Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is the strategist emergency episode 906 and a half. My name is Zain Velji with me as always Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter guys. Happy emergency episode day.
Carter
0:12
It feels like we were just chatting like feels
Zain
0:15
like just yesterday. Yeah,
Zain
0:15
Yeah, well, here's the thing, right? Often, we do episodes and often if Stephen Carter's involved, they're outdated very quickly.
Zain
0:26
and so this is one of those situations where i would say that if you uh have not listened to our episode from last night i'd still say it's a worthy listen uh but i'd say that a lot of the context and perhaps a lot of the developments that we have seen over the past 12 to 24 hours um are going to add a different tone and perhaps different tenor to uh to this episode and so let's Let's jump right into it. I have no segment titles. I have nothing. We're going to talk about the ongoing aloha gate in Alberta and then the ramifications and the ripple effects across the country. Because, Corey, I said yesterday Alberta was the heartbeat. You corrected me and said Alberta is probably the worst manifestation. Now I'm not even sure of that because we're starting to see every order of government, Senate, senators, ethics chairs, our neighbors in Saskatchewan. This is a – it's almost like it's – and I hate to make light of this, but it's almost a viral sort of impact in terms of how quickly it's growing across the country. And maybe let's start there. Maybe let's start broad before we get into Alberta, and I'll throw it over to you, Corey, because we're making eye contact.
Corey
1:30
Yeah, I struggle to think of a parallel here. I can't think of a situation where there was an event that was affecting every province, and so
Corey
1:40
so many of them had to deal with the fallout at the same time. This is pretty damning for the political class writ large, I would say. And I wonder what kind of like the broader – I don't want to get over – everybody gets all over the top on this and there's this recency bias. But, you know, we've been living in such partisan times for so long. There's been this well-documented polarization. But what's really united Canadians in this moment is a giant fuck you attitude towards politicians who set a bunch of rules and then ignore them. And it's amazing to see how quickly this fallout is spreading across the country. It's amazing to see, you know, you see this whenever you've got provinces kind of dealing with situations in parallel. You see this whenever organizations are dealing with situations in parallel. But there's this one-upmanship that's now happening, these stronger and stronger statements, the Nova Scotia conservative leader saying things like, oh, they'd be out of my caucus in a heartbeat. I mean, that's even further than what the furthest was before that date.
Corey
2:38
We're in a weird one here, right? Right. I mean, ministers are dropping left, right and center. The ethics chair you mentioned, parliamentary secretaries basically are it's
Corey
2:49
it's unbelievable. And it's and it does not actually seem to have concluded at this point, although you have to imagine the worst is over just based on the amount of sleuthing that must be going on. You
Zain
3:00
You know, Carter, we're we have some individuals, you know, conservative Senator Don Platt just came back to Canada. His punishment, so to speak, has not been decided. Conservative MP David Sweet resigned as the committee chair, the ethics committee chair. Saskatchewan cabinet minister, who was the minister of highways, I believe, had an excuse that he was out finalizing a home sale. They called BS on that. And now he's gone all across the board. It's seeming to afflict every sort of political stripe. And then, of course, the bloodbath here in Alberta that we saw, which is partially and I'd say largely the reason we're recording tonight's episode, which was the chief of staff gone, Tracy Allard, the minister of municipal affairs gone, and demotions for a lot of parliamentary secretaries. So to pick up on Corey's comments, Carter, have you seen anything like this before, a riptide like this in Canadian politics?
Carter
3:57
don't think I have. I mean, I'm used to seeing something like this in a single province at a single time. You know, like you may see things repeat. And one of the things that's really upsetting for me on this is that obviously Canadian politicians weren't listening to our American podcast, You the People, where we talked about, you know, Gavin Newsom running into this same type of thing when, you know, he was ignoring COVID rules that he'd set forward. forward. There's been mayors that have ignored their own COVID protocols that have been in deep trouble. This isn't exactly new. What is new is you add in the flavoring of the Christmas season and you add in the egregiousness of the travel. And
Carter
4:36
And that is really what's creating the total upswell across the country. So this is predictable. This was avoidable. People who followed politics should have been able to predict that this was going to happen. And I would posit, that would add to Corey's earlier point, this is going to have long-term impact beyond just the parties that were involved. This is going to have long-term impact on the overall trustworthiness of politicians. Are we willing to trust politicians? Are we willing to give a select group of people the ability to govern us when we simply have been proven time and time again that they can't be trusted? it. I'm tired of having politics undermined by the actions of the politicians. It is time that we started having stronger and stronger consequence for those actions.
Zain
5:32
I do like that line, politics being undermined by the politicians. I think in a roundabout way, you're asking for a dictatorship of
Zain
5:40
some sort. But not a dictatorship
Zain
5:42
with very high insurance. That
Corey
5:44
is the conclusion of most Most of Stephen Carter's rants.
