Episode 975: Ersatz Majority

Zain 0:02

This is the strategist episode 975. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, we are here. Stephen Carter, we just made a massive earth shattering announcement. Summarize it for us. Summarize it for the people that have not caught the previous episode. Lay it on them. Well,

Carter 0:19

Well, it starts with us having to pay $650 for my vow renewal. And as

Corey 0:26

result, let's keep moving. Let's

Carter 0:28

moving. Long story short, strategistlive.com takes you right to the strategist live show brought to you by the strategist podcast sponsored by us, the strategists. We are in, baby. We are in.

Corey 0:46

there. Yes, somewhat useful details like this is occurring on April 10th, which is a Sunday. It's the day after the UCP leadership review. In theory, maybe we won't even have results by that

Carter 0:56

that based on some

Corey 0:57

some of the things we've

Carter 0:57

we've talked about. Listen, guys, I talked to a UCP MLA today. He doesn't think there's going to be results.

Carter 1:02

Does not think there will be results for the live show. Yeah,

Corey 1:05

Yeah, thanks for selling the live show, Carter. In Calgary,

Carter 1:08

we'll also mention that. It will happen in the live show. They're going to call us first. That's what I meant to say.

Zain 1:16

Keep going, Corey. Keep going. You have something here. I think you have something. Go ahead.

Corey 1:20

StrategistLive.com. You can purchase tickets to the Strategist's first live show in six years. This is going to be an event, a spectacle. It may be the only live show for six years if Stephen Carter doesn't get a $650 deposit back. It's in Calgary. It has got a bar, apparently. Host bar.

Carter 1:42

bar. Thanks again, Corey. No,

Corey 1:43

there's no host bar.

Corey 1:45

Don't make those kind of commitments.

Carter 1:48

On your credit card, though.

Corey 1:49

And I believe, if I'm not mistaken,

Corey 1:54

Zane Velji will be making an appearance. I

Zain 1:56

I will be making an appearance. You know why? Because my face, my name, my likeness is

Zain 2:01

is on strategistlive.com. Now, that is where you order tickets. Now, one thing that we mentioned in great detail on the previous episode is which website to not go to. And that website, Stephen, Steven, is thestrategistlive.com. Now, that website was taken, was it not? It

Carter 2:15

It was taken. Very upsetting. Competitors and people making fun of us. It hurts. It hurts when people do that. So

Zain 2:21

So strategistlive.com for your tickets April 10th, as Corey mentioned. I mean, this is a great value. It's going to be a great show. You know, Corey said six years since we've done it. Just, you know, come see how we've aged. Come see how we've aged and not matured. It is going to be the same type of show that those who were privileged, I would say, Carter, harder uh some more than half decade back we'll get uh we we make it up as we go this is not pre-recorded stage programming that we just sit there like a dj kind of spinning our tracks and greatest hits no no we create a new show for you on the stage while all of you sit in seats side by side facing the same direction i mean this is groundbreaking here

Zain 3:02

here anything else i don't want to go in more detail because we have done that on the previous episode if you listen to 974 you'll get at all the details, the background, the context. But we'll leave that there and we'll move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, keep your friends close and keep your enemies running in a leadership race to define whatever the fuck they are as a political party. Guys, I want to talk about the breaking news. No, not the Strategist Live, Corey. No, that's not what I'm talking about. I am talking about, once again, strategistlive.com. I'm talking about the federal liberals and the NDs have worked on a tentative agreement that, if finalized, would keep Prime Prime Minister Trudeau's government in power until 2025 in exchange for progress on longstanding NDP priorities, i.e. making progress, quote unquote, on pharma care and dental care. The deal worked out by party leadership is still pending the sign off from NDP MPs. But we're told that the liberal cabinet had an emergency or special meeting tonight. Carter, when you saw this headline come by, give me your initial thoughts. I'm going to ask you for the same. What are you thinking when you saw this deal that the Indies and the Liberals federally tried to get off the ground or some version of this back in November? I mean, now it seems like sources are certainly saying that it's pretty close to the finish line here. Your first thoughts when you heard about this, Carter?

