Episode 554: Bandwagon politics

SPEAKER_02 0:02

This is the strategist episode 554. My name is Zain Velji with me as always Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter guys. How are you? I'm good. I'm really good. The election is over. It is over. God.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Thank God coming from an atheist. Very exciting. That is how desperately he wanted this thing to

SPEAKER_02 0:18

to be over. Yeah,

Corey 0:18

Yeah, he found religion. You found religion

SPEAKER_02 0:20

religion just to get rid of

SPEAKER_02 0:21

of politics. Most people find politics in an excuse for religion, but you found religion to get rid of politics.

Carter 0:28

Exactly. I try. everything so i don't have to think about this anymore we

SPEAKER_02 0:32

we are glad it's finally over we'll get into our analysis but any any top line thoughts cory you're just sitting there silently well

Corey 0:38

well um no i wonder how many of our listeners are going through withdrawal that kind of crash that election 42 hashtag crash yeah

SPEAKER_02 0:45

yeah i mean you certainly have it when you're on the campaign i'm not sure if you have it when you're listening to a podcast about the campaign it's

Carter 0:53

very different feeling Yeah,

Corey 0:56

get it. Hey, if you're starving for more political podcasts, I was on another podcast the other day, you know. That

SPEAKER_02 1:03

is not allowed in your contract, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

You can't be plugging other podcasts, you can't be going on other podcasts. Carter and I get many offers for other podcasts. What do we say, Carter?

Carter 1:11

Carter? No, I always say no. I'm

Carter 1:13

I'm on the strategists exclusively.

Corey 1:14

Well, I was on the Mount Rush cast. We were talking about Canadian prime ministers. I'm going to give them a plug there. It's pretty fun. You guys should listen to it.

Carter 1:22

Well, we're probably not going to do that. Yeah, we're not going

Corey 1:23

going to do that

Corey 1:23

that because we don't care because – Well, everybody else should. Yeah, we don't care. Everybody else should. Yeah, we were talking about who were the best prime ministers of all time. We are currently trying to find

SPEAKER_02 1:31

find your replacement as we speak. It's very unfortunate.

Corey 1:34

The best prime ministers of all time. We were talking about it. There were some shocking choices. I'm teasing that out. I think you guys should listen. He's giving

SPEAKER_02 1:39

them even more of a plug as soon as we tell him that. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Ridiculous. Okay, let's get into our first segment. Our first segment, Carter was wrong and so were many other people. people.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Stephen Carter has joined the pack of many people who did not see the liberal majority coming. Corey and I were not part of that group.

Corey 1:58

group. No, we saw it coming. Yeah, we

SPEAKER_02 1:59

we saw it coming. I mean, we knew how to read polls and trend lines and we used the data, whatever it took. You know, we're pros. Yeah, that's what it is. So what was I building up to there? Oh, yeah, we're professionals. But listen, the way I want to dissect this campaign is to go back to a technique we used a couple of episodes ago, actually probably more than a dozen episodes ago, to analyze where the parties stood and why they lost. So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

let's talk about why they lost based on these five metrics that we discussed before. Strategy, execution, leader, timing, or team. So let's talk about the conservatives first. And once again, I'll put that out there. Strategy, execution, leader, timing, or team. Give me the one thing that you think that made them lose, And then give me what you think the antidote to that could have been out of the other four that are remaining. Does that make sense to you guys? Does that work? Okay. Yeah. Carter, I'll go to you first. The Conservative Party, what do you think was their downfall? Strategy, execution, leader, timing, or team?

Carter 2:58

Well, I think it's got to be strategy. I mean, I think that it'd

Carter 3:02

it'd be really easy to pick leader, right? That Harper was weak. Yeah. Harper's not weak. Harper has won elections in the past. He's the sitting prime minister. He in and of himself isn't weak. But if you think back to the elections that the Conservatives have won, they win on simple plans, right? The five reasons you're going to elect the Conservatives this time, and they didn't have that. They didn't have a strategy that said, this is how we're going to win this election. We're going to talk about the economy incessantly. Yeah.

Carter 3:29

And they got taken off. Was that not

SPEAKER_02 3:30

not strategy in their own right?

Carter 3:33

That may have been their strategy, but they stopped that. And instead they started talking about fractious issues like the niqab, which they thought would be like this magic pill that you could take. And then all of a sudden the election would be won. So the strategy was off because I think the leader question,

Carter 3:50

question, you can't call the leader the

Carter 3:52

the weak link like all the post-analysis is happening right now. It was all Harper's fault. You know, that's just crap. It wasn't all Harper's fault. It was the lack of a strategy, and every conservative can point to that. So,

SPEAKER_02 4:06

So, Corey, go ahead. What do you think it was right there between strategy, execution, leader, timing, and team? Well, it

Corey 4:11

it was absolutely all the leader's fault. I don't know what Stephen's talking about because in that party, leader and strategy are one. Leader and tactics are one. There is no divide between the conservatives and Harper. That's a fair point. That's a fair point. It was strategy. But

Corey 4:25

But ultimately, they got to the place where they were in strategy because of bad strategic decisions in the years coming up to this. Look, that was a weak bench. We all knew it was a weak bench. Hold

SPEAKER_02 4:34

I want to highlight that point. You do not think this was strategy exclusive to the last 11 weeks. You think this was a combination of things.

Corey 4:41

Oh, they made their bed. Okay. But let's talk about the strategy specifically during this campaign because that was a real failing for them. They called a 78-day campaign because they thought that would give them the strategic edge. Well, that backfired big time. They started trying to do that issue a day talk that they'd always run a 35-day

Corey 4:59

-day campaign through. But guess what? what, you can't do that for 78 days. And that's not what this election was about. As we were saying since day one, that didn't work. Then they got pushed really far off message by the Syrian refugees. And their decision at that point was to throw out the message of day strategy and go hard on this kind of fearful, hateful message. That was a huge miss. And then finally, at the end of the day, they forgot who their voting blocks were. And they threw out all of these individuals that they had built coalitions with, you know, new Canadians over the years in a desperate attempt attempt to hold on to power which they failed to do when you start looking at the results immigrant majority and you know immigrant strong plurality writings across canada they got killed in interesting absolutely

Corey 5:40

murder so cory puts it at the feet

SPEAKER_02 5:41

feet of the leader carter you want to chime in let's

Carter 5:43

let's be clear on what cory just did okay cory put it at the feet of the feet of the leader right and then listed all the strategic reasons that they lost so what he did was say steven you're wrong let me tell you all the reasons you're right thank

SPEAKER_02 5:58

cory i win you

Corey 5:59

said you can't put this at the feet of the leader. I said, yes, you absolutely can because the leader drives the strategy in the conservative party. I think

Carter 6:07

think that's not true. But this is strategy. Not when you're on a 78-day campaign and the leader's on a plane.

