Episode 934: Premiers, eat your vegetables

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 934. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what's going on?

Carter 0:10

I'm cleaning the my glasses of all the liberals or all the left wing tears that have been around me today. They've been so angry on

Zain 0:18

on your glasses. Yeah,

Carter 0:19

Yeah, they're crying on

Carter 0:23

I've had to have eye protection. Carter,

Corey 0:25

Carter, it's this kind of wit that made you such a champion on social media today. They

Carter 0:30

They love me. The social and the media love me. I don't

Zain 0:34

don't know if that is true. No?

Zain 0:39

Well, listen, Corey, Carter.

Carter 0:41

Let me just check my followers versus you two.

Zain 0:46

That's fine. That's fine. By the way, if anyone from Twitter is listening, IWIM's still open to that blue checkmark. I'm happy to receive it anytime. I'm happy to receive it anytime. Just because I didn't fill out a form with the two of you at the right time seven years ago, really has me feeling a deep sense of regret on the hierarchy points that you two hold over me. But Corey, you know, while Stephen Carter fights with friends online, there's also another war that we're in. And it's the war against pundits, I've heard. I've heard we've been singled out as the, I don't know, the problem. Is that fair to say? As part of

Corey 1:24

of the problem? By his worship, Mayor Nenshi. Well, good friend

Zain 1:26

friend of the show.

Zain 1:28

Although he's not been on the show. Some

Corey 1:30

Some of the show. Good

Corey 1:31

of one of us on the show. Yeah,

Zain 1:34

Now, I haven't heard these comments, but I heard on Twitter that, you know, he was saying that political pundits at this

Zain 1:41

this time should stop punditing because we've got a real health crisis. Yeah,

Corey 1:46

Yeah, he did that while providing political punditry. So

Corey 1:48

So let's just sort of acknowledge that there's perhaps a there's a base hypocrisy to these comments. I

Zain 1:54

I have to say, I do like NoFoxNenshi. I felt like his his power in politics appearance was pretty excellent when he called Angela Pitt a nobody and just powered through, didn't care. I felt like he's been showing some some some glimmers of top form last couple of weeks, I have to say. You

Carter 2:14

You know, you deal with a crisis for the better part of 15 months. Once you start getting good at it by the end. So that's great.

Zain 2:21

Thank you for that, Carter. That's what we're looking for.

Zain 2:23

What else are we talking about? Anything else to clear off the top, Corey? Anything else on your mind, in your world?

Corey 2:30

I think Bradley Beal is still the point leader. I was just going

Zain 2:32

going to ask you. Bradley Beal has been playing out of his mind. I love Bradley Beal. I feel, you know what? Here's what I have to say.

Zain 2:41

Steph Curry has made me love basketball again this year, which is a like a super simple thing to say but his ability to do what he does is unparalleled bradley beal has made me love like the the heart that goes into basketball again i don't know if you saw this clip and we may have lost all of our listeners including carter at this point and that's fine but i don't know if you saw this clip cory where he was talking to like the bradley beal was i don't know if it's the camp that he was looking after and just talking to these young young men about what it takes to play in the NBA, that made me love that guy like a thousand times more. And now that he's the point leader, I love it. I love it.

Corey 3:21

I've got a breaking update here. He's now fallen into second in the point leadership. I hate that fucking dude.

Zain 3:27

dude. He has no grit, no resilience, no heart.

Zain 3:31

Who's number one, by the way? Steph Curry. Okay, that's good. That's good. I'm fine. I'm fine with that one-two combo. I'm fine with that one-two combo. And the fact fact that the phoenix suns are first in the west with cp3 and devin booker as the the cornerstones of that team yeah like it's actually a pretty good season even though i haven't watched a single game this year carter you wanted to jump in with a one fact on any of the above yeah

Carter 3:54

yeah so the sydney swans really let me down this week uh and the western bulldogs but i really bounced back i got the most uh most tipped predictions correct uh in the afl this week so let's move it on to

Carter 4:08

first segment cancel culture.

Zain 4:11

Guys, exhale, exhale. Alberta is happening. We've got the highest amount of COVID cases per capita.

Zain 4:19

Well, active COVID cases per capita in the continent, North America,

Carter 4:24

We're number one, baby. Number

Zain 4:26

Number one, right at the top. We've also got more

Zain 4:30

active cases per 100,000 people than India. Yes,

Zain 4:33

Yes, that is also true.

Zain 4:35

And we've just seen Jason and Kenny unilaterally suspend two weeks of the legislature session. It was so much to talk about. We've talked a bit about, you know, the response, the, if I can call it, Stephen, the escalation that Jason and Kenny issued with some of the restrictions and how they were received. All of us Albertans received a friendly, performative text message alert on our phone, how nice, to let us know that these new restrictions, which were largely in place for most of us already were still in place um and

Zain 5:11

and then and then this weekend where the record breaking covid case numbers i believe the daily numbers yesterday guys if i'm not mistaken were record breaking across the board daily case count icu and hospitalizations positivity rate at the top uh at record highs for all of them um and a response by our premier uh several hours hours late, tweeting about the oil and gas sector. And of course, let's not forget an added piece of context, which I want you to flesh out for me.

Zain 5:44

A rodeo, a rodeo event. The irony is delicious, because as Alberta moves to make rodeo our official sport, a rodeo event held on private property in rural Alberta attracts several hundred people. And of course, no one gets It's really fined or arrested, at least as far as we know thus far. So much going on in our province. But Carter, start us off with the story that I think is the most interesting and perhaps the most politically charged in all of this. And I shouldn't say none of it. The rest isn't. But it's this unilateral suspending of the legislature.

Zain 6:20

Tell me about this. What is going on? What do you speculate is going on? And what do you think Jason Kenney's doing?

Carter 6:26

I think in order to get there, Zane, you have to take a half a step back and make sure that people understand that we have not really changed our behaviors here for months. We were in a stage one kind of recovery that moved to stage two, which was a partial stage two because we didn't have the numbers that we'd said we needed at the beginning in order to make that stage two happen. But Jason Kennedy was so hellbent on recovery, on the economic recovery, that he enabled us to move faster than perhaps we should have. And then he's moved us back into stage one. So what changes we've seen are negligible. I mean, you can still go visit a restaurant. You can still be out on the patio of a restaurant. And by the way, if you

Zain 7:10

you were in Calgary or Edmonton this weekend, you saw tons of people on patios. If you're driving by one of them, if

Zain 7:17

you're driving by these places, they were packed, right? And yeah, go ahead. The

Carter 7:22

The message isn't there. The message isn't there that this is how we actually curtail this virus. Instead, we're all buying into this idea that we're going to get vaccinated or something is going to save that. But in the meantime, we're still at 36% of Albertans with their first dose, if that. I think it might even be 28%. Hard

Carter 7:39

Hard to tell where you get the numbers. And

Carter 7:42

And the premier, to your point, is tweeting about oil and gas sector instead of actually trying to change people's behaviors around this virus. And we haven't closed elementary schools. We haven't done anything. We've closed high schools, senior and junior high schools, only in areas that have hot spots. But the entire province is on fire. But a lot of it doesn't get covered because they don't meet the floor conditions, which I think we've spoken about before, of the 250 people in the floor conditions. So all

Carter 8:13

all of that is basically setting a tone of don't change anything. And then late this afternoon, late

Carter 8:20

late this afternoon, we get the notice that the legislature is suspended because of the COVID. So the one thing that we expect him to do, which is actually go into the legislature and make legislation happen so that we can get through this is that's over because that's too much of a hotspot. lot. We can't do that. But we can send kids to school when there's 300 plus children every you know, getting coming down with COVID.

Carter 8:44

This is this is just insanity to me. And people, of course, have not reacted well. This is a massive challenge

Carter 8:54

challenge for her or for the for the premier. And it's a massive challenge for Dr. Hinshaw, who is trying to guide us through this, but with absolutely no no support from the premier and the people of Alberta have reacted in two

Carter 9:09

two camps, one camp of, we got to take care of this ourselves and the larger camp of there's nothing to take care of.

Zain 9:19

Corey, the, the suspending

Zain 9:21

suspending of the legislature,

Zain 9:23

while so many things remain open, the,

Zain 9:28

the, the, is it ironic or is it, is it, is it worse than that? Yeah.