Carter 4:18

Well, I thought it was a pretty good deal for the Liberals. I mean, I'm not sure what make progress means, but it's not the same as implement full pharmacare and other initiatives, right? So I thought it was a interesting

Carter 4:28

interesting phrasing, But I think it also just kind of formalizes what we all know, and that is that the NDP are not likely to enable

Carter 4:38

enable an election that might put the conservatives into power. So they like this arrangement, formalizing their own ability to put some power into this and to give themselves some more power, as limited as it is, is actually probably a pretty good idea for both the liberals and the NDP.

Zain 4:58

Corey, your initial thoughts when you saw this headline break an hour or so ago, what were you thinking? Or what did you think?

Corey 5:05

Well, details TBD, and the devil is always in the details for these kinds of things. But my sense is this could be not just win-win, but maybe even win-win-win for the liberals, NDP and conservatives, because the liberals get stability.

Corey 5:19

They don't get to just act as a de facto majority government. They get effectively a majority government. The NDP gets some longstanding initiatives, and Jagmeet Singh gets the ability to say and take credit for some of the liberal policy initiatives, some which were already liberal policies, such as taxes on banks, increasing that wealth tax. But I can say this was part of the deal for support. And the conservatives get to freak out for the next few years without risking the fall of the government in an election they're not ready for. So everybody gets a little bit of something here. And of course, the conservatives will talk about this dreadful liberal

Corey 5:53

liberal NDP coalition. It's not a coalition, but it's probably close enough for a lot of lay people. And I'm sure they'll be able to fundraise a ton off it. But ultimately, I think there's

Corey 6:06

there's reason based on where every party is right now, and what every party is looking for right now, that you could say everybody gets out ahead. ahead carter

Zain 6:15

carter if you wanted to extend it you could almost say it's a win for the block as well who kind of sit pretty with their seat count uh in in a real sense do you agree with cory's sort of a thesis here that this could be a win-win-win uh even for the conservatives so to speak yeah

Carter 6:29

yeah i mean the conservatives always want to to shake their fists and rattle their you know their little noisemakers about trying to to you know push for a new election and how you know the majority or or most Canadians, more Canadians want the Conservative government. They're not in any shape to fight an election. They'll get through their leadership, and then whoever becomes the leader is going to take some time to craft the Conservative Party in his or her image. I guess it's just his right now, but maybe we'll get a female candidate at some point. But I think that having the election on the fixed cycle probably suits everybody's needs. Carter,

Zain 7:07

Carter, help me message this. Help me message this from the liberal perspective. If you are going out, let's say this gets confirmed tonight by the NDP. If you are going out tomorrow morning as the liberals, the governing party, what are you saying? And why are you saying what you're saying to justify, to promote, to spin this as coming from strength, not necessarily weakness? How would you position this to the general public if you're the liberals? Government

Carter 7:36

Government is about reflecting the will of the people.

Carter 7:39

The people spoke in the last election and what they asked for, what the vast majority of people asked for, was a progressive agenda that tackled big issues like pharmacare and other economic issues. The vast majority of Canadians want to see action like the action that we achieved last night. This

Carter 7:57

This is an agreement between two political parties simply to reflect the will of the people.

Carter 8:02

And if you can do that while creating good policy, I think that you're in a great spot. And this is a great deal for Canada.

Zain 8:10

Corey, is this from the NDP perspective a joint statement with the government? What would you advocate if you were currently in the federal NDP fold and said, OK, we have been touted as being kind of weak with Jagmeet in certain cases, that he's been absent in some of the big conversations over the last couple of months? How are you messaging this from the NDP perspective? And are you doing and advocating for a joint statement with the liberals from a messaging strategy perspective?

Corey 8:36

Well, that depends on where you want to go, Zane. So one of the things that I think naturally spills out of an agreement like this is, are

Corey 8:43

are there plans for longer-term cooperation on some of these things? Is electoral cooperation possible?

