Episode 934: Ten dogs in an eight-bun cabinet

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 934. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, we have a new governor general. Whoa, so exciting. I

Zain 0:17

I know. Hit that music button, baby. General music.

Zain 0:22

music. Hit it. Corey, we've been waiting for months and we finally have it here. Our governor general's special episode. we are doing seven hours uh on this episode we're gonna we're gonna uh talk about all the picks on the short list we're gonna talk about how the final decision was made uh cory kick us off here uh where where should we start

Zain 0:46

okay carter uh we're going to you uh cory's either refusing to go first uh or he is uh just just blown away that we're finally doing this episode.

Carter 0:58

Well, I'm really excited that we have Mary Simon as the new Governor General. You know, it's fascinating to me that we are picking apart the two languages that she has in terms of her bilingualism. And, you know, I think that having a First Nations language, it speaks to the Canada that we want to become and the respect that we we want to have. And that made me excited. I was excited for her selection. It strikes me that it seemed to take a long time to wind up in a place that people

Carter 1:28

people could predict relatively easily. But I think it is the right place. So I'm probably not going to complain too much about the process that brought us here.

Zain 1:40

Corey, Stephen is generally good at filling time. But in this case, he did at six hours and 58 minutes of content in 45 seconds. So I now have to ask you, what do you think? What do you think of this choice as a political choice? Because it clearly was one and seemingly one that took a lot of deliberation by the committee spearheaded by Minister LeBlanc. What do you think of this choice for the Trudeau government? All

Corey 2:04

All Governor General picks are political choices, especially for the Liberal Party. We've talked talked about this on the show before the the liberals in particular tend to use it as a manifestation of canada's higher ideals or what they perceive canada's higher ideals to be and they they use the the position as a bit of a showcase and a bit of a counterbalance to the prime minister right so you you

Corey 2:24

you use you have like a dedicated uh journalists more often than not it seems lately or you have an astronaut and that seemed like a good idea at the time um and and the conservatives tend to treat the position a little bit more like it's an an administrator position. And in fact, you see that in the choices they've made for Governor General. But it doesn't surprise me that it took the time it took only

Corey 2:46

only because of where we were and how we got here.

Corey 2:49

The fact is, if there had been anything beyond such a crazy thorough vetting that, well, I don't even know what to say. They must have overturned every single bloody rock just

Corey 3:02

just to make sure that there were no accusations of any kind of abuse or anything like that of of staff or anything because anything short of that like they would have been in real trouble if they'd followed down that path again but you know mary simon wonderful choice fantastic choice has had uh honorary degrees from many universities uh is including the one that i work for is um you know is well regarded in the international circuits understands an issue of of arctic sovereignty that i think like it's a nice value add i don't expect the gg to be negotiating with with the Russians or anything like that. But I think it's pretty cool. And ultimately, I think

Corey 3:42

think this is the choice they should have made the first time.

Zain 3:46

Yeah, yeah. And you're hearing many people actually with with very similar views. Carter, you know, you seem to be quite happy with the pick. Is there is this is this case open and shut for Trudeau politically? Is there is there any Any sort of, you know, hanging

Zain 4:01

hanging chad, so to speak, relating to the Gigi question? Or is this good, good enough, move on, we're done?

Carter 4:07

Well, I think that this is, right now it's impossible to choose. Because right now what we've got is

Carter 4:13

is all the positives, right? And the resume, the CV reads perfectly. People are excited by her. There's very little in the way of criticism. There doesn't seem to be a dark cloud in the sky. But sometimes it takes dark clouds a while to form, Zane. And we really won't be able to tell the success of this appointment until maybe a year or two when we find out whether or not she's been psychologically abusing her staff. That takes some time to develop. So we'll see if

Carter 4:43

if she follows in the footsteps of the most recent governor general.

Zain 4:48

Well, thank you, Carter. Corey, finish us off on the governor general pick.

Corey 4:52

So I talked about how the conservatives usually pick the safe pick or the pick that's more the establishment institution pick.

Zain 4:57

pick. Administrative status. Well,

Corey 4:59

in a way, Mary Simon covers that box, too, as a former diplomat, well known and well understood in kind of those

Corey 5:07

those circles. So I just think it's a great pick. It's a fantastic pick. And now we can go back to forgetting

Corey 5:13

forgetting that the position exists until the next time we have a big crisis. But I think in terms of the ceremonial roles that she performs and the symbol that she presents, it's fantastic. We'll

Carter 5:22

We'll forget about her until the Prime Minister walks up the stairs to ask if the rick can be dropped.

Zain 5:28

Yeah, sometime in the next couple of weeks, isn't it? Oh, that concludes our seven-hour special truncated into what, like five minutes? Well, excellent. Thanks, guys. Five quarters. Great editing. Yeah,

Zain 5:38

Yeah, no, excellent editing. Which

Zain 5:41

is why we always have a plan B, and that plan B begins with the headlines. Here we go. First one comes to us from CNET. this is transition material that you're going to appreciate. We go from very serious talk of a former diplomat and now the governor general to this. Heinz starts petition to make hot dogs and buns come in equal packs. That is right, Carter. The issue is finally getting the top shelf advocacy treatment in the form of a petition. That's right. Heinz Ketchup Canada is getting getting involved in the decades long struggle that hot dogs come in a pack of 10 and hot dog buns, Carter, come in a pack of fill in the blank. Eight and 12,

Carter 6:24

12, because there's both. There's

Zain 6:26

12. There is not a 10. But neither of them are 10s, which is why Heinz has started a petition to lobby Big Bun and Big Wiener, their choice of words, not ours, to ensure that 10 hot dogs and 10 buns are packaged together. So far, nearly 6,000 people have signed said petition. Corey Hogan, would

Zain 6:49

as an everyday Canadian, as a man of the people, salt of the earth, Albertan, sign this petition to join the call for Big Bun and Big Wiener to unite? Absolutely

Corey 7:02

This is bullshit. This is a false problem. This is a false problem. Every time people bring this up, this is a false problem

Corey 7:10

problem because people eat more hot dogs than hot dog buns. You're going to tell me, Stephen Carter. You're going to tell me. You're going

Carter 7:16

going to sit there and tell me. I'm going to tell you I don't eat the hot dog if it doesn't have a bun. You're going to tell me you

Corey 7:20

you walk by a little plate of hot dogs. You've

Corey 7:23

had a full meal. You're pretty full. Pretty full. Not sure

Corey 7:25

you could do a whole one. You don't just grab a dog. No,

Carter 7:28

No, you put it in the bun. You know it's got that barbecue sauce. You cut it in half.

Carter 7:31

that's bullshit. Pull it in half.

Corey 7:32

Fuck, that's so outrageous. You are part of the problem. everybody

Carter 7:35

everybody knows you eat more hot dogs than

Carter 7:38

don't use ketchup on hot dogs you've

Corey 7:40

you've just discredited yourself entirely on this topic sit

Carter 7:42

sit in the corner

Carter 7:46

it's not a fucking sandwich

Corey 7:48

it's not a sandwich

Carter 7:51

let's talk about hot dog sandwiches

Corey 7:53

I'm going to mute Stephen can

Carter 7:55

can you do that?

Corey 7:56

it's you and me, let's have a conversation can you actually do

Zain 7:58

do that? are you the leader of the green party? yeah, we did it oh look Oh, look. We can't hear Steven. Make an excellent candidate to take over that party. It just seemed gesticulating. Corey. I wish we had video, yeah.

Zain 8:16

wish we paid for the video. I wish we paid for the video version of this software. So talk to me, Zane. Are you going to tell me that you don't occasionally have a hot dog without a bun? See, here's my issue. I have a very hard time finding a halal hot dog. uh and so i have a

Corey 8:33

veggie dog man that's what i do i don't eat hot dogs what

Carter 8:36

what is a veggie

Zain 8:36

veggie dog you're now upsetting

Carter 8:38

putting myself on mute what

Zain 8:41

what are you talking about where you you give this impassioned plea of people eat more hot dogs than they do buns and then you come up with this weak shit of veggie dogs yeah

Carter 8:51

yeah i'm eating a piece of cauliflower that's what he's saying oh

Zain 8:54

oh my god But Stephen Carter, Stephen Carter, would you be signing this petition? Would you be joining the nearly 6,000 Canadians who are who are trying to unite Big Bun and Big Wiener? This

Carter 9:04

This is the first of all, I'm always in favor of uniting Big Bun and Big Wiener. But secondly, this is the only petition I would ever sign because this is the only one that makes sense to me. And the fact that it doesn't make sense to Corey is just my

Carter 9:21

my head's exploding. You

Corey 9:22

You do this, and you are going to have an epidemic of rotting buns in cabinets as people have their extra bonus dogs, and there's buns now that are just rotting away as a result of this matching that was absolutely unnecessary. Okay,

Zain 9:36

Okay, now you've introduced another question.

Zain 9:41

you supposed to refrigerate buns after a while? Who is putting buns in cabinets? Nobody puts bread in the fridge. What

Corey 9:48

What is he talking about? That kills the

Carter 9:49

the taste of bread. It just kills the taste of the bread. Oh, you just leave it

Corey 9:52

it out? Leave it on the counter. What do you think a bread box is for? You've heard of this thing, a bread box. You know, sometimes people say it's something bigger or smaller than a bread box. What did you think that was, Zane? Did you

Zain 10:01

you think it was a small fridge? My brown people, hit me up on Twitter. Hit me up on Twitter. People

Carter 10:07

People of color, hit

Zain 10:09

hit me up. I'm carrying

Carter 10:10

carrying the show right now. Everybody

Zain 10:11

Everybody agrees with me. No, no, no. People of color, hit me up. Let me know if your family also put the bread in the refrigerator. No one does. Also, and also, also, Danish cookies, do they actually come in the Danish cookies box or is it just a sewing kit? Now, our

Zain 10:28

next headline comes to us from the Georgia Strait. Bathroom with bed listed as a micro studio for $680 in Vancouver. That is right. A newly renovated micro studio located in the West End, which was quote unquote ideal for single individual living at an affordable rate, was listed for 680 bucks of course it was just a bathroom with a bed in it steven carter does this speak to a extremely clever craigslist craigslist poster or just a affordable affordable housing epidemic that we're facing in the country not

Carter 11:01

not that clever because if they'd been really clever they would have rented it out for 604 to represent the district anyways that's uh

Carter 11:09

that to me would have been a better pricing but i think that this is just you know this is the sense of what's going on in the world today this is a gong show uh for for housing prices it's just out of control cory

Carter 11:22

it's like new york it's manhattan would

Corey 11:25

would you cory would you would you it's expensive i

Corey 11:28

don't think it's good i think it's a bad thing

Zain 11:30

thing i was expecting the bun and big wiener uh level of enthusiasm for this for this article but i'm not getting it i'm

Corey 11:38

i'm not here let Let me tell you this. Ultimately, the problem is Vancouver is full of NIMBYs who don't want to build anything over two stories because it would destroy the, you know, the culture and the environment of their city that has a very finite amount of space. face i mean vancouverites i'm coming at you vancouverites you you guys are the worst hypocrites you talk about urbanism you talk about living like that and then you're the first ones to stand in the way of something that quote-unquote destroys the culture of your neighborhood because it's knocking down some ramshackle bungalow from 70 years ago just you

Corey 12:11

you know fucking nut up and build something that actually is large enough for the people who live there it's crazy the idea that you would have somebody even thinking that maybe it's even like i'm gonna take a flyer we'll throw Let's throw it out there. Let's test the market. Let's see how far we can go. Maybe because you can't really get anything for 600 bucks. Maybe I can rent my fucking bathroom for 600 bucks. Even if that's the case, that speaks to such a broken, such a poisonous market. How are you supposed to live there? How do people live in Vancouver? I've never understood that. I love Vancouver to death. I don't know how you've allowed affordability to get so out of control. And it's kind of kind of of your own making Vancouver. You have the tools within you to fix this.

