38

So speaking of stars, I want to move it over to the Liberal Party, because they are the ones at 91% of their nominations locked down right now that have the most individuals or candidates in place. Alice, what do you make of the Liberals as they stand right now? Are they done making their big moves?

SPEAKER_01 16:55

um i don't i don't see them as having uh any more big stars to uh announce i could be mistaken on that but most of their good seats the way i see it are gone um they're just tidying up a few um and they they've also got uh next weekend not this coming weekend the one after the the long-awaited nomination meeting in Hunsic,

SPEAKER_01 17:19

which is in the north end of Montreal.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

It has been one of the eight closest ridings across multiple elections. I'll say that more

SPEAKER_01 17:33

more normally. Over the past number of elections, it's been one of the eight seats that's been close in every single election. election.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

And so Melanie Jolie, who is a close friend of Mr. Trudeau's and who ran for the mayor of Montreal, she's who the Trudeau folks sort of dropped in there to run, but there were already like seven candidates in the running.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

So they had put that one off to give her a chance to catch up. We'll see if she does it.

Corey 18:04

Well, this is, there are some themes to the liberal nomination process. process failed mayoral candidates as a sub one they do

Corey 18:12

lot uh and then the other one is is the leader's office being pretty pretty

Corey 18:19

pretty uh you know straightforward with the fact that they have favorites in it and and moving the process accordingly do you think that's hurt them with people who might otherwise would have jumped into races well

SPEAKER_01 18:31

well the first thing is i i think this term open nominations, I think they caught themselves up in this. And I covered the liberal leadership debates, all of them across the country. And I saw Mr. Trudeau saying this, and I know what he meant was that we won't reappoint the incumbents. I don't think they were intending to

SPEAKER_01 18:54

to not to have an opinion or, you

SPEAKER_01 18:58

you know, not to go without a vetting process. But so it really raised expectations. And the open nominations system was a huge fundraiser for them, because the candidates have to put down quite a big deposit. The membership sales, I mean, any serious candidate is hiring a vendor to do that. And there have been ridings

SPEAKER_01 19:24

ridings in Brampton and Surrey where the memberships, like the eligible voters, were in the thousands, like in one of them over 10,000, I think, in Surrey-Newton.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

But then if you're asking people to make that level of investment into a campaign, and oftentimes for over a year, like in Scarborough Southwest, there were seven candidates going at it for over a year. And then suddenly the leader's office, you know, the leader appears at the announcement of Bill Blair. I mean, for

SPEAKER_01 20:00

for most parties, that's just a bridge too far in terms of, you know, the center expressing a preference. I mean, it nods as good as the wink to a blind horse, but that would feel pretty blatant. Mostly the party has held it together, though, on those. those. But it has created some definite hurt feelings. And in some cases, some court cases that are now referred to in their financial statements.

Carter 20:29

Yes, Stephen, you were going to try. I just I hate when leaders make these types of pledges that are misinterpreted. I mean, the reality is that a leader's office should always retain the right to select a candidate. candidate, this idea of trying

Carter 20:43

trying to ensure the grassroots democracy, the very best way to do that is to make sure you've got really good candidates. To

SPEAKER_03 20:49

To keep my half, Corey, do you think the leader should have the autonomy to appoint whoever they want? We're

Corey 20:54

We're in a uncomfortable place for the Canadian political parties. We're from a British system, right, where parties choose candidates. And we're moving towards an American system where candidates choose parties. And And right now, we're in a weird middle ground where candidates choose parties who also choose candidates, and it's not really working for anybody. How that gets settled in the next couple of years, if it gets settled, it will be one of the big questions, I think, to watch, you know, giving in coming decades seems like a long horizon. But really, it's going to take several more elections before there's any kind of conclusion on that. Corey,

SPEAKER_03 21:29

Corey, you bring up a great point, and I think it's a great segue to the next part of this conversation, which is how do you leverage an exciting seven-way, six-way, five-way nomination vote to a pathway to victory, right? You're saying candidates are choosing parties. You know, there's going to be hurt feelings, whether that's, you know, you having your name on the nomination ballot or not. But what is the pathway going forward to taking that energy of about 1,500 people showing up in Edmonton Center to vote for Gil McGowan and then leveraging that onto the the playing field so

