Transcript
SPEAKER_02
0:02
This is The Strategist, episode 559. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, how are you? I'm
Corey
0:11
This is a return to form. Oh, man. It's been a while. We had three theme episodes in
SPEAKER_02
0:15
in a row. And then we had this huge gap in between where people were begging us to put something up. Three people.
Carter
0:22
people. Three people begged us for this. Yes, but I
SPEAKER_02
0:24
I mean, we were going to just put Carter talking to himself, which actually would make a good independent podcast. If you ever want to break free, Carter, feel
Carter
0:30
feel free to do so.
Carter
0:32
I haven't posted it, but it exists. Because
SPEAKER_02
0:33
Because we do have contracts here, and someone who violated his contract last night was one Corey Hogan. Oh,
Carter
0:39
Oh, yeah. Appearing as a sole commentator at the Alberta Party fundraiser. Just leaving the two wings behind. Well, you and I were in the audience, which made
Corey
0:49
made it even more awkward. Super awkward. But what made it, I think, even more awkward is I'm not actually a member or supporter of the Alberta Party. I
Carter
0:56
I don't know how they
Corey
0:57
they roped you into that one
Carter
0:59
I mean I had Some smart people in the Alberta party there Yeah it's just all crazy We could be on the stage No no How did
SPEAKER_02
1:07
did that go for you Corey Talking about your leftist leanings to a room of people Who were either on the left, right, center, down, up
Corey
1:15
They didn't know what to think Which is kind of the Alberta party problem in a nutshell I think None of
Corey
1:21
of them insulted all of the good people Who paid money to come see me talk are we gonna get we will
Carter
1:26
will get into money to see you talk yeah i didn't know when i bought the tables i did not know you cory
SPEAKER_02
1:32
cory was joined on stage by greg clark leader of the alberta party and danielle smith so you had other people there that were let's just say bigger draws than you cory oh i don't think we could say
Corey
1:42
say that that's not possible
Carter
1:43
well only one of those panelists got heckled and it was our very own cory hogan yeah
Corey
1:48
that's bullshit now to be to be fair to me it wasn't bullshit the stats the things that i was telling him he just didn't believe he didn't want to hear them but they were true i tweeted them out
SPEAKER_02
1:57
out what hasn't changed is
SPEAKER_02
1:58
is you violated your contract with the strategists
Carter
2:01
strategists yeah we appeared on your own as a singular commentator shouldn't
SPEAKER_02
2:05
shouldn't happen again listen let's get back to form like you said cory a lot to talk about here let's do a little bit of a little bit of federal a little bit of provincial um and let's start with our first segment who took the coal from my stocking you
Carter
2:20
because it's very good yeah because
SPEAKER_02
2:22
because it's not going to happen by 2030 15
SPEAKER_02
2:24
15 years let's talk about this climate change plan that's been put out here provincially by the ndp government and rachel notley well
Carter
2:30
well let's start off by saying how brilliant it was to release it the day before the first minister's conference so essentially the first first minister's conference and i don't know how many years cory yeah it's at least
Carter
2:45
wouldn't have the First Minister's Conference. So Justin Trudeau brings everybody back together and has a climate change First Minister's Conference. And the Paris is happening
SPEAKER_02
2:53
happening right after that, yeah. And
Carter
2:55
And listen, 24 hours before it happens, Rachel Notley and Shannon Phillips, Minister of Environment here in Alberta, roll out a massive
Carter
3:03
massive climate change policy that depending on who you talk to is either the best thing ever or the best thing ever. so because because if you're talking to industry it's the best thing ever if you're talking to the environmentalist is the best thing ever now it's what's interesting is of course when you kind of break through that first veneer of it's the best thing ever you find a lot of doomsday uh scenarios a lot of people talking about uh maybe some of this isn't as good as it appears but rolling it out before the first ministers conference changed the way that alberta is viewed yeah
Carter
3:32
in the eyes of of uh canada and
Carter
3:35
and the way that canada is veered there's a new york times article today talking about how canada is has in one month reversed its entire focus on climate change okay
SPEAKER_02
3:44
okay so before we get into this and carter thanks for teeing us up there because i want to talk local national international i want to talk about the industry cory give us some basic facts about what this plan is why now and why does this particular plan reframe alberta and more specifically as As Carter was saying, reframe Canada going forward. What about it excites you? Because I know it does excite you.
