Episode 941: All about the Bordens

Zain 0:01

This is a strategist episode 941. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan. Guys, happy Monday. Happy Labor Day.

Zain 0:11

How's your labor been or lack thereof? I

Carter 0:14

I spent a tremendous amount of time outside this weekend, so I'm feeling great. I'm feeling fantastic. Rode

Carter 0:19

Rode my bike many days. It was great.

Corey 0:23

Did you watch a bunch of Australian stuff?

Carter 0:27

no i did watch some uh mountain biking though some mountain bike racing and watch the short track mountain racing you're racing out of uh out of switzerland and then i uh didn't do very well on my afl project projections because the fucking western bulldogs came through with a one which which

Zain 0:42

which which city are they the

Carter 0:44

the western bulldogs yeah

Carter 0:45

they're out of melbourne on

Zain 0:46

on the mountain okay okay

Carter 0:47

okay well western part of melbourne yeah okay do you want to do you want to have a throw down is that

Zain 0:51

that what we're doing we

Zain 0:53

we did the breakdown last time and

Carter 0:54

my brisbane lions This is what I'm saying. This is tragic.

Corey 0:57

I got caught up on my podcast, which was interesting because I was on all of them. Yeah, you

Zain 1:02

you were on all of the podcasts. We can't have a turf war with other

Corey 1:06

other podcasts if you just go and do them. Yeah.

Zain 1:08

Yeah. By the way, speaking of labor, I'll let you get to your gloating about your several podcasts you did this weekend. Speaking of labor, thank you to the free labor provided to us by all of our listeners. I think based on their free labor, the Hill Times is out of business. yeah

Corey 1:22

yeah i think we have canceled all six

Zain 1:25

six hilltimes subscriptions uh and and because of us and by extension uh the fine folks who listen to this podcast um the hilltimes is is out of business so uh make them think twice once they reboot cory over to you yeah yeah

Corey 1:39

yeah peace in our time it's great wonderful work everybody we

Carter 1:44

it on all the podcasts and maybe not mention that you're part of the strategist podcast that might have helped us with the hilltimes i

Corey 1:50

i think i i mentioned it on a few of them i was on the writ eric grenier and i talked about uh eric

Carter 1:56

eric well seriously you

Carter 1:58

you did his podcast you're

Corey 2:00

you're just doing this

Carter 2:00

this now to be controversial oh

Carter 2:02

oh i'm angry no

Zain 2:03

no let him let him let him go let him go let's

Corey 2:06

where you go with this let's see where you go zane and i are in contract negotiations to replace you and and have him come in as the new third and as you

Carter 2:12

you guys know i'm

Zain 2:13

i'm always in contract negotiations with someone about something so

Carter 2:15

so he will he will We'll make you two look smarter.

Corey 2:22

You're a bad person, and nobody speaks

Corey 2:24

speaks well of you.

Corey 2:27

That's funny. Listen to that podcast. It's a good podcast. Because you're on it,

Carter 2:32

it, or because of Eric? Because of

Corey 2:35

of you. Great conversation. Great conversation. Great conversation. Excellent hosting. You know what? I was only on it for the first 30 minutes. Listen to the 30 minutes after, too. Good podcast.

Corey 2:45

Good podcast. you know what a host with some manners steven feel

Zain 2:49

feel like you i feel like you're over correcting cory uh speaking of over correcting uh flare airlines never needs to over correct because our planes never leave the ground flare real

Zain 3:01

sponsor right cory uh

Zain 3:03

uh not a real sponsor

Zain 3:06

just pains me to just watch you have to admit every time seeing

Carter 3:10

seeing the tweet from david gray was was pretty spectacular oh you

Carter 3:13

you haven't seen the tweet from david gray on his flare airlines experience uh then you will never understand the the the strategist sponsorship structure uh

Zain 3:21

uh cory what other podcasts were you on this this week this weekend i

Corey 3:25

was on west of center i was on the season opener west of center dealt

Corey 3:29

dealt with alberta maybe we'll talk alberta today i don't know but

Corey 3:32

but pretty wild times here in the you

Corey 3:36

we have a nickname as a province

Corey 3:40

No. Those are both bad. You

Corey 3:42

like Berta or Stupid Place? I felt like...

Carter 3:46

They're going to make a TV show called The Stupid Place. They're going to base it here.

Corey 3:49

I mean, there's Wild Rose Country, but that's... That's

Corey 3:52

What were you thinking, Corey, before I move on and start this show? Something nice about the province. Like what?

Zain 4:01

Let's move it on to our first segment. It's a wonderful place.

Corey 4:03

Let's move it on to our

Zain 4:06

Our first segment, guys, you've been asking for it in no way whatsoever. It is the strategy scale. Oh,

Zain 4:12

Oh, yes, indeed. It is our favorite potpourri segment. I combine all the mush that is happening in, in this case, election 44. I pose it to you guys. I ask you whether on a strategy scale of, Corey, what does it start at? It starts at one, Corey, all the way to 10. You're going to give me how good the strategy was. And then I'm going to ask you there on after, if you were in the shoes of that political party or that leader or that person, what would you have done or said differently? So we're always going to try to make it better, course correct, try to help some of these strategic plays. And there's been a handful of them over the course of this past week. So without further ado, Carter, I'm going to start with you on the first round. You are first for us here. And let's start here. Let's start with Justin Trudeau. So Justin Trudeau has been going on several campaign stops across the country. He has been obviously

Zain 5:09

obviously met with protesters in many of them. But this is a quote from Justin Trudeau today. But

Zain 5:15

But Canadians, the vast majority of Canadians are not represented by them. He says that looking at them in the distance and their volume getting louder and louder. And I will not allow those voices, those special interest groups, those protesters, I don't want to even call them protesters, those anti-vaxxer mobs to dictate how this country gets through the pandemic. Stephen Carter, Justin Trudeau, accelerating or elevating his language, being much more assertive, calling these groups anti-vaxxer mobs. On a strategy scale, from what you see, where this story is going, on a 1 to 10, what would you give it? And then follow thereafter. What would you say or do differently if you were writing those words for Justin Trudeau? So first on the strategy scale, and then what would you have said or done differently if you were Justin Trudeau in this situation?

Carter 6:06

I give it a six, the current strategy. And I would have gone with don't say a damn thing. They

Carter 6:12

They don't exist to you. They're not worth your time. They're not worth your breath. You're the prime minister of the country of Canada. You don't speak to this small group of people that are trying to undermine democracy and defame

Carter 6:25

defame people that are doing good work, whether they're nurses or doctors or public health officials. officials. I wouldn't utter their name. I would force others to do it and others to carry it. It's going to be the focal point of the news for the next couple of weeks. So why do you need to speak to it at all? You should be struggling to stay on your message. And, you know, I think that if you make them the message, you undermine your own credibility. Whereas if you just kind of ignore, you know, like he didn't need to say a damn thing today. Everybody knows that they're Why are

Zain 6:59

are you giving this a six then? Well, I'm really curious about your scale.

Carter 7:03

It's better than saying, you know, these people need to be heard. That would have been like a two, right? Like, you know, like on a mistake level, it's not something that's going to derail the campaign. But I just think that there are much stronger, much

Carter 7:19

much stronger choices to be made.

Zain 7:22

Corey, who knew Stephen Carter was such an easy marker on this scale? With you, from 1 to 10, what is this escalation in language? And I'll take folks on a little bit of a trip, right? Trudeau started with, these individuals have had a rough year, too, all the way to yelling at them and saying that O'Toole stands with them now today to using the term anti-vaxxer mobs, not wanting to refer to them as protesters. Corey Hogan, strategy scale 1 to 10, what would you have said or done differently if you were Trudeau, part B of that?

Corey 7:53

where do you go from here if you've already hit anti-vaxxer mobs on that trajectory up what do i give it i guess i give it a five i can't give it a

Corey 8:04

a uh you know a true middle of the road score because your scale goes from one to ten and that means that a five is actually somewhat below 50 percent yeah

Carter 8:13

yeah so i need the audience to keep that in

Carter 8:15

yeah 5.5 could never be done like it's no it's impossible ridiculous yeah come on yeah

Corey 8:20

yeah get out of here with that nonsense yeah

Corey 8:27

I have a couple of problems with it, and then I'll just sort of say what I would have done instead. First of all, by you talking about it in these terms, you've got no escalation point from here, which means you've got a bit of the boy who cries wolf problem. If somebody actually does create a bit of a mob here, it's just an unruly bunch of protesters. The other is you make it more obviously political when you talk about it in these terms as the prime minister. I agree with Stephen to an extent that you don't want to be giving them this kind of oxygen. I think it's tough because, of course, the reporters are going to put microphones in your face and say, what do you think of this? What's going on? What do you think of these people?

Corey 9:05

Maybe the proper answer is something more along the lines of not very much, right? I'm happy to have a conversation with Canadians who are interested in having a conversation. That's not what this group is, right? But

Corey 9:17

where would I go from here if I were him?

Corey 9:20

I think I just said it. i think that's what i would do so

Corey 9:22

so i answered the question accidentally i didn't mean to i was going to leave you strung along a bit longer there

Zain 9:27

there you go no anticipation cory thank you i really appreciate that cory i'm going to stick with you just because you uh scooped yourself on your own answer i'm sticking with you for the next one a a strategy coming out of the ndp now we don't know if it's an official strategy or not if it's what i mean by that if it's dictated by the party, but you're hearing a lot of progressive surrogates online talk about this, which is, and we've talked about, and just to clue the listeners in, a couple episodes ago, I had both of you do the yes and segment, where you put together a yes and strategy message tactics for the NDP. Which way would they go now knowing that Justin Trudeau had a strategic card, which was going to be trying to tell the red-orange switchers to come over to red? Well, here's what we're hearing right now this weekend. We're hearing it quite a bit, which is, vote with your heart. There is no possible way, right? I'm paraphrasing a bunch of tweets from what I quote-unquote progressive surrogates. There's no possible way O'Toole's going to get a majority. And there's no possible way Jagmeet Singh and the NDP are going to support an O'Toole minority, which means vote with your heart. Do what you want. Vote splitting is not real this time. Vote for the party you actually want to win. Corey, I'm starting with you. On a strategy scale of 1 to 10, and I will be very clear, I'm not attributing this directly to the NDP, but I do want to assess the strategic take. What do you think? And then based on what you heard, what would you say or do instead as an even informal or unauthorized surrogate strategy, if that is indeed your motive to get folks to stick with the orange rather than shift over to the red?