Zain 12:52

Look at this, Carter, I feel like Ted Lasso. I ask for more from my players and they just give me more. I'm like, Corey, just give me more. Carter, Carter, can I Ted Lasso you into a better take than changing the price to 604?

Carter 13:18

fine. Just believe, Carter, just believe. Just move it on

Zain 13:20

on to our next headline. This one from The Guardian. Nightmare scenario alarm as advertisers seek to plug into our dreams. When Brewing Giant Coors launched a new advertising campaign earlier this year, the format came as a surprise to many. The company was planning to infiltrate people's dreams to get them to buy and presumably drink Coors beer, which makes, you know, butt of a lot of jokes in the sense of, is this what they need to do to get people to drink Coors beer? Seems like it. Coors encouraged people to watch a short online video before bed, then play an eight-hour soundscape through the night. If successful, this targeted dream incubation would trigger refreshing dreams of Coors, according to the company. Stephen Carter, Inception in Advertising, it's here. Give me your thoughts.

Carter 14:12

So I would have to choose to turn on an eight-hour landscape and watch a video before I go to bed in order for the commercial to work?

Carter 14:21

I can't even get through the – I wait for the five-second delay on the YouTube videos before I click the skip ad thing. It just doesn't seem to me that this is going to get a lot of traction. So I guess I'm not that worried yet.

Zain 14:36

In their defense, I should explain a bit more because I've just given you a headline with minimal context. That's

Carter 14:42

That's all you ever do. This is the joy

Carter 14:44

joy of the section.

Zain 14:46

They are trying to use and leverage the smart speakers in people's homes so that, let's just say at 1 a.m., you just get a nice soundscape that begins for several hours to make you think of Coors or some equivalent. Corey, your thoughts? Lots, I mean, we've got three marketers, so to speak, on this conversation. So to speak, we're legitimate

Zain 15:08

I am literally the only one here. Two out of the three of us. Yeah, okay.

Zain 15:13

I like Carter said all three. Corey said himself. And then I gave the vague two out of three, which

Zain 15:19

which could be any combination. Corey, please.

Corey 15:24

like it. And now I'm thinking about how I'm going to use it in my next campaign.

Zain 15:29

Okay. Well, there you go.

Zain 15:31

Anything else? that's it it's

Zain 15:35

up with the times let's

Carter 15:35

let's move it first of all it's for young people because young people don't have to get up and go pee in the middle of the night which other people

Zain 15:41

people have jesus christ that's probably the soundscape let's move it on to our next headline this one comes to us from the lowdown online you might be asking zane why are you choosing the lowdown online well this is the only place that i could find the following very pertinent article will Will Amos, yes, the MP, says hyperactive multitasking was the cause of nude Zoom incidents. That is right. An unhealthy, quote, over-emphasis on doing too much was the assessment of Will Amos' health team as to why he was caught naked on camera twice while attending an online House of Commons session, the Pontiac MP told a group of local and regional reporters on July 7th. Amos explained at the briefing that it was part of a, quote, progressive return to his duties that had begun on June 21st. Quote, I want to be clear that while these two incidents have resulted in great embarrassment, they don't define me. These were not circumstances of ill intent or unethical gain or moral wrongdoing. He apologized once again for the two incidents, citing that he was just too busy and it was hyperactive in his multitasking, which caused the nude Zoom incidents. incidents uh carter i know you're a man of many tasks you do multiple things at once and you know occasionally you're on your phone but then back on your computer you know you're watching tv and then you like obviously piss in a can in between uh so so tell me tell

Zain 17:07

tell me uh are you buying are you buying what will amos is selling well

Carter 17:10

well first of all he's starting off with a total falsehood right off the bat this is in fact what defines him there

Carter 17:16

there is nothing else that defines him no No one else has thought, you know, Will Amos and something else pops into their mind. This is the entire thing that defines him. And, you

Carter 17:26

you know, he's just it's just a litany of excuses, right? Like every time we were greeted with a headline and it's almost always just a headline with this guy. It's just, you know, another excuse, just another excuse. This time he's aggressively multitasking. Corey and I aggressively multitask in the middle of this podcast. We have never whizzed on the podcast. Well, I have the one time, but that was an accident, and we had to clean up, and there

Carter 17:51

there was the break, and it was the 400 series. It's not something we like to talk about. That was when we recorded in

Carter 17:55

too. Yeah, it was totally wrong. It

Zain 17:58

Never letting you guys use my house again.

Carter 18:02

That's why we have to use the software. No,

Carter 18:03

No, I mean, this defines him, and he's just full of excuses. He's not going to own up, and he's not going to change.

Corey 18:10

It's like an interview cliche, isn't it? It's like, my worst fault is I work too hard. I care too much. Which I exposed

Corey 18:15

exposed myself accidentally because I'm multitasking.

Corey 18:19

Like, I'm sorry you got a glimpse of Famous Amos' cookies here, guys. But it's just because

Corey 18:28

that's who I am. I just care too much.

Carter 18:30

No, I don't know. I sort of

Corey 18:33

of agree with Carter.

Corey 18:36

It's not a sign of a guy who's taking it, I think, all that seriously. It sounds more like spin than it sounds like a medical diagnosis. And obviously, there is something not entirely right there if you are exposing yourself either accidentally or not twice, twice. So the record in Parliament, accidentally exposing yourself on Zoom,

Corey 18:58

Everyone else combined, zero.

Corey 19:02

Like, that's quite a lead you've got there. In

Carter 19:04

In fairness, we don't know what John McDonald did back then.

Corey 19:13

So, yeah, I don't – it's unfortunate, but hopefully he is getting the help he needs, and maybe I

Corey 19:21

I shouldn't be so flip about it. No,

Carter 19:23

No, you should be.

Zain 19:27

Amos 2, everyone zero, McDonald question mark. Okay, let's move on to our next headline. Our next headline comes to us – let's spend a bit of time on this one, as we always do in our last headline. This one comes to us from the Globe and Mail. Mail, Green Party temporarily lays off staff in leader Annamie Paul's office. Let me read a bit of this, and let's get into that and the fact that recently she was muted in her meeting by her executive when she was trying to fight these staff layoffs. But the Green Party significantly diminished leader Annamie Paul's support team on Wednesday, so a couple days, actually yesterday, temporarily laying off key staff members just weeks before she faces a possible ouster. This is, of course, a July 20th vote of non-confidence for her tenure, which will be held by the executive. Two staff members in Ms. Paul's office received layoff notices on Wednesday, sources tell the Globe and Mail. They were let go as part of a broader set of layoffs the party is carrying out despite objections from the leader, sources say. say, Corey,

Zain 20:31

Corey, you've got the staff layoffs. You've got the fact that the

Zain 20:37

the leader has gotten muted during a meeting where she's trying to defend herself.

Zain 20:43

What is going on

Zain 20:44

on here? As a professional political operation, what

Zain 20:47

what the heck is the Green Party doing? I

Corey 20:49

I don't think we can call it a professional political operation anymore. So I look at this and I am just, first of all, i'm blown away the entire story just has like drop after drop of crazy news i heard about the layoffs and i heard about the fight about that i thought that was crazy it's just before an election then i heard she was muted yeah by the executive director i've been the executive director of a political party it were i i've had some weird leaders when raj never knew the leader you could totally mute him that would be fine no

Corey 21:20

no you couldn't is my point because here's the thing leader versus board leader

Corey 21:25

leader should win every time leader versus staff leader should win every time the leader is is elected by the largest broadest group of the party and they carry a certain authority with that that the other random functionaries who are there sometimes simply because their last one standing do not have so that's kind of like my first thought is what

Corey 21:45

what the hell is the board doing what is the executive

Corey 21:49

but then on the other side, I sort of have to, like, I try to live my life where possible by this principle of charity, where you assume that people are not starting from this totally mad spot.

Corey 21:59

And so then I think, like, how bad is it? How bad is the situation in the Green Party that this is how people around are acting, too? I mean, it doesn't speak well to anybody. I will ultimately, absent

Corey 22:11

absent any information, sort of default to saying the leader should get her way. I can't. And also, who lays off people People just before an election. But, you know, she, as

Corey 22:21

as it was put to me today via someone on Twitter, is she seems utterly impervious to good advice. So I just I don't I don't know that like the whole situation is such a nightmare. And it speaks well of nobody at this point. Carter,

Zain 22:33

Carter, you know, the leader of the Green Party, right? Let's just put this a bit in context and tell me if I'm over exaggerating, right? The leader of the Green Party, stripped of her executive assistant slash comms person, is stripped of her person that is fundamentally responsible of making inroads in Toronto Centre where she's trying to win a seat on behalf of the party, is the leader of the Green Party while like BC burns down and they need to like pick a lane in terms of being like, this is the Green Party. You know, I at least want to go to them for comment regarding certain things. It's just blowing my mind from both a practical, symbolic, political, strategic, perhaps even moral standpoint. Am I overblowing it here? Or are you also in agreement with, you know, a version of what Corey and I are saying here as well?