Zain
5:47
Yeah, no, this is good. Like I said, often dated very quickly when we record with Stephen. Corey, let's remind our listeners of what happened in Alberta today in a series of, not a series, sorry, in a social media post, if I'm not mistaken, I believe a release, if you guys can confirm that for me. I don't know if there was an official release. No, it was a Facebook
Corey
6:05
Facebook post and then on Twitter. And
Zain
6:07
And on Twitter. Okay, so I'm reading the tweet right here, a statement by the premier saying that, you You know, millions of Albertans have made real sacrifices over the past 10 months to help keep each other safe. Last Friday, I took responsibility for not being clear enough. Over the weekend, I learned that Albertans were sending a clear message that they want to see real consequences, and thereby the following. Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard, I've accepted her resignation. I have asked my chief of staff to step down. And I want to talk about the difference from resigning and asking. So remind
Corey
6:40
remind me about that. Oh, Stephen's probably got something. Oh,
Carter
6:41
Oh, I have a few. I have a few thoughts.
Zain
6:44
Remind me about that. And perhaps it starts with the letter S that ends with Everance. We also have MLA Jeremy Nixon, parliamentary secretary, his resignation from his post. MLA Jason Steffen, no longer on Treasury Board. And then MLA's Tanya Furr, Pat Wren, and Tanya Yao, who is yet to be located, I believe, still in Mexico somewhere, so we believe, have lost their legislature committee responsibilities. responsibilities. And then he lists the replacements for for some of those interim posts, chief of staff and municipal affairs minister in particular. Corey, did this surprise you? Yeah,
Corey
7:21
Yeah, I mean, I guess it did. Because it was I mean, Jesus Christ, what a bloodbath was was the reason it was only a social media post and not a news conference, because Kenny was at his nephew's baptism. Like, holy fuck, talk about settling scores all over the place. The you know, No, I think we do need to talk about the style and the substance separately here. I agree. Let's talk about the substance for a minute.
Corey
7:45
It is a big deal to lose your chief of staff anytime. The chief of staff is an incredibly important role. There is a ramp up to these things.
Corey
7:53
And if you don't believe that, just look at kind of the gap and the hiccup they had in communications when Katie Merrifield left and Brock Harrison came in. And I think part of the reason there was such a bad press conference on January 1st, no slight to Brock here, is it's really tough to tell the new boss you're out of your goddamn mind. So if the new boss wants to do something and you're in the job for all of three weeks, maybe you can't really feel like you've got the ability to talk about it. So there's a bit of a ramp up whenever you've got a senior staff person like that who is jumping into a new role.
Corey
8:24
And as mentioned, Katie Merrifield, Executive Director of Communications and Planning, recently left. Howard Anglin, recently left. Jamie Huckabee recently left. That's three very serious hitters in the Premier's office that have been replaced in the past couple of weeks here, or have left, I guess is a better way to put it. You know, Jamie didn't really get the choice, but that's going to really affect operations for quite some time. So I think people are saying not enough.
Corey
8:51
Fair enough. And you can have that argument. And this is a pretty serious thing. So I get it. But it's a big deal. You know, this is an important role that you've just let go. Allard, actually, I think is a lot more digestible. You've got to keep in mind, she hasn't been in the role very long, Minister of Municipal Affairs. Ministers get shuffled. The system actually digests that a little bit better. Because there's very formal department onboardings that happen with ministers. There's continuity of government plans that are much more established for ministers of the crown. Now, when you get into the parliamentary secretaries and the committee placements, it doesn't actually mean very much at all. But it's a pretty clear signal that, you
Corey
9:29
know, you're not going to make it to cabinet. Like, you've got to be clear here.
Corey
9:34
desire of anybody who's not in cabinet is to be in cabinet. And the desire of anyone in cabinet is to stay in cabinet and maybe someday become the premier. Maybe. Not everybody wants that particular burden. but um the uh the notion that you are moving backwards and unlikely to find your way back to the table or to the table in the first place is going to be that's going to hurt for a lot of those mlas there's no doubt about that carter
Zain
9:58
carter on the substance were you surprised on
Carter
10:01
on the substance i mean yeah i mean i think first
Carter
10:04
first of all i mean i can't i'm not going to be as successful as separating the substance in this and the style kind of you know we just did this press conference We just did this on the 1st, and now the action that everybody demanded on the 1st is now being implemented on the 4th.
Carter
10:24
It's surprising to me that you go forward on the 1st, and you do something on the 1st, and you say that you're not open to this type of action, and then you
Carter
10:34
you bring it in on the 4th. You're going to suffer this pain.