Carter 6:13

Leaders don't run campaigns

Corey 6:14

campaigns from a plane. And no one was on the

Corey 6:15

plane. No one was trying to run a campaign from the plane? Every

Carter 6:17

Every time you run a campaign from a plane, you lose.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

lose. I think Corey's got a fair point, right? This was

SPEAKER_02 6:23

party that was within the grasp of one individual. Is it not fair to say? And I think we're saying the same thing relatively. They've failed on strategic decisions. But how much of the blame should Stephen Harper get? I mean, you're losing your shit. Go ahead. You

Carter 6:35

You can't fall into this media narrative that Stephen Harper ran everything and made every decision that was ever made in the history of mankind with the Conservative Party.

Carter 6:45

It's just not true. He handled things with a very small team. That part is true. But

Carter 6:52

But there was a small team of people who were trying to make the decisions. Their strategy failed. So

Carter 6:57

do you think we

Corey 6:58

we should get out of here because of all the straw men Stevens put in here? It's got to be a fire hazard. I mean, come on, nobody is

Carter 7:06

is saying, I don't even have to argue. You've solved, you've presented my

SPEAKER_02 7:12

my case. I'll try to add some more fire, maybe burn those straw men. Why was it not execution? Why was it not execution? Because if the strategy was in place to go after the economy as their story arc, did they not fail on executing on that strategy? And I'm not saying that these are just semantics. No,

Corey 7:29

No, they executed the strategy well. It just didn't work. So when you start talking about those issue a day thing, they did that. And we were all talking about the Netflix. We were. But it wasn't moving the polls. And so ultimately you've got to go back and say. So you think their

SPEAKER_02 7:41

their diversion to the Syrian refugee crisis and the niqab was strategic or just a response to

Corey 7:47

For starters, the Syrian thing was a response to events. There's no question. But they saw that. They saw that, hey, you know what? We didn't actually lose a lot of ground when that happened. What else can we dig into the magic bag of hate for? So

SPEAKER_02 8:00

So you think that primed the road or softened the ground for them to go after the niqab debate?

Corey 8:04

debate? And when we talk about the leader being at the center of all of this, look at how insular the conservative party is. Look at the people around Stephen Harper, Stephen Carter. I mean, you've got Jenny Byrne, who essentially went up through the conservative ranks to her role. You've got his chief of staff, who went up through the conservative ranks from EA to his role. From EA, really? I mean, he's picked the people around him, and he's picked them entirely based on loyalty, not on competence. And now you're seeing the floodgates open. Oh, to

Carter 8:29

to call Jenny Byrne and Ray Novak not competent is just, it's totally

Corey 8:34

totally not fair. I didn't say that. I said they were picked because of loyalty, not competence. I didn't say they were incompetent.

Corey 8:41

And that was the only criteria. That

Corey 8:43

was the only criteria through which they were given those roles. There

Corey 8:46

are more competent people than Ray Novak to be chief of staff to the prime minister of Canada. I

Carter 8:51

I think that's all. And there was a more competent guy who got caught giving $90,000 to a senator.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

He was really good. I want to dig into a point that Corey made. So, Carter, for the longest time, even when we did this episode, I think it was 539, when we initially threw in these magic pills. if you could take one of them, which one would you take? And you were confident that the conservatives, the best thing they had going for them, even outside a leader, was strategy. They were solid on their strategy. They didn't need to change it. Yet it became their failing today. Explain that to me. How does that happen within a campaign? How do you have the strategic edge for a decade and lose it in the red period? You forget where you came from.

Carter 9:31

You forget that which brought you to where you are. And the strength of the conservatives was that they They always controlled the message. They always had simple messaging that everybody could understand. And when election day comes and that wave that you guys accurately predicted, because you guys are so smarter than me.

Carter 9:48

When that happens, the conservatives have always controlled it. They lost control of it because they went through, as Corey has accurately pointed out, for all the strategic reasons that he pointed out and then blamed on the leader.

Carter 10:02

They lost control of the narrative. And as soon as you lose control of the narrative, you have two choices. Go back to your strategy or abandon your strategy. The conservatives abandoned their strategy and

Carter 10:14

Their strategy was their strength. And if they'd stuck with it, I

Carter 10:17

I suspect they would have done much better. Carter

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Carter thinks they lost their way. Corey, you made a comment earlier, which I want to get into. You think this is something that was leading towards this. They made their bet. You made that comment. Do you think this was them just losing their way or was there something

Corey 10:32

something more? we go go back to the very first episodes we did about this federal election roll that tape and we said the conservatives have a ceiling and that ceiling was pretty low i think we talked about it being 38 at the start they ended up with 32 i don't disagree with any of the analysis we gave on that front i also don't disagree with our analysis that it was actually a race between the liberals and new democrats and the winner there would win the election and it proved to be correct the conservatives right everything we saw about the movement of polls like the tories held their 30 i mean there was maybe a week they dropped below 30 but we're talking 29 yeah right

Corey 11:07

right that was that was always the problem they had they were in a they were in a situation where they couldn't win the campaign they just had to hope their opponents couldn't win the campaign either and that's if you're in that place you got in that place uh you

Corey 11:21

you know that that didn't happen overnight that wasn't something they were going to be able to fix throughout the election because over the past several years of of governing you know they never got more than 40 that's

SPEAKER_02 11:31

that's interesting to me you you classify the conservatives entering this campaign as something they hope their their opponents would lose um so am i hearing you say that a failure of theirs was to not try to get

SPEAKER_02 11:43

get their ceiling to be higher i mean frankly i know that's easy said and done but is that a failing it's tough to change your ceiling in a

SPEAKER_02 11:49

and that's why i

Corey 11:50

i think the strategy was problematic before then because Because they'd managed to over the course of 10 years in government. Now, admittedly. Totally.

Carter 11:57

I agree with this

Corey 11:57

this part. Admittedly, 10 years, you're going to lose some support. 10

Carter 12:01

10 years in government is hard to do. I mean, if you look back at virtually every prime minister in what, 40 years? Yeah.

Carter 12:09

done 10 years. 10 and done. Because it's hard to do more than 10 years. So, frankly, the fact that they weren't eliminated, you know, reduced to even fewer seats is a testament to the strength of the Conservative Party. If you look back, you know, Mulroney comes roaring in in 1983. Just

Carter 12:31

People talk about this being a dominant majority government for the liberals. And I'm like, really? How quickly we forget how

Carter 12:41

Mulroney came in with a massive majority and extended it.

