Transcript
Zain
0:02
This is The Strategist, episode 934. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, happy Thursday. What's going on?
Corey
0:11
Absolutely nothing. It's a very dull day in politics. Been a very dull week in politics. Nothing going on in Ontario, nothing going on in Alberta, nothing going on federally, nothing going on in the United States, nothing going on internationally here. um i
Corey
0:25
i think maybe this is the episode we finally give over to talking about the governor general and all of your other dumb fetishes what do you think no
Zain
0:31
no they're not my dumb fetishes they're stephen carter's dumb fetishes carter what do you think well
Carter
0:35
well i mean there's an arby's down in southport that i think we should talk about actually
Zain
0:40
actually i'm very curious is there now is there actually an
Corey
0:42
an arby's down in southport because
Zain
0:43
because that alone that fact alone that the fact that there isn't arby's there is a miracle because
Carter
0:48
because i made that up it is a story that is made up for the The comic value. Why do you tease us like that?
Zain
0:56
What do they need?
Corey
0:56
need? What do they need?
Zain
0:57
need? They got a curly fry
Carter
0:58
fry issue. They need us down there immediately. They
Zain
1:00
They got a sidewalk. They got a signage issue. They got an airspace zoning issue. Are they expanding to a second floor? Do
Zain
1:07
Do they need several floors at this Arby's? I would imagine there's very few Arby's
Carter
1:12
Arby's around. Very few Arby's.
Zain
1:13
Listen, Corey, I got your hint, which was speed it up, Velji. There's a lot to talk about. So let's move it on to the headlines. No fat in this episode. No, we're just going straight to the headlines. And it brings me to my first headline from The Washington Post. This is, of course, a ongoing conversation that Stephen Carter and I have. Stephen Carter, Washington announces cannabis giveaway and state approved joint for jabs vaccine campaign. pain. We have gone from beer to de Blasio-style pizza to burgers to guns. We are now at weed.
Zain
1:50
In the latest bounty ever-expanding list of incentives popping up across the United States, Joints for Jabs is launching in Washington to give people, well,
Zain
1:59
jabs, and give them joints at a local dispensary. Stephen Carter, I always ask you, Is this a good program, A, and B, should we be adopting this program here in Alberta?
Carter
2:10
This is a great program. Anything you can do to incent the additional vaccinations is something you should be doing. I'm sure that it appeals to certain subsets
Carter
2:19
subsets of the population that are perhaps more vaccine hesitant. Personally, I am going to hold out for the sex for jabs, because I believe that is the last vice left. So that's probably coming in no time. Maybe that's what Jason Kenney's cooking up for Alberta in some sort of Hail Mary attempt to win back voters here in Alberta. That's what I'm holding out for. I'm not going to book my second vaccination until that's brought forward. Well,
Zain
2:45
Well, thank you. Corey, do you want to make a Hail Mary attempt to win back our listeners after that answer by Stephen Carter?
Zain
2:54
And by the way, where are we in Alberta? You know this. We were discussing this earlier today in terms of our vaccination rates, roughly, for first dose. is 68 we're
Carter
3:04
we're close okay yeah but it's dropped dramatically it's yeah we're we're
Corey
3:08
we're having trouble getting those first doses at this point uh
Corey
3:10
joints for jabs cory i
Corey
3:12
i i feel like we've done this have we not done this i feel like joints we
Zain
3:16
haven't done so we've done guns we've
Corey
3:17
we've done beer we've done pizza we've done lotteries we haven't done joints well there we go they're all sort of together here um i don't know i i don't think it's uh it's any different than any other ones ones if it works awesome i mean it's uh it's illegal under federal law in the united states but why the hell not let's uh let's let her rip uh i don't think it's working though i think i saw a headline just the other day saying like it it wasn't really it was falling flat people weren't doing that yeah yeah
Zain
3:44
couldn't get off the couch carter
Zain
3:44
carter for cory these are these are blending in next thing we know he's going to call mcdonald's and burger king the same thing and i and i think this is he's just he's just like treading on on i
Carter
3:55
i don't know that cory knows what what we're going to get in Alberta. Did you hear about the 50-50-50-50 lottery that's coming for Alberta?
Carter
4:02
this a joke? No, this is not a joke. Is this like a bad joke? This is what Kenny announced today as his potential lottery. He isn't going to do it, but this is what he actually talked about for his lottery. It's going to be 50-50. So 50% of the funds that are raised will go, and then to the individual, 50 prizes will be handed out, and 50% of the funds will go to charities.
Zain
4:26
So say that again. 50-50. So
Zain
4:29
So split the money. 50 prizes?
Zain
4:31
prizes? What is that
Carter
4:32
that just like? 50 prizes. 50 winners. And then 50 charities.
Zain
4:38
where does the $1.3 billion go?
Zain
4:43
That's what you call a joke, Corey. Oh,
Zain
4:45
that's good. Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. No, thank you, Carter, for that enlightening information. Let's move it on to our next headline. Our next headline, baby name Karen takes nosedive in 2020, lowest ranking since the 1920s. That's right. The name Karen will be asking for the manager after data reveals that the name plummeted in popularity in 2020. It's lowest ranking since 1927. Corey, does this surprise you at all? And should we be reviving the Karen name?
Corey
5:15
mean it obviously doesn't surprise me that it's become almost like a a slur that you throw at people okay karen right and so it doesn't seem like it's an obvious pick to um to to call your baby but it'll have a comeback you wait these things come back uh what's the female karen
Zain
5:32
karen is it carter i'm
Zain
5:34
i'm pretty sure it's carter that's
Zain
5:36
i'm asking it was a question car no
Zain
5:41
It's not Chad. Chad
Zain
5:42
bros. Yeah, no, absolutely not.
Corey
5:44
Chad is like a bro that incels don't like very much. Oh,
Carter
5:48
Oh, why do I keep getting called Chad?
Corey
5:52
No, no. You don't, buddy. Yeah,
Carter
5:55
subtly wear. I'm trying to elevate myself to bro status. How pathetic was that? Suddenly try to wear a badge of
Carter
6:00
That feels even more pathetic than I thought it was going to be when I started the joke. Stephen
Zain
6:03
Stephen Carter. Oh. Joke is a loose trip. Bit.
Carter
6:07
Bit. We'll go with bit. Yeah, a bit's
Zain
6:08
bit's fine. Karen, plummeting, 1920s, thoughts?
Carter
6:13
I haven't thought very much about Karens for a long time.
Zain
6:16
Let's move it on to our next headline. Our next headline comes to us from NBC. U.S. congressman suggests altering moon's orbit to combat climate change. That is correct. Representative Louie Gohmert, as you may have seen him in the past as an ardent Trump defender, on Tuesday asked representatives from the U.S. Forest Service If it was possible to alter the orbit of the moon or the earth, either or, guys, whichever one you can do, as a way of combating climate change, though it was unclear if he was actually being serious. Gomer was speaking with Jennifer Ebelrin, Associate Deputy Chief of the National Forest System, during a National Human Resources Committee hearing. Stephen Carter, a novel idea. You are all for novel ideas. In fact, you'd waged your entire political strategy career on novel ideas. Too novel? Novel enough? enough uh not uh what do you think of uh mr uh louis gomert from texas let's
Carter
7:09
let's just say that i think we got into this situation by creating an unintended consequence we started burning gasoline put it into engines the engines went around everything went well and uh we wound up heating up the earth i can't imagine the unintended consequences of altering the moon's orbit um that That would be relatively tragic, I would think. So this is a stupid idea brought forward. I mean, how much energy would that take, Corey? Well,
Corey
7:37
the moon weighs 74 million, million, million tons.