Carter
10:38
You may as well suffer it up front. It just brings
Carter
10:41
brings back what Corey had said, you know, in our last podcast about the stupidity of doing this particular action. And I just I've been looking because obviously I
Carter
10:53
I have a little bit of experience having gotten quit as a chief of staff in 2012. Best
Corey
11:00
Best man in the province to talk about.
Zain
11:01
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Zain
11:04
yeah. And describe to us the difference. I think I know it, but perhaps talk to us the difference between the phrasing that we have for the minister, accepted her resignation, and the phrasing that you have for the chief of staff, ask my chief of staff to step down, which he has done. Yeah,
Carter
11:21
think the reality is that, you know, he needed to show leadership. And I mean, I would imagine that he asked Allard for her resignation as well. But chiefs
Carter
11:34
chiefs of staff are, you know, the office of the premier isn't just the premier. The office of the premier is the office of the premier. And everybody that's in that office speaks with the single voice of the premier. year. And in today's parliamentary democracies, those offices are extremely powerful. So when you lose or you fire a chief of staff, frankly, you tend to lose the next election. If you're firing a chief of staff, I mean, if you think back of Nigel Wright, when he was fired by Stephen Harper, they lost the next election. Rob Ford fired his chief of staff and died. And Alison Redford fired me and didn't it wasn't able to continue on part of that is the premier's office is the election hub it is the governance hub it is everything and if you start throwing your chief of staff away especially in light of losing your principal communicator and your primary the the the secretary what's i can't remember the role that howard had yeah
Corey
12:34
yeah i think normally it's principal secretary i think howard was principal advisor but the same basic function I
Carter
12:39
I mean, these these roles, there are only X number of people. We're even watching. We've criticized Prime Minister Trudeau for not being able to replace Jerry Butts because Jerry has a special relationship with the prime minister. He is someone who can say to him, have you lost your fucking mind? Right. You know how many people can say to the prime minister of Canada, have you lost your fucking mind and be heard? I mean, any of us idiots can say, have you lost your fucking mind? he's never going to hear it but when gerald butts says it or when katie telford says it katie telford says to the prime minister you've lost your fucking mind he hears it and he stops his actions because that's the relationship that a chief of staff needs to have this next person just saw the guy in front of him get fired he's
Carter
13:22
he's not going to stand up for what's right anymore because he doesn't want to get fired right
Carter
13:26
right it is so hard to find people that will fit into this role so very very hard the
Corey
13:32
the other yeah the other thing with that is steven that once you've drawn blood on a chief of staff like there's there's no one else to offer up right it's an extension of the sit down and write two letters you get that particular play once but if you find yourself having to fire another chief of staff for another comparable situation the call is going to be for your termination as premier not your chief of staff so like this is like make no mistake like Like, Jason Kenney is now more exposed than
Corey
13:58
than I would have even thought possible a short 24 hours ago, just how quickly this wound out here. And this
Corey
14:04
this is not behind him either. If another shoe drops on this particular matter, I have to assume that there's the political canny around him and with him personally that there's not. Like, I feel like he must have canvassed this somewhat. However, I think another shoe could just be what he knows and when. And if that can be proven that he knew these things before, perhaps that's the one. But there's no one else. There's no one but him now. Okay,
Zain
14:27
Okay, I want to hold on one second, Carter. I want to talk about the
Zain
14:30
the medium as well in terms of, you know, the media in a second. But Corey, you bring up a really interesting point here, which is Kenny's future. And I wanted to discuss this a little bit later, but you mentioned it right now. Does the fact that the blast zone of this particular crisis expand across the country perhaps shelter him from the fact that this is not an Alberta-specific isolated incident? He's not the only, quote unquote, leader facing it. Does that perhaps shelter him in a certain way? Or does that perhaps catalyze his demise and his exposure as you see it right now for his leadership? So
Corey
15:05
So that's a really interesting question, Zanon. I hadn't thought about it, but the reality is if everybody's in the same boat, that does offer a certain amount of protection. Part of why I think Jason Kenney was in such a challenging position yesterday is he had staked out a much more moderate position towards dealing – well, moderate. He didn't do anything. And that was what Albertans were reacting to here. So, so perhaps, perhaps this is one of those things where it's just going to be a pox on all of their houses and nobody's going to want to drop a leader over it. And I don't want to sound histrionic.
Corey
15:35
histrionic. I don't want to sound hyperbolic. I don't believe Jason Kenney is about to lose his job. If Stephen predicts that it's safe, maybe I'll feel that way. But as it stands, I
Corey
15:45
I think that he's probably going to ride this one out. But, you
Corey
15:50
you know, the stakes are higher than they have been. I mean, this is a pretty dramatic move to drop your chief of staff.
Zain
15:58
Carter, talk to me about Kenny's exposure before I go back to our track and talk about medium and message. Sure.
