Episode 588: Alberta 2: Electric Boogaloo

SPEAKER_02 0:03

This is the strategist episode 588. My name is Zain Velji with me as always Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, what's up? Happy today. Happy today indeed. It's a big day. The Olympics are on. Dude, happy today is by the way, two things. Happy today, great salutation every day. Just show up. Happy today. Happy today. That's what I use. It sounds like really poorly translated

Carter 0:23

translated like foreign language to English. Happy today. You okay, Carter? I'm just thinking of REM's Shining Happy People. I don't know why that popped into my head. You want to talk about the Olympics?

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Is that what this thing's about? Not really.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Okay. Well, you like the outdoors. Any comments on the Olympics? Listen, mountain biking on the weekend.

Carter 0:40

Very excited about that. Also very excited about BMX riding. Did not know I thought that that was cool, but now it's very cool. Okay, good. It's like bumper cars on bikes. It's pretty cool. Corey,

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Corey, anything for you, Olympics or otherwise? I haven't watched a lot of Olympics. Oh,

Carter 0:55

Oh, my God. Are you even a

SPEAKER_02 0:56

a Canadian? No. Do

Carter 0:58

Do you have your passport?

Corey 1:01

I carry it with me all the time, just in case. Oh, good. Kind of like me when I travel to the States.

Corey 1:08

I, you know, what do you do? Like,

Carter 1:10

Like, you can travel to the States. I got other

Corey 1:11

going on. I understand that your sad lives allow you a lot of time to be in front of the television, but mine doesn't. This is what we call negging. Wow. So, audience, he is negging you right now. Everyone who's watching the Olympics, sad

Corey 1:22

sad lives that you lead.

Corey 1:24

All right. Well, on that, I think maybe we should... No,

SPEAKER_02 1:27

No, this is good.

Carter 1:27

good. Why are you trying

SPEAKER_02 1:29

trying to get back on track?

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Just staring down at you. Okay,

SPEAKER_02 1:32

we have talked Donald Trump. We have talked U.S. politics today. Let's focus on our home province with Alberta politics. A lot going on, a lot to catch up on. Which leads to our first segment. I know what you're doing this summer, Stephen Carter. We have done the drive-by on Jason Kenney the last three or four episodes. But let's dig deeper into the current situation with Jason

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Jason Kenney to remind people running for the leadership of the PC party with the sole mandate to merge the PCs in the wild rose in a unite the right movement, a double carom, a three domino effect situation for him. Start off with your initial thoughts. How is this summer going for Jason Kenney? And we'll take it from there with some of the more poignant questions that he's facing.

Carter 2:13

Well, if I'm to be charitable, I mean, he's dominating the limited provincial media about politics. He's getting a lot of it because he's out and he's doing things and he's He's posting images on Twitter of him in front of coal-fired electricity plants saying this is the best thing since sliced bread and we have to keep things going. He's doing all those things and no one else is doing anything, right? So from that point of view, he's getting off to the early start that he needs to get off to. I'm not sure that anybody's paying attention.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Corey, is this the start he needs to get off to? Is all press good press for Jason Kenney this summer? Those are two different questions,

Corey 2:51

questions, I think. I think he's doing exactly what he needs to do. it's not about winning the media in the summer it's about the fact that he is meeting with those local organizers and the people who might be willing to take constituency positions go out and vote in what is now a delegated leadership race i actually at this point wonder where is everybody else i don't know why they're seeding the field to him so uh

Corey 3:15

completely you know i mean the the challenge they have right now is that it looks like jason kenney is doing a very good job of making it look like a victory lap rather than a campaign and that's going to be the case until some serious candidates get it in a serious fashion and that's not happening right now so you got to give jason kenney full marks on that well steven

SPEAKER_02 3:32

steven i think to you on that question because this official campaign doesn't start until october 1 and so jason kenney is spending this time and he's faced some controversy for it this time this summer campaigning before and even collecting money through a a super pack of sorts but to cory's point should other candidates be out in in the field right now or do they wait i

Carter 3:52

mean you could certainly make a case that that being out there is a good idea right um don't

Carter 3:57

don't cede the territory don't make you know don't give jason kenney the opportunity to set the question i

Carter 4:03

i would argue that jason kenney has already set the question he set the question the day he started and that is i'm going to merge these two parties if

Carter 4:11

if i was advising a candidate and i guess i am i would say don't come in because i I like that question. I like him being able to ask that question, and the answer that people are reaching automatically is no.

Carter 4:22

So if I thought that he was asked, if the question was being asked and the answer was yes, then I would probably say, we better get a candidate in there and better start changing the dialogue. I don't think the PC members, anyways, or prospective PC members, are buying his question. Don't

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Don't you think it's worthwhile, Stephen, to have a candidate, or if you're a candidate, against the question or the ballot box question, and Jason Kenney is setting, to be out there and be full-throated in why people should reject it?

Carter 4:53

to a degree. You can get out there and you can be full-throated. But I'm a big fan of if it's

Carter 4:59

it's not doing you any damage, don't fight it. I don't think it's doing damage. I mean, he's getting out. He's doing his work. He's traveling around in his blue Dodge pickup truck, talking to people. That's his strategy. strategy, I would suggest that the other leadership candidates are doing something similar without the profile that he's doing it with. Corey,

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Corey, you are in charge of, let's say, a PC leadership candidate who wants to run. What are you doing right now? Are you telling them, get your shit together and let's get out there as soon as possible?

Corey 5:29

possible? Well, maybe they are behind the scenes. The fact of the matter is I don't have Sandra Janssen's day calendar. I don't understand what she's doing day to day. But look, I don't buy this notion that you wait and you keep your powder dry and you come in a bit later. I buy the compound interest argument. What do you mean by that? You get organizers early, and those organizers beget organizers who beget organizers. And you're better off starting and building that team much later. Do you do that publicly, though?

Corey 5:57

It doesn't matter. I mean, to my point, I don't know what Sandra Jensen is up to. But I do know what Jason Kenney is up to. And certainly by him taking such a public approach to this, he's going to be getting some ancillary benefit. You're going to have people in different constituencies looking at their newspaper and seeing Jason Kenney and maybe even proactively reaching out to the campaign and getting involved.

Carter 6:15

involved. It's cute. Do you think that people still look at newspapers?

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Carter, tell me this. To Corey's last point, when he talks about Jason Kenney reaching out to communities, who is Jason Kenney's audience for this summer, right? We first said it's not media. We said it's community. But let's dig a little bit deeper. If you are running that Jason Kenney campaign, who is your audience this summer? Is it PCs? Is it Wild Rose, Broadly? who are you looking to talk to? I'm

Carter 6:39

I'm looking really for anybody who hates the NDP government. And there are quite a few people who think that the NDP government is creating problems. So those people, I will offer up my simple solution to them and hope that they agree with me. And my simple solution is a united right defeats the NDP in the next government.

Carter 6:58

And I add the two, you know, I mean, that's what is and that's what his messaging is. If I add the wild rose plus the PC, we've

SPEAKER_02 7:04

we've talked about how that doesn't work mathematically. You

Carter 7:06

You know what? Not everybody's listening. Shocking. Not everybody's listening to our podcast. So not everybody knows that that type of math doesn't work. But

Carter 7:15

this is his simple message. And I'll tell you, we have talked about simple messaging a lot. We've

Carter 7:21

We've talked about how important simple messaging is. And the simpler he keeps his messaging, the easier it is for people to understand it. There's a lot of people, especially in rural Alberta and even in Calgary, that are big fans of this idea that if you just combined everything, it will all work out. And Corey touched on the PAC idea.