Corey 11:04

think those actual words I would find not to be particularly helpful because they're They're reinforcing this idea of an NDP that is touchy-feely and not really rooted with, you know, the real problems of the world. You know, vote the way you want to vote, though. If we sort of say that's more the principle that's here, it's like, don't vote the way you think you have to vote. Vote the way you want to vote. You're able to do that.

Corey 11:26

It is okay. Obviously, it's backed up a bit by some of the polling numbers out there, not least of which is the approval rating for Singh is pretty good. And the approval rating for Trudeau is pretty not good. But obviously, it's not entirely true, because it's quite possible in a local riding to get a vote split that allows the conservatives to win with 40% of the vote or 38% of the vote or whatever it is. Instead of having a progressive candidate of any flavor, you'll get a conservative. That's absolutely possible.

Corey 11:57

possible. Now, it's immensely frustrating that the liberals always seem to be the benefactor of combining those together for the NDP, unquestionably. But I think the risk here is that if people actually buy it, it is not inconceivable we're in an election where that actually leads to a no-tool government. Right, right. So maybe

Corey 12:17

maybe it's not – so I don't know. I mean, it's a tough place to be. And I'll tell you, in 2012, in the provincial campaign, I ran the liberal campaign, and Stephen was behind the shadows in the conservative

Corey 12:31

One of the biggest problems – we had this problem where it

Corey 12:36

was like you got to stop the wild rose sentiment. So there were a lot of liberals that went to vote PC to stop the wild rose. Alberta, folks, what a place. um and the uh the problem was we always tried to say there was no difference between the wild rose and the pcs or they're both bad or you got to vote the way you want to vote but

Corey 12:56

but at the end of the day people get antsy and they start thinking about that worst case scenario and and things can go bad

Corey 13:02

bad i had fucking candidates you'd be on a call with them at seven in the morning saying now remember our strategy is x uh if somebody says you

Corey 13:11

you know they're gonna vote pc to stop the wild rose you remind them of all of the ways that ted morton who was a pc cabinet minister has said things that are just as bad as anything that's ever been said in the wild rose right

Carter 13:22

this was the strategy of the day and

Corey 13:24

then that same candidate would be quoted in their local newspaper saying we

Corey 13:29

we gotta stop the wild rose absolutely it's imperative you know and

Corey 13:34

and uh it just it's it's tough it's tough to manage it's a difficult situation to be in that's for sure carter

Zain 13:40

carter one one to 10 on the surrogate strategy here of vote with your heart. There's no way the NDP would support a conservative minority. So you're there and vote splitting isn't real. What do you think on a one to 10? And what would you say or do differently if you were authoring this, I'd say unauthorized surrogate strategy?

Carter 14:00

I give it a three.

Carter 14:02

It's just bad politics. I mean, it's

Carter 14:05

it's too touchy-feely to matter and more importantly that's right in front of them is uh the more ndp seats we have the more likely that we can control who is in government uh and control how the government actually functions um so the ndp i mean this this tails off of my uh getting sing to give up on the idea of being the prime minister and you can say he can be the

Carter 14:28

the prime minister by By having control of NDP seats. We know that there's going to be a minority. So elect more NDP members and we can control how that minority looks and acts. If there are enough NDP members elected, then it doesn't matter where O'Toole is. It doesn't matter where Trudeau is. You don't have to stop anything. Elect enough NDP members and we're in control. We've got the power. And this is when we're at our absolute best, is when we're supporting a minority government. We then force them to put the hearts and minds of Canadians first. It's where you see the biggest advancements in Canadian democracy. It's where we see health care. It's where we see democratic reform. It's where we see the things that we care about. And you get all of that when you vote NDP. You get none of that when you switch over to the Liberals. Corey,

Zain 15:22

Corey, do you like this

Zain 15:24

this surrogate strategy that you're seeing play out in the wild? Or do you like Carter's strategy that he has rephrased from two episodes ago to put back onto the table just to suddenly remind us that he was trying to fuck with us then, but he's now owning it entirely now? He was

Carter 15:42

right then, and he's right now. The

Corey 15:44

The good news is I don't have to choose either of them, right?

Zain 15:49

You don't have to.

Corey 15:51

yeah what you know i i mean carter one of the things about any strategy is the strategy needs to actually be able to be applied and even if i thought that this wasn't a bonker strategy for the public how in the world do you think you're going to get the ndp faithful to go along with you on that particular i

Carter 16:07

i will concede that the ndp faithful aren't good at politics but they're not as bad as the greens so victory hey

Zain 16:14

hey cory we should be familiar with this usually Usually when Carter dictated strategies to us in our professional working relationship, he was out of the room before he finished the last words and would just say, get it done.

Zain 16:26

And I'd say, what, Carter, three times? You wouldn't even know. I'd say, what, Corey, three times out of 10, it was hard to understand what he was saying. And an additional two times out of 10, impossible to get done, Carter. But

Carter 16:38

But it always worked.

Corey 16:42

always worked. I mean, if

Corey 16:43

if you count my superpower for walking back your commitments with clients, then yes, absolutely. Yeah,

Zain 16:49

Yeah, let's let a decade of professional baggage out on the air right now. Let's make that happen. What

Carter 16:55

What happened? What happened between us? Carter,

Zain 16:56

Carter, episode 941, we finally want to lay it out to you. It wasn't as fun as you thought. Carter, I'm going to stick with you.

Zain 17:04

Stick with you for our next one, Carter. A letter written by Jagmeet Singh to Trudeau, O'Toole, Blanchet and Annamie Paul has a bunch of writing, including the following paragraph going to read to you. Next Wednesday, September 8th, we will all be in Ottawa in advance of the first consortium debate. Let's put partisanship aside and stand together and record a message to be shared with all Canadians. We must tell Canadians, quote, if you are eligible, you should get vaccinated, unquote, as federal leaders. It is our job to lead and unite the country during these challenging times. We owe this to the frontline workers, nurses, doctors, health care workers. I'm confident if we remain focused helping people, we'll get through this. We're so close. Jagmeet Singh.

Corey 17:51

Stephen Carter, does this sound familiar

Zain 17:52

familiar to you at all? Let's go there first. How does it sound familiar to you? Well,

Carter 17:57

Well, it was our idea, right?

Carter 17:59

right? I mean, we came up with it and I came up with it first. And then Corey said, oh, that's a great idea. like he always does and

Carter 18:07

it was our idea so i give this one a 10 out of 10 zane wouldn't change a thing let's

Zain 18:13

let's let's actually okay so cory do i'll let you take a quasi victory lap it'll go back to carter for his actual victory lap

Corey 18:19

lap to take this is not a new strategy what to put pressure on people to say let's all you know hands together and get this done because this is this bigger than us it's It's been well-trod over the years. And the fact that it didn't – I mean, it was that, but it wasn't the thing we specifically said to do. There's no time

Zain 18:36

time to be humble, Corey. Corey, what the hell, man? You think if we were humble, we would be able to mobilize against the Hill Time so aggressively that we'd be able to have the sponsorships that we do on this show? That's

Zain 18:47

true. I'm with Carter on this one. Carter. All right. Hold

Corey 18:50

Hold on. Okay, Corey, please go ahead. Yeah. Let's talk about the actual strategy of it here. What was really interesting to me was that it came from Sing. And at first I thought, what

Corey 18:59

what in the world are you doing? Because in many ways it gives O'Toole an out, right? It's like you don't ask a question in court if you're a lawyer if you don't know the answer. So if Singh thought O'Toole

Corey 19:10

O'Toole wouldn't do it, or

Corey 19:11

or maybe that Trudeau wouldn't do it, then that maybe puts pressure on them. But by having O'Toole say, yeah, absolutely, and be the first one to jump on pretty soon, you

Corey 19:21

you in many ways are helping O'Toole out of the box that he has on vaccination. On the wrong side of the wedge,

Corey 19:26

sort of thing. Well, yeah, even this week, there was conversation of the conservatives had a target of 90% of their candidates being vaccinated. And now they're not repeating or, you know, mentioning what the results were there on that particular metric. So I thought that's really, I mean, that's interesting to me. That's strange. But then I started thinking, perhaps it's intentional. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's just like a bunch of shit that's happening. Or maybe it's very intentionally trying to jam

Corey 19:51

jam the prime minister by helping O'Toole, right? Right. And and maybe that is something that the NDP thinks is to their advantage, because in

Corey 19:59

in a way, like it couldn't have worked better for O'Toole, because if O'Toole had been the one to send a letter like that, it

Corey 20:06

could look more crassly political, more cynical. Right. But by having it come from Singh and have O'Toole jump on, I believe, before the prime minister jumped on. It

Zain 20:14

It was like bang, bang. It was like right in that same window. Yeah, yeah. But Corey, what was the strategic gain for Singh then? And maybe we'll view this question through that lens. As a strategic

Corey 20:24

strategic thing, what do you think? If you are thinking that your risk here is exactly what we're talking about, about vote collapse, and this big, bad, scary Aaron O'Toole, we have to stop. And if you think that vaccination is the issue that is going to get people to collapse, it's going to become if you believe in vaccination, you vote for Justin Trudeau. If you believe in something

Corey 20:45

something less than this mandatory vaccination regime, then you vote for Aaron O'Toole. Well, that's not very good for you if you're Singh. So maybe you're just trying to mess

Corey 20:52

mess with that. Maybe you're trying to fuck it up a bit. Maybe your internal polling tells you that's the real risk of vote collapse this time. And if you can just move that issue off the table, you can have everybody kind of exhausted with the prime minister and saying, well, maybe it's time for a different type of progressive. So I don't know. I mean, obviously, we don't have polling specific to that issue, but it

Corey 21:10

it got me thinking it could either be 3D chess or just a bunch of shit that's happening. I'm not really sure.

Corey 21:18

Corey, what are you giving it to Jagmeet Singh for his strategy?

Corey 21:22

I'm giving it an eight.

Zain 21:22

eight. I think it's a really interesting strategy.

Zain 21:26

Now, what would you do different or tweak from what you what I read to you or what you've read about this strategy?