Carter
16:05
Sure. I mean, everybody's got some exposure. Everybody's got someone who had to be fired. Some one, right, or two
Carter
16:11
two in the case of the Trudeau government. I mean, you're seeing, you know, really small numbers compared to Alberta. Alberta has three times as many people that needed to be punished. And the level of staff that needed to be punished is higher. fire um this is uh this is a big deal because not because of uh it is a big deal in part because of the numbers of people and number two the the levels or the status of the people that had to be fired very few people are talking about the chief of staff uh you know the the twitterverse is very focused on the minister and the elected mlas um that's interesting but you know rob
Carter
16:52
rob or Doug Ford didn't lose his chief of staff. Justin Trudeau didn't lose his chief of staff. Scott Moe didn't lose his chief of staff. This is a different political problem here because of the level of the people that have been impacted. So I think that this will carry forward. Also, it
Carter
17:10
it fits to type.
Carter
17:12
The problem isn't one issue. And I talked about this at an interview on QR77 today. day um the problem is when these types of things start to connect and start to redefine the brand and this becomes the brand then you're in real trouble and i think that kenny has had a string of things you know it's been a bad couple of months for him and now all of a sudden this is starting to redefine the brand so i think that this he doesn't get the cover that you're suggesting um quite
Carter
17:41
quite as heavily as he would have had it been just for example one minister and a couple mlas This is going deeper than that, and it's going to last for a while.
Zain
17:52
Corey, let's talk about the medium and the message. What did you make of it? No press conference, social media post on Facebook originally, to your guys' point, then finding its way on the Premier's official Twitter account. What did you make of both the type, the way the message was phrased, and also the choice of social media over anything else? else
Corey
18:11
yeah well the the difference between the the so you know the approach on last friday when it was a news conference with nothing to say and a facebook post with a lot to say it was pretty striking and uh there's a couple of schools of thought here one is almost the the drinkers school of thought you know if if you've been a drinker uh in now or in the past and you've drank too much uh you know that sometimes when you've got that hangover the next day your first reaction is i'm never going to drink again and you over correct right you uh you um you take like the strong reaction to it and perhaps the premier said i i'm not putting myself up to that again that was just brutal and did the thing that would have been appropriate for friday like a social media post on friday would have made a little bit more sense i think sure but the reality is i i think it
Corey
18:59
it was probably the smart move to do it by social media because there's a question he he fears and there's a question he does not have a good answer to and it is what did the premier know and when did he know it watergate terminology
Corey
19:11
it just strains credulity that you would not know your chief of staff is out of the country that your ministers are are roaming about when you've gotten memos saying hey i'm disappearing for 21 days don't worry about it um you know it's um it's
Corey
19:26
it's it's the kind of thing that i think if he had even one kind of like serve and volley interaction with the media it would just fall to pieces you know i i think um i think he knows that and i think that that's part of why he wants to put a little bit of distance between the event and the media on it ire
Corey
19:43
ire of the public will be a little bit lower hopefully if you you know if you're jason kenney you're thinking this and um and
Corey
19:49
and it just gives you more opportunity to get your story straight and frankly know where the weaknesses in your story are because if another shoe drops between now and then you incorporate it into your story but if you're having to constantly revise you
Corey
20:00
don't have a chief of staff anymore my man you fired him there's
Corey
20:03
there's only one head left uh in the premier's office that would satisfy at that point and i'm not saying that it would be offered up but it might be half chopped off you might see him walking around a little crooked uh
Corey
20:12
uh so i you know the reality is this
Corey
20:16
this was probably this was probably the only move right
Corey
20:19
right uh it may look a bit cowardly uh people rightly online said what the f man you held a news conference on friday and nothing today but um but
Corey
20:28
but you know that's just chatter it could have been so devastating for him to hold a press conference today carter
Zain
20:33
carter was this the right medium and message from what you saw i'm
Carter
20:37
i'm going to read to you a quote from a better political mind than mine you
Carter
20:41
you think so this is uh from october 6 2017 you think issuing a written statement is Is the equivalent of speaking publicly remarkable?
Carter
20:51
That comes from Jason Kenney.
Carter
20:53
He wrote that in response to a notly statement.
Carter
20:59
The truth is that you, you know, Corey's right. You put forward a statement because it's safer. But you also put forward a statement because you're weak. You're at risk. He knows he's at risk. He put forward the statement. He pulled back the medical officer of health. you know, she wasn't, Dr. Hinshaw wasn't allowed to speak today. Um,
Carter
21:20
Um, we'll see who's allowed to speak tomorrow. Uh,
Carter
21:22
Uh, cause right now, I
Carter
21:24
I mean, if this was the normal world, we wouldn't be seeing them for seven days, right?