Corey
7:41
And so a lot, a lot of energy, to answer your question. We could do some calculations on it there. The atmosphere itself only weighs 5.5 quadrillion tons. So you could actually, for much less energy, just suck out all of the air, replace it with new air and call it a
Zain
7:58
wow someone's clearly interviewing for a job at the national forest service thanks no that's
Zain
8:06
that's uh that's that's great really really appreciate that uh high level analysis um carter i like that you jumped into that answer as if it was just possible you're like this is not a good idea like think about the unintended consequences
Zain
8:20
of altering the mood's trajectory giving very little thought to if it's even possible which is by the way i have to say why i love you No.
Zain
8:28
Jump right into it. This
Carter
8:30
This guy is a sitting elected representative. He's not just pulling shit out of his ass. He's got stuff to back this up. This is real. And you guys dismissing it is why you guys are, like, wrong all the time.
Zain
8:45
Yes. That's a great point.
Zain
8:46
Yeah, no, agreed. Agreed. Our next headline comes to us from CNN. Actually, no, it does not come to us from CNN. It comes to us from The Hill. still, Jeffrey Toobin returns to CNN months after masturbating in front of colleagues during a Zoom call. Stephen Carter, is this the type of redemption that we wanted for Jeffrey Toobin?
Carter
9:04
Well, his debut on YouPorn was a little bit unimpressive.
Carter
9:10
I mean, I don't think that people who commit these sins should be banished for life. So I'm pleased that he's come back. um i'm i trust that he's learned his lesson um i i can't remember the name of the mp that needs to take some lessons from him but uh you know we'll we'll make sure that we don't show our junk on tv anymore guys like no more zoom calls with the junk out cory
Carter
9:32
cory i'm talking to you don't
Corey
9:34
don't change me man
Zain
9:37
don't think cory you want to add anything there unless you do i feel like don't change me man it's pretty much that's exactly
Carter
9:41
exactly what we needed yeah it's
Zain
9:43
it's being solidified in history let's move on on to our next headline. Our next headline comes to us from the Canadian press. Let's spend some time on this, guys. Ontario calls back legislators as government looks to invoke notwithstanding clause. That is right. Ontario legislators interrupted their summer break to kick off a marathon sitting Thursday as the government prepared to invoke the notwithstanding clause to restore parts of a law that restrict third party election advertising. A judge struck down sections of the law earlier this week, but the progressive conservative government said it would restore them through new legislation that includes the clause which allows legislators to override portions of the charter for five years. Corey, maybe I can start with you on this one. And maybe I can start with you with a broad definition of the notwithstanding clause, if it's okay to help our listeners understand, as this word and this clause has been thrown around quite a few times, especially in light of, you know, some of Quebec's legislative priorities over the past couple of years. But do you mind giving folks an understanding or just a one-on-one Coles notes on the notwithstanding clause, and then we'll jump into the politics here?
Corey
10:50
So the notwithstanding clause is one of these things within the Canadian Constitution that serves as a bit of a catch-all. So there's a couple of catch-alls in the Canadian Constitution. The first one is when we denote all of our freedoms, we say, you know, within limits, It's justifiable within a free society. More on that, because that's actually pretty important, too, to this story in a bit. And then there is Section 33, which is commonly known as the Notwithstanding Clause, also sometimes called the Override Clause. But what it does is it allows a parliament or a legislature to have an act that essentially overrides parts of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that provides basic freedoms to people. So either Section 2 or Section 7 to 15. It's not the whole constitution that can be overridden. It's just a certain delineation of rights that exists within components of it. And it's not really used a lot. I think that's the first thing people need to know. It's existed since the constitution was brought out in 82.
Corey
11:48
And it's been used by, well,
Corey
11:50
well, primarily Quebec. So Quebec used the notwithstanding clause on basically everything for years. There is, well, I think literally everything, and including going back and changing old legislation, as a bit of a protest against the Constitution in the 80s, I think until 86 or so, Carter. I'm looking at you, but I don't know why.
Carter
12:07
Yeah, that just feels wrong.
Corey
12:09
Yeah. It has been used in Alberta famously by Ralph Klein when he was opposing same-sex marriage. It was overridden by the courts in that sense because, as I mentioned, you can't override everything in the Constitution. And you can't say, I'm in charge of marriage now, because that definition was more of a federal power. And then it was used by Saskatchewan, I think. I can't remember the nature of the case. And it's been threatened to be used in Ontario. It's also been used in the Yukon. But generally speaking, it's not used. it's not used now uh a couple of years ago when toronto's um city council was reduced in size very rapidly doug ford threatened to use it when it looked like the courts were about to step in and say you can't do that but then on appeal the government won and so they didn't need to and uh at
Corey
13:03
at the time people were saying well this is kind of dangerous you're threatening to jump in just because you lost a court case this is now the
Corey
13:10
the real version of that or potentially the real version. We'll see if they actually go through with this in the way they've been talking about it. But having lost a court case that would have restricted the ability of... So there was a government law that would have restricted unions' ability to advertise before
Corey
13:27
before an election. Now, the law previously had been six months. You could advertise pretty freely up until the six months before an election. At that point, you were subject to limits. Alberta has a very similar What the
Corey
13:38
the Ford government did is they expanded it to 12 months.
Corey
13:41
And the court struck that down. Because I don't know how deep you want me to go into this. I suspect not this deep. But ultimately, the courts have determined since the 80s, when you're going to use kind of that first clause that you can limit fundamental freedoms within kind of, you know, a justifiable band, they apply what's called the Oaks test. they go through and they basically say there's four criteria but or more i don't i don't but there's four people talk about but the one that is is kind of germane here is if
Corey
14:11
if you are going to limit rights you have to limit them to the minimum amount necessary like you don't go any further and you don't just sort of arbitrarily increase things and the government had a hard time explaining why 12 months was needed because of a problem with six months and therefore the courts just said no you're out of here it struck down now maybe on appeal you'd
Corey
14:30
you'd have a different situation situation. But Doug Ford reacted to this by saying, well, we'll just use the notwithstanding clause then. And that's the situation we find ourselves in now.
Zain
14:40
Corey, thank you for that. And I'll come to you on your analysis for why this is a story. But Carter, maybe I'll start with that question for you, which is when, you know, and maybe I'll speak for myself. When I hear notwithstanding clause, I hear Ontario just, you know, and I hear this, it just eyes glaze over. Why is this a political story? Why is this a big deal that we should pay pay attention to well
Carter
15:00
because canadians are granted certain rights and freedoms in the charter of rights and freedoms and when we as individual provinces uh skirt around those um you know it erodes the freedoms for for all uh canadians and in this particular case um it may just seem like well it's just an election law it's not a big deal it's just it's just controlling uh the amount of spending except this is the second time that ontario has threatened to bring in the notwithstanding law around elections um it was the first was the the toronto election didn't bring it in because there was a stay granted by the by the courts but nonetheless the um the idea that the notwithstanding clause can be used to in some fashion control or the outcome or the processes of elections um personally i'm not a big fan of i'm not a big fan of the of the notwithstanding law being used to um you know prevent same-sex marriages i'm not a big fan of of the notwithstanding law being able to skirt around human rights violations by various provinces. I'm just not a big fan of it being used at all, because it strikes me that if we all agree that there's a set of fundamental rights and freedoms that we should have, then it's not up to our political masters to say, well, except in this particular case, notwithstanding this particular set of circumstances.
Carter
16:19
I just don't think it's a good idea. Yeah, I also don't think it's a good idea in this particular case. I continue to, I mean, there are people who just want to put more and more rules and more and more regulations into our elections to try and control third-party spending. Every regulation that we put in is an invitation for more ways to find ways around the rules and regulations. I don't recall third-party spending being a huge problem prior
Carter
16:46
prior to us actually bringing in all the third-party regulations. We look at the problems that exist in the United States, we imagine them happening up here, and then we try and stop them. And a 12-month prohibition on spending or on keeping it to $600,000 over 12 months, that's $50,000. In a province the size of Ontario, it's a blip. $50,000 a month, it's just an absolute blip. So I'm extremely disappointed by this. They're supposed to be for freedom of speech. They're supposed to be for more freedom, and they're bringing in the notwithstanding clause to curtail those rights and freedoms.