Carter 12:46

We forget these minor detail-y things.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Right, right, right. Yeah, no. Yeah, what's the number, Corey, you got in front of you? No, I'm looking at something entirely

Corey 12:53

entirely different. Okay, yeah, yeah. The fact of the matter is, to hold on to 100 seats, that gives the Conservatives an awful lot to grow from. they

Corey 13:00

they didn't they've still got the same number of votes they got the previous election uh the turnout was wild this election that's another so one

SPEAKER_02 13:07

one one more question on this carter do you feel like and i'm really interested in cory's point here because it's got me thinking too do you feel like their their strategy was was not congruent to where their ceiling was like it wouldn't have worked anyways because their ceiling was so low like is that a legitimate concern they should have had going into it the

Carter 13:23

the problem is with wedge when you jump to something as divisive as the the NACAB issue or, you know, you have to hold your entire base, right? So you slip a little bit on your base because, I mean, there are people who voted conservative in the last election who voted liberal this time. We saw it a lot, actually, here in Calgary, where we saw a lot of voters or first-time voters who moved to the conservatives, or I'm sorry, moved to the liberals from the conservatives because of things like the NACAB.

Carter 13:52

And you can't do that when your ceiling is 38%. You have to hold that whole group the

Carter 13:57

the whole way through. And the Liberals only won. Even losing a

Corey 14:00

a couple points, it's dangerous.

Corey 14:01

dangerous. So this is ultimately the problem with the conservative strategy. And when they threw it out midstream and replaced it with a strategy, they forgot where their ceiling was. And they forgot that they only win in a tie. Because I'll tell you something. They killed the NDP with the NACAB issue. They

SPEAKER_02 14:16

They did, yeah. I'm

Corey 14:17

They killed the NDP. The Liberals did not kill the NDP. By bringing the NACAB issue out, it destroyed their Quebec numbers, which destroyed their national numbers, which put enough daylight between liberals and NDP that everyone said, oh, I guess if I want Harper out, I've got to go with the liberals. This was a tightrope for the conservatives, and they forgot that. They went way too hard to one side, and they just wrecked everything. Ah,

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Ah, fantastic. I like that analysis. Okay, let's move it on. The NDP.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Corey, you just mentioned them right now. What was their primary failing? Strategy, execution, leader, timing, or team. I'll go with you first on this one, Corey. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Apologize. No, I'm joking. Let us know what you think it was, and then we'll go from there.

Corey 15:01

Could it be timing?

Corey 15:03

Well, I mean, timing, if you're letting me have that one, it's absolutely timing. Carter was right. They peaked too soon. But they did have some mistakes. And I actually don't know if they're mistakes of strategy or execution. but the big one was simply their response to uh trudeau

Corey 15:21

when trudeau decided to run a deficit i think that

Corey 15:24

that uh that kept the liberals in the game so uh you may recall at that point the new democrats were leading and by an amount that it actually looked like they might have gotten the daylight between the indies correct

Corey 15:36

and the liberals with that one move got themselves back up into a three-way tie which is all they needed to be at during the niqab thing the the nd might might have survived uh the niqab thing if um tell me just remind

SPEAKER_02 15:48

remind myself and our listeners what do you mean about their response to trudeau and the deficit just

Corey 15:53

just so we understand yeah so trudeau came out and when

Corey 15:57

when mulcair said i am not going to run a deficit the the liberal camp either they were planning this before or it was in response i suspect at least a little of both given that the liberals in the past had ruled out a deficit but maybe we're planning to look at some big infrastructure spending the liberals went and said we are going to run a deficit we are going to right

Corey 16:15

right spend money to help get the economy back on track started throwing words around like austerity and whatnot and uh the new democrats held the line they said no we're not going to do that and ultimately what that allowed the liberals to do was promise a lot of things that the other guys couldn't promise they look generous by comparison and uh let me be clear i don't think the liberals are necessarily a more left-wing party but on all the big ticket stuff that the casual voter looks at they looked more left-wing for big chunks so

SPEAKER_02 16:44

so was that was that an error on on the ndp's part to start playing the almost the ballot box question early on the economy and saying they're going to hold the line so

Corey 16:51

so this is why i have trouble faulting that necessarily with the new democrats because what happened was the new democrat vote didn't really go down that much they were still in a three-way tie on that but

Corey 17:02

but then a cap thing right so i mean you're layering in pieces upon pieces but the new democrats uh allowed

Corey 17:08

allowed the liberals to get back in the game and when the niqab thing knocked the new democrats down they were down and if if either of those two things hadn't happened i think it would have been tough for the liberals to get enough daylight to say the new democrats are out of this right

SPEAKER_02 17:21

right carter it's tough carter what do you think do you have do you have one in mind strategy execution leader timing or

SPEAKER_02 17:27

or team that uh that really failed the ndp i

Carter 17:30

i think it was just timing yeah

Carter 17:32

i think the reality is they reached their their peak too early.

Carter 17:35

And this is a game of momentum.

Carter 17:38

It is a very difficult thing to predict how you're going to go

Carter 17:42

go up or what's going to go up and what's going to go down and how momentum will work. All we know for sure is the momentum matters.

Carter 17:49

The NDP had their momentum at the wrong time of a 78-day campaign. If you think back to when it started, the NDP momentum starts in May of 2015 when Rachel Notley wins here in Alberta. All of a sudden, the NDP leaped to the front.

Carter 18:07

Sustaining being in the front for more than four months, five months, is a very difficult task in a very volatile Canadian electorate. We will see that over the next four years. Volatility is going to continue to be the watchword to describe the Canadian electorate. We're not all going to become Trudeau liberals in the next four years.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

So tell me this. Do you agree with some of the points Corey brought up in terms of some of the execution or strategic errors that the NDP made? Do you give as much credence to them as he did?

Carter 18:41

Yeah, I'm struggling with the NACAB issue. Because they have done something differently.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

differently. Was there a different response that would have…

Carter 18:48

It's hard. We're out here in Alberta, and I don't like using the we're in the wrong spot argument to kind of really get a sense of something. um what

Carter 18:56

what the hell happened in quebec right

Carter 18:58

right like quebec thomas mulcair takes the it's a woman's right to choose

Carter 19:03

choose kind of a stance that's

Corey 19:05

crazy or out of base with his philosophy or is it but and the liberals had the same stance but they didn't get hurt in quebec yeah so why well part of it is simply the traditional liberal voter that core liberal voter in quebec is a charter of rights and freedoms voter yeah in a way that yeah that's a good point or new democratic voter could hardly even be called core because they had originally come from the bloc quebecois that's

Carter 19:26

that's right they were bloc quebecois voters who moved to

Carter 19:29

to the ndp for a single election and then shifted back to the conservatives the liberals and the and the and the bloc