Corey 22:00

so the hurt feelings after an exciting five-way what do you do uh i

Corey 22:05

i don't know i guess i guess what you probably want to do is is reach out it's

Corey 22:11

tough it's tough it's hard because

Carter 22:12

because here's your reality people

Carter 22:15

people say things people do things that are going to upset people i mean um candidates

Carter 22:20

candidates misrepresent themselves you misrepresent the other person and they're all just supposed to shake each other's hand and

Carter 22:26

and say okay well we're willing to go i mean we've seen seen this even uh i

Carter 22:30

mean i think kirk kaiser's nomination is probably the best example i

Carter 22:33

they're the other candidates were going full on to

Carter 22:36

to get that nomination and they expected to win one was texting

Carter 22:39

texting out that she had one practically but but this is the this is the downside of a big nomination race if you can keep it together then you're in a position where you can probably do very well but all too often you will start to see things

Carter 22:54

things split off and even groups going to another party well that's

SPEAKER_03 22:57

that's that brings my next point alice do you see whether that's historically or in this election the porousness of the two progressive parties people running for a nomination for one and saying you know i can't support this individual running to the other side do you think there's actual danger in people taking um their followers their supporters to the other to the other side well

SPEAKER_01 23:19

when i made a study of the three parties different sets of nomination rules That was about a year ago. I wrote about the differences between them. And one fun fact you may not know is that for

SPEAKER_01 23:32

for the Conservative Party, when you want to run, you have to put down a deposit with them, and you don't get it back until after the election is over to

SPEAKER_01 23:43

to ensure that you haven't gone to run for another party or said something against the candidate who won. I

Carter 23:51

I love the Conservatives and their democratic principles. That's amazing. I

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Wow. That was the good behavior. It's called the good behavior deposit or something. The Wild Rose tried to copy it. Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 24:03

Yeah, they did. Provincially, we've heard of it in our 2012 election. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yeah, the Liberals have a deposit too, but I think you get it back after the nomination process. But I mean, realistically, whatever

SPEAKER_01 24:17

whatever things they make candidates sign, there are always some that afterwards go and run for somebody else. Elizabeth May is really behind in her nomination process. And so she, you know, the technique they have followed is to go and try and recruit unsuccessful nomination contestants from the other two parties or people who have run municipally unsuccessfully, but had some kind of team around them in

SPEAKER_01 24:48

in order to substitute it for a local organization. It's

Corey 24:53

It's like the Island of Misfit Toys. That

Carter 24:56

does describe the Green Party.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

so that's that's that's really interesting stuff house i do want to hit into this a little bit more pathways to victory what do we see them as for these three parties at post nomination cardinal go with you first any any top line thoughts around this um for the for the conservatives let's say for

Carter 25:13

for the conservatives i mean their pathway to victory i've talked about it podcast after podcast i think that they're in the midst of their pathway to victory they know exactly what what they're doing, and they are implementing it according

Carter 25:24

according to their plan.

Carter 25:26

Whereas the New Democrats have this pathway that's unfolding in front of them. If they can figure out something in Ontario, they might be fine. The Liberals are the ones who have the smallest pathway to victory because they've ignored all the paths that have come before them.

Carter 25:43

They just keep walking past each opportunity. Alice,

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Alice, what do you think? What are the pathways right now that you see for some some of these parties post-nominations and once those are done?

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Well, I mean, the Conservatives are moving east to west across the country.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

The Conservatives are on the defensive almost right away in Atlantic Canada in terms of their particular seats in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They

SPEAKER_01 26:09

They are trying to make up the difference, I guess, with some of their candidate recruitment in the South Shore below Quebec City, sort of that blue triangle and Quebec City proper. But it remains to be seen how well that will go.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

And they are in a fight with the Liberals in the 905 around Toronto.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Toronto. Now, Adam Radwanski had a pretty good piece the other day where he was saying that the

SPEAKER_01 26:39

the NDP could have a path to victory without the 905, Maybe some seats in Brampton and a couple seats in Scarborough, but that they would look at Quebec,

SPEAKER_01 26:51

southwestern Ontario, northern Ontario, and the prairie cities.