Zain 8:49

You mean beyond a minority government that we find ourselves in? And I

Corey 8:52

I don't necessarily mean we're going to run people here, you're going to run people there, and we're all going to be effectively one party. But we do know that the Trudeau liberals were more interested when we were talking electoral reform about instant runoff or, you know, voting one, two, three, ranking your ballot, if you will, however you want to call it. And the NDP obviously was more interested in something more proportional, which is part of the deal that they ultimately struck with the conservative and, you

Corey 9:19

you know, green and block members of the committee that didn't really go anywhere because, of course, the liberals didn't want it to go anywhere. anywhere and um if

Corey 9:28

if that is on and if you've got kind of a longer term play to bring these parties into some sort of harmony and i don't believe anybody does but i just want to throw that on the table well then that's going to change how you act in this particular

Corey 9:39

my sense is that's not what they want and if that's not what they want what i would recommend is same messaging parallel statements so not joint statement but each party puts out that version of the statement that has their leader quote in prominence steve did a really nice job of framing how that could could be sold to the canadian public in a way that is fairly unobjectionable which is hey look this percent of the vote plus this percent of the vote equals majority and so why wouldn't we want to reflect the canadian population especially if it leads to good policy but if you do a joint statement and you say you're going to vote with the government and um you stand together at this announcement and you've got the flash bulbs going and it's got the picture of the two leaders shaking hands and smiling you're kind of playing right into the conservative messaging they've I've already started trumpeting out about a liberal NDP coalition. And if you don't want people to perceive the two parties are the same party, you've got to be mindful of that. And even though these are small things, you've got to take your moments where you really state your autonomy here. And we obviously have horror stories about being the junior party in coalitions, including in the UK with

Corey 10:45

with what happened to the Lib Dems. I'm sure those are on the NDP's mind right now. But it is a good opportunity for the NDP as well. They're going to have some substantive policy things. they can point to that, depending

Corey 10:57

depending on what exactly this is, when we talk about progress on pharmacare and progress on universal dental programs and a number of other policy planks, could

Corey 11:07

could really look quite substantive to Canadians. And you've got a really good value proposition there. Now,

Corey 11:14

conservatives will say you vote for one, you get the other. And

Corey 11:16

And that's something that I think both of them had to contend with as they went into this here. But yeah, if you don't want to play into that you've got to still carve out your own orbit carter

Zain 11:27

carter let's let's pause on going to the conservatives just yet i do want to talk about their messaging but let's talk about strategy for a second this is not a coalition let's be clear from that sense right um explain to me you know from from parliamentary standpoint for our listeners who might not be familiar the difference between this which is ultimately a confidence and supply agreement right between between the NDP and the liberals and coalition. And was the latter even

Zain 11:55

even possible at this stage? Or is that something that only happens when post-election, you're forming a cabinet, striking government? Give me a sense of that in terms of where this has landed in terms of this agreement, or at least we speculate where this has landed.

Carter 12:09

Well, a true coalition government is going to have representatives in the government, keeping in mind that the House of Commons isn't the government. The government is the cabinet, right? Right. The government is, you know, the the people who are actually running the administration are the bureaucracy. And those two things often get, you

Carter 12:28

you know, confused in the general public's minds. And they think, well, my MP is a member of the government or whatever. But your MP is really not a member of the government unless they're in cabinet. And then, you know, the rest is is kind of just moving shells around, I guess. um so without

Carter 12:45

without putting an ndp member into cabinet it's not a coalition it's an agreement um and

Carter 12:51

and it's an agreement that that is really in the government's favor they have to give up very little cory mentioned earlier that this is seemingly them achieving what is a large in large part already their stated objectives so what they give is very little and what the ndp gets is very little. The NDP and the Liberals, in turn, get a stable government. Well, arguably, it's been a stable government already, and it will continue to be a stable government until the prime minister decides to

Carter 13:26

to seek a new mandate, which

Carter 13:28

which I don't think is necessarily precluded by this relatively weak agreement.