Corey
4:05
you. Yeah, I think it's a great plan. And what excites me, I think, is the realism, the pragmatism. What the NDP did is they appointed a panel led by Andrew Leach, an economist at the University of Alberta, who took like a really, really smart approach to it. But basically, rather than creating targets, which is what pretty much every person who's created a plan in the past has done and then failed to meet those targets, they took an approach that was designed to, as they put it, bend the curve. So change the economics of carbon production and create a toolkit that the government could then reach into down the road as other jurisdictions catch up. So interesting stats from that. And I'm going to mangle them a bit because they're not in front of me right now. But when you look at industries that are defined as carbon-intensive and when you look at industries defined as export-intensive, what you find is that the Venn diagram middle, industries that are both carbon-intensive and export-intensive, Ontario, it's like 2%. BC, it's like 2% of their economy. Quebec, 2% or sub-2% in all these cases. Alberta is 18%. That's a lot. And because of that, we are particularly susceptible to the economics changing the economics, right? Right. You change a bit about the carbon pricing and all of a sudden the sky can fall. And what Leach said was after going through that whole process, he was actually a little more sanguine than he went in, kind of thinking before we should go harder and we should be a leader. And I think he still wants to position Alberta as a leader. But what he's done is he's given Alberta the tools to be a leader now
Corey
5:33
now and in the future. right? By essentially creating a toolkit of carbon taxes and policy initiatives that are available to the government to keep the money in Alberta, to price carbon and to ramp that up as time goes on. Okay, that helps. Tell
SPEAKER_02
5:46
Tell me this, Stephen Carter, who are the real stakeholders for this? Because that seems to be up for debate right now. You're talking international and national. Who did she do this for primarily? Because Albertans at large are now going to face the burden of this this tax that's coming upon them not just industry anymore but who did she actually do this for in your mind disagree with that but let's get to that well
Carter
6:07
well okay i think that it was actually it's a very broad stakeholder group i mean i think that uh the first stakeholder is the population of canada she wanted to actually uh design a program that the people of canada could look at and say hey hey alberta is a little bit different so you
SPEAKER_02
6:24
canada deliberately above alberta in that case that's a deliberate choice of words absolutely
Carter
6:27
absolutely because i think that this ultimately will tie back into market access and we can talk about that later um but the second group of people is that it changed the carbon uh reduction strategy from just industry to uh pushing a little bit onto all albertans right every albertan will pay a carbon tax on their own emissions uh and that's interesting because that hadn't been done that's been done in british columbia but
Carter
6:51
but it hasn't been done in in alberta was we had a carbon tax here but it was only for large emitters. And this now puts the burden and shares the burden across the economy at the same level. The third group of stakeholders, I think, is industry itself. Industry was very concerned when a new Democrat government came in that they would be forced to bear the brunt of the cost of carbon. And yeah, they're still responsible for a large part of carbon costs, but they are now now less likely to have to carry it alone. And I guess the fourth stakeholder has to be the coal industry. By essentially saying we're phasing out coal by 2030, which I think is actually, a lot of it's going to be offline way before that.
Carter
7:40
The coal industry, of course, is the ones that now feel like they're picking up the cost. They're the ones who are shouldering the burden of reducing carbon output in Alberta. And I think that that's a bit of a false argument. We're the last group to finally address coal-generated electricity. It's, I mean, oh, hold on, check that, Saskatchewan.
Carter
8:04
But we needed to do this 10 years ago as a province and try and address the fact that coal, while it produces a tremendous amount of energy, also produces a tremendous amount of pollutants and just isn't good for our environment. Corey,
SPEAKER_02
8:19
Corey, do you want to add on to there? Who are stakeholders here?
Corey
8:21
Yeah, well, I think that Carter kind of ran them down. What I think is probably interesting to our listeners outside of Alberta is that you talked about industry as number three and then coal industry as number four because, of course, in Alberta, industry is synonymous with oil and gas, right? The
Corey
8:35
The reason they're not...
Corey
8:37
Well, no, I mean, it's not a story. Every Albertan would instantly know what you were talking about. But the reason why that's so fascinating, I think, to me, the the oil and gas response is of course they're overjoyed the carbon levy was set to go to 30 dollars a megaton in 2017 anyways this sets carbon's price the carbon tax at 30 a ton this is as much as anything a rebranding and a let's all share the burden exercise of the government really clever in my in my opinion i also think because they've now done this in such a way that keeps the money in the province it's also a bit of an opportunity to do that you know the word has become almost pejorative or the phrase, but social engineering, right? Now we can take the money that comes from that carbon tax and we can redistribute based on need. So one of the big problems in Alberta, in my opinion, is our very flat tax structures.
Corey
9:27
This is an opportunity through credits to kind of take care of that and also reduce the burden on lower income Albertans when they start seeing the impact of carbon on their bills.
SPEAKER_02
9:37
Carter, you mentioned some potential issues with this once you dig deeper, But let's talk short term before we do long term as it tries to unfold over the next three and a half or so years. Short term, what are some of the strategic pitfalls she could fall into with this plan? You're loving it right now to some degree. Corey likes it a lot. The piece
Carter
9:53
piece I don't like, though, is the cap, right?