Corey 9:31

Yeah. It's like rain on your wedding day, Zane. i

Zain 9:34

mean like it's the two of you were at my wedding day 32

Corey 9:37

degrees it was beautiful it's true it was really nice my daughter got chocolate all over her yeah

Corey 9:42

yeah that's a big day uh

Corey 9:45

nenshi was there let's just bring it all in full circle here listen i don't know i mean like this

Corey 9:49

this is you're talking about yes we had some high case numbers yes we had some high icu high hospitalization uh we have not you know across the board except one important one which is deaths i I suppose, if we're just going to round out the picture here, we're not getting as many deaths per day as we were in the second wave. And that's, that's good. I'm not sure that's because of anything we're doing that's particularly smart or brilliant. It's probably more to do with the fact that older Albertans are vaccinated, and there's a bit of a lag to these things.

Corey 10:19

no, I mean, like when we start talking about the legislature, of course, of course, it doesn't make sense to say that this is a more dangerous place than any of the many, many places that are open in Alberta still. And of course, that's not the reason why the legislature is being closed. It's because you don't want to take it from your own caucus in the morning and from the NDP in the afternoon. And you would much rather just not be involved in any of that discourse right now. And as we say in politics, why let a good crisis go to waste, right? We've got some bad numbers. It's something that on its face doesn't seem totally crazy that we would start taking extra precautions with our elected officials as well uh but it's definitely not because of the covid numbers except it's entirely because of the covid numbers just in an entirely different context yeah right right

Carter 11:02

right so um you

Corey 11:03

you know i mean the really the thing that i think you can pull out of here is that this is a government that is going to the mattresses it

Carter 11:10

it is is looking for a bit of a cool

Corey 11:11

down period it's looking for a bit of a time out both with uh its own mlas and with the opposition mlas and a chance to buy a couple of weeks hopefully see those numbers return and be able to come back into to the legislature and say see we did the right thing we didn't overreact uh see we did the right thing we took in these precautions and that's what got the numbers down be able to tell both audiences this was the right play uh ultimately they just don't want to have the fight every day they don't want to do what we're doing right now frankly which is talking about the same things as we were just a couple of days ago no new news yeah

Corey 11:43

higher levels of outrage um and then just uh you know they want to be able to walk past all of that and say at the end of it all judge us by the conclusions Now, big

Corey 11:52

big problem with that plan, your

Corey 11:54

your plan needs to work in order for that to happen. And as you've already alluded to, there's been a couple of things that have made it clear that the COVID-18 and their

Corey 12:03

their supporters within the province who would like to see us all open up again are going to continue to sort of antagonize,

Corey 12:09

antagonize, shall we say. And

Corey 12:11

just because you're not in the legislature is not going to stop Rachel Notley from knocking you upside the head, metaphorically speaking, about all of the things that are going awry. And in fact, you may have given her a bit of a megaphone because now

Corey 12:26

now you get to also say if you're Rachel Notley and on top of it all, Jason Kenney is trying to avoid me.

Zain 12:32

Carter, I want to talk about what the NDP should do. And, you know, outside of politics, there's another P word that's been floating around right now that many people want Rachel Notley to use as her sword in this political fight. And that's parogue. I'll get to that in a second. Whether that's, you know, a good analogy or not.

Zain 12:50

And going down that same pathway. But before I do that, can you can both, you know, one of the joys of this podcast is that I've never worked in the legislature. Both of you have, right, in some meaningful capacity. So can you explain to me and our listeners what legislatively, let's just remove the politics for a second, what legislatively Jason Kenney has eliminated as options to respond to this pandemic by suspending the legislature? Carter, you alluded to that, and I just wanted to make sure we're clear as to what instrumentation is off the table because of the suspension of the legislature. Or is that is it simply performative? And should he be wanting to can still put things, you know, make things happen, increase restrictions, etc. I just want to be clear on that from both your perspectives, Carter, Carter first, and then Corey, if you want to add anything thereafter. after? It's

Carter 13:41

There's tremendous powers granted to the chief medical officer of health in the province of Alberta. And of course, cabinet retains its government to, or its ability to govern through

Carter 13:52

through ministerial orders and orders and counsel. So there is really only, it's mostly performative. It's the idea that government should be working every day to answer questions and make make sure that people are following the guidances and are doing their very best thing that they can do.

Carter 14:13

This government has a

Carter 14:16

a legislative agenda that is pushed off. Now, I'm not in favor of their legislative agenda, but

Carter 14:23

it has very little to do with the actual healthcare crisis and more to do with the perceptions around the healthcare crisis. And

Carter 14:32

that's where I'm really interested with it is that it's not about whether or not they can do more bad legislation. I mean, they can do all

Carter 14:40

all kinds of orders and counsel. They can make government function.

Carter 14:43

Government will not notice anything different because the government, as we've talked about a couple of times and never really gotten into much depth, government is different than the legislature. And those two things are not

Carter 14:55

not necessarily, I mean, obviously they're linked, but the government continues even when the legislature is prorogued or suspended, as it is in this particular case. So there is no legislative reasoning, but it's the symbolism that comes with it. It's saying it's too dangerous for us, but it's not so dangerous for you, servers. It's not so dangerous for you, teachers. It's not so dangerous for you, retail employees. It's just too dangerous for us. And that's, I think, where the real problem lies with Kenny's decision today.

Zain 15:35

Corey, anything you want to add to the legislative side before we go back to the political track to add to Carter's statement? You know, he was largely saying this is a performative measure. And we can talk about what Kenny wants to do with that performative measure in a second. But anything you want to add to the actual mechanics and the legislative front?

Corey 15:51

Yeah, I mean, Carter is generally right, but he's wrong. and it's rooted in a couple of points that i want to make here one is that um we do not need to go to ancient history to see examples of the legislature needing to act quickly bringing in a bill passing a bill promptly in order to address a matter related to covid bill 71 the employment standards vaccination leave amendment

Corey 16:11

amendment that was agreed to by both the ndp and the ucp fundamentally foundationally the thing that you need to keep in mind is while the powers of the the ministers and the powers of the crown are broad they are not absolute and there are certain things that you require the legislature to

Corey 16:26

to do we live in a democracy and that's one of the cool things about a democracy ultimately our elected representatives get to weigh in on things when it comes to statutes so it's not outside the realm of possibility that it will actually be a bit of an impediment if the legislature is not sitting should we have something else like this come up and we realize shit might be nice to deal with that now that said there's not an awful lot on the order paper that would otherwise cause you any kind of heartburn here we've got like public lands amendments act uh you know uh miscellaneous statutes is on the on the list there that that bill that was brought in that allowed the government not to get sued over covid was brought in i don't think anyone's going to shed some tears if that takes a while to pass

Corey 17:06

um so it's not like it was a big robust legislative um agenda at this point right now But I do want to stress, the legislature is not nothing. The legislature does have some consequence here. But the consequence that Jason Kenney was most worried about was everybody being in the building. That is clear, both his own caucus and also the opposition. position.

Zain 17:28

Carter, let's talk about the politics for Kenney before I get into Notley in a second. You know, if you're team Kenney right now, you're probably trying to use this, spin this, or let's say genuinely make this suspension

Zain 17:42

suspension to symbolically gesture to your fellow Albertans about the seriousness of this crisis. Is that what's

Zain 17:51

what's going to happen? Do you feel like that's how this will land? And if so, do you think this will work as a strategy to showcase that this thing is so serious, we're shutting it down for ourselves, perhaps signaling a bit to the right? Do you feel like there's

Zain 18:06

there's something there? And do you feel like it would work?

Carter 18:08

I don't think so, Zane. I'm really struggling with that one, because I don't think it's a big enough, broad enough signal. I don't think that signals work, first of all. I think that you have to... Wait, why do

Zain 18:18

do signals... Explain that to me. What do you mean by signals don't work.

Carter 18:21

It's kind of this virtue signaling, right? Personal responsibility has been the catchphrase of this government for the last 15 months. Personal responsibility, personal responsibility. We're

Carter 18:29

We're all going to take personal responsibility. In some fashion, things are going to work out. It hasn't worked, right? He's, you know, he's been wearing his mask. You know, Minister Shandro pumps the hand sanitizer every time he's about to speak, every time he's taking off his mask. It's all very performative, but it is not changing behavior. It is signaling, It is sending a signal out there, but it is not finding an audience that wants to hear it. And I suspect that the suspension of the legislature is going to be just another performative element that does not land with any specific audience because it's not actually impacting my life. It doesn't change things for me. You know why? We talk all the time about trying to find things that actually change things for people, and this is performative. It does not change anything for me, right? It'd be like the premier saying, I am not going to eat vegetables for the next six months out of solidarity with the beef industry. It's not going to change my behavior. The Jordan Peterson diet, Carter. Yeah, it's not going to change my behavior, but it may change his. He might get more grumpy, I suspect. Anyways, I mean, these things don't matter to me. What I'm thinking this actually signals, what my thinking is behind this, is he actually thinks things are going to get better in two weeks. He actually thinks that if we just stay out of the legislature for two more weeks, things are going to get better and we're not going to have to deal with the opposition and Rachel Notley taking us to task. I'm not going to have to deal with the COVID-18 because keep in mind, he knows the right things to do. He knows what to do. He just knows that it's unpalatable to his base and therefore he will not do it. That is not a complex model for him. He has just made a choice that he would rather not deal with his party splitting in two. And I think that that's a massive abdication of leadership.