Corey 21:33

And this I would have done what Stephen and I talked about on that podcast, I would have said, let's

Corey 21:38

let's get together on vaccination. But let's also get together and condemn this kind of hatred that is following the Prime Minister around. Yeah,

Zain 21:45

Yeah, so this one is just it seems to be specifically, I'm just looking at the letter of right now, specifically about vaccination, doesn't mention a lot, if anything, about the hate or the vitriol. Carter, I want to actually get your honest answer on this. On a one to 10, what are you giving it for Jagmeet Singh? And what would you say or have done differently from what he put out there to the other party leaders?

Carter 22:08

was a sick zane. And what I would have done differently is targeted it to the violence. I mean, that's what we really suggested. We targeted We targeted it to the violence. We targeted it to ending the protests and protecting democracy, protecting vaccination. You could have expanded this very easily. Why

Zain 22:25

you think he didn't, to both of you? Why do you think he didn't go? It seemed like a really easy angle. Why do you think he didn't go there? He's

Carter 22:32

He's not a smart man, Zane. So, you know, to you,

Corey 22:38

you, you must be on everybody in the world's enemies list. There

Carter 22:43

is no one who likes me.

Carter 22:46

Well, I don't see why. I have no idea why. I think I'm charming. I'm absolutely shocked. I'm absolutely shocked. No, I mean, I think that sometimes, you know, you add in, you make it the simplest possible message that maybe could be agreed upon. Maybe he thought that getting agreement was more important than taking a stand. I could see that. That's a choice. choice um but i think that right now i mean there's a there's a few threads on twitter that say that justin trudeau wants these protests to happen that he wants this type of activity and maybe sing didn't want to kind of play into that um those

Carter 23:24

those are all viable um but i do think that condemning the violence actually was

Carter 23:31

was a stronger play and you can tie the condemning the violence in with the vaccination message really easily i

Corey 23:37

i think go ahead jump though the condemning of the violence message almost has to come from o'toole right because otherwise it just looks like politics to trap aaron o'toole yeah

Corey 23:45

yeah the vaccination message in theory is something that everybody has you know already stated and this is an opportunity with them recording the the debate to recording makes it sound like it's you know not live but it's an opportunity for them to get together on an issue that they've all been pretty emphatic about, which is vaccination's important. So, yeah, I mean, maybe it's

Corey 24:08

it's just too big of a lift or it's just too much to ask that it would be on a different topic, and maybe it just wouldn't have been as good of a strategy. This may be the best version of this strategy for Singh. That

Zain 24:17

That he had available to him. Yeah,

Corey 24:19

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting one. I quite like it, but

Corey 24:26

it's not, you know, So it'd be really interesting to see some of the logic trains behind it, because I might also not like it at all if the logic train was a bit different and if the numbers are a bit different. Corey,

Zain 24:36

Corey, I'm going to start with you on this next one. Conservative leader Aaron O'Toole and his top campaign aide are trying to distance themselves from one of the country's controversial firearms lobby groups after the Liberals tried to attack the Tories for striking some sort of, quote unquote, deal with what the Liberals refer to as the gun lobby. Quote, I'm the leader and will have an approach focused on public safety, focus on maintaining restrictions in place, and having a review of our classification system that removes the politics from this, the politics that Mr. Trudeau always tries to employ to mislead and divide people, unquote, O'Toole said. who formerly was part of this firearms association are trying to now distance themselves from this particular group.

Zain 25:32

And also, I should add, and amend the platform promise on gums, the big thing here, which they're also tinkering with in almost real time, it seems like.

Corey 25:40

Yeah, I think that this is, well, you've seen their platform change and now it has this line under the end that says like everything that's banned will still be banned, which seems to be a weird fit for the sentences that come before it. I got a couple of thoughts on this. The first one I have to say is I don't understand the

Corey 25:55

the sexual attraction people have to these weapons that they continue to just blow

Corey 26:00

blow themselves up on this issue. I mean, it just seems like it's an absolute loser of an issue for the conservatives. Why do they continue to talk about it? Maybe they're worried that there are people who would otherwise go to the PPC if Aaron O'Toole wasn't talking about guns in a way that maybe suggested that he was a little friendlier to them. Then I don't even know. No, I mean, it's so baffling to me because the most obvious way to not have the last four days that he's had is why is this in the platform at all? Who gives a shit about this issue in

Corey 26:28

in swing riding? I mean, I know there's lots of people who give a shit about this issue. Do you do you need any of them to win this election? And so then coming from there, I guess if

Corey 26:40

he was going to take the stance that he took today and yesterday, I don't understand why he didn't come out with that four days ago. There's this notion of failing fast in entrepreneurialism and also in politics.

Corey 26:52

The writing was on the wall four days ago, right? The answer was bad that first night.

Corey 26:57

It wasn't going to get better. They knew they needed to fail on this one and just move on very quickly. And so that would have been the obvious thing to do. I think generally speaking, the messaging they landed with is pretty reasonable, but it would have been –

Corey 27:09

it would have come off a lot more true if it had happened many, many days ago. because then you can say, like, listen, this is the liberals. This is them.

Corey 27:16

They're going to parse every word looking to construct wedges in this platform. They're going to see, create a classification system that's different and try to scare you into the idea that there will be guns rampaging on our street. This is what they do. This is what they always do. But here's my commitment to you. This is my deal to you as Canadians. I will always take a reasonable approach. I will always take your feedback. I will listen. I will clarify when it's necessary, and I will change when necessary too. and i will never forget that it's canadians that are in charge you

Zain 27:43

you think he should have made this this change so a speed you would have you were recommending faster fucking faster this would have been like a what thursday night friday morning thing for you absolutely done yeah and so a speed and b make changing your mind a virtue like be like that's who i am i'm a reasonable

Corey 28:00

reasonable i wouldn't even say i'm changing my mind here i put that list almost to sort of float it out there as like i am open to changing my mind but i would be really saying liberals are looking for wedges this is about a classification system right

Corey 28:11

right this thing is going to stay banned but that's hard to do if you don't do it day one right because then it looks like you didn't want to ban it didn't want to ban it didn't want to ban it now you're reversing and so these things sort of go together now all of this said can

Corey 28:24

can i just can i say yeah it has never been clear to me

Corey 28:28

that this particular issue drives it drives a ton of votes i mean it can reinforce general feelings about an organization and narrative but save

Zain 28:36

save that thought i i think you're you're on to something so save that thought for a second because we're going to spend a bit of time on this one carter i want to get your top line thoughts what did you think of of otul right now him and his campaign manager trying to distance themselves from the quote-unquote gun lobby and the quote i read you i'm the leader will have an approach focused on public safety focused on restrictions etc one to ten what do you think and what would you have said or done differently strategically Strategically or within the confines of the statement that or the paragraph I read you?

Carter 29:06

I give it a two. Something that Corey said is really stuck with me, and that is why is this in the platform at all?

Carter 29:13

And there's three things that just jump out at me that why are they in the platform at all? Because it implies a threat that maybe we don't see and the polling must be telling them something different. And actually, I think that the polling is telling them something different because we're starting to see a real rise out of the PPC. see uh the the videos out of the uh interior of british columbia today uh with max bernier uh and his his his uh his loonies his lunacy tour um were kind of staggering um and i think that the three things were for me conscious rights conversion therapy and guns uh why do you have to put those in if you don't feel a need to protect your right wing flank or your base depending on on how how

Carter 29:55

how you wanted to put it.

Carter 29:58

We're seeing that here in Alberta. We're seeing Jason Kenney losing control of his right wing and they are moving to other places. We're seeing also Max Bernier, who has no business polling at the levels that he's polling at, start to switch. And it doesn't take very long. I mean, we've been talking about the the the vote split between the the liberals in the NDP, or the vote sharing, if you will, it doesn't take very long for the PPC to start moving up. And all of a sudden, ridings like Calgary Confederation become in play. Edmonton Mill Woods, Edmonton Centre, Calgary Centre, Calgary Skyview, those are just the ones in our province. You take eight to 10% in these areas and tag it on to the PPC candidate. And all of a of a sudden, things are getting very interesting.

Carter 30:47

So maybe they saw that if they didn't win these votes, and that's how I tend to look at vote split, there's no such thing as vote split. It's you didn't win enough votes to win. You didn't earn enough votes to win. Maybe they felt that this is a way that they had to make sure that they could retain some of these votes. And by watching the polling that's going on with with Max Bernier, they may be right.

Zain 31:10

Corey, I want to come back to you on this, because you mentioned a second ago about guns maybe not being a vote mover in many ways. And now we're heading into the stretch that the pundit class has been saying, oh, this is the final two weeks. This is when everyone pays attention. Everyone gets out their printer, prints the PDFs of every party. It's going to start studying the platforms, Corey.

Zain 31:31

And in Aaron O'Toole's case, they'll have an extra sentence to read. But Corey, what do the liberals need to do to maybe not make this a vote getter, but to perhaps leverage this moment of the last four days, which have been pretty good for them in putting O'Toole on his heels to electoral success or to, you know, putting numbers on the board, so to speak.

Corey 31:53

Yeah, the Liberals talk about forward, not backward. It's pretty clear they think that this is their ballot question. But really, in some ways, they don't even mean back to what Canada used to be. They just mean like retrograde, regressive, you know, bad policies, something that's more akin to this American version of conservatism, right? And so in that sense, I think the gun issue, it

Corey 32:13

it plays into a narrative. We all watch the, you know, the situation in the United States with horror, right? You have something like Sandy Hook happen. You have something like the Pulse nightclub shooting. I mean, there's no shortage of shootings. I feel like the minute I start a list, I'm just going to be missing massive shootings that are out there, Las Vegas, you name it. And I think

Corey 32:31

think they wouldn't mind if people thought, well, this is that Americanization. And this is this NRA approach to things coming north of the border. And that's Aaron O'Toole. And that's what the conservatives represent. So in that sense, yeah, maybe reinforcing of an overall narrative about the conservatives they are trying to create here. Right. Right. But the issue itself, guns, is just it's interesting to me. It's it's never been clear to me that it's something that people care a ton about because it hasn't been a big flashpoint short of the long gun registry in this country. Right. I mean, the liberals is not new. The liberals had their ban on assault weapons. Whether it was that 15 or was that 19?