Carter
9:56
right? So we've got a cap on greenhouse gas emissions for large
Carter
10:01
large energy producers, especially oil sands producers. And the problem with that is that there are a number of producers who produce at the very low end of the scale. And there's a number of producers who produce GHGs at the high end of the scale. And how are you going to determine who gets to grow, right?
Carter
10:16
right? Right now, what we have is we have permits
Carter
10:20
permits that Ed Stelmach principally put in place that allow the oil sands to double in size, I think it was by 2020. Given the downturn of oil prices in the last year, that has now been extended out. But
Carter
10:33
But how are we going to determine how we're going to grow the actual oil sands production? production are we going to favor those who uh emit less ghgs or are we going to favor those companies that stood on the stage with her and i don't want the companies that stood on the stage with her to have them favored i want the ones who produce the least amount of ghgs to be the ones who can expand because then we get more oil out of the ground and we're able to uh corey reaching to
Corey
11:00
to speak yeah i mean i think the devil's in the details we don't really know some context let's Let's not go too deep into the policy weeds here. But right now, the oil sands produce 70 megatons. The cap is 100. So there's a lot of room. And I think that if anything, this is, again, one of those optics things. It could be changed. It could be adjusted. But who knows how they're going to do it. I would suspect it will be something like a cap-and-trade where they effectively auction these off. And not just for new people, but for existing people as well. But who knows? Who knows? And what I really think that the industry is going to be watching keenly, that's the oil and gas industry, And what Cole is going to be watching keenly is how
Corey
11:35
how are they going to use that $3 billion to $6 billion, depending on who you're asking, from the carbon tax to smooth out the impacts for consumers and for industry? Who's going to win in that equation? Perfect.
SPEAKER_02
11:47
Perfect. Corey, you're just leading into my next segue. In terms of the plan itself, we talked about the stakeholders. Let's talk about the execution of the plan going forward. Who do you say? You said industry. You said consumers, everyday Albertans, voters, et cetera. Who is the primary stakeholder going forward? Who does she need to smooth things out with first and foremost? Tell us the strategy if you were directing it for this plan going forward today onwards. Well,
Corey
12:08
Well, if it was me, I know exactly who my coalition is. I know who brought me to office. And I know that while that was a broader coalition than most people think, that the most stable part of that is probably higher education. So there's a gap in like desire to get involved in social changes, right? People used to call it the post-material stage, right? Right. You get so much money, you don't really care and you're willing to support a cause that you think is right. And there's kind of really in the middle where you're your true middle class, where you're most likely to be susceptible and skeptical to to some of these bigger social programs. Right. But get those lower income Albertans protected with some some things on that side. Get the environmentalists with a lot of money on board by just saying effectively you've got to pay. And if you don't like it, you're probably not part of my coalition anyhow. out and then just ease it through the middle. Find a way that you can make their employers not so nervous about it. And that's really, I think that coal for me is the big one. I think oil and gas is just saying, this is great. We've got a price. This is fine. When you look at it in a global context, who cares? Coal, however, with a hard phase out date and the impact of the $30 ton, that
Corey
13:18
that could get really interesting. That could get really interesting in a really bad bad way for some producers carter
SPEAKER_02
13:23
carter what do you think here is is that is that too many moving parts for strategy to sell this thing or how how would you do it if you were leading the ndp at this point i
Carter
13:30
i wouldn't worry about selling it so much i
Carter
13:32
mean i think that number one she did a brilliant job of selling it the day of i mean the the the the environmental groups all said what they were supposed to say what they said next was interesting we're still going to set down market access we're still going to try and kill all the pipelines uh but the environmental groups were We're pretty much online. The oil and gas companies, the four that were up there, said really good things. We didn't hear anything else from the other companies, but that's fine. She won the day, and I don't think she needs to win much more. The next thing that she needs to – the actual Achilles heel of this particular situation has nothing to do with public perception except for investors.
Carter
14:10
If investors feel that growth is curtailed, they may or may not move their investment dollars. And if they move their investment dollars, then you have a bigger problem. And I think that Premier
Carter
14:21
Premier Notley has been excellent at identifying the problems and making moves to address them. Her next move to me is just make everybody within the investment community, make everybody in the towers comfortable that this isn't going to hurt them. Corey,
SPEAKER_02
14:35
Corey, is this something where she has to say that I did this to get an eventual result at the end of her first term? Carter mentioned the term market access as that eventual result. Do you believe that there needs to be something at the end of this plan, or is it just for the sake of doing this plan?
Corey
14:52
No, I think that'll make some people happy, but those are probably people that aren't going to be predisposed to voting NDP to begin with. I think there are a lot, and frankly, the polls show it, there are a lot of Albertans who just believe it's the moral imperative to act. We need to act, and we need to do it. But so she's not going to be judged on whether or not there's a pipeline to the West or the East in 2019 by the people who she needs to vote for her anyhow. For me, it comes back to how she's going to use that money to help the lower income Albertans. That's it. That's full stop. Because not only does she have an opportunity to say, see, this doesn't hurt you, but we're talking about refund checks. They are going to literally get a check from the government of Alberta that's like, your government loves you. Here's some money.