Zain
17:23
Corey, tell me this.
Zain
17:25
Is this a big deal because of using the notwithstanding clause, period, or threatening to use it? Or is it a big deal because of the particular issue that the Ford government is trying to use it with, as Carter mentioned the second time here with elections, so to speak? For you, why does
Corey
17:42
does this kind of strike a nerve?
Corey
17:44
I don't know if it does strike a nerve for me. Oh, OK. Maybe I made an assumption
Corey
17:48
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's a good idea for them to do it. And I think that when you are going to be putting limits on rights, you should very reasonably ask, is this important? That's part of where the Oaks test was developed. But let's be clear, the notwithstanding clause was designed for the other cases when there isn't actually kind of like a rationale that's based on, you know, reasonable limits, but it's going further. And it's a way that was created in the Constitution to say, the legislatures can override and they can override based on, you know, whatever they see to be the relevant criteria. criteria. So, you know, there's a school of thought that says it's part of the Constitution. They've decided they want to use it in this case. The public should judge them on whether that's a good idea or not, and they will pay the political consequences for it. That said, there are an awful lot of laws we have that are kind of, in case of emergency, break glass, and we probably shouldn't be encouraging, for example, the regular use of the War Measures Act. I think people could agree to that as kind of a general counterbalance here. And I do believe that this is probably Probably creating a lot of dread in people because it seems to be this kind of creeping casualness with the use of the notwithstanding clause. Or perhaps by floating it and using it in provinces, it
Corey
18:58
it is making people kind of numb to the political consequences that are supposed to come with using the notwithstanding clause. Part of the reason why it expires in five years is it basically guarantees if there's a change in government, they will then have to actively reintroduce it and they can't just coast on it with the last guys. Corey, can I
Zain
19:15
I just ask a question? Go ahead. Go ahead. That
Corey
19:16
That is an important point here. Because the one area I didn't talk about in the Notwithstanding Clause was Quebec's use since the 80s, right? And it's been used in language laws, sure. But most recently, it's been used for more than that. And infamously, a couple of years ago, preventing people of wearing religious symbols if they're in positions of authority, right? And that, or in the public service. And that, I think, is part of the story here, right? People are saying, holy shit, are we just going to use it for everything now? Because this, in a funny way, doesn't seem to be such a big deal as to require the notwithstanding clause. I
Corey
19:56
mean, we're talking about at most a few million dollars of spending in an election, which I don't think that we should just kind of have tons
Corey
20:06
tons of money in elections. But is this really worth breaking the glass and pulling that in case of emergency switch? And I think that's what's alarming a lot of people. And
Zain
20:14
And this is I'm glad you went with the Quebec stuff, Corey, because this is what I want to talk about very quickly. And Carter, maybe I'll use a side door to talking about it, which is, do you feel like the forward political strategy here is to desensitize people to the notwithstanding clause? Quebec's used it a bunch of times on a bunch of issues for them. If we use it for something, to Corey's point, that may not necessarily require it, but we kind of use it, don't face the political consequences, as Corey said, one should by using this clause, we then now have a new tool in our quiver that we know we don't really get hammered on if we use. Do you feel like that could be the political strategy here? Am I reading the tea leaves correctly, or would you say otherwise? I
Carter
20:54
I think that sometimes when you look at the tea leaves, you look a little bit too deep and you see too
Carter
20:58
too many layers to it. But
Carter
21:00
the simpler there for me is that Doug Ford
Carter
21:04
Ford is in a position where he thinks that this will hurt him and his electoral chances. He can use the notwithstanding clause by simply a majority vote of his government, and away he goes. And he gets himself around this. What bothers me, and this is kind of building off what Corey said, this is two threats to use the notwithstanding clause in one term that are both election-related. and that to me is a problem because you
Carter
21:30
know yeah i mean maybe it's desensitizing but imagine that he just threatens it every time he he doesn't like something something that's going to impact him electorally he just says you know what we're going to bring the notwithstanding clause and what if we are desensitized to it what if it doesn't bring that up outrage i'm outraged by it i'm outraged every time the notwithstanding clause has been brought forward because i think that That, you know, we as citizens are all too often the forgotten stakeholders when it comes to rights and freedoms.
Zain
22:02
Corey, what do you think the strategy here is by Ford? Do you feel like it could be desensitization or is it something else in your mind?
Corey
22:10
just don't think he likes to lose court cases, right? I don't think he likes to be told that this is a violation of the charter. And in some ways, it's kind of a pointy
Corey
22:19
pointy-headed judges think they know best. I was elected, I should be allowed to do these things. And I'm
Corey
22:25
I'm not sure I see some sort of master plan here to get people used to the idea that you are slowly eroding their rights.
Corey
22:32
I think the end effect may be the same, though. He is getting people used to the fact that your rights can be slowly eroded like this. And, you know, the rights that can be overridden with the notwithstanding clause are, I mean, they're broad. They're your fundamental freedoms, as described in there. They're your freedom of thought, freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, freedom of press, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association. And then they are your legal rights. rights, the idea that you can have a trial and be presumed innocent, right? And so on and so forth. Like, I mean, I'm not going to sit here and go through them all. But I think every Canadian should inform themselves of the Constitution and understand the rights that are potentially challenged by the use of the notwithstanding clause. And so when people kind of breathe
Corey
23:19
breathe hard about this, I think one of the things you have to sort of keep in mind is, it's because they are worried about the consequences. And you can say, oh, the slippery slope fallacy and all But the reality is we have seen time
Corey
23:30
time and time again, a tactic gets used, there's outrage the first time it's used, it's used a second time, there's anger, third time, nobody even blinks. And the worry is, if you start overriding rights, and you start just getting people used to the idea of that being done, it's going to be done more frequently. And in that sense,
Corey
23:48
know, the Constitution that was designed to protect our rights may actually undermine
Corey
23:52
undermine those rights, because before we decided we were going to codify all of these things in a Bill of Rights and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, they were just considered inherent. They were part of the common law. And now they can be overridden by the execution of a clause within the Constitution. Carter, finish us off on this.
Carter
24:08
Well, I just think that, you know, it may seem like a small right to give up, right? We're giving up the right to electoral speech for six months. You know, money, you know, the money is is a big deal. But, you know, maybe it's not that big a deal. It's not going to impact me. But the problem is that these rights go away very slowly. You know, you give away one and then the next one's a little bit easier and the next one's a little bit easier. You know, it didn't take very long for the United States to get to a very strong erosion of their voting rights in general. And I think we need to learn that lesson from our southern neighbors.
Zain
24:42
We're going to leave the headlines there. moving on to our first segment our first segment greener pastures guys we have a floor crossing play that special floor crossing music carter do it play it play that music
Carter
24:58
music button baby atrocious like always new brunswick
Zain
25:02
brunswick mp just jennica is it jennica i think that's right
Carter
25:06
right sure let's go with that jennica
Zain
25:07
jennica atwin uh announced Thursday, she has left the Green Party to join the Liberal caucus, mainly because of ongoing internal rifts among the Greens over the Israel-Palestine conflict. I found that quite interesting. You know, Atwin made history in 2019 when she was the first Green MP elected east of British Columbia, but she's been openly challenged and challenging Green Party leader Annamie Paul's position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. She's ultimately said that I stand with Palestine and condemned the unthinkable airstrikes in Gaza and apartheid. Unquote. Three days later, Paul's senior advisor, Noah Zatzman, expressed solidarity with Zionists in a Facebook post that accused some unnamed Green MPs of anti-Semitism and discrimination. Guys, let's start with the politics first and foremost here. Carter, how big of a win is this for the liberals?