Carter 7:41

There's restrictions on fundraising starting October 1st. And I'd

SPEAKER_02 7:44

I'd like to talk about the fundraising

SPEAKER_02 7:45

fundraising in a second here. He's

Carter 7:46

He's playing a game. He's out early. He's able to bring in a lot of people's money that want a

Carter 7:53

a united right or a simple solution. and you know good for him i mean that that's probably his best play cory

SPEAKER_02 8:01

cory you're jason kenny how are you defining your audience for this summer who are you speaking to i'm

Corey 8:05

i'm i'm speaking to that political organizer class and that's really my only audience that any messages that get out through the broader media that's

SPEAKER_02 8:13

that's a different answer than stevens that's very interesting well

Corey 8:15

well i mean i look delegated conventions favor the most passionate and and the most passionate get involved early so this is why this strategy to me makes a lot of sense and and i don't understand and why it's not being matched by some of the other candidates. The thing about Jason Kenney is, if you want to stop him, you need to create a discomfort with him. You need to, as a PC, sort of put on this cloak and say, I'm stopping the wolves from taking over this party. And the longer that Jason Kenney has to sort of build comfort with the PCs and say, hey, I'm not so scary, I just want to get rid of the NDP, the better his chances are in that delegated convention. and especially if he's got those organizers who are already predisposed to be involved out there working on his behalf. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Carter, what do you make of this? You're recruiting for the political class right now. You're getting them on site and you're building up the passion, to summarize Corey's answer. This

Carter 9:04

This is the fundamental difference that Corey and I have. I mean, I agree it's a political class, but the question that he's asked, the question that he's defined requires

Carter 9:10

requires the tribes to play together. What do you mean by that? I don't understand that. Okay, so politics is tribal. Right. Right. OK, so Corey

Carter 9:20

Corey and I are probably a little less tribal than most people. Corey is a liberal and a New Democrat. Right. He has comfort within both within within both of those tribes. Right. I have comfort within the progressive conservative tribe and the liberal tribe. Right. I

Carter 9:36

I fit and I have, you know, but there are lots of tribes that have a lot stronger barriers

Carter 9:41

barriers around them. And so there's a progressive conservative leadership or organizer tribe. that has had the opportunity to go to the Wild Rose many, many times, but views the Wild Rose as death, right? And there are organizers in the Wild Rose that

Carter 9:57

that view the progressive conservatives as complete sellouts to conservative principles. Correct. Those two tribes don't play well together, right?

Carter 10:06

right? It was less an issue at the federal level than it is at the provincial level. This

Carter 10:10

This provincial tribal warfare has existed within

Carter 10:14

within the federal and the provincial levels for decades now. and it's very difficult to i think put it together and that's why jason kenney asking the question going out and trying to bring together these two warring tribes has less impact than i because cory's right the only people who are going to organize our organizers organizers already made up their mind they're not going to go with jason kenney interesting

SPEAKER_02 10:36

interesting okay let's move on to to what i think is going to be the well not going to be what is currently the biggest hurdle jason kenney is facing within the media and the public and this is about him collecting his mp salary carter what What do you think of Kenny effectively not commenting and not relenting on this? And what do you think of this line of attack if you are running an opposition campaign? Two separate questions, but let's get into this topic and we'll go from there.

Carter 11:00

Kent Hare ran for mayor in 2010. He

Carter 11:04

He was a sitting MLA at the time, a different level of government. And I seem to recall trying to bash him about the head, but then he said he was going to forego

Carter 11:14

forego his MLA salary. And

Carter 11:16

And he did. Yeah,

Corey 11:17

Yeah, they don't actually let you do that. So what he did is he donated it to charity. But

Carter 11:20

But he said, I will not personally benefit from a separate level of government while I'm seeking office in a different level. Kent Hare is a liberal, I think it's fair to say. You mean the

Corey 11:31

the liberal minister for Veterans Affairs?

Carter 11:33

Oh, yes. Capital L liberal. And if Jason Kenney had gotten wind that Kent

Carter 11:39

Kent Hare was drawing a salary from one

Carter 11:41

one level while seeking another, he'd

Carter 11:43

he'd have lost his fucking mind.

Carter 11:45

So this is hypocrisy. Now, in fairness to like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and some of those taxpayer groups. Yes.

Carter 11:53

They have said this is wrong. And

SPEAKER_02 11:54

And they've encouraged him to not collect a salary. The difference

Carter 11:56

difference is they have not run a significant fundraising campaign around it. They've not pushed this out to their membership. They have not made this a big stinking deal. And it is a big stinking deal. At least it is to that class.

Carter 12:11

I think that in which class is that? Sorry, let's be clear.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

the conservative class. This is

SPEAKER_02 12:14

is their issue that they usually bang on. The

Carter 12:17

The conservative class stands up and says, Mr. Kenney, are you taking a pension? Mr. Kenney, when you retire from politics, are you going to forego your pension as you said you would in 1997 when you ran and won? Mr.

Carter 12:29

Mr. Kenney, what are your values today? Because it looks like you're lining up at the barrel.

Carter 12:35

It looks like the trough is yours, my friend. Pork barrel, trough-laden politics is what this guy is going after. and it opens up a tremendous line of of of attack so the strategy of it i mean i get why he's doing it i'm not keen to give up my salary yeah

Carter 12:52

yeah when i do something uh like if i had to give up my salary to volunteer in a provincial campaign i'd be highly unlikely to

Carter 12:59

to give up my salary and volunteer in a campaign um

Carter 13:03

but he's running for leader and

Carter 13:05

and he's basically signaled that his future and federal politics is over, right?

Carter 13:10

right? So in my mind, he needs to step away from it. He's also set up a PAC that

Carter 13:16

that can pay him, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:18

That's collecting donations as large as $30,000.

Carter 13:21

As much money? Well, I mean, and why they put that cap on it is beyond me. Likewise.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Likewise. I was going to ask you about that, actually.

Carter 13:26

actually. It's outside of the rules. Why

Carter 13:28

Why set any rules, right?

Carter 13:29

You don't report who gives money. You're not going to, you know, it's set up as a for-profit corporation. It's not set up as a nonprofit. profit it's not set up like this the the registration for it exists as a for-profit corporation with a single director so so

SPEAKER_02 13:45

on that point you and i don't want to paraphrase you but are you saying that it is a big deal that jason kenney is doing this oh

Carter 13:52

it will haunt him it will haunt him through this with his core audience cory big deal

Corey 13:57

well i i certainly think that there's some small government hypocrisy many of the same people who would be um really quite quite adamant that nobody on the progressive side should do this are turning a bit of a blind eye to jason kenny doing this but that said i mean i personally don't

Corey 14:13

don't care he's collecting an mp salary it's the dead of summer what did people think his job is in the dead of summer i understand as an mp you mean yeah i mean there's getting out there in your constituency there's glad handing but there's also the fact that these guys do get to go on vacations and things of that nature i i have a hard hard hard time getting worked up i

Carter 14:32

i would have been absolutely fine with him him traveling around the province of alberta in his blue truck had

Carter 14:37

had he not said that he was running you know not done the uh leadership launch that zane and i went to how many weeks ago now yeah where he'd be said i am now seeking a different job well because because reaching out to the public is part of an mp's job he could have done this you think he could have done

SPEAKER_02 14:52

done this tour in the guise of being an mp

Carter 14:53

mp that to me that would have been disingenuous

Carter 14:56

not as the guys this is actually part of the job of an mp i think traveling the province

SPEAKER_02 15:00

province when you're just an mp we We always play

Carter 15:03

play this game that

Carter 15:03

that you only represent your geographic region. I'd have been fine with it. He said, I'm running for a different job. I want a different job. It was at that point. Imagine going to your employer, okay? Your employer. You go to them and say, listen, I'm going to begin seeking a new job full time.

Carter 15:22

I'm expecting to stay here, right?

Carter 15:24

right? We don't do that. Instead, what we do is we prepare our resumes in secret, right?

