Episode 830: The second wave

SPEAKER_02 0:03

This is The Strategist, episode 830. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, happy Sunday at 840. Happy Sunday!

Carter 0:13

I don't know. Didn't work.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

It didn't. I just said 840. 840 p.m. for episode 830. Corey, we're off to a great start.

Corey 0:22

Yeah, it's these smooth introductions that people tune

SPEAKER_02 0:24

tune in to. to. Listen,

SPEAKER_02 0:26

the goal is to catch them very slowly and say, you know what, this isn't half bad. This banter, I'm here for it. There's one guy who talks about the outside. There's the other two guys who talk about anything. They're fluent in everything. Like they can talk about literally anything and everything. They choose not to. They choose to just entertain the other guy who wants to talk about the outside. But people are used to this. It's their warm milk that they come for.

Corey 0:51

Yeah, that's fair. Carter, you got any good outdoor stories today? Anything exciting? Were there any raccoons on your nature walks or whatever the fuck it is you talk about?

Carter 1:01

Went up the summit chair at Lake Louise for the first time. It was really exciting. Really good stuff. Were there any raccoons

Corey 1:05

raccoons out there? No,

Carter 1:07

No, there weren't. Not really in the Rocky Mountains at all. Very

Carter 1:11

Very disappointing for you, aren't you? Basically, all

Corey 1:12

all I know about outdoors is that

Corey 1:14

there's occasionally raccoons out there.

Carter 1:17

How about you? Any basketball stuff happening today, Corey? Anything you can get excited about?

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Before Corey answers, I didn't even know about the raccoons, so I learned one fact about the raccoons.

Corey 1:26

Well, let me tell you something, Zane. Raccoons are these little animals. They look like cats a bit, but they've got these kind of like human claws, and they have little burglar masks. They're adorable. And you can find them outdoors. Apparently not around here, but apparently outdoors is where you would normally find them.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Yeah, this is great.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

This is really, really, really helpful. and i'm sorry and the reason i no no the delay is simply because i'm taking notes i am learning i'm climatizing cory do we have any basketball news to talk about because i do want to talk about something we're fluent in unlike the rest of the podcast which is totally a knee-jerk reaction on shit we don't know about no

Corey 2:03

no i don't have anything i don't have anything right now

Carter 2:06

you're not going to talk about uh jim boheim from syracuse testing uh positive like that's a significant problem you know for covid like fucking

Carter 2:14

don't this is going to impact the a season for sure they're already they're shutting things down syracuse man like syracuse this is a big deal with

SPEAKER_02 2:21

with that being said let's move it off to our first

SPEAKER_02 2:26

infinite jest is the name of our first segment carter we don't talk college basketball you do know that is the third rail of this podcast we don't talk about college basketball we

SPEAKER_02 2:35

we don't we don't talk about a system that abuses its players we're better than that on this podcast i

Carter 2:41

i really don't think we're We're better than that. I think I know who we are and we're not better than that.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Corey and I are better than that. We're talking about the prime minister. Recently in a press conference this week, guys, the prime minister said that the resources that the federal government has at its disposal to battle COVID are not infinite, reminding the provinces of just that. And I want to double down on and double click in, I should say, into what's happening on the federal scene with the COVID-19 response slash lack thereof. If you recall our last podcast, we left it with a lightning round question where I asked you, hey, what do you guys think of the COVID-19 response federally? And you're like, what response? And that has not really changed over the past week. week. So Stephen, maybe I'll start with you. What do you make of Trudeau and his strategy to maybe bark a little bit and chirp a little bit from the sidelines, be a little passive-aggressive with the provinces, go around them and talk to the mayors as he has, and big city mayors, including our mayor here, Nahed Nenshi, but not imposing a national program, not really trying to throw any sharp elbows. Talk to me about what you make of it, and then talk to me maybe about where you think the strategy here is coming from?

Carter 3:47

Well, I have two thoughts. The first thought is that he's simply not pleased with how the provinces are managing it, especially the provinces that are being led by, you know, Brian Pallister and Jason Kenney and Doug Ford, you know, and Quebec. I mean, we're seeing significant increases across the country. This second wave is real. It appears to be happening, you

Carter 4:12

you know, in the vast in in the most populated areas of the country and

Carter 4:16

and that's real and and the prime minister is is bringing attention to it but i also think that the second the second side of his coin in this particular case is that they

Carter 4:26

they went through a lot of money very very quickly they spent they pulled the trigger on virtually everything in the first first wave um and now they're hitting the second wave the second wave is is significantly worse and they're trying to figure out now what what to do. Because you can't throw all the money all the time. There are limits, I suppose. One could argue that there aren't true limits. I mean, we can do a lot of different things. But I think that Trudeau is looking at this and saying, Jesus, somebody better get this under control because our spending doesn't get anything under control. And we can't just allow that spending to continue ad infinitum.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Corey, do you agree with that? Do you feel like this is Is this is about the money and perhaps the public's political appetite for the spending? That's why he's trying to hold off on perhaps some national programs or national incentives to get the provinces going?

Corey 5:24

we have spent a lot of money as a country to deal with COVID-19 more than basically anywhere else in the world and not necessarily getting better outcomes. We talked about this a few months ago. ago, there was sort of this idea that the chickens may have to come home to roost at some point, and maybe they are. Maybe now when we are hitting this second wave, we find ourselves a little bit constrained in our ability to deal with it. The reality as well is that I think everybody's anxiety is at a different place now. Even though things are unquestionably worse as far as the number of cases, we're still not seeing the fatality rates we were earlier. The disease is better understood. People have also, you know, like frogs in boiling water, we've gotten a bit used to the situation that we're in. And I'm not sure that the public's tolerance for big grand federal actions is the same as it was in March or April of this year. So as the Prime Minister, he's got to sort of keep that in mind.

Corey 6:15

We live in Alberta, we are well aware that federal intervention is not always the most favored option. But let's also be really clear, that's also true of Quebec. And that's also true to a lesser extent of the other provinces as well. They don't tend to love when the federal government gets involved in areas of provincial jurisdiction, and health care is an area of provincial jurisdiction. Look, I mean, unless Trudeau is going to activate a bunch of marine hospitals, this is not an area of federal jurisdiction. This is where the federal government uses the power of the purse to get what they want, but as we've talked about, the power of the purse is a bit limited. So what has he got besides the bully pulpit? Unless he wants to do this big swing and say, you know, this is – and you can absolutely make the case. This is so material federally to the existence of the country. We've got to step into provincial jurisdiction.

Corey 7:05

There's not a ton he can do besides frown and hector and offer the resources of PHAC, the Public Health Agency of Canada. That's it. That's all he's got. I guess he could also quarantine. I think quarantine is also a federal authority. He could literally quarantine provinces. But besides that, it's

Corey 7:21

it's the bully pulpit. it.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Carter, is the strategy of round one or wave one politically open to him right now? Or do you think that's off the table?

Carter 7:31

Well, I don't think there's anything new that's on the table. I think that I would be looking at round one and saying, okay, how can I make this more efficient? How can I make this better? Round one costs a tremendous amount of money. There is no bottomless pit. I I think that the biggest issues facing Canadians right now are about business closures, you know, because businesses, you know, there is a light at the end of the tunnel coming through vaccination that may be available to us that the federal government is prepared for. So

Carter 8:04

So if we're able to jump in and get ourselves back into back to normal, the only thing to make sure that we can be back to normal is if the businesses are functioning. functioning um so i i know seeing

Carter 8:16

seeing in our our neighborhood all kinds of small businesses are closing um that's a real big problem uh for the federal government and the provincial governments but to cory's point i just wanted to jump in on cory's point because he's exactly right you know like there aren't any real solutions that trudeau can just jump in on and even if there were the

Carter 8:35

the you know even if he did jump into this problem it's not like he's got a solution that he's just waiting for jason kenney or anybody else to to implement right like a four-week quarantine

Carter 8:47

isn't necessarily a solution um in that it does create as many problems or different types of problems um than it would be trying to solve uh i'm a big fan of where we are with the masks i can't believe that kenny hasn't gone with mandatory masks uh province-wide i can't believe um that that we're not seeing more strict adherence

Carter 9:08

adherence to cohorts with the threat of a potential lockdown or quarantine. But ultimately, Trudeau doesn't have any other tools that the provinces don't have. And that's what I think he's trying to signal to the premiers. Please do something, because I don't have any other, you know, there's something that you can do is the only thing that we can do.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Corey, on political strategy then, would you be advising, and if you guys both agree that he doesn't have many tools, tools how would you be advising him on the execution of the limited tools that he has is he doing a good job would you be advising anything different from from how he's trying to communicate or not communicate with the provinces as you've seen it right now let