Carter
25:58
I think it's a big deal for the liberals. I think any time that you can actually get Yet another MP crossing to you, especially as the government, is a good thing, especially given the surprised nature of that victory in New Brunswick in the last election. If we are, in fact, heading towards the snap election that Corey keeps predicting with alarming accuracy, then
Carter
26:17
then I think that we very
Carter
26:19
very well could see this being a big part of a discussion in New Brunswick about what a green liberal party looks like and how the liberal parties have been managing the environment. I think it'll be good for them. So it's a big deal for the Liberal Party.
Zain
26:35
Corey, a young MP, 34 years old, from New Brunswick, first Green MP, east of British Columbia, now joining the Liberals. Curious to get the same question asked to you, which is how big of a deal is this for the Liberals with the floor crossing of MP Atwin today?
Corey
26:52
I think it's, you know what, it's a good tactic in the sense that there was this report on the WE scandal that came out the same day. And boom, just like that, all of a sudden, we're talking about, you know, like we're leading this show right now, not talking about this report, we're talking about a floor crossing to the liberals. And I think that that's sort of playing out in the media writ large as well, like the big federal news right now is not the big federal news you would have expected otherwise today. So good, good for them. But I think kind of of limited value, that's kind of a win the day sort of thing, maybe a win the week sort of thing. It's not a win the election sort of thing. However, the value beyond that is probably the value in knocking the Green Party down a bit and having further turmoil to the Greens. And Stephen said last week, and he was so spot on, that the people who fear the election most are the Greens. And I think that there's a lot of truth to that, and I think that's indisputable today. You mentioned that she's a young MP. Well, she would probably like a career in politics. And with the Green Party doing a little bit less
Corey
27:51
less than they were doing before, in terms of kind of electoral support, I suspect in New Brunswick, I haven't seen any New Brunswick specific polling, probably thinking about, you know, long term sustainability of that political career, too. So I don't think it changes the world. I don't think it changes very much at all. I think it's a nice win for the liberals.
Corey
28:14
think insofar as it has value, it's that you're kind of pushing together the red-green voters a little bit.
Zain
28:21
you a long preamble before I ask this question, but rather let me just ask this question. Let's talk about the strategy of floor crossing. How does it work? How does it start? How do you think something like this transpired? I
Carter
28:31
I think there's a couple of motivations to cross the floor. The first is political survival. I wish to stay elected is generally speaking the number one reason why a person crosses the floor. And the second reason, and it shouldn't be necessarily discounted in this particular case, is fuck your buddy. There's been some notable floor crossings that have been designed to hurt the party that they were with. I think of Dave Taylor crossing to the Alberta party here in Alberta years ago where that was kind of a fuck your buddy type of activity. I think that this one is a little bit of both.
Carter
29:08
You know, I struggle with the idea that the Green Party is falling apart over an international issue. issue uh i don't mean to uh pick sides nor demean the the importance of the israeli palestine situation i think that they're super duper important but i i i think when you're a party that has three mps uh choosing to get this excited about an issue uh that that you're not going to influence you're not going to change um is
Carter
29:34
is is part of the reason why i think that the greens are remain relative rookies in in politics um they had an agenda they had they've always been cobbled together from from
Carter
29:44
from multiple different viewpoints with a single uniting faction of that being the green agenda uh the environmentalist agenda and
Carter
29:52
and sometimes the the when they step outside of that agenda very very strong fissures begin to to appear and this strikes me as one of those things where um you know the the internal party workings that were rumored for the last few months and the The actual
Carter
30:11
issues that have started to surface around Israel and Palestine were just too much. And so I think a bit of fuck your buddy and a bit of political survival were both at play.
Zain
30:24
explain to our listeners what perhaps some people may not understand in terms of how close MPs are to one another, despite the fact that might be of different parties. And the reason I ask that as a lead in is how something like this transpires, right? Right. Because there must have been several conversations, perhaps several Zoom meetings, text chains kind of putting this together. Is it MP to MP? Is it Stafford to MP? Does it vary? Give us a sense of like, you know, how some of these things may transpire in the background to an announcement today that seemed well-timed and orchestrated by the Liberals with a fundraising email, a social media post, you know, an exclusive with the Canadian press. Like, tell me how, you know, some of the options, I should say, because we can't know exactly how this one transpired. but how these things kind of work in the background and the lead up to it as well.
Corey
31:12
Well, I mean, they all work in the same workplace. That's the thing you need to keep in mind first and foremost. And there are all sorts of all-party committees. There are situations where you send groups of MPs from various stripes off to go to various events where they'll be talking to each other. Maybe they'll be going perhaps to represent Canada at some sort of parliamentary junket in Germany or something like that. I mean, obviously that's not happened in the past year. But, you
Corey
31:35
you know, my broader point is, there
Corey
31:36
there are many opportunities for MPs of various stripes to co-mingle. And that's certainly also true of their staff. And, you know, the fraternization goes to the point of, you know, dating in some cases, particularly among staff and all of that. Although, I think that that is less these days than it was in the past as people have become more extreme in their political opinions. companions but i guess i'll just come down to something that anybody who's ever worked in ottawa knows which is ottawa is a small fucking town and
Corey
32:02
it doesn't take very much um uh
Corey
32:05
uh to uh to get into somebody's orbit and you know it could be as simple as uh you have an mp who looks kind of unhappy or upset and somebody says hey how are you doing right
Corey
32:17
right and they're like oh fuck don't even get me started you know he's driving me crazy and then all of a sudden you're beginning a conversation and perhaps you bring that part of that conversation back and say you know what i
Corey
32:28
just had a very
Corey
32:29
very interesting conversation uh you know with atwin and then and
Corey
32:35
and then all of a sudden the the heat is on right the pressure goes and you start build there's a bit of a charm offensive they say who else knows her who else is talking to her who's in her orbit maybe she's working it the other way because she'd be very keen to join the governing party certainly some days that looks It looks a lot nicer than being part of a small caucus in the back benches, right? And one thing
Corey
32:55
thing leads to another. And there are many different ways this can happen. I have seen and been aware of floor crossings where it's, you know, elected to elected. I've seen elected to staff reaching out and saying, hey, you know, I actually wouldn't mind. I've seen staff to staff, hey, my person wouldn't mind talking to your people and seeing where this might go. and
Corey
33:17
and usually uh the only thing i can sort of guarantee is at a certain point leadership
Corey
33:21
leadership gets involved i don't necessarily mean the leader right
Corey
33:24
right although i would be really shocked if uh if uh she didn't talk to justin trudeau at some point uh but you know the conversation will escalate and i will go back to sort of the fraternization and let's talk about dating it is it's a bit of a courtship right you
Corey
33:41
start at one level with one type of conversation you go to the the next person, next person still. There were probably quite a few precautions taken to make sure that if there were meetings in person, those meetings were not identified by individuals. And then before you know it, boom, people are surprised because an announcement's made and history has changed.
Zain
34:02
Carter, give us, you know, add to what Corey said. You know, you've probably, I should say, have tried to orchestrate a few of these, seen a few of them them happen. Give us an understanding of some of the dynamics here as it relates to floor crossings. And then I'll loop back into the specifics of this one to close off this segment.