Corey 33:09

guess it was 19, wasn't it? It

Zain 33:10

It was 19 and 20. Was that right? Yeah.

Corey 33:13

so but it was even then. And I never really got the sense it was driving the agenda, driving the narrative, driving the votes. So not clear to me that it's a vote-getter, but I think that it does reinforce narratives about O'Toole. Did he lose votes because of his position over the last week? I

Corey 33:30

I don't know. I look at the tracking polls, and they're still showing the Conservatives in the lead, generally speaking, by a few points to more than a few points, depending on which tracking poll you're looking at here. The overall trend continues to support the Conservatives. I would argue that he, Aaron O'Toole, that being has stalled out perhaps as a result of this, right? You're not seeing the… Halt of the momentum, perhaps. The climb, halt of the momentum. Certainly, it's not the thing he wanted to be talking about for the past four days. I am absolutely certain about that. But

Corey 34:00

will it be enough? I feel in some ways the same way I do about the anti-vax thing. Like, can you really sustain an entire election about this, especially after Aaron O'Toole backed down?

Corey 34:10

Yeah. I mean, it's been messy, but I just, I don't know. No, I mean, we got 14 days to go as of recording, right? Carter, take

Zain 34:16

take Corey's point and run with it. What would you try to turn guns into? Can it be the opening to a larger narrative thread around this guy will say anything, around trust, around the fact that he's positioning himself as a PC, but he ran in the leadership as the more right-wing option versus McKay? What are you trying to do with guns if it's not leaning into it to galvanize votes?

Carter 34:40

It's not actually about guns. It's about establishing a narrative of who he is and how far to the right he is. Because keep in mind, I mean, the Nova Scotia election, I think it was Nova Scotia election where the progressive

Carter 34:51

progressive conservative party won. That that was

Carter 34:55

was kind of a model for how O'Toole is seemingly trying to run this election. He is moving more towards what we would call a progressive conservative option and moving away from, you know, the more severe right wing policies. policies but all those right-wing policies are still in his his platform and more importantly all of those right-wing policies came out of his mouth during the leadership if they begin to establish a narrative that that aaron o'toole isn't the aaron o'toole that he's trying to be yeah

Carter 35:24

yeah that creates real dissonance within the audience and if

Carter 35:27

if you don't understand who the character is if you don't understand who who it is that's earning your vote then you're very very unlikely to give that person the vote now the same can be said for trudeau but you know right

Carter 35:39

right now this is what i think that the trudeau liberals need to do first is is tear the shit out of uh aaron o'toole using his own words and um establishing that narrative and and that seems to be working i remember so about 12 days ago 10 days ago we were recording the pod and one

Carter 35:57

of the things i said is in the last two weeks i really want to say significant negative and i think they've just started early. They didn't build themselves up, which was what I wanted them to do.

Carter 36:08

C'est la vie. They don't follow the podcast the same way as the NDP. But this is a way for them to jump in. What did I say? What did I say? Keep moving. Okay. This is a way for them to jump in and really have the last

Carter 36:22

last two weeks be about what their narrative should be.

Corey 36:26

I'll get jumping. Yes. The hidden agenda conversation, there's been a bit of polling on that Ipsos has done.

Corey 36:31

And at the start of the campaign, they had a poll that said 36% thought Trudeau had a hidden agenda. 26% thought O'Toole had a hidden agenda. And that was a bit of a shocking number because normally the conservatives are the ones seen to have this quote unquote hidden agenda. It's actually what we're sort of talking about here. There is an argument to be made that liberals are having some success here because, well, there are still more Canadians that believe Trudeau has a hidden agenda than O'Toole. That gap has shrunk. It is no longer or a 10-point gap. It's a four-point gap in the most recent poll that Ipsos did here, right? So 36% still believe Trudeau has a hidden agenda, but now 32% do for O'Toole. So, and that was run 27th to the 30th, and that didn't really capture a lot of what we're talking about here in this conversation. That's probably more likely the result of healthcare, if anything, right? So they may be making some ground here, but where the liberals have to be careful is that we do do have a couple of debates that are coming up here that will be these events that allow us to really see the leaders and see the leaders define themselves. And I just don't think O'Toole is going to come off as a crazy right winger. There's nothing I've seen from him in this campaign that suggests that he will. And with these two weeks to go, if the hypothesis is correct that people are not as clued in before Labor Day as now, I

Corey 37:47

I don't know. I mean, I just don't know. And I say it only in this context.

Corey 37:51

Are people really going to think that there's a hidden agenda of Aaron to bring in assault rifles i'm not convinced and i i don't know i could be wrong carter

Zain 38:00

carter you wanted to jump in before i move on yeah

Carter 38:01

yeah i just think that that could work both ways if

Carter 38:04

if aaron o'toole is not prepared to protect the right-wing flank of the conservative party he may lose the right-wing flank of the conservative party max bernier is nearing in on 10 in some of the polls it's ridiculous to me i don't understand it but if he can get 10 12 14 especially in key areas is. It does the exact same thing for the Liberals as the Liberals were winning those votes.

Zain 38:28

Carter, I'm going to I'm going to make a transition here and move to what you just were just talking about, which is negatives. The Liberals on Friday releasing a trio of 30 second spots, one called The Record, the other one called In His Own Words, and the one that seems to be in highest rotation, which I believe both of you have seen, if I'm not mistaken, taken, called Take Back Canada. It has O'Toole in a montage saying, take Canada back, take back Canada, take back Canada, presumably from his leadership run. And then it has a voiceover with some imagery and headlines that says O'Toole wants to take Canada back to private health care, assault weapons, abortion, and denial on climate change. Carter, I want to start with you. This liberal spot, and more specifically the message, 1 to 10, what would you give it? And And what would you change or tweak or do differently based on what you saw in this particular spot? We could break down all three, but this one seems to be the one they're hidden on. So I want to try to go with this one first. And I think you've seen it, if I'm not mistaken, right? Yeah, I've seen it.

Carter 39:28

feels to me like, I'll put it on record, I don't like this type of heavy-handed negative. People always ask this. Why? Why don't

Carter 39:37

don't I like it? It just feels, it's so artless. There's no craft. craft. It's just the the standard.

Carter 39:46

He wants to take you back. You know, it's the same fucking voiceover. You can hear this voiceover in every attack ad ever produced. And I find it just

Carter 39:54

boring. I think that it's a it's a it's a weak it's a weak example of of advertising that

Carter 40:03

hits you with a sledgehammer instead of kind of moves you to where you want to go. Now, it may be the thing that's required, but I just I don't like them. I think that there's There's better ways of getting a negative heard. I like humor more. I'm a big fan. My favorite example of negative advertising is the I'm a Mac campaign run by Apple for

Carter 40:25

for years where they just fucking eviscerate IBM and Microsoft, right? Like just eviscerate the PC side. And they did it with a sense of humor. And those ads, to me, they still stand out. I still remember them because there was a cool guy and the other guy and that branding really worked for Apple. And I mean, obviously they could walk away with it once they started printing their own money. But, um, that was, that to me is, is the type of advertising that I would like to see in a negative ad campaign. Um, something that tells

Carter 41:01

tells a story that tells a narrative, this, this type of advertising campaign takes a sledgehammer, puts my hand down and then smashes me with the sledgehammer and i just think it's and

Zain 41:11

and you're telling me

Zain 41:12

that's that's not your thing i

Carter 41:14

i i don't think it's as effective either i think that it can be effective i think it still works but i don't think it's as effective as something that is um that is memorable that i want to watch that's interesting because i have choices i don't have to watch fuck all right now but i i will watch something that is funny that that that brings me around to something that is is really good.

Zain 41:37

Corey, the rejoinder would more than likely to Carter's point be you're not here to win, you know, a campaign art contest. You're here to win elections. But I want to give you the chance because you may be on the same wavelength as Carter. On one to 10, based on this ad that you see, what would you give it? What would you have said or done differently? And I'll just highlight the focal points again, right? It was health care, assault weapons, abortion and climate change.

Corey 41:58

Right. I think it will be fairly effective. I do think that it could have been more effective if they'd constructed a bit different wanted to mention one thing about the get a mac ads though because it's funny to me that john hodgman and justin long were in them because i kind of think hodgman's the cool guy now he

Zain 42:14

he is definitely the cool guy in retrospect 100 yeah yeah yeah

Zain 42:21

happened to just long i really honestly

Corey 42:23

he flamed out but the last thing i remember him doing was commercials for intel for go pc like he had a campaign to get everybody Right, right,

Zain 42:31

right. Because he was the trusted voice or whatever. Too late.

Corey 42:33

late. Too late, Justin. Too late, Justin.

Corey 42:38

Okay, well, like there is no, there's no finesse. There's no subtlety to the liberal ads. I mean, their whole campaign is forward, not backward. They're taking clips of Aaron O'Toole saying back, right? Like, look at that. Back, back, back. He wants to take back. They want to go backwards. He's saying the word backwards. We're talking about backwards, words backwards right and and

Corey 42:57

then to list these four things in a funny way like back to private health care well i don't know i i like i'm 40 and we haven't really ever had private health care the way they're describing in my lifetime right it's just it's not it's not actually truly back the assault weapon thing sort of same deal the abortion i i mean the the funny thing is i think I think that the thing that bothered me a little bit about this ad was that two,

Corey 43:23

two, arguably three of these things were a stretch, like a real stretch. And then one of them was undeniable. And that was the climate change thing. You know, going back to the standards that Harper had on climate

Corey 43:35

climate change, the 30% reduction instead of the 50% reduction, right? And it is a way that I think the conservatives are still fairly retrograde compared to their competitors. competitors on the other ones i feel like there are arguments that they've been misinterpreted misread or torqued certainly on abortion certainly on private health care maybe on assault weapons depends on your read of that issue which gets muddier by the moment as as everybody talks about it right and so i don't know if i would have thrown in like what is like an obvious slam dunk with a couple of things that are a little dodgy because you may just sort of pollute all of them right like did you see that ad about erin o'toole man pretty damning right yeah but did you you know that private health care thing got a manipulated warning on twitter did you know that abortion thing was on sex selective abortion specifically not on abortion overall and the conservatives have said they wouldn't reopen the question did you know the assault weapon thing is really about class that's the weaker one but the classification but like that my point is i

Corey 44:32

feel like if you were having a conversation with your neighbor about this ad and your neighbor was a little up on the issues they might school you for thinking that this was actually an accurate accurate representation of Aaron O'Toole's views. Because the only one that actually sort of 100% truly is, is the climate change one. And so in that sense, I don't love it. But it is certainly hard hitting. It is certainly direct. Carter doesn't like that about it. I think I kind of do like that about it. But I think that ultimately, it's built on some flimsy material.