Zain 13:34

Corey, same question to you regarding the coalition. You said this is, you know, not to steal your words for you, but this is similar. It's not the same. In the effectiveness category, do you feel like it'll be just as effective, perhaps?

Corey 13:49

Well, it depends on what your goals are. So effective

Corey 13:52

effective is in the eye of the beholder, right? It will be effective, I think, for both parties to keep a little bit of daylight between them, which both seem to think is in their interest. And

Corey 14:02

it will be effective in that it will likely still result in the government being propped up as long as they need to, and to the next election, presumably in 2025. So that all seems pretty straightforward and pretty good here.

Corey 14:18

what the ndp will of course find is that over time it will be harder and harder for them to to want to necessarily live up to that if this government follows the trajectory of oh i don't know every other government which is it gets less popular with time yeah

Corey 14:33

and what the liberals will find if that does not happen to be the case is it will be more and more tempting to just pull the plug on themselves early and break the deal as was done in british columbia with the green Green Party support recently. So, you

Corey 14:45

you know, there are, you know, in the moment looks good. Four years is a lifetime in politics. May not even have the same leader in either party in four years, just depending on how things go. Carter,

Zain 14:58

Carter, we're recording here on Monday night. This article says that Jagmeet Singh is running this by his MPs, arguably tonight while we're recording. If

Zain 15:10

If you were on that call, Carter, what risks would you ask the leader about? What risks would you ask his political aides about if you are an NDP MP? What are you kind of seeing as potential downsides for you? Corey's listed a few of them around trajectories of government and what that looks like. But we know that the federal NDP especially, they take a lot of pride in their identity. They take a lot of pride in being independent, the left flank, the moral conscience, so to speak. This agreement probably makes practical sense, but there's probably questions that many of them have. If you're an NDP MP looking at the future of your party, what questions are you asking? What risks do you see, Carter?

Carter 15:53

I think the biggest risk is what the hell does make progress mean?

Zain 15:58

you know— You're talking about make progress on pharmacare and dental care. Right.

Zain 16:03

is what the article has—or the sources say are

Carter 16:06

conditions. And other issues, right? Make progress is incredibly vague. If I were in the NDP caucus, I'd be asking the leader, what assurances can you give us that this is actually going to be something that is attained, that is something that is achieved, not just something that is spoken about? out um the ndp has always been at its strongest when it's it's giving its policies um to the liberals really i mean that that tends to be uh the well it's the only way that the ndp policies get implemented because the ndp haven't formed government uh at the federal level so when the ndp has big issues it makes sense for them to partner but it doesn't make sense to give away these issues uh without actually seeing progress um so if if they're going to give up that pace space, then I think that they have the right to say, are we actually achieving these goals that we've set out for ourselves? And I would be pushing very hard on the leader

Carter 17:05

leader to tell the caucuses exactly what we've given up and what we've gotten.

Zain 17:12

Corey, if you're an MP in that same meeting tonight, what are you asking your leader and his political strategists regarding risks or downsides, perhaps rooted in the party identity, but it doesn't have to be in that frame. Well,

Corey 17:24

Well, two things. Maybe I'll take it from the leader's point of view first here, Zane, if that's okay with you. But one is, it's not as though this is an irrevocable support for the government. So if you feel you're not getting the progress that was committed to, you can just pull your support, right? And you can say, I'm not getting the things I was committed to.

Corey 17:41

And you know, we're deep in speculation land, and we just don't know the details but i'm sure we're not the first to think about this and i'm sure there are milestones worked into the agreement like a

Corey 17:49

a pilot of this program that includes x number of canadians will be done by this date or will be funded or whatever like i don't even know what they would necessarily be but for each of these policy things that were gives by the liberals i'm sure there are some very concrete deliverables behind them that are more about action than outcome right and i'm sure the liberals don't want to go too far too fast and so i suspect it will be kind of an incrementalism that goes either pharma care will not include everything and or it will be means tested or

Corey 18:18

or uh you'll have a situation where it's piloted in a certain geography with a willing province something like that i suspect is going to happen that will make it very concrete so i imagine that jagmeet singh has the ability to say specifically what they will get rather than this general vague promise of support if all he has is the general vague promise of support i

Corey 18:37

do think that's kind of a shitty deal but i would be surprised if that's actually what's going on here

Corey 18:42

Even if that were the deal, however, it's easy enough for him to say, yeah, well, if they're not doing it, we can pull the support, right?