Carter
34:21
Yeah. I mean, as Corey was droning on, I thought, you know, how many floor crossings have I actually been involved in? And I think I've been involved in at least 10 different sets of negotiations on floor crossings. And
Carter
34:32
many of them fall
Zain
34:32
fall apart? apart half
Carter
34:36
half of them didn't happen or uh in some cases uh they went to different parties um so they're
Carter
34:44
they're playing multiple sides
Carter
34:45
yeah the unhappy person moves and and i think that um you know that that has to be the core you don't move a happy person um you don't move somebody who thinks you know what i'm really in a good spot um you know we we we we moved quite a few um to well we moved one to the pcs and we moved a few to the alberta party like there's been a bunch of movement that i've been involved in and it all boils down to the same things um people who disagree with the party on an issue and
Carter
35:14
and the issue they can usually get past it's how they're being treated it's
Carter
35:18
it's how they're being treated about that issue it's what they see coming it's it's the way that they're not being appreciated and they're not being valued and ultimately um that leads them to you know kind of that fuck fuck your buddy position um and i think that that's the most interesting thing about floor crossings is is that uh you
Carter
35:41
you know it is hard to keep everybody in the family it is hard to keep everybody happy um it can't be easy when you've got people from uh both coasts you know like literally representing the far you know the the two two furthest extremes from one another in Canada to something
Carter
35:59
something as simple as time zones, you know, something as simple as time zones and managing time zones and being able to to chat like those things are problematic and challenging and lead to division. And I think that in a party with as few resources as the Green Party's, I'm
Carter
36:18
I'm sure that that plays a role. I mean, every every article that I'm reading about the Green Party's situation, they're They're talking about the challenges associated with the advisors as well. So
Carter
36:29
there's not a big group. The small group's not being able to get along, and there's no cliques. There's no other group you can go hang out with, and that's what you get when you get a big caucus. You can go hang out with a different clique that more suits your individual
Corey
36:48
Corey, jump in there.
Corey
36:49
Well, when the leader changes, policy
Corey
36:51
policy can change. Staff certainly changes. And we shouldn't be surprised that people find themselves in a different situation, might not like that different situation. And I think that's a reality, not just in politics, but in organizational change writ large, right? People sign on for one thing, that thing changes, they have to select whether they want to be there or not. And I think
Corey
37:12
think that that's the more foundational thing here. And I'm not saying that she's got beef with Annemie Paul, although it kind of seems like she does, because here we are, right? But that's much more than any kind of polling. I mean, the Greens have slid in the polls from getting, you know, six or seven in national polls to four or five, and the odd three. it's not as though they're in a totally different universe and and if they were feeling good they would still hang together it's not like the bottom has fallen out here but uh certainly especially if you're kind of like a marginal mp you barely won before and uh you're in an area perhaps without a history of green mps and you're not getting along with your leader and
Corey
37:54
and you're having policy disagreements and you're having kind of vague booking fights uh with staff of the leader
Corey
38:01
then, yeah, I mean, the conditions are all there. And Carter's exactly right. You don't leave because you're happy. And you don't even leave for the opportunity. Like, this is good, but I think I can do better. You leave because you're pissed off.
Zain
38:15
Carter, Corey called this a win the day, win the week. How do the liberals make this more? Is there any strategic advice you would give them to make this more than just win the day or week with this particular floor crossing? Or do you Do you just recognize it's as such and you move on?
Carter
38:32
I think maybe a trip to
Carter
38:34
to New Brunswick, a tour of the riding with the prime minister in early July or whenever the house rises, that could work. You don't have to do very much. A day in the riding would probably be plenty, part of an Atlantic Canadian tour, but instead of going to XYZ riding, you go to this particular riding. That, to me, makes the most sense.
Carter
38:59
So I would think that that would be about it. And then back to the other 337 ridings that are going to need the prime minister's attention.
Zain
39:07
Carter, one more question for you, which is Corey did mention off the top that this was introduced coincidentally, of course, on the same morning as the we report from the committee that that came out. We have on this show criticized the liberal issues management over the course of the last couple of years, I would say.
Zain
39:28
but but we'll never know but do you want to speculatively give them some credit that this was something they were holding back or do you feel like this is just coincidental
Carter
39:36
no i mean this is orchestrated and and the orchestra you know that it looks like it's been in the works uh the reason given from about the first of june so that's a it's a week and a half process um so it doesn't look like necessarily
Carter
39:51
necessarily it was something that they orchestrated too much. It does look more like a happy coincidence that was managed well. So I will give them credit insofar as it was managed properly. And that's
Carter
40:08
that's about as far as I can go.
Zain
40:11
Corey, same question for you that I asked Carter initially, or the first set of two, which was, is there anything they can do to make this a win beyond the day and the week?
Corey
40:21
the liberals have tried in a couple of different variations to bring the greens over or show some sort of affinity and collaboration with the greens uh most notably of course when estefan dion didn't run a candidate in central nova against elizabeth may when she was shopping around for a seat still but
Corey
40:39
but um it's not i gotta tell you every time the liberals have tried to do that in my estimation they've kind of increased the greens uh popularity so i don't know if going going out there and boosting the importance of the Greens is actually the play. I mean, it's a play the Liberals have tried many, many times. But I think it's sort of almost the opposite. It's like, you
Corey
40:58
know, Green politics exists now more in the Liberal Party, and that's sort of that. And I don't know if I would be making kind of a deep, impassioned plea for the Green Party voters. I would just be using this as an opportunity to drive them into a certain lack of relevance. elephants so um i
Corey
41:17
i i just i think that i guess what i'm saying here is i just i wouldn't i wouldn't take the temptation of of going on a big press against the greens it sort of reminds me of in 2015 when um to
Corey
41:29
to in a totally different scale and in a totally different context but you two will remember in the 2015 alberta leadership debate episode
Corey
41:38
episode 527 of the strategists i remember it very very well. Vividly.
Corey
41:42
Vividly. Yeah. They, there
Corey
41:44
there was a, a
Corey
41:46
a moment where Jim Prentice turned to Rachel Notley. And in hindsight, that was the election because he marked her as the opponent. And I just think the liberals have to be careful that while they're celebrating this victory, they're not elevating anatomy pool. You
Corey
42:02
know, I think it's,
Corey
42:03
that's what they want to avoid doing, like making the green party more part of the conversation, I suppose. Yeah,
Zain
42:09
that's a good point. Fortunately,
Carter
42:10
Fortunately, they have the Green Party working for them, as always, making bad political decisions on top of bad political decisions. So, way
Carter
42:18
way to go, Green Party.
Zain
42:20
Let's move on to our next segment. Our next segment, I got 1.3 billion problems, but a dinner reservation ain't one.
Zain
42:28
That laughter, I wish it was owed to me. Thank you, Matt Combs. Matt Combs, long listener of the podcast. Jesus, Matt Combs is getting like two shout
Zain
42:36
outs in like a week. This is like ridiculous.
Zain
42:38
Great dude. Great dude. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has sent a cease and desist letter to a Calgary-based news outlet, the Western Standard, because of what his lawyers call, quote, false and defamatory allegations in a recent article. The letter from the lawyer obtained by CBC News concerns an article published Wednesday by the Western Standard alleging that Kenney had had several social gatherings at a restaurant, Edmonton's Bottega 104, in contravention of the COVID-19 restrictions since the new year.
Zain
43:08
Stephen Carter, I'm going to start with you on this one. When you first saw this article, and by the way, I should add that the Western Standard stands by its story. They are saying, nope, we've got sources, we've got people, et cetera, to back this up. The Western Standard has had a checkered past as a, you know, a
Zain
43:26
a news outlet, if I can say. But Carter, what was your first thought when you saw this story?