Carter
15:34
money. More Ralph Bucks. Yeah. That's exactly what we need is more checks going out to people instead of just simply avoiding taxes to begin with. I mean, I like this plan. I do. I just don't. I mean.
SPEAKER_02
15:43
But you still ultimately believe market access needs to be the goal of this?
Carter
15:47
Well, I believe that market access is the most important goal that Alberta has, period. And I think that market access is the most important goal if we're going to have an economy that works. I mean, there are people who would say we need to move away from this economy. Okay.
Carter
16:02
Okay. I'll accept that. Give me the timeline. timeline because if it's two years we can't do it if it's 10 years i don't think we can do it i think we can do it i think
Carter
16:09
think we're looking at a 25 to 30 year window to move away from this this particular economy and and dear rest of canada we need you to help us on that okay
SPEAKER_02
16:18
okay before we move on from this topic i want to talk to you guys about the strategies of the opposition parties if you are if you are leading them right now i know carter we discussed yesterday on on the tv tubes what what the wild rose are doing but what would you suggest that the the opposition do right now Now, you yourself have said that you like it, but you see some holes in your, is there anything they can immediately attack that you think would shake
SPEAKER_02
16:39
shake up the ground a little bit?
Carter
16:40
Well, I think that, so immediately
Carter
16:42
immediately attack is interesting phrasing, right? As a strategist, I wouldn't be attacking, right?
Carter
16:48
right? I'd be talking about what could have been done or what should have been done or what may be done. You'd be proposing
Carter
16:53
alternatives. I'd be talking about the holes that exist. I'd be saying, you know what, how are you, this is excellent. Well done. I'm pleased. I'm very happy with what you've done.
Corey
17:00
done. No, I would say I'm very happy with what Andrew Leach did. However,
Carter
17:02
However, yeah, Andrew Leach was great. You wouldn't give credit to the
Carter
17:05
government. No, of course not.
Carter
17:06
But let me ask you a couple of questions, Madam Premier, because I have some, you know, here are some holes that you've left open. How can you tell the people of Alberta this is going to actually address the market access question? What are you doing to ensure that investors aren't fleeing the province of Alberta and the companies that need to have investment for growth? We're talking about growing the oil sands by 45%. Where's that capital going to come from? Because it doesn't exist right now.
Carter
17:35
Nothing is going on in terms of growth right now.
SPEAKER_02
17:37
now. So what's interesting, I think, looking back to last night, one of the parties that has done that prior to was the Alberta Party. They released an alternative. Now, whatever you make of it, they have done that. They have started proposing a few things. But, Corey, I want to go to you. What would you be doing right now if you're the opposition parties?
Corey
17:52
Well, I'd be starting to narrow the government's options. And the government has all of this money that they can use to smooth over the bad of the carbon tax. And so I would start taking that off the table for them. I'd start saying things like, well, absolutely, and that money should go to innovation, but it can't go back to the rebates the way you're talking. The carbon tax does not work if you charge someone $30 a ton and then give them a subsidy of $30 a ton. Can't happen. Start making those options less and the choices less comfortable and the hurt more real for the NDP's base. and you can do that with an intellectually honest approach i just don't think any of the parties are going to do that and i think the ndp are going to run circles around them on that front well
Carter
18:31
well we're seeing none of the party i mean the the lack
Carter
18:33
lack of strategy that exists is exists in alberta right now is pretty staggering we've got uh parties just running around not knowing what to do a
Corey
18:41
a part of it is they just don't have the pieces what the wild rose is going to say great strategy but let's make sure it actually works don't give money to like that's that's not a winner for the wild rose when When you start kind of playing the rock, paper, scissors of this issue, they don't really have a way they can attack on that issue because of who they are, what they believe, and what their base will tolerate. The PCs would probably be in a better position, except
Corey
19:02
except they are not for some reason. They just can't seem to get their act together on this one. Part of it is I think they're pouting a bit that what Rachel Notley has rather ingeniously done as far as the oil industry goes is rebrand the PCs carbon levy to look like a bold proposal.
Corey
19:20
yeah, that would hurt. That would be annoying. But right now, they just don't know where to go from here. Last
SPEAKER_02
19:24
Last question on this one. As she moves forward, she's gotten a great bump about this nationally. What does she need to do to ensure that national partnership is strong and robust as she operationalizes this plan, Carter?