Corey 26:58

Yeah, that to me seems like a reasonable path. It will shock the 905, I think. One of the things that as Westerners we're very acutely aware of, almost

Corey 27:07

almost like the little brother who is now bigger than his big sister, right, is like, hey, our population is growing. Our clout is growing. Electoral math can include us now. Before, Alberta was usually just written off, not enough seats, and most of those seats went in one direction. But the prairies as a whole, and especially when you throw BC in there, this is the first election where BC and Alberta combined have as many seats as Quebec.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

Yeah, that's a fair point. Corey, any other insights you may have on electoral pathways for these parties as they stand right now? Well,

Corey 27:39

Well, I mean, talk about a bite-sized question, right? There's a lot of X in front of everybody. Who knows how this is going to unfold? But I remain convinced that the New Democrats are best positioned. They have all of the pieces and they have the broadest base of support from which to build upon. The Liberals, however, should not be written off as quickly and as readily as some have. Let's not forget that the Liberals were, if you look at rolling 12-month highs, the Liberals still have the highest rolling 12-month high, way higher than the other two parties. There are people who have in the very recent past said

Corey 28:14

said they were going to vote for Justin Trudeau's Liberals. Well,

Carter 28:17

Well, the volatility still remains. I mean, and the volatility, I think, is nationwide, just in different fashions. You've still got pockets of strength across the country for each of the parties. And because that pocket of strength exists, the pocket of volatility exists

Carter 28:31

exists in other places.

Carter 28:34

really looking forward to seeing more

Carter 28:37

campaigning because the campaigning is going to tell us what each individual

Carter 28:41

individual party knows about their strengths and weaknesses, where

Carter 28:45

where they're viable and where they're not viable.

Carter 28:48

mean, who's going to touch down in Calgary in September compared to touching down in Calgary in August? Because

Carter 28:53

Because those are two very different things. Coming to Calgary in August costs you nothing. Coming

Carter 28:58

Coming to Calgary in September will

Carter 29:00

will be a play that's only made by a

Carter 29:02

a party that thinks they can win seats.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

The opportunity costs. You know, there's one more topic I want to discuss under this segment, which is none of this really matters unless you drill down on who the voters are and who actually shows up and supports. So, Alice, since we have you for this segment, do you have any insights as to what history tells us or what you may know around certain demo groups that are going to be important or certain, you know, historical voting patterns that you feel like might be interesting that could come into play this election?

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Well, I think I'll go back and touch on one that

SPEAKER_01 29:36

that I touched on a little bit before. When I worked on Parliament Hill in my youth, it was during Meech Lake and Oka and Charlottetown and the long, hot summer. And I remember many speeches on Parliament Hill from George Erasmus and Ovid Merkerti saying, deal with us because there's a baby boom coming behind us and they will be harder to deal with. And that generation now has come a voting age. And if they choose to participate in our elections and exert their influence at the ballot box, I'm saying that young Aboriginal people could be a growing block of votes in the West in particular who

SPEAKER_01 30:22

who could really influence uh politics going forward and i don't even think that's a demographic that you know people have fully grappled with yet cory

SPEAKER_03 30:32

cory did you want to add anything to that well

Corey 30:34

well demos rule everything i and the the echo of the baby boom is going to be having a lot more clout it's not even so much for me that they've come a voting age it's that they're now in a position where they have money they have influence they have candidates will

Carter 30:50

will Until they vote. I

Carter 30:51

I mean, this remains, when I'm looking at the polling information now, the

Carter 30:56

the information that we're showing, when

Carter 30:57

when you start lopping off some of these demographics that traditionally don't vote, and Alice, you've brought up a

Carter 31:02

a really important one, but there's many others as well. When

Carter 31:06

When you start lopping them off, it really is impacting the liberals more than it's impacting the New Democrats. It's fascinating to watch, actually, the strength of the New Democrats across virtually every major demographic. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

Interesting. Alice, any comment on that? I'll give you the last word.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Oh, well, just that the major shift that we saw coming out of Alberta and translating federally was the shift in vote intention of university educated voters. And they do vote and they move to the NDP in Alberta. And I think Frank Graves still finds that the NDP is leading there federally.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

That's going to be a thing.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

Yeah, for sure. Sure. We'll leave it there, Alice. Thank you so much. We probably learned more than we ever have on one of our podcasts because frankly, it's just us blowing hot air. But that has been fascinating and we'd love to have you on in future episodes.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Oh, well, anytime. I really enjoy listening. I think you guys do a great job.

