Episode 578: What's wrong with your caucus?

Zain 0:02

This is The Strategist, episode 578. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, is Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's up? Oh, it's exciting. Oh, it's a big day. It is. Game one. Game one of something that I don't care about. Listen, that's

Zain 0:18

that's right. You have a big man and you've got to pass the ball. That's pretty much it. Someone's got to distribute.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Game one. I thought we covered that. Now, do we want to talk politics? There's lots been going on. No,

SPEAKER_01 0:31

that's going on. There's been a lot going on. There's

SPEAKER_01 0:33

relevant going on. So federally,

SPEAKER_01 0:34

we have a couple of conventions. That's true. That was pretty exciting.

Zain 0:36

Provincially here in Alberta, we've got a couple of fuck-ups.

Zain 0:39

Meltdowns. Meltdowns. We're calling them that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Yeah. It's a total unspooling of the crazies. It's great. It's so much fun. Get your popcorn, kids. And you know what? I think there's maybe some lessons we can pull out of that, too. Oh, my God. That may be relevant to people outside of the boundaries of this province of foreign million and change. That will be exciting. I

Carter 0:56

I got a bet from a listener that I'm going to win a pastry because she thinks that Bernie Sanders is going to crush it in California and all of the superdelegates are going to sweep over to him and he's going to win. So I'm going to get a free pastry because she doesn't understand it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

You're going to eat a pastry provided by somebody who thinks that? It might be made with rat poison.

Carter 1:17

poison. She's not coming over to the house. I mean we're going to go to a store. We're treating it like a first date. This is why we do not let you interact

Zain 1:25

interact with the listeners ever. I

Carter 1:28

did tell a few listeners last week that they were fucking stupid on

Carter 1:31

on Twitter. That's pretty much our MO. That's a no-charge service.

Zain 1:34

I mean, what else is here? You know what else is legitimately new is that we have a sponsor. We're going to talk about them a little bit later on, but Campaign Tech in Chicago, August 4th. Carter, you will tease us with some miraculous stories about Campaign Tech. I

Carter 1:47

I have a story about Campaign Tech that we're going to tell later in the episode. Okay,

Zain 1:51

Okay, but we want to talk politics, Corey. I mean, I ask you because clearly I was in Edmonton this week and people think the podcast is yours. So I'm just going to ask you for permission. Are they wrong? They're definitely

Carter 2:00

What they don't understand is that you've got a big guy and a guy that distributes the ball. That's right. I'm the big guy. Zane distributes the ball. And you're just basically the white owner.

Carter 2:10

the white owner. He

Zain 2:11

He just sits up in the box.

Zain 2:14

Donald Sterling joke for all of you people that didn't get it. Okay, let's move it on. Our first segment, celebrating the win, dissecting the loss. Corey, I'm going to start with you.

Zain 2:23

You were in Winnipeg as an observer at the Liberal Convention. Carter, you were just sitting at home on your hands just watching this stuff on Twitter. But this was convention weekend.

Carter 2:33

I was building a patio. Don't make it up. I don't care. Sitting

Zain 2:36

Sitting on your hands. Liberal Convention, Conservative Convention this weekend. We talked about it last episode in terms of what the meaning of a convention is and what you're looking to get out of it. Carter, you, and I'm quoting you, paraphrasing you, ultimately said it's the bringing together of family. Corey, let's start with the Liberals. let's start here first you were there as an observer was this a bringing together of the family and did the family grow a little bit well the family grew

SPEAKER_01 3:01

grew there were cousins i had not seen in my many many years of going to liberal conventions the family tree is a bit bushier than it was shall we say but on your first question was it a bringing together of the family i'm not sure

Carter 3:16

it does on that and really

SPEAKER_01 3:18

of that was because there There was business to be done. And the main thrust of this convention, the only real focus of this convention was the new constitution that the liberals were bringing in. Now, what people care about outside of the party is this notion of abolishing membership. You now just register as a liberal. It's like being a registered Democrat in the States is an easy example. You get to participate in the so-called primaries we have, which are the voting for the candidates, for the leader, all of that. That's what people outside of the party cared about. What

SPEAKER_01 3:47

people inside the party cared about was it also eliminated all of the provincial associations. So the Liberal Party, not to bore everyone to death, have what's called PTAs or did until this weekend, Provincial Territorial Associations. And they're kind of remnants. They're like your appendix. You know, you know, it was there for some purpose historically, but you don't know why it's still there. And if you get rid of it, you're probably going to be able to continue walking. Right. Right. And we actually do know why we had PTAs. And in fact, in some cases, we still had what are termed blended associations. The reason why the liberals have PTAs is that it used to be that the Liberal Party was like the New Democrats. A liberal was a liberal was a liberal. If you were a BC liberal, if you were an Alberta liberal, if you were an Ontario liberal, you bought one membership and you participated in the organization. That was that.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Federal and provincial levels. Maritimes were still like that. I believe Manitoba was still like that, but they may change it recently. The

SPEAKER_01 4:43

The fact is, though, after

SPEAKER_01 4:45

after these parties left and disassociated, as we term it, you know, Quebec was first, Alberta, I think, was second and all that and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

These organizations were created to fill the gap, right? You know, so there was a president of the Liberal Party of Nova Scotia. So how could there not be a president of the Liberal Party in Alberta, right? And so it was called Liberal Party of Canada in Alberta. right and

SPEAKER_01 5:10

ultimately what happened was all of these little fiefdoms were created it was very inward focus there was a lot of energy directed inward i know people would disagree with me you're wrong it

SPEAKER_01 5:19

it was a waste of energy it was a waste of time it

SPEAKER_01 5:22

it thank god somebody got rid of it what a total what a total useless institution they had all become that

SPEAKER_01 5:29

that was where the hurt was in the party and that's where a lot of the discussion went on i actually found it really fascinating nobody Nobody seemed that fussed with the idea of blowing up the concept of membership. People were fussed about the notion that there would not be like an

SPEAKER_01 5:42

an Alberta vice president of policy. Yeah,

Carter 5:44

Yeah, that they wanted to be the Alberta vice president. Well,

SPEAKER_01 5:47

problem. Like people then fill those positions and these petty fiefdoms that are of absolutely no use to anybody except the people in the positions. You had communications chairs for a decade who were chairs of committees of one. Get the fuck out of here. I mean it was so pointless and thank God it's gone. But there was some concern. There was some concern that maybe by abolishing this aristocracy that the Liberal Party had created for themselves, maybe it would be less democratic because that aristocracy is what kept the leader in check. Because all of these uncontested positions that people just put their hand up and were slotted into, they

SPEAKER_01 6:22

they were the bulwark on which democracy rested in the Liberal Party. Now,

Zain 6:26

Now, on behalf of all of you who asked for 90 seconds straight of Corey Hogan going into liberal party policy, you are welcome.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

don't even know what the fuck you're talking about, buddy. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

I don't have no fucking

Zain 6:39

We'll say that's fascinating. Okay. So take me to the point. Why was – you know what? I'm going to Carter first because I think you need a break. Yeah. I've got to go

Carter 6:47

go to Carter. Carter,

Zain 6:48

Carter, part of this was – okay. Two main nodes, right? Bringing together a family. Corey, I'll ask you why eventually why you thought that wasn't the case. Nice. But also, this was an optics situation, right? You want something over the weekend. You're competing with another convention. You, while building your patio, what did you think of this as the liberals and how they played it on the optics perspective? Because this is what Justin Trudeau has excelled at. How did convention weekend go for him in that regard? Well,

Carter 7:15

Well, to be honest, I think that it suffered from a little bit of jet lag. I

Carter 7:18

mean, he was coming back from Japan. He did not have kind of the royal welcome that you you sometimes would associate with this and frankly as a guy who was just sitting around observing things on twitter and the news and the places that the quote-unquote average canadian would see these things i thought that the conservative

Carter 7:38

conservative almost implosion with the the same-sex marriage issue uh where essentially the kids took over the party i thought that was a far more fascinating conversation than when the conversations about well should we let everybody be a member or should we not know that everybody that wasn't even

SPEAKER_01 7:53

even the conversation but

Carter 7:53

but it doesn't matter that it was the external conversation as you yourself alluded to moments ago fine sir so don't backtrack from it but the the reality that i heard yeah

Carter 8:04

was that there was real shit going on in vancouver with

Carter 8:08

with the conservatives with the right leadership race that's beginning people who aren't even in the race all jockeying for position people were excited there's There's conversations going on, and the liberals, while they were happy, they won. They got to celebrate. They were having a great time. I heard from several sources that Corey misbehaved and may have, in fact, taken in a couple of alcoholic beverages. I've heard it several times now.