Corey 9:47

clarify a bit what i mean when i say his tools are limited his tools are limited because of those financial constraints we talked about on the economy he has far more range of motion than the provinces do and we saw I saw this in the spring. The provincial government does not have the ability to print money in a very literal sense, actually, that the federal government does. So those economic programs, those, you know, those supports that are there for laid off workers, those supports that are there for companies that would otherwise be laying off people, that's all federal cash, but that's really expensive. And so he is saying, hey, look, I mean, the

Corey 10:23

the keg is starting to run dry. It's on health policy where I think he's particularly limited, right? Unless he's going to start intervening in areas of provincial jurisdiction in ways that are, I

Corey 10:33

I imagine, unprecedented in Canada. Who knows, maybe 1918 provides some good examples to us and maybe somebody will correct me. It's hard to imagine, though, that he's willing to do that at this point, just as our response to COVID has gotten to the place where it is. Now, the one thing that, on

Corey 10:51

on the health policy side, that the federal government can and is being active in is vaccines. We have more doses per capita lined up than anyone, actually to the point where it feels greedy. When you see those charts and you see Canada, 10

SPEAKER_02 11:03

10 doses per capita. I think the number right now stands at 415 or 420 million doses that we have tentatively acquired.

Corey 11:12

so about 10 per citizen. And then you look down the list of first world nations and you get to basically everywhere else and it's like 0.5 are lined up for people. So I suspect we're going to have a bit of a different conversation at a certain point once some of these vaccines come online. Now, to be fair, that was because we put a lot of bets out there. We basically said, I want some of this vaccine, some of that vaccine, hoping that one of them would hit. And it's not as though we have the most vaccines lined up from Pfizer, to use the example that's in the media right now. But, you

Corey 11:42

you know, the federal government is doing those things. It's just, when

Corey 11:47

when they are dealing with the provinces, it's

Corey 11:50

it's not that they don't have the

Corey 11:52

the technical ability to get really active in the economy, it's that they are running

Corey 11:56

running out of money, in

Corey 11:58

literal sense. So the problems

Corey 12:02

problems are different. And I think the premier or the premiers being foreshadowed by the prime minister that the problems are different is really important. I mean, this is the kind of signaling you do in diplomacy and signaling you do in politics. Like you wouldn't want any of them to be surprised by the fact that the federal government does not feel they have additional resources to bear on this.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Carter, what would you be advising Trudeau right now? What would you tell him to do the same? What would you tell him to do different?

Carter 12:28

would tell him to repackage one of the old ideas as a new idea um he used to be the covid prime minister you know he was out doing his daily briefings he was he was steering us through um the beginning of this pandemic he's he's allowed the premiers to lead through this portion of the pandemic uh that leadership has faltered um and i would probably take the the rent subsidies And I would repackage those rent subsidies. It's a relatively small investment. It's also an investment that pays immediate dividends by having these companies hopefully return to profitability relatively quickly. So you can start exacting your income tax from them. but

Carter 13:11

right now he's not doing anything he's he's he's trying to stand up and show some sort of moral authority um but moral authority doesn't make me feel better uh moral authority isn't bringing me any confidence and and i think that i need him to bring me some confidence things don't look very good you know thing you know we had uh you know over 6 000 cases in the last seven days in alberta we've had um you know we're now over a thousand cases ontario is at the worst case it's It's been a situation it's been in. B.C. is moving up rapidly. People aren't feeling good about this and nor should they be. So it's time for the federal leader to return to leading.

Carter 13:53

And I don't think he can do that with infinite checks.

Carter 13:56

checks. He's got to pick one thing and try and and then reassert his leadership using just the one thing. Corey,

SPEAKER_02 14:04

the one program strategy is what you're thinking. No,

Corey 14:06

No, listen, it's important to point out that he's not pleading literal poverty at this point. He's pleading poverty on the things that money can buy, contact tracing, PPE, support that comes through, like literally even having the military assist with distribution of items here. So I don't think a one-program approach is necessarily the right approach. I get what Stephen is saying. I understand why he might want to re-bundle some of these economic supports. But I worry at this juncture, reopening those programs is maybe more dangerous to the federal government than just sustaining them and continuing with them.

Corey 14:43

because that's the opportunity to rebuild them and rewrite them. And they were created at a time when the federal government had a lot of latitude to do whatever the hell they wanted. But you're going to have stakeholders with very different opinions now, including stakeholders in provinces who say, this

Corey 14:58

this is great, but this is not working for my province. So I want the ability to opt out. I want the ability to do this a bit differently. Here in Quebec, we feel strongly that we've got to put all of our resources into this particular approach. Here in Alberta, likewise. So I don't know that this is the time for wild swings. This is really the time to batten down the hatches. We're going to get logistic in a hurry here. We're going to be talking about

Corey 15:23

literal body bags, perhaps, if these numbers continue to climb the way that they're climbing. I mean, and that is not the time to be doing policy debate.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Carter, can I ask you, you know, Corey just made a very interesting point regarding the spending and where Trudeau might be on that. Do you feel like the Trudeau government is perhaps shifting their political calculus on the speech from the throne that they made, that big, grand remake of Canada, you know, start these programs, big, big promises that were built on perhaps the heels of public opinion polling that indicated greater appetite for spending, greater appetite for building Canada back better? Do you feel like that is also shifting in political calculus in front of the government's eyes? I

Carter 16:07

I don't know. I mean, he's out today talking about 2030 and trying to, you know, eliminate poverty and hunger and really put some some big ideas forward. I get those things. I think that those things make sense. um i'm just i

Carter 16:26

think he's looking he's trying to shift our conversation from what are we going to do to to save the economy tomorrow to what are we going to try and do to save the economy uh 10 years from now i think it's going to be a really hard sell to sell these big ideas 10 years from now when um we're in the soup right now i think to cory's point things are only going to get worse worse before they get better. The United States is far worse than we are, obviously. But it does offer us some indication of how things can explode when they're not tended properly. And that's where we're heading towards. I don't want to know what the first three weeks of January look like if we don't have proper controls for Christmas. I just I'm terrified of all of the people returning home home from schools. I'm terrified of people traveling to see their friends and family over the Christmas holidays that think, you know what, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm wearing a single layer mask that my mom made me. Everything should be fine. It doesn't look like it's going to be fine. I think we need to make better choices. And sometimes

Carter 17:33

sometimes those better choices need to be made for us by government.

Corey 17:39

The U.S. should not give us comfort. And I I don't even mean in the context of, you

Corey 17:45

you know, we can do better than the United States. We could not handle the numbers that they have right now. The United States is in a worse situation, but

Corey 17:53

but they're being saved by their deeply inefficient health care system. They have, because

Corey 17:58

because they have all of this competition that's out there, and they're not necessarily being deeply efficient with resourcing, that's

Corey 18:03

that's manifested in a lot of ways. Here's a really clear one. They get about 30 ICU beds for 100,000 citizens. We have about 13.

Corey 18:11

So that's going to cause some problems down the road if ICU beds start getting filled up. So I don't know. I mean, like, I worry that a lot of Canadians are saying, well, America's dealing with it, right? A, they're not. Literally a death a minute with their current COVID numbers. But B, even if you sort of accepted that kind of baseline level of death, which is a

Corey 18:33

a bit grim, there is no guarantee ours wouldn't be much, much worse. us. Because guess what? All of those numbers you see reported by your provincial authorities of these number of deaths, say five, but there's 30 in the ICU.

Corey 18:45

Guess what happens to them if there's no room for them in the ICU? Guess which column they end up in? It's not like they're going to end up recovering there. These are serious interventions by the time you hit that point.

Corey 18:56

you know, we're in for a long, cold winter here. And I'm sure the Prime Minister is feeling a little exasperated that he doesn't have those health policy levers that are in front of them. But I think he rightly knows that he does not.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

You know, OK, so we've talked about, you know, his dealing with the provinces. We've talked about some of the policies. Let's get very political for a second here. Let's do a late night PMO strategy meeting. Stephen Carter, you're invited to the PMO Zoom line. No password required, of course. You sit in the waiting room for the first 20 minutes when they talk to Corey and then they finally let you in. But they let you in. And I don't know why I did that. There was no reason to

Carter 19:34

fun of you. No, you know what? The gratuitous dunk is the best dunk. Yeah, that's

SPEAKER_02 19:38

that's true. It's the one that isn't necessary and that I go out of my way to lose my train of thought for, that I think is what

SPEAKER_02 19:45

what I need. Okay, you're talking to them on The Strict Politics, and they say, Carter, two things. Three months ago, we were up in the polls, plus 10, on a newly introduced Aaron O'Toole to the public. We could have called an election, won a majority. That's part one. Part two, we have this massive political agenda that we've put in front of the window from the speech from the throne. Help us preserve both of those. Yes, we're working on the policy of COVID. Yes, we're going to do whatever needs to be done. But from the strict political angle, help us preserve those poll numbers that we had and try to retain them. Number two, help us preserve the big ticket items that we had in front of the window as part of our speech from the throne. What are you what are you giving them to them in terms of political strategy advice with those two questions in front of you?