Carter 15:30

And we start handing them out and

Carter 15:32

we hand them out and then we go for lunches, business lunches. And all of a sudden we show up in the office one day and you're dressed really nicely and it's interview day. And of course, you have to take three hours of personal time in the afternoon. That's how we seek other jobs. Now, is it is it up front? Is it wrong? Is it it's the way it's done because we don't go to our employer and expect them to pay our salary while we're looking for a different job. I think that metaphor

Carter 15:53

was so fucking good. you lost no i

Corey 15:56

i mean like so essentially you're saying that you would have been happier if he just sort of lied or tried to pull the wool yeah that's

SPEAKER_02 16:02

that's a little hold on cory i want to actually pin you down on this before before we move on to it okay you said that you don't care i don't you don't care okay there's a difference between you caring and you using this as a strategic initiative if you're on the other side of running in the leadership would you if you were let's just say another candidate you're shrugging i

Corey 16:21

i i really think it depends on the individual candidate and the last thing you want to do is be in a position where you yourself will then be the hypocrite down the road okay so maybe i would consider that and where my where my ambitions lay perhaps either municipally or federally but

SPEAKER_02 16:34

as a general line of attack you just don't seem to see this as having as much firepower as

Corey 16:39

does i guess because i've never seen a situation in this country and i'm sure steven will correct me if i'm wrong where somebody has lost an election because they've done this quote-unquote double dipping no

Carter 16:49

no but this is a different election election how

Carter 16:52

yeah that's because it's jason kenney and he's running to run the run the conservative party and so we haven't seen the double dip at the uh in conservative politics because we've never actually seen someone

Carter 17:02

someone double dip down into a provincial party from a federal party you know when you look closest might be actually

Carter 17:08

actually i don't have a close so this is interesting carter you're saying it's it's that

SPEAKER_02 17:11

that it's the it's the like the tinge that he he belongs to that is going to make this an issue more listen

Carter 17:17

listen when you're going after specific tribe yeah

Carter 17:19

you gotta you've got to reflect the values of that tribe and this is his challenge jason kenney and i've said this on the show before he's out of touch with alberta values alberta values don't want him collecting an mp salary that's our value set cory

Corey 17:35

think i need to see more evidence of that like i have no doubt if you polled should he take it the majority would be like no he shouldn't take his mp salary but i think if you ranked it as to how much people care you would find very low levels of interest in whether or not he's taking a salary now i i think also you have to consider that we don't just sit in alberta and alberta is a vacuum you look at other jurisdictions and in the united states it's very common for sitting senators to run for higher office it's very common for people of all levels to start running for all levels i

Corey 18:05

i think that there is kind of this evolving view of what a political candidate is and what a elected politician is and And they are not mutually exclusive. And people are willing to say, like, you're

Corey 18:15

you're just a politician. And it's sort of like there's one taxpayer. Well, there's one citizen. And you can judge Jason Kenney kind of holistically, provincially, federally, municipally. No matter what he does, you are going to be able to pass judgment on him if he's intending to run again. I don't have a big problem. Carter,

Corey 18:30

Carter, I want to come to you to close this question

Carter 18:31

question off. Why does Kent Hare have to give up his salary when he's running for mayor?

Carter 18:36

And you knew that he had to.

Corey 18:37

knew that he had to.

Corey 18:39

Did I? I guess I did. I think I probably

Corey 18:42

that he do it. And then

Carter 18:43

then he dropped out of the race early, and he still did it.

Carter 18:46

Corey, because you knew, and

Carter 18:49

and the people around Kent knew, that if he didn't, it would be an issue in an upcoming election. You

Corey 18:54

You don't want these things to be distractions. I think that is

SPEAKER_02 18:58

And so I'll ask you a question in a second here, Carter. But, Corey, one more time back to you on this. You said it's because of being the dead of summer. if this extends to september october during the official race does it increase your give a fuck factor on this particular issue

Corey 19:12

issue or no i think the minute that the house of commons is sitting and there is an empty seat where jason kenney should be he's got a problem but i don't

Corey 19:20

don't really see it right now and the fact of the matter is as much as steven is is pitching this argument that because he's a right winger this is a bigger problem for him right

Corey 19:28

right i actually think with the general public quite the opposite is true he gets a bit of a pass on these things because of his history and his fiscal conservatism and his hawkishness the thing that's uh that uh kent hair could not do is as a liberal take that salary because that plays into a view of liberals that was not at all uh yeah a stretch for people as

Carter 19:48

as much as it pains me there is a degree of truth to that well

SPEAKER_02 19:50

well carter let's close this line of questioning on this which was the first question i asked which is if you are on the other side running in this leadership same question i asked to Corey, how are you leveraging this against Jason Kenney? What is the best way, time, and strategy to talk about the salary issue with Jason Kenney? The media is bubbling about this. If it spills over to September, what are you looking to do?

Carter 20:11

I think you have to wait until the House of Commons sits. I think Corey's absolutely right. It's had its day today. You need a new thing. You need a new angle. And the new angle is, look, he's not even representing his people anymore. We have two MPs, Jason Kenney and Stephen Harper, who aren't really serving

Carter 20:28

serving as MPs? And when's that going to change? Stephen Harper hasn't stepped down. And I'd probably tie it to Stephen Harper too. You've got these people who are

Carter 20:37

Why aren't they done?

Carter 20:39

Be done. Be done. Step down. Get out of the way. Do

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Corey, you were about to say something. Yeah. I mean, if

Corey 20:46

if I was running an anti-Kenny campaign, the first thing I would do is create a website called whereiskenny.com or something equivalent and have a counter on it every single committee meeting he's missed every single sitting of the house every hour where he's supposed to be somewhere else and just allow that to count up are you talking

SPEAKER_02 21:03

talking about a clock similar to the canadian taxpayers why the hell

Corey 21:05

hell not yeah and then actually if you want to put a dollar value on it but i think if you put a dollar value on it you're almost cheapening your argument because it's not about the dollars it's about the fact that you are not being represented the

Corey 21:16

you that's right that

SPEAKER_02 21:17

that his um writing is not getting yeah

Corey 21:19

yeah and then i would i would just heckle the guy i would hector him i would follow him event to event holding up the scoreboard for the day of how many committee meetings he's missed how many hours of the house he's missed and i would remind people that he is not doing his job that's what i would do if i was going to be taking this approach pc

SPEAKER_02 21:35

pc leadership candidates cory hogan is available for consults uh no

SPEAKER_02 21:39

no i'm not i

SPEAKER_02 21:41

was just about to give your phone number uh on the podcast and we don't edit so it would have stayed it would

Corey 21:47

said it would have been problem carter

SPEAKER_02 21:47

carter Let's go back to the fundraising question and this development of the Unite the Right PAC or Unite Alberta PAC that Jason Kenney's quote-unquote team has put together. What do you make of it? This is a – and to fill people in, and correct me if I'm wrong, a fundraising vehicle, right, that is looking to raise money outside of the official period of the leadership with sums that really have no ceiling. Is that ultimately what they're trying to do? Absolutely. I mean, they've put together something called Unite Alberta,

Carter 22:16

right, which is essentially

Carter 22:18

essentially a corporation, for lack of a better word. People can give money to it. They get no tax receipt. There is no benefit to giving the money to this organization. So it's not like there's a tax incentive to do so. Right, right. So I can give you money, Zane, to go and do whatever you want, right? Sure. We've seen campaigns to assist the LGBTQ community or to assist whatever else that's been funded by private donations. It's a loophole in our system that enables people outside of a writ to really spend money in any way that they want on speech and campaigns are speech.

Carter 22:58

So Kenny is existing until October 1st in a vacuum, in a policy vacuum.

Carter 23:04

vacuum. vacuum he can he can raise as much money as he wants and then spend it any way he wants there on

Carter 23:10

on october 1st when the rules kick in elections alberta will then have an oversight into how that money is spent and but at

Carter 23:17

at that point it's part

Carter 23:18

of the war chest

Carter 23:19

it's a moot point if the money is let's say that the

Carter 23:22

the money transfers to the candidate yeah

Carter 23:24

right where does the money go we

Carter 23:25

we don't know there's absolutely zero in the way of reporting right

Carter 23:29

right there is no reporting requirement environment let's say they raised a million dollars sure that's

Carter 23:33

that's a big number you know what i'm going to drop it let's say that they raised a hundred thousand dollars okay okay just so it doesn't become so scary what

Carter 23:40

what do they do with the hundred thousand dollars where did they put it did

Carter 23:43

did they put it into people's pockets did they put it into the candidates pocket did they put it into communications we don't know where that money goes and

Carter 23:51

and i guess in some ways we're not entitled to know

Carter 23:54

except that he's running for public office and when you do that we the public have decided that That there should be certain reporting rules, there should be certain donation limits, there should be certain pieces of accountability because we think that people can be unduly influenced by money.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Would you – if you're Jason Kenney's – if you're like objectively looking at this, let's phrase it this way. Would you advise him to do this? Like would you also agree that if you've got the horsepower and you are Jason Kenney, set up a PAC and raise as much money before October 1?

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Yeah. This is the right move then is what I'm hearing you say. I

Carter 24:29

I mean, from one point, you have to, because

Carter 24:31

the point of the exercise is to win. Sure.

Carter 24:33

Sure. Right? On the other hand, I

Carter 24:36

I probably would do some of the pieces differently, right?