Carter 23:20

I've worked with some parties that have struggled, right?

Carter 23:22

right? That don't have the cash, that don't have the money to— That

Corey 23:25

That have Stephen Carter as an employee? Yeah, there's lots of problems out there.

Carter 23:31

fuck off and we're moving past it but the the the leader's office is the last place to go you you got the you know the the fundraising components of the of the of the party and the leader's office are kind of like the two things that are the last things that you pull out of the out of the organization because the leader's office is the face of the entire party especially given that you are heading into an election i mean you mentioned toronto center that's an uphill hill climb for her sure but you know when when you know it's interesting cory when you know she seems impervious to great advice what sins is she committed what sins is she committed that she deserves the microphone being turned off on her it appears that she was fighting for her staff both the party staff as well as the staff literally in her office and they turned off her microphone this to me is a party that is done and not only that it just strikes me as unbelievable that the the catalyst or the beginning of this seems to be something that stems from the Palestine-Israel conflict. I've talked about this before. This seems to me that this is outside of the core of what the Green Party should be standing for. And it should be one of those places where we can say, you know what, we have a disagreement on that issue, but that's not central to our party. Because every party has people who have disagreements around issues. Every party doesn't agree or see eye to eye on everything. And this party is behaving the way I've never seen a party behave before. And to cut off the leader like this, one has to ask, what is at the core of it? Because it's not the issue. It's not just the issue. There's something beyond that. And I can't help but wonder if it has something to do with sexism and or racism, because this is not the way that any other party has treated any other leader in my political history. And it's going going to be done we

Carter 25:20

we have we are now counting the green party's uh legacy in weeks not in years

Zain 25:26

so i'm glad you brought that up carter because cory do you do you also believe you can't put the metaphorical toothpaste back into the tube here like is this the the the final days of the green party in your mind at least in its current form uh

Corey 25:40

uh i don't know if

Corey 25:42

would go that far it sure seems that way let's just put it that way that's where if you force me to make a bet that That is where I would put my chips now, that there's not going to be green MPs after the next election. This implosion is beyond incredible.

Corey 25:55

When I was – some of the steps that she has taken as leader, including, frankly, running in Toronto Centre, have seemed a little bit odd to me. I think that there was probably, at the start of the day, legitimate concerns with some of the choices she was making with staff, with the fact those staff were fighting with elected MPs, with the fact she wanted to put all of their chips into the Toronto Centre bucket. Which that's a weird seed. I think we said it at the time when she

Corey 26:20

was running there to run.

Corey 26:23

And so I imagine it was creating all sorts of anxieties. But guess what?

Corey 26:27

She's the leader. She has the right to make questionable decisions. And she was, again, elected by the broadest swath of membership. So, you know, when I think about, Stephen talks about where you make cuts, the leader's office and fundraising last. So true. So absolutely true for the reasons he said. But even if it wasn't true, the

Corey 26:46

the leader is the one who gets to make those calls. If the leader said, you know what, I actually want to cut fundraising. I'd rather put it in a tour.

Corey 26:53

Guess what? Might be a bad idea. Still going to do it.

Corey 26:56

So I think fundamentally here, they've never, or maybe not never, but they don't seem to accept her as the legitimate leader of this. And so it does lead to the questions that Stephen's asking. What is it about her? Is it the fact that she's a minority woman? Is it the fact that she's a woman? Why are people acting like this around her? This is not how you treat leaders of political parties. It's not.

Zain 27:17

Carter, tell me what you're doing if you're her right now. I mean, I've asked you guys this question, what was it, six weeks ago, when the situation was different, but not that this escalation and this temperature level, so to speak. What are you doing right now? Are you just saying fuck this shit and leaving? Are you sticking around? Like, is your advice changed from the last time we had this particular conversation for enemy Paul and her interest alone? Let me make sure I articulate that question cleanly.

Carter 27:45

I'd be so angry. I'd be so angry that I would be spitting venom and probably fighting because I think that the end game for this shouldn't be July the 20th. I think the end game for this should be September, whatever, whenever the federal election is over. And at that point, she should walk away and talk to people that got her her to the Green Party leadership and say, do we need a new Green Party? Because the Green Party that she's leading right now has the infrastructure, but it does not, it will not have any momentum. It's going to die a horrible death here. And, you know, maybe the best thing for her to do is to resign as leader immediately following the election and then run as leader again and put in a national council that actually makes sense. Every single person on the national council, when they get annihilated should resign at the same time as the leader this party has uh has fucked itself um and

Carter 28:44

and it's it's it's a real shame and at the time when the world is talking about uh

Carter 28:47

uh green policies and green ideas and it perhaps might be more important than it ever has been um

Carter 28:53

um the green party decides to shoot itself right in the head yeah

Zain 28:57

yeah and nano survey recently coming out actually just yesterday saying climate number two issue in the country unsurprisingly cory Corey, same question to you. You're advising Annamie Paul, the person, obviously the current leader, but to say, hey, listen, this is how you protect your future. Here's what's best for you. Were you trying to nudge her? What are you what sort of conversations are you having with her? Maybe more more specifically.

Corey 29:20

I think I would call them all together in a Zoom meeting that I'm chairing, so I can't be fucking muted. And I would say this has all gone way too far. I would point to the executive director and I would say, I want your resignation now.

Corey 29:33

And if I don't get it, the

Corey 29:35

the resignation you'll be getting is mine. And I know that's what they want, but I would be threatening to take my bags and I would be walking maybe over to the NDP. Because this is beyond propriety, what's going on. This is just

Carter 29:49

That's a good idea, Corey. Corey.

Zain 29:51

Talk to me about the NDP idea. Now that's on the table.

Zain 29:56

Carter, Corey, Jagmeet, should he be actively pursuing this? Would this be something that if you're the NDP, you know, preparing for the election readiness team or the party's national director, are you actively pursuing this? And if so, how?

Corey 30:12

I don't think you are, actually. I think I would take the call if i was in the singh leadership environment yeah but yeah i certainly wouldn't be in a position where i'm starting to offer things to get her as a candidate because there's you know absent a lot of other data there is one thing we know which is that she did not get along with her party apparatus and so you have to be very careful as a political party taking quote-unquote floor crosses this would be a weird one right but like a floor crosser who we know had a blow up with the the other party i i there are often legitimate reasons for blow-ups but you

Corey 30:46

you don't necessarily have the full picture and you don't want to be in a position where you're negotiating from weakness and have to start offering things already because that may that may be problem i

Zain 30:56

i think that's cory cory's a little bit more passive says a more passive approach for the ndp you know if the call comes take it do you agree no

Carter 31:02

no i'd be making the call right now i'd be bringing her over as the ndp

Carter 31:05

yeah because if she runs as your ndp candidate in toronto center all of a sudden i mean if the The NDP can win the Toronto Centre.

Carter 31:12

First of all, it

Carter 31:13

really increases your bona fides around your green platform, right?

Carter 31:17

right? It shows that you're the party that's actually taking green seriously. You're

Carter 31:21

You're on a bit of a high. You've reached 20%.

Carter 31:24

23% would be great. And

Carter 31:26

And the Green Party is not going to have any infrastructure. It's not going to have a leader. And it's not going to have the capacity to compete in the election. Why not scoop up as much of that as possible? And, yeah, you know what? But if you wind up with one unruly MP after the election, it's not like it's the first time the NDP have had an unruly MP. You're not going to be in cabinet. You're not going to be forming a government. You're not going to have to worry about it. You can give her a heck of a lot more rope, a heck of a lot more space than you could if you were the Liberal Party of Canada.

Zain 31:58

Carter, talk to me about the risk, though. Suppose Jagmeet or the NDP national director or the campaign makes the calls, it doesn't go through, it gets leaked to the media. Is that bad or is it just like, oh, we were trying to poach a leader? It never really works, but, you know, they can brush it off. Or is there a risk here?

Carter 32:11

No, you can say, you know what, this is about the best possible green policies. But we strongly believe the New Democratic Party has the strongest green policies of any party in Canada. And that Annamie Paul would be welcome within our caucus. She would be well represented. And she disagrees. She thinks that she could be, she's going to win in Toronto Centre. And we wish her the very best of luck. But we will be running a candidate there because we know that our green policies are the best of the of the four major of the three major parties.

Zain 32:42

Corey, talk to me about Carter's strategy. Like, is your only reservation, you know, her behavior in a caucus or an outside that you'd agree with Carter's more proactive or active strategy?

Corey 32:55

I don't mind his strategy at all. I think that the idea that it could get you just a little bit more juice and maybe make you competitive. You know, even in the Liberals' worst days, they held on to Toronto Centre. The idea that you might be competitive there is kind of a fun one.

Corey 33:08

But, yeah, you know, I just – it's

Corey 33:13

it's a reality, right? Some politicians are more difficult to manage for the leader's office than others. And by and large, it is floor crossers because the only thing that they've sort of proven is that they've been willing to cross the floor. And in this case, we also know they didn't get along with the party apparatus. So I'm not saying she's at fault. I'm just saying with very limited data, that's pretty risky. So you don't want to be going into a situation where you look like you're promising her the moon. Now, maybe there's a intermediate way. Maybe there's a reaching out and saying, hey, leader

Corey 33:45

leader to leader, I

Corey 33:47

I don't think you're being treated very well. And I'm very sorry about that. Right. And start that line of communication and see where it goes. But, you know, you go in bringing all of the baubles, everything you can offer her, and, you know, you're going to be ending up paying even more if it becomes a negotiation like that. Yeah.

Zain 34:05

Carter, I want to I want to start this last question on this on this story with you and not to get too sentimental about it. But, you know, at the end of the day, this is about people, right? Like as much as we talk about the games of politics and the strategy and the back and forth. Talk to me as someone who I know personally who's spent a lot of your quite literally free time trying to find candidates, you know, predominantly women to run for office at all orders of government. What is something like this, this story, getting the airtime and the oxygen due to people who are maybe kicking tires, sitting on the sidelines, saying maybe I should publicly serve, and they see something like this happening to a leader in broad daylight, so to speak? week. What do you think this kind of does to perhaps the cohort or the pipeline of candidates? And tell me if you feel like I'm getting overly sentimental or overly blowing it up too much of folks that may not see themselves in political life, but see Annamie Paul and others like her and say, oh, maybe this is for me, and then see something like the past week with the Green Party as a result. What do you think it says to them?