Carter
19:34
Well, I think it's interesting the way that she's reached out. In fact, she has put herself now, by releasing this plan the day before the first minister, she's put herself in the driver's seat. When was the last time, Corey, we saw Alberta in the driver's seat environmentally? Well,
Corey
19:51
Well, I agree, but she also has to be careful as a result, because she did kind of step all over what was supposed to be Justin Trudeau's big day. Right. That was her only choice. I mean, all politics is local, and she could not possibly have announced after she came back when the prime minister says we all need to act more. That would make her look like she was carrying his water. But I think she can't overplay that hand. I think she's just got to let Trudeau have his moment in Paris, and then she can pick back up on the other side.
Carter
20:18
Well, we don't have to be threatened by Paris anymore.
Carter
20:20
All of a sudden, we're not afraid of Paris. So she has made this move. I mean, to have the New York Times writing about an attitudinal shift in Canada around climate change, that's coming out of Alberta. That is her move, her outcome. And she has now nationally and internationally made things different. Now, if I'm Justin Trudeau, I might be a little bit ticked, but he still carried the day on his First Minister's Conference. He didn't lose a ton of media. It wasn't like it was a zero-sum game where Notley won, ergo Trudeau lost. Trudeau did just fine on his First Minister's Conference because
Corey
20:58
because it hadn't happened for so long. He arguably won more simply because Rachel Notley was on board. Reading
SPEAKER_02
21:03
Reading my mind. Perfect segue. Let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, our federal grab bag meter. So what I'm going to ask you guys to do, 20 plus days in for Justin Trudeau, let's talk some federal politics. And let's start by giving me a rating, 1 to 10, based on where you guys think Justin Trudeau performed on some of these issues or events. The first one, let's just get right into it, the First Minister's Conference. Corey, 1 to 10, what do you think his rating was and why? I
Corey
21:28
I think it was an 8 or a 9. I can't give him a full 10 simply because he kind of started a little bit of a passive-aggressive thing with Kathleen Wynne, or she started it with him, where like, hey, listen, the kids' table was doing just fine without you. Don't forget that. And I think that does sort of remind us that when you're a prime minister, and one of the reasons why Harper never did this is First Minister's Conference by name implies that the premiers are on the same level as the prime minister, right?
Corey
21:54
right? And that's not always great when you're the prime minister trying to push a national agenda. agenda he got a little lucky because everyone's on the same page but start to look for he's kind of sowed the seeds of future troubles in the sense that when there is big disagreement and he's just one of 11 you know he's not even first among equals they're all first ministers who
Corey
22:13
who knows where that goes yeah
Carter
22:15
yeah i mean he took a little bit of a beating from brad wall who stepped up to the microphone and and said you know we we've got to make sure we're protecting our energy industry i mean it was nice to have someone talking about our energy industry and saying that we have you You know, this is pretty important to the entire country. Yeah.
Carter
22:32
I'd have to give it at least a seven. I mean, he gets a five just for holding it, right? And I think it was a low bar in that regard. It's a seven on my scale. You
SPEAKER_02
22:43
You know, after doing that and that being one of his bigger events, he's been internationally all over the place. What do you think so far of the Justin Trudeau we have seen on the world stage? I'll go back to you on this one, Carter, because you're shaking your head. Give me a 1 to 10 on Trudeau on the world stage. And, of course, please qualify it with your comments because I know you have some.
Carter
23:02
You know, it starts off with he's the most handsome of all the world leaders, right? I mean, we had that whole – What was the hashtag, Corey?
SPEAKER_02
23:10
don't remember either. It was like haughty
Carter
23:12
haughty leader or something like that. And out comes Justin Trudeau as our very attractive leader. And then today, he's shaken the monarch's hand incorrectly. correctly you know a double-fisted handshake uh it's just that's that maybe who cares about that
Carter
23:29
that maybe but this is what i'm talking about it's all very shallow and superficial he's made some statements that also are shallow and superficial he he doesn't have his core messaging down yet like harper did where he was able to just rattle off this is what canada is this is what we mean blah blah this is what we're defined
Carter
23:46
it's it's nice i think it's a requirement that when when you uh change the government the first thing you have to do is make an international international uh rounds you have to see people we're not in the place where we can host the leaders of the other countries you know in canada they're not they're not going to make those changes but this is a very welcome shift to see our leader um going out and and discussing with the with other
Carter
24:11
other leaders the issues of the day uh unfortunately this is going to sound wrong it's going to sound bad so you guys are going to come up for me because
Carter
24:19
because we have such a dominant international issue with Syria and the Syrian refugees and the conflict in Syria. I think that some of the other issues that we have internationally get swept under the table.
Carter
24:31
You know, where do we fit in the world? How are we establishing our trade relationships? Those types of things are left on the back burner because we have this hot button issue of Syria and the Syrian refugee issue. And that's not anything that he did. That's just an unfortunate reality.