Carter 24:42

You know, it's challenging because it exists so much in the forefront. Right. Right? I probably wouldn't have it exist in the forefront. I wouldn't want it to

Carter 24:50

to be as known as it is, and Jason Kenney's pack is very well known. Corey,

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Corey, I have two questions for you, and maybe we'll start with this first one. What does the existence of this PAC that Jason Kenney is allowed to do, right, which ultimately is a 10 minute registration and then let's just raise money. What

SPEAKER_02 25:06

What does that speak? Does that speak to like a deficit in certain rules that we have right now? I mean, from your vantage

Corey 25:12

vantage point, what do you think? Yeah, there's a massive gap in campaign finance and expense laws in this country and almost jurisdiction by jurisdiction. And it is a bit of an arms race because somebody brings in a rule to fix a challenge, and then somebody brings in a new practice that circumvents the rule. And that's effectively what Jason Kenney's done. You have to keep in mind, in Alberta, leadership contests have not been regulated by legislation for very long. That's a relatively new development. Right, right.

Corey 25:37

right. And now what they've done is they've said, well, it doesn't kick in until the official announcement of the leadership. So there we can circumvent that. That's no problem at all. But it's not just the leadership prior to the official call. We've also got the fact that we don't have any rules, generally speaking, around internal party offices, right? If you want to take over every single constituency association in a party, you can have significant pull over the candidates and policies. There's no rules around that. Outside writ period, Stephen's already talked about. Federally, we have campaign expense laws when we're in writ, but there are no such rules when you're outside of the writ and you can pretty much put unlimited dollars against it as long as you're able to raise it. There are always going to be gaps, I guess. Well, there's a certain law of unintended consequences.

Corey 26:20

Well, yeah. I think you're absolutely right. And there are creative people like Stephen and I who are charged with finding creative ways to do these kind of things. If you're Jason Kenney, you're looking at your strengths and your weaknesses, and you're saying one of my strengths is I can raise a boatload of money. Right. So why wouldn't you try to find a way to leverage that advantage? So

SPEAKER_02 26:38

So you, like Stephen, would also have advised him if you're working for him to, yes, go do this. Yeah,

Corey 26:42

Yeah, I think that the only thing that I'm confused about with Jason Kenney's particular approach to fundraising right now is I had not heard that it was incorporated as a for-profit corporation, but if I were him, I wouldn't have incorporated at all because at least the last time I was really in-depth with these finance laws, the rule was for an unincorporated association, if you make a contribution to a political entity that's under the Election Finance and Disclosure Act, all it does is it just it targets back that contribution to the original donor and not the association as a whole so what i mean by that is if i am raising as as you know unite alberta jason kenney's unincorporated association and i raise i

Corey 27:22

don't know three million dollars and that's why i've put the cap of 30 000 i can literally transfer all of that money to the leadership campaign on day one and it is just targeted back to the individual donor where it originated. So it would have allowed you to bring that money into the leadership contest. Under his current structure, if he's actually incorporated as a for profit corporation, he has no ability to spend that money as soon as the leadership contest begins. That's my only confusion about his approach.

Corey 27:47

Carter, any other final thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 27:48

I mean, on and actually, you know what, Corey, I'm going to go to you on this.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

If you are leading this pack right now, and I want to get collect Carter clothes on this. If you are leading this pack right now, what are some of the mechanisms that are that you're using to kind of raise money is there any sort of goal that you're setting how how maybe give people an understanding of how these packs work um and and you've got a very you know small timeline between now and october one what

Corey 28:12

what are you doing yeah i don't know how they work they're new yeah yeah i mean i think one of his challenges will be spending the money in a time frame in a way that's at all useful or effective there is kind of uh he

Corey 28:23

he doesn't have to spend the money before october one well

Carter 28:26

well if he doesn't then there's there's open questions as to to what elections alberta can look at and what they oh interesting okay i mean

Corey 28:32

mean it's not just about uh yeah there's a bunch of unopened questions yeah interesting if he uh if he doesn't spend this money in that time period he has that trouble and if he does spend the money the fact is he's spending it so early and there's going to be there's a reason you don't like run most of your campaign ads a year out of an election right so i he has some challenges on on that front in my opinion uh spending the money will be hard i've heard from a bunch of people that he's talked to an awful lot of creative agencies and media buying companies uh

Corey 29:05

uh well i've talked to a couple of people in the edmonton area i don't think anyone in the calgary area has mentioned this to me but he's shopping around for people who can do as much as even television ads with this money and i think that's very challenging yeah to do that for a leadership contest it will be very interesting to see if that pays any kind

Carter 29:21

kind of when is it when are those broadcasts because Because you literally can't have them broadcast during the RIP campaign. Once the campaign begins, then everything has to be funded through proper donations. That's right. So,

SPEAKER_02 29:31

So, Carter, tell me this. If you are an opposing candidate, you're looking at Jason Kenney raising these unlimited amounts of money. You don't know how much he's raised. You don't know what the ceiling on each donation is.

Carter 29:42

None of us will ever know.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

Yeah. Are you – and we talk in campaigns about playing to your strengths. Suppose you're not a household name. what are you doing to respond to the kenny's super the summer super pack that he's set up for financial donations are you setting up your own are you trying to attack his what are you trying to do i

Carter 29:59

i think this is one of the reasons that the other candidates aren't moving during the summer you're

Carter 30:03

you're not going to be able to compete in doing unlimited fundraising campaign

SPEAKER_02 30:07

setting yourself even further back by not doing

Carter 30:09

doing this once october 1st comes the rules of the rules and if he spends any money outside of the rules then there's going to be consequences consequences and you can track it and you can be on top of it you can't do that now you

Carter 30:19

you can't be on top of what he's doing he can do anything now he can do anything so

Carter 30:23

so go do it right

Carter 30:25

right and you just hope that it backfires cory

SPEAKER_02 30:26

cory any any thoughts on that question in the sense of if you were in any of the other candidates what are you doing looking at him raising these alleged boatloads of money i

Corey 30:35

i think it's a pretty poor strategy if you hope that he just gets hoisted on his own petard you should be much more proactive than these candidates are being he can get away with this because he's jason kenny right it's an only nixon can go to china sort of thing it is so against type to suggest that jason kenny is going to be like this this big money in politics kind of guy fairly

Corey 30:56

fairly or not but this is sort of the image that he's created for himself over the time with the jobs he's had before politics and sense and that's going to continue to be something that protects him until you start chiseling away at that until you start start knocking his armor about and i don't see them doing that in any kind of concrete way right now as long as the attacks are coming only from the progressive side conservatives

Corey 31:16

conservatives will ignore them these attacks need to be coming from conservatives in a much more forceful way than they are right now okay

SPEAKER_02 31:22

okay let's move it on to our next segment our next segment give me your vote and your money guys let's talk about public financing and campaigns you

Corey 31:29

you know what just

SPEAKER_02 31:30

just you know cory's enthusiasm i mean a lot of times you can't tell because he's lecturing to all of of us constantly uh but his his his his face is just glowing right now so cory do you want to set this tee this up for us in terms of what has gone on in terms of the ndp trying to move this forward you're saying no

Corey 31:49

okay no i'm there

Corey 31:51

there are there is discussion about changing alberta's finance right and there is there's a couple of different things on the table including uh setting public financing

Corey 32:00

financing so number of votes setting caps on how much money you can spend Alberta doesn't have expense caps. I think we're, you

Corey 32:08

you know, the exception, not the rule among Canadian jurisdictions as far as not having caps on election spending. So it's bringing that in. And

Corey 32:15

And there is the inevitable backlash to the idea that, to

Corey 32:21

either of those ideas. The big one, the one that everybody is sort of losing their minds about is

Corey 32:26

notion of a refund. So, if you spend $50,000 on a campaign and you get the floor being set currently in discussions at about 10% of the vote, if

Corey 32:36

if you spend $50,000, you will get $25

Corey 32:39

$25,000 of that back,

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Depending on how much of the vote you get.