Carter 35:11

Well, I do believe that the number one reason why

Carter 35:14

women do get involved is they see other women being successful, or

Carter 35:17

or they see other women with with vision, that

Carter 35:19

that are fighting for the same things that they believe in.

Carter 35:23

But they are afraid. The feedback that I have been given is that they're afraid of the internal politics and they are afraid of being attacked. The attacks, the number of people who say to me, you know, I just don't have thick enough skin to put myself into the public arena. And this is just going to reinforce that. I mean, when your own side attacks you, when your own side decides to come after you, Alison Redford chased something similar in the Progressive Conservative Party. Now, I'm not talking about the end. I'm talking about the beginning when

Carter 35:54

when she was running for the leadership and then won the leadership. There was all kinds of people who attacked her at the beginning. But, you know, she was the leader and she had a lot more power than Anna Mae Paul seems to have. This to me is – it does nothing to further

Carter 36:10

further the process of getting women involved in politics and it does nothing to further the issues. that so many Canadians hold dear.

Zain 36:22

Corey, any thoughts on what this might mean for future prospects of those considering office?

Zain 36:29

I mean, it's just another bad

Corey 36:31

bad ingredient in a gross stew. You

Corey 36:33

look at this, and we've talked about this. We talked about this as recently as a couple of weeks ago. People

Corey 36:38

look and say, why would I do this to myself? Why would I take this kind of assault on my personal character? And even if I get the big job, maybe people will just be scheming to take the big job away from me and

Corey 36:50

just layer that on top of the

Corey 36:52

the pay that is maybe less than you could be making elsewhere and on top of the

Corey 36:56

the grind that is the role and the fact that the public thinks all politicians are corrupt and just you name it. Like, this is just not a very appealing job right now. And we seem to be finding new ways to make it unappealing. I mean, everybody

Corey 37:12

everybody you talk to about being a candidate who has reservations can

Corey 37:16

can surprise by throwing out that random, but what about that candidate and that happened to them? Or I hear this happened to their family.

Corey 37:22

And we're sure piling up those stories. I think about here in Alberta, Shannon Phillips being tailed by the police. I think about Annamie Paul having her own organization turn against her so soon after she became leader. Who does

Corey 37:39

does this to themselves? Who wants to run for office at this point? I applaud those of you who do. I sincerely do on all sides of the spectrum because it is a thankless job. It is not an easy job. And we just find ways to make it worse.

Zain 37:54

we're going to leave that segment there actually leave that article that headline there and move it on to our first segment hold on that was just headlines

Carter 38:02

in further new record that's what happens

Zain 38:05

happens when we do so much excellent gg content that's

Zain 38:10

that's what happens carter oh

Zain 38:12

oh no did i say that i meant no that's what happens when we have an elongated fight about hot dog wieners and hot dog buns i'm still right moving on no

Corey 38:19

no you're so moving

Zain 38:20

moving on to our first segment taking Taking the train to nowhere. Guys, I'm moving to Alberta. Yes, our home province. We haven't done an Alberta segment in a while. Taking the train to nowhere, of course, a literal and metaphor for two things. Number one, the Green Line LRT approved here in Alberta. Stephen Carter, you'll walk us through what that means and the politics of it as the prime minister was here visiting the premier and the mayor of Calgary. And then, of course, Jason Kenney having a quote unquote cabinet shuffle. Maybe the quote should be around shuffle. because it was more a cabinet growth than it was a shuffle, adding ministers, but removing one and packing, ensuring she packs her bags to a train of nowhere. Lila here, who had three portfolios in her ministry, now with zero. That seems to be the headline from that shuffle. Maybe you guys can tell me otherwise in terms of both the strategy and what the headline from that shuffle looks like and what Kenny's trying to get out of it. But Carter, let's start here with the green line. The prime minister was in town earlier this week, meeting with the premier, meeting with the mayor, his meeting with the premier, you know, unsurprisingly, you know, a little tense, slightly frosty, like not, you know, entirely not cordial. But, you know, it was it was two guys who don't like each other hanging out for 45 minutes. He then meets with Mayor Nenshi for a love in and then they head over to announce the green line that this new funding and just before they're about to announce it, this This is where I need you to come in because I'm actually confused and I have lost track of the bouncing ball here. The province, which is not at this press conference with the prime minister and the mayor, issues a press release two minutes before they're about to go on stage saying the Green Line is approved. So first, Carter, can you demystify for me just and for our listeners what happened? Because there is some strategy here, but I don't even know where to start to ask the strategy questions. So maybe for our non-Alberta listeners and maybe for some of our Alberta listeners. But let's be clear for me. Can you lay out the terrain for what's happening here? Sure.

Carter 40:20

Sure. We have to kind of almost go back to 2015 when

Carter 40:24

when then a young a young minister named Jason Kenney came and announced that

Carter 40:28

that the federal government was going to commit to funding the Green Line,

Carter 40:32

a new line that was proposed for the

Carter 40:34

the city of Calgary. So we I

Carter 40:36

won't go through all of the different iterations or all the different announcements, but it is a common practice by all levels of government at all times to announce, then reannounce and then announce and then reannounce. That's not necessarily what happened this week. What happened is the federal the provincial government began a review process where they wanted to review the business case. They wanted to review all

Carter 40:58

all kinds of different issues around the construction of the the green line of the LRT. they've been doing that basically since they they took office from the ndp two years ago and that review up

Carter 41:13

up until today no one really knew where it stood they'd moved past the technical review and they were now in the middle of reviewing the business case so the understanding i think of the general public was the the provincial government was in the midst of reviewing the business case and once they signed off on the business case the federal government would be, you know, make the same review, and then there'd be a final approval to commence construction. Sometime in the last little while, the

Carter 41:40

the province signed off, gave it to the federal government. And yesterday, the prime minister was here to announce that the business case had been approved by the federal government, the funding was flowing, and that the

Carter 41:53

the train would begin construction in the fall. What's weird about it is that the provincial government, which was welcome at the ceremony, but welcome at the announcement, just didn't go.

Carter 42:04

And they instead of being at the announcement to to be a part of a trilateral agreement to build one of the largest infrastructure projects in Calgary history, employing up to 20,000 people, decided they just would send a press release or they'd send a tweet instead. And that that is kind of where things kind of seem

Carter 42:26

seem weird, because it gave Nenshi

Carter 42:29

Nenshi and it gave Trudeau the opportunity to take credit for something

Carter 42:33

something that really is, you know, a trilateral agreement between all three levels of government. Like

Zain 42:39

Like a massive public works project. So, Carter, a point of clarification here. So with the with the federal government showing up, they weren't usurping the province and saying, like, those guys are just dragging their heels. Fuck it. Let's just approve this thing and wait for the provincial government. That's not what happened here. Is that to be clear? I just want to be OK. OK. There was

Carter 42:56

was a decision made by the provincial government at some point that the federal government then got to weigh in on. We're not sure of the murky details, but ultimately the federal government was able to weigh in on the business case and they approved it very quickly.

Zain 43:09

I appreciate this explanation and this primer, Carter. Corey, what do you think the strategy here was for the province? Was it just that, you know, they're begrudgingly supportive of this project or they felt like they had to do it, so fuck it. Let's not show up to the press conference or do you think it's a little bit more nuanced than that? Well,

Corey 43:24

Well, maybe a little bit of that.

Corey 43:26

Stephen didn't mention that one of the weirdest components about this press release that came out literally as they were getting ready to go on stage is that the subject line was Calgary Green Line LRT awaits federal approval. Like the federal approval that was actually being announced at the exact same time. they got it in just under the wire like if they had put out that press release two minutes later it would have been well it was only it was only technically accurate before it was totally bizarre

Corey 43:54

but part of me thinks they didn't want to give trudeau the win that's

Corey 43:57

that's ultimately what i believe they didn't want it to be a big splashy everybody working together uh look at federalism going rocking and rolling just before a federal election because that's just not something think jason kenney uh would be particularly interested in doing and he didn't want to be a prop in in justin trudeau's you know back slapping with nancy both of them saying no you're great no you're great yeah and

Corey 44:22

this was about as good as it got but it was a pretty expensive thing to get nothing out of it just to speak crassly about it so um well

Corey 44:31

well the province was probably never situated well to announce this money that had been announced and then had been pulled and then just to re-announce it like nobody was going to praise them too heavily for that to begin with um it still seems weird that they didn't a couple of weeks ago send a release of this nature saying okay we approve it it's now on the feds it's over to them uh because i

Corey 44:53

guess that would have been better than what they did end up doing which which just seemed weird ultimately and now there's all this meta-analysis of why wasn't he there why wasn't he there to take credit i

Corey 45:03

think he knew he would never get credit for it. I think that's a part of it. But I also think it was just kind of poorly handled.

Zain 45:11

Carter, what do you think? Was there like strategy

Zain 45:13

strategy here? I guess that's what I'm trying to tease out. Was there a legitimate like strategy at play for Jason Kenney and the UCP? Or was this just a mistake and they should have been there?

Carter 45:24

Oh, it was petulance. I mean, they were behaving like a spoiled child. And that seems to be what's driving the strategic decisions in their government everybody's against us nobody likes us so we're not going to come to your parties we're not going to play we're going to we're going to have our own parties and we're going to call it the stampede that

Carter 45:42

that seems to be their their whole thinking right like they're just not playing nicely uh with others at all um and that

Carter 45:50

that seems to me to be the hallmark of a truly embattled government i

Corey 45:54

i don't agree with that i think that this is much Much more about them not wanting to play into Justin Trudeau's game and say, well, we're not we're not fucking doing that. That that's just going to help him. That's going to help him tell the story and boost up his candidate, George Shahal and Calgary Skyview. And we don't want to do that. Best

Carter 46:10

Best case scenario for the liberal government is what? Two seats out of Alberta? Like, that's a wild dream. Like, there is no liberal strategy in Alberta. Alberta. This is not a thing where all of a sudden there's going to be a giant switch and we're going to go from 41 or 42 conservative seats to 42

Carter 46:29

42 liberal seats. There is nothing that is really at risk. This is an opportunity for Jason Kenney to start digging himself out of a giant hole and talk about 20,000 jobs and say that he is a co-creator of those jobs at a time when people They still don't like Trudeau. Albertans still don't like Trudeau. But this is instead they take this petulant line of, well, I'm not going to come to your party.

Carter 46:53

It doesn't even make sense to me.