SPEAKER_02
24:46
What can I mark you down for? Is that a five? Was that a four? what are we looking at fuck zane
Carter
24:50
zane you want me to do okay i'll get you on the record get you give him
Carter
24:53
him a six it would have been a seven without that double-fisted handshake though oh you would have bumped
SPEAKER_02
24:57
bumped him up a full point cory where do you where do you put trudeau so far on the international stage
Corey
25:01
stage 20 days in into his prime ministership i
Corey
25:03
give him a a seven but i bumped him up from a six because of the handshake because
Corey
25:07
because if there's one thing i can't stand it's the monarchy and that whole relationship and the and the customs and the mores around it makes me nuts uh what would
SPEAKER_02
25:16
would What would it have taken to give
Corey
25:16
give him an eight? I'm very curious in
SPEAKER_02
25:18
in terms of the monarchy. A haymaker.
Carter
25:26
going to get a call from Josh Traptop.
Corey
25:30
am not at all impressed with some of the platitude heavy statements he's made. Now, look, there's a lot being thrown at him. There's a lot of things going on in the world, but sort of welcome to the realm of international diplomacy. diplomacy, you're going to have to find a better way to dance than that, because that was a little embarrassing. There were like whole minute long tirades of nothing. And that's a problem. And that was a problem we saw of Justin Trudeau early on. Get Jerry Butts on the plane with him if he's not on the plane, because I want to see the Trudeau we saw during the election. The Trudeau we saw out there, the APEC hottie, I remember the hashtag. Nicely done. That Trudeau is not a Trudeau that That I'm very enthusiastic about. Okay.
SPEAKER_02
26:10
Okay. Talk to me about Syrian refugees. We were talking about this a few weeks ago about the delay on the date. Now he's officially come out and said that we're not going to be able to get all of the 25,000 in within our date. We want to do it properly, et cetera. That decision, Carter, 1 to 10, what do you rank that in and why?
Carter
26:29
Well, I think that's the right decision. I'm going to give it a low ranking, though. Okay. I'm going to give it a 4. Explain why. And it's the right reason at the wrong time for the wrong reason, right? So you did the right thing. We have to get these people in. We have to open our doors. I think that people elected Justin Trudeau in no small part because of that singular issue. Right.
Carter
26:52
So he has to do that. But we have to do it properly, right? And the logistics of moving 25,000 people, as rightfully pointed out by the conservatives in the campaign, takes
Carter
27:03
takes a little bit more work.
Carter
27:05
right up until the day that they changed their minds they said they weren't going to change their minds now i guess that's government i guess that's the way we do things but it would have been i think that they should have opened the door that maybe we're going to have to change our minds you know here's what we're doing we are trying to do this as fast as possible we are also keeping our security concerns the concerns of the people who arrive in canada you can't arrive in canada in december and not have adequate housing of course so we have a few logistics things we have have to work through if we're going to bring these people over but we are committed to bringing these people over and i just didn't see that until the very very end well
Corey
27:41
well i saw a bit of that i think that john mccallum did try to soften the ground for that in the weeks coming up um my i take almost an opposite approach but same with you on this one steven the numbers in the campaign ten thousand twenty five thousand whatever thousand they were never really rooted in anything more than one up There was an arms race during the campaign. Yeah, and frankly, I'm not at all convinced $25,000 is adequate, given the scope of the problem. I tend to be more on the other side.
Corey
28:08
But yeah, I mean, they were certainly sanctimonious of it during the campaign. But here's the thing. I think they could have done it, and I'm actually a little disappointed they didn't do it.
Corey
28:16
We have a country that lets in 250,000 immigrants a year. 250,000 immigrants a day, or sorry, 250,000 immigrants a year is 1,000 immigrants every working day. We could have made this work. We could have figured this out. We absolutely had the ability to scale it back and pass. What was it then in
SPEAKER_02
28:32
didn't make it work out?
Corey
28:34
Well, it was – let me take one more step back. Sure. Here's how government actually works.
Corey
28:40
You say you want to do something. Your bureaucracy says that'll be tough. Here's reasons A, B, C, and D. And as a minister or a premier or a prime minister, you say, fuck you. I don't care. Get it done.