Carter
43:30
Man, I hate the Western Standard. That was my first thought. Okay, second thought? Second thought was, I'm not going to read that shit because I don't believe it to be true. And then, of course, it made the rounds on the Twitterverse because it doesn't really matter if it's true at this stage. People want to believe that Jason Kenney had a private restaurant set up where he could go into a private room in an Italian restaurant and get whatever food he wanted at whatever time he needed it. I'm not here to judge that story. I mean, I have my own interactions with the Western Standard. I think right now they still have a fundraiser running in my name because I threatened to sue them. So, you know, they don't necessarily tell the truth. They didn't tell the truth then. They didn't tell the truth on their podcast. They didn't tell the truth before that. So I don't have a great respect for them. But it doesn't really matter if they're telling the truth, right? Because people are so inclined to want to believe this. They are willing to believe just about anything about this particular premier.
Carter
44:34
that's a real problem for Jason Kenney, because
Carter
44:37
because it doesn't matter if it's true.
Carter
44:41
The negative implication is now been heard and felt and ingested by our population. And that is now a part of us. So whether or not it is true, it will continue to harm them. And I think we saw stuff like this around Alison Redford. I don't remember the specifics, but there were a number of rumors floating about Alison Redford just
Carter
44:58
just before she resigned that weren't necessarily true, but it didn't matter if they were true, right? Didn't matter if they were true. All that mattered was people were talking and believing them to be true. And I think that's where Kenny finds himself right now, in a very similar position to where Redford was just before she was forced to resign.
Zain
45:16
Corey, I don't have a question for you. I just want you to react to what you heard from Carter, his theory here that it doesn't matter if it's true, that getting it out into the ether was perhaps the singular objective of the Western Standard, this
Zain
45:28
this gossip or whatever you may call it.
Corey
45:30
Yeah, so I think it does matter whether it's true or not. I think it's quite relevant that it was the Western Standard that broke this story and probably broke it with less of a standard of verification than you would see in other media outlets. I mean, here's the thing. Where should I start with this?
Corey
45:49
the story in the western standard said we've heard it from a cabinet minister and three mlas and maybe a couple of other people right but i mean it's
Corey
45:56
it's this how do they know if
Corey
45:59
those people weren't there and there was no suggestion that it was like firsthand knowledge right how do they know they're not just hearing the same rumor repeated by four different people with the same source you know what i think to kind of break character here for a minute i think about when we We made the joke about Mark Carney running an Edmonton center. Like
Carter
46:17
Like I heard a rumor running
Carter
46:18
running an Edmonton center. That's what I heard. I
Corey
46:21
I started seeing on Twitter people legitimately, unironically, unjokingly talking about Mark Carney running an Edmonton center and the rumor that's there. And that was started by three fuck heads in the middle of a podcast. I got phone calls.
Carter
46:34
I got phone calls saying, did you hear?
Carter
46:37
I'm like, yeah, I heard, I
Carter
46:38
heard it on a podcast. So,
Corey
46:39
So, but I guess this is my point. how many people were out there talking about but it all started with like one piece of nonsense somewhere else and you know what just like in that case that piece of nonsense was rooted in clearly
Corey
46:51
clearly has political ambitions right he's
Corey
46:53
he's got a background in these places and there was just enough that people thought maybe
Corey
46:59
maybe it's true well
Carter
47:00
well and this is the this is the situation that i'm in with the western standard right joe connelly former council member here in Calgary, former mayoralty candidate, says to the Western Standard, the Joe T. Gondek stuff is so good, it must have been paid for by a third-party advertiser.
Carter
47:15
They run that. They run those quotes because Joe Connolly's saying it. They're not saying it. They didn't say anything. And they ignore the fact that it's just simply not true, right?
Carter
47:24
right? And they stand behind it and say, well, you know, if the Torstar case for defamation makes it such that the media, provided that they give a reasonable accounting and the opportunity to have um this refuted uh reasonable being of course in quotation marks no one really understands what that is they're not going to get sued so they're standing behind torstar and uh trying to make sure that they don't actually get sued um but
Carter
47:51
but they don't really care about the truth so we've seen that we've seen that time and again and uh this to me very
Carter
47:57
very it is far more likely to be be a game of telephone cory
Corey
48:03
yeah i i want to step away from from carter's angst with the western standard and the general views of the western standard and sort of talk about the subject matter here a bit too uh because i think one of the more interesting elements of all of this and the thing i wanted to to get off my chest on this is because carter said is this a big deal or not and i get distracted easily but i want to talk about why i don't think it's necessarily a big deal and why i think truth still matters this was propagated out into the world by a outlet with lower standards right and then um it
Corey
48:38
was talked about on twitter very aggressively but twitter is not everybody and twitter is not even the majority of alberta and the conversations that are going on there where
Corey
48:47
where there was an interesting jump that i think we need to discuss at least a bit is that because it was a twitter conversation jason kenney's uh communications director then tweeted out in the strongest terms basically this is bullshit right the
Corey
49:03
the cbc then wrote a story about the denial i
Corey
49:07
have to say we are finding more and more interesting ways to bring gossip into mainstream political discourse and i don't think that's a particularly good thing because now it's now that story has been seen by more people and still it is still fundamentally fundamentally based on a pretty shaky reporting. But this
Carter
49:24
this isn't new, Corey. This is the nature of the world as it always has been. I mean, the tabloid always reported the crap, and then the broadsheet would report the coverage and the fallout from the tabloid. This is the way it has been. This is the way that it will be. This is the way it shall evermore be, especially as more and more stories are broken by, quote unquote, citizen journalists running it out of the basement in Strathmore.
Zain
49:51
Well, in this case, former MLA journalists, so to speak, right? Like Derek Filderman, former MLA, clearly a political agenda. Corey, to you, do you feel like this could have been strategic for that exact outcome that you're mentioning right now?
Corey
50:03
Yeah, absolutely. But I think it's simpler than that. I think the Western Standard is getting a lot of hits from when they report on the chaos in the UCP. And this was a story that was destined to get eyeballs. In fact, any of us who tried to read the story online will have noted how slow that page loaded yesterday. And so, you know, I think we also need to keep in mind that media outlets at the end of the day are businesses, and they're going to do what's best for their business interests. But, boy, I don't know. I mean, Carter, I hear everything you're saying here, but fundamentally, there was a CBC article about something that was just rooted in bad, you know, kind of bad reporting by the Western Standard, or at least not very well substantiated. at this point we haven't seen a lot of evidence from them i will say one of the interesting things about the cbc story was when they went to the western standard and they talked about like well premier says you didn't give him the chance to respond he said oh yes no we did he uh we uh we we gave them the chance to respond and it turned out they emailed the premier's office something like seven minutes before it went to print i mean
Corey
51:08
i'm not sure if that hits that tour star standard let me just say uh but we've got uh we've got a weird weird situation with this one uh but people
Corey
51:19
people are to your point just sort of inclined to to believe the worst at this point and in many ways it's because jason kenney's the premier who cried not
Corey
51:27
not a covet violation ignore
Corey
51:29
ignore your eyes and
Carter
51:30
and i just want to clarify i'm rooting for derrick in this situation i hope he doesn't get sued into oblivion that would be really rough carter
Zain
51:38
carter i'm going to stick with you on perhaps on a slightly different subject i don't even know yeah yeah i don't even know
Zain
51:43
carter carter hold on hold on yeah no
Carter
51:45
no i'm listening okay
Zain
51:46
okay good you're still here you're still with us i'm still paying attention oh i'm so glad i am yeah i mean it's
Carter
51:50
it's been a forever time here i'm ready i'm ready let's go zoom
Zain
51:53
zoom out for me uh you've said in the past and past episodes that any day kenny isn't winning he's losing this is clearly you know even if this goes away um and is not substantiated by anyone um not necessarily a win like talk to me about the political damage here. Like, talk to me about the parallels in history here. Like, in our ongoing segment that's been going on for the last six months, the unbecoming or the dethroning of a premier, like, tell me about this chapter of rumor and innuendo and gossip now kind of floating everywhere alongside discontent and caucus fracture. You know, tell me what happens in this movie we've seen before. Well,
Carter
52:29
Well, I'm going to reiterate using a little bit different words than what i said before i mean i think that in general society prefers a believable lie over a known like a regular truth um the believable lie in this case is that um you
Carter
52:46
you know whether it is or is not true that he had a special uh dining room set up i think this is going to haunt him because it is a believable lie um this to me isn't a day of losing uh like like some of the other stuff that we've seen from Kenny. This, to me, feels like it's something that defines the brand of Jason Kenny as he moves forward. When he passes, people will say, what a prick, he had his own private dining room. And it's taken on a life of its own outside of the social media. It's taken on a life of its own outside of just the moment. And it is now becoming like Alison Redford's plane for her and her daughter. You know, those are stories and language that even if it isn't true, just haunts the premier. And if everybody knows that it's true, it doesn't matter if it's fake.