Zain 45:02

We're going to go to our final one in our strategy scale. And I'm going to ask you guys to view this not from the lens of a political party, not from the lens of any political leader, but from the lens of the electric, because I want to talk about the consortium debate. We've just learned today the framework for the debate that's going to be happening on Thursday evening, the English language debate. To remind folks, this is a debate put on by the consortium of news and media outlets. We're learning a couple of things. We're learning that there's five themes to the debate affordability climate covid recovery leadership and accountability and reconciliation so once again affordability climate covid recovery leadership and accountability that's one and reconciliation and then here's the format i want to actually lay out the format to you guys too because i want you to view this from the lens of the

Zain 45:58

the electorate or a voter um and then we can get into a discussion of debate prep etc we'll do all that stuff. But it will start with, all five segments will include, right, so each of these themes will include a question from a voter, a

Zain 46:12

a question from a moderator or journalist. There's one moderator in Sashi Krill, and then participation by CBC, APTN, CTV, and Global. Then there'll be leader-to-leader debate with three of the five leaders, I am assuming, on the question that is posed by either the journalist or the moderator.

Zain 46:31

And then there's open debate for all five leaders, i.e. the other two that were not included to jump in and, you know, start attacking who they want or start drawing contrast. So affordability, climate, COVID recovery, leadership and accountability, reconciliation. In each of those five segments in this two-hour debate, a question from a voter, the question from a moderator slash journalist to each leader, leader to leader, three out of five, and then open debate for all five. Now, we can nerd out on this, but I want to get it from the perspective. And Carter, Carter, let me start with you. From a scale of one to ten, as a voter, as someone who's been a strategist, as someone who designs materials for the recipient, what

Zain 47:10

what do you make of the consortium debate themes and format from the perspective of a voter? And then let's get into the question of what you would have done differently should Stephen Carter have been waving a magic wand on the consortium debate. So let's start there. And Corey, same to you you afterwards well

Carter 47:25

i think it's fucking horrible um

Carter 47:27

um you've now got a really i'm actually surprised

Carter 47:31

it's the worst it's the worst you've got a cast of thousands now to do a fucking what is it two hours two hour debate how many voices am i going

Zain 47:40

going to two hours how many

Carter 47:41

many voices am i going to hear how many do i care about right i gotta have 17 fucking journalists i gotta have questions from the general public i think we can all agree that the general public questions are always horrible I mean, sure, they can stage them. They can like, you know, but when we go to a town hall, what's the first thing that we do? Hold our head in our hands when the when the questions from the floor start, because the questions from the floor aren't what I want. But more important, it's about having how many voices and when every voice that you're putting on the stage, every voice that you're bringing into this debate diminishes from the voices of the actual leaders. leaders and that's the that's the group that i'm interested in hearing i want to hear from the leaders themselves i don't want to hear from every journalist who's ever been on parliament hill and i don't want to hear from the general population the journalists if they want to can ask a question from the general population but you know why they would never do it you know why they have to put the general pop in because their journalists know their shit questions this is not something and And the other thing, the debate amongst themselves, the debate amongst themselves turns into bullshit in about 12 and a half seconds. Let everybody speak. Let everybody be heard. Don't worry about debate about themselves. That is not a skill that we are looking for in the prime minister of Canada.

Zain 49:01

Carter, before I get to you, Corey, magic wand, one or two things thus far. Is it the segments? Is it the topic or is it the format? What would you magic wand if you had it right now?

Carter 49:09

The segments, the topics and the format.

Zain 49:16

Corey, I'm going to you. You have to give me your take from a perspective of what's best for, I don't mean to get sentimental, but for our democracy, for the voters. You know, people are tuning in now to this election. One to ten, what do you think of this consortium format and approach? And what would you change?

Corey 49:34

I give it a low

Corey 49:38

Because why would I give you, I've only given you one number this whole segment. And I've bypassed

Zain 49:41

bypassed all of that. I don't care. I don't care. I get a feeling of it and I sign it in my head.

Corey 49:46

I agree. I mean, I was just nodding aggressively to what Stephen was saying about the fact that there's too many people on the stage. There's way too many characters here. And I mean, it's just it's like really overindulgent for the whole like media political elite here. A

Corey 49:58

lot of people will be watching online and be like, who is this person? Why are they there? What is their take? Do they have a political agenda? I mean, there's just too much to try to process and interpret. And you're right. I mean, all of a sudden, we've got five leaders, we've got five journalists, and we've got a bunch of voters now, too, who are all in this mix. And it's just too much. And who cares? And it's everything

Corey 50:21

everything besides the leaders is supposed to be backdrop, right? I know we're in this hero journalist phase where the idea is you have a great moderator, you have a great debate, and there's a certain truth to that.

Corey 50:34

don't often think of a committee giving you that great experience that you want. You're just going to have to put your faith in somebody to run a kick-ass debate and drive a vision for the debate and ask the questions. But I suspect that this notion of committee and this blending and all of this shit is

Corey 50:48

is going to manifest not just in what we've seen so far, But I feel like it's likely to be a pretty messy affair or a weird affair in

Corey 50:55

in person. Now, hopefully the moderators are collaborating and they're going to ask questions with angles in the proper way so that it's not too one-sided or they're not bringing in different angles. I'm sure all of that is happening, but it's just, it still feels like too much, right? It just feels like way too much. So you got to take a few crayons out of the box here. Ultimately, I would feel much more comfortable if it was one moderator, you

Corey 51:20

you went by random a mortar to ask people their opinions and then i actually like the one-on-one leaders debates right yeah

Corey 51:27

to me about the back and forth but the minute it gets to three it gets weird because there's a there's gang ups that occur there's weird dynamics and the free-for-alls are a fucking disaster every time they're just such a mess and it just becomes people trying to talk over each other except for the one person who obviously will play the card i guarantee you it'll happen in this debate where

Corey 51:46

where they'll be like well everybody's just talking over themselves but but I'm the one who's not. And it's like, good for fucking you, right? I mean, what

Corey 51:53

what does that say about anything? And so I just, I don't like the open debate format at

Corey 51:59

all. And of course, we always have the dynamic in Canada here too, where you've got the bloc just throwing grenades everywhere. They don't give a shit. Like the English language debate and the bloc Quebec quoi, it's like, why? They don't care. Like it's not a relevant audience to them. So, I

Zain 52:17

like that. it was just a lot of gusto with it so i don't know we're gonna leave

Corey 52:21

leave that segment there let's move it on to our next segment our next segment benny's

Zain 52:24

benny's from kenny get

Zain 52:27

get it benjamin's aka benny's aka hundred dollar bills oh my god it's it's brilliant it's gonna catch on guys

Corey 52:36

i thought it was either a drug reference or an egg reference

Carter 52:39

thought we were going for eggs benedict yeah

Zain 52:41

yeah my god benjamin's benny's carter come on but we don't have we don't have benjamin

Carter 52:46

franklin we Yeah, Borden. Borden

Carter 52:48

bill. Borden's with Kenny. Fuck

Zain 52:53

you, guys. Based on surging cases at the lowest vaccination rate in the country, Alberta will begin paying $100 to people who get a first or second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Premier Jason Kenney announced Friday this is part of a suite of new measures announced by the province, including making masks mandatory for all indoor public spaces starting yesterday, i.e. Saturday. Saturday, Alberta is the first province in Canada to offer a financial incentive for vaccinations, though the tactic has been tried in the United States as well. Carter, I'm going to start with you. Whether you want to hit on the fact that Jason Kenney was away for a couple of weeks and had no deputy in charge to really kind of guide us through the rise in COVID cases on Delta, whether you want to talk about the $100 incentive that is now being offered, or whether you want to talk about the fact that none of this was, in a sense, you know, preordained destiny, that we could have avoided a lot of this. I'll let you pick the lane you swim in first, and we'll go from there and have a conversation on what we're seeing in our home province.

Carter 53:57

Delta began to surge in Alberta basically the second week of July. I think anybody paying attention saw

Carter 54:05

saw that by the first week of August, things were starting to get pretty bad. And they were certainly on the on

Carter 54:11

on a trajectory up.

Carter 54:13

And we didn't do anything until almost September. I guess it was September. Was it September? Yeah, it was September. Why? Because the premier needed to rest and get ready to continue. And then he came back and took five full days, because I think it does take time to make a good decision, and made a shitty decision, made a decision that doesn't work on any level. And I think that, you know, the question that I have is, does anybody, anybody think that these restrictions and incentives are enough to force people to actually do the right thing? we have seen uptick amongst the vaccine hesitant in other jurisdictions when a passport or the like has been brought in when you have a requirement when you have a big enough stick you will actually move you you said that we were the first province to offer money keep in mind we were also the first province to offer a one million dollar prize and that didn't move anybody when we move when we put out the million dollars the percentage was almost the exact same as it is today the people people stopped getting vaccinated when we reopened people stopped getting vaccinated when we said it was going to be the best summer ever and it has turned into an absolute shit show jason kenney has now taken so what will happen is the next week we'll get a ton of data tomorrow about how things are actually going shit show is the answer there you go spoiler and um then

Carter 55:39

then he will take another week before he does the next level of restrictions, which is if you look at the little charts, every two weeks, he does something. He brings something in a little bit. And then two weeks later, he brings in the actual restrictions that will work. I would just desperately like to skip the first two weeks. It's only our fourth wave. It's only the fourth wave. You'd think you'd learn from second or third. I mean, you didn't learn a lot from the first. That's fine because it was was just little but the second or the third wave should give you enough institutional knowledge to not be a fucking moron jason you fucking idiot i'm

Zain 56:21

cory over to you hundred dollar incentive the rise of delta uh anything you want to pick on here and then i've got a few structured questions for you guys i

Corey 56:30

i mean i got a lot i i do think that carter is is ignoring something that's fairly obvious here in terms of the fact that yeah we We have seen restrictions and then more extensive restrictions down the road that this is more than likely a caucus management technique, which is we're going to try everything except for the thing you don't want me to do. And when that fails, we'll do the thing that I want to do. Right now, I'm not giving a pass to any government for that. Carter, look at you. You look like you're going to jump through the screen. Go ahead. I'll let you finish, Corey, and then I'll let Carter go. Go ahead.