Corey 18:48

right? But how do you make a deal like that without having some very clear triggers? And so I imagine those triggers have been considered and built into the deal.

Zain 18:56

You know, Carter, one thing I want to talk about regarding – when I read this article, maybe let me start here. One of the thoughts I had was, you know, what does the structure of this deal look like, the milestones, the granular details as we talk about? The second thought, and there may be no meat on the bone here, but let me explore it for a second, was, is this, like,

Zain 19:12

like, this reporting, could it fundamentally change the structure of the deal? And what we haven't spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about is what the impact of media leaks or media reporting and sourcing is to ongoing negotiations, right? The ink isn't dry here on this thing. There's still being things approved. approved i'm kind of wondering from your perspective when you read this did you read this as like reporting on a formality that was going to happen or or did you kind of read this as like you know shit could change here and because of this reporting that's come out in advance of the ink being dried and all the the rubber stamps being put in and maybe kind of leads to a broader conversation on on on what leaking does or what what sourcing and reporting does and i don't know if anything was leaked here is to be totally clear to to ongoing negotiations So just your thoughts on that, based on how you read it. I know that's a very convoluted statement, but I thought I'd just get you to react to that.

Carter 20:04

People form their opinions in the initial reporting, right? And then it is very difficult to change their opinions after the initial reporting. So, and by people, I mean both the NDP MPs and the Liberal MPs, as well as analysts or general population. Everybody gets that initial headline and the initial headline then forms our general consensus and our general opinions. So if that headline is accurate, if that information is accurate, then our initial response to that information is going to be stuck there. If it's not accurate, it's still going to be stuck there. And now you've got to move us. Right. So if we're the NDP MPs and this isn't actually the deal and what Corey has described with

Carter 20:51

with its more consistent benchmarking, with its more well

Carter 20:56

well thought through and understood information, maybe it all depends on what that all looks like. Right. So if it's all well articulated and it's all well understood, then, you

Carter 21:14

the response to this information may be negative because people will have to be reassured that it's not just make progress. It's something totally different. So that's what I'm you know, I'm always concerned about. That's why people always say in our business, get the information out first, own the narrative, right? Put your narrative out there first, because as soon as your narrative goes out, then that is the one that other people have to try and defeat. So that's the big question here. Whose narrative is this? And is this narrative 100% accurate? it.

Zain 21:45

Great. Just your reflections on that, just whether it's on the specifics here or just a more general on reporting going out while negotiations are still happening. I'm sure you've experienced this, seen this happen, probably seen things change because of it, but your just thoughts on that, not knowing exactly the specifics here.

Corey 22:03

Yeah. So it's sometimes fine, right? As long as everybody is acting with perfect information and everybody is presenting things in a way that that both parties would agree with. Where you run into trouble is when one side is saying, hey, we're having these negotiations and they're going this way. And the other side says, that's not at all how I feel the negotiations are going. So as long as the negotiations were managed well, and they got to a point where they said, we are going to say these things to our caucus, no surprises is what we're going to communicate. I don't think that there's a ton of risk there. However, of course, if the liberals have presented this in a bad faith way or in a way that shows that maybe they're not willing or interested in being totally forthright with their caucus. That's a problem internally in the Liberal Party, for sure. But that's also a problem in negotiations, because then you can't really trust your counterparty in the same way. And where this could really blow up is if people start using saying things like, is a better deal for us than the NDP, right? Because then people in the NDP may start feeling the same thing. What I imagine both of them are doing, because there's going to be savvy negotiators on both side is saying, this is is a win-win deal the ndp get this we get this it's to everybody's benefit i've signed off on this but we won't do it without your support as well and um we just we just don't know enough and this is a funny one because we're doing an episode right now it's 10 p.m mountain time which is the official time zone of canada as we all know as we know correct on on monday march 21st by this time tomorrow i'm sure all of these details will be spilled out all of these details will be spilled out another thing i want to say though not surprising the leaks would come from the liberal side first because it's a bigger caucus i mean it's as simple as that yeah if if you considered an equal amount of leaking probability per mp the