Zain
53:42
Corey, talk to me about, I hate to kind of go down here, but let's just do it for a second. If some part of this is true, is it like
Zain
53:51
like really bad? dad i'm
Corey
53:54
i'm gonna go down for one second and say yes it would absolutely be disqualifying it would be the end of the premier's uh premiership and that is where some people online have said well see that's exactly why he would just forcefully lie about this i don't i don't believe that's true i don't i don't think that ultimately is likely because it just gives you no range of motion once you've been so definitive never there blah blah blah let
Corey
54:17
let me say this though
Corey
54:20
it is not proven That does not mean it's proven true.
Corey
54:22
That does not mean it's proven false. But unless I see something real, unless I see evidence, not hearsay, I
Corey
54:27
I am going to shut up about this story. You will not see me sharing it or talking about it. And I think that I
Corey
54:34
I would encourage others to take the same approach. As much as there is kind of this antipathy that's out there on Twitter about this, I
Corey
54:41
think there is still kind of a burden of proof that needs to be met for such a serious allegation. Because to my earlier comment here, it
Corey
54:48
it would end the premiership if it was true. So that's pretty serious consequence, pretty serious allegation. Serious consequences, serious allegations mean we should take serious measures to make sure we're not propagating bullshit.
Zain
55:02
Carter, I'll end with this final question for the two of you. True or not, what do you think something like this does to caucus morale and caucus spirit, as that's been something that Kenny's been trying to heal over the course of the last several weeks here. Like, do you feel like something like this, whether it's true or not, just really, you know, strikes a nerve within those that are in caucus? And as someone who's been there and managed caucus as a staffer, chief political staffer, tell me what something like this could do. You've dealt with the innuendo phase. This is why I want to ask this particular question. What does this do to a caucus?
Carter
55:38
Well, I'll tell you something. If it is true, then everybody knows that it's true, right? Every single person in the caucus will know that it's It's true because they won't have been invited.
Carter
55:47
You want something to go viral? Don't invite someone to it. I mean, this was the whole thing with the planes. You remember the planes and the Alison Redford fiasco? The fact that she wouldn't fly with people was noticed, right? If you won't, you know, if Jason Kenney was inviting some groups of the caucus or some groups of his cabinet to have dinner with him and not other groups, you
Carter
56:08
you know, that is the currency of politics. politics and
Carter
56:11
uh that will be that will be noted by the uh um uh by the the people who are who were left out but this is the other thing since
Carter
56:21
since this is broken there's
Carter
56:23
there's been no more sources no one else has gone to the media if
Carter
56:27
if this was real i think that we would see a lot of the caucus going to it so i don't think that the caucus has that information because i don't think it's real And so I don't think the caucus is going to be the problem.
Zain
56:37
Corey, caucus feeling and sentiment, your thoughts on what something like this could do. And maybe I'll add a weird jujitsu question as well, as Carter would always mention. Is there any way that this could help Kenny with caucus solidarity, like a story like this? Yeah, absolutely it could. Jump
Corey
56:55
So there's a couple of ways this could play out. One is that it could be just kind of further frustration and demoralization if there's any kind of suggestion it's real. But I actually think the more likely at this point is if it is not real, it's a great opportunity for Jason Kenney to kind of point to the barrage of bullshit that he's under and make himself a bit of the victim. And I think you've just got to sort of look at some of the blows and the slings and arrows he's taken in the past bit. And I said this last week, and I'll say it again.
Corey
57:24
lot of them are associated with Brian Jean in some way, shape, or form. And so what Jason Kenney has now is
Corey
57:30
is potentially an external enemy and
Corey
57:33
and say, these people are just trying to take us down. And it's not for your benefit. It is not for your benefit. It's for their benefit. And they don't care if they destroy this party in the process. And that actually is somewhat of a unifying factor that people can move forward with. you know i do disagree though with carter when he said people will know if it was real i
Carter
57:54
i don't know if that's
Corey
57:55
that's true big caucuses are big if you think about a workplace of 60 people especially if some of them are let's call them management right who are not necessarily hanging out with the others all of the time there
Corey
58:07
there there could be rumors there could be gossip there could be well you know what i heard maybe it's based on nothing maybe it's based on something but they may not know you
Corey
58:15
you know You know, there's a lot of people in the UCP, especially when you start piling in staff. And there's this kind of this old adage that, you know, managers assume staff know nothing, staff assume managers know everything, right? Well, it's almost reversed in politics where, you know, the onus of where information lays is very different and murky. And I just, I'm not convinced that there's this perfect information, regardless of what the solution is or situation is, I should say. uh right now we're
Zain
58:48
we're going to leave that segment there moving on to our final segment our over under and our lightning round steven carter i want to start with you okay
Zain
58:55
okay okay thank you for your continued enthusiasm for everything that is this show steven carter overrated or underrated in general floor crossings um
Carter
59:08
underrated i think that in general the the the floor crossing uh signifies cancer in the group that is being left and signifies opportunity in the group that is being crossed to. So in general, I think that they are undervalued.
Zain
59:23
In specific, this one still underrated?
Carter
59:27
I think so. I think this is I think this is going to turn out to be fairly big. I think that if the the Liberal Party can really count on locking down Atlantic Canada, that will will be a very good step for them as they move into, you know, the forthcoming election that Corey keeps predicting.
Zain
59:46
Corey, floor crossings, overrated, underrated, general, and specifically the one that we saw today?
Corey
59:53
There's been a few dramatic ones that have changed the course of history. We obviously have the Bloc Quebecois, we have Belinda Stronach,
Corey
59:59
we have very few beyond that. I would say in general, they are overrated. They're the kind of thing partisans cheer or boo. But regular people kind of forget about pretty quickly, and especially in an era where people vote much more for the label than they do the individual MP, you know, it's the label and the leader. It's just hard to believe that, you know, that the conscious decision of an individual MP is going to change the course of of uh anything besides you know had been a bit of a dent one way or the other um and i would evidence that by saying anybody who's interested pick up a list of floor crossings in your your province especially if you're in alberta and just look at them all you're going to say oh i forgot about that for the majority of them for the majority of them cory
Zain
1:00:47
cory sticking with you you mentioned it so we'll just jump right into it brian gene rearing his head as he always does does on schedule almost every three months, four months, seeing if there's a possibility that he could sneak himself back into some level of power, one might assume. He writes a Facebook post, which goes further this time, that says Kenny should resign. And then a bunch of other words, won't get into it too much. Corey, overrated or underrated this Facebook post and this missive, if you can call it that, by Brian Jean?