Corey 57:01

Well, I guess my point would be I think we can see clearly where this is going. It is frustrating. the feeling like why can't we end up there now but there's probably a reason and that reason is probably the ucp caucus and what some of those demands are uh that are being driven on the inside here so i you know that's

Corey 57:20

that's not a good thing i think that we should be thinking about whether there should be such a strong pull towards less restrictions in the face of this evidence but yeah i mean we know you're right we saw this in wave two we saw this in wave three we keep keep seeing this. We know the drill. We know what's going to happen at this point. And that's really not great because people's lives are on the line right now. But in some ways, I think as an Albertan, I've been conditioned to think like, well, this is dumb, but the real restrictions are coming down the road.

Zain 57:51

Oh, Corey, I need clarity from you. What do you mean this is a caucus management tactic? Just so I'm clear, because would this not be the precursor to a a caucus revolt in a sense maybe

Corey 58:02

maybe but imagine if you're jason kenney and you walk into caucus and you say okay everybody we're

Corey 58:09

we're gonna do vaccine passports and we're going to say in order to go to the restaurant you need to use this people's heads exploding everywhere people yelling what are you doing that's the end of jason kenney's career certainly he's lost control of his caucus us right if

Corey 58:23

he walks in and says okay everybody it's

Corey 58:26

it's really serious so we are going to do

Corey 58:29

every crazy idea that we've heard out there that doesn't impinge on liberties you know we're gonna say you got to stop drinking at 10 unless you're in a small town and then we'll let you keep drinking past rodeo

Corey 58:38

rodeo yeah yeah um we're

Corey 58:40

we're uh we're going to say here's a hundred bucks if you go get vaccinated like we're going to try to just pay people to get vaccinated we're going to do all of that and

Corey 58:49

then we'll see where it is and then when it doesn't work when you go and you have that conversation about shutting down restaurants you at least don't have people shouting at you you didn't do enough you didn't try enough you didn't do everything possible before you did the thing that we don't want you to do in some ways he's taking off all of the counter arguments from the table so that's what i mean when i say it's a caucus management technique carter

Zain 59:09

carter i i know i could let you just pop off on what cory said but i don't want to go i'll let you go there why not

Corey 59:16

channel your energy meaningfully,

Zain 59:17

meaningfully, which is something I have not done on the show in a very long time. No,

Carter 59:21

No, ignoring Corey is meaningful.

Carter 59:24

Carter, tell me this.

Zain 59:28

know the restrictions, the political caucus dynamics that Corey laid out that we're familiar with living here in Alberta. You know the premier's inclination and ideology. You have a fair understanding of the severity of the issue. you what

Zain 59:44

what would your alternative have been on friday to what you saw not the pie in the sky this is what the ndp should have done if they were no no the knowing the limitations and the guardrails that this man has to operate under um

Zain 59:55

um and being you don't have to be sympathetic to them but knowing what they are right what would your strategy or alter alterations to his output from friday's announcement have been i want to channel your energy into that vaccine

Carter 1:00:11

seriously Seriously, though, you feel like he could have

Carter 1:00:14

Here's the thing, how would you how would you have told him? So premier, he's the dictator until such time as he's taken out by a leadership review or some or his caucus revolts. And you know what I'd like to see every once in a while? People who do the right thing without without worrying about what the political consequence is, because it could actually improve his his polling. his piece the people of alberta who he's supposed to work for not his fucking moron caucus not the group of people that that are running the the ucp as an executive those idiots they don't they don't matter they don't count the people who count in this are the 77 percent of albertans 77 percent of albertans want a vaccine passport you know why because it's number one the right thing to do and And number two, it's the popular thing to do. Why not try that, Jason? Because that's the thing that you were elected to do. Lead. This following the stupidest member of your caucus, following the person who doesn't want to lead, that's bullshit. And we don't want you to be the premier anymore because we don't want a fucking sheep, you fucking loser.

Corey 1:01:22

was that? Get yourself together. gather. So here's the thing. Here's the thing about the polls that Carter just threw off there. He's right. It is 77% support a vaccine passport. It seems like a political no brainer. But Alberta also has the highest strongly opposed in the country at one in five Albertans are strongly opposed to that. And when you start looking at what the political constituencies are, that's

Corey 1:01:46

that's a lot of people that Jason Kenney needs if he wants to maintain his hold on power. You know, I mean, we've had this conversation in different contexts here. He's got to – if he wants to be premier, he's got to be leader of the UCP to be premier, right? And the UCP is a more right-wing organization, more right-wing polity than Alberta, right? Alberta is a complex place, but

Corey 1:02:11

but it's not complex to say a premier needs to hold his caucus. focus yeah

Zain 1:02:16

yeah cory do you feel like carter's point like distilling the meat of the carter's point do you feel like is anyone sleeping in your house anymore yeah

Carter 1:02:25

yeah jesus fucking fucking christ good stuff no i'm charged for today's podcast uh

Zain 1:02:32

uh today's podcast no i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it uh our plane are in the clouds you must have your head in the clouds flare airlines um cory question

Zain 1:02:43

question for you could could Carter's strategy actually work? Like, could Kenny just show up? Like, it was pretty much you saying he announces vaccine passports, and I don't want to bastardize your point, but like, Cock is like, what the actual fuck, man? Like, how would he do vaccine passports? And frankly, let's now start projecting into the future a bit. Do you feel like it's an inevitability at this point?

Corey 1:03:02

I do think it's an inevitability, but there's a climb down that needs to occur, and it will take a few weeks. Here's the thing. We talked about like, what the fuck, man? It's It's not just that it's too far for some people. It's that it's much farther than the premier said was going to be necessary. There is no shortage of quotes being thrown around the Internet. Him saying, you know, best summer ever, obviously. We don't foresee a scenario where this is going to where we're going to go back into, you know, more restrictive cases. People who think otherwise are just fear mongers. That's all true. You know, his director of issue saying the pandemic is ending, accept it or something to that effect. You know, this is being thrown around and thrown in people's faces right now in a big way. And so to go from nothing

Corey 1:03:46

nothing to, okay, just jokes, we're actually going to the, you know, vaccine passport would

Corey 1:03:54

really quite a climb down. Yeah, and the premier is going to need to take – he's going to have to take those stares a couple at a time, not leap them all I suppose if he wants to have a chance of holding on to his caucus here, which is going to be very tough. I mean I've long been on the whole – the idea that Jason Kenney's leadership is under threat is severely overblown. I still think that on net it's probably overblown because people get so histrionic about these things. But boy,

Corey 1:04:21

boy, he really went out on a limb. He really painted himself into a corner here. And it's just these absolute statements that are his downfall. He just, he feels like he needs to describe these things in such absolute terms and describe his opponents in such absolute terms.

Corey 1:04:36

And you should always keep one eye on where the door is in politics, right? Especially when you're in government. When you're in opposition, yeah, just throw whatever shit you want. But when you're in government and you have to deal with the consequences of bad decision making, you've got to be thinking about where the exits are all of the time. And I think ultimately, Jason

Corey 1:04:52

Jason Kenney isn't thinking enough about where the exits are and where he will have to climb down if he needs to climb down. Because right now, he's

Corey 1:04:59

he's painted himself into that corner. If he wants out of this room, he's going to have to jump out and break his ankle or worse. So I

Corey 1:05:06

I don't know, man. I mean, it's a long-term trend with the Premier. This is a problem that he has somewhat created for himself with the words that he chose, words nobody was requiring him to say. Nobody said, call it the best summer ever. That's totally unnecessary. Right.

Corey 1:05:22

Right. And so now for politics, he's going to have to walk out more gingerly. He's going to have to let some of that paint dry to continue the metaphor. Carter,

Zain 1:05:30

Carter, NDP, Rachel Notley was at a press conference on Thursday showing off the Alberta NDP's plan for what she called vaccine. I believe she called it verification, showing a smartphone with a QR code. This is what our plan would look like. Like, what do you what do you make of of how the NDP have responded to to a 77 percent, which, by the way, is that the death number in Alberta politics or is it 78?

Zain 1:05:56

OK, 78 is a death number. So 77 percent support NDP on the right side of the wedge, so to speak. What do you make of their their tactics and their execution thus far of of being on the right side of that wedge?

Carter 1:06:08

I think they've done a pretty good job with it. I think that, you know, it's easier to imagine

Carter 1:06:12

imagine yourself, you know, being in a safer situation with Rachel Notley in charge today than it is with Jason Kenney. And I think that that's where they want to be.

Carter 1:06:24

I think the challenge is, and maybe this isn't true anymore, but, you know, this is going to be 18 more months of Jason Kenney's leadership before we actually get an election.

Carter 1:06:34

Can they sustain that? Well, the good news is that Jason Kenney's policies are likely to result in COVID being a bit more of a threat for the next 18 months than it should be. So maybe this is enough for them. But I still think that they're hampered by this

Carter 1:06:51

this kind of being a single issue. But the good news is that Jason Kenney is so unpopular that they may just need to cruise and win the next election anyways. Anyways, Corey,

Zain 1:07:00

Corey, what do you make of the Alberta NDP and their response to being on the right side of public opinion on this on this wedge issue of vaccine verification slash passports?

Corey 1:07:11

Well, it's it is a pretty simple stance to take, and it's a popular one, right? Just everybody who's doing the right thing, just get them to to be able to roam free using this passport and and let everybody who has not done the right thing stay home. home.

Corey 1:07:25

And seeing as there are already a majority of adults in Alberta who have gone and gotten vaccinated, it's a bit of a no-brainer. And

Corey 1:07:32

especially when you look at the voting blocks underneath for the NDP, it's doubly so. I mean, it's just such an obvious winner for them. Of course, this is where they should go. And of course, this is where the province is going to end up, by the way. Something that looks an awful lot like this and allows you to say we were here first.