Zain 46:56

So, Carter, where does this go from here for Kenny? Does this kind of posturing on this file extend beyond this? Or do you feel like this is just like a new tone and tenor? and he'll get into the cabinet shuffle, so to speak. What do you think this kind of says about Kenney going forward? And do you actually believe this was like an own goal of any kind? Because it's being called that by some. I just want to be clear from both of you that did he actually lose any points by not showing up or taking a different strategy here on this?

Corey 47:31

Yeah, I mean, he did, but he made the calculation, I believe, that he would rather himself lose a couple of points this far out from an election on an issue that he was not particularly well situated to win on, then give Trudeau points. And, you know, maybe it didn't work. Maybe it didn't hold back the points from Trudeau. But ultimately, for

Corey 47:48

for me, it was as simple as that. I don't think this was a question of him being petulant and pouty. I think that's a story that people who are very critical of Jason Kenney like to tell themselves. But there's a much simpler Occam's razor version here. Just imagine, just flip around the party affiliations in your head. Imagine Stephen Harper came to town. And Rachel Notley didn't want to be a prop in a Harper announcement before the 2015 election. If that helps you sort of understand it and make sense of it all. It's just there was not an

Corey 48:19

an immediate need for Jason Kenney to get there on stage with the prime minister. And in fact, it might have cut against a number of things that he's trying to do. You're

Carter 48:27

You're ignoring the last year and a half of technical analysis and then business case review of everything that possibly could. This was supposed to have workers working on the Green Line a year ago this summer. We missed the summer building session last

Carter 48:42

last year. We missed the summer building session this

Carter 48:44

this year, not because of federal government dragging its feet, but

Carter 48:47

but because Jason Kenney's government was trying to find any way possible not to give the win to Mayor Nenshi. That is what they were trying to do. They waited. They delayed. They delayed. They delayed. I think this has more to do with Nenshi than it actually has anything to do with Trudeau at all. He doesn't want to be in the same room with the guy. Oh, yeah, I totally think so. He tried to find every excuse possible to make sure that this train was approved after Nenshi said that he wasn't running for re-election.

Zain 49:15

Tell me from the prime minister's perspective, though, let's just flip the script a bit.

Zain 49:20

Well executed, showing up to Calgary as part of your tour stop, your pre-campaign whistle stop across the country. What do you think about the prime minister's play here? I

Carter 49:32

I think it was a great play. I mean, he's out early enough that he doesn't have to worry about the election call happening immediately thereafter. He gets to point to a visit at a time that was super important. He avoided the stampede and the kind of political nightmare that that has created because of the COVID overlay of the stampede. It was a really smart play. He was here for seven or eight hours, and he's on his way again. It was a smart move.

Zain 49:58

Corey, what do you think of the PM's play coming in handing money, meeting with the doing the love in with Nenshi, and then you know, perhaps not coming back for a while, maybe not ever if this election gets called and not ever, but you know, in the in this writ period, so to speak, for the campaign season?

Corey 50:15

Well, this is going to be a different year. But I what I think that our listeners outside of Calgary need to appreciate is just what the Calgary stampede is to politics right and it's you know it's event after event after event often five six seven eight nine a day for politicians for 10 days as they just go around and they meet people and they connect with business leaders they connect with other politicians uh and just opinion leaders more generally within a city and it does tend to drive political decision making in this province as as kind of bush as that may sound uh it does and uh and it's because it is just such a large large spectacle. Like when you think about the scale and the hundreds of thousands of people who go to the parade, and the over a million because of double counting that go to Stampede in a normal year, it's a major, major event in the province of Alberta.

Corey 51:04

And whether you are UCP, federal,

Corey 51:07

federal, liberal, NDP, you make announcements that rotate around this event. The original Green Line funding announcement from the province of Alberta was in 2017.

Corey 51:17

Brian Mason announced it like a week before Stampede.

Corey 51:21

And for many years after, in a political acumen course I taught, I used it as an example about how timing can drive decision-making in politics. It's one of those informal influences on decision-making you need to be aware of. Calgary Stampede, right there. Well, that's true of the provincial government now. They didn't want to have a bunch of MLAs and ministers walking around not having answers on the green line, so I'm sure that's part of their decision-making on when they timed it. And that's true of the prime minister, too. He didn't want his candidates, dates george shahal most notably in calgary skyview announced today to be walking around having to answer for the the federal government on this if the federal money hadn't started flowing if the province had then made their intentions clear so in some cases like you

Corey 52:03

you don't need to overthink this stampede is coming they didn't want to talk about the green line and have no answers for 10 days and and that

Corey 52:09

that is why we are where we are it makes sense that the prime minister did this it it

Corey 52:14

it resolved an issue and it was uh reflected kind of how

Corey 52:17

how political conversation evolves over these 10 days in

Corey 52:20

in normal times we'll see if it's true this year

Zain 52:22

do a quick round for me both of you guys on uh on the nenshi legacy here what is this what does this do to solidify does this do to elevate accelerate what do you think uh does this do anything to the nenshi legacy carter maybe i'll start with you and then and then hit you up cory you know uh on that question before you move on to the kenny cabinet shuffle i

Carter 52:40

think for a real legacy to be installed stalled with a capital project, it needs to be completed when you're in office. Like, I think that, you know, when the LRT first came to Calgary, it was called... Is that,

Zain 52:52

that, I'm just kind of, can I interrupt you there, Carter? Is that a rule for you in politics? Like, I'm really interested in that. That is a rule for you. Does it need to be announced and completed in your term? Well, Little Ralphie's... What's

Carter 53:02

What's your rule there?

Carter 53:03

The LRT is, when I was a kid, it was nicknamed Little Ralphie's Train. But it was started by the mayor prior to Ralph Klein. The person who starts something and doesn't finish it doesn't get credit. So that's why Nenshi really wanted to get that airport tunnel, for example. It was going to be part of his legacy. But this is a project that could have been started and finished in his tenure, because we started We started talking about it six years ago, but it's not going to be. And I think that whoever

Carter 53:35

whoever the next mayor is, is going to be the one who gets to own the legacy of the Green Line.

Zain 53:42

Corey, do you agree, first of all, with Carter's infrastructure legacy formula, which is what I'm calling it, Carter? So Carter, just to be clear, it doesn't have to be announced in your term, but it needs to be built in your term for you to get the credit. Can I be clear?

Carter 53:55

clear? The person who cuts the ribbon owns the legacy. legacy.

Corey 53:59

Corey, do you buy that?

Corey 54:01

I think that the cleanest version of legacy is both, right? You get to both announce the project and conclude it. But I do generally agree, especially because of how projects evolve over time, and they don't necessarily look the same at the start as they do at the end, that

Corey 54:14

that it's the person who actually gets to provide the infrastructure by and large who gets credit for it. Now, there are exceptions to this, of course, if, for example, the Green Line had been under construction for the past six years, and it was going to open next spring, even though nancy wasn't mayor i think people would still think of it as nancy's train right here's

Carter 54:33

i'm sorry i just turned you up but here's a good rule of thumb if you if you have to invite the guy that was before you to open it then it's their legacy that's a great point if you don't have to invite the guy who was before you then it ain't their legacy now

Zain 54:45

now let me be clear carter when you say i have to invite you mean just like from like uh just a feeling of like yeah i

Carter 54:50

i mean this yeah yeah

Carter 54:51

yeah man like it'd be like it

Corey 54:53

it would be poor form not to invite them this was was their thing yeah

Carter 54:57

it's gonna open next year man we better invite this guy you know like them

Corey 55:00

them not being invited and you standing there and taking credit would just look bad right right

Zain 55:04

right yeah it wouldn't work for you cory you were you were interrupted there did you want to finish off with with anything on the nenshi legacy question i

Corey 55:10

i guess i would say that there are a number of things that um that play into that decision whether or not and we don't know what nenshi's post-mayoral career looks like whether he's going to be a champion for this if If he's going to be a private citizen, he's shouting for it. But given that it's not really starting until he's out of term, I don't think we're going to necessarily associate Nahid Nenshi with the Green Line.

Zain 55:31

Let's move it on to the next story in this taking the train to nowhere segment. I want to talk about the cabinet shuffle. Big day for the vice regal family.

Corey 55:42

Zane is, for the uninitiated, the son-in-law of the lieutenant governor. Yeah,

Carter 55:47

Yeah, the vice son of the vice regal. So,

Zain 55:49

So, yeah, it's an official title, Corey. So listen, Jason Kenney doing a cabinet quote unquote shuffle. You know, you guys can explain what the quote means, so to speak, because it seems like more a cabinet growth than a shuffle. But there was a shuffle in a sense. So Jason LeJuan, the MLA of Calgary Foothills, has moved from associate minister of addictions and mental health to become the new minister of community and social services. Rick McIver, who was holding multiple ministries after the municipal affairs minister was let go and consolidated into his previous ministry. So he had the dual role of transportation and municipal affairs. He lets go of transportation, keeps municipal affairs. Rajan Sani, who was the minister of community and social services, now takes on transportation. interpretation. And Mohamed Yassin, also from Calgary, like Minister Sani, leaves his role as Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration to become the Associate Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism. There's also some additions in cabinet, primarily in the form of associate ministerships. And remind me of that. I want to talk about the importance of associate ministers, quote unquote, as well, and why some of these aren't full-out ministers, so to speak. So Mike Ellis of Calgary West becomes the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. Nate Horner from Drumheller-Stettler becomes the Associate Minister of Rural Economic Development. Whitney Izzik, I believe I'm pronouncing that last name correctly, becomes the Associate Minister of the Status of Women, reporting directly to the Minister of Culture, who I'll get to in a second, who is Ron Orr. He becomes the Minister of Culture from Lacombe-Pinocco. Also notably, the guy who in a Facebook post said that Kenny was raised by God to be the leader of Alberta. Well, I'm sure we'll get to that. We also have Tanya Furr, who is from Calgary Pagan, is Associate Minister of Red Tape Production, and out of cabinet, gone, two individuals, Grant Hunter, who was the aforementioned Associate Minister of Red Tape Production, and Leela Ahir, who held multiple portfolios, culture, multiculturalism, and status of women, now having none of those three, completely out. And, of course, notably, she was one of the MLAs, one of the ministers at the time, who criticized Kenney, publicly called him out to apologize after he and other senior cabinet ministers were caught breaking the government's COVID-19 restrictions at the Sky Palace. She also criticized Kenney's tone-deaf response on the Sir John A. MacDonald statue controversy as well. Corey,

Zain 58:19

Corey, let's talk headlines. What's the headline? Not the one that you read and you see. What's the headline if you could write it, right? If you could write your headline from what you digested from this cabinet shuffle, this cabinet growth, if you were writing the headline for it with the political strategy brain, what would it be?