Corey 32:45

Well, no, not tethered to, but you hit a number, sorry, hit a number,

Corey 32:50

Now, what I find really fascinating about this is people are acting as though this is the first time ever this is done, right? When, of course, this is the system that we use federally. Federally, you get 60% of your expenses back on your local campaign as long as you get 10%. So like the exact same system that Stephen Harper was fine with for nine years. Jason Kenney was part of that government. Now Jason Kenney is just outraged and shocked by the notion that we would have that kind of financing. The other thing is they

Corey 33:15

they act as though this is the first time any kind of public financing has ever gone to Alberta political candidates. And the thing that always kind of makes me scratch my head slash pull my hair out, depending on how I feel that day, is we give very generous tax credits for political contributions. For the first couple hundred, you get 75% back and so on and so forth, really incentivizing that you give this money. And, you know, when I was executive director of a political party, the end of the year, that like final week of December, the amount of emails we went out, they were almost every day being like, this is our last push. you get 75% back and whatnot.

Corey 33:52

This is not fake money. Where do you think this money is coming from? That money is coming directly out of general revenue. You're saying,

Corey 33:59

no, you get that cash back. It's not so much. I think it is quite the mental leap that you can say it

Corey 34:06

is different for me not paying as much tax as it is for you giving money. I mean, they're the same thing. It's all the same pocket of money. And that money is either being diminished one way or the other way.

Corey 34:16

And the challenge with tax credits relative to one one of the other systems is we are, you

Corey 34:23

you know, we're subsidizing contributions by people who are by and large, much more able to donate. So we are essentially subsidizing the people who are least in need of subsidy. You can donate a thousand dollars and you can get a good chunk of that back as a tax credit, right? We don't generally subsidize the private interests of people. There are exceptions and there's charity and we can talk about charity on another day, i'm sure and whether that makes any sense but the notion that going to kind of a subsidy either based on how much you've spent so a refund or a subsidy based on the number of votes that you receive being

Corey 34:58

being so outrageous or like that's bringing money into the system to me is is a false argument and it will be very interesting to see how this unfolds in the next bit carter

SPEAKER_02 35:06

carter give me your top line thoughts on on what the ndp are trying to do before we get into the strategy of how they're They're trying to sell this. Well,

Carter 35:12

Well, it's interesting to me because I don't know if I should bring up the second piece that they're talking about now, too, which is a cap on spending. That's

Carter 35:19

Bring it up. You've got this push-pull happening, right? We want to put more money into the system by ensuring that you get 50% of your money back if you get over 10%. So you

SPEAKER_02 35:30

what exists, Corey and Carter? What's the current system?

SPEAKER_02 35:34

No cap and no refund. No refund. Okay.

Carter 35:36

Right? So there's donation limits. Yeah.

Carter 35:39

Right? But no cap, no refund. Yeah. Yeah, or higher than others, but not as high as they should be. They're

Carter 35:48

for the business. We'll leave that alone.

Carter 35:49

We have a system.

Carter 35:54

Like right now, raise money, spend money. It seems pretty simple. That which you raise, you can spend. And the money market becomes something of a reflection of your capacity to win, as well as your capacity of reflecting the view of the people. Sure. Sure. Right. You're not going to raise money if you don't reflect the view of the general population by

Carter 36:13

offering a rebate. I'm OK with the rebate. It's worked fairly well at the federal level. What happens sometimes is you have people racing to 15 percent.

Carter 36:21

So 15 percent is the cutoff at the federal level. So you want to try and get 15 percent of the vote so you can get 50 percent of your money back.

Carter 36:28

That's actually pretty good because it incents people to vote for parties that aren't necessarily going to win. So you work hard to get your vote out. you're part of the electoral process it actually has i think a pretty positive outcome um i'm less happy with the cap right

Carter 36:45

right so why the hell when you put 50 back in like imagine two or three cycles from now riding

Carter 36:51

riding associations are washed from with money um you know you you can't literally spend all the money that you're getting in

Carter 36:58

in an election writ period now you're incenting pre

Carter 37:02

You're incenting people to change

Carter 37:06

change the domains by which we're doing communications in an election system. The love of unintended consequences is what these guys are playing with. And I think

Carter 37:18

think that capping spending during a campaign is about the worst thing that you can do. I

Carter 37:24

I don't mind giving the 50% back because I think every

Carter 37:27

every dollar that we get in politics is another dollar we use to communicate issues to the general population a population that doesn't think that issues matter sometimes that doesn't bother to find out why health care needs help why education's an issue why taxation policy needs to be fixed our general population needs as much help and as much information as possible not less so the idea of capping it is wrong i'm okay with the idea of rebating how

SPEAKER_02 37:54

how if so thanks for your thoughts on that car and to set the table and where both of you stand. I'm going to go back to you on this before I go to Corey. If you are trying to sell this as the NDP government, not as what you believe, but what they have put on the table, what do you currently make of the timing that they have chosen as well as the current strategy that they've employed? What do you think so far? Well,

Carter 38:13

Well, I mean, it's the summertime and people aren't paying attention. That's generally when you put things through that don't make a lot of sense. I'm not sure this is coming from the government. I'm not sure how much freedom

Carter 38:24

freedom each MLA is being given within the committee structure, right? So this is going to take a moment to discuss how government works.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Civics 101. This is usually a lecture reserved for Corey Hogan on audio tape. Exactly.

Carter 38:38

But this is how. So legislature

Carter 38:42

legislature is different than the committee. Committees are different than the parties. So the parties, the NDP control the committees. There's a number of different committees. Those committees are tasked with kind of sussing out policy, sussing out legislation, what form should legislation take, and then they vote on those things and put them either into legislation or into policy or whatever they may be putting it into. um oftentimes

Carter 39:10

oftentimes those committees are completely controlled by the government the the prime the premier's office the prime minister's office um a whip whatever whatever organization of the party apparatus

Carter 39:22

apparatus is controlling and saying xyz mla we want you to bring in this party finance law okay

Carter 39:28

okay we want you to carry this into the committee get it passed we're going to whip the vote we're going to make sure this actually happens okay that's pretty much how the progressive conservatives conservatives functioned well

Corey 39:37

well and you recall there was that one committee vote that they essentially made them redo yeah

Corey 39:41

in their dying days there yeah

Carter 39:43

yeah so oh you voted this way you're wrong go back in and vote the way that we told you to vote you

Carter 39:49

you as an mla don't have a voice right

Carter 39:52

we're so is the ndp behaving that way where there's where this information is coming from the from brian top in the premier's office into the mla the mla then carries it forward right

Carter 40:03

and and says, this is my idea. I think this is what we should do.

Carter 40:08

that's the case... What's the strategic

SPEAKER_02 40:08

strategic benefit of doing that, of having someone carry the water like that?

Carter 40:12

First of all, committees are where you put things in. This is how legislation gets changed. This is how ideas get brought forward. So all you're really doing is manipulating the process to get certain things that you want done.

Carter 40:25

Control is almost always better, right?

Carter 40:27

right? So as an operative, as a person who works in the premier's office, as a person who wants certain things to happen. You want them to be controlled. The last thing you want is the MLA from Calgary. I can't even remember which MLA carried this forward.

Carter 40:41

But it doesn't matter. He's a backbench MLA that doesn't really reflect the views of the government. He's not in government. He's

Carter 40:47

He's in caucus, right? We have to differentiate these things. Government is the cabinet ministers, the ministers of the crown, the people who are sworn in. Those people are the government. the caucus is the legislative assembly right you have an opposition caucus you have sure uh you know a government caucus this caucus is carrying ideas in that will ultimately go to the legislature that may or may not be reflecting

Carter 41:11

reflecting the government's views cory

SPEAKER_02 41:14

cory i got your initial assessment on on on describing what's going on give me a little bit more on what you make of the timing and the strategy of how the ndp are are pushing this forward well

Corey 41:24

well i don't think it's in the summer because it's bad news or makes no sense i think it's in the summer because generally there is only a very limited audience that cares about this and the government's going to have priorities that resonate with more of the public coming in the fall they don't want to mess it up with a bunch of campaign finance stuff or at least the rollout of the campaign finance stuff uh the rollout has been a bit shaky in my opinion because i think the attacks on what the ndp have proposed were were fairly obvious and the inoculations

Corey 41:52

inoculations were so easy and i don't think enough was done to inoculate the government's position and or the committee's position however you want to put it against some of these obvious attacks i mean i would have for starters a hundred percent credited the fact that it was from the federal system and i would have really had

SPEAKER_02 42:07

tipped that yeah not

Corey 42:08

not just had tipped it i would have been like just like the system that i

Corey 42:11

i would have gone just full overt you know this was a system that stephen harper's conservatives and jean chretien's liberals were We're both comfortable with really talk about Harper as much as you can. This is how the rebating system worked. This is why it was done. We're using the model of the last changes to the Elections Act, which happened under Harper, really try to make clear that this was looking for the best, regardless of political stripe it came from, and then just put Kenney in an incredibly awkward position where he's got to attack his government's position for the last nine years. I think that to me is obvious, and I'm sure some – there were attempts, but they were not –

Corey 42:46

they should have been so much more forceful. The challenge you always have or the push and pull you always have is you want to take credit for doing good things, and fixing our finance laws is a good thing.