Carter
21:27
right? Like they're not going to show up there. They're gone. They don't exist for a while. They're, they're important meetings. They, they have work to be done. Uh, but this is a world where you need to speak to us every, every day about COVID numbers. Um, so, and COVID restrictions, and we're going to be coming up very quickly on our, uh, at the, on the end of the period of COVID restrictions where we're supposed to be re-evaluating and deciding what kind of restrictions are going to be going forward. And he's completely eviscerated himself. So dying to see what happens
Carter
21:58
happens tomorrow and what happens on Wednesday.
Zain
22:01
Corey, let's talk about that. The bleeding, does it stop? Does it slow? Is this more than a Band-Aid or is this a pretty weak Band-Aid in your mind? What do you think? I
Corey
22:12
I think it will never be enough for some people online, line uh whether it's enough for albertans as as a whole tbd uh but this was this was a pretty strong action and my suspicion is it will sustain it will be enough to get him through the moment he will be damaged this this is not damage that's just going to go away this is it's not a broken bone that you reset this is hey you lost your left arm right and that's you know a pretty apt metaphor for your chief of staff here the reality is it is probably fine if no other shoe drops I think the risk of another shoe dropping is spectacularly high. I think the risk of there being some sort of memo, some sort of caucus member who is a bit cynical and perhaps didn't – perhaps even had a conversation with someone in the premier's orbit or the whip or something like that who says, no, we were basically told if you do it, be quiet or something like that. The risk of some conversation like that happening is, in my opinion, quite high because, in my opinion, it's impossible that the premier did not know that these people were leaving, right?
Corey
23:14
right? That strains credulity, as I've said many times, well
Corey
23:18
well beyond kind of a normal kind of cocking of the eyebrow. This is not possible if he does not know what time zone his chief of staff is in.
Corey
23:26
What's that chime in the background, Jamie? Oh, that's just the bells of Oxford College. What are the odds of this? It's just – it's not possible in the age of Zoom, in the age of cell phones. When he calls the guy – OK, how about this? When he literally calls the guy, you're going to get that British ringtone of bing, bing.
Corey
23:44
It doesn't fucking make sense that you don't know that this guy is in a different country. So that's
Corey
23:50
that's why I think the risk of another shoe dropping is very high. But if one does not, he's probably survived the day.
Zain
23:56
Carter, what do you think? What do you think from what you know right now, does
Zain
23:59
does this action today stop the bleeding for Kenny? Yeah.
Carter
24:03
And I don't think I think that I mean, the idea that he took the pain today, you know, without understanding exactly where each one of his MLAs was and exactly how deep this could cut. They've done their research. They had the phone around. They made sure the whip's office, I'm sure, was super busy over the weekend. They knew where everybody was and the shoes that could drop or, you know, memos and those types of things. The paperwork. I mean, we saw a letter today from Tracy Allard to the chief of staff telling, you know, saying that Rick McIver was going to cover off the ministry for her. He'd very kindly offered. I mean, it didn't say where she was going to go.
Carter
24:45
So I think that they're probably going to be OK. I think that this is going to die down. The anger won't go away. The disappointment in the brand exposure. But the specifics of this, it's it's it's done what it could have done.
Carter
24:59
There isn't another minister, there isn't another high-profile person that makes this thing go.
Zain
25:04
I want to talk about that next chapter in a second, but before I jump there, anything you guys would have done differently from what you saw with the Premier today? Substance, message, medium?
Zain
25:13
Corey, I'll go to you first if you've got any thoughts.
Corey
25:15
Well, absent a time machine, I actually can't fault him too, too much. I do think that where his big error
Corey
25:22
error in drafting was, was not taking more responsibility. responsibility i i think
Corey
25:27
even today using yeah literally you know he said hey i took responsibility on friday and then i heard you and i decided to do something you
Corey
25:34
you know you know there there's been a lot of wags online who have given pretty good synopsis of how how kind of silly that sounds when you sort of swap it out and say this is this is what it means in other situations so i'll let you do some light twitter searching there but um he
Corey
25:49
he didn't say i'm sorry like like Like the idea that he said, I did these things and then I heard you and it's like, well, you want me to do more. So I'm going to do more. Like there was this kind of disassociative paragraph that kind of separated him from it. And I think he needed to more clearly say, I
Corey
26:06
didn't handle this properly on Friday. That's what I think was missing from this statement.
Zain
26:11
Carter, what did you
Zain
26:11
see missing, if anything?
Carter
26:13
Well, let me play this out. I'm not even sure this is a good idea. Corey is going to let me know right away. Let's go down your
Zain
26:17
your journey. Go ahead. head um
Carter
26:19
um it would have been really interesting to see each of the mlas and the minister and the chief of staff tweet out their own resignation and their own actions and their own uh their own consequence um after meeting with the premier i've decided to relinquish all of my committee roles after meeting with the premier i've decided to step down as the minister of municipal affairs after
Carter
26:41
after meeting with the premier i've decided to step down and step away from the chief of staff roll. And then at seven o'clock tonight, Jason
Carter
26:49
Jason Kenney puts out a statement or a Facebook
Carter
26:52
Facebook live, which he's comfortable with, because he can control the questions and those types of things. And he says, yeah,
Carter
26:59
yeah, I did my job today.