Corey
1:01:16
Well, with the benefit of a few days, I can say say pretty comfortably overrated at this point but uh you know if you had asked me the day of it i would have said oh geez i don't know um because really it comes down to what happens as a result of that letter are you going to propagate greater challenges like when somebody does something like that like i did sort of laugh at the idea that brian gene has finally dropped the totally unbelievable pretense that he just cares about jason kenney's health just
Corey
1:01:45
yeah some humble advice you know take care of yourself premier get a good night's sleep eat a good meal you know this is literally a letter that brian jean wrote the fucking jackass and
Corey
1:01:58
and uh and now he's like well no you gotta resign you're terrible i've commissioned polls you're gonna lose it's it's really bad and so i'm glad we can drop the pretense but what is what noteworthy about it is like
Corey
1:02:08
like like the niceties you know when there's two people who clearly really hate each other but they're pretending not to hate each other when those niceties drop that's a moment right but it it doesn't matter much if nobody sort of piles on if it's like because we all knew brian gene didn't like jason kenney like that's not a shock to anybody in alberta if
Corey
1:02:28
if that had been the initiative where somebody else stood up and said you know what screw that guy i don't like jason kenney either then
Corey
1:02:35
then it would have been very significant but
Corey
1:02:36
but we're are now many days out from from when that letter came and nothing has happened to that effect it's not to say there might not be more of a drip but i suspect if there was a drip campaign it was it
Corey
1:02:48
was this thing in the western standard you
Corey
1:02:50
you know it clearly wasn't another mla crossing this week so i'm going to say overrated carter
Zain
1:02:55
carter overrated underrated the kenny should resign facebook
Zain
1:02:58
facebook post by brian jean overrated
Carter
1:03:00
overrated i mean i don't think that brian jean would reach the top five people that were most likely to take over this party um should should jason kenny be forced out i mean and i think to cory's point i mean i think that the notes back and forth uh between brian gene and jason kenny should be signed your obedient servant uh you know it's just it's it's over the top and at least now it's an open fight um but the guy who puts the knife in caesar's back It does not ascend to the throne. So Brian Jean is not going to factor into the leadership. Write it down. Prediction made. Oh,
Zain
1:03:40
premier. Yeah, here we go. Premier Jean. Start, start, measure.
Corey
1:03:45
Nailed the Green Party
Carter
1:03:45
Party last week. No one talking about you. Yeah, Premier
Corey
1:03:48
Premier Jean, I'd like to apologize for calling you a jackass a few minutes ago.
Zain
1:03:52
Carter, overrated, underrated, Ford invoking the notwithstanding clause. was underrated
Carter
1:03:58
underrated this is a bad bad thing and it you know i think that people will say well this isn't such an important issue i'm not going to care about it any erosion of your rights is a big issue and it should be fought cory
Zain
1:04:08
cory same question overrated underrated ford invoking it i
Corey
1:04:12
think it's underrated because it is part of a normalization of this and that will change canadian politics you you can you can say that's good you can say that's bad you can say it's part of the constitution and why not you can say it
Corey
1:04:23
it should only be used in emergencies but the reality is, it's different. And
Corey
1:04:26
And if all of a sudden, we are starting to more casually override our fundamental freedoms, we're starting to override our legal rights, we're starting to override equality rights, another thing that can be overridden in this context, well, then we got a real problem. A real problem.
Zain
1:04:41
Corey, back to Alberta for a second. The Alberta government is taking the next step towards a referendum question on equalization. Kenny says this government will put before the legislature a motion on the wording of the referendum question for this October's municipal elections, overrated or underrated, this particular referendum question?
Corey
1:04:59
It's, you know what, the challenge is, so here's the thing, as has been written about by a few people this week, and Jason Kenney has been saying this for years, right? He's not under the illusion that he can unilaterally change the Constitution.
Corey
1:05:13
But the Supreme Court did, and we've talked about this on this show, God, like a year ago at this point, right? The Supreme Court has said that, like, there's kind of a duty to negotiate.
Corey
1:05:22
and if a province has a clear majority on a clear question, then the other provinces and the federal government have a duty to negotiate on the point. Now, what that means has never been well-defined, but Jason Kenney is using this as the purpose of this referendum because it will start a national conversation about equalization. But, I mean, for so many reasons, this is kind of a silly thing. Where to begin? We could spend an entire episode, and won't, I hope, on how
Corey
1:05:47
how equalization is actually a federal spending program. program so many albertans i believe are under this assumption that either a we pay more federal tax here because we're albertan or b the government of alberta is cutting a check to other provinces or the federal government neither of which is true right it's no different than us paying our provincial taxes and the provincial government deciding to build more
Corey
1:06:07
more infrastructure in edmonton than calgary that's just a decision that's made by an elected government and c'est la vie
Corey
1:06:12
equalization however has like this principle that we want to be able to make sure that provinces are able to give base services so the federal government gives more money to economically disadvantaged areas the
Corey
1:06:24
other thing is like the part of the constitution that he wants to amend with the you know i guess by taking out equalization wouldn't
Corey
1:06:31
wouldn't actually get rid of equalization you know there are other parts of the constitution that mention it for starters i like the basic principle of we are supporting the idea of equalization and then and then there's the simple reality that the federal government could still do it it we had equalization before we had the constitution and why don't we start there as a pretty obvious indicator and um and what's the point and and the risk is so risky like let's say alberta says let's get let's do it let's get it out as as kind of foolish as i think that would be well
Corey
1:07:04
well then what when it doesn't happen does it just kind of stoke separatism alberta separatism continues to be the dumbest idea in Canadian politics. But maybe that's a bigger distraction for an Alberta that needs to be investing its time and energy in economic rejuvenation. And on that note, to wrap on this kind of long list of things that I think is bad about this.
Corey
1:07:25
Last year, we were a have not province, we benefited from equalization. The
Corey
1:07:30
The reality is, we may be finding ourselves in a very different situation. As the world moves off fossil fuels, we might, let's just say we ended Wouldn't it be like the height of poetic justice, irony, whatever you want to call it? If we pull equalization out of the Constitution, people
Corey
1:07:47
people stop doing equalization just as we need it after we've paid into it for all of these many years.
Zain
1:07:56
I like it. Carter, overrated, underrated. Kenny, bringing the equalization referendum question to the municipal elections here in Alberta. which
Carter
1:08:05
which sign is it's fucking stupid on okay
Carter
1:08:08
okay yeah thank you yeah because it's it's fucking stupid everything cory said yes um big points uh this does not change anything you know 36 one uh basically could authorize uh equalization and more importantly you don't even need 36 one or two to have any spending program there's all kinds of federal programs that are in the that are are managed every day that aren't in the constitution so the the reality is if we value the the idea that every canadian should receive the same services regardless of their income regardless of their ability to pay we should all receive the same health care we should all receive the same opportunities for education we should all receive the same opportunities in general if that is something that we value as a society then this is the dumbest fucking thing i've ever seen and to set cory's second point that was really really good and i hate to echo it and i I hate to give him props, but this is just the first step towards separation because this this is not actually about eliminating equalization. This is about allowing us to keep ours and rich people keeping theirs. Well, poor people go go go badly. Is is at the heart of, you know, every every every international problem. Well,
Zain
1:09:24
Well, speaking of poetic justice, my next question, overrated or underrated? the name Karen. I feel like you guys were both on a little bit of a Karen tribe at the diatribe at the end, especially Stephen Carter. Overrated or underrated? Karen, the name, Stephen Carter.
Corey
1:09:40
Karen? Underrated. It's a nice name. There's nothing wrong with the name.
Corey
1:09:44
The internet got to it. The internet gets to a lot of things. Sorry, Karens of the world.
Zain
1:09:48
One day we hope the internet gets to you, Stephen Carter, if you finally get what you're looking for in the store, the place that has everything, the internet. I'm already verified on
Carter
1:09:57
on Twitter. i'm fine this
Zain
1:09:59
this is just cold we'll leave it there that's a wrap on episode 934 of the strategist my name is zane velgey with me as always stephen carter cory hogan and we will see you next time
Carter
1:10:23
that hit that music button baby
Carter
1:10:43
Hit that music button baby.