Corey 42:55

But there is a communications battle going on as well, and sometimes a strategic retreat on declaring victory is exactly how you win, right? And if you had been able to put both Brian Jean and Jason Kenney in knots over this because they were both members of that government. Correct. i

Corey 43:09

think you could have neutralized the rebate thing right off the bat now when you talk about financing uh on a per vote basis in that sense i mean i've already talked about a bit how i would have taken it but like i would have replaced the tax credits i would have said we're spending government money in this way which rewards people who have the money to donate and the people who are super engaged we want to make sure government money is backing the priorities of everyday day albertans which is why we want to talk about subsidizing per vote instead of subsidizing per dollar that

Corey 43:41

that is the approach i would have taken on that one and i think that

Corey 43:44

that it's not the only approach but there were a number of ways that you could have easily

Corey 43:48

easily seen what the message was going to be the other way and just you know headed it off at the pass now always easier said than done always easier said than done but my impression from a guy who was just sitting only half watching this story during the summer months yeah totally obsessed with donald trump instead is that not Not enough was done on that front. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 44:05

Carter, you're strategizing for the Wildrose Party official opposition in the legislature. As I always do. Let me read you what Brian Jean's tweet was, and I want to get your reaction to it, and then also what you would advise the Wildrose to do, knowing that this is happening in the summer months and this is what they want to do. Here's Brian Jean's tweet. With over 100,000 unemployed Albertans, the last thing the taxpayers want is to pay for a political party campaign expense. Bad idea, NDP.

Carter 44:33

Well, this is where Corey's point about, you know, Brian Jean being

SPEAKER_02 44:36

being part of. Dude,

Carter 44:37

Dude, did your constituency association return the money to the government when

Carter 44:42

when it was refunded? When you were an MP. When you were an MP. Right.

Carter 44:45

Of course they didn't. They took the money. They took every nickel of the money and they put it in their war chest and they got ready for the next election because that's what we do. So he's a hypocrite.

Carter 44:56

Right. Now, he's a hypocrite that is unopposed right now because it wasn't pointed out by the NDP that they were copying. The NDP lost their track.

Carter 45:06

track. So what would I have recommended that Brian Jean have done? Probably what he did.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

the line of attack back is very easy and very linear, you still would have advised them to do something like this? They didn't set up the line of attack back. They didn't, but

Carter 45:22

knowing that it could have come. If they set it up, then they're not going to take it. Yeah,

Corey 45:24

Yeah, this is just not important enough of an issue to get round two and a bunch of back and forth Zanes. So I think on the initial set, when the NDP didn't put all of this out in a much more forceful nature, they're

Corey 45:34

they're not going to get the opportunity to return the volley. That spike is just going straight down.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Right. And so, Corey, if you are sitting on the Wild Rose side, would you have advised to do similar things? I mean, knowing that you

SPEAKER_02 45:46

you yourself described the rollout to be shaky, how would you have taken advantage of it? Well,

Corey 45:49

Well, you'll notice that in his messaging and what gives him the ability to say, no, no, not a hypocrite, is he talks about the economic situation and how many Albertans are out of work. And this has become kind of a classic conservative attack that everybody should take note of, both people who are on the offensive, defensive, and on the sidelines, which is they

Corey 46:07

they never say they're opposed to it outright. They say they're opposed to it right now. So this has been their approach on the carbon tax and climate change is just not the right economic conditions. there will always be a reason not to do the right thing today right and i think that these kind of attacks should be sort of seen and and anticipated um but

Corey 46:28

but the conservatives are ultimately going to have to make some suggestions as to how they're going to govern and if they don't i really do think that they're going to run into some trouble there and this has ultimately been the wild rose the angry opposition's biggest challenge right now

Corey 46:41

why not brian jean did exactly what he should Should have done. But there's

Corey 46:45

there's great irony here. I mean, Brian Jean represented Fort McMurray, which

Corey 46:50

which didn't have many electors, but it had an awful lot of people living in it. Right. Not a lot of people turned out to vote. Jason Kenney represents currently Calgary

Corey 47:00

Calgary Southeast is what it used to be called. I can't remember. Midnapore, I think. Calgary, Midnapore now. One of the fastest growing areas of the country in both cases. Now, the reason I point this out is

Corey 47:11

is that federally, the amount that you can spend is tied to the number of people who live in your constituency, right? And so they, both of them, had some of the highest expense limits in the entire country. There is a real possibility that Jason Kenney might have been the biggest benefactors of the rebates ever. I have not run the numbers, but you can't just point out that he's a hypocrite, but he's the super hypocrite on this, right? Right. And I'm sure that if you were to look at how he was spending money on regional buys and whatnot, you would see that even though he was running fairly uncontested, he was spending those dollars. Carter closes

Carter 47:45

He took those dollars and donated to every other like to candidates across the country. And that was principally done to promote his own leadership ambitions later. He was taking essentially public money and moving it across the country to donate and into other candidates war chests that didn't have the resources that his his particular riding association did. That's taxpayer-funded donations and taxpayer-funded rebates accumulating so

Carter 48:10

so that he can use that money for essentially personal gain. Close

Corey 48:15

Close this out, Corey. Well, I'll say this.

Corey 48:17

That is a great attack for anybody running against Jason Kenney in the PC leadership or by Brian Jean trying to attack Jason Kenney to sort of keep him down and keep his party his. I

Corey 48:28

I don't think that's an attack worth making if you're the government or you're the NDP or anything along those lines. this is this is just just let that one play out and let them have their internal war on that but the challenge becomes why

Corey 48:42

why like you're getting involved just too far outside of your own sandbox well there's

Carter 48:45

there's an article by braid about that today is the ndp playing attacking jason kenney uh and is that out of line i don't think the ndp is attacking jason kenney uh

Carter 48:55

uh i think jason kenney's trying to attack the ndp and every every once in a while it's going to get a punch back in the face every time he tries to do it that's

SPEAKER_02 49:02

let's move it on to our next segment our next segment power to the people stephen carter it started with the lawsuit power

Carter 49:09

power to the people are we for that we

SPEAKER_02 49:10

we are what why are we not for that well because we

SPEAKER_02 49:13

cory's type are definitely for that okay

Carter 49:14

okay well court cory's one of those democratic people who likes democracy

SPEAKER_02 49:20

the way i'm going to take a very quick detour your guys's collective rant on democracy democracy had uh quite a few people talking uh as a review to last podcast yeah

Carter 49:30

yeah people seem to be uh scared to death that the death of democracy that this thing could end eventually

Carter 49:37

how it started which has been as you know in our lifetime does not mean it's going to last forever stephen

SPEAKER_02 49:41

stephen carter i'm looking at the fact that you've got maybe what are what are 40 pages of memos or notes in a memo format about this one particular thing the power purchase agreements agreements, you're cringing. Explain, and I don't want to go so in-depth, because this has been a very complicated situation between the Alberta provincial government and then its predecessor, the PC government, signing these agreements. But give us just a 101. If you're a novice listener, maybe even from out of province, what is going on with this issue? Because there is important things to talk about as it relates to the provincial government filing this lawsuit. suit. So

Carter 50:18

So let's go back to the beginning.

Carter 50:20

PPAs, power purchasing agreements, are designed as a methodology to incent other power producers into the Alberta market. At the time, we had... To come here and provide power. Yeah, we had three power providers in a regulated environment, and we thought deregulation would drive down power rates. And the first thing we needed to do, though, was incent... We couldn't just leave it with the big three, because that would be an oligopoly. they would have the ability to set the rates in any case even outside of a regulated market so we're bringing in uh these you know we're going to sell power off to these out you know these other other people and get them into the market start get them producing power get them selling power all in an effort to drive the power costs down so in they come and away it goes things

Carter 51:10

many many things happen and uh some i can't even talk about i'm bound by confidentiality from my time

Carter 51:17

time in government but things happen and now we wind up in a situation where the pay

Carter 51:21

pay pas aren't as profitable as they once were and let's be clear they were very profitable companies who bought these ppas were making a lot of money at times some money at other times and now no money they are now looking at losing about two billion dollars in the last four years of their arrangement now trevor tomb and andrew leach two economists we really like out here in Alberta, have

Carter 51:46

have done a paper and looked at the numbers and came out and said it's actually only $800 million that they would lose. And of that $800 million, only $600 million of it is not losses that are already on the books. So in other words, already handed back to the balancing pool. So the government should just eat this.