Corey 23:48

the liberals are a bigger caucus so we shouldn't read too too much into the fact we're getting the liberal side first either carter

Zain 23:54

carter let's talk about that big caucus if you're in that liberal emergency caucus meeting tonight um did

Carter 23:59

did you just say big I powered

Zain 24:01

powered right through it.

Zain 24:03

You're at the emergency caucus meeting. They're saying that the headline on this is making parliament work. That's what this agreement is being referred to and messaged as. What risks or downside questions are you asking and stress testing the PMO and the prime minister, perhaps, when this deal is presented to you?

Carter 24:24

Why did we need to do this at all? I mean, we have a stable minority government. Realistically, we're in the driver's seat. Why are we reaching out and giving the NDP a victory at all? For the last, you know, two years, two and a half, three years, you know, this has not been an issue. And all of a sudden now we're doing this. Like, why? What's in the advantage for us? I mean, this just feels like we're giving up on some level. and we want to be the party that governs. We don't want to be the party that makes deals.

Carter 24:58

And so this could be, you

Carter 25:00

you know, I want to make sure that this isn't eroding any of the power that we have by having the most members of parliament.

Zain 25:08

Corey, jump on what Carter said here. And do you have a good answer to that? What does this give us? I know you've talked to win, win, win, but it's an interesting question. It almost seems like it's bringing the NDP back to life and giving them legitimacy on some of the most leftward things that that even your party has suggested you wanted to do or have stolen from the ndp to be honest over the years your thoughts to what carter's saying so

Corey 25:30

so for sure people are going to ask that and i think that's where my point is you need to stick to the script of your leadership you need to say it's not about advantage it's about reflecting the will of the people we both get something we want and don't take the bait on that because that's the kind of thing that can poison the deal before the deal has been signed off on if people start hearing like yeah the prime minister Mr. said, it's a great deal. We fucked the NDP. They're screwed for a generation because that ding dong Jagmeet Singh agreed to just sell out his party. Right? Can't do it. Can't do it if you want the deal. And especially, you know, we talked about if there's kind of a longer term play here, not saying there is, but that would be really quite poison if that was the case. I actually don't think, however, that that's the biggest argument against doing this deal. On the liberal side, you mean? Because that argument's kind of bullshit, you know, political game stuff. That's who wins, who loses. Yeah.

Corey 26:21

In a sense, maybe this is just a different version of that, but there's actually the policy rooting that would cause me concern, perhaps, if I were in the liberals too, which is this seems to move us to the left.

Corey 26:32

Even more. It's certainly going to be painted as moving to the left. This seems to vacate the center.

Corey 26:38

What are we doing here? Is this actually wise? eyes. We're popular. The NDP isn't. We're becoming more like the NDP. Why? Is the political crass version of it. The more principled one is we believe in moderate government. They believe in more extreme government. We're being now a half extreme government. Why? And I think that is if I were in the liberal caucus where my anxieties would be. And I think that's where a certain group of liberal MPs will probably be feeling some unease tonight. night.

Zain 27:09

Carter, jump on that. What does this say about the now right flank of the Liberal Party? And let's just also roll this in one. What do you think this says? Let's just assume this deal goes through. We get details tomorrow. The details may not matter in terms of the politics. What do you think the stability now means to Trudeau's leadership? Because this almost seems to be a quasi-legacy play to get stability, to get the multi-year, long-horizon legacy things that Trudeau may need to get done, done.

Zain 27:37

What do you think this says about his leadership? And what do you think this says about, to Corey's point, the emergent rightward flank of the Liberal Party, the governing, the natural governing party of Canada? I put that in air quotes, that seems to find a focal point between further to the left, further to the right within that liberal parameter. Give me your reactions to that.