Carter 19:37

mean it was a fascinating election in quebec and

Carter 19:40

and and i think that i

Carter 19:42

i don't really understand why

Carter 19:44

why the niqab issue played so poorly for the ndp in quebec all i can tell you is i didn't i didn't mind his his answer and

Carter 19:52

i was surprised to see it hurt so much i

Carter 19:55

i really was yeah

SPEAKER_02 19:56

yeah me too yeah do you do you feel like mulcair could have done different things around some of his fiscal positions that were more right of justin trudeau was that was that a major error that some people you know cory here is even given a hat to that that mulcair and the ndp may i

Carter 20:09

i every every single podcast what did i say mulcair

Carter 20:14

mulcair is duplicitous you

Carter 20:15

why we'll credit you for that because on one hand he says um we're going to run a surplus and the other he says we're going to have a national pharma care program yeah

Carter 20:24

national pharma care does not cost 2.3 billion dollars okay let's just be clear it does not cost 2.3 billion dollars pharma care in pei might cost 2.3 billion dollars so i want to pick up on

Corey 20:36

i want to be clear i never said that i thought that was a major error fair enough i actually i actually thought that the new democrats doing that showed they were playing for government right and ultimately that got off the table and then they had a lot of trouble but i i agree with steven about ultimately and do we call it strategy do we call it execution but the number of disingenuous ndp promises piled up way too high way

Carter 20:58

way disingenuous also can be translated to uh duplicitous listen

SPEAKER_02 21:03

listen after being wrong on the election and and what that was going to be in terms of turnout

SPEAKER_02 21:07

and who wants where no that's totally fine we'll give you that we'll give you that are we okay yeah okay you gotta give steven

SPEAKER_02 21:12

that we gotta listen let's move it on to the liberals well we're gonna do this deeper but give it to me in the the bite-sized with the with the five categories strategy execution leader timing or team cory i'll go with you first what was the the magic pill for the liberals that put them over the top really

Corey 21:27

really they were they were not flawless but and i actually get a little annoyed that there are so many articles saying how flawless they were but they did enough things right nobody's ever flawless guys i mean we talked about this in the wake of the alberta campaign too people called the ndp flawless they weren't flawless nobody's flawless but what they did is they recovered well when they made mistakes and that is why they won their execution was very good i'm

Carter 21:51

i'm even going to go and just say timing right because the execution the mistakes they made were

Carter 21:56

were at the beginning of the 78 day campaign we had longer

Carter 21:59

correct they they and i think we called it again on the podcast when they started introducing the uh infrastructure plan

Carter 22:05

plan was that the inflection point for you by the way that is the point where we started to see a significant change and we said it was very clear they announced a policy they announced it very very well i mean i think this is a good example of the execution and how it works they

Carter 22:18

announce a national policy with very few details they get a full set of full round of media hits then

Carter 22:23

then they go and they do um media hits in every jurisdiction correct every my you know every town across the country and say let me tell you what you're going to get from our infrastructure program every

Carter 22:36

every media across across the country picks it up suddenly

Carter 22:39

suddenly we're moving into a very strong execution of a campaign promise

SPEAKER_02 22:45

matters to me that's so basic principles i maybe i don't want to go back to the other parties but why wouldn't they do it let's

Carter 22:50

let's contrast it to the pharma care yeah let's do it yeah because pharma care should matter a ton correct canadians right it is a big thing and it is a big thing for the core new democratic voter the problem is everybody knows it's not going to to be $2.3 billion. I want to know how it's going to impact me and my mother-in-law. That's what I want to understand. And no one in the New Democrats could explain how it was going to help us because it wasn't going to help us because it was a duplicitous program. Duplicitous. I got it back in.

Corey 23:20

Great. Corey, anything to add on that? Well, I think you're right. It was pretty well executed by the liberals, that particular strategy. And on top of that, there was discipline. They were were surprisingly disciplined all the way through when there were people who

Corey 23:35

who were complaining about different elements of things they largely ignored them they went on and and i don't i do not think it was flawless like even our last episode we were talking about their response to uh and that was not flawless that was not flawless in fact

Carter 23:51

fact it opened them up to a big to a problem oh i was actually very worried they were going to

Corey 23:55

to lose the majority but by the weekend they They turned the page again, and they recaptured the momentum. Right. What

SPEAKER_02 24:00

What credit or how much credit do we give to the leader in this situation? You know, the narrative or the contrast, I should say, that's a better word, between Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper seemed to get a lot more poignant in the last couple of weeks. I'll

Corey 24:13

I'll give credit to the leader in that the leader was aware of what his faults were. Jerry Butts, on the plane with him, by all accounts, from the people I'm talking to in the liberals, was as much as anything to make sure that every day we had the best Justin Trudeau. Butts managed him. He was the world's most senior executive assistant. I do not mean that as a knock. Anybody who thinks EAs are not incredibly important, by the way, give your head a shake. You don't understand politics. They're the people who are saying, what are you trying to do this meeting? What are you trying to accomplish? Here is the important people. Jerry Butts gave us the best Justin Trudeau possible day in, day out. All of those gaffes, all of those kind of flippant remarks that he was famous for pre-campaign, all of those off-the-cuff strategies, they were gone. they were gone and we got the best justin trudeau possible and that only happens when you have a man self-aware enough to say i need someone around here to get the best me possible because that's that's interesting that's a good point carter what do you think

SPEAKER_02 25:06

leader in terms of leader if

Carter 25:08

if you go back to the criticisms that we were leveling to justin trudeau early on in this campaign it was who is he is he authentic he became authentic we started to see a real Justin Trudeau that we have never seen before, in my humble opinion. Oh, I

Carter 25:21

And that is, it happens

Carter 25:24

happens to correlate to when they started to take off. Right. Right. His announcements became crisper. He became more comfortable in this spotlight, in this leadership role, to the point, frankly, where what

Carter 25:37

what he's done post-election.

Carter 25:40

The memorial he serviced yesterday for Nathan Cirillo. Cirillo,

Carter 25:44

That was wonderful. Mm

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Mm-hmm. Right. Well, even the day after, go into the Montreal subway station shaking hands. Very nicely done. Very nicely

Carter 25:52

nicely done. And so he's in his skin. Right.

Carter 25:55

And there is nothing more positive than a politician in his or her own skin and being authentic. Right.

Carter 26:01

And we've seen it here with Nenshi when he's authentic. We've seen it. Frankly, I think that Rachel Notley is one of the most authentic politicians that I've seen in a long time.

Carter 26:13

helps a lot. Brad Wall is authentic. I mean, I don't want to pick on just one stripe or one side. The authentic politician is a powerful politician. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Okay. Well, one more thing. Carter, you mentioned this earlier when we were talking about the liberals.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

How much credence do you guys give to the timing of this? I know we said that they executed well. But did they just peak at the right time, frankly? Or did they create that daylight themselves? I want to understand how much— Zania, you've

Corey 26:40

you've got to be good to be lucky, right?