Carter 8:33

He wasn't the only one. They were celebrating. They were having a great time, but the conservatives were remaking their party, and

Carter 8:40

and that was a phenomenal thing to watch. There's

SPEAKER_01 8:41

There's no question soul-searching makes better television. but if you ask which one that was about as condescending as i've ever heard you do by the way the title

SPEAKER_01 8:49

though and that is

Carter 8:49

is a good title it's

Carter 8:50

it's something massive if

SPEAKER_01 8:54

if you look back on these conventions in 20 years which one's going to be considered historic and which one's going to be considered cleaning up a mess after a bad party i

SPEAKER_01 9:03

think we know what the answer to that is oh my god

Zain 9:08

ask why did it fall short for you in that regard the family regard because Because I still want to make sure I square that.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

that. Because when you go to Thanksgiving dinner, you don't talk about things that divide you. And there was a bit of a sense by some members of the party that this was being railroaded, right? These changes were coming through without consultation. I think those are largely unfounded criticisms. But unfortunately, even if you have 50 people at your Thanksgiving dinner and it's only your aunt who's potting off in the corner saying, I wasn't included, that's going to color everything that sort of happens around there. There's enough people who are upset. Corey, you were

Zain 9:43

were also saying yourself last episode when we talked about conventions that this would be the opportunity for the liberals to say, we've got a four-year mandate. I know we're a very large tent. You've got your issue. It may not be our immediate issue. We'll discuss it. How do they do in that regard? Because you were part of some of the policy – you were observing the policy conversations and how they went. How did the party do in trying to bridge that gap between people whose immediate, you know, desires were not being met? Well,

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Well, full disclosure, very few policy conversations in Shannon's pub next to the convention center.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

what I gather, they did an okay job of that. The thing is, the chatter was about two things. As far as I could read, it was, hey, isn't it cool we're here? And hey, what do you think of this constitution? constitution and uh when

SPEAKER_01 10:36

when there was kind of an observation of it and there was a bit of a fracas on the friday night if you can call it that it's that it seemed like the party was being very uh again not something i necessarily agree with but the critique was the party was being very heavy-handed about trying to push this constitution every single staffer was there as a delegate every mp was there i gotta tell you darkly i sat in that convention hall being like my god Don't let a bomb go off. Don't let like crazy terrorists have realized literally the entire government caucus is here right now with the exception of I think two MPs. We'd have Prime Minister Darshan Kong right now if

SPEAKER_01 11:12

it really started to feel like it was pretty clear what the will of the leader was. I don't have a big problem with that. I don't know where along the way we decided leaders don't lead. They abdicate to the quote unquote grassroots. Do we not want

Carter 11:23

want our leaders leading? Oh, I have a big thing to talk about with this because it's not just about this, but it's about the next topic or 12 topics down the way about the wild roads. Yeah, we'll get into

Carter 11:32

We have removed leadership as a responsibility of our leaders. And that is a tremendously bad thing because it's subverting democracy. And we did democracy. We elected the leader. And the leader is supposed to lead and we want our leaders to lead. um democracy

Carter 11:53

we want direct democracy then that's fine then let's do direct democracy we'll come back to the parties on every policy issue and we'll have them vote on it we can even do it in you know we don't have to have conventions we can do it by email i mean the liberals were asking all kinds of times

SPEAKER_01 12:05

times maybe a twitter poll a

Carter 12:07

a twitter poll will

Zain 12:07

will be just fine i'll get back to the liberals in a second carter let's go to the conservatives right same time in vancouver same same weekend i should say in vancouver very different tone from what the conservatives usually strike this was open cameras were allowed in it seemed to be and and i think i'll credit chantelle hiber for this that as opposed to the ndp a month ago this was a very different tone for a party that had also lost ultimately yeah

Carter 12:34

yeah did you feel it that way so if you're going to lose though they lost well they've

Carter 12:38

they've left themselves in a position where they can still fundraise right they're 99 seats

Carter 12:42

seats they're raising money they've got lots of mps uh they're not that far off of being able to form a majority and it can be something that they dream of in the next election and that is

Carter 12:54

is such a much a much easier place than where the ndp were the

Carter 12:58

the ndp were like our leader wants to hang on this

Carter 13:01

this is going to be messy um

Carter 13:04

the conservatives it's all up

Carter 13:07

up here you know up from here it's it's going to be better than it was the day before how much

Zain 13:11

much of that though carter is is the conservatives framing it that way versus the ndp not taking advantage of that opportunity do you give the conservatives any credit for ultimately framing their convention a loss in such a positive light oh

Carter 13:24

oh i mean they they did a great job i mean really they did a great job of uh

Carter 13:29

uh i call it the kids taking over from the adults you mentioned that earlier

Carter 13:33

yeah this to me was uh You know, you've had Christmas at your aunt's house for 32 years and it started to get a little dull and suddenly you move it to your cousin's house and there's balloons and there's happiness and you're talking about different things because all of a sudden it's not at your aunt's house and you don't have to worry about whether or not she cares about, you know, she doesn't like homosexuality. Let's not talk about homosexuality.

Carter 13:57

It's at the cousin's house. That's

Carter 14:00

Suddenly the gay conservatives, all four of them are welcome. in in the convention i mean it was a it was uh i thought it was beautifully staged uh well executed convention what

Zain 14:13

what did you think of harper in his exit you

Carter 14:16

know harper's amazing to me right he hates these things and i think that that was probably the the primary uh piece for me would you

Zain 14:24

you have advised the strategy that harper had ultimately a a broad strokes you know thank thank you, a broad strokes goodbye. I

Carter 14:32

mean, it was basically fuck you later, right?

Zain 14:34

Yes, that's saying it a lot more bluntly, sure. Thanks

Carter 14:37

Thanks for coming. I'm out of here.

Carter 14:41

I'm surprised he didn't – I

Carter 14:43

I mean, it leaked out I think the day before that he was going to resign his seat sometime over the summer.

Carter 14:51

kind of wanted him to do Jim Prentice. I'm done. I'm leaving my seat as of right now and I'm out the door. maybe

SPEAKER_01 14:58

maybe shove the lick turnover yeah

Carter 14:59

yeah that would have been perfect but

Carter 15:01

but i thought he

Carter 15:04

did what he was supposed to do he got out of he got the hell out of the way and he got out he nailed the strategy and he gave

SPEAKER_01 15:09

us one last final meme with thank you steven harper oh

Carter 15:12

oh god who was who did that who's

Carter 15:14

who's the social media professional who did thank you steven harper as a uh was it a promoted i think it was even a promoted i love

SPEAKER_01 15:24

clarity because i think many people don't know what you're talking about cory are they on the night of steven's valedictory i'm out of here yeah

SPEAKER_01 15:31

they started flashing up through the convention hall hashtag thank you steven harper instantly hijacked by people saying things like thank you steven harper for making me vote for the first time out of hatred yeah

Zain 15:43

yeah yeah ultimately just a poor social media tactic that that went off the rails cory question for you okay yeah is it legitimately possible to say that the The Conservatives won convention weekend? No. Oh,

Zain 15:57

my God. Hold on. Let's get into this. I want to do a head-to-head. We

Zain 16:00

rarely get the opportunity. I

SPEAKER_01 16:01

I want to just say off the bat, it was very difficult to hear you feed such bullshit to our listeners when you were talking about the kids' table, and now it's not at the cousins' place. You've got three

SPEAKER_01 16:13

three reasonable Conservatives, and I'm supposed to be impressed when they stand next to the lunatics and make eyes like, whoa, what is he talking about? Yeah, I'm talking about you, Michelle Rample. Come on. They have this window dressing that tries to make their party

Carter 16:27

party look reasonable and normal. They actually won. You're ignoring the actual vote. Hey,

Carter 16:32

do you want to talk real?