Carter 20:29

I think what I'm going to do is I'd say, Don't worry too much about the early legislation that's in front of the House today, right? Put the legislation out, pass the legislation. Don't worry about making too much of a giant

Carter 20:42

giant episode about it because it would feel out of touch, right? If you're celebrating the win on something that is legislated that isn't about the now, it's probably not the right time, given that everybody should be focused very much on the now. um you're going to be so so pass your legislation put it through have the debates in the house do your question periods i'm not too fussed with any of that instead what i'm going to be trying to do is create captain covid right i mean if if justin trudeau can be captain canada he can be captain covid and he's going to be the one who rescues us from this that vaccination program that comes in in the say the first half of 2021 um you're going to want to have the canadian flag stamped on every one of those vaccinations you're going to want to look like you're the ones who are rescuing and saving uh the country because of your foresight um that to me is is the game i also don't want you to start talking about 2030 right now 20 2030 is for once you've succeeded with 2021 um 2020 2020 is a shithole move

Carter 21:46

move past it put your register put your put your uh legislation through do Do everything you can. Govern as though you've got a majority because, you know, Singh can't do shit to stop you. So just do it like you've got a majority. Get into 2021. You've got a six-month victory lap when we start to defeat this thing. And then you can start talking about 2030 in the back half of 2021. And perhaps that's when you schedule your election. Once things are solved and once you've got it, you're going to obviously need to rebuild the social infrastructure because you can't handle another COVID-19 with

Carter 22:22

with the social structure that's in place right now.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

So don't worry about the early legislation. Don't focus on 2030. Make sure you keep people's attention on 2021. Look for the victory lap post-vaccine. Really own and, frankly, brand the vaccine as being something that this government not only secured but was disproportionately successful in securing, and then kind of structure an election thereafter. Not bad stuff, Carter. On the table, Corey, I want you to react to that and perhaps add your own. Same two questions to you. We were killing it in the polls. How do we perhaps retain that advantage? And how do we ensure that our massive legacy like political agenda isn't burnt with with the second wave?

Corey 23:08

well it's interesting what's happening right now right where the prime minister is saying hey premiers you got to get your act together because we can't we can't save you all

Corey 23:18

all the time forever right and i think that is a lot of people thinking about that first question and saying how do we make sure we're not blamed if things start to get really choppy in the next bit here how do we show that we as the federal government have done as much as we can to um to resolve this situation situation.

Corey 23:35

And to that end, what you want to do is more of exactly what the Prime Minister is doing. So I'm quite sure there's a certain intentionality in politics to it, which is manage those expectations, probably even down from what you can actually do. So you can look like you're coming in on the white horse saving everybody. And yeah,

Corey 23:53

the vaccine is really going to help with that. Hopefully, I mean, I think everybody in the world is just, you know, fingers crossed, can't wait for that vaccine. But that's going to be a big part of the federal government success story. The other thing I would say, because I don't want to just repeat what Stephen said, I think there's some sound advice there. I don't agree with all of it, but I don't disagree with any of it, is

Corey 24:14

is you've got to run your own postmortem here, because there will be a postmortem. And when it gets foisted upon you, you want to make sure you have all of your answers. So I've mentioned already, it was cheaper in other countries. Well, why was it cheaper in other countries? I'll tell you why, because they had that social safety net that we now need to build. And so it's putting that thread that connects those two pieces that Stephen was talking about. It's not that you want to build back better or whatever you want to use in this country to describe that for the sake of, but you're drawing a clear line actually, frankly, even between your own failures and why you need to take the action that you're taking. thinking, because then it almost becomes self-reinforcing. Yeah, it was too expensive. Yeah, that's exactly why we need universal child care. Yeah, that's exactly why we need a basic

Corey 24:55

basic income or whatever you come up with. But the notion is the

Corey 25:01

attacks against you become justifications for your actions and your agenda, if done properly. So don't wait for somebody else to write the after the fact story. Write it. Write it now.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Carter, let's do one final round on the Conservatives. Is there any political hay to be made here? What's the best political advice for them right now? While Trudeau tries to, you know, use the bully pulpit against the provinces, while he tries to figure out his political agenda, are you staying out of the fray? Are you digging into it? What are you advising them?

Carter 25:31

I think I'm probably going to suggest they continue doing what they're doing, which is they're really working on defining who who Aaron O'Toole is. You know, he's not the man who ran for the leadership, who seems to be their core brand position right now. That's a good brand position, you know. And the reinforcing of the orange-blue shift, you know, as Singh collapses, one narrative is that, you know, the NDP votes shift to the Liberals. But in a lot of regions of Canada, that more realistic narrative is that those votes are available to the Conservatives, because those

Carter 26:06

those voters have a tendency to shift orange-blue. So go

Carter 26:10

go get them. He is becoming more popular. I don't like just the constant criticism of the government. They've moved past that. So I'd have to say, you know, keep doing that. Stay away from constant criticism and instead work very hard on the brand of Aaron O'Toole. and then get your ass ready for an election as early as the second quarter of 2021 because chances are you're going to be facing off against a weakened Trudeau

Carter 26:43

who's going to be trying to take advantage of the COVID situation. So start to set that up that taking advantage of COVID isn't

Carter 26:53

isn't the way to run any particular government.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Corey, same question to you. What's the strategic advice that you'd be offering to the conservatives in this junction?

Corey 27:05

Yeah. So as my four-year-old advised me when I told him he needed to clean faster today, focus on yourself.

Corey 27:12

Keep your head down. You have no friends, you have no enemies at this moment. When I look at O'Toole's success

Corey 27:19

success and failures to date on this file, they can be critiquing

Corey 27:23

critiquing things that went well at the end, you know, because you just didn't like the person and standing too closely to somebody whose policy is not looking like a home run at this point. That would be Premier Jason Kenney in Alberta, of course, at this moment. So just be aware that you are not in the driver's seat at

Corey 27:42

all on this matter. And it's not that you can't have opinions. It's not that you can't drive your own agenda within this, but you've got to afford yourself maximum motion

Corey 27:50

motion here. And if you start standing up next to Pallister and Kenney and

Corey 27:55

and their approaches and their approaches go down in effing flames, you

Corey 28:00

you are going to regret that. So now is the time to say, let

Corey 28:03

let the premiers deal with the health policy there. I am going to critique the federal response to it. Find ways that you can bridge out of that question by saying, yeah, well, of course, the premier of Alberta is anxious and taking the actions he is. There's not a good economic plan from the prime minister. You know, there's ways you can make it go back without validating what Alberta has done or what Ontario has done or what Manitoba has done, because that, I think, is your risk right now. Your buddies are kind of blowing it, right? Aaron O'Toole, your pals across the country are having some of the worst COVID responses, whether that's in Quebec, whether that's in Ontario, Manitoba, obviously, we're all seeing the horror stories now, and certainly Alberta. Alberta.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

We'll leave that there. And let's do some transition material and move it on to our next segment, the Strategy Scale, Alberta Edition. I want to talk about Alberta, Corey, you left off with Jason Kenney. And we are, of course, doing another Strategy Scale segment. So the way this works is I'll run through a half a dozen things that are happening in our home province, some with the UCP, some with organizations outside of politics, some with the NDP opposition party. And I'll ask you guys on a strategic level, if between 1 and 10, you know, we're not a rule bound podcast, except on this particular segment, you will answer me.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

But you will answer me between 1, which is, you know, piss poor political strategy to 10, which is a masterstroke, or masterful political strategy. And Carter, let's start with you. The first thing I have on the agenda is 1 to 10 on political strategy here. Jason Kenney, non-imposing new COVID restrictions despite record level cases that we're seeing in the province. Give me your score between 1 to 10 on what you make of this political strategy or this political decision by Jason Kenney. And then perhaps give me some lines around justifying it on the back end.