Corey 26:42

And there's no question that they benefited from the timing and the arcs. and we talked about this, the celebrities swing up, right? People love the comeback kid. But that

Corey 26:51

that doesn't happen if you don't have certain pieces in place. And they had those pieces in place. And let's

Corey 26:56

let's give timing a little more credit here because they were riding high in the polls when they nominated most of their candidates, at least their good ones. They

Corey 27:04

They had the team too. Oh

Carter 27:05

Oh my God. And

Carter 27:06

And frankly, right now, I feel good about how he's, you know, how Trudeau gets to select his captain. Oh man, great problem to have. I think he's got an abundance of people to fill those 25 roles and you contrast that to alberta where we just had our 13th cabinet minister added yesterday yes

SPEAKER_02 27:21

yes provincially yeah again

Carter 27:22

again i can't remember her name larry

Carter 27:25

for the life of me i couldn't

SPEAKER_02 27:27

well cory and i were going on tv yesterday we were trying to figure out how to pronounce it yeah and and so we just didn't say her name from

Carter 27:34

from lesser slave lake and she may be spectacular we don't know yeah yeah sure sure sure sure of course the point being that you know know there is nothing worse than making a cabinet from a weak bench and i speak from unbelievable experiences yeah

Corey 27:47

yeah you were chief of staff to the pcs during like the the last days of growing so i think we should put that in the parking lot i want to come back next episode a lot has happened in alberta we got to talk about alberta next time we do well and we'll dig

SPEAKER_02 28:02

dig into that a little bit more okay let's move it on to our next segment our next segment believe it or not believe it or not it's trudeau justin is rpm my god you like it you like it see what i did there is i took the words true and

SPEAKER_02 28:14

and though yeah but then they also sound like trudeau that's really good yeah okay let's just let's just take a moment to appreciate that our listeners can do the same a moment of silence to appreciate okay

SPEAKER_02 28:22

okay good so it was good okay great so tell me tell me we've talked about a little bit about the analysis going forward and this will happen you know um as we as we move it along but give me your most certain top line summary as to why this happened and let's maybe Maybe talk a little bit broadly about demographics. You know, Corey, you mentioned minority communities. Right. How did this happen? Could this be classified as a wave? Let's start there and let's dig deeper from there. Well,

Corey 28:47

Well, if we look at the polls that came out the day before the election and we can get into the polls in a bit, I thought they were very good. I know Stephen feels otherwise. He's holding his head in pain. No, they were good. I mean, how do you say that? But let's not bait

Corey 29:01

bait Stephen on that yet. Let's bait him on that later.

Carter 29:04

There's lots of times.

Corey 29:07

the uh the liberals were winning in every age group the liberals were winning amongst most education groups i believe it was only like the lowest education group that were going to the conservatives and the liberals were just crushing it amongst more of a psychographic than a demographic which was change voters so a couple of things abacus had a poll out a week before that said which of these two leaders represents bigger change trudeau or mulcair and amazingly Amazingly, the

Corey 29:35

the new Democrats were seen as less dramatic change than the liberals who have governed for like 70 of the last hundred years. That's unbelievable. Oh,

Corey 29:44

He captured the change vote. So you want to talk about what propelled him to power? It was that desire for change. And it was the fact that he looked more like change than the other guy.

Carter 29:54

And was it a wave? You asked the question. Yeah, was it? It is a wave. Yeah. Right. I mean, this

Carter 30:00

this is politics right now. Now, this is politics, and we've seen it in election after election after election.

Carter 30:05

There's a group of people who engage in the entire election, and that group grows as the election goes along. Correct. And then there is a group of people who drop in at the last second and decide how to vote. And

SPEAKER_02 30:16

decide the election, you think? Well, absolutely. They do. The

Carter 30:19

The polls are getting better at capturing that because they're polling later. They're looking for it now. They're testing different things. They're doing weightings

Corey 30:26

more analytics than they've ever done as well. Right. Right.

Carter 30:29

Right. So they're getting better because they've been made to look foolish so many times. But the reality is that wave still comes in in the last two, three or four days. And that's I don't know if it's bad or good. Part of me feels like it's really bad because they're

Corey 30:42

they're like a Roman mob almost.

Carter 30:44

Yeah. Yeah. It's not like they're coming in and they're evaluating what has happened in the previous 77 days before they're like,

SPEAKER_02 30:50

we are here and this is the way we're voting. Exactly.

Carter 30:52

It's the bandwagon jumper in sports. Right.

Carter 30:55

Right. The bandwagon. We're all Blue Jays fans today. oh

Carter 31:00

even cory hogan who doesn't really understand the rules of baseball

Corey 31:03

there's some sort of ball and bat thing yeah i mean it's

Corey 31:06

it's been described to me as basketball but you hit the basketball and you try to get

Carter 31:10

get out of the

Carter 31:10

court pretty much exactly what that is instead of keeping it in the court you want to get it out okay yeah

SPEAKER_02 31:15

confusing it's very confusing silly sport but

Carter 31:19

that's what we all jump on these bandwagons and bandwagon politics is new and it's It's interesting. Well,

SPEAKER_02 31:27

Well, are you coining that term on the show? I should. Bandwagon. That's great. I love it. So hold on. I want to dig into this because it's very interesting to me. What does that say broadly about? Can I call voters fickle? Is that is that what I can call them? You can call them. OK, so I'll call them fickle. But what does that say about the brand loyalty associated with with this election win? Like it seems to be almost non-existent. We're all jumping on Trudeau today. He's got, you know, crowds outside of the parliament to greet him. It's like we were all with them all along. Yet, when we look at the polls in August, Corey, this is August, okay, of this year.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

The numbers you described to me, the demographic strengths of the NDP across the board were great. The psychographic strengths of the NDP were great across the

Corey 32:11

the board. Seriously? Look, I mean, it's part of that celebrity arc. And politics is becoming more like entertainment. And that's not great. And I think that's the problem I have with this trend. Yeah. We

Carter 32:23

need rational consideration. now we're not getting it but

Corey 32:25

i do like the lack of tie to party like that that whole uh partisan is that

SPEAKER_02 32:30

that overall a positive you think the lack of brian loyalty okay so tell me about the lack of brian loyalty as we as we move forward how does it play but but but why is it a positive firstly well

Carter 32:38

well it's a positive firstly because we are prepared to change based on rational inputs is it rational you just said it wasn't okay okay i'll give it to you there's a group of people who are prepared to change because of rational inputs that may be in fact leading the rest right

Carter 32:52

right so if So one of the things that we kind of pride ourselves on, with the exception of Corey, who's just an NDP loyalist now, we're relatively flexible on which party to support. Sure. We've

Carter 33:06

all over the various parties.