Corey
28:51
Get it done. Work 24
Carter
28:52
24 hours a day. And
Carter
28:53
it gets done. Yeah, we did that when I was in government. And there are certain things that we just said, it doesn't matter. This is what we're going to do, and you're going to help us figure this
Corey
29:02
this out. And you're going to make this happen, and you're going to make sure it's safe, and you're going to get it done. The reason the Americans got to the moon within a decade when they were essentially just bombing out on their launch pad platforms is because somebody in government said, this is going to happen, and you are going to make this happen, and I will fund it, but it is on you, and it is happening. happening and they missed a real opportunity to kind of have our own microcosm of that man in the moon moment where they forced it by sheer will to happen so what do you think softened the will here cory was it was it the opposition by by people like brad wall and other people highlighting security concerns
Corey
29:34
softened the will i don't think it was brad wall but i think it was generally speaking they they looked at it and they said yeah i think canadians will forgive us for this but that's pitiful like not doing the right thing because you think it will be hard and people will forgive you for not doing it is pitiful and i hope anybody listening in the liberal party realizes that not everybody's okay with this you
Carter
29:53
you are just yeah no you're pushing too hard we're gonna get the people in we're getting them in uh
Carter
29:59
55 days later oh yeah
Corey
30:01
there's no reason why we would want to go fast there's no reason why we want to get people
Carter
30:04
people out of the situation right you don't want to do it wrong i
Corey
30:07
i uh csis i almost said isis csis and the rcmp have both said the security uh flags are not a concern in fact the government has said the
Corey
30:16
security is not security issue they're worried about the logistics
Carter
30:18
logistics i'm worried about logistics housing uh the support networks if this was a
Corey
30:22
a flood if this was an earthquake if this was a natural disaster instead of a man you're right it's a man-made disaster and it's easier to fix okay
SPEAKER_02
30:30
okay okay okay let me let me scale it back a little bit but still on refugees how do you think he's handled or his parties handled the the criticism of only women and children as being part of this refugee class well i
Carter
30:40
i mean they've they've changed that up again now they have a little bit but give me a They brought people –
Carter
30:49
it's addressed a lot of the security things and it kind of made it sound like – I mean for me it sounds like the Titanic, women and children and families first. It's just kind of – there's a lot of reasons why single men would be leaving Syria, not the least of which is, hey, these guys don't do well when your town is overtaken. By the enemy, I don't care which side it is, and there's many enemies in Syria, you get shot if you're a single male and you're not fighting for that side. So I get that. I get leaving that situation. I don't quite understand all these
Carter
31:32
these people who don't understand that. But moving
Carter
31:35
moving past that, those who are in need, who want to come to Canada, should be the ones who come to Canada.
SPEAKER_02
31:41
Corey, give me your ranking card. hard you didn't do so but i'll let it slide i'll let it slide what do you think right now in terms of their response yeah
Corey
31:47
yeah i i don't know i i am of two minds of this i think that it kind of makes sense that you start with the lowest hanging fruit why not a person's a person's a person and if you can get 25 000 people who are in need out uh and it's easier to do because you can start with the people who are most likely to pass the security clearance sure
Corey
32:04
sure why not uh if it becomes a long-term strategy i've got a real problem with that but in the short term i don't really have a problem with it okay
SPEAKER_02
32:11
okay i wanted to talk all trudeau but i need to ask you guys this so far your your your indication of the performance of the conservative party under rona ambrose at large where do you think that's going do we see any signs of change of tone or any sort of differences she's brought in carter i gotta i'm
Corey
32:27
i'm gonna go with
Corey
32:27
you i'm gonna say the the infographic going around of lisa oh my god yeah how did the the debt how do we go from a surplus to a deficit in a week those damn liberals they've like that was outrageous like the notion that when you get get in there and you realize it's actually a deficit the temerity though the balls on them i don't know how they get their pants on in the morning when you're a conservative and you're just essentially laid bare and called out for for having a deficit you said you did not have and then you're like well i don't know it was a surplus when we were there what do you guys do with the billions i mean that was bullshit that was so stupid yeah
Carter
33:00
yeah i was that was pretty bad i mean um i like what uh rona's done with the shadow cabinet i mean i think that there's been an an elevation i think that i'm not sure it's quite matched the uh you know 50 female but there's very senior positions are occupied by a very capable uh female ministers or i'm sorry female members of the of parliament um i i think that they've done okay i mean they've got this idea that they have to change their tone but they're not really sure how so you see you see you know michelle rample will bang on them uh tell me your plans tell me your plans and it starts to almost get to
Carter
33:38
to a place where the tone isn't right and um because they're so used to a not talking to media at all and b uh being fairly aggressive when doing so i think it's going to take a little bit longer to really figure out their their tone and how they're going to serve to continue the
Corey
33:53
the astronaut thing these guys have been in space too long those muscles have atrophied they don't really know how to handle some of those things fair
SPEAKER_02
34:00