Zain 20:17

Corey, do you buy this telegraphing, that this could be telegraphing to try to show the seriousness of COVID to his coalition?

Corey 20:29

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting theory. I think his coalition will largely see it the same way we've laid out there. There'll be enough cynics around saying, yeah, sure, we know why he really doesn't want to be here. But obviously, it is all part of a package, and it reinforces exactly what he's been saying. So when, you know, he doesn't have, let's just say there's a couple of caucus meetings by Zoom over the next couple of weeks, and people are saying, well, we're not talking enough. He says, well, yeah, because I told you, this is deathly serious, and I'm very busy right now, as is the Minister of Health, as is everybody else around here. I think it's really important we stay connected. I'm talking to the caucus chair every day. But we don't have, you know, part of the reason this legislature is suspended right now is we've got to get some work done here. So, I mean, it's

Corey 21:15

it's consistent, I suppose, with the things

Corey 21:18

he said. However, I don't believe that it's going to be received as, oh, no, I guess he's serious. I guess this is really serious. The legislature has been suspended. That seems a bit hard to swallow. as well.

Zain 21:31

You know what? Both of you have brought something up, and I actually want to... I'll

Zain 21:34

I'll take a detour for a second. We'll come back to this in a bit. Carter, what if Jason Kenney were to call you tonight and say, Stephen, I'm actually genuinely interested in behavior change? And you know, the likelihood of this happening is low on both fronts, perhaps, calling you and this. But he's like, you know, I want to get through to the COVID-18. I want to get through to this rural base. I genuinely want to do this. And so if you're telling me, I heard your podcast, Stephen, I'm a regular listener. I listen frequently every Sunday night that it comes out. I don't listen to the Thursday episodes because sometimes they're about Dairy Queen. I don't like that.

Zain 22:14

listen every Sunday night. And I heard you say, you know what, if this is what the signal is that closing down the legislature won't get through to these people, Stephen, tell me what will. So

Zain 22:24

So if you're helping this premier, right, we know it's Jason Kenney, but if you're legitimately helping this premier on behavior change in this moment, from what we know, let's park the politics for a second, whether he'd do it or not, what would the strategies be that as a leader you'd want to deploy right now to actually facilitate behavior change to, let's say, live wire example, the people that showed up to this private rodeo this weekend? The COVID-18 in your caucus, those rural constituents, what would that require from a behavioral change perspective? And you might even touch a bit into policy, but I know both of you talk about this quite a bit and look at it from this communications, psychology, quasi lens. Carter, what would some of the principles take in your mind right now? First

Carter 23:13

of all, don't ever think you're going to change their mind, right? So it's not about the COVID-18. It's not about the people who went to the rodeo. It's about those people who are one step away. We used to think of decision

Carter 23:23

decision-making kind of as a staircase. And at the bottom of the staircase, you've made one decision. At the top of the staircase, you've made another decision. But most people are kind of in the middle between those two decisions. They're able

Carter 23:34

able to move up and down one step.

Carter 23:36

So it's the people who are one or two steps away from going to the rodeo that you wish to influence. Now, some of them are going to be influenced by consequence. So

Carter 23:45

So bring in consequences, right? Some of them are going to be influenced by seeing people get punished for the views that right now the premier is walking on a tightrope between. So this is where my problem is. The premier is listening to both sides and coming down in the middle, right? And so it doesn't work. You know, anybody who's got kids, you know, parenting by consensus doesn't work. you've got to jump in you've got to make sure that there's definitive rules you know parents who get played by their children one against the other because they've got opposing ideas are are parents that suffer and right now jason kenney is a parent that is suffering because he is not taking a position and he needs to take the position so the covet 18 you know i've been thinking an awful lot about this since the last time we chatted about it only a few short days days ago. I think the only outcome for him that makes sense is

Carter 24:42

to get rid of six to eight of his caucus members and say, those people no longer represent me. We are a government committed to stopping COVID so that we can resume our economic activities. I'm standing here on May the 3rd, and I'm telling you that this is what we're going to do today. We are going to have I will have COVID eradicated from Alberta by May the 31st. I'm going to do everything in my power. And that begins with a real lockdown and a real kick out of the COVID-18. You know, the six people who are in my caucus who can't get on board with this have left. They are out. We will talk about whether or not we allow them back into the caucus at a later date. For now, I will not be distracted. The people who went to the rodeo, the RCMP are next time authorized to bring in water guns. We are going, you know, not water guns, but the real, the big ones, not the little ones, not the little squirt guns, but the big water guns. You know, we are going to disperse these people because we are taking things seriously and there has to be consequence. And then he's got to actually put in real rules for Calgary, Edmonton and the other places that have significant outbreaks. breaks because right now the variants are spreading too fast and he if he thinks this is going to be over in two weeks if he doesn't act it's not going to be over in two weeks and in two weeks from now he's going to have to play the exact same card suspend the legislature again and come up with another stupid ass reason why he's not able to get this under control so

Zain 26:09

so carter the the suite of tools and tactics you suggest number one you

Zain 26:14

you can't change the mind of of the rodeo goers in the the COVID-18, skip them one standard deviation before them, right? You kind of kick some of those folks out to signal, once again, perhaps, you know, something that may or may not work using your own words, that they're not welcome anymore, right? And you're ultimately declaring that you want to defeat COVID in a much more assertive, aggressive manner as your suite of tools and tactics. Corey, first

Zain 26:44

first of all, are you buying what Stephen is selling regarding you can't change the minds of this COVID-18 and the rodeo goers that you have to let them be who they are and you work on their ring around them, so to speak? This

Corey 26:59

This is not very good advice. And I think

Corey 27:04

Jason Kenney would be poorly served by calling Stephen Carter tonight, even more so than usual. Now,

Corey 27:12

there's a scene in the movie Dave where Dave is saying, my father taught me many things here. He taught me in this room. He taught me keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. And this is the advice he needs to take here. There's a reasonable caucus member test that Jason Kenney needs to be able to pass should he find himself in a deeper caucus imbroglio here. If there becomes actually a fight with people leaving caucus and all of those things. fundamentally he needs more people many more people to be with him than to be against him he can only really use lose 19 mlas and then he loses a majority right and we're already at 18 we're here to lose everybody in that group here um by

Corey 27:51

by telling the legislature i'll see you in two weeks he's just given more oxygen to uh the critics who have said jason kenney is hiding from things jason he doesn't want to have the tough conversations he needs to take oxygen away from on them. He needs to say, okay, you 18, we seem to have a problem in your areas. You are coming to Edmonton. We are going to be working day in, day out, elbow to elbow on this problem. And we are going to find a way that we can get the government's message to resonate with the populations that you represent, that you are the ombudsman for. And so if they

Corey 28:28

they don't do that, I mean, there you go. There's a reasonable caucus member test. Jason Kenney invited you to the table you said no of course you're out of caucus right but if you do come the deal is i will share all of the information with you we will talk through all of the statistics we will go on field trips to the hospitals and we will see what the effect is of some of the overcrowding in some of these areas but you are coming right to my shoulder and you are helping and yeah i mean the challenge there is they're not actually going to have their minds changed but you're not performing for them

Corey 28:56

you're performing for everybody else in the caucus right and if they start trying to rattle cages and saying, Jason Kenney's not listening, he's not doing the right things, they're

Corey 29:05

they're going to say, yeah, I mean, he actually invited you to the table and gave you a level of access beyond what most of us did. That doesn't really ring that true. Like, think about the critiques, think about the mutinous phone calls they would be making, and think about how you take all of the vim and vigor out of them. That's the appropriate approach here. And if you get to the point where you need to kick people out, let's just say, for example, Drew Barnes doesn't take you up on the, you got to to come to edmonton you got to help me figure out how we get the

Corey 29:30

people of medicine hat on board here well

Corey 29:33

well then it's the caucus that has to vote to kick them out you've got to have the caucus chair there and you've got to win that vote resoundingly so like you can't just be this imperious premier dealing with these things because that's exactly what's gotten you into this box at least in their view right you know this is this is kind of the pith of the criticisms of

Carter 29:50

of jason k so

Corey 29:51

so uh you can't act that way if you don't want to reinforce those things it's it's it's what it is you know uh you don't necessarily need to like them you don't necessarily think you're going to get value out of them you can't be pushing them away you need them right there so you can see them every effing day if you're worried that they're being mutinous you

Zain 30:11

you know this is i i love this because this is extending uh the the episode of hypotheticals that will never happen as we as we debate back and forth carter i gotta i gotta let you respond to that um because because you've been giving me multiple looks. I could see it. What do you make of Corey's retort to your strategy?