Corey 33:08

parties. I worked for the liberals, right?

Carter 33:10

I don't remember that. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, wasn't

Carter 33:15

wasn't David Swan the leader then? So couldn't we argue that it was the NDP? He

SPEAKER_02 33:20

He was grinding his teeth. yeah cory will never relate a brown man in an election again

Corey 33:26

that got really awkward yeah that was great i don't

Carter 33:27

don't understand what happened but

Corey 33:29

but i want to pick up on something else you've said zane and we're just going to breeze right past your my question accusations of racism

Corey 33:37

bandwagon politics isn't just about getting on the bandwagon it's about getting off and when you look at the conservative mps and all of these people who are around stephen harper michelle rample who i know we all like michelle rample we do really like michelle but michelle rample was spokesperson in chief for stephen harper and she's been one of the first to be like yeah i wasn't comfortable with that stuff like come on i mean the number of people who she's carrying his water for sure yeah i'm gonna make a a comparison here that that is not apt right it's it's that after world war ii and i want to be super clear i'm not

SPEAKER_02 34:18

who heard my mildly racist comment against Corey about not leading a brown man, Corey, please take us home.

Corey 34:27

Now, I am not comparing the conservatives to

Corey 34:32

Alright? What's that theory? I'm truly

SPEAKER_02 34:38

the number of people... Now, hold on. you know so i took i took a course with jim didding and he said anything before the butt does not matter so go ahead go ahead

Corey 34:50

post vichy france the number of people who claim to be part of the french resistance was unreal and you had to say like where the hell were you guys and they're like well i didn't want to make waves from the inside i was trying to change things all of those things this this whole like after the fact uh we were just following you know what i'm just done with this metaphor i'm not calling them nazis but what i'm saying is it's human nature with a bandwagon it's

Corey 35:15

it's human nature with a bandwagon to

Corey 35:18

just be to just say we're done we're

Corey 35:21

we're done and we were never there so

Corey 35:22

what do you mean is that if the

SPEAKER_02 35:23

the blue jays lose tonight we're not going to be blue jays fans you could have used that example instead of

SPEAKER_02 35:29

like i never really cared about baseball

SPEAKER_02 35:33

know what i all right

Corey 35:35

right well we learned a lesson took

Corey 35:38

us a long time to learn okay okay okay

Carter 35:41

okay let's go back to his point yeah yeah because he's absolutely there's good material

SPEAKER_02 35:44

material here go ahead right

Carter 35:45

right but but because of this um first

Carter 35:49

first of all we we have really cultivated this within the parties right blind faith you cannot step outside of what is happening within the party i was really ticked with ron lipert this week yeah

Carter 36:01

all of a sudden he's out and 15 minute yelling matches with um jenny

Carter 36:06

jenny burn ron lipert's a prick i mean anybody who's met him i think can can get there to get to that place and he's he i've i've done my 15 minute yelling match with ron lipert uh about the election in 2012 and i can't really disclose what the issue was because it cocked his confidentiality um but maybe someone can ask him about why he felt uh that we were were going in the wrong direction prior to the 2012 election and how wrong he was and we still won the damn election even though he was a dick about it um so he kept his mouth shut in the election he wanted to he wanted to get elected and if steven harper had won he wanted a cabinet position so what does he do like any good soldier he falls in line as soon as the leader is out then he jumps out where's that's not leadership so

Corey 36:51

so like okay lightfoot was bad but kenny has to to be the worst oh my god the night of also we need to have a sunnier politics we need a better happier conservatism

SPEAKER_02 37:01

that moment happened carter you and i were on the radio together and that clip got played and we were both just bogged be like did that just happen it couldn't have just happened you

Carter 37:10

you were like this is just all wrong

SPEAKER_02 37:11

wrong but but listen listen this this is interesting the brand loyalty stuff let's get back to that for a second you said there's a small group of conscious people who lead this bandwagon that can that can then get the people show up in the last minute to really change how they're going to vote or to really convince them or persuade them how they're going to vote. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

maybe I'm just not getting it. But how is that a positive? Like, what's the positive attribute there that I'm missing? Well,

Carter 37:35

Well, number one, more of us are voting.

Carter 37:37

Okay, sure. Sure. Number two, we're prepared to shift between these these parties. In the past, you were blue or you were blue, you know, like you were, you absolutely locked yourself in and said, I'm a conservative voter, regardless of how the party was behaving. We all know people like that. We

Carter 37:53

We all know people who lock in and say, I'm a liberal. This is all I do is vote liberal. And we ignore the flaws of those particular parties. And because of that, we don't make it better.

Carter 38:01

Case in point, 44 years, the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta rule in

Carter 38:06

in the province of Alberta. We didn't get better every year after 44. We got worse because

Carter 38:12

no one was willing to stand up and say, you know what, this isn't good enough yet. Now, we're

Carter 38:16

we're going to go off and vote for someone else. And if you get yourselves back together, we'll come back to you. Well,

Corey 38:20

Well, yeah, and it's easy to paper over the problems Alberta had with a boatload of money, too, though.

Carter 38:28

Foundationally, I mean, but we didn't even have money. Well,

Carter 38:30

true. From Stelmac, Redford, Hancock, and

Corey 38:35

I think you're 100% correct. I think that lock-in is a dangerous place to be in, and that's why that is a positive of this bandwagon politics. I think we have to acknowledge that positive. It's not all bad. The world is not perpetually getting worse. People have been saying that since Roman times. They were right

Corey 38:51

right for 1,000 years, but then they were wrong. So let's be clear. There are changes to politics. There's going to be some good. There's going to be some bad. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Okay. Well, we'll talk about more in that regard about brand loyalty and the fickleness of voters in future episodes. But quickly here, what does Justin Trudeau need to do going forward? Like just a few steps that you would advise him of going forward. I know Cabinet's a big milestone on November 4th that he's going to have to execute. He's got an abundance of good people. as we all agree. But between now and then, I mean, and even after then a little bit, what does he need to do? What is the overall sort of sentiment he needs to have? So my

Corey 39:26

my advice to Justin Trudeau is actually the opposite of what my advice to Rachel Notley was when she won. I thought that she had to go slow and not spook Albertans. I think this has to be Justin Trudeau shock and awe. I think the most progressive components of his platform that test well, so things like electoral reform, legalization of marijuana, all of those things, do them all in In like the next five, six months, just absolutely assert that you are change and watch the new Democrats absolutely crumble.

Carter 39:55

Yeah, I really like that. I think that – but I'm going to give it two

Carter 39:58

two sides of the same coin. Sure.

Carter 39:59

I'm going to say go fast on those things that are not about the economy.