Carter 52:03

And my view is, shit, if it's only $600 million, the company should eat this for sure. They signed these agreements. They're the ones who've made $8 billion to this point. Their agreement is To buy this power until I think it's 2020 Buy

Carter 52:20

Buy the fucking power until 2020 The government has decided To go to court And

Carter 52:26

say essentially That a clause called the Enron clause Or now we're calling it I don't know if they branded it that And I want

Carter 52:33

about the branding of

SPEAKER_02 52:33

of that as well

Carter 52:34

well But it's now branded as the Enron clause The Enron clause is the clause that Kind of

Carter 52:40

Allows companies to walk away away from an investment if it

Carter 52:44

if it's not profitable and i'm like man i gotta get me some of those i gotta get me some of those clauses in my contracts so when i'm working with a client and it suddenly becomes unprofitable i just go out

Carter 52:56

out right out pay me what you got you know pay me my profit to this point but i'm walking out because next month's not going to be quite as profitable i i am i mean if andrew leach and and trevor tomb are correct and i have no reason to I believe that they're not. I am absolutely convinced that the government needs to continue to forward on this and make the companies absorb the small loss against their massive profits. This is taxpayer money that they made profits on before. I'm sorry, ratepayer money that they made profits on before. We paid a higher rate than they were able to pay. They made money on that arbitrage. They made money. We lost money.

Carter 53:34

They're losing money now. We should be able to take advantage of that. Corey,

SPEAKER_02 53:38

Corey, Carter set the table for us. It's fair to say this is a complicated scenario. But fair to say, Carter? I totally

Carter 53:47

totally gave the simplistic version. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:49

Yeah. Corey, give me your thoughts right now as it relates to the strategy and the NDP government, right? Because they've been, I don't want to say caught with their pants down, but there has been times where they've said back and forth, oh, the government knew, the government didn't know. What are people talking about as it relates to that particular notion? Well,

Corey 54:04

Well, let me talk about the challenges and then circle back. Okay. So the challenges with the current approach that the New Democrats have taken. One is, I think, a challenge that we here in Calgary would note, which is that Calgary owns Enmax, right? Enmax being one of the people that the government is taking. Which is why you

SPEAKER_02 54:22

you had a full-throated response from Mayor Nenshi.

Corey 54:23

Nenshi. Mayor Nenshi. And I think that that's a real challenge, right? There is a sense that our

Corey 54:30

our city is somehow, in some fashion, being assaulted, at least in some circles, certainly by our mayor. And that's something that is a challenge. Right. The other is that it's never a good look to look like you were caught unaware. The suggestion, accurately or not, that this caught you flat footed or you were surprised by the notion that these PPAs were being turned back in when when these changes to the Climate Act were were put in.

Corey 54:56

That's not a good look, even if you've got a good reason for not knowing why it is. People

Corey 55:01

People expect a level of ultra competency from their government that is unrealistic. unrealistic. I

Corey 55:06

I personally embrace the idea of an imperfect government. This is fine. We're just trying to do as good as we can at any given moment. But they

Corey 55:13

they really don't like the notion that there is not sort of this omniscience with their public officials and that there is a feeling they should have known this was going to happen. And then

Corey 55:24

then the other thing is that ultimately the argument that comes out of it feels a bit like a tightrope walk. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not trying to pass like a legalistic judgment on this but the government's argument in a nutshell is that the changes that were made to introduce this Enron clause were introduced wrongly. Legislation only allowed changes to be brought in in a certain fashion there had to be going through some sort of review process and that didn't happen ergo these clauses aren't allowed right but

Corey 55:54

but that's a little complicated because you're saying on one hand these changes were so So big that

Corey 55:59

that they absolutely should have gone through the process. They weren't small enough to just sort of change offhand. And the government's position is that every other change they made to the PPA was fine. This was the only one material in nature, right? And the change itself is an interesting one because originally it read, if

Corey 56:16

if a change in a government regulation or law makes your position unprofitable, you can hand this back in. But they changed it to more unprofitable. And that's important because that means it's

Corey 56:26

it's not a question of you going from making money to losing money. The government can't force you to lose money because

Corey 56:32

because all of these guys were losing money on the PPAs right now, right? And in fact, if you imagine a scenario in which the price of electricity was much higher and it had just made them less profitable, they would not have been able to hand these in, right? It's very, I mean, it is super shady and we'll get to that in a second. but the challenge becomes you are saying that is so material that

Corey 56:54

this change should not have been allowed to happen but on the other hand it is not so material that

Corey 57:00

that the contract itself or the arrangement should not be honored i guess i should say that is that's very tough i think for the lay person to take in and be like i'm

Corey 57:08

i'm on board with that right yeah and and that's because ultimately

Corey 57:12

of this leads to kind of the biggest challenge which is kind of a fair is fair it's like was that that not the arrangement that the government had did that not have that situation laid out there is that not what the company's bought into why are you trying to welch now again

Corey 57:25

these are the challenges that are presented i'm not necessarily saying i buy into any of them but this is why this is such a complicated communications mess for the government i

Corey 57:34

don't have absolute knowledge as to what was going on or why they decided to take this very aggressive approach and certainly money has to be a big part of it right this is a lot of money you know you talk about only 600 million million dollars. Jesus, guys, $600 million is a lot of money.

Corey 57:50

But I guess the question I would want to know, if I was sitting down and I was talking to the people who are making these decisions of the government is, would

Corey 57:57

would you have done it anyways? Like you're in October, you're going through the climate review, and somebody from the bureaucracy says, this is going to happen. Yes. Would you have done it anyways? And

Corey 58:06

And if the answer is yes, I

Corey 58:09

really have trouble understanding why this is the current approach, because it would have been much easier and certainly wouldn't have been dragged through the courts and wouldn't have created this animosity amongst the uh the corporations who are on the receiving side of this legal action right to just say yeah

Corey 58:25

yeah you know what we were told this was not likely but it was a possibility but this is still the right thing to do this is going to cost us let's even say this is going to cost us two billion dollars but this is the last two billion dollars in a string of two billions that if we've been cost because of the deregulation of the previous government and i would have made a much more forward action why Why this is not going to happen going forward, this is costed in to the actions of a corrupt government that preceded us. That is the approach that I would have taken, I

Corey 58:52

I think, but I just don't have enough details, I have to say

SPEAKER_02 58:54

say for sure. Stephen Carter, why now, and who was Premier Notley doing this for? Who was her audience when she, as a government, had Deputy Premier Hoffman announce that they were going aggressively with this lawsuit? Who

SPEAKER_02 59:10

Who was their target audience, and why now?

Carter 59:12

Well, I think that this is one of those opportunities where you fight for the little guy, right?

Carter 59:17

right? And the challenge right now is that they didn't really define who the little guy was. They didn't really say that anybody who's been paying electricity rates for the last 20 years has been doing so to ensure that corporations like Enmax got a pretty decent profit.

Carter 59:33

They didn't define it. Would

SPEAKER_02 59:34

Would you, if you were responsible for this communication, have said explicitly we're doing this for? I

Carter 59:40

I would have, and especially when Nenji put his head up.