Carter 30:30

I mean, he basically says my advice was terrible and then says you should make an example of them. I literally said the same thing. You're just making a different example. Just making a different example. Come with me. We're going to go do this together. I mean, I think that the point, the difference that I'm targeting is that Corey's trying to figure out the caucus problem, which is a legitimate problem. And I'm trying to figure out the public problem. Because ultimately, I think the public problem is way more important than the caucus problem. Caucus problem is a big problem. It is a big problem today. But the public problem, you've got two years to figure out how to get yourself reelected. And I don't know the path back until you stop everything that's happened right now. Now, you can't even think about how you get back on track until this pandemic is over. And, you

Carter 31:21

it carries into September, oh, my God, people are going to lose their minds.

Zain 31:27

Corey, give me the likelihood of any of these two strategies that both of you have set out happening for Kenny. You feel like this is I was calling this a hypothetical. And I went down this track because I find it interesting from a strategy perspective. perspective, but just to bring us back up to reality, where I want to kind of settle in for the next part of my questions. Tell me how likely you think this is in your mind.

Corey 31:49

Not very on either front. He's obviously picked a strategy, which is to play for time, which, by the way, is not a crazy strategy, right? If you do believe these numbers are going to turn around, if you believe you're going to be having a stronger hand as a result of two weeks, not a crazy strategy. So let's just start there as kind of a fundamental thing. However, he does not have have his fundamental problems with either the public or his caucus resolved at the end of those two weeks. He's just hoping he's got a better range of options there when he concludes those two weeks.

Zain 32:18

Carter, you know, he's got this two-week moratorium on knives being thrown at him, at least from the NDP, so to speak. I mean, it won't stop in every other domain that's accessible to the public and the NDP and etc. Do you also agree with Corey that this is not a crazy strategy? Maybe I'll ask you a question further. Good strategy for Kenny, given everything that's going on?

Carter 32:45

Good strategy for Kenny? No, because it is requiring one particular outcome that he's hoping for, not knowing he's going to get.

Zain 32:54

You mean there's no other outcome outside of COVID declining significantly that helps him with this two-week suspension, moratorium, whatever you want to call it?

Carter 33:02

COVID doesn't go down in the next two weeks, and I mean precipitously,

Carter 33:06

he's going to be back in the exact same spot that he was in when he made this decision today he

Carter 33:11

he is lurching from moment to moment instead of implementing a strategy for how he's actually going to survive this situation this is exactly the opposite and i don't care if you take cory's advice you take my advice this is the opposite of what cory or i would advise we would say what is the end outcome that you were hoping for when do we wish to see that and how do we actually get you there because politics is not removed from the practical governance, right? Politics is not removed from governance. If something is going horribly wrong in your government, you don't get to play politics around it because ultimately it will fail. You have to have your government functioning the way you want it to with, of course, its normal ebbs and flows and ups and downs and mistakes that are made. But these are not normal mistakes. These are abnormal mistakes that are being continually made one

Carter 34:01

one day after another day after another day because he's hoping for something instead of planning for something and strategists plan and amateurs hope oh

Zain 34:10

nice bumper sticker steven carter maybe we can put that above someone's office door uh just right beside do your job cory i heard that's from the new england patriots just so you know just so you know i

Carter 34:21

i thought you were gonna go ted lasso on me with belief oh yeah

Zain 34:24

time i was a belief yeah

Zain 34:25

baby by the way if folks if you have not watched ted lasso we

Zain 34:29

don't want you you're listening to the show we want you

Carter 34:31

you to just leave turn it on yeah go watch it right now yeah

Zain 34:34

yeah uh cory jump in uh to what carter said by the way nice finish nice landing on that carter you got you got a 10 from the french judge as well cory your take uh

Zain 34:44

never seen ted lasso

Carter 34:45

don't need you on the show oh my

Zain 34:49

my god hogan look

Corey 34:50

look i agree hope is not a strategy but if he has reason good reason to believe things will be better he you know playing for time getting more options that

Corey 34:59

is not a strategy of hope that is that is saying okay my hand is strengthened in a bit of time so there's a distinction between the two and i think it just needs to be called out here yep

Corey 35:08

now if he is just hoping though this is a bad idea because ultimately it's nothing more than a dice toss it's uh it's like a the political equivalent of kiting a check hoping that you know your ship's going to come in before somebody cashes it but uh uh

Corey 35:23

in two weeks we may be in in a very different situation this is um this is one of these things that is shifting rapidly weather is getting better people

Corey 35:31

people may be outside more frankly i don't think that any of these restriction changes are likely to have material effects on numbers but maybe some of these brush fires will burn themselves out maybe vaccination will continue to push forward in a way that is helpful i don't know i mean it doesn't fill me with a lot of joy as an albertan i don't get the sense that this is well underhand, you know, like this is this is not feeling like a situation that is being steadily managed at this particular moment. But maybe Jason Kenney knows something that we don't. I

Corey 36:05

I doubt it, but maybe. And that changes the calculus on everything, right? What's a good strategy? What's a bad strategy?

Zain 36:13

Guys, then give me the punch counter punch, right? So So the Kenny strategy here, suspend for two weeks, precipitously go down, avoid the daggers, the darts, the knives, the axes, whatever you want to say metaphorically, that get thrown at you. If

Zain 36:31

If you're Rachel Notley, you probably also want to hope for the same thing, that these cases precipitously go down for the health of the province. But how do you ready yourself for if he comes out of it with that outcome, that you could still elicit political pain for what he did in these two weeks by going in proverbial hiding? And Carter, I'll go to you first on that. And then, Corey, I want to hear your thoughts on the counterpunch that the NDP need to give now and perhaps be prepared for to leave either the breadcrumbs in place to be able to have something solid to land in two weeks if our COVID cases go down significantly. Can

Carter 37:08

Can I open with something you don't do?

Carter 37:11

Can I open with what you don't do? You don't talk about how this is the equivalent of Stephen Harper proroguing parliament. Ah, look, gotcha politics. Now,

Carter 37:19

Now, to be clear, have the

Zain 37:20

the NDP said that? I have not seen them

Carter 37:23

that. There's a group of the wannabe

Carter 37:26

wannabe strategists throughout there saying that. No one who's a trained professional in politics says that because people

Carter 37:34

people who are trained professionals in politics know it's about you and me. It's about the individual. And proroguing parliament, proroguing the legislature, suspending the legislature has virtually no impact on me as an individual. What does have impact on me, what I question is when I'm sending my kids to school, but

Carter 37:53

but the government's not sitting because it's too dangerous. When the numbers for children are going through the roof. What does matter to me is when I can't go to my office. What does matter to me is when I'm scared to go and buy my groceries. trees. What does matter to me is when I'm driving past those restaurants and I'm seeing the people acting

Carter 38:13

acting the way that they are, knowing that they're not all from the same household, and

Carter 38:17

and Jason Kenney knows it too, and

Carter 38:18

and he's not taking action.

Carter 38:20

Those types of activities where you say, you know what, you

Carter 38:23

you closed the legislature,

Carter 38:24

legislature, but you didn't close my kid's school. You closed the legislature, but you didn't take care of servers and restaurants. You closed the legislature, but you didn't take care of people working in offices.

Carter 38:35

Those are stories that will matter to people and will resonate with people. And I can already, I've already seen Rachel Notley already out front on them. She's, she's taking, she's doing this exactly the right way. And she's jumping all over it in a way that, you know, I mean, frankly shows why they're raising twice as much money as the UCP.

Zain 38:56

And so Carter, you think that attack that she's currently waging now is durable enough regardless of what happens in two weeks? Or let me be clear, if cases go down, Kenny gets his way. Do you think that attack is still durable and potent enough for that time horizon? I

Carter 39:10

I think so. I think that first of all, the case is going down and it's going to take a period of weeks, right? Even if we hit the top, let's say that today was the top of the curve and we immediately start going down, it's still going to take a period of three or four weeks before we get anywhere near a zero. And we can count on one thing, and that's the Jason Kenny government making bad decisions between now and then anyways. So every day the Kenny penny government keeps giving you gifts because the things that they have to do to signal their base, the things that they have to do to keep Drew Barnes happy, are exactly the opposite of what you need to do to keep your base happy. So Rachel Notley's laughing all the way to the bank.