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Do you want to talk

Carter 16:34

talk real for a minute?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

They fucking just voted to make gay marriage something that they're not opposed to, something that's been the law of the land for over 10 years. Actually,

Carter 16:43

Actually, longer than that, really. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Yeah, what a bunch of cavemen. And I'm supposed to be impressed by them? Sorry, I'm not. I

SPEAKER_01 16:50

it's so disappointing that we're willing to give them a pass. be like hmm

SPEAKER_01 16:53

nice yeah they've now reached the 21st century maybe they'll catch up someday it's bullshit and they did not win they just you

Carter 17:00

you know what you know what i'm hearing a lot of right now from you a

Carter 17:03

a sour and the grapes so i need sour and the grapes because what's the takeaway carter doubling down

Carter 17:10

down what's the takeaway from your little liberal convention that you got you got to go to and you left your wife and kid behind and bachelor hogan came out two

Carter 17:20

two beers at a time baby BB, what

Carter 17:23

what did you take away besides an unbelievable hangover on Monday? Do you want to know what I took behind?

SPEAKER_01 17:27

behind? I took behind that maybe Justin Trudeau knows what the hell he's doing.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Okay? I mean, the stagecraft that they put towards that for something that actually mattered to him. And by the way, the thing that mattered to him would be considered so arcane to many other leaders. But he's trying to fundamentally rebuild the Liberal Party into some kind of movement. Now, I'm not saying I'm all of a sudden on Team Trudeau. That is not what I'm saying. What I'm telling you, though, is you can't help but be impressed by how he's played some of these moves. Even today, which I'm sure we'll talk about, when he decided, all right, you know what? We could take this strategic retreat. This committee on electoral reform now open to everybody. The fact that he let go of the senators and just abolished the liberal senate in one move, that's impressive. Just

Carter 18:09

Just take a moment and actually give the conservatives their due. They got more attention out of their weekend. Corey, my question was – I'll

Carter 18:15

I'll let Corey continue. continue no go

SPEAKER_01 18:18

ahead continue continue i'm done with he smith thought i want to let him continue and they went into this convention knowing exactly where the vote was going to be they had they had done enough polling on it they'd understood where the delegates were they knew that it could potentially go against them unless they manage it perfectly and i swear to god i have never in my many many adult years of going to conventions seen them manage the speakers list for a motion as well as i saw the liberals manage that speakers list there was like a wet spot on on the floor where like the against speakers were like it was almost unbelievable it was almost you know if there was a problem with how they managed that vote it's that they got it from about 66 percent for in the polling before this convention to 98 it started to look like an iraqi election right it was like

SPEAKER_01 19:04

like it was almost too much i

Carter 19:05

i like to think of it as a progressive conservative people are

SPEAKER_01 19:08

at it in the future and be like that that almost like begs the question How did it get so high? Obviously, there was some heavy handedness on it. And maybe the party won't feel as committed about it as they would have if perhaps it went through the crucible. That's nitpicking. They absolutely murdered it. There was a vote on

SPEAKER_01 19:27

on Friday that I was just talking about where there was some procedural stuff that came up, right? Exciting procedure. Exciting procedure. It doesn't matter. Stop people laughing. They started whipping people like crazy. This thing needed 90% to pass. It was never going to get above 10%. They got everybody and their dog into the convention hall to vote it down. It was crazy. Carter, is Corey too deep in

Zain 19:47

in the weeds here? Like ultimately in terms of – because here's – Corey

Carter 19:51

Corey is really good

Zain 19:51

good at being the hack. Here's what I want to – here's where I want to say is that what is the outcome? Like what is the best case scenario of a convention weekend? And for me, I think it's – as a layman who observes these things, I think it's largely the media bump that you get, the tone that you struck, the cadence. And maybe my question was facetious to you. But on those items, did it not seem like the conservatives won and came out ahead, Carter? Like is that what you're defending here?

Carter 20:23

here? Yes, that's absolutely what I'm defending because they

Carter 20:26

they brought – They're playing catch-up. They're playing catch-up. Sure they are. They lost. They lost. They lost. You get to start 20 yards ahead. They're trying to catch up. Of course they're trying to catch up. But they got closer.

Carter 20:38

And they got closer because – and they have time. That's an interesting point.

Carter 20:41

They have three more years. They have tons of time. Here's why the liberals won.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Because you're talking about an

Carter 20:49

an election three years

SPEAKER_01 20:49

years from now. Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

The liberals are thinking about the election 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28.

Carter 20:57

Such a thing is taking your eye off the ball. No, it's a long

Carter 21:00

One day you're going to recognize you're wrong. It'll be the best day of my life. Close

Zain 21:04

Close us on this. Go ahead. I've got another question on this, but close us on this.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Bring the team together. I'm not sure it was a great success in that. But Trudeau may have more ambition and skill than perhaps I was willing to admit prior to this convention. I am impressed by how he managed his party, if nothing else. Carter, what

Zain 21:22

what is – the

Zain 21:24

the convention's the weekend. What's the post-convention strategy? You know, in U.S. politics, they have the DNC and the RNC they meet, and there's always something called the post-convention bump. Is there an equivalent in Canadian politics where there is a post-convention bump that you're looking for, whether it's media or otherwise? No,

Carter 21:40

No, you don't see it on polls. You don't care about it outside. And this is not an election year, right? This is about the family. This is about bringing people together and get them working again. Here's what you need to do if you're the Conservative Party. You need to rebuild 200 riding associations.

Carter 21:56

They lost. They lost their candidates. They lost their reason for existing. Corey's right in that regard. Corey's right. They're coming from behind on that. So here's what they need to do. They need to rebuild. Did they take a step towards that? You're damn right they took a step towards that. They brought people together. They had a huge turnout. They were taking – they were moving in the direction they needed to go.

Carter 22:12

the liberals didn't lose

Carter 22:13

lose this thing massively. I mean it wasn't like they fell off the face of the earth. I

Zain 22:18

I did not think we'd go here. We're calling –

Zain 22:20

– yeah, go ahead. I find

Carter 22:21

find this fascinating by

Carter 22:22

way. So they did what they needed to do too. They just don't need to do as much. Trudeau did put his stamp on the party. There's no question it's Trudeau's party now. But really, was there a question before? I mean, how much did he win the leadership by? A gajillion? And it wasn't close. It's his party. He's building the party in his own image now. He's doing everything he needs to do to be the leader of this party for 12 years.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

I'm sure somebody will correct me or tweet something at me, but I am not aware of any leader of a political party that has spent so much political capital on an internal reorg like this that

SPEAKER_01 22:57

that to me is fascinating and it does tell me you're talking trudeau

SPEAKER_01 23:01

yeah i think he's thinking about things in longer term is

Zain 23:04

is there a post-convention strategy that these parties needed to deploy is

SPEAKER_01 23:07

there some no convention bump in this country there's a convention avoid being a speed bump in this country and that's unfortunately what the ndpo did not manage to avoid fair enough but the other two parties did right you want to go through you want to be looking like you're taking steps and moving moving forward and bringing your team together. But because, Zane, as we talked about, the main focus is bringing the team together, as

SPEAKER_01 23:27

as long as the team is more together at the end than it was at the start, mission

Carter 23:31

right? And I think both parties can walk away with their heads up. And I

SPEAKER_01 23:34

I think both can do that.

Zain 23:35

All right, we'll leave it there with that segment. That brings us to our sponsor. Like we mentioned off the top, Campaigns and Elections Magazine presenting Campaign Tech in Chicago, August 4th, 2016. We will be there.

Zain 23:49

We will be there.

Zain 23:50

will be there. That was not a question. That was a statement. No,

Carter 23:52

No, we're going to be interviewing people. We're going to be interviewing speakers. We're going to be queuing them up for podcasts. We might even do a podcast from

Carter 23:59

from Chicago, which is going to be like huge.

Zain 24:02

Okay, story time with Stephen Carter. Tell us a little bit because this is not your first rodeo at Campaign Tech

Carter 24:07

Tech or Campaigns and Elections.

Carter 24:08

I've been going to Campaign and Elections events since 2009.

Carter 24:13

And it was in 2010 that I went to one of the forerunners. And I can't remember what it was called before it was campaign tech, but it was like digit techie or campaign, whatever. It doesn't matter.

Carter 24:25

sponsor is very happy.

Carter 24:28

Campaign tech is a much better, much better title. But I came back from the event in 2010.