Carter
27:01
I did my job today. I met with the people who did what they did. I had a conversation with them. And we decided that the best course of action for them was to do the things that they've articulated in their letters. I've also met with the remaining 62 members of my caucus. And I've been told that
Carter
27:15
that none of them are going to put themselves in this situation. And none of them have put themselves in this situation. We
Carter
27:20
We are clear moving forward.
Carter
27:22
I showed you clear leadership and kind of carry forward. I would have liked to seen that because I think it would have had, it
Carter
27:28
it would have, it would have removed a little bit of the, the pain from
Carter
27:32
from the premier and put him more in a hero role.
Zain
27:36
Interesting. So rather than him having to deliver the news, the upside was that others do it almost by way of his strong leadership so to speak every
Carter
27:45
every single tweet every single statement begins with after meeting with the premier i
Carter
27:49
i have you want to react
Corey
27:52
uh part of me doesn't hate it part of me really does like that it makes it look like jason kenney's a tough guy who just set up calls one after the other uh
Corey
28:01
uh and for my second godfather reference of the night you know handed him the razor blade in the bathtub yeah
Corey
28:08
but uh part of me thinks what
Corey
28:11
what the fuck you're just gonna like drag on that media cycle all day it's like wondering who's next it
Carter
28:16
it was all day it
Carter
28:18
it was all day and then you still don't have yao right so no but you yeah you know who cares about yao i mean half of the freaking internet is calling him tony yao anyways they don't even know his freaking name by the way i apologize yeah yeah
Carter
28:30
so who cares about yao no one cares The point of the exercise is to emerge as strong as possible if you're the premier. And he did not emerge as
Carter
28:41
as strong as possible. I mean, one could argue that there is no emerging from this strong. But you have to think about the tactics that you're about to use. The tactics can be varied in order to get the right outcome. You want the
Carter
28:56
the media cycle to flow the way you want it to flow. And if the 6 o'clock news leads with five people resigning and you're not in that conversation, I don't know if that's a bad thing.
Zain
29:08
Corey, question for you. What's the most potent attack left on the table against Kenny? Is it the fact that he knew? Like, is that what you'd be hammering right now, that you lied, you're a liar, you haven't taken responsibility, you knew the whole time? Or is there a different angle that you feel like is the most potent after today's actions?
Corey
29:25
Well, I think a variant of that. it's it's uh that he's going to make other people take the fall for his failings and yes they screwed up too but they obviously had the premier's at least tacit blessing uh and what does that tell you about his character alberta um you
Corey
29:40
you can tie it into a longer line of of uh of actions along this you know there's probably some sort of quip somewhere about you know you
Corey
29:49
you know he's remember Remember that Jason Kenney was
Corey
29:52
was out of the province, out of the country when the election commissioner was abolished
Corey
29:58
abolished essentially by the legislature when that legislation was brought in.
Corey
30:04
So it kind of speaks to this almost – Cowardly
Corey
30:08
Cowardly is too strong, but obviously he's just – he'll do what he needs to survive. He will duck the hard questions. He is not the man you need for a moment like COVID. That is an argument you can put together. I think there's enough pieces on the table. I couldn't tell you what that argument is right now, but that's what the official opposition gets their money for. And they can figure that out. But yeah,
Corey
30:31
yeah, I mean, at this point, it's also, there
Corey
30:35
there are no human shields. So the longer, the bigger you make this, the damage you sustain on him becomes the damage of the premier. You do need to keep your eye on public opinion. You need to know when the keg is dry on this story, right? If Albertans have sort of moved on, Don't lose focus on all of the other things going on, like vaccines, if Albertans generally say, okay, well, we feel the story is concluded. But I don't know. It's unclear to me whether this is concluded. I definitely think people are still angry. I just don't know if there's
Corey
31:05
there's too much more to be gotten at this point, because you're not going to get the premier to resign. on carter
Zain
31:10
carter are you surprised by how um how
Zain
31:12
how much vitriol there is from a lot of conservatives even after today um saying that he lied he got caught what's going on like what is your spidey sense or what what's what are you hearing is this like a byproduct of fracturing is this a is this some of the early leadership sort of hauntings coming back to uh the four and now kind of feeling like there's life and value to their voice what are you kind of sensing thing, because I personally was kind of surprised as to how some of the most strident conservatives are some of the most vocal people on this file, even after Kenny's actions today.
Carter
31:48
Well, keep in mind that the UCP is not a rebranded PC party.