Zain 39:50

Corey, do you agree?

Corey 39:53

couple of things. On

Corey 39:54

On the proroguing parliament, just to fill it out a bit, two points I would make to anybody who's swinging that line around. I don't believe many people are really swinging that line around this is this is freelancers thinking they've caught on to something brilliant uh but you know a pro-working parliament works lest we forget like that works for stephen harper and b harper

Corey 40:13

harper is pretty popular here why would you tie him to a more popular politician right i just i don't know that that makes an awful lot of sense like you're essentially reframing it into a fight that

Corey 40:26

that we know albertans are more likely to be on the side of stephen harper whereas right now jason kenney's on an island all by his own so like what are you what are you trying to say fundamentally

Corey 40:33

fundamentally stephen carter's advice is sound it because the message isn't look

Corey 40:40

look at him uh hiding

Corey 40:43

hiding although that's part of it but it's premier why

Corey 40:46

why is your safety more important than my daughter's exactly

Corey 40:50

my daughter is six years old and she's expected to go to of school you

Corey 40:56

a grown man with all of the privileges in the world uh and you don't feel safe convening the legislature what

Corey 41:03

what is that about and that's the kind of thing that people can wrap their head around pretty easily and you know maybe they're a parent like me and that's what they're thinking about maybe they work in a store that all of a sudden seems pretty effing full can i tell you like i don't even see people counting at doors anymore it feels like people have just sort of given up on those things maybe it is somebody who goes to pick up an order for takeout and they're elbow to elbow at the counter because the place is full of patrons who are clearly not from the same families but why

Corey 41:34

why is your safety more important than x is the thing that is going to boil people's blood right the other thing about this particular message is it avoids getting into well here let me just actually say this because it's a bit of a different point

Corey 41:48

If I am the NDP, I am not saying things are going to get worse, things are going to get worse, things are going to get worse, because you don't know that. And in fact, things may very well get better. And you don't want to find yourself in the same trap Aaron O'Toole was in on the vaccination file, where he started talking about how terrible the vaccine rollout was going to be. And then all of a sudden, we got all these vaccines. The rollout started picking up steam, and Aaron O'Toole's message is kind of falling a little flat. And it's being pretty clear that he didn't quite have his finger on the pulse of that either. I think the idea of making it personal is the right one. And, yeah, you can say, where

Corey 42:24

where the hell are you? We've got a situation here. You can't let this thing just be on autopilot and hope, you know, to kind of crib Stephen's line from earlier. And that's a big problem. But are you just sort of ducking and covering because you're more worried about yourself than the people of Alberta? So that's

Corey 42:42

that's the basic landscape you've got to be standing on if you're an opposition MLA. What

Zain 42:48

do you guys make of the messaging strategy of opposition parties explicitly saying stuff like, this is a premier that's hiding, this is a government in complete meltdown, this is a government that's failed? Like, I'm

Zain 43:04

I'm very curious. It's a genuine question because I don't know where I stand on it in terms of where you guys are in terms of messaging and calm strategy of letting someone else fill in those blanks. Or do you as an opposition party in when you see soft tissue or vulnerabilities like you are right now have to draw people to that conclusion explicitly? Carter, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. You're shaking your head. So I don't know if I can predict your answer, but I think I very well might be able to.

Carter 43:33

I mean, for me, he's hiding doesn't mean anything. What's he hiding from? Like, I don't know. If you equate it to he's

Carter 43:40

he's afraid the virus might be in the legislature, so he's not going to the legislature. But Corey's kids are going to school.

Carter 43:48

They don't get the opportunity to be afraid. They don't get the opportunity to hide. Then for me, it works. But if it's just the premier's hiding, he doesn't want to answer my questions, which is how it sounds. sounds then it's crappy because no

Carter 44:05

no one listened to your questions question period is only this really exciting thing for the people who participate in question period the rest of us don't care so

Carter 44:14

so um you know if they're talking about the right thing then i'm i'm intrigued but for the most part i fear that they're not talking about the right thing what they're doing is they're they're trying to make like he's hiding from our tough questions no

Carter 44:28

he's not he doesn't care um and the general population population doesn't care either and i am just far more interested in making sure that i've got a very very strong brand of what the kenny government looks like that can sustain itself like let's assume the pandemic ends at the end of may our prayers are answered and

Carter 44:48

and you're rachel notley you have to sustain that negative brand position for nick for kenny all the way through to april 2023 so you want to have a sustainable which

Zain 44:58

which is where where my conclusion comes in carter like are you as the opposition leader is a good strategy to explicitly say stuff like this government is meltdown this premier is a coward drawing those conclusions or are you supposed to be a little bit more light-handed with your with your approach no

Carter 45:14

no be heavy-handed but be making about the audience this

Carter 45:17

this government doesn't care about your children it

Carter 45:19

it cares about itself more than it cares you know jason kenney's caucus was imploding that's why he can't be in the legislature because he's afraid some of his people are going going to cross the floor is

Carter 45:29

is he afraid about little sally in grade three and she has to cross the floor every day to go to the bathroom you know like she's in school it's dangerous hundreds of children are getting sick this is no longer acceptable lead

Carter 45:46

that's where that's where you're attaching a brand that i now care about because of course branding is only about how much i care about something something can have the world's best brand the nba has the the world's best brand, I don't care. So if I don't care, then that brand is meaningless to me.

Zain 46:03

premier has now run and gone into hiding. He's a coward. He's running from his own caucus. This is his government that's in complete meltdown. You can't have him in the same room together. Corey, what do you think?

Corey 46:17

When you think about the question that you just asked, Stephen,

Corey 46:21

which is what exactly?

Zain 46:25

the question was very simply, do you go and draw these sharp conclusions, these underlined, this government is in meltdown, he's running away from his caucus yourself, or do you leave that space for others to fill in more implicitly in

Zain 46:40

a situation like this? This

Corey 46:41

is not a game that rewards subtlety. And

Corey 46:44

And if you're not making these very blunt, direct accusations, where are you going to find them? So those words you just said, all of those words, who do you think is going to say that, if not the official opposition? Do you think a reporter is going to be that aggressive? Do you think a civil society group is going to be that aggressive? Absolutely not. So if you want it to be part of a conversation like that, you are basically the only player on the field who is going to be able to drive that with the kind of broadcast reach that you need for it to stick in people's minds.

Zain 47:16

It's an excellent response. Let's move it on. Carter, am I seeing something from you before I move it on? Oh, I'm all good.

Carter 47:24

I am so polite. I just listen and I just answer your questions as they are asked. No, I really appreciate that, Stephen Carter.

Zain 47:32

by the way, Corey, thank you for that excellent Dave quote. Many people don't know this, but Sun Tzu was the screenwriter for Dave. Yeah. Won an Oscar that year with his excellent, excellent and Sorkin-like pithy lines for Dave. Excellent movie if you haven't seen it. Put it on the list alongside Ted Lasso.

Zain 47:52

put it on the list. How

Carter 47:53

How have you not watched Ted Lasso? Let's

Zain 47:55

Let's move it to our next segment, making it rain. Guys, I want to spend a few minutes on this because I'm I think

Zain 48:01

think it's a story. I don't know if you guys think it's a story. But listen, we talked last week about the numbers for the conservatives, the federal conservative fundraising numbers at a record eight point four seven million bucks. Okay, we now have the liberal numbers in.

Zain 48:17

And they shocked me. They're at three

Zain 48:19

three and a half, five million dollar delta. And the excuse, if I can call it that, that the liberals are using, where have we heard this before, guys? Where have we heard this one before? Do you want to say it before I even say it? Because I think I can see you smiling. I think both of you know what it is. We were busy fighting the lockdown while they were busy making the virus, while they were busy making this pandemic political. I'm paraphrasing. It's some version of that. You

Zain 48:51

read it. They spend much longer on it. it. Corey, I'm going to start with you first on this. Am I overblowing this? Am I making this too much of a too big of a deal that there's a $5 million delta between the two parties in Q1 fundraising, while the Liberals ply Canadians with dollars in their pockets, the government, but quite literally, you know, are offloading dump trucks of money to small businesses, to Canadian checking accounts, and then they're not feeling the reciprocal love of back overblown or is there is there something real here in your mind so

Corey 49:24

so i don't think it is overblown i think this is real i i feel that uh there are some fundamentals and i'll go back to this and i've said this a couple of different times but now we've got yet another data point on this there are some fundamentals that do not speak to a good time for the liberal government when they go to the polls here we've talked about the economy we've talked about some of those projections we've talked about the anxiety canadians are feeling around around their own own personal financial situations. And now we are seeing fundraising numbers. And the fundraising numbers are

Corey 49:56

are quite often a canary in the coal mine on these things, because it tells you that there is going to be, as much as people talk about Aaron O'Toole, oh, he's not the guy for the conservatives. Oh, he's antagonized all of these social conservatives. Oh, he's breaking his own coalition. Tells me his coalition's a lot more enthusiastic than

Corey 50:13

than Justin Trudeau's at this This particular moment, right? And maybe that enthusiasm is less about Aaron O'Toole and more about defeating Justin Trudeau.