Corey 32:04

Thanks very much. Thank you. All

SPEAKER_03 32:06

right, moving on to our next segment, our next segment called My Heart Says One Thing, My Mouth Says Another. Guys, I want to go through some situations that have happened this week politically and i want you to tell me number one how bad were they on a scale of one to ten and number two how long do you think they'll have any exposure

SPEAKER_03 32:23

exposure or impact on the campaign so i'll give you a few scenarios that have happened this week that's effectively what i want you to talk about okay so first scenario nigel wright and his testimony against senator mike duffy how bad is this for the conservatives number one and how long do you think this will have exposure within the campaign carter go first it's

Carter 32:39

it's an it's this is entirely game of expectations and the media and everybody were expecting that this was going to be dynamite and it would be used against the Conservatives. It is not dynamite. It is a pop gun. It is not making the impact that I think that people expected. Nigel Wright,

Carter 32:57

I mean, I think he sounds reasonable. He sounds intelligent, and he's not hurting the prime minister. Corey,

SPEAKER_03 33:03

Corey, one to ten, how bad is Nigel Wright? One being not so bad, ten being horrible.

Corey 33:07

Well, I think it's a seven in the broad context of the story, but this week, I don't know, a three. I think he said everything as well as you could imagine him to say it. He sounded thoughtful. He sounded reasonable. He sounded sincere, honest.

Corey 33:21

is not a story that you look at and you're like, this makes no sense. It actually makes a ton of sense. And that's a problem for anybody who thought that this was going to be the end of days for the conservatives. We've

SPEAKER_03 33:31

We've got at least, it seems like, a week of cross-examination. There might be more to come in that story. I want to move it on to our next topic. Stephen Harper coming here to our great province to campaign in Edmonton. How bad is this for the Conservatives? Does it mean anything, Corey? How bad do you think that is?

Corey 33:44

Yeah, they're going to lose Edmonton. I said it just a second ago and I'm going to say it now. I've seen polling that shows the New Democrats winning five of the nine seats. I think it's

Corey 33:54

it's trending up from there. I think it's not unreasonable to think that they get seven of nine. Do you think Harper comes back?

Carter 34:01

Harper's back in September.

Carter 34:02

Harper's going to come back to Alberta in September. He might even come back to Alberta in October. Really?

SPEAKER_03 34:07

Really? You think this is bad for him right now? I think that the reality

Carter 34:10

reality is that when you start looking at blocks of seats, you could lose three to five seats. He doesn't have the

Carter 34:16

the luxury of letting that – because a three-seat – let's

Carter 34:20

let's say it's only three, not the five or more that Corey's projecting. If it's five or more, it's a 10-seat swing, right?

Carter 34:26

right? Because that's a blue-orange swing, and blue-orange swing is the worst for the prime minister. If it goes red, he can work around a couple of different things. But when it goes orange, it's going to be a problem. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

interesting. Give me your numbers. I want you on the record. Corey, how bad was this for Harper?

Corey 34:40

No, I think that that was probably a seven. Not because everything he said was so bad, but because it was so indicative. Corey's just going to say seven means nothing

SPEAKER_03 34:47

nothing to him. I think it's like a four.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

four. Okay, so you're not that bad, but still will make an impact. Yeah, it

SPEAKER_03 34:52

Justin Trudeau telling us that the economy grows from the hard out. Guys, first of all, Corey, I know you want to add some context to this, so give us some context. And then tell us how bad this statement or this gaffe is and what the exposure in this campaign could look like for it.

Corey 35:06

I don't know. I don't know if I can give any context that helps Justin Trudeau. I looked at the quote. I listened to it a few times. The first time I heard it, I wasn't at all sure what

Corey 35:16

what is the story? What is he saying? Is he saying that we should do what we love and the work will follow? Because I hate that. Everybody who's ever had a rich friend who gets a degree in sociology fucking hates that. Oh, yeah.

Corey 35:29

And and if he's saying that we need to be compassionate to the middle class, which I believe is ultimately where it was.

Corey 35:37

that's not a plan. I

Carter 35:38

I had I had a third interpretation. Oh,

Carter 35:40

we're going to if we're going to build it. But this is the problem, right?

Carter 35:44

If we're having this many interpretations, he's way off message. I thought he was talking about growing from the heart of the economy out. Right.