Carter 24:36

It was before the Nenshi campaign. I think it was in June. and i came back and i wrote the strategy the

Carter 24:44

the entire strategy for the nenshi campaign right away and it executed exactly the way i wrote it and it was unbelievable how successful it was if it wasn't for the equivalent of campaign tech by campaigns and elections i

Carter 24:58

i don't think then she wins in 2010 bold

SPEAKER_01 25:00

bold statement that is bold but i'll tell you um steven is not entirely full of shit for once in his life i

SPEAKER_01 25:07

i i met with steven at starbucks in inglewood here in calgary right after he was back from campaign tech and he was talking about the strategy he was going around through now you have to keep in mind the context i was uh i was working as an intermediary for kent hair who was in the mayor's race for about 30 seconds uh in

SPEAKER_01 25:25

in in the same election and uh decided to focus his efforts elsewhere uh

SPEAKER_01 25:30

uh took his talents back to the legislature but in that time i I was trying to get Stephen to help me muscle out his candidates, which

SPEAKER_01 25:40

which in hindsight is a pretty funny concept. But Stephen said, no, that's crazy. I said, you're crazy. My guy's sitting at almost 20%. Your guy's at not even 1% in the polls. And Stephen said, no, yours is how it's going to play out. And he went step by step, incrementally. He'll be here on this. And he told you this. And he told me this. He told me this outright. He's told me this is where he'll be. Sometimes it was a percent. Sometimes it was relative to the other guys. And ultimately, he laid out a plan that

SPEAKER_01 26:05

that I got to tell you, on election night, I remember sitting back and being like, motherfucker, son of a bitch. And there's been very few times in my life that a plan has come together like that. There was when I was 21 and I built a bong out of a water cooler.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

there was hearing about Stephen do this. That was pretty much it. These are the anecdotes that

SPEAKER_01 26:22

that Ad McClellan needs to know. You share, by the way. This is it. These are the only two times I've seen a plan come together as smoothly in my life as that. Well,

Carter 26:30

Well, believe me, it has never worked as smoothly subsequently. But without this conference, I honestly wouldn't have been able to do it.

Zain 26:40

Yeah. No, that's great. And so we're happy to be affiliated with Campaigns and Elections. Campaign Tech, once again, in Chicago, August 4th. Carter, there is a code, right? I believe, yeah, it's strategists.

Zain 26:50

strategists. You put in strategists,

Carter 26:51

strategists, you get 5

Carter 26:53

It's already at a

Zain 26:53

a discounted rate, I believe.

Carter 26:54

believe. Well, there's still a discounted rate. I think we've missed the early bird.

Carter 26:59

Last week, you would have heard me doing the big thing. Good news, though.

Carter 27:02

Good news. There's another early bird. That was the super early bird. This is now the early bird.

Carter 27:08

And you still save 5% off if you put in the code. It's legitimately a

SPEAKER_01 27:11

a good time. All three of us have been to different versions of it. My story is next week. Your story is next week. It's going to be epic. Epic. There we are. Don't manage your expectations.

Zain 27:21

Let's move it on to our next segment. Our next segment, kicking yourself in the nuts hurts your caucus.

Zain 27:31

toilet humor is back oh

Carter 27:32

oh that was good

Zain 27:33

good you like it oh corey i'm not even gonna try to explain this story do you want to tease out give us first of all like the medium form version of what happened we won't get into it because i want to talk large process based and then we'll get into the story so give everyone who isn't from alberta an idea of what this story is and what i mean by by that euphemism yeah

SPEAKER_01 27:54

where do you start so the wild rose is of course the the right wing party in alberta the ones who are like conservatives not right wing enough we're gonna have to try something else and uh and they're the official opposition they're the official opposition right now and there's a whole sordid story and tale behind them and it's a lot of fun to watch them because they're they're just they're never-ending entertainment um horrible opposition but never ending entertainment now in the past couple of weeks they've been particularly grim as an opposition you

SPEAKER_01 28:23

you have to keep in mind that in alberta we just introduced a massive new project a carbon tax that redistributes money to to lower income albertans very big perhaps the biggest single policy change that this province has seen in in decades right and here in alberta we're all talking about the wild rose the last couple of days and here's why kathleen win comes to alberta And shortly after, I think the same day that this policy was introduced in the legislature, and she's a guest in our legislature, the Wildrose starts shouting things at the government about how bad Kathleen Wynne is. They start asking questions about how bad the government is, just being – the Ontario government, just being horrible hosts in general. You may have heard about that.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

And the Wildrose even realized they went a bit over the line. The main instigator of those comments and heckles and whatnot was a fellow named Derek Fildebrand, who can be considered kind of the fiscal hawk of

SPEAKER_01 29:18

of our right-wing party. So let's just – let's paint a picture. It's probably not entirely what you imagine, but it's pretty close, right? And then

SPEAKER_01 29:27

then a bit later, after

SPEAKER_01 29:29

after all of that was going on, in the same week, they had like another member just like tweet out like, hey, interesting video denying climate change. change they looked really bad when people pointed this out they're like hey just putting up videos what's the problem here guys to which i respond hey imagine if an ndp mla just put up a video just because it was interesting about nationalizing the oil industry right like let's be fucking real here let's not be children and then finally to cap that all friday that same friday that that conservative convention was going on in vancouver that liberal convention was going on in winnipeg important because the leader of the wild rose was at that conservative convention mention uh derrick phil de brent the more right wing guy the fiscal hawk fiscal hawk uh who was getting some static about his his comments about kathleen win and having his wrist left head at constituent uh post some comment about like essentially and i'm grossly paraphrasing but like screw that you know mr win or whatever the hell she's calling herself these days so a fairly really offside comment and then derrick phil de brent replied like thanks great to have constituents like you now i want to be clear i told you have a picture of derrick it's probably not perfect derrick is not a homophobe i've known derrick for years he's actually a pretty decent guy to have a drink with he's not a total asshole outside of politics

SPEAKER_01 30:50

politics right he plays the role he he he knows he

SPEAKER_01 30:55

he knows more than what that would imply i have no doubt this was an accident but But, boom,

SPEAKER_01 31:00

boom, like that, social media is all over it. And then, boom, 11 p.m. on a Friday night, Brian Jean, leader of the Wild Rose, suspends him. Now, this was all prelude. Here we are in the actual story. This is prelude, yes. Right? So he suspends his finance critic, arguably the second most important person in his party. In his caucus. That Friday night, in his caucus, yeah. Friday night, 11 p.m.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Holy crap. What's going on? Well, the Wild Rose caucus didn't actually get any say in this because, of course, Brian Jean was in Vancouver. And there is some suggestion that it should be the caucus's decision, not the leader's decision. And some of that suggestion comes from the fact that it's written in the party constitution.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Brian Jean then starts making noise to his caucus that this is going to be a confidence vote. You have to back me on this. And they all get together on Monday.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

And they have some discussion.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

And lo and behold, his caucus votes to readmit Derek Fildebrand. Well, all of a sudden, it's not a confidence motion. And through the course of conversation, they have decided, no, okay, he's back, but he has to meet certain conditions, to which his caucus is like, sure, I guess, but don't actually see the conditions.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Then, these conditions are offered to Derek Filiber. Now, they're all denying it right now. 100% this happened, guys. Just accept it. Politicians deny it when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar or their pants down or any of these things. the

SPEAKER_01 32:23

you need to take anger management training you are not allowed to do anything except local media and

SPEAKER_01 32:30

and you are no longer going to be finance critic the

SPEAKER_01 32:33

the other two had to do with the term of suspension and then a probation period after that right

SPEAKER_01 32:39

any one of those would be embarrassing the combination of the five was an absolute slap in the face it was totally offside and it was very aggressive relative to what his caucus was willing to put up with so

SPEAKER_01 32:51

phil de brent i've

SPEAKER_01 32:53

i've heard from people around him it was reported in the media his campaign manager not

SPEAKER_01 32:57

not happy sure not enthused with sure we're now monday guys he was suspended friday right

SPEAKER_01 33:04

uh well tuesday morning comes around and lo and behold no

SPEAKER_01 33:07

no nobody's really on team gene brian gene's plan is not looking very good right now so

SPEAKER_01 33:13

so he fucking backs down entirely welcomes phil the brent back to the the caucus if he just hires a social media manager to help him with stuff that's the only condition it's a long weekend it was a long weekend in the united states he got memorial day off from the wild rose and that's it there has never been a backing down that quick and it just exposed entirely 100 the reason we're all talking about this right now

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Brian Jean has absolutely lost control of the wild rose, hook, line, and sinker. I

Zain 33:44

I asked Corey to give that medium, which turned into a long form. That was the medium version? I think it's important because I think there's two levels of discussion here. Number one, I want to get into this particular situation. But on this point, Carter, caucus

Zain 33:57

caucus and the leader.