Corey 50:22

But there's some enthusiasm there. And that enthusiasm gap could be particularly fatal for Justin Trudeau during a campaign, if he finds he doesn't have, you know, the financial resources to, you know, to stop from Aaron O'Toole further defining him or defining Aaron O'Toole himself in a more positive light. So this is definitely something to watch. I can't help but note that there's been a lot of governments that have managed to manage COVID and lead fundraising. Yeah.

Corey 50:54

It doesn't seem to be impossible.

Corey 50:57

What we are seeing, however, in Alberta is a case that everybody could point to and say, that's a government that's gone through some rough times. Not that surprising they're behind in fundraising. I

Corey 51:08

I suspect many of those same people are now going to accept

Corey 51:11

accept the excuses for Justin Trudeau, but I'd ask them, really

Corey 51:14

really think about it. Really

Corey 51:16

Really think about whether there's a consistency to that and think about what it could be that is driving the liberal numbers down. And if you're a little confused, maybe

Corey 51:26

maybe just look at the headlines for the Liberals for the past 12 months outside of all of this thrust and parry here. You know, we've still got we scandal. We've still got big deficits. We've got, you know, accumulation of scandals. We've got the economy not doing that well. We've got a lot of anxious people in a country that is feeling a little unsettled.

Corey 51:48

And maybe that's not great for re-election. Is

Corey 51:51

Is it going to get better? My suspicion is, no, I think those things will take over once people stop thinking about COVID response so significantly, which is part of why I think, A, the liberals should probably go now, and B, people

Corey 52:04

people are writing off Aaron O'Toole way too prematurely.

Zain 52:08

Carter? Is the, we've been fighting the virus, you know, we haven't had time to be political about this. We've been focused on what matters while they're preparing for an election. Does that work?

Carter 52:24

that's total crap. You know, the- You're

Zain 52:27

You're consistent between the answer that you gave for Kenny and Trudeau, right? So this is not a partisan thing in your mind. You feel like that global message for a party doesn't work. Yeah,

Carter 52:35

Yeah, because it turns out that the guy who's doing the fundraising, the woman who's been hired to be the fundraiser for the Liberals, isn't solving the COVID problem. You know, she hasn't been asked to weigh in at the cabinet. Yeah, it's not like, oh, you know what we got to do? We

Carter 52:51

We got to call Sally from fundraising. We got to bring her in here because Sally from fundraising has got the answer to COVID.

Carter 52:56

That's not actually happening. We have distinct jobs for parties. And, you

Carter 53:01

you know, Corey always makes fun of me because I say that money is the currency of politics. And then he laughs and he laughs. It's still funny.

Carter 53:08

pretty good. But money is the grease on the wheels. Like this is everything. And I think what is happening here, and

Carter 53:16

and this is maybe a broad statement, but I think that there are two types of funding. There's funding for your political party because you're doing something that the public wants you to do. You're doing a good job and you can get money for that. And then there is funding against. And so funding against, and I think that right now, the conservatives get funding against Trudeau and funding against the draconian laws and funding against the lack of vaccinations and funding against, you know, the COVID situation. They've got funding against down and

Carter 53:49

and the Trudeau liberals have no funding against platform, in part because of what Corey has said, and that is that people have written off O'Toole, right?

Carter 53:58

right? You're not fundraising against the evil O'Toole the way that you were fundraising against the evil Stephen Harper. Stephen

Carter 54:04

Stephen Harper was money in the bank.

Carter 54:09

neither one of these guys is going to generate nickels for your bank account.

Carter 54:13

Instead, you're trying to do fundraising for, and I know this from seeing the actual appeals.

Carter 54:19

Together we can do this, Stephen. Together we can build the Canada we want to build. I'm not funding that. I don't give a shit about that. If you don't fund us, Aaron O'Toole will form the next government and he will screw you. Oh, OK, well, I'll pull up my checkbook. That's a difference in the way that fundraising is being done. And right now, the only party with funding against is the Conservative Party of Canada, not the Liberal Party of Canada.

Zain 54:45

It's an interesting point, Corey. I'll get to you in just a second here, right? Like, Carter, you're saying that – Corey's

Zain 54:51

Corey's talking about an enthusiasm gap, which I think is something to be said. You're talking about a message gap. I think there's perhaps a bit of both from what we sense, Corey, but you wanted to jump in before I ask my next question on this topic. Well,

Corey 55:03

Well, how you got to the enthusiasm gap is somewhat immaterial, because if you sort of accept what Stephen says, and I guess I do, if the liberals are raising more on the, we want to build a great Canada and people aren't opening their pocketbooks, I have to assume that's in part because they have tested, it's a rather sophisticated operation for that, big, bad, scary Aaron O'Toole, and it's not working, right?

Corey 55:27

right? right? And so if it's not working, you

Corey 55:30

you got a problem in the general as well, right? Because if it's not working with your own base, what in the hell are you going to do when it gets to the general population?

Zain 55:37

That's, that's fascinating. That's a very, very interesting point. And so just so I'm clear on that, you're saying, Corey, you know, if the base, just to translate and restate, right, if the base, your liberal base, these people who literally are on your bailing list, who've opted in, are perhaps not responding to look at this boogeyman, right, who wants to take Canada backwards, which, by the way, right out of the gates was their strategy, right? If you recall, the initial spots that they ran right after he won the leadership was that, you know, we got the true blue guy. And I remember when we recorded that O'Toole time episode, you were, I think, cautioning us back then that that same caricature paintbrush that you put on Scheer doesn't really work as neatly with O'Toole. This might be, you know, some evidence of that, perhaps. And I think that's a very, very interesting point, that if it's not working with the base you know screw the money how do you get the votes how do you get the the uh the votes of folks in the in the general election well this

Corey 56:32

this is what makes fundraising a canary in the coal mine because we can start having these conversations and hypothesizing as to why fundraising is down or up and it might not even be we

Corey 56:42

we hate justin trudeau it might be we're not very scared of this erin o tool like the alternative yeah

Corey 56:49

yeah that's that's a concern too if you're the liberals because that that, you know, you've got some interesting fundamentals at play. Carter,

Zain 56:55

Carter, can I be charitable to them for a second? Can we, is

Zain 56:58

is there any merit, and Corey's called it a sophisticated operation, I'm taking him at his word, and from a little bit of what I've seen, but also they get historically out-fundraised by the conservatives.

Zain 57:10

Is there, my question's twofold.

Zain 57:13

Is there something to be said about the actual outright liberal operation here that one should be examining? And maybe the second part of that question, why are we so easy with the fact that the governing party gets out fundraised

Zain 57:27

fundraised by the conservatives constantly? Like, explain to me the dynamics on the latter and perhaps give me some of your thoughts on the former, which is this concept of their

Zain 57:39

their sophistication for being able to do some of this work. I

Carter 57:42

I think that bottom line, you know, we've got polarization that exists in politics right now. And that polarization can be measured in part by fundraising. The team that is developing that is team conservative, they are more zealous and they are more ingrained in politics and they have more fears. And because they bring all of that to the table, they are also more willing to fund. shifting years ago to the small donor model of everything being underneath 1500 and individual donations i'm off on the specifics of the number but i'm not off by much um that is forced that forced the liberals and the conservatives into different styles of fundraising and

Carter 58:25

and it does favor the conservatives the conservatives have an older voter base uh with a little bit more disposable income, and they have more fears, and those fears can be played on. There also happened to be the group that is targeted more by telephone scammers.