Carter
31:52
The UCP is a rebranded Wild Rose Party. The key people in it come from that side of the conservative divide. And they hated
Carter
32:03
hated the conservative, you know, the progressive conservatives. They hated the the corruption. They hated the entitlement. They hated having to go cap in hand to try and get government to do what government was supposed to do. They hated the largesse. They hated how much money we spent. They hated so much about the progressive conservative governments that they wouldn't be a part of the progressive conservative governments. And then to see the new party, the party that has been constructed to take over and to actually govern, fall into the exact same same trap that's why the conservatives are angry the
Carter
32:34
the conservatives are angry because they feel like they've been hoodwinked and they were told that they were recreating the wild rose into a new in a more believable and more saleable product and what they actually did was recreate the pcs and that fundamentally pisses off conservatives because the pcs weren't conservatives the pcs were for all intents and purposes liberals right
Zain
32:57
right cory same question to you are you surprised by how angry certain conservatives are even even after today's action with kenny well
Corey
33:04
well there's angry conservatives that were not angry previously that's a dangerous situation for the premier to be in because it's those first cracks that are the hardest and all of a sudden the water can start flooding out of the dam right the pressure can build up behind all of a sudden a guy like drew barnes looks less like a man on his own and more like a man on a mission and and that can can create a lot of pressure within the caucus. But I do want to say, take
Corey
33:27
take it with a bit of salt, right? There are angry conservatives, but here's
Corey
33:33
here's a little social media axiom
Corey
33:35
axiom for you here, right? A4,
Corey
33:39
APA states are always amplified, right? The people who speak against their own party are always going to be amplified by the other side very, very loudly. It's the Lincoln Project thing, right?
Corey
33:48
Do they actually have resonance with the conservatives that they are arguably trying to talk to, that's less clear. And you got to know that people love to see a defector, love to see a defector. And because of the nature of social media and the way that content that comes, you know, that you want to share gets shared, and then it goes to more people and spreads and spreads and spreads, you can convince yourself that there's a bigger thing going on on the other side than one person jumping over the wall. And this could just be a couple of people jumping over the wall.
Zain
34:18
So let's let's expand out back to the federal scene or back to a more federal conversation about this. We talked about the blast radius of this particular scandal reaching every part of the country. We are now seeing, and I don't even know where I'm going with this question other than to say, what
Zain
34:33
what is the ceiling on fatigue, Carter? Because this kind of reminds me in a slightly odd parallel as to some of my time with the Notley campaign last election, where the war room was just such an unbelievably potent part of the campaign that they came out with Bozer eruption on day one, Kenny had to take action. Bozer eruption on day two, he had to take action. Day three, take action. Day 19, he's like, fuck it, I don't give a shit. People were fatigued out. And I know that's a weird parallel to draw, but is there a fatigue ceiling here to something like this when the ninth, you know, parliamentary secretary in Manitoba comes out as something, you know, that they went overseas? Is it going to matter as much as what happened yesterday or the day before or the day before that? every
Carter
35:18
single time we talk about an issue uh on this podcast or on you the people the truth is we're going to be driving past that issue and moving into something else um by the next podcast most people you know i was reminded of the we charity debacle uh today on on 770 and it was it's kind of ridiculous i mean where's the we um charity debacle does anybody even remember does anybody care is it going to guide people when they vote uh in you know the fall of 2021 uh for the next federal government? Probably not. Is this going to stick? No, this doesn't stick. This one specific detail doesn't stick and it doesn't carry forward. What changes is, does this change the brand perception? Does this change the relationship with my brand? So if you think of this as simply a consumer transaction, a bunch of people had really bad pizza.
Carter
36:11
Will they still buy pizza? Probably, right? They may change brands. They may change where they're getting their pizza, but they still eat pizza. And they're still going to vote. You know, Albertans are still going to vote conservative unless the brand becomes so toxic that they can't anymore. And
Carter
36:28
And the story that I'm starting to see is that people are moving away from the brand for good. They're no longer eating pizza. And that and that is a that's the the challenge that all of these things have together is that when it happens once, it's OK. Maybe twice You can rationalize it away. But when it really starts to redefine the brand, people move away and stay away. And I think that that's what Kenny has to start worrying about now.
Zain
36:55
Corey, more nationally, same question to you. Is there a ceiling on fatigue here?
Corey
37:00
Yeah, I believe so. I think every issue has that challenge fundamentally, which is the more you talk about it, the less of a big deal it seems. Exhibit A, Donald Trump. Oh,
Corey
37:10
I dropped somebody from 2014 into the current discourse in the United States. I hope that somebody is lost in a jungle or at an Antarctic research station or was launched by the Russians and hasn't come down and can share with us what that experience is like because we
Corey
37:30
we are all frogs in boiling water when it comes to these matters. The human mind is a phenom. We calibrate to new normals so, so quickly. You know, we can have, you
Corey
37:42
you know, the greatest bliss ever from having a million dollars and be bored with a million dollars, you know, three months later. And
Corey
37:48
And these issues are the exact same way. They stop having any kind of resonance with us. We react to novelty, and there's not going to be as much novelty going forward.