Zain 34:00

Let's talk broadly about that relationship. How crucial is it to have caucus in line when you're the leader of a political party here in Canada? Because we've seen this movie play out literally less than two years ago in this very province with Alison Redford. Well,

Carter 34:15

Well, and Daniel Smith. And Daniel Smith, correct. Right. I mean, so here's your reality. In Canadian politics, we kind of take our lead from the British. I mean, we don't kind of. We take our lead from the British parliamentary system.

Carter 34:26

In Britain, if you lose control of your caucus, they vote you out and you're done and

Carter 34:30

someone else gets your job.

Carter 34:31

And that has happened in Great Britain. In Canada, it's not quite that simple because we've added this members select the leader democratic process. But if you lose the confidence of your caucus, you're basically done. The challenge is some caucuses don't want to follow, right? So what we've done over the last five or six or 10 or 15 years is consistently eroded the power of the leader.

Carter 34:57

So we consistently eroded the power of the leader. That's what you were alluding

Zain 34:59

alluding to earlier, yeah. Yeah.

Carter 35:00

Yeah. So if you wanted to be a candidate in the next election, leader signs your papers. It's still a requirement. if

Carter 35:08

you want to run leader has to sign your papers and if you were being a dick to the leader back

Carter 35:13

back in the day don't sign

Zain 35:15

sign your fucking paper

Carter 35:15

paper the leader just simply said i'm afraid i can't sign these yeah i'm going to sign john john's and it didn't matter how the constituency association it was a veto essentially

Carter 35:25

i'm afraid you're not going to be my candidate so you

Carter 35:29

you are now automatically you've got a punishment you there's a reason there's a there's a there's a consequence consequence for not supporting the leader.

Carter 35:37

Today, there is no consequence for not supporting the leader. And here's what we're seeing. We see Paul Martin go after Jean Chrétien. We see a whole tribe of people being led principally by Rob Anderson going after Daniel Smith. We see a ton of people going after, to your point, on the news today, the Christy Clark prior to her election, her

Carter 35:57

last election. They were convinced she was going to lose. She was the worst leader in the the world and then she won alison redford was the worst leader in the world and then she won and then she was the worst leader in the world so

Carter 36:10

so you know you have these these these internal caucus revolts that ultimately undermine your leadership and if you lose control of them and you think that's like a

Zain 36:19

dynamic right now that's emerged because

Carter 36:21

because we don't have the power anymore the power used to reside with the leader and the leader used to be able to say i'm so you know so the leader still has lots of things when you're in government the leader can and say, you know what? You're being a dick. You're no longer in cabinet.

Carter 36:35

there's consequences to those things.

Carter 36:39

has to be a certain power to being the leader. And people also have to recognize that the guy who pushes out the leader before them, the

Carter 36:46

the Jim Dinning who pushes out Ralph Klein, almost

Carter 36:49

almost never succeeds after they've pushed out that leader. This

Zain 36:52

This is interesting. And I know we're still in the education and not the strategy piece. We'll get there in a second. Corey, anything to add to that to kind of set the table on the process before we kind of get into this particular situation? Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Yeah, we've talked about this in the past, and it's worth mentioning again. But one of the reasons why leaders have such a hard time holding on to their caucus these days is it's not the caucus who gave them their job. It used to be the caucus gave them their job, but now they're elected by the membership at large. And that is tough, right? It has been the case with a couple of leaders I've worked with that the minute they took that job, the majority of the caucus had supported somebody else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

And that's tough. And it creates this tension because, as we've mentioned, we are electing leaders and we are turfing leaders by entirely different methods.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Now, by the way, the liberals changed that this weekend. The leadership vote now happens the exact same way as the leader vote. Right.

Zain 37:43

Right. So let's talk about this particular situation. Carter, I want to go to you on this. You are Brian Jean. You're the leader of the Wild Rose. There ultimately has been, prior to this situation, people chirping away. There's been rumors that there's a civil war within the party. Oh, and it wasn't even with Fildebrand. It was with Barnes. Right.

Carter 38:01

Right. Barnes and Fildebrand. With

Zain 38:03

With others within the party. Yeah. Tell me for a second, empathize for a second, what was he thinking?

Zain 38:13

What was the process in

Carter 38:15

in his head when he's like – I have

SPEAKER_01 38:16

have my take on this. I'd be curious to

Carter 38:17

to hear yours. Here's what I think he's thinking.

Carter 38:22

I have absolutely had it. This guy stood up in the legislature and made us look like – My finance critics stood

Zain 38:26

stood up, yeah. Made us

Carter 38:27

us look like complete fools. Now, Brian

Carter 38:29

Brian Jean also didn't rise in the legislature. He's part of the problem, not part of the solution on, as Corey explained, when Premier Wynne was in the legislature. He didn't say stop to

Carter 38:40

He didn't rise. He didn't lead by example. His example was, we're going to stay on our seats. We're going to treat this woman from another province like shit, like no other legislature has ever treated another premier. We're going to do that because we're the right-wing dicks. Which,

Zain 38:55

by the way, led to an apology tour for the rest of the time she was here, nonetheless. Nonetheless,

Carter 38:59

Nonetheless, here we go. I mean, he was part of that decision. But then he decides, at some point, I've had enough. These guys are coming after me.

Zain 39:09

Internally in my party. And

Carter 39:10

And it has nothing to do with the social media post. It has everything to do with Phil Durant going up and getting more negative media. On a day that they should have gotten positive media, they got negative media. And they're getting more and more negative media. We're all

SPEAKER_01 39:22

all talking about this and not the climate leadership thing. And

Carter 39:25

And they're undermining him, and they're undermining him, and he thinks, you know what? I'm going to act. Keep in mind, Brian Jean's under a little bit of stress. His hometown just

Carter 39:35

just got let back in yesterday. Not just his hometown.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

hometown. His home burned to the

Carter 39:38

the ground. His home burns to the ground, and Derek Fildebrand is playing games with him.

Carter 39:43

This gives you a real sense of who Derek Fildebrand is. Oh,

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Oh, I know. Okay, go on.

Carter 39:48

No. I've had coffee with Derek Fildebrand, too. you who he is in real he's Ezra Levant to me who he is in real life does not make match the person that he plays on television okay Derek Fildebrandt plays something different on television but the guy he's playing on television is such a dick it covers off the guy who he is I just don't think

SPEAKER_01 40:08

think that was their dynamic before this weekend oh

Carter 40:10

it totally was no

SPEAKER_01 40:11

no I did Fildebrandt

Carter 40:11

Fildebrandt Fildebrandt may have supported Brian Jean in the leadership but he has not supported Brian Jean as a leader so so hold

Zain 40:17

hold on Corey I'll go to you in a second Carter that's what's in Brian Jean's head okay okay, I've had enough of this shit. What are his advisors telling him? Like, why does this ultimately in that space and time seem like a good idea that you need to unilaterally while away from your home province, suspend the two IC ultimately in your caucus? Well,

Carter 40:38

Well, keep in mind that his advisors aren't particularly good, right?

Carter 40:42

right? The advisors that are advising Brian Jean for the most part of the same ones who were advising Danielle Smith. Danielle Smith went through exactly the same leadership problem. This is going to be a nearly It's nearly impossible, Caucus, to get on side if you've got good advisors. It's nearly impossible when you have bad advisors. And Brian Jean doesn't have good advisors. He doesn't have a good team around him. So I don't think that his advisors were giving him advice

Carter 41:07

advice on how to bring everybody on side, how to get everybody the attention that they need. This is ultimately an attention-seeking device. Derek Fildebrandt is behaving the

Carter 41:17

the same way that Corey's 2-year-old behaves when she's pissed off. And that's all it is. Corey,

Zain 41:22

Corey, give me your version of what Brian Jean was thinking and moreover, what led to the advice to unilaterally suspend his

SPEAKER_01 41:30

his finance credit. Well, I think longer term, the problem with the Wild Rose is it's a party of malcontents. It was founded as a party of malcontents. They then purged the non-malcontents out with the Danielle Smith crossing of the PCs with the non-malcontents, leaving only a malcontent core to sit there and bitch and moan about things without providing any solutions. resolutions that if

Zain 41:49

if you want to get

SPEAKER_01 41:50

get right to the core of the party

Zain 41:51

party that's the genesis

SPEAKER_01 41:51

genesis of the party and and the party itself is one that is is not controlled so much as it's uh channeled it is chaos it is angry hick chaos okay and the thing is brian jean is not actually from that world you got to keep in mind he's from the command and control world of stephen harper's ottawa former mp and he came back and he got into danielle smith's job and he immediately started making making the same mistakes daniel smith made including the same people around him that were the people around daniel smith and you know what say what you will about any of them talented or not somebody