Carter 58:40

You know, I mean, these things correlate, they're not causal. But it is easier, for example, for Trump to send out an email with an auto renewal option that doesn't get turned off when he is no longer the president, and no longer running for her office, but he keeps all the money anyways, because that group

Carter 59:00

group doesn't know to look for an auto renewal. The group for the liberals, you know, they bring very different ethos to both the donor set and the way that the money is raised. So I think that it favors the conservatives. We do write that off. It doesn't favor the conservative two and a half times. It doesn't favor the conservatives for $5 million over $3 million. And that's where the problem lies for the liberals right now. Sure, they're raising $1.5 million more a quarter. That makes total sense. They're raising $5 million more a quarter. You've got a structural problem in your party. And you better figure out how to solve it. Because right now, this isn't working, especially when you're trying and just simply upgrade from a massive minority that functions as a majority to a modest majority. That's going to be a really difficult sell in the coming months.

Zain 59:58

why have we given the Liberals a pass for so long for being out-fundraised by the Conservatives? Do you feel like Carter's explanation is justifiable?

Corey 1:00:09

I do, I suppose, to an extent. The other thing about fundraising numbers that you can't necessarily see zaying is the net right and we do know that

Carter 1:00:18

that the conservatives spend

Corey 1:00:18

spend a lot on fundraising and so you know these numbers may not look or might not be as different as they feel and the liberals may have an operation that is spending a little less but they're you

Corey 1:00:30

you know you know they're getting less but it's it's just working fine for them and they're not too concerned about it the other reality is um when

Corey 1:00:39

when you're in government you have a lot of other levers to pull you already mentioned like you can send checks to to people you can you can get your shine in other ways you have a big organization that uh is working on behalf of canadians and canadians are giving you credit for it at least to an extent and so you don't you don't need as much money per se when you're in government arguably right so you can make the strategic decision we don't want to lean into fundraising we think that the leader's time is better spent in these other ways which will get the same net effect or better i don't know i mean those things Those are easy excuses as well, so I think you should look at them with a jaundiced eye. But all

Corey 1:01:16

all of this is based on strategy, and it really is rooted in an understanding of strengths and weaknesses, both of the parties and of the leaders, and what you think you can do and what you think you cannot do. And so it's complicated from the outside, and I think that's part of why we give it a pass, because we do know you don't necessarily need to lead fundraising to win an election. Yep.

Zain 1:01:39

Yep. And we've seen we've seen several examples of that on the international and certainly national stage over the course of the last half decade easily. Carter, let's end with what Corey says is all about strategy. Let's end with a very simple strategy question for both of you. I'm going to start with you. Rather than giving that mealy-mouthed response that we saw in the press release from the liberals, and I paraphrased it, I haven't pulled it up here, something to the extent we were busy fighting the virus, they were more than happy to make it political and raise money off of it, you know, them singularly and squarely pointing the finger at the conservatives, one would imagine. What should have been the messaging construct for that $5 million, you know, delta that the liberals found themselves in?

Carter 1:02:20

Well, I think that's probably the right message that they said. It was just

Zain 1:02:24

just a bad message, but it

Carter 1:02:26

it was my choice. I mean, what are you going to say? You know what? We haven't been listening. We should start listening now. Well, can I offer

Zain 1:02:32

offer something? Sure. Can I offer the Corey Hogan principle of choosing not to communicate as always being an option? And when I say not to communicate, I mean fucking not addressing it. Not addressing that the other parties were busy doing fucking shit. They didn't say that the conservatives raised $8 million, but they ultimately were like like making mention of that, so to speak, in a sideways fashion. Could that have been an option?

Carter 1:02:55

Of course. I mean, I think that this might actually be the perfect Corey Hogan opportunity. And, you know, Corey always says it, and sometimes I say I don't like it. In this particular case, Corey hasn't even said it. And I'm basically just saying, yeah.

Carter 1:03:11

You know what? It's actually a lot easier for me to agree with Corey when Corey hasn't said something.

Carter 1:03:16

It seems weird. It's a psychological issue, I think.

Zain 1:03:20

Corey, do we need you to speak on this or can we bypass you?

Zain 1:03:23

No, he's got to speak. My work here is

Corey 1:03:25

No, listen, I don't know. I think there are – I agree with Stephen. The message they said wasn't terrible. It's not great, but sometimes you're just trying to minimize damage. You're not trying to get somebody to look at the numbers and say, actually, now that they've said that, it's so brilliant. I think they're the fundraising leaders. It's just that's not how this game gets played. So it was fine. We'll

Zain 1:03:45

We'll leave that segment there. moving on to our final segment, our over-under, our lightning round. Stephen Carter, are you ready, sir?

Carter 1:03:53

Today, I am, in fact, ready. Last week, I was a little sleepy, but this week, I'm just pumped right up.

Zain 1:03:58

Today marks a 10-year anniversary from the election that was the one that heralded Jack Layton into official opposition leader. Of course, it was also the election that elected Stephen Harper again and moved the liberals to a distant third. But I want to focus on the NDP for a second. If the NDP, you know, that latent election was perhaps the height of the party over the course of the last decade, if the party had a time machine to go back over the last 10 years, what do you think they would have done differently? Name one thing for me. Would it have been keeping Toml Kerr as their leader? Would it have been moving forward in a particular policy direction? Wouldn't it have been, you know, some sort of merger with the liberals? What do you think would have made this current reality better for the federal NDP? Name one thing that if you could grant them a one-wish time machine slash genie lamp, what would it have been?

Carter 1:04:54

Not believing the hype of the Building the Orange Wave book by our good friend Brad Levine. It wasn't building the orange wave. It was catching the complete liberal collapse and just making the absolute most of it. And this is one of the biggest challenges. I mean, I mean, I've won elections and said to the candidates afterwards, don't believe this. You didn't win. The other guy lost. It is a foundationally different experience. And I think that that was the problem with 10 years ago. The orange wave was really just the red wave and the NDP just caught it and surfed it.

Zain 1:05:30

And how did Alison respond when you told her that? I

Carter 1:05:40

got fired that night, actually. Can

Zain 1:05:43

just make the episode I got fired?

Zain 1:05:46

feel like that was

Zain 1:05:48

pretty funny. Corey, same question for you. If today you were able to grant the NDP a time machine between today and what I would call their peak when Layton was elected on election night, what's one thing you would have suggested to them that they do differently? or perhaps a mistake that they reverse or a policy they adopt. It's open-ended on purpose.

Corey 1:06:13

Well, let me start by saying that that was some crazy revisionism by Stephen Carter. There was an orange wave. I

Corey 1:06:21

in a liberal campaign. I was the election day chair for a campaign at Edmonton Center. And we saw it. We felt it. We heard at the doors. This was not just, oh, this is where the red wave is now. Now, there was a legitimate enthusiasm for Jack Layton. That was his time. It was an opportunity where he had connected with Canadians, and it was a moment. It was not fake. It was not exactly what Stephen Carter is claiming here. And it's been 10 years, so maybe he's just forgotten. But it was real. It was real from the debates onward. It was real. And you saw it even in the context of when Jack Layton, you know, there were the stories coming out about him being caught in a massage parlor.

Corey 1:07:08

Nobody cared. You know why nobody cared? Because it was a wave and it was real and nobody cares when it's real. And

Corey 1:07:13

And so then the question comes back to what could they have done in the past 10 years differently that would have allowed different outcomes here? And it's funny.

Corey 1:07:25

would be easy to say, I think they should have stuck with Tom Mulcair, because I think that Tom Mulcair was probably the guy, was probably a better guy for the moment in 2019.

Zain 1:07:41

stuck with them for that second election.

Corey 1:07:45

But I'm going to say, I'm going to go back further. I think the mistake that they fundamentally made was electing Tom Mulcair in the first place. And I think that if they had gone either with Top or Cullen, they

Corey 1:07:57

they would have been in a better position for different reasons. And we'll have to unpack them when it's not lightning round. But I think fundamentally... You're

Zain 1:08:05

as if there's rules to the lightning round. You've teased me

Corey 1:08:08

me with something really

Zain 1:08:08

really interesting. Can you give us the headlines on why? Yeah, sure. That'd be really interesting, actually. And

Corey 1:08:14

And it's actually rooted in how I started it. The Orange Wave was real and true. And Tom Mulcair was

Corey 1:08:21

by and large. He had come in and he tried to make the

Corey 1:08:25

the NDP – he believed the Stephen Carter hypothesis. He believed, okay, we can just replace the Liberals. We can out-Liberal the Liberals. And he tried that. And we saw what happened when the Liberals found a spring in their step, because it turns out the Liberals are better at being the Liberals than the New Democrats are, right?