Corey 58:38

kenny makes moves to secure caucus i i mean this is not a cabinet shuffle designed to appease albertans uh on on things they were feeling anxious about right and we should get back to that because i actually think there's reason you wouldn't want to do that right but it didn't change the minister of health didn't change the minister of education these are lightning rods uh in alberta for obvious reasons there's there's no shortage of them you could go through But instead, what it did was it removed somebody who seemed to question Jason Kenney's leadership, or at least made things very awkward for him, right, in Lila here. And it brought in a number of associate ministers, basically enlargening the cabinet. And interesting that they're all associate ministers, too. There's kind of this two-tier cabinet that's been created as a result, right? I've never seen such a mix of minister and associate minister. minister and um and then it also it generally didn't change other things so you you brought people in you haven't antagonized any of your existing ministers by and large because you've kept them in the positions with the exception of the person who spoke against you yeah and

Corey 59:46

and so like this to me seems very much designed to manage the caucus and and when even you look at who the associate what their associate ministers of they're not associate ministers of portfolios that I think the public would say that they're struggling in, better throw another minister in. It's not an associate minister of education, for example, right? It's associate ministers of, well, I mean, you just ran through the list. I would sort of even struggle to kind of remember half of them there. Yeah,

Zain 1:00:15

Yeah, like status of women, red tape reduction, rural economic development. Rural economic development was the one I was thinking of. Yeah, those were the ones that were kind of additives.

Corey 1:00:24

Like they in many ways seem to be like, this is your interest, Or at least this is something I think you might be interested in. I'm going to make you the minister of that or the associate minister of that.

Zain 1:00:32

To what, Corey? To placate them from like, just so I understand. Well,

Corey 1:00:37

Well, sort of. Placate, reward, keep busy. There's lots of reasons why you might want to expand somebody into a cabinet. But by and large, it also just changes the number of people who are kind of in this taunting with you too. Like, you know, maybe that's not even a great way to put it. The suicide pact. Like you all go down together if you go down. and

Corey 1:00:54

and uh and he did it in such a way that there

Corey 1:00:57

there wouldn't be a ton of grumbling right there'd not be a lot of reasons for you to complain about things like even rick mciver who was minister of municipal affairs and transportation before uh the aloha gate stuff he was minister of transportation he's now minister of municipal affairs that's a better ministry

Corey 1:01:13

so you know there's there's not a lot that you would sit there and become angry about if you were in cabinet it either so it seems entirely designed to lower the volume with some people and

Corey 1:01:24

and not create any new fights with other people and also send a bit of a signal to the heroes of the world who lost cmsw culture multiculturalism status of women it's not three portfolios and it's just one ministry with a very long name so carter

Zain 1:01:37

carter you know placate reward and keep busy was cory and i strategy with you when we worked together at uh tiller knowlton uh it was really the cycle of like which one of of these three uh stimuli do we uh do we uh uh impress upon but carter do the same for me write your political strategist headline not your media headline but your political strategist headline for what this cabinet shuffle was cory yours was and i'm going to paraphrase right kenny uh grows cabinet to to kind of what was it um was

Carter 1:02:10

was it the caucus yeah

Zain 1:02:11

yeah just for for like internal purposes so to speak something in that spirit uh paraphrasing carter what would yours be Fuck

Carter 1:02:17

Fuck the public. I'm keeping my friends close.

Carter 1:02:21

I don't care. You know, this was not about public perception of his government. This wasn't about trying to change. Like, I thought that a cabinet shovel was in order to deal with the curriculum mess because LaGrange can't get out of that problem because she's the one who created it. Or

Carter 1:02:36

Or to move Tyler Shandra, who's taking an absolute beating, beating, and

Carter 1:02:40

and in some cases, just an absolutely disgusting beating from the followers

Carter 1:02:46

followers of Kevin J. Johnson. You know, their attacks on him being disgusting. Give him a route out and perhaps a ministry that he can relax. Break

Zain 1:02:58

Break and breathe for a second.

Carter 1:02:59

Yeah, and just get your head back because he's getting killed.

Carter 1:03:02

I would have gone to the premier and said, please get me out of here. My family can't survive this nightmare.

Carter 1:03:07

But instead of dealing with those issues or the advanced education issues or the, you know, like all of these things that are real and big and problematic that are staining the ministers. Jason Nixon is the minister of the environment who's proposing that we tear down mountaintops for coal mining. You know, get these people out of those portfolios, allow them to walk away from terrible

Carter 1:03:32

terrible decisions that the population hates. None of that was put on the table. Instead, it was how do I get eight more of my caucus so that they're happier? here how do i get them back in the fold um so that they're they're all pulling the same direction with me and so it was internally focused not externally focused at all and it baffled me i honestly thought i disagree maybe a little bit with cory because i think cory's saying he wouldn't have done yeah an externally focused let's

Zain 1:04:02

let's get into that conversation carter do you want to just extend your comments here why was this bad strategy to make this internally focused and then cory i want to hear from you on this car you're on the roll so keep going because

Carter 1:04:11

because he has has to win because

Carter 1:04:13

he has to win at some point and at some point you have to hit rock bottom so that you can start to reconstruct what it is i don't think that these decisions are going to be able to be seen through i think that when the finance minister mused about cutting nurses salaries it didn't go great for the government that day um and i don't think that it's going to go great for the government if they continue their fight with doctors their fight with nurses their fight with the pandemic uh their fight with curriculum their fight with teachers their fight with parents. They can't fight every front, and they have to retreat at some point. And that's what the caucus shuffle should have been, in my mind, is a retreat from incredibly unpopular positions, and then the crafting of new positions that will enable them to win in 2023, because it's going to take some time to build back from a personal popularity of 22%.

Zain 1:05:03

Carter, do you feel... Okay, you know what? No. I'm going to go to Corey. I'll come back to you. I've got follow ups for you. Corey, tell me why you think Carter's external, you need to win, hit rock bottom, do the external, like, you know, reset open for summer, reset the cabinet approach is perhaps maybe not the right lane to swim in. Because

Corey 1:05:24

Because you can't do anything at all when you're dead.

Corey 1:05:26

You know, every day above ground is a good day. And what Jason Kenney did here was he made it so it was much more likely that he would survive to get to that election he has to win in the future. And I look, I'm not somebody who believes like he was an imminent threat of leadership. But I think he, he probably sized things up and said, you know what, I've got a problem here. And I've got to resolve this problem before it gets entirely out of control on me. And so I am going to find some ways to manage my caucus situation. And this seems like a good lever to pull.

Corey 1:05:57

Let's run the parallel scenario. Let's run the opposite scenario. The one Carter's

Corey 1:06:01

Carter's proposed? Yeah. Let's say he shuffled Well, Tave's out of finance, Chandra out of health, Lagrange

Corey 1:06:06

Lagrange out of education.

Corey 1:06:07

What does that signal?

Corey 1:06:10

Well, it signals that they were not necessarily – either you're going to take a different path going forward or their approach was somehow insufficient.

Corey 1:06:16

insufficient. Two problems with that. One is they're doing exactly what Jason Kenney wants. So you're basically showing that loyalty to the leader will not save you, and that's a great way to invite additional caucus revolt. Second problem is if you're going to change course, what? what? You're going to be less likely to fight with the nurses. You're going to be less tough on wages. You're going to be more willing to concede to the doctors what they want. You're going to be more willing to concede to the teachers what they want. What is that going to do for the very base that we've just talked about potentially being a risk to you? So from both a policy point of view and the way you operate and the way you treat people point of view, those kinds of shuffles would probably have been very damaging to Jason Kenney. And do

Corey 1:06:57

do you really really want to be inflicting that kind of damage on yourself at this particular moment. If you want to make the shuffle that Stephen Carter has talked about, you

Corey 1:07:05

you got to do it from a position of strength, not a position of weakness. And yes, he got to open the province. But obviously, he's assessed that things are not quite settled at this point. And so this will not be the last cabinet shuffle. That's pretty clear to me. But I think he's probably thinking more along the lines of what Stephen Carter often recommends, which is just before an election, you know, three months months out, four months out, clean

Corey 1:07:25

clean the decks, right? You know, you get done all of the tough things you had to do and you get a new face that you get to bring into the election on these very difficult portfolios. Corey,

Zain 1:07:33

Corey, so would I be wrong in suggesting that what Jason

Zain 1:07:38

Jason Kenney did today is perhaps a precursor to what he might do with Carter's strategy? Is that fair to say from what

Zain 1:07:45

what you see? I

Corey 1:07:46

I don't think it's

Corey 1:07:46

precursor. I think it dealt with a particular moment and he knows now is not the time for the bigger changes. Like, I've really got to say, do

Corey 1:07:55

do you think any of these ministers that you've proposed shuffling out here, Stephen, are doing things that Jason Kenney doesn't want them to do?

Carter 1:08:03

No, that's just the point. But do

Corey 1:08:05

do you think that the cabinet and the caucus don't

Corey 1:08:09

don't know that? Like, if you threw somebody under the bus for doing what you want them to do... We're

Carter 1:08:14

We're not throwing them under the bus. We're giving them a new start.

Carter 1:08:17

We're giving Giving them the opportunity to walk away from the things that Jason Kenney wanted them to do.

Carter 1:08:21

Jason Kenney wanted Shandro to be right where Shandro is right now.

Carter 1:08:24

But Jason Kenney needs to rethink what he wants if he wants to win the next election. He can stay where he is. He can push Shandro and Lagrange and Nixon and Taves to finish the job that he's asked them to start.

Carter 1:08:38

That's totally within his purview. But if he does that, the odds of him actually winning the next election are very, very minimal.

Zain 1:08:45

I guess I've got to – I might take a walk on this just because I'm trying to articulate it as I speak. But the question I have for both of you who've spent time in those cabinet meetings, in those like very stressful decision-making congress – Corey, jump in, please. In literally

Corey 1:09:00

literally this cabinet in my case.

Zain 1:09:01

case. Sure, sure. So here's my question.