SPEAKER_01 42:26

somebody is going to lose vito marciano was probably going to lose his job because now it looks like okay this is a couple of leaders you've let down here regardless of whether or not he's at blame i don't even want to bother getting into that right now but here we are uh with a guy who has been there for a few months he sees the hard cap that team angry brings them team angry is what we all derisively call the wild rose in this province and he wants out he wants to create something more broad-based his first instinct is let's bring the conservative party back together let's dilute crazy with moderation

SPEAKER_01 42:57

moderation moderation whatever you want to say depending on how charitable you are it's not really going anywhere then

SPEAKER_01 43:02

then it's well let's become the tent that invites in moderation so rename the party which you put on the table well that's never going to happen if your face to the world is the face that was presented through this kathleen winn thing through the denial of climate change and i think he's just like enough this

SPEAKER_01 43:17

this needs to come to a head we need to have a conversation he does not control his executive committee he does not control his constituency associations and i think he was trying to draw a line in the sand saying we need to be a party that is more acceptable to people but frankly doomed

SPEAKER_01 43:30

doomed to fail because you never led this party not in a conventional sense you were elected to be a mouthpiece for a bunch of madmen

Zain 43:38

Carter, it's 10.30 on that Friday night. Brian Jean gives you a call as his principal advisor. He's like, I

Zain 43:45

had enough of this shit, right? I'm the leader of this party. Too much, not enough respect. Not enough respect, right? No respect. What does he do? He says, okay, I want to just suspend my 2IC. What do you tell him? It's

Carter 43:59

It's time to pull together a caucus meeting without Derek.

Carter 44:02

We need a telephone conference call right now without Derek. And in fact, what I'd like to do is I'd like seven individual calls with my key seven people.

Carter 44:12

I'm going to make sure – this is the old executive director trick. Anybody who's ever been on a nonprofit board should

Carter 44:18

should know how this works. You never ask a question at a nonprofit board as an executive director that you don't know the answer to, right?

Carter 44:25

So if you don't know the answer, how your caucus is going to behave, you don't take this action.

Carter 44:31

Very easy for Brian Jean to make this happen. Repeat that one

Zain 44:33

one more time. you don't do something where you don't know the result and if you're

Carter 44:36

you're trying to in fact write this down those people who are listening mostly you cory um

SPEAKER_01 44:42

i'm not listening do

Carter 44:44

do not take an action that you do not know the outcome of the action right

Carter 44:50

one of allison redford's great weaknesses i mean there was many obviously but one of them was she

Carter 44:55

she wanted things and she wanted things done now y'all had to snap too and it didn't matter whether or not it made political sense right point zero five legislation we have to do it now we can't line it up if we've been able to line that thing up i could have run an election on point zero five legislation one of david

SPEAKER_01 45:09

david swan's great weaknesses is he went into meetings not knowing the outcome of votes and

Carter 45:13

and if you go into these meetings and you try and push decisions with people who aren't ready and you're trying to lead leading isn't going into a meeting and saying this is how it's going to go leading is doing brian mulrooney was amazing at this he would pick up the phone and he would call call his lieutenants, and he would have his lieutenants thinking it

Carter 45:32

was their idea by

Carter 45:34

by the time that, you know, the motion was brought to the floor of the caucus, and they would fight for it as hard as Brian Mulroney wanted them to fight.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

And you want to know one of the great ironies of this, and here's a little bit of, you

SPEAKER_01 45:46

you know, organization management 101 for you. You are not doing anybody any favors. The number of people who believe that, oh, well, it's democratic, it's pure, we'll all go, we'll talk it out, we'll hash it out, they

SPEAKER_01 45:57

they feel railroaded the person who's on the minority side there who's thinking about this for the first time because you haven't done your call arounds feel absolutely railroaded it creates ill will you always call first you always make sure people understand what the vote is where the vote lies what they're walking into because people in unpredictable situations do unpredictable things you have to make things predictable all around people need to make peace with the idea they're on the losing side of something people need to make peace with the idea they're on the winning side of something that way they act in the best possible fashion and put the best possible version of themselves forward you just absolutely cannot start doing what brian gene did and i know he's been a pretty good launch pad for this which is make a decision and then after the fact ask for the endorsement of it people feel like they're in a corner they feel like fuck you brian i either do this now and i'm betraying my values or i don't and i'm betraying my leader nobody i did not ask to be put in this box same

Zain 46:50

same call comes to you 10 30 at night on that friday just an hour before he puts out that release right what do you tell him steven's

SPEAKER_01 46:56

steven's answer is a good one um i

SPEAKER_01 46:58

i actually think my first call is actually to derrick uh just as an addendum so that i can say to those people once i fold the caucus together i've talked to derrick this is his side we're going to talk then we're going to invite derrick in to give his line and then we're going to talk about what to do with derrick i think it was important that he he looked like he's being even-handed and giving the the other side and Aaron because fundamentally I believe

SPEAKER_01 47:20

believe that's where he fell down the worst explain

Zain 47:22

explain that to me what do you mean in in that regard like do you feel like it just wasn't a robust enough

SPEAKER_01 47:27

you get to you get to face your accuser right like justice is not meted out in absentia right if it would be different if if Phil Brent's like no I refuse I don't want to talk about this screw you Brian right uh

SPEAKER_01 47:40

but that was not the situation the situation was very different from that and it should have been an opportunity to show how the The process should have been done. And

SPEAKER_01 47:48

And instead, he did what is absolutely against the DNA of the Wild Rose, which is he acted without the consent of the grassroots in the caucus.

Zain 47:56

Carter, did he, being Brian Jean, actually have to act here? Did he actually have to do something? Whether it was suspension, expulsion, statement, was an action, in fact, necessary? And if so, what did he have to gain from it?

Carter 48:11

I think an action was necessary. Okay, so in that regard,

Zain 48:13

regard, you agree. But I

Carter 48:14

I don't think an action was necessary against Derek Felderbrand.

Carter 48:18

I think an action was probably required against the person who wrote the questions. An action was probably required against the person who devised the strategy. If that was Brian Jean, then he needed to, you

Carter 48:28

take himself out and do a little bit of whipping. If it was Derek Felderbrand, then he needed to take Derek aside and say, what are we trying to achieve here? You know, this is clearly not working. What are our strategic goals? And if it was a staffer, he

Carter 48:40

he needs to fire the staffer. Corey,

Carter 48:42

Corey, was action necessary?

SPEAKER_01 48:44

yeah but the problem was he allowed the pressure to get too high and he had to release it on an issue which was less defensible he probably should have acted earlier in the week and it probably should have been a more measured approach then he let it all build up and when it all built up like that as

SPEAKER_01 48:59

as much as now everyone's looking at it and being like oh my god right that was a bit of a you know an overreaction in some ways it's kind of the elbow gate corollary right yeah you You just – you became the new jerk by becoming so harsh and aggressive about this. But no, I mean he had to do something. Maybe it didn't even need to be that Friday night. Probably the best political decisions are not made at 11 p.m. on a convention weekend. How many decisions

Carter 49:25

decisions were you making at 11 o'clock on the convention weekend? All

SPEAKER_01 49:29

All the decisions. I

Carter 49:29

I think I saved the

Carter 49:32

it like one more or two more? It was always two more.

Zain 49:35

Two more. It was always two more.

Zain 49:37

I'm putting you in another situation with Brian Jean, okay? You ultimately weren't called on that Friday night. You are actually giving the

SPEAKER_01 49:44

the call. Maybe I was. My phone – I was in like a cell dead zone.

Zain 49:50

They haven't gotten there yet to our two listeners in Winnipeg. Apologies. Hold on. You're not giving that call on that Friday night. Instead, Stephen Carter, you're giving that call in between five totally crazy and quite harsh conditions and, okay, okay, I've realized I can't implement those five conditions. What's my pivot? And that's the phone call he calls you on and says, okay, I've wanted these five conditions. I can't do that. That doesn't seem viable or tenable. And we know what he ended up with, which is social media manager for Derek Filderbrand. He calls you at that junction. What's the advice then?

Carter 50:24

You know, this is when we get our calls, by the way. Yeah,

Carter 50:27

that's right. We never get the call before you make the mistake. It's always like, I fucked up and I need it. It's always afterwards. So now you're trying to make the silk purse out of the sow's ear. And it's, you

Carter 50:41

you know, sometimes your best advice is just retreat. Just retreat. And I think that, you know, he had a kind of

Carter 50:51

of a built-in excuse.