Carter 29:54

I'm going to give him a 3 because I think there has to be something that I'm not seeing. because if it was just based on my own personal experience with with what's going on with covid and what is the threat of the next six to eight weeks i would give him a one he's got to have something that that says that his own people aren't prepared to accept something stronger like a mask mandate i don't even think a mask mandate is particularly strong at this stage But it feels to me like the simplest first step that a provincial government could undertake to

Carter 30:30

to try and stop a

Carter 30:31

a massive growth in cases. I

Carter 30:35

I don't know how everybody else's COVID experience is going, but our COVID experience is that now I know people who've got COVID. I used to know people who knew people who have COVID. Now I know people who have COVID and they're close to me. And it's scary, right? Because now it could be me, right? It used to be, oh, people are getting COVID. That sucks. That's terrible. Now it could be me. Now it could be my friends. Now it could be my family. And that's making this far more real. So I do not understand why Jason Kenney is not taking at least some steps. I mean, even the

Carter 31:10

the school piece. The school piece is super tough. I get it. We need to send students to school in order for them to succeed in life at a later date. We need them to be socialized. we need them to get out of our houses so that the parents can work. There's a whole bunch of complex issues here. But there's not a word of leadership. It's more along the lines of good luck, let us know how it works out. And we're relying on school boards, much maligned school boards to try and make the best possible decisions. I think that the simplest things for him to do would be to implement some sort of a maximum cohort in schools, constraining the number of of people that are in any class at any given time um and then also to try and figure out how to do a mask mandate we must be wearing masks period end of sentence and i do not understand why he's not taking that low-hanging fruit so i'm giving him a three zane on your random

Carter 32:08

random ass one out of ten um in real in a real scale it would have been a d one

SPEAKER_02 32:15

one to ten is random for for carter cory i want want to come to you in one in one second so cutter you're giving him a three you're but you're not understanding his political calculus is that fair to say i just want to clarify that like you are not understanding what he might be seeing as to why he's doing what he's doing i

Carter 32:30

i am accepting that my political blind spot is that i cannot understand the far right i

Carter 32:35

i do not understand those i mean we're at lake louise today and they have a mask mandate at lake louise and i'm like okay put a mask on no big deal there are four people standing up on the patio screaming at the staff because they won't wear a mask. They won't wear a mask. We're not going to wear a mask. You can't make me wear a mask. Who the fuck are you? What is wrong with you? Just put a fucking mask on your face and try and take part in society. I don't understand the people who aren't on board with doing the very minimum to take care of those around us who might need to be cared for.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Corey, same question to you. What are you giving the Premier of Alberta for not imposing new COVID restrictions despite the rising case counts we're seeing?

Corey 33:18

Well, I'll give it a two just to be a little different from Stephen, but I generally

Corey 33:23

land in basically exactly where he is. Carter is right. The premier of Alberta has way more information than the average pundit on the street does. That's polling information, as he alluded to. That's health information. He's seen statistics presented to him in different ways that might be making him think about the problem differently. He's got a lot of experts, that expertise is right there. And those experts may have come to different calculations and different conclusions on everything from the fatality to the likelihood of people going to ICUs to where the demos are actually being hit. So we've got to understand that. But he's also got economic information, and he might be downright terrified about the economic impacts on all of this here. I think that I would probably say what many have said to him, which is your economic problem is not the lockdown it's the disease i can tell you even my own behavior and not to kind of fall into this false consensus but this or this focus group of one but even

Corey 34:18

even relative to where i was two weeks ago i'm doing less i'm going to the hardware store less i'm going to the grocery store less i am not going out very much because i am basically saying i am at my risk threshold just with my kid going to school and

Corey 34:33

my other kid going to preschool that's about all i'm willing willing to tolerate at this point and that

Corey 34:39

that is not actually a problem of mandates that is that a certain percent of the population will just disengage from the economy in very real ways as long as this disease is a threat and the bigger the threat gets the more that particular type of the economy is going to disengage so this this is a problem that he's got on the school front my feeling is and by the way like he may end up doing more literally tomorrow monday you know know we're recording on a sunday he could do more monday my sense about schools is they're just trying to get as close to december as possible then they'll throw that circuit breaker and say see you all in january and

Corey 35:14

and that's that's the plan but that that feels a lot more like if you could get to november 30th that feels a lot better than if you're sitting at november 10th that's

Corey 35:23

which is now behind yeah

Carter 35:23

yeah totally good so

Corey 35:26

so um i i think that we we've got to see how this all unfolds i will also say one of the problems and one maybe why i moderate it down to a two is that it's

Corey 35:35

it's really damaging i think if

Corey 35:38

if this really goes off the rails like the the actual threat to people's view of like the conservative worldview of personal responsibility is not insignificant there's

Corey 35:45

there's a lot of conservative policies that sort of lean on this idea that we are going to take actions for the betterment of the whole that's

Corey 35:52

that's looking pretty pretty unsustained at this particular moment. So maybe it's time for some good old-fashioned government intervention. Take the hit now so that this system as a whole that is so core to your worldview can survive a little more unscathed.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Yeah, no, you're right. That value system is certainly exposed and perhaps should be wearing a mask itself. Corey, I'm going to stick with you. We're now going to the NDP. You know, a couple of weeks ago, the NDP have launched a new sort of leaf in their political strategy. They've started a new website called Alberta's Future, a platform to engage Albertans on the economy, building the future together. Quite simply, it's a platform that has proposals on a couple of things that the NDP care about, child care, the energy future, post-secondary, and are hosting a bunch of webinars to talk with their respective critics for each of those domains to kind of help the NDP construct policy positions for this future. So the question I have for you, we go back to the same 1 to 10 scale on strict political strategy, 1 being not so great, 10 being masterful. Where do you kind of place this in that spectrum for what the NDP have produced as their next sort of rallying cry for focusing some of their campaign and political attention to?

Corey 37:11

I guess I give it a six or a seven, which maybe sounds more critical than I mean it to be. The reality of this, this is good work that oppositions need to do. And it's a good opportunity for them to go out and connect with stakeholders, which

Corey 37:24

which will in turn connect to their groups, which will in turn in theory, you know, and so on and so on. This is what politics is, and why not? It's work you can do through the caucus, no less. So that sounds super. The thing is, we, again, don't have information on where the NDP are perceived as weak or strong, but hopefully this is well aligned to polling that says, for example, Albertans need you to have an economic strategy, and they wouldn't mind if it looked like this, or Albertans need to know what your actual plan is. Like, I just hope there's a through line, I guess, is my thing. And if there's a through line, I'd moderate my score up. If there's not, I would definitely moderate it down. But let's make sure this is being data driven and not just a series of activities here.

Corey 38:06

I suspect that the New Democrats feel they need to say something about the economy, which is why so much of Alberta's future right now has that economic bend. I've seen geothermal.

Corey 38:15

Certainly, you've talked about childcare, Zane, which has a huge economic impact there. But also, like, it's a great way to kind of, beyond

Corey 38:28

beyond the stakeholder thing, it is a great way to sort of build the materials you do need for the next election. So I mean, like, again, like, not revolutionary, but pretty

Corey 38:37

pretty sensible opposition work. I have no objections to it. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 38:40

Carter, any objections from you? 1 to 10 scale from 1 being what it is and 10 being masterful. What do you think of Alberta's future as the platform to engage Albertans to build an economy for the future together? That's a quote from that website. What do you think of this?

Carter 38:56

really like the idea of what they're doing i think that this is exactly what they should be doing i'm a little disappointed just by you know it is speaking only to their weakness so i would have probably done something that speaks to my strength as well as to my weakness in the same platform in

SPEAKER_02 39:12

in your mind or would you have done a different

Carter 39:13

different absolutely i would i would tie the two together yeah child care is a great one right you simply cannot have a functioning functioning um economic sector in today's world without a set without strong child care and without strong schooling um i would do you know we always wanted to i was always very interested in the uh zero to six problem so the issues between uh you know poverty and young children um that issue is unbelievably expensive to society but it's also a social issue um we never have you know This feels like they're stepping outside of their strength to address their weakness. And I think it's always more powerful if you're able to take your strength and marry it to your weakness. So if you were to focus on something like post-secondary, post

Carter 40:05

post-secondary in Alberta could

Carter 40:08

could be a NDP

Carter 40:10

NDP strength. strengths. You know, they could show their valuing for it, but

Carter 40:17

have to connect it back to their core values. All of this is interesting stuff, but I'm just not sure that it's connected to their core values. So I have to give it a mixed grade. I have to say that this is what they should be doing. But my challenge to them would be, you

Carter 40:33

narrow the number. First of all, I just don't think you need 15 of these things. Drop off, for example, agricultural agricultural innovation i just don't think that that's that's not a place you're ever going to win don't don't try and win there uh and focus for example on something like green tech they did good work in green tech before they can show how

Carter 40:52

how you know the system that was gutted by jason kenney could

Carter 40:55

could have protected the tech industry in alberta or the creative

Carter 40:58

creative industries but don't try and do them all um start off with four or five instead of starting off with 15.