Carter 59:42

when nancy puts his head up there has to be an open question of well do i need to back smack him in the head and uh i mean nancy ran in 2010 against nmax right

Carter 59:53

right like there's a yeah

Carter 59:55

yeah there's some irony here and that he's now the great nmax defender um you

Carter 1:00:01

you know i'm i'm i'm intrigued to see how it all plays out because i think that then she's put himself in a negative a spot cory

SPEAKER_02 1:00:08

cory you you you defined a little bit in terms of audience but maybe more explicitly for the listeners who was premier not only doing this for and to an answer steven gave the second part of that question do you still power through and power on with this if you are the ndp government no pun intended um

Corey 1:00:27

it's very different to say what would you have done from day one as to what would you do right now that's

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

that's what i'm asking what would you do right now given the pieces

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

pieces you You have to build sort

Corey 1:00:35

sort of locked into the court case and the merits by all accounts. Every lawyer I've talked to has said the government has an intriguing case. Right. I mean, this was supposed to be changed only in one fashion. These are not contracts. They're arrangements. These are these are sort of the key messages you see in the legal community. And and honestly, how are you supposed to know about a secret order in council? Of course, this is this is really not on the NDP and they've got to do the best to protect Alberta taxpayers, which is why they're coming forward and taking the action. Right. And

Corey 1:01:04

I think in that sense, yeah, I mean, stay the course, refine your message or try to

Corey 1:01:12

to find some sort of accommodation that takes it out of court, bring all of the companies together. I don't think the companies have an awful lot of incentive to back down right now. Now, it

Corey 1:01:20

it is such a complicated issue, Zane, and there are so many legal angles to it and the history of it and how this compares to PPAs in other jurisdictions.

Corey 1:01:30

Oh, man. I mean, Stephen once told me that in his entire time in government, this was the most complicated issue, the electricity system. I

Carter 1:01:39

I mean, I would get briefings. I think, I don't know, maybe I'm not as smart as I think I am, but I pick up on issues pretty quickly. Yeah.

Carter 1:01:46

I would have really talented and intelligent bureaucrats come to my office and try and explain this to me using charts and ideas and details. And I'd be looking at it and going, I don't get it because it doesn't make sense to me. And so at the end of the day, I think that electricity

Carter 1:02:03

electricity generation, it should be

Carter 1:02:07

be very simple. Make

Carter 1:02:09

Make electricity, sell it to the people who need electricity. But we've created balancing

Carter 1:02:15

balancing pools and, you know, I

Carter 1:02:20

I can't remember all the acronyms because I'm blanking right now, but there's many, many different steps to this. And it was designed to make power less expensive to the consumer, period.

Carter 1:02:33

we need to make sure that that is your fundamental principle moving forward for all situations.

Corey 1:02:38

Yeah, I agree. The other thing I would say is that question I asked, would you have done it anyways? i'm sure the answer is yes because it was the right thing to do to move on climate change and to do this and i

Corey 1:02:48

think that needs to be made clear to people i think that what is sort of implicit in in the reaction of the government not fairly so but that could be read into it by a lot of albertans is this idea that they

Corey 1:03:00

they were caught flat-footed and

Corey 1:03:01

and maybe they wouldn't have taken the approach they did and

Corey 1:03:04

and that you're going to see i think more in the fall you're going to see the wild rose and the conservatives say you brought in a climate change plan without fully Fully appreciating what the impacts would be. Exhibit A, you didn't know this was going to happen with coal. And you have to make very clear that

Corey 1:03:17

that that is effectively irrespective, immaterial in kind of the overall challenges that Alberta's environment and energy sectors face. Okay,

SPEAKER_02 1:03:26

Okay, let's move it on to our final segment. Our final segment, the over-under, the lightning round. Stephen Carter, your face is just pure joy and excitement. Okay, here we go. Donald Trump has now announced, as of this morning, a reboot of his reboot. Oh, boy.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:41

On a scale of 1 to 10, how successful do you think the reboot of the reboot will be? The reboot into safe mode. That's what's happening now. That's right. The

Carter 1:03:49

The reboot into safe

SPEAKER_02 1:03:50

safe mode, indeed. I give

SPEAKER_02 1:03:52

A 2 is what you think it'll end up being. Corey, the reboot of the reboot. This

SPEAKER_02 1:03:57

This is a little bit of prognostication on your part. What do you think it'll end up being? It's

Corey 1:04:00

It's like an alcoholic got the DTs, you know, and so they decide that their mistake was to stop drinking and to immediately fall off the wagon. Yeah.

Corey 1:04:10

Right? Right. The person that he's picked is just like a total pit bull on the right. There

SPEAKER_02 1:04:13

There is a replacement in campaign brass is what he's effectively done

Corey 1:04:17

done to fill people in.

Corey 1:04:18

Yeah. So he's he's brought in somebody from Breitbart to actually be more aggressive because that

SPEAKER_02 1:04:24

that was the issue. And

Corey 1:04:25

And you know what? The funny thing is, I was really thinking for the past seven days, Trump has not actually done that bad since we last got around these microphones. He's kept his head down. He's done some speeches. He's gotten a couple of senators who are offside onside. and

Corey 1:04:38

there would be a natural tightening of the poles but i think that if he's giving into his his uh the devil on his shoulder the way he is and he wants to be himself again

Corey 1:04:46

oh i mean hold on to your butts it's gonna be great stephen

SPEAKER_02 1:04:49

stephen carter over under on five how the ndp have handled the power purchasing agreements thus far over under on five i

Carter 1:04:56

i think it's under they i think they could have done more cory

Corey 1:05:00

over under on five

Corey 1:05:01

oh i gotta give them under um Um, but you know, when you're dealt such a bad hand, you know, excuses,

SPEAKER_02 1:05:08

excuses, excuses, what do you do? I mean, under with an asterisk. Okay. Let's just give people summer scores. Okay. We've talked in previous episodes what the purpose of summer is. If you're a politician, Stephen Carter, one to 10, Justin Trudeau, how was his summer?

Carter 1:05:21

Um, it was about a seven. I mean, anytime you can get your shirtless body into a wedding photo, that's, that's going to lift you right up. Corey, Justin Trudeau, the

Corey 1:05:29

the photo bomb. That's all I remember about his summer. it's he is he did anybody ever read the book hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy okay

Corey 1:05:38

okay well there's a character who's like the president of the galaxy i think his name's zafon and he's just this totally superficial guy that people love because he he represents what they want a

Corey 1:05:49

politician to be which is entertaining and i i've kind of worried that that's where trudeau is sort of book

SPEAKER_02 1:05:54

book recommendations by the guy who has claimed to not read a book he hasn't had to apparently i think was the reason i think that was your official reason yeah i haven't had to read a book um summer of brian jean one to ten cory i

Corey 1:06:07

think it's pretty good he uh he's shown an awful lot of strength he certainly doesn't look like a guy who's on the defensive right now he dropped somebody from his executive council for supporting kenny i

Corey 1:06:17

i i think he's doing okay brian jean one to ten uh

Carter 1:06:21

uh probably gonna give him a six uh i think he needs to continue to work on his messaging to appeal to a broader subset but i think you know it wasn't that long ago we were talking about active threats to his leadership and i think that that's done same

SPEAKER_02 1:06:35

same same metric rachel notley well how was her summer carter um

Carter 1:06:39

um harder because she has these stupid big issues that are popping up so i'm going to give her about a five cory

Corey 1:06:46

yeah i i think she's wisely because these are some challenging issues allowed her other ministers and mlas to take the forefront front so i think her personally is better than a five but i i don't know that you could give the ndp better yeah

Carter 1:06:59

yeah i was giving i was doing the bigger the bigger group i i still like premier notley i think she's too yeah i think she's

SPEAKER_02 1:07:05

she's picked her spots well this summer the last one we discussed in detail let's give it a number jason kenny how rank his summer uh as it stands right now almost the end of august steven carter one to ten six

Carter 1:07:16

it's above it's above average above above average yeah i think it is

Corey 1:07:20

is seven or an eight i i think i expected him to get a rougher ride from his opponents so here we go and the last question

SPEAKER_02 1:07:25

question here back on jason kenny cory i'll start with you the biggest liability that jason kenny has to face going forward his

Corey 1:07:33

his biggest liability is his back catalog his greatest hits the fact of the matter is he's a very right-wing guy and the ndp will happily let him take over the conservative party and then you bet your ass they're going to be reminding people about it constantly because he is way off side of where where Albertans have gravitated towards. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 1:07:50

Carter, bring us to a close.

Carter 1:07:51

The best thing that would ever happen to the NDP is an adjacent county victory and a unite the right.

Carter 1:07:57

Then they can occupy the center-center-left, which, frankly, is where they're trying to occupy in their government. Shameless plug. I wrote an article about that not too long

SPEAKER_02 1:08:05

We'll leave it there. We'll leave it on this shameless plug. That's a wrap on Episode 588 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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