Carter 50:54

I would have done, and I overreacted.

Carter 50:57

I shouldn't have kicked out Derek without talking to my caucus. It was a mistake.

Carter 51:05

Derek has made mistakes as well, and the two of us are going to work together to stop making these mistakes.

Carter 51:12

We're going to work closer with our caucus, and we're going to move forward. Our reality is that by today, the story probably would have died.

Zain 51:20

Instead of we're here right now. Well,

Carter 51:21

Well, we're still talking. I don't know who anybody else is because they're still going back to – Brian Jean going back to Fort McMurray for me was very powerful. And

Zain 51:30

And that's what he did today. and we'll talk about that in a second very

Carter 51:32

very powerful and it was good imagery and he looked so human and

Carter 51:36

and he looked so real that i think that he would have had a real uptick if he had especially if he hadn't made this mistake cory

Zain 51:43

cory you get you get the uh you get the five conditions call saying caucus is not agreeing to these conditions what do i do what how do i sidestep this how do i avoid this i may have overreacted what's the advice i mean i've been

SPEAKER_01 51:57

been there not the same details but the notion that the leader made an ultimatum the ultimatum was rejected and it was ultimately a false ultimatum right

Zain 52:06

this is more universal

SPEAKER_01 52:06

universal in this situation

SPEAKER_01 52:08

start transition planning i'm like that's like at this point there is a clock uh i will be floored if brian jane survives until the next election because if it was a year maybe he could hold on i don't know how he holds on that long and there's blood in the water people know it uh he can find a graceful way to leave or you can find a harsh way to leave but the

SPEAKER_01 52:31

the damage is now done i am not actually

SPEAKER_01 52:34

the christy clark situation if it was different it was different in the sense that so many people said they weren't going to run again for her she brought in a whole new caucus that whole new caucus now supports her and she just had to get to the election brian

SPEAKER_01 52:47

brian gene has got three years until he gets to the election he has to

SPEAKER_01 52:51

to deal with the same caucus none

Carter 52:52

none of these guys are losing in in three years either they're not going anywhere it was actually kind of the

SPEAKER_01 52:57

the problem that uh alison redford had right her caucus didn't like her but they all ran again right

SPEAKER_01 53:02

right and she was left with the same pain in the ass caucus that led her solidly to the right well away from where she ran in her leadership i

Carter 53:09

i mean we were begging people not to run and

Carter 53:11

and i wouldn't do it because at that point let people come in like at

SPEAKER_01 53:15

at that point the pc like an mla is a sinecure right Right. But so my point is this, Brian, you may have gone too far. I have seen this show before. It doesn't really get better. I think maybe it's time to go take your walk in the snow and

SPEAKER_01 53:29

and start thinking about how you make a graceful exit from this. You've got a perfect opportunity. Your home city just burned

SPEAKER_01 53:35

burned down. Your house burned down. You've gone through a lot personally lately. Maybe, you know, all other things aside, maybe

SPEAKER_01 53:44

maybe you should step away for a minute. it i'd

Carter 53:47

i'd hold on yeah carter i would

Zain 53:48

would hold on and i would fight that's

Zain 53:50

that's my next question here what can what can he do right now go down fighting if you want but you're going down what can he do right now and can he save his leadership ultimately baking in cory's question with mine i think what's the strategy right now going forward he's in the situation you

Carter 54:02

you know and i'm gonna i'm gonna confess a little bit of ignorance here i'm not sure what their processes are when they have their next agm or convention um but if if i was playing the game the

Carter 54:12

the game i would be is i would call leadership uh vote

Carter 54:16

and whether or not uh he can hold on to his leadership and i'd go right back to the grassroots and then i'd fucking win it and i'd say to everybody who's who's creating havoc you

Carter 54:26

you can either stand with the grassroots of this party or you can get the fuck out

Zain 54:32

it's it's that work though doesn't

SPEAKER_01 54:33

doesn't it i mean it only works it doesn't work it only works if you have the grassroots and

Zain 54:37

and that's that's ultimately the issue here you can win it has Has he alienated, and I don't want to harp too much on this point, but has he alienated part of his core constituency here by making this move? He

Carter 54:49

He doesn't have the same core constituency. I mean, keep in mind, he beat Drew Barnes. I mean, he didn't win this in a landslide.

Carter 54:55

He beat Drew Barnes in the leadership race by a few hundred votes, like 4,500 to 3,400 or something like that. So it wasn't a huge number.

Carter 55:11

was 54% I think so he won on the first ballot but he never got the chance to coalesce the entire party this is the argument against one member one vote by the way he

Carter 55:20

he had 46% of the party who never got the chance to support him never felt like they were a part of his team and that's a very difficult thing to bring over especially when you're thrown into an election now he ran an excellent election he got where the party was was he did a great job and and frankly i don't think that there's a lot of ways that you we could sit here and say brian gene has screwed this up except for the tone that frankly drew barnes and derrick fielderbrandt the people who are coming after him want him to take to

Zain 55:53

to up to two other stakeholders here cory derrick fielderbrandt what was his strategy throughout what would you have advised him to do throughout

SPEAKER_01 56:01

throughout this how do you knock

Zain 56:01

knock his strategy i'm

Zain 56:04

not I'm not knocking it.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

it. This may be the shortest suspension ever in Westminster parliamentary history. Listen, I'm not challenging you on that. I

SPEAKER_01 56:13

I don't know how I

SPEAKER_01 56:14

I could improve on it, I guess, is what I'm saying. Yeah,

Zain 56:15

Yeah, like is there anything different he should have done, should not have done, should do going forward? He should

SPEAKER_01 56:19

should do a lot different going forward. To take advantage of the situation. I mean, let's – No, I think he should commit.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

At this point, he now is seen as kind of that counterpoint to Gene, and he can play that to his advantage if he wants. And if he wants to position himself to be the next leader of the Wild Rose, that's possible, too. But don't let that beard fool you. He's a pretty young guy. I think he just had his 30th birthday.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

Brian Jean, call it the curse of 78% leadership vote. So in Alberta, Allison

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Allison Redford got 78% support on her leadership ballot, was turfed by her party within a couple of months. Danielle Smith, 78% support with her party. Had to bail on them within a couple of months because she was losing control of it. Brian Jean, now 78%. That is a pretty bad number for people at this point.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

You want to know what the process is to get rid of them, Stephen, in the wild roads? It's that the associations, a small, relatively small number, I believe it's 20, can get together and force a question on pretty much anything, including Jean's leadership. So look for that

Carter 57:23

that to happen. This is why I say call the question. question

Carter 57:28

doesn't matter you're gonna lose it anyways yeah

Zain 57:30

do it on your terms it's more humane to get it done right now yeah

SPEAKER_01 57:34

yeah you want to be killed by everybody and show that you're broadly unpopular rather than just walk out because you don't

Carter 57:40

don't want to be john snow walking out to a small group of traitors who stab you and leave you for dead spoilers man oh

Zain 57:47

yeah stephen carter one uh the question here derrick fielder brand strategy

Zain 57:51

I'm not giving Derek

Carter 57:52

Derek Fielderbrand a strategy

Zain 57:54

one on this because I know I'm not going to be able to get that out of you last one on this what do you make of what the NDP did on this and what they did was sit the fuck back and watch the show first rule

Carter 58:05

rule of politics I want to just verify from

Zain 58:08

your vantage point that they played this right

Zain 58:11

bring any gasoline to the

Zain 58:12

the fire or do you just bring popcorn on the other side

Carter 58:15

side when your opponent is lighting himself on fire there is a natural desire to bring gas right here's what happens you start throwing gas on a fire you're

Carter 58:25

you're the one who catches on fire sure they're burning but you're now burning too so that your best bet is when they're when they're lighting themselves on fire you take a seat you put a wiener on the on the stick and you roast it up and you have yourself a hot dog cory is

Zain 58:40

is there any uh is there any backdoor way without Without fingerprints to, let's say, accelerate the flames and get this fire, you know, bigger if you are, for example, the NDP in this situation. I'm saying, was there a missed opportunity? Maybe that's what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

say. I don't think there was a missed opportunity. I think the opportunity is to come. This just goes into the bank. And this is another thing you can use to point to how the Wild Rose is well out of the mainstream. So when I referred to the Wild Rose earlier as a party of angry hicks, I don't mean the people who voted for them. and i think there's an awful lot of people who look at this sort of behavior and go oh yikes yeah i don't know if that's really what you know works for me but here's the other thing zane if