fair enough listen you guys failed to give me literally any numbers in this it's quite ridiculous but you will in our next segment our next segment are over under our lightning round are you guys
Corey
34:08
guys ready for this okay
SPEAKER_02
34:10
scale of one to ten give me your ranking on rachel notley's plan as it relates to her pushing this out as a strategy locally we'll talk about it locally first so domestically how does this plan play for her one to ten carter i
Carter
34:23
think it's going to be a six i think the people on the on the whole view it as a positive but as a you know any new new tax at some point you're going to notice it locally
SPEAKER_02
34:31
locally in the province i should specify
SPEAKER_02
34:33
does this plan play for her
Corey
34:35
think it's a seven i think the establishment's on side but we've got a real anti-establishment thing going on and that's the only thing that keeps it from being a nine is that i could see that the public as a whole could potentially revolt against it could
SPEAKER_02
34:45
could shift against this let's talk nationally on the same plan carter what do you think she gets nationally in terms of remarks for this well
Carter
34:51
i think that because the i mean it's like when you have exactly zero expectations you do very well so i think that she's looking at an eight or an an eight and a half i
Corey
34:59
think she gets a nine nine and a half as long as brad wall's next door the new alberta is going to look combative
Corey
35:05
combative to the rest of the the people by comparison let's
SPEAKER_02
35:08
let's talk about industry the final stakeholder i wanted to talk about here one to ten on the notley plan what do they take of this how does she present it to them carter well
Carter
35:17
well i don't know i mean the the industry the initial reaction is not the reaction that will carry the day i think we're going to see somewhere in the neighborhood of a four um anytime you put restrictions on industry they tend to rebel cory
Corey
35:30
cory devil's in the details they'll fight about it but i think they're going to fight quietly and we're
Corey
35:34
we're seeing a pretty big schism here you know i couldn't help but no one of the people who was not there was the industry association cap yeah
Corey
35:42
it's true i'm going to say industry
Corey
35:44
industry is going to because they're now internally going to be having disagreements about that i
Corey
35:49
i don't know i I don't know if I'm rating, like, how that's going to be related to the
SPEAKER_02
35:52
the government or for
SPEAKER_02
35:53
You can rate Notley's ability to kind of, yeah.
Corey
35:55
Notley's ability to manage all of that, I'm going to give it a nine. I think that she's perfect. Like, this is exactly where you want it if there's a potentially controversial issue.
SPEAKER_02
36:03
Interesting. Does she want that schism to be present between industry right now by only calling a few up on stage or
SPEAKER_02
36:08
or only having a few on side? I'm
Corey
36:09
I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and say she'd rather have them all on one side and that being her side. But I'm going to say it doesn't hurt her at all that there is some discord there. over
SPEAKER_02
36:19
over under on six carter over under on six the wild rose response so far to the climate change plan over
Carter
36:26
over under on six six
Carter
36:29
uh under under yeah i mean the wild rose oh
Carter
36:32
oh i can't do it i mean
SPEAKER_02
36:34
they seem quite measured on this one that's what i
Carter
36:36
i thought you'd have a
SPEAKER_02
36:37
tough time but cory under
Corey
36:38
under because they were measured let's talk a bit about that for a second here is
Carter
36:41
is the wrong time to actually be measured no i mean like
Corey
36:44
like i would love to have been in the room where they're like, what are we going to do? We're going to accuse them of being too pro-oil. Yeah. What's that going to do for you? Like, that's not going to hurt the NDP. And that's not going to help you. And in fact, it might help the NDP. And it might hurt you. I mean, it just it doesn't. Like, when I think about their voting blocs, and what issues are likely to shake somebody out of either voting bloc, what a stupid approach. It
Corey
37:08
It was just a
SPEAKER_02
37:09
stupid approach. Two years from now, two years from now on the international stage, age do we know justin trudeau for his glamour or his gravitas carter
Carter
37:20
uh glamour i don't think well i i mean i
Carter
37:24
i don't know who the real justin trudeau is the one who filled a minute with vacuous comments about who what canada is or um
Carter
37:34
or the guy that we saw kind of in the debates at the end of the campaign where he was he had a grasp of the facts and he really showed what he was doing i don't know who he is cory
Corey
37:42
cory Corey, glamour or gravitas for Trudeau in two years? Look, I'm not knocking him. He might be full of gravitas, but that hair is going to do that like silver on the side thing. I just know it. He's going to look beautiful.
Corey
37:52
I'm going to say glamour.
SPEAKER_02
37:53
Still, 1 to 10, the rank of his first 20 plus days so far for Justin Trudeau. Corey, I'll go back to you on this one.
SPEAKER_02
37:59
I'm going to give it a 7. Carter, first 20 days.
Carter
38:02
I'm going to probably go with 7. I
Carter
38:04
mean, it's just he's
SPEAKER_02
38:05
Right back at you on this one. First 100 days after it's done, what rank do you think we give him? I
Carter
38:10
I think we're probably going to drop down to about a 6 just because we tend to move
Carter
38:14
away. Honeymoon will be over at that point, you think? That's just the way the world works.
Corey
38:19
7 to a 6 is where Steven was. Corey, where are you going to be? I think it's going to be higher. I think it'll be an 8 or so. One of the reasons I gave him a 7 on the last one was the refugee thing.
SPEAKER_02
38:27
Well, there you go. We'll leave it there. That's episode 559 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belgi. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_02
38:39
Listeners of The Strategist podcast, Remember,
SPEAKER_02
38:41
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. Also, our episodes are available on our website, thestrategist.ca.