Corey 41:06

cory you wanted Yeah, like Zane,

Corey 41:09

Zane, I think the thing I should have mentioned too is I think their sentiment is spot on the notion of Alberta's future and casting forward because that does also set up a nice contrast with the conservatives, which seem to be literally

Corey 41:21

literally taking us to, you know, the regimes that we worked under before. And so in that sense, that's a nice contrast. And it reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend and a former colleague in

Corey 41:33

in the lead up to the 19 election. And this former colleague is not shy about being critical, probably a PC by default, certainly has worked on some PC campaigns, would be willing to entertain probably either the NDP or the UCP. um and that was you know just give me some hope for the future of this place jesus you know like like and that was a critique of both parties at the time like give me some effing hope about what we're going to be doing 20

Corey 42:03

20 years from now 30 years from now there's got to be something because right now i'm feeling not

Corey 42:09

not hope i suppose now on the number like the 15 um

Corey 42:15

the thing i think you're forgetting uh in here steven is is the caucus management element of this right so you have to have one for each of your critics i think that's fundamentally what it comes down to and i think that's why you have 15 but you're not wrong i agree with you like you've got to be really careful in that that you don't lose the story that you're trying to tell by just saying too many different things some of which are strengths some of which are weaknesses put

Carter 42:38

put together little teams right little caucus teams right a committee of four people one from the north one from the south one from the each one with different responsibilities on the same issue you they write you know they they can manage their meetings there's ways of managing the caucus you know you have to manage the caucus i get that but keep them all on track because this the critic portfolio thing is a trap it is a trap that focuses you on the government's agenda not your own agenda so don't just put yourself in the critics portfolio put yourself in the in the party's portfolio the things that you care about that's what you should be doing totally

Corey 43:12

totally right you you are literally organizing yourself the way they find it most advantageous to be organized. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Yeah, map it in that way is what I'm hearing. That's a good segment. From one campaign to the next. Moving on to our next Alberta issue. Earlier this week, a new group called the Next 30 launched here in Alberta, a group that is filled with 30 individuals from across Alberta, at least from their initial headline statement that's putting together a possibility panel. Full disclosure, I'm sure between the three of us, we know most of the folks that are on this panel, And they've come out with a thesis that says, are you sick of polarization in Alberta? And if you're sick of polarization and partisanship, we want to, you know, encourage a dialogue. So the question I have is less about this group and more about the strategy of using polarization as a mechanism for dialogue for things that polarization and partisanship for mechanism of dialogues for things that might eventually need political

SPEAKER_02 44:07

political muscle and politics to get through. So, Corey, between 1 to 10 on this particular strategy, I'm kind of curious to hear your take.

Corey 44:17

Well, I think this strategy is better than the launch. I don't know how many of our listeners are going to be familiar with this particular thing. But long story short, this group announced with great fanfare. You can almost hear the fanfare, frankly, of we have come from the mountaintop to save you from partisanship. And, and I think that that's unfortunate, because I don't think that's what they were going for. But I certainly think that's how it came off to a lot of people here. So you asked a question, Zane, is it possible to use, you

Corey 44:47

you know, partisan polarization, highlighting that as a catalyst for change, if that change ultimately needs to be done through politics? Or at

Corey 44:55

least in part. Sure. Yeah.

Carter 44:57

Yeah. I mean, like,

Corey 44:58

I think it's such a fascinating question because I was discussing via Twitter with one of the organizers there and they were saying, well, it's possible to do this change outside of politics. Yeah. But like you're talking about second order effects in the sense that you are creating pressure on politics, which then decides they've got to go do something right. Like politicians are still ultimately going to determine the course of reconciliation, for example, to use the actual example that was in their press release here. so

Corey 45:23

so can you take this approach well i think the answer is no because your audience is either people who are unengaged to begin with so great fucking luck getting them engaged or it is people who are already engaged and you've just insulted them by saying they are all overreacting they are wrong to be partisan so why don't they stop being wrong and come work with uh work with them in the center i mean like like

Corey 45:44

like basically telling them to calm down we'll try that with your spouse next look really good like good luck with that one here so i i guess that's that's the unfortunate launch that they gave themselves here the other thing is um like

Corey 45:58

like it just it like their thesis needs a little bit more proving like what

Corey 46:03

what is their indication that change is impossible is it that the ndp who were government from 15 to 19 are leading in the polls is it that you

Corey 46:11

you know more people are voting than ever before well not ever before in alberta but since 1982 like i just i have trouble trouble following the logic train through it all if i step back and say this is a bunch of smart people who want to have conversations about the future of this province in a way that is not tied to you know political orthodoxy that's

Corey 46:28

that's cool but you know for a lot of people when this landed it's well who are you why do you feel you get to solve this problem for me like these are real things to me like i'm not interested in finding middle ground on health care i'm interested in not having health care dismantled like like there is angry reaction to this notion that people are they're overreacting. And I guess that's, that's

Corey 46:49

that's the challenge they have. So let's say like on the idea itself, I'll give them a five, which is actually only 44%, because your scale is stupid, one to 10.

Corey 46:59

But, you know, on launch, it's got to be a two, like, like everybody was saying, what is this? Like, what is this? What are they up to? They started looking for motives, because it just seems weird, like, like a group of exactly 30 people who have deigned themselves to be the leaders of all of this and now through an op-ed they are going to announce to the world with their splashy website and and their spokespeople and their media tour and it just it looks anything but grassroots it looks like the exact same thing we all hated about the pc party this sense that there's this elite class who just get to decide what we can get worked up about and what we don't carter

SPEAKER_02 47:34

carter uh despite all of that cory gave it a five which is in the middle of the scale so he chose the least of 44 least

SPEAKER_02 47:41

one you can also add so you don't and prefer not to say, but he did give the least polarized number, which I think there is a sweet irony to that. Carter, same question to you, you know, and maybe I kind of pose an additive to what Corey said, which is, do you agree with this thesis, too, that either you are offended as being someone who's singled out for overreacting because of your partisan proclivities, or you're disengaged? Is there a third group that is perhaps looking for a, let's

SPEAKER_02 48:10

let's just call it a better on-ramp or an easier on-ramp, a different on-ramp that might lead to partisan politics eventually? Is there perhaps that third group that exists? So, Corey, I'll give you fair share to answer that question on the back end of Carter. But, Carter, I want to get your take on the 1 to 10 with maybe not this group itself, but this thesis, which I think is fascinating, this thesis of can we use highlighting partisanship and polarization to eventually onboard people to help with tasks that may require, in some point, partisanship?

Carter 48:41

I don't know. No, I

Carter 48:42

I don't think so. I mean, I don't know that that's the case. I mean, I don't know that this is going to find an audience. What I did see was

Carter 48:51

was an audience of people who are really, really, really upset by it, which confused the hell out of me. there's only two possible outcomes for this group they

Carter 48:58

they produce something or

Carter 48:59

or they produce nothing right

Carter 49:00

right those are the those are the two options they will either produce something or they will produce nothing this is not the first group like this to come along there's been lots of groups like this and to characterize them as potentially arrogant and elite well that's

Carter 49:13

that's every candidate for every political party every candidate for every political party that stands forward is saying that to their community, I shall lead you. It is the very definition of arrogance. It is the very definition of elitism. So these people have just stood forward and said there are big questions. And instead of focusing on the question of partisanship, which is what everybody grabbed onto, how dare they say that neither political party has the answer to the questions. They also spent quite a bit of time asking the questions. And the questions are, how can we reduce the economy and provincial exposure to the volatility in oil and gas. No one really has that answer. It's a good question. Second question, how can we build an inclusive social fabric so that every Albertan feels like they belong? I don't know, shit down everybody's throat? That seemed like a good answer. How do we ensure that the energy sector thrives in a low-carbon emissions future?

Carter 50:06

I don't know. I mean, I'm not seeing that answer necessarily from the NDP or the UCP.

Carter 50:11

These are questions that aren't being answered by the political parties. So to say that the partisanship isn't answering the question and then get blasted because they mentioned the word partisanship, the

Carter 50:20

reality is these are tough questions and some of them may not have answers and this group may fail in answering them.