Corey 40:03

Okay, I agree with

Carter 40:04

with that. Go fast on all those things that aren't about the economy, but anything that is about the economy.

Carter 40:09

You have to go with measure. We are – And

SPEAKER_02 40:11

And consultative and deliberate. Yeah,

Carter 40:13

Yeah, I mean we are a country with regions. And this is one of the things that federal elections is so hard.

Carter 40:18

All these different regions have different economic ups and different economic downs, depending on different inputs. So you may be seeing the start of a mini boom in the east and the start of a massive recession slash depression here in Alberta. So

Corey 40:32

So what I do like about Justin Trudeau's economic plans is it is kind of a new federalism, right? We've talked about his plans for carbon, and they are largely provinces. is it's up to you i'm just going to set targets very very canada health act modeled right he's talking about infrastructure really being about what the people in the areas want i think that's good and i think that he's got some some potential quick wins there i mean there's very few shovel ready projects for the most part like they're going to have trouble spending this money in year one i think but i'm

Corey 41:04

i'm with you on the economy i think anything more dramatic than that they they've got to tread very carefully what

SPEAKER_02 41:09

what sort of signals does he need to send with his cabinet what What is the overarching message that the cabinet appointment needs to send, Corey?

Corey 41:18

I think the most important thing for me, sitting here in Alberta, where we have two seats in Calgary for the first time since the 60s, is

Corey 41:26

is you've got to construct that cabinet in a way that these areas that gave the Liberals a shot after, say, no dice to the Liberals for so long, they have to be reflected in your cabinet. So

SPEAKER_02 41:36

So regionality is going to be important for him? I think

Corey 41:38

think it's not just about regionality. I think that almost makes it sound too provincial. It needs to be about being a nation, and that nation has to see itself reflected in the cabinet. Carter,

Carter 41:48

Yeah, I mean, I really like that he's saying that 50% of his cabinet is going to be women. Right.

Carter 41:52

I mean, right off the bat, you're sending a brand new tone. That's never been done before.

Carter 41:56

It's going to be a challenge to balance. You know, when you set your cabinet level at 25, when

Carter 42:02

when you have 184 MPs, I just want to make sure that we hadn't changed the last couple

Carter 42:08

couple of victories and losses. that's a that's a very tough pull to pull that many you know that few cabinet ministers out of that many positions um i

Carter 42:19

we're gonna see i i think that you know region ethnicity gender uh that's an experience balance in a cabinet that's going to be tricky for them i'm not sure we're going to see that provincial

Carter 42:33

provincial to pick on your world world uh word uh we're not going to to see that provincial picking of you know we got to have one from calgary we're gonna have one from edmonton you gotta you might see

Corey 42:42

see you gotta have one from calgary and you gotta have one from edmonton you

Carter 42:45

you know and that's provincial and

Corey 42:46

and you think that can happen you know what that

Carter 42:47

that just shows cory is just a little bit backwards in his thinking you know i'm a little bit slower than

Carter 42:52

than the rest look

Corey 42:52

look if if this had been the same four seats that the liberals have gotten every election since times immemorial steven i'd agree with you 100 but even from a pure political standpoint you need You need to shore up those gains, and you need to validate the decisions that the electorate has made in those seats. Okay,

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Okay, so you know what this got me thinking? Let's do an episode where we break down the 25 cabinet seats, and we will talk about – because, Carter, if you've had experience making a cabinet, we've all got our own opinions and ideas as to what type of people should be in cabinet. So let's do an episode next

SPEAKER_02 43:22

time. Are we doing a cabinet ministers episode?

Carter 43:23

episode? Yeah, like a

SPEAKER_02 43:23

a fantasy cabinet episode where we get to select based on our criteria what we think the ministry should be, who should be in cabinet, and the balance between regionality, gender, ethnicity, all the other criteria. We'll

Corey 43:35

We'll have to do some advanced work, but let's do it. I'm

SPEAKER_02 43:38

I'm in. We'll do it. I'm in. Okay, okay. I want to move on to our next segment, 99 Problems and the Beard Ain't One. Let's go very quickly about these conservatives and the NDP and their steps going forward. 99 problems 99 seats is where the conservatives ended up here what do they need to do going forward with their with their leadership race and everything that's going to be thrown at them yeah this is pretty great

Corey 43:59

they got endorsed by wayne gretzky and they got 99 seats oh man that's so good they weren't endorsed by bobby orr

Corey 44:08

what do they need to do next yeah they need to they

Corey 44:12

they need to get back to the basics i actually think they've got to dust off those old reform party i mean the p the pcs may lose their minds hearing this but they got to dust off that whole grassroots democratic stuff that michael chong is actually an actor yeah you know yeah i

Corey 44:25

i don't think michael chong should be their leader per se i don't really care you guys pick your leader you could do worse than michael chong from a principled standpoint uh but i will say they need to recreate the the intellectual core of conservatism think Think about how Andrew Coyne for the past three elections has wanted to pull out his hair. Oh,

Corey 44:45

This is based in the fact that Andrew Coyne is actually a conservative. I know the Conservative Party may look at him as a turncoat. But in fact, he

Corey 44:53

he didn't leave the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party left him. And there needs to be some thought put into that. Because there is a conservatism out there that

Corey 45:00

that I think Canadians can get behind. It's

Corey 45:02

It's not Stephen Harper conservatism. It

Carter 45:04

It is so perfect that you said it. Now, how do they tactically do that? The number one. So, Corey is entirely right. The problem that the conservatives have is that you could see one candidate try and get this leadership as fast as humanly possible. Not one candidate is Jason Kenney. And

Carter 45:21

And certainly it will redefine conservatism.

Carter 45:24

But I'm not sure that it redefines conservatism in an electable fashion. So what you have to do is actually redefine conservatism in a way that there's a full-scale conversation about what conservative politics looks like in the future. because it can't look like it did in the past right

SPEAKER_02 45:43

right so what does that mean in terms of their their next major step which is choosing an interim leader what do they have to send a signal there or can that just be a seat filler no

Carter 45:51

no i mean i think you you pick diane finley and everybody's happy yeah

Corey 45:54

yeah like if i were them i would not raise expectations around that she will just be the interim leader okay let's

SPEAKER_02 45:59

let's talk quickly about the ndp tom o'care gets his seat back um but he's down Down to 44. Can he actually last as a leader of the NDP?

SPEAKER_02 46:08

I don't know. First of all, were

Corey 46:11

were you surprised he didn't resign on election night? Maybe I should ask that. I wasn't that surprised he didn't resign on election night. Particularly given no one would be talking about that resignation. They'd be talking about Stephen Harper's and just posterity. Why are you going to bury your own story like that?