Carter 35:52

Right. So what is the heart of the economy? I don't know. The heart of the economy is our resource sector, our agricultural sector, our manufacturing. sector. These

Carter 36:00

These are the, you know, our fisheries.

Carter 36:03

These are the places where we have to really

Carter 36:05

really buckle down and make sure that we've got strength.

Carter 36:08

And that's how you make sure that the economy doesn't fall further into recession.

Carter 36:13

If that's what he meant, fine,

Carter 36:16

fine, I can get behind him. But if he meant anything else or worse, if he actually meant what the Sun newspapers had on the front of their newspaper today, which is Justin's head on a Care Bear, then

Carter 36:26

then we have a significant problem Because he

Carter 36:29

he sounds like so. So we're going to grow the economy by putting the heart first. I'm naive. I was perhaps naive. We'll

SPEAKER_03 36:37

We'll talk about that. Yeah.

Carter 36:40

what's the other quote? Budgets balance themselves. Come on.

SPEAKER_03 36:44

It's building. Is it building a narrative? And more specifically to my question, how long do you think this this particular quote or message could last? I

Corey 36:52

think it could last the whole election. I think this one sticks because it plays into this sense of this out-of-touch rich kid who's like, do what you love and the money will follow. I was a drama teacher because I loved it and I love being prime minister and I'm going to get to be that too. It's bad. It really plays into a view of Justin Trudeau that they cannot afford to have. Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 37:19

just don't know what to do. The opposite of Northeast sensibilities. I'm moving it on. Tom Mulcair and the NDP paying their Punjabi-speaking canvassers, phone canvassers, less than their English-speaking phone canvassers in an article published last week, but reintroduced this week. How bad, Corey? Scale of 1 to 10, how bad is that?

Corey 37:36

Oh, really bad within that community. But I think the

Corey 37:41

the New Democrats, at least, were pretty quick in saying this is obviously a big mistake. We have set. I actually didn't realize the New Democrats had a set canvas or price that they told everybody to pay. That's a really good idea to avoid situations like this and to give cover when these situations do happen. Carter, how about I

Carter 37:58

think, I mean, it happened at a good time. No one again. I always keep falling back on the no one's paying attention. That's going to get old pretty soon. People are going to start paying attention.

Carter 38:10

don't think it was that bad. I think they got through pretty good by admitting it was a mistake and moving on.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

The NDP have put out the attack ad. We thought it was going to be the conservatives, but it's the NDP that have now put out the attack ad with really jingly music and Trudeau saying perhaps he was naive. How bad is this for the liberal leader when I think everyone and their dog speculated this was going to happen, Corey? Yeah,

Corey 38:29

Yeah, I don't know. It wasn't the New Democrats' best work, but it's a message that's going to follow him because, again, it plays into this narrative of Trudeau. Perhaps

SPEAKER_03 38:38

Perhaps I was naive. Does that stick around until October? over well

Corey 38:41

well i i think so i think it's going to be just the greatest hits reel is what you'll see i'd start putting

Carter 38:47

putting them all together um

Carter 38:48

um and the problem now is that everything he says is going to be put through that filter is this another gaffe is this another gaffe i didn't quite understand that it must be a gaffe and so you're going to start seeing things that maybe weren't even that bad that start to fall into the narrative that prove prove the

Carter 39:07

and and what i hate is how the liberals are responding the

Carter 39:11

the liberals are responding with look at this ad it can't possibly be true yeah

Carter 39:16

are you kidding me are

Carter 39:17

are you kidding me

Carter 39:19

liberal war room i'm speaking to you stop

Carter 39:23

stop repeating the charge i will fly out there i know where your office is i'm going to start smacking some heads together stop repeating Heeding the charge.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

This is very similar to episode 212 where Stephen verbally assaulted a taxi driver. That was unfortunate.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

It needed to happen. It needed to happen. Okay, I want to go with the last one here. The liberals are potentially building a website right now called NDP Minimum Wage. Going to be attacking the NDP on minimum wage. How bad is this going to be for the NDP? So looking at it on that lens, how bad could that be, especially with this whole change narrative going on? Corey, you first. Yeah,

Corey 40:05

Yeah, I don't love what the NDP did with the whole federal minimum wage. It's very misleading. They can say it's not misleading, but it's very misleading. There is a suggestion to a lot of Canadians that we're going to have a minimum wage of $15 in every job across the country. That's not what it is. The Liberals and New Democrats could sit there and argue about how many people get covered by it. It's not everybody. That's the important thing to keep in mind. that