Zain 1:09:05

Is a demotion a demotion or is there a possibility to like be like, listen, Tyler

Zain 1:09:10

Tyler Shandro is moving out of health. I'm now paraphrasing. I'm Jason Kenney, right? right? I'm talking to my cabinet, talking to my caucus saying, Shandro's moving out of health. But let's be clear, he was a freaking all-star for us. He did everything I wanted. The external public will look at this as a downgrade, as a slap in the face. But I want you all to know that him moving to this whatever portfolio, insert title here, is not that. It's in fact giving him a fresh start. Same for Taves, same for... Is that a thing? Because that's what I've always wondered. Is that a real thing? It's almost like, you know, Corey, Manu Ginobili playing a sixth man because it's egoless basketball like this guy's a fucking starter but what he's going to do is play off the bench for us because that's what helps the team is that a real conversation that that could or can happen because then that kind of bridges how many

Corey 1:09:56

many people do you think are comfortable being the sixth man after being an all-star do you think that that manu ginobili selflessness is very common in the nba

Zain 1:10:06

maybe maybe half a dozen people in the last 15 years have been in that position you don't have to shuffle them down

Carter 1:10:11

down you don't have to shuffle them out you can shuffle them amongst the senior portfolios like let's say that in a cabinet is that

Zain 1:10:19

that how does that get received right like that's what i'm trying to understand is how is that received when you are following the premier's instructions and then get booted from your position you're

Carter 1:10:27

you're not getting booted from your you're being you're getting you're getting shuffled cabinet

Carter 1:10:31

cabinet shuffles are supposed to be regular affairs and the reason that they are done is to reset the government it's not about the minister a full-scale cabinet shuffle has nothing to do with you if you're the minister it has everything to do with the direction that the government has taken one of the reasons that the ndp couldn't reset before the 2019 election is because they weren't prepared to shuffle the deck they kept all their ministers in the existing portfolio and the minister couldn't walk around to their stakeholders and say, I'm a new minister. I'm going to listen. I'm hearing you. I'm reflecting your needs. And because of that, they're saddled with four years of difficult decisions. That's what needs to happen. Shuffles must happen for a government to be successful.

Corey 1:11:16

So I agree with everything you've said, Stephen, but I think that it's the timing and it's the sequencing because they're just in a different place right now. Like everyone's familiar with of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? You've got to have food and water before you get to actualization. Well, Hogan's hierarchy of political needs, winning elections is above surviving as leader. And you've got to survive as leader before you start thinking about winning elections.

Carter 1:11:41

I can't argue with that. I just think that it's time for, I would have done it all. And now he's put himself in a position where there's going to need to be another shuffle, probably maybe just after Christmas.

Carter 1:11:53

me talk about- It's going to happen. Let

Zain 1:11:55

me talk about one thing. You know, I got you guys to write your strategist headlines. They were in the same neighborhood, I would say. But the headline that's, well, the media headline is about Lila here, right? Three portfolios down to literally nothing. One portfolio. Right, right. But ultimately having status of women, culture, multiculturalism, right? Like three things that she's balancing, so to speak. Sure. And finances like a hundred things.

Zain 1:12:17

out, right? Same thing, out. But she was not the only minister that spoke out against Kenny. This is what I find interesting. Minister Sani also spoke out against Kenny. She moves, she gets shuffled into transportation. What do you think happened here? Is it just the fact that he wanted to send one very strong message to, let's say, a Brian Jean ally? Or is there a a simpler explanation to what happened.

Corey 1:12:44

I mean, the simple explanation is we don't know all of the conversations that have happened. We don't know who she was whispering venom to. We don't know what was happening in the halls of the legislature. And perhaps she was by far the most egregious offender here. And perhaps Jason Kenney just said, OK, enough of that. We're not going to do it. When you look at the facts from the outside, certainly her criticisms of the premier were the ones that landed the hardest in the public. And they actually forced him to apologize. And I'm sure he didn't like that very much. And so there's also that, right? The consequences of her acting out were higher than the acting out of the other ministers. But, you

Corey 1:13:19

know, I said this at the time, like, everybody's endgame seemed so murky. Everybody was acting so wild and against this notion of, like, or cabinet solidarity. And I think I

Corey 1:13:29

said that like a hero going against her other ministers, that's pretty intense. And so somebody had to pay a price for that. I think he would have looked weak if he just allowed everybody to continue along on that. And for however he managed to rationalize it, he rationalized she was the worst offender.

Zain 1:13:46

Carter, I mean, listen, I'll bring the identity piece in because I think it's important. Obviously, a female, racialized female, you know, leaving the Kenny caucus. So the Kenny cabinet, I should be clear.

Zain 1:13:59

Your analysis on her leaving? What do you think? You agree with Corey? I mean,

Carter 1:14:03

mean, I think you move one. I mean, Corey's right. We don't know who who was wearing the troublemaker outfit. It sounds like it was a here. You move one racialized

Carter 1:14:17

racialized person of color, you know, female minister of color out. It's a bad day. you

Carter 1:14:22

you move two especially after the second one just had her daughter attacked in downtown calgary

Carter 1:14:31

you're courting an outcome that you just don't need um

Carter 1:14:33

um so keeping her in cabinet

Carter 1:14:39

know could be a good role for her could be a terrible role for her i mean at some point uh this is probably uh this may not be her last stop on the uh the carousel of cabinet choices carter

Zain 1:14:52

carter i have a question for you specifically cory i'll get you to jump into what does it look like when he acts a minister what like what is that conversation internally what's the mechanism like because i don't i'm not familiar and maybe you guys are like are you give did lila here get absolutely no fucking comment some things are in the vault okay okay some things are in the vault does lila here get an email this morning carter does she does she get does she find out from the media like how how does this generally work maybe take me through the two phases how it's communicated to one ex-minister or and and how the decisions ultimately kind of made and finalized if you can kind of speak to both of those things since we're on the topic i

Carter 1:15:29

i think so let can we go to the hypothetical instead of instead of all of this

Zain 1:15:34

this all of this isn't the hypothetical yeah

Carter 1:15:36

mean i think there's a right stimulate

Zain 1:15:36

stimulate cory's involvement because it's hypothetical i

Carter 1:15:39

i think there's a right way and a wrong way to do it right yeah

Carter 1:15:42

um you know so it's easy when you're you're appointing everybody for the first time. Everybody gets a phone call. You know, everything's clean. But there is a group of people, even when you're doing it for the first time, that are going to be out, right? And I think that the proper way to do it is the premier picks up the telephone and calls the person who's going to be out and says, I've

Carter 1:16:05

I've made a decision. It's a tough decision. Here's why I made it. And I think that we did that with

Carter 1:16:10

with Mel Knight. Mel Knight had been, I think it was the Minister of Energy or something like that forever. He dated back to Ralph Klein and been in cabinet since Ralph Klein days and Redford took him out in part because we were heading to an election. Mel wasn't going to be running in the next election and it didn't make sense to have him occupy a cabinet position. That's a relatively easy phone call to make. There were other people that were

Carter 1:16:37

were going out of cabinet that thought that they should stay in cabinet and were going to be running in the next election. and

Carter 1:16:44

those phone calls were a lot harder to make and sometimes um that didn't that

Carter 1:16:50

didn't happen and i think that you

Carter 1:16:53

you know i've seen those calls staffed out i've seen those calls not made um i've seen the emails or the texts i think that that's the wrong way to play it i think the right way to play it is verbal communication i think that face-to-face communication is the best uh but if you can't do it like that it should be a telephone call cory

Corey 1:17:12

cory do you want to completely yeah yeah i mean i completely agree best practice in my opinion is almost nobody knows except the people who need to know to operationalize it the last thing you want is people whispering about them being dead person walking right uh and then it is the leader directly to them in a very humane fashion it's not done through support it's it's not done through texts and in my opinion that is is the best way to do it. Because it's like any organization, politics, and we've said this before, it's just like, it's a workplace in many ways, too. And people do watch how you treat people on their way out. And they think, well, how would I want to be treated? And is that fair? And is that right? So that's absolutely the appropriate way to deal with it. I'm not saying that's the way it always happens. And, and quite often, when a minister is, is let

Corey 1:18:02

let go or moved out out or demoted. It occurs because there has been not one, but multiple events that have sort of led to that. And other people can sort of see the writing on the wall, and then they can see that the leader is not treating that minister the same way as before. And that's where it gets really messy. So the other thing, this is unsolicited advice to leaders here, but that which must be done immediately or eventually must be done immediately. If this is just not working out with a minister you get rid of the minister before it becomes a a bigger problem and it also becomes a question on your judgment and how you manage your manage your cabinet cory

Zain 1:18:39

cory i'm sticking with you uh and this final question on the on the kenny cabinet shuffle does

Zain 1:18:44

does today accomplish his goal of like leadership so does it does this accomplish his goal on on hogan's hierarchy of needs so to speak like for you from what you saw like okay i i really appreciate what you're trying to tell us in terms of what he was trying to do, did he do it?

Corey 1:18:59

Well, it's, again, you know, this is one of those issues we always feel totally comfortable saying,

Carter 1:19:05

saying, we know, this is our advice.

Corey 1:19:07

This is so dependent on what the conversation is in the caucus, right? And we just don't know, and I think we need to acknowledge that. I will say from a distance, it doesn't look like it was bad, right? It's, you've got all of a sudden more people that are in cabinet. You've got not a lot of reason to believe you've antagonized people. people and so i i'm sure that uh here will will be a bit of a problem in that conversation and obviously the one we haven't talked about is the minister the new minister of culture has become a bit of a punching bag yes

Zain 1:19:35

yes he has yeah online

Corey 1:19:36

online but um it it seems okay now will it will it help him win the next election to carter's point i think there's another move that needs to happen between now and then but um but it does seem to be a stabilizing move carter

Zain 1:19:51

carter i i'm i'm gonna ask you a slightly different question because it's perhaps more aligned to your perspective on what Kenny should have done today which is what's your pithy headline for the opposition here what would you tell them to focus on when you know even if you if you accept or even don't accept Hogan's hierarchy we're going to now make it a real thing Hogan even

Zain 1:20:12

if you do or do not accept it right that this is what Kenny was trying to do a lot of that's inside baseball what was your line as the opposition what would you be telling what would you be sticking from the rooftops from what you saw today i'll

Carter 1:20:25

i'll be i'll be talking about a cabinet shuffle that reflects kenny's needs and not alberton's needs this

Carter 1:20:31

this is this was him handing out rewards including more pay you

Carter 1:20:35

you know at a time when he's talking about cutting nurses salaries he's increasing the size of the cabinet he's increasing the average mla pay he's making sure that all of his people get more money um

Carter 1:20:45

um for what are we going to get a better government out of this. He didn't address the issues that Albertans care about. He didn't address coal mining. He didn't address parks fees. He didn't address, I mean, ironically, the parks fees, the amount of money that he's going to raise in parks fees might just pay for the number of cabinet ministers that he just added and their staffs. I mean, this is ridiculous. This is a man who's lost perspective of what the issues are to Albertans. And there wasn't a single Albertan out there saying, you know what we need is an associate minister of red tape. They're out there talking about the curriculum. They're talking about health care. They're talking about education. And none of that was addressed through today's shuffle.