Carter 50:27

My problem with this whole situation isn't that a group of people stood up and said, you know what, let's try and answer the question. I mean, sure, whatever. There's a high degree of arrogance that is as likely to fail as it is to succeed. My problem is, why, if you're a political party, would you even bother to address the issue? If they are able to successfully answer one or two or three of these questions, they do not have an infrastructure by which to take care of it. so steal the answer steal the the alberta party 2008 2009 2010 they're reformed under this new brand new group of people who took over the party no

Carter 51:06

no experience in politics no capacity whatsoever but

Carter 51:09

but they were smart and they came up with really good ideas you know what we did we stole their ideas we took their platform virtually word for word and we presented it to albertans with the a PC party banner. And you know what? We won and winning matters. So my view is fine.

Carter 51:27

Go come up with some great ideas. That's fantastic. You should do more of that. And if they're really good ideas that look like the population can buy into them, then I as the NDP or I as the UCP, I'm going to co-op that because I have the infrastructure to put 87 candidates into 87 seven ridings and fund them with twenty five to thirty thousand dollars so that everybody can win in the campaign that's what politics is not standing i'm not being a fucking mean girl on twitter and just ripping into everybody and doxing the founders and trying to find out what their fucking hidden motivation is who cares be political be a fucking political person steal the idea god God, I'm over. I'm done. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 52:11

Carter, I appreciated the rant. I go back to my fundamental question. A group like this is trying to unearth perhaps a third sort of bucket to Corey's two. Does that third bucket of person exist, that one who doesn't want to go as far as partisan politics but wants to be engaged? Is there enough of those people to kind of on-ramp that? I'm actually genuinely curious in this strategy. Like, I genuinely am, and to hear your answer around if that group may exist.

Carter 52:38

You're talking to someone who wants to write a book called The Tyranny of the Less Engaged. I do not believe that people, you know, the highly engaged people are so few and far between that, you know, the idea that you're going to find some special untapped group that is available to you is probably not going

Carter 52:54

going to happen. That wants

SPEAKER_02 52:54

wants to engage but not go as far as partisan politics. The

Carter 52:57

The evidence that some of them exist is the fact that they have these 30. So there are some. But these might be it. I don't really care. I just don't. I care more about the idea that we have a province, you know, going back to the NDP question, right? They have Alberta's future.

Carter 53:17

Some of these answers are the answers to the Alberta's futures questions, you know, because

Carter 53:22

because the NDP doesn't have the answers either.

Carter 53:27

I'm just, my view, anybody wants to be part of the process, you're more than welcome to, just don't be an asshole. And if you're an asshole and it's ideological, I'm going to not like you. If you're an asshole and it's not ideological, I'm not going to like you. This was being – a group of people were just assholes when they didn't need to be, when instead what they should have said is, welcome to the party. Have you seen our Alberta's Future website? We'd love you to answer some of these questions too and be involved.

Carter 53:54

We love the idea that there's a group of people thinking.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

I wanted to give you equal time on my question, which may or may not have merit, which is this third bucket of people. Carter feels like they don't exist. Do you?

Corey 54:06

i i would be really surprised if a large number of them exist i mean what motivates people to get involved it's like i i believe in in kind of thoughtfulness and compromise and i'm not going to take it anymore like that's that's not usually what drives people into the door and i mean i

Corey 54:23

i i think we would all like to see a world where people just say yeah you know what cool i'm gonna i'm gonna get really involved but i don't feel strongly about this matter but people People get involved in things they feel strongly in. And so to kind of elevate conversations to that kind of – like

Corey 54:38

like it's a strange thing for me. I guess I just find it really hard to kind of imagine that this is going to get people in the door who didn't feel there were doors open to them to have these conversations before. That's the thing I find a bit baffling to me. Is it solving a problem that people actually have? Are people actually sitting there and saying, like, God, there's just nowhere to talk about volatility in oil and gas? Does

Corey 55:01

Does anybody, I mean, I shouldn't say there's anybody, but like, I don't actually know if I feel that's the case. Inclusiveness of social fabric, if only that was on somebody's agenda, it's got to be like 100 fucking groups in Alberta that are talking about that right now. You know, a low carbon future, the oil companies are talking about that. I guess this is the thing. And I'm not trying to just pile on these guys, because I really like a lot of these people. I know about half the list to your earlier point, Zane, and I think it's really smart people, really dedicated people, dedicated to the idea that is Alberta the province. And I just – but like I find it just really hard to imagine what

Corey 55:44

they thought was going to happen when they did this because, you know, Carter, you talk about doxing. I think that's a little strong for looking up somebody's donation history. If more than that happened, then yeah, that shouldn't have happened. Home address published.

Corey 55:57

now listen and shouldn't happen yeah but uh people

Corey 56:01

people are going to sit and they're going to see something that comes that fully baked with 30

Corey 56:05

30 people you know like we have we have created a council of 30 essentially and we are now revealing ourselves to the world and we have these questions and we have this website and we have this media tour and this op-ed and

Corey 56:17

and this this social media account and everything looks really like people are going to question question the motivations of that of course they are that's the first thing they're going to ask they're going to say who the hell are these people why the hell are they doing this and nobody is going to take it at face value and so i just don't understand why they didn't kind of dip their toe into this a little bit more organically like saying hey a bunch of us have been getting together we've got this group of 10 people over here who had this interesting dinner party the other day and we were talking to this other group of three people who had this other group of five people and And a bunch of us got together. You know what? There was 27 of us or 34. Like, that's the other thing. Like, it just, it feels so manufactured. It's like the Spice Girls, except without

Corey 56:56

without the talent. It's like Bewitched. Do you remember Bewitched? It's like that. You're

Carter 57:00

You're just angry that you were number 31. You're a sailor bee. People are

Carter 57:02

not going to let you. You were just 31. That's upsetting for you. I understand.

SPEAKER_02 57:07

You didn't make the cut. Yeah, let's be clear. None of us would have made the cut. That's a fascinating discussion, you know? And to your point, like, we know a lot of these folks. I think we, I think, collectively think very highly of a lot of them and their dedication to our community. You know, for me, it's just this question that I think is really, really interesting, this question of how we onboard more people into this political process. And I think there's a lot to be discussed around that going forward. Okay, let's move it on to our next one. Oh, Corey, you put your hand up.

Corey 57:34

Yeah, I'm just like, I'm really curious. Do we, is there any empirical, I'm actually asking if anybody out there has it, do we have any data that people feel less like they've got a home, less like they've got an opportunity to change their community?

Corey 57:47

I'm fascinated by the notion, like the entire hypothesis that drives this group, I'm not convinced of. Like

Corey 57:54

Like the data that we do have about engagement doesn't really bear that out for me. These

Carter 57:59

These groups pop up all the time. This is not a new phenomenon. They existed ad infinitum during the PCE. Which

SPEAKER_02 58:05

Which is why my question line is less about this group, but more about this philosophy, right? Which is why what

Corey 58:11

what I— But this is my point, Zane. Like, are

Corey 58:13

are people asking for this? Like, is there a natural, organic demand for this

Carter 58:17

this kind of product? These people asked for it.

Carter 58:19

These 30 people said that they wanted to do something.

Carter 58:21

That's all I care about. The democratic process is not hung up on the idea that you must buy a membership in order to participate. They're not a

Corey 58:30

a think tank. They

Corey 58:31

literally did a public launch. They literally did a public launch and invited the public to join them. Is there a public market for this? We

Carter 58:39

We will find out. If no one joins them, then there isn't.

Carter 58:43

But you don't have to shit down their throat just because you don't think that there's a market. They think that every entrepreneur, every person who peddles an idea thinks that there's a market for it. And if it fails, it fails. It's not a big deal. If it succeeds, steal the idea. I'm telling you, it's free ideas for the NDP.

SPEAKER_02 59:05

Let's move it on to our next one. Carter, you've said shit down throat way too many times, and now I've fallen into your trap. Let's move it on to our next one. In fact, I'm making this the final one because it might be a doozy. A couple weeks ago, was it a couple weeks ago? the Auditor General Report here in Alberta was released, which made a staggering $1.6 billion in accounting errors in its annual financial statements for the UCP government. It included everything from some of these accounting errors to our favorite energy war room to other elements of the fiscal record for the Kenney government. Corey, I'm going to you first on this. Before I ask you the 1 to 10 in terms of the political impact, because that's what I want to measure here, the political impact this will have on the Kenney government. One, no, 10, you know, a lot of political impact might be nightmarish for them and a cloud that hangs over them. Before I ask you that, give our listeners a bit of context in terms of the scale of $1.6 billion of accounting errors. Is this big deal, small deal? Does it really matter? And then maybe that might inform your answer around the political cloud that might hang over the Kenney government.