Corey 1:08:42

However, I think Nathan Cullen could have perhaps found a way to fundamentally fundamentally change the canadian landscape especially when the ndp

Corey 1:08:50

the big dogs and the liberals were sitting there in third party space maybe right now we'd be talking about the liberal democrats having a majority government right uh but if that's not your cup of tea i think that brian top was the person who could have carried on a lot of that ndp spirit and and that orange wave ethos going forward and i think that would have better served the ndp as well because Because when you got to 2015, and beyond, it

Corey 1:09:17

it was a moment for boldness. And Mulcair was more interested in being middle of the road. And it turns out nobody's interested in the middle of the road, New Democrats. I

Zain 1:09:25

think this is a full episode. But Carter, I need you to respond to that. I'm really curious about your reaction to Corey's comment that his time machine choice would have been the election, the party election of Mulcair versus the two other choices that that the NDP had and what trajectory

Zain 1:09:44

trajectory-defining outcomes could have happened as a result of that. I'm curious to get your take because I think, you know, we're familiar with the characters. We're familiar with some of the story here. Might as well. Carter. I

Carter 1:09:54

I mean, really, I mean, Corey's not wrong. I was a little unfair to Jack Layton in my initial analysis because it was the lightning round.

Carter 1:10:04

But we're moving on. It

Carter 1:10:05

It wasn't. We're moving on. I'm going to dig in now. I mean, Jack Layton also captured the imagination of people i mean the the times he would he would hold the cane over his head i think it was a montreal speech that i remember seeing it it just so you know so defined the man i mean here he is he's battling cancer and he's standing out there for us for us right not for himself but for us and and i think that everybody understood that and that was a a tremendous thing but

Carter 1:10:31

but i don't care who would have won um

Carter 1:10:32

um the leadership after layton all

Carter 1:10:34

all of them wouldn't have been Layton. And ultimately, that's what the problem was, because they built a messiah, they built a story that was far and away greater than the sum of its parts. And that story could never be lived up to. I have tremendous respect for Brian Topp. I think that he's a tremendous political operative. And I do think that he would have been better than Mulcair.

Carter 1:10:57

But I don't think he would have recaptured the

Carter 1:10:59

the moment of the liberal collapse, the moment of Jack Layton's Ascension, the way that it happened in 2011. So, you

Carter 1:11:08

you know, I think that Corey accuses me of being a tad revisionist. I would suggest that he's being a tad of a dreamer to think that these things would actually unfold the way that he's imagining them in his head.

Zain 1:11:21

We're always looking to partner with different podcasts. I feel like this would be a great revisionist history podcast with our friend Malcolm. And we

Carter 1:11:29

we said no to him last time. And I think that turned out to be a mistake. He keeps knocking

Zain 1:11:32

knocking on the door. Corey, finish us off. I do want to talk about this more at some point. I feel like this will be an interesting deep dive topic at some point. Finish us off on this, and then we'll move to the other questions.

Corey 1:11:42

I just want to say that this is not to take anything away from Tom Mulcair, who I think is brilliant in his own way. But it is something we talk about a lot on this podcast, which is, and we've talked about it in the context of O'Toole, right? right? Sometimes having a disconnect between the base and the leader can lead to a tension that is ultimately so non-productive as to be counterproductive. And

Corey 1:12:04

I think that was another thing that we saw that more after the 2015 election. But certainly, you could see that that was also a foundational challenge.

Zain 1:12:14

I'm going to leave that question there, almost ending it like it's a segment. Look at that. We did the quickest segment. Very substantive. I like it, guys. Stephen Carter, I'm going back to you. you. The damage that it will do, Kenny, between 1 to 10 on suspending the legislature, 1 being, meh, it won't matter, 10, huge,

Zain 1:12:28

huge, massive. What do you think it's going to end up being?

Carter 1:12:31

It's a D minus issue. I mean, it doesn't impact me. It's not going to impact my life. I think it's a bad move, but it's not going to make a big difference.

Zain 1:12:40

Corey, same question to you. 1 to 10, suspending the legislature, damage for Kenny.

Corey 1:12:45

No, it's not a great idea. And I think that it will probably cause more internal drama than external drama.

Zain 1:12:53

You know, there's an issue that we haven't talked about on the podcast. I do want to talk about it in a little bit more detail when we talk on Thursday. But it's this concept of paid sick leave that seems to be gaining momentum, certainly in Ontario, even Rachel Notley in her message today against Jason Kenney bringing it up. Corey, is this policy, paid sick leave, from its political standpoint, is it overrated or underrated in terms of the mileage it might have have in provincial legislatures and perhaps in the national discourse? So I'm asking you about a policy, but I'm asking you about its politics and its political mileage, overrated or underrated?

Corey 1:13:28

don't know. I'd like to see some polling on it. This is one of these things where I could kind of flip off a flip answer, but I don't think I would be doing a service to the issue. Let me argue two points, one for and one against here. On the four, there are a large number of people hundreds of thousands in alberta who would absolutely benefit from such a policy it would also allow for healthier workplaces people wouldn't feel necessarily like they need to to uh you know come to work you know and cough their way through a day even if we weren't in covid times right i i think that there's something to be said for if you're sick it makes sense that you stay home now on the other side putting aside even the fact that um you know employers would not be that wild about having to pay for this because you know presumably you can structure this and all all sorts of different ways.

Corey 1:14:16

I can't help but note that there are certain issues such as the minimum wage, where

Corey 1:14:21

where there were hundreds of hundreds of thousands of Albertans, about 300,000, who benefited by the minimum wage going up to $15 an hour over the course of 15 to 19. I didn't really see that turn into a lot of votes at the end of the day. And I'm not really quite sure why. But fundamentally, maybe it just comes to this general optimism bias of, well, I was going to get there anyways, or I'm not going to get that sick. And you know, now maybe I'm not going to have a job or the answer. I don't know. But it seems that these things have not been the absolute vote winners. And maybe it's a volume question. Maybe the NDP just didn't talk about it enough. But maybe it's not. So not sure. Certainly, it would be quite, quite a shift for employers.

Zain 1:15:04

Carter, paid sick leave, the politics of paid sick leave in this country overrated or underrated in in your mind well

Carter 1:15:09

well first of all let me just say that uh cory taking both sides of a lightning round totally

Carter 1:15:18

think it's overrated i think that uh first of all the importing of a of an issue into alberta from ontario i just don't think it works very often i think that that's what and that's what the ndp is doing cory's made a very good point about the the uh

Carter 1:15:32

the minimum wage and it doesn't translate in the votes i mean we can do a whole deeper dive on young people and people making minimum wage and their voting chances. Anyways, I think that people who are working on an hourly basis are less likely to vote. And we can have, again, a deep dive as to why that is. I imagine that there's already people lining up to crucify me in the comments, but we don't read the comments, so I don't care. So I would say that this is completely overrated.

Zain 1:16:02

Carter, I'm going to stick with you. Homeland, the television show overrated or underrated uh

Carter 1:16:07

uh zane i tell you something uh it's totally overrated and sorry my name

Zain 1:16:11

name is abu zane abu zane i am

Carter 1:16:12

am not falling into that trap you little fucker i'm

Carter 1:16:16

not falling into it i'm not gonna do it

Zain 1:16:18

it well we call that progress okay

Carter 1:16:19

okay so i did that one you should run showtime

Carter 1:16:22

no it was a uh it's a tragic show and uh no one watched it claire dane's running around uh episode after episode losing her mind was also off-putting it's a pretty accurate

Zain 1:16:32

accurate summary from one fact steven carter cory homeland overrated underrated

Corey 1:16:43

mean we're still talking about it all these years later so

Carter 1:16:48

look at that terrible look at

Corey 1:16:49

at that oh wait a minute it went on to season eight yeah i'm just looking now it's still on in 2020 let me tell you something after

Zain 1:16:55

after one jesus let me tell you something let me tell you something i have to say this i

Zain 1:17:00

i watched all eight seasons no you despite my why and i have to say you're this is you want a hot take you want a hot take

Zain 1:17:10

of the best i've ever seen no

Carter 1:17:12

no i'm not i'm not even i'm not even bullshitting you no

Zain 1:17:16

no i despite the fact that it does my people wrong three-dimensionally so wrong so bad

Zain 1:17:26

one of the best series series finales i have ever seen it's

Carter 1:17:29

it's like saying the six feet under season finale was the best that you've ever seen. No one's seen it. No one watched it. No one watched the whole series.

Zain 1:17:35

If you have seen the Homeland series finale and you want to

Zain 1:17:39

tweet Stephen Carter about it, do it. I think he could use the change in pace and tone and topic about what he's currently tweeting and talking about. And we're going to leave that there. That's a wrap on episode 934 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belgey. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. We'll see you next time.

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