Zain 1:21:24

Corey, I may get you to just do an additive or an agreement with Carter. Do you agree that the line of inquiry, inquisition, attack that Carter's hitting on is where you need to go for the opposition NDP?

Corey 1:21:37

I absolutely do. You know, you can make this argument that they're so deep in their own BS, they're not working for you. look at this cabinet shuffle look at the priorities they've set they didn't do anything about education they didn't do anything about health they

Corey 1:21:49

they didn't do anything about parks they didn't do anything about energy where we've been spending billions of dollars just you know pell it feels like and so i think there's an awful lot of opportunity for the ndp to to really highlight really showcase that this is an internal cabinet shuffle in many ways uh and i thought i saw a tweet earlier today from shannon phillips who said you know this is not a cabinet shuffle it's a a cabinet expansion designed to manage the rest of the UCP caucus, not to meet Alberta's concerns about jobs, diversification, health care, and education, and now zero cabinet voice for Southern Alberta. They take us for granted. I thought that was basically pitch perfect as far as like an opposition message against it, because you talked about jobs, you talked about health care, you talked about education, and as a Southern, not, I mean, Lethbridge isn't rural, but as a Southern Alberta MLA, also getting to throw in the dig of being taken for granted, like it just, it It checked

Corey 1:22:38

checked so many bloody boxes. And that was largely messaging that was echoed by other MLAs in the NDP throughout the day. So I think that they're on kind of a productive message track.

Corey 1:22:51

Jason Kenney, of course, did this just before Stampede.

Corey 1:22:56

Calgarians are distracted. I think in general, Albertans are distracted with the reopening and the fact that we're now in summer. So the harm to him will probably be fairly minimal on that point. But yeah, I mean, it wasn't, there were rumors a week ago that the cabinet shuffle was going to be just before Canada Day.

Corey 1:23:15

And I was talking to a friend of mine and I said, that's so fucking weird. Who buries a cabinet shuffle? Like who does a cabinet shuffle just to try to stomp it out of the news cycle? You want to highlight things, you want to have good things. But I

Corey 1:23:28

I kind of get why they might have done this before Canada Day, because this is not a cabinet shuffle you want people talking about. And the fact that it was brought out on a lazy summer day like this, I think really is part of the tactics here. I think Jason Kenney knows this is not a great public communication. This is something that he's doing to deal with a couple of problems within his cabinet, reward a couple of people and deal with at least one problem. So,

Corey 1:23:53

yeah, I mean, great message line by the NDP. I just don't think it's a super high salience issue given the time of year.

Zain 1:24:02

Let's move it on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, almost an hour and a half and we're there. It's because of the hot dog buns and wiener debate. I mean, it's just – It's not a debate. It's just so clear cut. Time is flying today. Time is flying.

Zain 1:24:19

Stephen Carter, I'm going to start with you. Give me a 1 to 10 score on the UCP's strategy, right, their strategy for announcing the 3% cut proposal to nurses in the province. What do you think of how they rolled that out through the finance minister, how they communicated it, timing, consolidated it all together for me? And give me a score on 1 to 10 on that strategy for the UCP. It's

Carter 1:24:40

It's a D minus. I mean, they announced this thing at a time. I think it's a trial balloon. loon i'm not sure it's a real idea but even though it's the beginning of summer and the uh the summer of i don't give a fuck has really started uh they still got the shit kicked out of them this isn't something that uh they did a good job on and uh having

Carter 1:25:04

having said that i i have no doubt um that this is something that the government will try and push through but there's still a collective bargaining process to do it so i'm not sure this is going to be the end game by any stretch of the the imagination.

Zain 1:25:16

Corey, roll it all up for me, consolidate it all and give me a score on one to 10 on this strategy for the UCP and how they rolled out this proposal for 3% wage rollback for nurses.

Corey 1:25:26

You know, this is an interesting one. Bargaining is such a fascinating thing, and I don't purport to be an expert in it. But sometimes you just got to put your position on the table, right? Like that's the time you are in bargaining. And so that has to drive some of of your announcements on it and sometimes you want to create the space for a deal and so you ask for something that's much more than you're going to get both sides do this of course yes we want a seven percent increase no we want you to take a three percent cut and then they end up on zeros and they call it a day right so without there's undoubtedly strategy behind the scenes on it uh that said some of the communication within it was a bit ungainly

Corey 1:26:07

ungainly a little awkward i think think the idea that you would point to all of these job losses and look you've been lucky to keep your jobs they're

Corey 1:26:14

they're fucking nurses and we've been in a pandemic yeah that just seems like

Corey 1:26:19

unbelievably tone deaf right and so i i think that was a message that was unnecessary and and frankly not helpful because it's the kind of thing you can point to and say what are they smoking is it that devil weed that uh or has been warning us about minister or

Corey 1:26:34

oh goodness we never talked about him too bad but uh yeah i think um without

Corey 1:26:40

without knowing i'll give it a i'll give it a three on the zero to ten scale i don't know what that converts to in your one to ten it

Corey 1:26:47

be four thank you uh

Zain 1:26:51

cory sticking with you overrated or underrated we talked about trudeau being in calgary for about eight hours of those eight hours 30 seconds have become what i'd call political viral which means not viral but viral for the politicos which is uh trudeau's clapback against kenny uh on equalization where he says listen all we did was take jason kenny's formula when he was in the harper cabinet extended forward so if you if you were wondering what issues jason kenny has with the equalization maybe you can ask a younger version of himself is that clip overrated or underrated it's

Zain 1:27:24

it's overrated i didn't even watch it this is my first exposure to it i

Zain 1:27:28

i think i did a a pretty good job carter i think you watched it i assume you watched it is it overrated

Carter 1:27:31

overrated underrated i think i in fact am the reason it went viral i just watched it on a loop uh so that's probably my own bad um i think it's completely overrated uh this is an argument that has been made for the last uh three years since kenny started talking about equalization um the good people of alberta don't give a shit about the about the facts uh they're going to push forward with their referendum and feel tremendously aggrieved because we pay the same taxation levels as everywhere else.

Zain 1:28:02

Stephen Carter, sticking with you, Jody Wilson-Raybould not running again in a scathing two-page sort of missive slash statement saying that the current parliament has become toxic, unproductive, become about partisan victories, overrated or underrated, that Jody Wilson-Raybould is not running again as an independent.

Carter 1:28:23

Overrated. It sounds to me like someone got her internals back.

Zain 1:28:27

Corey, overrated, underrated that she's not running again. But maybe true.

Corey 1:28:31

I think it's, hmm,

Corey 1:28:35

I think it is ultimately overrated. It's not as though the parliament was likely to hinge on one independent MP to begin with. And so just kind of taking a broad scan of things, I'll call it overrated.

Corey 1:28:46

But she's talking about something that's real.

Corey 1:28:49

know, there's no doubt about that. That it's been discussed in all sorts of various contexts, just how acrimonious this place has become. I don't know if it is specific to this minority parliament. I think it's been a growing problem for a long time. But, you know, it's the issue she's raised is one we will be talking about for years to come. And it is one that is going to drive the nature of politics for

Corey 1:29:14

for a very long time. So in that sense, quite underrated.

Zain 1:29:18

Corey, I'm going to stick with you on this one. You know, we talked about, I believe it was last episode, could the O'Toole conservatives do anything to kind of delay the upcoming election, the ridtrop, etc.? Well, one thing that seems to be happening, I'm not crediting this to O'Toole directly, but the Ethics Committee is being recalled to consider probing liberal use of parliamentary funds. So the House of Commons Ethics Committee is being recalled to discuss whether to investigate the hiring with parliamentary funds of two companies that are also central to the Liberal Party's digital campaign operations. What do you think is this? Is this overrated or underrated, given the timeline and the trajectory we're on right now of a potential summer, fall, early fall election?

Corey 1:29:58

Well, that's another one that I'm going to have the

Corey 1:30:00

the ability to argue both sides on. But it doesn't seem to me on its face like it's the kind of issue that's going to catch on with people unless there's this big, big smoking gun that's out there. Now, will it just Just play into yet another kind of vague

Corey 1:30:14

vague feeling you have about the Trudeau liberals. Yeah, you bet.

Corey 1:30:17

And yet here's this other thing with this shady contract that we haven't gotten to the bottom of yet. Okay. But I don't think that it's the kind of thing that is on its own going to change the course of history.

Zain 1:30:28

Carter, overrated or underrated, the Ethics Committee recalled to consider liberals' use of parliamentary funds.

Carter 1:30:35

I just am struggling to think of when the last committee action in Canadian Parliament actually delivered a knockout blow. It just strikes me that the committee isn't going to do that. It just gets caught up in bureaucracy and it'll

Corey 1:30:50

It's like you don't remember the WE scandal at all. Do you

Corey 1:30:52

remember when there was this company called WE that no longer exists? Yeah,

Carter 1:30:54

Yeah, it was a knockout blow for them. It didn't seem to impact Trudeau very much, right?

Carter 1:30:58

right? I mean, oh, tough luck for the brothers.

Carter 1:31:01

brothers. I can't remember their names. The

Corey 1:31:07

Kielburgers. It's okay. Keep moving. I don't

Zain 1:31:13

Carter, on a scale of one to ten hot dog buns, what would you rank the Jason Kenney Cabinet Shuffle as?

Carter 1:31:21

It is exactly zero hot dogs in a hot dog bun.

Zain 1:31:25

Corey, on a scale of one to ten hot dog buns, the Jason Kenney Cabinet Shuffle, give me a rank on it.

Corey 1:31:33

scale should be 0 to 8 because that's how many hot dog buns are in a case, and I refuse to answer the question.

Zain 1:31:41

Tweet me if you put your bread in the fridge. That's a wrap on episode 934 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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