Corey 1:07:49

The other thing is, it provides such a stark contrast. And they were saying this before, the premier had uh his announcement on on friday but it provides such a stark contrast to the idea of paying somebody a hundred dollars to go do the thing they should have done anyhow yeah in one situation you're basically rewarding the person who didn't get vaccinated and in the other you're punishing them like it's a strong contrast and you know i mean punish is a bit strong but the idea is go get vaccinated or else you're not going to be able to go to restaurants go to hockey games go anywhere so

Corey 1:08:21

i don't know seems um seems

Corey 1:08:23

seems like a carter's

Corey 1:08:25

carter's right i mean it's just one issue but it's it might be all they need carter

Zain 1:08:29

carter can i ask you this is there any risks on being on the pro positive popular public opinion side of an issue and i'm using this one as as their example but like are there any risks or lessons learned of just having 80 you being on the right side of of an issue, the other guy just can't go there. Is there any lessons to be learned or any risks that you have to be careful of? You know, in this case, if you're the Alberta NDP, where you're 80% of the public is behind you?

Carter 1:08:58

You know, it's hard when there's 80% of the public behind you, because the public doesn't switch that that quickly to, to being like, to recognizing that they were wrong. So

Carter 1:09:08

So when you've got 80% of the population, you've probably got at least one good good cycle, maybe two good cycles before the public even changes their mind. So there's not a lot of risk. I mean, this is the beauty of the democratic process. If 80% of the people have one point of view, and you reflect that, that's probably a good thing for you electorally, where

Carter 1:09:26

where the biggest risk is when 80% of the population opposes something that is probably in their best interests. So in this particular case, they support the vaccine passport. But when I think of the PST, we see 75% opposition to a provincial sales tax in Alberta, and that has, there's no doubt, had a tremendously negative impact on Alberta's long-term financial prospects, creating a real fiscal imbalance.

Zain 1:09:56

Corey, any risks on being on the popular side of a wedge?

Corey 1:10:00

Well, just that real life will come into effect at some point. In Canada, we don't really have these passport systems out there. They're not really active

Corey 1:10:09

active and operating yet. And look, I mean, nobody wants to admit that there's going to be downsides to their policies these days. It's in some ways, it's like Jason Kenney. It's like, no, everything's great. Because it's my policy, it will always be awesome. Awesome. I'm not saying that the NDP are suffering from the same kind of extreme version of this, but like, let's not pretend that there won't be friction with a vaccine passport policy, that there won't be court challenges, that there won't be protests, that there won't be angry people, that there won't be an, like, here's the other problem. There's no obvious end date to this. It's not like it's VE day where all of a sudden you can declare victory over COVID and we can just get rid of all of these things. They'll need to be phased out based on certain triggers. People argue whether the trigger is appropriate or not. These things become more complicated with time and they become more complicated as you think about them. So, like,

Corey 1:10:58

like, I guess the thing, nothing they've said paints

Corey 1:11:02

paints them into a corner here. It's an obvious decision to make right now for the right moment. But I guess the downside is if they own this too deeply and down the road it becomes deeply unpopular, it's something to contend with. But it's so far away and it seems so remote at this particular moment. I think I'm just sort of, I'm

Corey 1:11:22

I'm hearing you out and I'm playing your game, but I don't think there's a lot of downside for them. let's

Zain 1:11:26

let's move it on to our next segment our next segment on the podium carter cory debates wednesday thursday we talked about the format for the english language debate here's what i'm going to do i'm going to split the roster in two i'm going to put you on your own teams and you guys are going to give advice to two people and then at the end you guys are both going to give advice to justin trudeau the incumbent so cory your two candidates that you're giving advice to Jagmeet Singh, Nanami Paul, Stephen Carter. You're on Aaron O'Toole and Yves-François Blanchet. And here's what you guys are going to do. You're going to tell them what the stakes are for

Zain 1:12:01

for their debates on Wednesday and Thursday and what their strategy should be. So just very simply, stakes and strategy, what are they? And Carter, I'm going to start with you second because I usually make you go first. Corey, I'm going to go with you first. Who would you like to choose first, Singh or Paul, with your roster of two that you have?

Corey 1:12:20

Yeah, let's start with Paul, because the stakes are so obvious in this situation, right? The stakes are you exist as a party or not. You capture the imagination enough to hold on to one effing seat or not. And it's your opportunity to remind people that the Green Party exists and that this is a moment for green politics. Those are the stakes. The approach then has to be, you need green representation in Parliament because this is the issue of our day. Perhaps it's even more important in a Parliament where things are up in the air, where the Conservative Party could potentially be the government. Because you know what, the Liberals, they support green politics as long as those politics work for them electorally. You'll support them no matter what, because you look over the long term, that has always been the Green Party's strength. You know, the Liberal Party likes to talk a good game about their green policy. The fact of the matter is they're getting to where the greens were 20 years ago.

Corey 1:13:12

And if you want to see where the country is going to need to be 20 years from now, you need green representation in the House of Commons.

Zain 1:13:20

Nicely done, Corey Carter. I got O'Toole and I got Blanchette on your roster. Who do you want to give advice to first?

Carter 1:13:27

Let's start with O'Toole, please.

Zain 1:13:30

Okay, so stakes and strategy for O'Toole.

Carter 1:13:32

At stake is his government. And the strategy is to make himself look prime ministerial. So forgetting about my worry that he was going to be seen to or he could conceivably lose PPC votes, I think that the center is still where he needs to survive. And so making himself palatable to the majority of Canadians, improving his best prime minister numbers, which is something I mentioned a couple of episodes ago, shifting himself into a prime ministerial role where people can see him in that role instead of the embattled opposition member. And I think that that's that's really his opportunity. And that's his his strategy. And the stakes are whether he's the prime minister or the opposition leader. You

Carter 1:14:20

You know, he's got a chance to, to be the prime minister or at least get the most seats and be asked, I think, to, well, he won't be asked first, but he'd be asked, he may be asked to form a minority government. And that that's the stakes. That's the strategy.

Zain 1:14:37

Corey, Jagmeet Singh for you is next on your roster. Stakes and the strategy for him.

Corey 1:14:58

be a different game altogether but uh you know i just i don't see that the ndp coalition fundamentally changing because of a sing flub you know maybe i'm totally nuts on that but when i look at the number of seats they have and when i look at what percent of vote they would need to drop to significantly change the composition you know like going from yeah yeah 20 is not gonna change the fate of the universe if you're saying though your strategy you're looking for a breakout moment and And so you want to be doing what you can to create opportunities for breakout moments. You want to provoke conflict. You want to provoke conflict on issues that you are basically Teflon and the others are going to be a little bit more awkward on. Bluntly, I would be taking the prime minister to task on reconciliation, which is one of the five topics in the English language debate, as we know. On affordability, you have some things to say as a new Democrat. There are a number of various flashpoints that you can create on climate. On COVID, you can talk about, obviously, these

Corey 1:16:04

these things wouldn't have happened the way they did in terms of the supports if it weren't for you. On leadership, same deal. Make those moments happen. Fight with the prime minister. Make

Corey 1:16:13

Make it clear that the prime minister is who you've got your eyes on on this one, because the moment that you're looking for is one where you can make

Corey 1:16:20

make it clear to every vote

Corey 1:16:22

vote flipper out there, every progressive out there, that

Corey 1:16:26

when they're choosing at the end of the day whether they're going to lean liberal or lean New Democrat, the right thing to do is to lean New Democrat.

Zain 1:16:33

Nicely done, Corey Carter.

Zain 1:16:35

Blanchette, final one for you on your docket.

Carter 1:16:38

the stakes are clear that he's, you know, he's not going to be put in a position where he has, you

Carter 1:16:43

you know, the success of the Bloc Quebecois on his back. But on the other hand, this is a tremendous opportunity to take down the

Carter 1:16:53

the liberals and the conservatives and the New Democrats and win potentially more votes. So I think that it would be a tremendous mistake for the Bloc Quebecois to say, well, our audience will have tuned into the Francophone debate, not the English debate. That would be tragic because the overall strategy should be, this is how I get to show or this is how I get to pull down the other guys' votes. There are two ways to win an election. One is to increase your own vote count and the other is to bring down the other guys' vote count. count.

Carter 1:17:26

This is an opportunity for Blanchett to bring down the other guy's vote count. That's what his strategy should be. He should be super aggressive. He doesn't lose a lot by being the prick. So why not be the prick? Why not be the prick that defines the debate and puts everybody into small boxes that they don't want to get out of or that they don't want to get into? That is what I think Blanchett can do. And that's probably where I put him. Be a dick. Go after them.

Zain 1:17:55

Corey, I'm calling an audible. I want to add another person to the mix, the guy who's not going to be at the debate, Maxime Bernier. In fact, I want both of you guys on this one, so let's do some collaboration. For Maxime Bernier, what's at stake with these debates? He's not going to be there, but we've talked and we've alluded to his climbing poll numbers, his growing rallies, his calls for revolution, stoking and pounding on the fractures of the anti-vax mobsters that Trudeau has referred to, or the anti-vax mob to be precise. Corey, stakes and strategy for Maxime Bernier, the guy who's not going to be on stage?

Corey 1:18:32

I think for you, you can make your presence felt even if you're not on stage. We have talked a bit about this in Glancing Blows tonight, but it's

Corey 1:18:40

it's obvious that the CPC needs to watch its right-wing flank. The Conservatives cannot afford to lose 10% of the vote to the PPC. I don't think that it's inconceivable that at some point you're going to hear Aaron O'Toole say things like a vote for the PPC is a vote for Justin Trudeau and you're going to see a lot of the same dynamics that exist between the liberals and New Democrats start to manifest on the conservative side. And obviously, when

Corey 1:19:04

when you look at the history of this country and the breakaway right-wing parties and the pizza

Corey 1:19:08

pizza parliaments we enjoyed in the 90s, it's not as though this is kind of new ground to tread, right? Right. And so

Corey 1:19:15

so if if I am if I am Bernie, Bernie, thank you. What

Corey 1:19:22

What I am probably doing in the lead up to the debate is trying to create such moments that they almost need to be responded to by

Corey 1:19:28

by the people that are in the debate. For me, it's a win if anybody mentions me during the debate. Right. Because it says like there's this looming threat outside. side and then i am trying to take it almost to the streets and saying well we've got the elites who have decided these are the five people they're going to talk about i am going to go straight to you the people here's my town hall here's how we're going to fight whatever kind of bullshit nonsense he does um and try to make it so even on debate night when you are not on the stage the post debate commentary includes you saying and one person whose presence was felt even though they weren't here of course you heard maxine bernier's name come up multiple times yes yes Yes, very true, Rosemary. Yeah, we've got to think about what that potentially means for this. And you could see Aaron O'Toole was trying to talk out of both sides of his mouth as he was talking to the right wing of his party. At the same time, he was making a play for those voters in the center. By the way, Bernier decided he was going to take his own approach here, and he had this, whatever, you know, go on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Continue with the commentary. So that is a win if you're Bernier. That's a win for the PPC. Carter,

Zain 1:20:30

add to what you heard from Corey in terms of the Bernier stakes and strategy. You may even want to get more tactical than not, but curious to hear your thoughts on this.