Corey 40:28

was a mistake and that was a mistake of the ndp zone creation i also think that the risk of of a voter who say is making 13 an hour of them just feeling utterly betrayed by it is through the roof i don't i

Corey 40:43

don't know why you would jerk those people around yeah

Carter 40:45

yeah but this is one of those things that i always always try and remind people when we're sitting in a war room we're trying to run

Carter 40:50

run an election campaign and that is just because the other team has made a mistake let's not make the mistake of believing that we can win votes off of it I'm

Carter 40:58

I'm not sure that a minimum wage pledge is winning anybody votes except the conservatives as long as the New Democrats and the liberals are fighting about minimum wage increases what's real and what's not real the

Carter 41:10

the conservatives get to talk about how they're the only ones talking about small business and small business owners I've

SPEAKER_03 41:16

I've got to follow up on that do you feel like that is exclusive to this particular topic Or do you feel like any time the NDP and the Liberals fight, the Conservatives can have a smile on their face?

Carter 41:27

Well, I'm not sure that that's necessarily true. If the Liberals

Carter 41:31

Liberals or the NDP fight with the others and actually score a blow, that means

Carter 41:37

means that the Conservatives risk a two-horse race. Right.

Carter 41:42

And a two-horse race

Carter 41:45

the worst case scenario for them. Corey,

SPEAKER_03 41:47

Corey, do you got

SPEAKER_03 41:48

any thoughts on that?

Corey 41:48

No, I mean, it's all a balancing act for the Tories. But we call them wedges for a reason. They separate the conservatives from the rest of them. And arguing about which one of them is doing less for their base is not really helping the liberals or new Democrats. It's helping the conservatives.

SPEAKER_03 42:04

That's it. That's our segment. My heart says one thing. My mouth says another. You know, I gave up the numbers at some point. You guys were not playing ball about that.

SPEAKER_03 42:12

next round, you're going to give me numbers. It's the lightning round in the over-under. Guys, are you ready? Yes. Who has had the best week so far? Stephen Carter.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

have. That was my answer,

Carter 42:20

I've had the best week so far. I've had a great week. No, I think that the best week so far probably has to lie with Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau? Yeah.

Corey 42:31

Yeah, Trudeau is an interesting answer. I don't know where you come from that. The

Carter 42:34

The debate, he's got a debate bounce. He's not the one fighting too much in the way of negative except for the heart comment yesterday. Speaking

Corey 42:41

Speaking from the heart. I think the heart one was a problem, and I think that it retroactively makes things he said in the debate a problem. So I'm

SPEAKER_03 42:48

I'm hearing you say someone else? I'm

Corey 42:50

I'm saying someone else. I'm saying... Let me guess.

Corey 42:55

I'm saying Tommy Mulcair.

Corey 42:58

Because ultimately, a bad day for Justin is a good day for Tom.

SPEAKER_03 43:03

Who's making the better case for change so far, Corey?

Corey 43:07

Oh, I honestly think that Justin's making the better case for change. change but uh just because he's putting together a persuasive argument that is hitting the things that uh that

Corey 43:16

that that need to be hit does not mean that it's going to be followed up with any kind of strategy that can deliver that on election what do

Carter 43:23

do you think i agree i think that the weakness is not necessarily uh how they're constructing the argument i think that they're just there's so many screw-ups that are coming from the liberals it's just it that's what's tearing them down It

SPEAKER_03 43:36

It seems like Stephen Harper's transactional policies every day, you get this if I become prime minister again, seem to be capturing the news cycle. Does he need to continue down this path or is there a change of strategy that needs to be implemented? Carter?

Carter 43:49

Carter? Not a change of strategy at all. This is exactly what he's going to do. He's got how many days left? 60 whatever? And this is exactly the reaction he

Carter 43:57

Oh, yeah. Everything is going exact.