Zain
37:58
Is there a lesson here around overreaction then for certain politicians? politicians. Kenny issued a bloodbath today amongst mounting pressure. But is there perhaps something to say to someone who has to let go of a minister or a parliamentary secretary around perhaps trying to be the one that bucks the trend again, similar to what Kenny did to try to set a new template as to what's acceptable? Do you kind of see that territory emerging in this particular discourse, Carter? I
Carter
38:28
don't think so. I mean, it's hard to project it forward anymore. I think, You
Carter
38:33
You know, Corey and I have a little bit different view of how this is, you know, is this the end? I think this is the end. I think that carrying this forward and making hay of this is going to be really tricky. So I think that this is the ballgame for the next couple of weeks anyways. Corey, go ahead. Tell me how wrong I am. No, I'm just waiting for
Corey
38:55
for Jason Kenney to resign tomorrow.
Carter
38:57
Oh, yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah. Fantastic. You're welcome if that happens, everybody. You're welcome. My prediction made it so.
Zain
39:03
Carter, this is an emergency podcast. We're not going to go our normal length. I want to give both of you just a chance to round it out before I move to one final question. Anything you're looking at from the national level, from our provincial level, like the next thing you have yourself keenly focused on, what are you looking at? I
Carter
39:20
I think this is just all really good news for Trudeau. I mean, yes, he lost a couple of parliamentary secretaries, but this seems to be being born the same as the COVID problem, primarily by conservative premiers. And that just makes him happy every single day. I also wanted to say that, you know, the metrics of this, it still has to, we have to keep in mind that all of this is existing in a COVID world. So tying it together with COVID to me is important. And, you know, we had over 100 deaths again, or 96 deaths in four days, or the four or five days of Aloha Gate, as it were. were another few thousand people diagnosed with COVID and watching what's happening with this new strain in the UK. I'll tell you something, if we get the UK strain, it will not matter whether or not Jamie Huckabee came down with the disease. There's your poster boy for the UK strain coming to Alberta and that will have lasting impact.
Corey
40:24
Corey, what are you looking at?
Corey
40:26
Well, these are not one-offs at this point. There's too many of them for you to call this one-off, right? It's systemic. And that means the system needs to be changed. And the challenge for governments always is when
Corey
40:38
when you have a situation like this where the public broadly says there is something foundationally wrong, how are we going to stop these fucks from acting this way, is you change it or people are going to change it for you. You're already seeing this with opposition statements in places like Nova Scotia, raising the stakes, saying this is what the consequences of such an action should be. So oppositions are going to call for system-wide changes. Some of them could be very strident. Some of them could be perhaps even regrettable with hindsight because there won't be an awful lot of gray in them. They'll be all black and white. What are you going to do as a government to shut these holes, to make sure that there's not comparable problems going forward? Solving that problem is one of self-preservation. It's not just, you know, batting away the opposition in the current moment. It's if this happens again or a variant of it happens again, it doesn't need to be the same thing. It doesn't even need to be COVID.
Corey
41:28
You've got to say that you did something to resolve this, which even then will be pretty weak tea for people. But this
Corey
41:34
this isn't over. Like, there's a system problem here, and people are going to start calling for broader changes.
Zain
41:40
On that note, we will make a hard pivot and
Zain
41:43
and go to you, Stephen, for one final question. We like to offer redos on this podcast. So Stephen Carter, from yesterday's episode, over, under, on one, the amount of Senate seats the Democrats will win in Georgia tomorrow night. I am giving you a redo just to remind the listening audience, you said over. Corey, I don't need your answer for this. I
Zain
42:08
you don't get a redo I have fucking rules Stephen Carter over under on one the amount of Senate seats the Democrats win tomorrow night to you sir it'll
Carter
42:18
it'll be under it'll be zero because that way I'm going to be right with one of them
Carter
42:26
oh I've confounded the whole system now
Corey
42:30
Stephen's right again it'll
Corey
42:32
it'll be under if
Corey
42:33
if the Democrats won't win too the republicans are going to lose too whoa
Zain
42:40
king of semantics there he is that's a wrap on the emergency episode of emergency fuck i'm gonna do that again that's right this
Zain
42:48
is not how we do the podcast you
Carter
42:50
you have to do it man come
Carter
42:52
keep going keep going you know what you know what we're watching yeah let's keep this in let's keep this in no we're gonna keep it in because we don't like to edit because we're lazy go
Zain
43:01
now i'm just like myself out that's
Zain
43:05
that okay you want to help yeah carter you do it no i don't know bye everyone