Carter 1:20:42

There's been some tactics in the past where fringe parties or parties that don't get into the debate run their own kind of parallel debates. They run their own little Facebook lives or whatever to try and appeal to their supporters. Don't do that. That's a terrible mistake. Wait for the media to come to you. The description that Corey was giving of responding to the situation, responding to the overarching

Carter 1:21:07

debate, that is actually where Max Bernier's opportunity lies. He should do really good pre-event press conference, and he should do a bang-up post-event commentary. He should be making sure that he's in the story by the virtue of the strength of his comments, not by trying to do some sort of faux debate or faux type of event that's just going to look sad and pathetic.

Zain 1:21:35

Carter, let's end it on the final one. Justin Trudeau, we've saved him until the end. And how about you start with a bit of the stakes and a bit of your strategy, and then, Corey, I'll get you to build on what Carter said or, you know, in the case of the last couple of episodes, disagree with aggressively. But, Carter, I'll let you take the first kick at the can on Justin Trudeau's stakes and strategy for him for these debates this week.

Carter 1:21:55

The stakes, this is everything, right? I mean, this is him continuing to be prime minister. So, you know, him performing well is essential. The other part of the stakes is he's got the votes that everybody wants. Everybody on that stage is looking to his party and saying, those are the votes I can go get. And so he's going to be under attack from whether it's the Greens, the the bloc, you know, the NDP or the conservatives. They're all coming for him and they are they have less to lose than he does. So that requires him to be, you

Carter 1:22:34

know, better. better and I hope that this the the actual strategy for him is to remind people of what the prime minister under fire should look like what how good he was during the difficulties of the pandemic how good he was by making sure that we got the supports that we needed this is a man who responded to to crisis did not come create more crisis and to that end don't be weak don't Don't be, you know, when the threats, when the yelling, when the structure comes after you, be

Carter 1:23:08

be strong. Stand behind that podium as a leader with your head held high and don't allow the others to set the agenda.

Zain 1:23:16

Corey, anything to build on the Trudeau strategy or redefining the stakes or adding to what Carter said the stakes are?

Corey 1:23:23

Yeah, I mean, it's

Corey 1:23:24

it's simple. The stakes are your premiership, but they're also your legacy. Obviously if Trudeau loses, this was going to be like an all timer in terms of arrogant government, getting their asses handed to them by the

Corey 1:23:34

public. People will talk about this as a cautionary tale for the rest of Canadian history. Right? So in that environment, you need to keep the stench of death off you. You've got to be strong. You've got to make sure you're, you're maintaining the agenda as Stephen Carter suggested. And you're right. They're all going to be ping ponging on you, but you can also use that to your advantage. So your strategy has to be taller

Corey 1:23:54

taller than everybody else. These people are biting at your ankles, and you are the prime minister. And it's an opportunity for you really to make the case for why the election had to happen.

Corey 1:24:06

One of the fun things about debates is as much as you and I and so many other people have been watching this and looking at the blow-by-blow and watching the trackers, is that many Canadians will just be tuning in.

Corey 1:24:15

And you get to give the best version of your reason for why this election is happening. You give your best attacks against O'Toole, your best summary of the liberal platform, your best summary of the ballot question that's in front of you here.

Zain 1:24:27

Well, let's move it on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Carter, I'm going to start with you on this one. Our first question here, of course, we do this all for you, and we don't delay it whatsoever. We

Zain 1:24:38

We don't draw it out. You know, I'm

Carter 1:24:39

that we've only gone seven or eight hours on tonight's podcast. This is good. It's kept it short. Sure.

Zain 1:24:45

Carter, Jason Kenney has been called a liability for Aaron O'Toole in this federal election. Is that overrated or underrated in your mind?

Carter 1:24:51

It's under, it's, it's overrated because ultimately Jason Kenney being a liability probably matters most in Alberta. Um, and it's not going to move the polls that much. I mean, uh, I think Corey and I were chatting today and he said, well, I mean, Ooh, maybe the conservatives dropped down to 52% in the province of Alberta. a big fucking deal. Good point, Corey. I'll credit you for it.

Zain 1:25:13

Corey, is it overrated, underrated, the Kenny liability track for O'Toole in this election? Let's recall last election, this guy was former minister of multiculturalism, was going to swing ridings, you know, doing his thing.

Corey 1:25:27

This is our politics, and we get really caught up in it. And we think about these provincial narratives so much, obviously, because we live here. But even from it, we don't think about Doug Ford's fuck-ups on a regular basis, and Doug Ford's fuck-ups don't play into our idea of what Aaron O'Toole's government would be like, the way we think about how Jason Kenney and how he approaches things might. Same with John Horgan in BC with the NDP, same as you name it. It's just all politics is local, and people don't care about Jason Kenney as much outside Alberta as people inside, and Alberta's not a competitive race. Corey,

Zain 1:26:03

Corey, overrated or underrated, the PPC surge, both in terms of size of rallies and percentage points that they seem to be gaining in in the daily tracking and the flash polls that we're seeing yeah

Corey 1:26:14

i i don't know i i have to think i have to say underrated at this point it it could be a really big issue in this campaign and it could be a really big issue out of this campaign as we start talking about um what's next if aaron o'toole wins it

Corey 1:26:31

it will maybe be people have collapsed down you know one of the things i will say is if you've got eight percent in the ppc and that's not real aaron o'toole's won this fucking election right if they're just sort of parking discontent it's over already it's a conservative government get used to it if

Corey 1:26:47

if it is real that is kind of scary in a different way that we're all going to need to process and interpret because if

Corey 1:26:55

if we have prime minister trudeau returned if that is propped up by the ndp you

Corey 1:27:00

may see some exacerbated culture wars see the problem is aaron o'toole he He was too much of a moderate. It takes some true conservatives, whatever bullshit gets put out there. And that could play into our politics as a nation for some time. And these rallies are scary. I mean, everybody's going to draw the parallels to Trump, right, where he was getting these big, crazy rallies, and we all discounted them for so long. We may overswing and now give

Corey 1:27:22

give them too much credit as a result of the rise of Trump. But there

Corey 1:27:25

there is an intensity and there's an energy to the anger that I think should give us all pause. Yeah,

Zain 1:27:30

Yeah, I think intensity and energy and certainly volume are good descriptions. Carter, overrated or underrated, the PPC, I don't want to call it rise, but let's just say like climb that they seem to be having. No,

Carter 1:27:41

No, it's a rise. I think that they're now the fourth highest

Carter 1:27:45

highest party. They are polling nationally ahead of the Bloc Québécois. If they found isolated pockets, I mean, they're ahead of the Green Party. If they found isolated pockets of support,

Carter 1:27:58

support, they would win seats. They don't have an isolated set of supports, I don't think. But there are areas where they could certainly swing the outcome. come. So, and on top of that, it's not over. Corey mentioned that there's like 20% or so of people who are going to be opposed to vaccine passports. If this thing continues and reaches the upper level of what they could achieve in the next 14 days, this could be the story of the election. And

Carter 1:28:23

And ironically, Justin Trudeau holding onto the prime minister's seat may be the end result.

Zain 1:28:31

Carter, who does this debate, which one of the leaders is this debate format advantage the most in your mind advantage

Carter 1:28:38

advantage the most oh god that's tragic I think I

Carter 1:28:45

think probably it probably helps sing the most because he has kind of outside of the the primary fire no one's really going to be going after him in the same fashion but it's just a bad format for everybody Corey

Zain 1:29:00

Corey Corey, who does this debate format advantage the most?

Corey 1:29:03

Paul, because it creates a level playing field between parties that are not level, right? There is a big difference in the level of support that is, you know, gotten by the liberals and the conservatives and even the NDP versus the Green Party. But the Green Party gets to stand on that stage and pretend they're in the game in a way that they absolutely are not. Corey,

Zain 1:29:21

Corey, final question. I'll start with you. We do this every Sunday, and now we're doing it on Labor Day Monday. monday who do you want to be as week three wraps up and we head into the final two weeks which one of these leaders would you want to be in this present moment in time i will remind you your previous answers have included jagmeet singh and jagmeet singh

Corey 1:29:41

no i did otul oh you

Zain 1:29:42

you did otul you did you did you did yes

Zain 1:29:44

think it's otul you would want to be as much as

Corey 1:29:46

as we've talked about the stalling out and all of this i'm just looking at the uh aggregators right now on the polls and And the reality is this last week has

Corey 1:29:55

has still seen Aaron O'Toole climb versus

Corey 1:29:58

versus the previous week. And so there's a lot of noise within the week. There's a lot of narratives. All of a sudden we're talking health care. All of a sudden we're talking guns. But on net, the

Corey 1:30:06

the trend line is really, really clear at this point. We're three weeks into this election. We've got two to go. And O'Toole is climbing. Just not to say he's destined to win, but I would feel more comfortable being Aaron O'Toole right now than I would Justin Trudeau. Carter,

Zain 1:30:21

Carter, who would you want to be right now? Now, which federal party leader would you want to be on this Monday evening as we record heading into debate week?

Carter 1:30:28

Maxime Bernier. He looks fantastic in those shirts.

Zain 1:30:31

Thank you, Carter. I really appreciate it. Really, really fantastic insight. I'm glad you were able to keep it together till the end. And that's a wrap on Episode 941 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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