Corey 1:00:14

not a question necessarily just of dollars, I guess, is the first thing I would say. It's possible to have a $2 billion accounting error and have it much less bad

Corey 1:00:25

bad looking. How's that for articulate at this

SPEAKER_02 1:00:27

this particular moment? You

Corey 1:00:29

know, it can be more innocuous at $2 billion if you look at the error and you say, okay, well, there's some gray area in accounting and I get it and so I understand it and let's just move on.

Corey 1:00:39

It is $1.6 billion. That's a lot of money, obviously.

Corey 1:00:43

obviously. That goes without saying, but I said it anyways. But it's also that it was across a number of different buckets and at least a couple of them you start to look at and say, well,

Corey 1:00:53

well, if this on its own was there, I'd be a little suspicious about what was the motivation behind it. But when you see all of them together, you start thinking like, okay, like, at

Corey 1:01:02

at this point, it really does start to look like now, and I'm not saying it is and the Auditor General's not either, but it starts to look like cooking the books when there's that many errors. And so that's the problem that the UCP has. Now, listen, I came from government land. I understand that there's a lot of ambiguity in these things. There's a lot of frustration when the AG comes in and just says, we think it should be done this way. because as much as everybody out there thinks accounting is black and white, accounting is not black and white. You do not hire a CPA because things are clear. You hire a bookkeeper if all you're doing is ledger in, ledger out. But there are a ton of things that you need to make strategic decisions about when you're putting together any kind of financial statements. And so I've got a lot of sympathy because this was a government that was doing a pretty

Corey 1:01:46

pretty big change agenda. So they were inherently changing a lot of the financial statements up.

Corey 1:01:53

all of their errors seem to come down on one side of the ledger and that that doesn't look real good so i would say that they've got i'm

Corey 1:02:02

i'm gonna say it's a seven the problem for them zane or like what's the scale like what's bad at this point are we saying it's a three are

Corey 1:02:09

are we saying seven like what which

Corey 1:02:10

which is the good side cory

SPEAKER_02 1:02:13

cory this is only a nine point scale so who knows anymore more there's there is a good time uh cory 10 is 10 is horrible big big political cloud large political crowd okay one is not

Corey 1:02:22

not so much it's a seven because

Corey 1:02:24

because the thing i just said about there's a ton of strategic decisions to make that's

Corey 1:02:29

that's going to be true this year and next year and the year after that as well and what you've got now is the ag looking very critically at your books and a public that the minute anything comes out they are going to start your range of motion is is broken as a result of this first year of kind of a flurry of AG criticism. I

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

I like that line. Range of motion is broken. Carter, same question to you. The political cloud that this means for the Kenney government on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being a very big cloud, 1 being not so much.

Carter 1:02:58

Their strength is supposed to be their fiscal management, and this is showing that their fiscal management is questioned. On the other hand, it doesn't really stick, right? Like all stories that come out when there's another primary story, we're pretty fixated on COVID. This came out during the COVID problem. It does not have the same impact that it might if it had a little bit more runway and it was made a bigger deal of. What

Carter 1:03:27

What bothers me about it is that they were very clearly trying to manipulate the outcome of their financial statements. And it's not necessarily through the, you know, the Alberta Petroleum and Marketing Commission's modeling around the Sturgeon Refinery, which, of course, is a shit show. But for me, it was the AISH payments. You know, they tried to move a payment from the 28th of the month to the first of the next month and say, look, that thing didn't happen during our fiscal year, which is absolute bullshit.

Carter 1:03:58

bullshit. It was, number one, it was just unfair to those people who were relying on the payments and who needed that money in their bank account to pay their rent and to pay for bills that were due on the 1st.

Carter 1:04:10

And number two, it was just, you know, it's bogus moving money around, trying to eliminate one twelfth of a yearly expenditure. It doesn't have any real impact except to fuck with the books. fucks um so you're you fucked with real human beings uh just to uh you know make yourself look better in an environment where you already have a 20 billion dollar deficit like i just it's disgusting to me that they did it um the

Carter 1:04:39

the the bigger number then that wasn't a big number i mean it's 150 million 154 million something like that um the bigger numbers were you know the the The Sturgeon Refinery, $795 million.

Carter 1:04:53

The Oil by Rail was another $650 million, $637 million. Those were big numbers. The Keystone XL Pipeline, those three kind of oil

Carter 1:05:07

oil-related expenditures are a billion dollars plus of this particular oil. It was the vast majority of it. That's them trying to get in and out of deals, some of which are legacy. You know, the Sturgeon Refinery dates back, does

Carter 1:05:22

does it go all the way back to Klein or is it a Stelmac deal? I think it's

Corey 1:05:24

it's a Stelmac thing.

Carter 1:05:25

Yeah. I mean, that was a tragic deal from the beginning. It haunted us through our, or

Carter 1:05:33

or my brief tenure. It was going to haunt whatever government forever. The rail decision, we could argue both sides.

Carter 1:05:42

This is just, those are normal outcomes of that. um and then the keystone xl now to find out i think that what's more damning is that kenny is saying that he's invested in the keystone

Carter 1:05:52

keystone xl as a hedge against justin trudeau walking

Carter 1:05:55

walking away from tmx um that's

Carter 1:05:58

that's going to be more damning uh because

Carter 1:06:01

because what the hell are you doing because now that entire investment is has got to be seen as up in the air with joe biden winning uh well i I guess, last Saturday, whatever day he won. Allegedly.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:12

Allegedly. Allegedly. Corey, I see you maybe taking some notes. Do you want to finish this off with any final thoughts?

Corey 1:06:22

First of all, people don't understand any of this stuff. And when we start talking about $1.6 billion in accounting errors, I think they assume that means we were $1.6 billion bigger deficit than was imagined. That's not really the case. And that's just tallying up all of the errors as though they all had the same impact on the books. the

Corey 1:06:40

the nature of the mistakes within the accounting and just for clarity every single one of these was something that was in the government's accounting the ag said no you've got to change this and the government said yes okay we're going to change this the ag just said and now we're going to highlight to you public those things that we made them change but you know that the final accounting is like an unqualified opinion that this is fine like the government's books are they're fine. But there

Corey 1:07:08

there are ones that kind of rack up the score on that $1.6 billion that are not that egregious to me, right? The Sturgeon refinery one, that one doesn't bother me at all. There was a provision set at December 31st, which was the refinery's fiscal year end, and they didn't update the provision before the government's year end, March 31, despite the fact that there was a big change in the oil and gas sector. I think we all appreciate that, but but they'd never done the provision before. It was a new thing for them. It's not the craziest thing that a mistake like this would happen, right? KXL one doesn't bother me. Something didn't show up as a liability and offsetting asset, but that doesn't actually change very much when you get down to the bottom line.

Corey 1:07:48

Accrued by rail, that looks a little dodgier, right? They said things were closed off when they weren't. And I'm curious what the explanation for that is. The AISH one is egregious. You know, it

Corey 1:07:58

it didn't make lives better. It didn't make finances better. It just made them look better. was arguably quite cruel as a result of that and it didn't follow standard understanding of accrual accounting which is you incur an expense when you find it just because you change the day that you hand the check unless

Corey 1:08:14

unless you're doing cash-based accounting which you're probably not doing if you're a unless you're a small business you've

Corey 1:08:18

you've still got to book those expenses at the same time so like that one that one to me seems the most like what in

Corey 1:08:26

the world was that because that shouldn't have changed the books at all i could see the government wanting to do that that for a cash flow reasons but i you know like it doesn't actually change the income statement so i'm confused or it shouldn't have and it didn't when the ag was done with it so i

Corey 1:08:40

i don't know i mean like the whole thing piles

Corey 1:08:43

piles up into a pile that doesn't look very good but let's

Corey 1:08:47

let's let's disaggregate a bit and say some of these things are much worse than the others we're

SPEAKER_02 1:08:50

we're going to leave that segment there and move it on to our final segment or over under our lightning round guys are you ready i.e steven are you ready i

SPEAKER_02 1:08:58

yeah i'm going to start with you and i'm going going to give you a softball over under on six the entertainment value of the trump protest this past weekend the million mega march to stop the steel dc uh what did you what did you uh what did you make on the entertainment value uh

Carter 1:09:12

uh i mean i was i was certainly more entertained before it became a little more violent uh you know they're they're they're angrier now and starting to see a little bit more anger so i'm gonna i'm gonna go with the under zane and uh say that i would prefer I prefer Trump just failed completely instead of just failed significantly. You're not enjoying

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

enjoying this as much as I thought you would.