Carter 43:59

He's still controlling the news cycle.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

Corey, I feel like you may disagree. i

Corey 44:03

i totally disagree generals and politicians always fighting the last war this has worked from a few times he thinks it's going to work again but his announcements are starting to feel like a lame potpourri like it's a pretty weak grab bag we've got a netflix tax nobody was calling for although i gotta give the conservatives credit man they

Corey 44:22

people afraid of attacks we are now talking all talking about a netflix tax winning the

SPEAKER_03 44:26

the media cycle right

Corey 44:27

but others some of of this stuff the safe injection uh insights

Corey 44:32

insight stuff uh and the corresponding we're going to give money for a like a phone hotline where is this coming from and it just starts to feel so small it reminds me of um this

Carter 44:43

this is the small ball play that the conservatives are known for yeah

Corey 44:47

yeah it's not going to work this time it's not going to work this time this is not what this election is about we're going

SPEAKER_03 44:52

going to have an entire segment in a future episode talking about that Which demo, men, women, young voters, old voters, seniors, ethnic groups, which demo is going to be the most crucial and important this election in your mind, Corey?

Corey 45:04

The 30 to 50-year-olds, young families, people who are just coming into their own in an economic sense. Right.

Corey 45:10

This is the group that every politician is going to be chasing. Women

Carter 45:13

Women 45 plus, women 45 plus rule elections. They have ruled elections for the last decade. They will continue to rule elections until they decide not to rule elections.

Corey 45:23

elections. Nobody's fighting over them right now.

Corey 45:26

Netflix tax, it's about me. Child care, about me.

Carter 45:30

Well, the liberals are the ones who can get the women 45 plus. They just keep saying to themselves, I don't think we're ready for it yet. I

Carter 45:36

I think we should come from the heart. Scale

SPEAKER_03 45:39

Scale of 1 to 10, how big will minority or ethnic groups be in deciding this election? Carter? 8. 8. Corey? 10.

Corey 45:47

10. 10. This country is, I've become increasingly disenchanted with the phrase minority groups. This is a country that's a mosaic of a number of different groups. And if we're talking about non-white, non-European Canadians, 10, absolutely 10. Hold on,

Carter 46:02

on, but I think, so I'm answering.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

answering. That's fair. And I think it's a nice little political gesture to call us a mosaic, but we know that in campaign strategy, you target these groups and you target them as a block sometimes. So, so

Carter 46:13

so hold on, let me back that up though. Okay. Because I think that one of the the things that has happened in elections is that you start thinking that you're

Carter 46:20

you're targeting those blocks and this is the first time this has ever happened what

Carter 46:23

what we target is we target traditionally first or second generation immigrant family correct yes

Carter 46:29

as uh visible minorities as we as we now politically correctly call them move into second third fourth

Carter 46:37

fourth generation then it starts to become a lot like um

Carter 46:40

um the ukrainians or the hungarians or where the impact of of going to the ukrainian community and winning the ukrainian vote doesn't necessarily have the same power and

Carter 46:51

i think that we're starting to see visible minorities um toronto

Carter 46:55

toronto vancouver even here in calgary where you've got second generation our most populous visible minority populations are in our northwest communities second and third generation uh visible minorities uh they they They have far more in common with what we would call – you call it the mosaic.

Carter 47:14

We have this melting pot type of outcome in

Carter 47:18

in our society. I

SPEAKER_03 47:19

I don't think we're a melting pot. I disagree with you on that. I get

SPEAKER_03 47:21

get your point at

Carter 47:22

large. No, believe me. I mean there's

Carter 47:24

there's a lot of things you can play with in that, Democrats. We're going

SPEAKER_03 47:26

going to have to do a

SPEAKER_03 47:27

episode about diversity. But

Corey 47:29

But let's talk where the battlegrounds are. Yeah. 905, 604, the cities, specifically the cores. 780.

Corey 47:38

Yeah. Yeah, let's just go all area codes. All area codes.

Corey 47:41

codes. Let's see how many people we can lose in the closing minutes here.

Corey 47:45

But all of these areas have one thing in common, and that's that the ethnic populations are above 30%, above 30%, above 40% in many cases. So let's be clear. Everywhere where we think there's a fight, it's going to hinge on visible minorities and the ethnic vote.

SPEAKER_03 48:05

That's it. That's a wrap. episode 543 of The Strategist my name is Zane Veldry with me as always Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan and our guest Alice Funky and

SPEAKER_03 48:14

and remember we are on iTunes you can subscribe on iTunes and you can subscribe on Stitcher I don't know what that is apparently you people with these Android phones can go on Stitcher search for The Strategist and you'll find us there and as always we're on Twitter at StrategistPod we'll see you next

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