SPEAKER_01 59:20

if there was an opportunity to pour gasoline on this fire i've

SPEAKER_01 59:24

i've told you i think gene's done

SPEAKER_01 59:28

i'm not sure if i'm the ndp i want gene to be done this sideshow could continue for a while much to my advantage uh and they have to be very careful that they don't

SPEAKER_01 59:38

destroy the wild rose by by poking them too much like they just want to let this play out and they want to keep both their opponents in a bit of a rough state the

Carter 59:45

the wild rose is a beautiful thing because it eats its young and

Carter 59:48

and it will continue to eat its young whoever is the leader is going to be destroyed by its membership i'm

Zain 59:53

i'm going to leave that there our next segment are over under our lightning round cory to you first on a scale of one to ten what do you make of the federal government's pivot on the electoral reform committee and maybe you want to give a little little bit of context to what happened the last let's say you're

Carter 1:00:08

you're not gonna ask him to give a little medium explanation last time i did that

Zain 1:00:13

i said little micro let's make this

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

this microscopic so the electoral reform committee was going to be majority liberal just as the house of commons is god forbid that the committees represent a little bit editorialization

Zain 1:00:26

count on that and

SPEAKER_01 1:00:28

and then all of a sudden uh the government was facing an ndp motion to make it representative of the percents of the vote which i guess is in the spirit of electoral reform rather than so that there would be a majority opposition yeah on the committee and

SPEAKER_01 1:00:42

and out of nowhere the liberals supported it they said sure yeah which largely the conservatives heads explode they start saying things like the fix is in and looking really great right despite the fact that they are part of the now the majority i mean i

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

recommend to every single uh canadian who's interested in the issue of this electoral reform committee to go out and look at what the government did on the flag debate the great flag debate in 1964 i think

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

think it's pretty telling uh the lessons that history has to offer here one of the things i'll say is is they seem to have either set themselves up for a colossal problem or a colossal success right

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

right you don't know yet i don't know yet and it really depends on if the ndp at the end of the day decide to fuck the liberals or vote with With the Liberals for electoral reform. Carter,

Zain 1:01:30

Carter, what do you give the Liberals on this? One to ten on

Zain 1:01:32

on this move of accepting the NDP's motion. It's

Carter 1:01:35

probably a six or an eight. I mean, somewhere in that range. It's above five to be sure because they

Carter 1:01:42

they came out the winner. I mean, they backed down and came out on top. It is well executed and well done.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

what do you give the NDP on this? One on one to ten. I give it an incomplete. But if I was forced right now, I would actually probably just give it a five. Really? Right on the middle. yeah i'm not really convinced it's a great idea to give one of your signature pieces of legislation you know the control of it over to your opponents they they can give you a pretty easy black eye right now now if you've worked something out with the ndp and let's give them the benefit of the doubt my

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

my score is much higher but i just don't know and that's what i'm asking on the ndp what do you give them oh what do i give the ndp i hadn't given a liberal score yeah that's what i thought yeah

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

the ndp um again

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

again it really depends on whether they've managed a concession or if they've managed to – I would give them an eight because they are in an only win situation right now. They decide if they want to do electoral reform, they have the power to do that. Carter, what

Zain 1:02:33

what do you give the NDP?

Carter 1:02:36

Probably again about six or seven. So

Zain 1:02:39

you started with five and you said six. I mean I think you have to give

Carter 1:02:44

give them close to where the liberals were because it's their motion that succeeds. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

Murder. On a one to ten, what do you give them? them i

SPEAKER_01 1:02:53

give them a one and because they didn't know a lot of one it's a one it's terrible like they sat there looking apoplectic their comments were incoherent that's

Carter 1:03:01

that's true i mean they were really ill prepared really

Carter 1:03:04

for what went down which

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

which is whip should be very embarrassed now i'll say in the in 64 with the flag debate everyone knows it's the committee voted 18 to zero right in favor of the new flag it was unanimous right anyone know how that happened time for a little history lesson i

Carter 1:03:18

i think it's time for the history lesson we haven't

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

haven't lost you yet

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

yet here it comes there were two flags that were ultimately uh left to the committee they had the pearson pennant and what we now have is our current flag and the committee members were asked which one they would vote for the conservatives thought they were being obstructionist by voting for the the non-pearson pennant one the one the prime minister hadn't expressed that preference for the liberals rather cleverly in my opinion decided they would flip their votes boom it wasn't like there was like no flag as an option uh and they went uh and they voted for the same one as the conservatives leaving them totally gobsmacked and all of a sudden it was this unanimous vote for a flag which allowed them to move forward everyone talks about the unanimous committee vote nobody talks about the fact the house of commons was far from unanimous on it and uh and that's how we got our flag it was a mastercraft and i think the conservatives uh

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

uh kind of got screwed in the same way like they just had no idea what was coming the liberals and and the new democrats figured something out carter

Zain 1:04:15

carter what do you give the conservatives clearly not a one because you were well

Carter 1:04:18

well one seems a little extreme but now that i've kind

Carter 1:04:21

kind of taken a moment to think about it i will of course escalate them to a two fan

Zain 1:04:27

fan fan fucking test it great over under on seven carter to you over under on seven paul ryan finally coming out today and saying yeah i may vote for donald trump and

Zain 1:04:36

fact i will vote for donald

Carter 1:04:36

donald under under under these people are weak these people if you're going to be there be there and if you're not going to be there show some some internal fortitude and stay away. Corey,

Zain 1:04:45

Corey, over on round seven, what's the lesson to be learned here if you're

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

you're watching Paul Ryan's actions? It's a generational disaster, Donald Trump. I mean, and Paul Ryan should be ashamed that he's supporting him. And

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

And I think this is one of those things, without hyperbole, they're going to look back on and be embarrassed to tell their grandchildren that they support him.

Zain 1:05:02

Carter, scale of one to ten, conservative leadership candidate Maxine Bernier stepping away from the party's policy on supply management. Now, you may know a thing or two about supply management.

Carter 1:05:12

worked with a candidate who had a position. But one

Zain 1:05:14

ten, what do you think of him moving away from his party's position?

Carter 1:05:17

This is how you win leaderships.

Carter 1:05:19

I mean, you don't win it on policy. It's not the policy. It's the fact that everybody talked about him for a week. And no one talked about Kelly Leach. And no one talked about, yeah,

Carter 1:05:28

that other person. Well,

SPEAKER_01 1:05:29

Well, I mean, point taken. He looks like an iconoclast. I think it is more than it is about the policy. What I loved about what he did was his

SPEAKER_01 1:05:38

his story about how he came to that conclusion. and how he's like i just sort of accepted it and i should have said something sooner because i think it's a really stupid policy and it creates a picture of him as a truth teller that could potentially be quite useful for him going forward here

Zain 1:05:52

here we are on suspension gate i want to i'm going to give you three lists of characters the one we've discussed give me a score between one to ten first of all brian jean one to ten on suspension gate here in albert one carter is

Carter 1:06:02

there a negative number that we could get derek

Zain 1:06:04

derek fielderbrand one to ten in terms of how he handled it you

Zain 1:06:07

you know ten I actually

SPEAKER_01 1:06:08

actually think he came out with his base looking a lot better. Carter,

Zain 1:06:11

Carter, Derek Fildebrandt, 1

Zain 1:06:14

Let's try to be objective. I know you don't like the guy, but come on.

Zain 1:06:17

How do you think he handled it strategically?

Carter 1:06:20

I mean, it has to be a positive number. It has to be over 5, so I'm going to give him a 6 or a 7. And

Zain 1:06:25

And finally, the NDP. How did they handle it?

Carter 1:06:28

10. They stayed the

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

hell out of it. All they had to do to get a 10, this was like golf. They were just going to lose. The score only runs up. Final

Zain 1:06:36

Final question. Over, under, on seven. Over, under, on seven. Cardo, go to you. How Justin Trudeau has handled everything post-Elbowgate. It culminated with an apology, no committee being struck, no investigation. 32 apologies. Listen, no committee. It's all kind of been resolved in a sense. Over, under, on seven on what you give Trudeau.

Carter 1:06:57

I'm going to take seven.

Zain 1:07:00

You're going to take seven. Corey?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:02

still don't like the way he gives his speech, but I'm really impressed with what he's trying to do. I'm going to give him an eight. There

Zain 1:07:08

There we are. We'll leave it there. That is episode 578 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you next time.

Transcript