Carter 1:09:33

No, I'm just, you

Carter 1:09:36

you know, I'm seeing people get punched in the face. I'm seeing, you know, people start to riot. It's not as much fun as it was when it was just a pathetic group of white men, all white men, all in my age range, by the way, totally freaking me out. Like, it's all people who look like me, right? Walking up and down the street. If

SPEAKER_02 1:09:53

we started punching you, how many cereals could you name?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:59

Okay, that's a meme that you may not be familiar with, but that is part of the Proud Boys initiation, that they start punching and you have to name a bunch of cereals. Is this where

Carter 1:10:05

where they prove that they can't punch? Because that's all I saw on that meme. Prove

SPEAKER_02 1:10:09

Prove that they can't punch and they had very sad childhoods. Name Cheerios and Corn Flakes. Corey, same thing to you. What are you making of the Trump protests over the weekend?

Corey 1:10:22

Yeah, I mean, I don't find any of this entertaining anymore. Donald Trump just needs to go away. And when I look at the social media traffic and conversation, the

Corey 1:10:32

the number of people who just believe this election was stolen and the number of you go get them Donald comments on each one of his crazy tweets, it's just it's so discouraging because you think how in the world is America going to get anything done in the next bit? How are they going to come back from this?

Corey 1:10:49

What they need is a group of 30 people to convene some conversations because they do not have a path forward right now. Corey,

SPEAKER_02 1:10:57

Corey, I'm sticking with you on this. On 1 to 10, the political damage, 1 being not so much damage. Yes, I'm still going with the 1 to 10 scale, Corey. I've not fixed it, despite your recommendations. 1 to 10, 1 being no political damage whatsoever, or very minimal, 10 being maximum. Derek Sloan is raising funds off his opposition to conversion therapy. The political damage for the Conservatives on this, that one of their former leadership contestants is now raising money on his opposition to conversion therapy, one being not so much, 10 being maximum political damage. What do you think?

Corey 1:11:30

i think it could be an eight if unaddressed and it could be it could actually be a positive for the conservatives if addressed this

Corey 1:11:37

this is exactly what steven and i were talking about the night of aaron o'toole's election i think or maybe it was the week after that but if

Corey 1:11:46

if you are derrick sloan your job for the last few months should have been to shut up and not be a problem and and get yourself into good graces, and build yourself up slowly to the point where O'Toole feels he can't turn against you. This, to me, is a great excuse to take him out back and put him in the wood chipper, right?

Corey 1:12:04

right? You are way off message here, and it's, you know, we're not going to let you be a distraction. I think that it would be a great way to kind of show that the conservatives are not scary social conservatives, and if I was O'Toole, I would consider it. Now, that might not actually be available to him. Maybe actually Derek Sloan is doing exactly what we told him to. And maybe he's calculated that the group he has is too big and too scary for O'Toole to turn against at this point. But, you

Corey 1:12:31

you know, this is doing no favors for the conservatives whatsoever. And people are going to be able to point to Sloan in the, you know, every election, there's a let's point at your bad candidate contest that goes on. And, you know, the liberals now start up by one Derek Sloan. Carter,

SPEAKER_02 1:12:45

Carter, same question to you. The damage for the federal conservatives with Derek Sloan, one to ten.

Carter 1:12:51

Well, I mean, if every political party was defined by their biggest wingnut, then every political party would ultimately be trash. Every political party carries these lunatics. The question is, what benefit do they bring? Do they bring a conservative cohort? I think as long as O'Toole is able to keep Leslyn Lewis in the fold, then she is a far more palatable, social, conservative, kind of, you know, the new breed of evangelical Christian that can appeal to that cohort. So, you

Carter 1:13:27

you know, there is no reason to keep Sloan.

Carter 1:13:30

So I think this is an opportunity for O'Toole

Carter 1:13:33

O'Toole to show some leadership.

Carter 1:13:35

I think he will allow the ball to go sailing past. He will not even swing at this particular pitch, is my expectation.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:42

Carter, over, under on seven. I'm sticking with you. Over, under on seven. The political upside for the Trudeau government, as we had discussed earlier, for having the most per capita vaccines in line for them, is this all political upside or is there a risk here? Over, under on seven for the Trudeau government on this particular item.

Carter 1:14:00

It's all upside. At some point, maybe some people start saying that we've been greedy, but

Carter 1:14:04

but at this point, I think we want to be greedy. I think we want our

Carter 1:14:07

our government to be taking care of us and bringing a solution. This

Carter 1:14:10

This was the most hopeful thing I saw in the last seven days. I was really excited to

Carter 1:14:15

to see that the government had done the

Carter 1:14:18

the job of ensuring, you

Carter 1:14:21

know, that we were going to be well taken care of. I mean, I hope people read past the headline of, you know, how many doses there were per Canadian to realize that not

Carter 1:14:30

not all of these doses are going to come to fruition. So, this

Carter 1:14:33

this was brilliant hedging, and I hope that in

Carter 1:14:36

in the first half of 2021, we're all able to go out and get vaccinated and be safe from this crazy disease.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:46

Corey, same question to you. Is this all upside for the Trudeau government? Are you giving it an above seven or below for some reason?

Corey 1:14:54

let's just give it a seven i i would have to stretch to see ways why this goes sideways for them i i

Corey 1:15:00

i mean they did sprinkle bets around and you could make the argument down the road if only one of these pays off it would be an absurd argument to make this was the smart prudent play but somebody could say why didn't you get more of that pfizer vaccine you know you you went around but you only got this many pfizer and now we actually have fewer doses than these other other countries there is a scenario where that's possible it's unlikely because most of these vaccines are targeting the same uh you know the virus in the same way as my understanding

Corey 1:15:29

but uh yeah i mean i can stretch and sort of see where it could get worse there but no i mean this is this is really good news and if we start seeing and i imagine we will because the newspapers have this grim fascination with you

Corey 1:15:42

you know case tolls and death tolls because we We have a grim fascination with case tolls and death tolls, but start start imagining a

Corey 1:15:49

more hopeful future four months from now where we have vaccination percents. You know, Canada is now at 12 percent vaccinated, 14 percent vaccinated, 18 percent. And I could very easily see us being in the lead on that if more of these vaccines hit in the next bit. I

SPEAKER_02 1:16:03

I like that smart commentary. Corey, I'm sticking with you for the final one. Alberta's Justice Minister Casey Medu is picking to fight with Calgary Mayor Nahid Nenshi. This is on the heels of the Calgary City Council taking $20 million from the police budget and reallocating it for social agencies. So he's taking this fight to the city on defunding the police, so to speak, the terminology we've heard in the zeitgeist over the past half year. Smart political strategy, not so smart political strategy on the part of the Justice Minister. What are you giving this on 1 to 10? 1 being not so smart, 10 being pretty smart.

Corey 1:16:41

don't think it's as smart as they think it is, but it's not so bad. There is something to be said for going on the offensive on these things. And, you know, the problem that they have is that I think people will be disinclined to believe that they are playing this one straight. The benefit they have is that conservatives tend to get better scores on law and order by default. So they may just be perceived naturally by a lot of the constituents of Calgary as just being spot on on this one. And certainly it doesn't look like they're doing nothing. Carter, what do you think?

Carter 1:17:12

I think that defund the police is a very misunderstood

Carter 1:17:17

misunderstood term, very poorly defined, and does not do well with the general population. So accusing your political rivals of doing it is good politics.

Carter 1:17:26

politics. I'm just not sure why the

Carter 1:17:28

the provincial government views their political rivals to be Calgary City Council.

Carter 1:17:32

They're not running against Calgary City Council in the next election. It's

Carter 1:17:35

It's the Alberta NDP. So, you

Carter 1:17:38

you know, I'm not sure where the upside is. I'm not sure where the upside is.

Corey 1:17:42

can tell you where the upside is. We're going to have a bunch of referendums tied to this municipal election coming up in a couple of months here.

Carter 1:17:51

i look forward to it i look forward to it they are setting their own traps i don't you know like they're setting bear traps for themselves all over the place and they are going to step into them and ask

Carter 1:18:02

ask is about in a future podcast zane because there's some good stuff there i

SPEAKER_02 1:18:06

i will do you know what's cuter than a bear trap a raccoon trap because i just i just googled what a raccoon is not too bad i mean i i hear i hear their shit i hear their shitty creatures uh we'll leave it there that's a wrap on episode 830 of the strategist my name is zane velge with me as As always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you next time.

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