Carter 46:24

Yeah, I thought. But yesterday I expected him to. You

Corey 46:26

You did. I thought there was a real chance of that too.

Corey 46:29

I don't know. So my first reaction was, my God, there's no way he can hold on. He ran the party to the center and they got clobbered and the liberals ran it to the left and they won. If I'm a new Democrat and

Corey 46:39

I am a new Democrat, at least provincially, I'm thinking you should have gone back and really fought hard on a true NDP platform.

Corey 46:48

now when you look at the

Corey 46:54

he now finds himself in and you see what the new Democrats have been saying, I

Corey 46:59

think that there's actually a lot of support for Tom Mulcair sticking around. And that – I'll see if maybe that's just the vocal people. But I'm also wondering if it isn't also part of the problem the New Democrats have, which was they became very partisan, like ultra-partisan. I think they gave the conservatives a run for their money as far as every idea not theirs was bad. Every idea from Tom was good.

Corey 47:22

may save his leadership, but that may not fix the problems they have. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Carter, what do they need to do? Do they need to get rid of him as a party? Artie, if we're talking from the party frame, if you're advising them, what would you tell them? Jeez,

Carter 47:33

Jeez, this makes me angry. I have this hatred of the one-and-done leadership model that we've moved to in

Carter 47:40

in Canada. So the one-and-done, it's the same thing that's happened in the U.S. You get one run at the presidency. You get one run to become prime minister. And if you fail, we expect your resignation by the end of the day. That's not good for politics. It's not good to construct leadership arcs. It's not good for reality. But Thomas Mulcair didn't just lose. He

Corey 48:04

absolutely crushed. For me, it's not even the seat count. It's where he took the party philosophically, which, you know, good people can disagree on. Yeah. But he,

Corey 48:13

he, you know, looked back at that leadership, looked back on what he was asking the party to do, and it was to put a little water in their wine. Well, it turns out Canadians were looking for a stronger proof.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

So what do they need to do, Carter? Do you have any sort of words of wisdom for the party? If

Carter 48:28

If Thomas Mulcair remains leader, he

Carter 48:31

he needs to make sure that he's got a very strong deputy system to build their party across the country. The real failing, if you take a look at it,

Carter 48:42

the unbelievable failing was to take advantage of the NDP's victory in Alberta and to come back with only one seat again. The incumbency

SPEAKER_02 48:52

incumbency of Linda Duncan.

Carter 48:52

Duncan. The NDP of Quebec does

Carter 48:55

does not align with the populist NDP of the West. And if you do not find a way to align those two parties, those

Carter 49:02

those two different parties in one NDP.

Corey 49:04

NDP. Like a Western New Democrat. You know, I often get texts from people nationwide being like, why do you call them the NDs? Right. And that's because they were actually called the Alberta NDs here for decades. That was what we called the party. They had their own identity, their own brand. And it is a populist. uh harry chase is a former liberal mla harry chase once described albertans to me i thought brilliantly which is albertans are either gunslingers or barn builders and the gunslingers are the archetypical conservative we do everything on our own we go out we take what we want we do it and then there's barn builders we get together as a community and we make things better for our community and that's the archetypical new democrat on the prairies but

Carter 49:44

but it's also the reform party uh from the prairies in the old days listen

Corey 49:48

listen populism knows neither left nor right Right? And Westerners are populists.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Love it. Okay, let's move it on to our final round, our lightning round, and our over-under. Guys, are you ready? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:58

Okay, over-under on eight months. Over-under on eight months, the time that Tom Mulcair stays as leader.

Corey 50:05

Oh, I'm going to stay over. Yeah? Yeah, if he wins the leadership review, he's going to be here until the next election. Yeah,

Carter 50:10

Yeah, I think it's over.

SPEAKER_02 50:11

Over-under on two. Over-under on two, the number of cabinet positions that Alberta MPs get.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

I'm going to hold the

Corey 50:18

the line on that.

Carter 50:18

that. Hold the line on two? I'm going to go under. Under. We get one.

Corey 50:22

If we get one, I swear to God, they will regret that decision for a generation. You think

Carter 50:27

think they will? You want the caveat?

Carter 50:29

A very, very senior position for a Calgary MP.

Carter 50:33

Very senior, not cabinet.

Corey 50:36

Okay. Well, now, if you're talking speaker or like, I don't even know if whip is senior enough, but speaker

Carter 50:40

speaker or whip. I think whip is senior enough. I don't. But

Carter 50:42

But speaker would be spectacular. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:44

Yeah. We'll talk about it in our next episode. We'll talk about it on the cabinet special. special over

SPEAKER_02 50:47

over under on 10 over under on 10 the amount of candidates that run for the conservative party leadership oh

Corey 50:54

god uh officially enter yeah officially officially enter under kick the tires and at least have exploratory committees over yeah

Carter 51:01

yeah i'm gonna go with under and i'm

Carter 51:03

i'm going to disagree with cory because i think we've seen so many drop already that we're not going to go over uh 10 even on the exploratory no

Corey 51:11

no you know what think about the 20 2006 liberals that's what what it's going to be like because there's no

SPEAKER_02 51:16

no heir apparent yeah okay this is what leads into the next question scale of one to ten one not very likely ten very likely the likeliness of having a female as the leader of the conservative party of the the official leader of the conservative party not the interim uh after the the leadership race going forward one to ten four

Corey 51:36

yeah i'm gonna say five okay i give it 50 50 i think there's some strong or female candidates i

Carter 51:42

i think will have more women run than men but i don't like their chances here's

SPEAKER_02 51:46

here's why i ask you speculative questions one year from now who is the leader of the conservative party carter i

Carter 51:51

have to go with jason kenney today no

SPEAKER_02 51:53

no leader they're going to drag their contest down oh

SPEAKER_02 51:57

very nicely done in

SPEAKER_02 51:58

in one year time who is the leader of the nds carter the

Carter 52:01

the new democratic party of canada will be led by thomas mulcair tom

Carter 52:06

thomas not tom one of those two

SPEAKER_02 52:08

two one of those

SPEAKER_02 52:10

yeah because Because what is he? What is he, Carter? Duplicitous. Well, give it some because he was wrong about the election.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

One year from today, over under on 50% Justin Trudeau's ranking or rating as approval. Oh,

Carter 52:23

Oh, my God. Over.

SPEAKER_02 52:25

Over 50. Under. Under 50. That's a wrap on episode 554 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we will see you next time.

SPEAKER_02 52:41

Listeners of the Strategist Podcast, remember

SPEAKER_02 52:43

remember we are on iTunes and Stitcher, so make sure you subscribe to our podcast on there. Also, we're on Twitter at StrategistPod and individually at Corey Hogan, at Carter underscore AB, and at Zane Velji.

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