Carter 27:55

I think this means that he's not long for the leadership. leadership um

Carter 27:58

um you i mean if you've got if you've got a minority government uh losing losing the government off of your schedule like it again going with our long leadership process right so our long leadership process dictates that apparently you can't run a leadership in canada for less than what

Carter 28:15

what five and a half six months cory i mean everything seems to go for that long so if you can't run a leadership for less than five and a half or six months That is a tremendously long period of time to be weak. You could lose a confidence vote. How do you hold the government? How do you keep everybody on track with that minority government? This deal theoretically puts a stable government together and enables them to do an actual

Carter 28:45

actual campaign. So I think that this could be an

Carter 28:51

an indication that Trudeau is looking for for the exit. And the best way to ensure that his government doesn't fall is to leave, you know, to leave a legacy that says, you

Carter 29:03

you know, we're going to last for four years through this minority period.

Zain 29:07

Corey, jump in here.

Corey 29:08

Yeah, I agree and don't. So I don't think this foreshadows that Justin Trudeau is leaving or that there's going to be a leadership review. I do think this has to do with legacy, though. I think Justin Trudeau, one of the main drivers of this is that he was denied a majority government last election. So this is the next best thing. This is the ersatz majority government that he can create through negotiations with the NDP.

Corey 29:30

I also believe that it might be part of a bigger legacy play, which is why I keep saying I'm not saying anybody's doing this. but maybe they are.

Corey 29:38

It has been one of those things that people think about a lot, that if the Liberal plus NDP vote was put against the Conservatives, that would be a governing party for the ages. You know, probably not in the real life for a lot of reasons we can get into or not, as you see fit. Most have to do with how the centre shifts around. But maybe

Corey 29:58

maybe he sees this as his play. You know, this is a solidification of the fact that the Liberal Party has become He's become more progressive under Justin Trudeau's leadership, at least on many policy items, you can kind of dispute some of the ways. And maybe he wants to set up something bigger, grander that enshrines this, not

Corey 30:16

not don't call it a coalition coalition for the longer term, whether that be through electoral reform, or whether that be through some sort of cooperation with the NDP.

Zain 30:24

Carter, you're sitting in that Liberal Emergency Caucus meeting tonight. You're one of the MPs that comes from, let's say, more of the Martin side of the party, right? You're probably fiscally moderate, even fiscally conservative. You're still socially progressive. What the fuck are you thinking tonight? And what the hell are you thinking about doing about it if you're someone that, let's just say, might have leadership ambitions? conditions

Carter 30:48

haven't paid for the pandemic we haven't paid for the downturn we haven't got the economy going again and while we're talking about spending more money on dental care and pharma care what else are we planning to give away governments are brought down by fiscal responsibility and we're moving in that direction and it's very disconcerting we don't need to make these deals we don't need to have this type of legacy hanging over us and it's one of the reasons that we've lost some of the key cabinet members and the key people that have been there before. I mean, this is turning into a government of two or three people at max. And now, you know, the number of people that are influencing the prime minister has gone up by one, and that doesn't include another liberal MP.

Carter 31:32

That's not necessarily the direction that we want to be going. So, you know, if I were a blue

Carter 31:39

blue liberal, I'd be saying, you know, I'm

Carter 31:44

I'm very nervous about the financial commitments that we continue to make, especially when we don't have the economy cooking the way that even the American economy is going.

Zain 31:55

Corey, I want to jump into the Conservative Party, and maybe I'll start naturally with Jean Charest. What does his message look like to this this coming out, to

Zain 32:03

to this being telegraphed and more than likely confirmed in the coming days or weeks, to what Stephen said as someone who might be a blue liberal. Jean Charest called by many the, you know, try to occupy the more PC lane here, the more traditional conservative lanes here. Does this message differ a lot from what Carter said here that a blue liberal inside the caucus might say versus Jean Charest, who kind of wants to lead the conservative party with the perhaps a tinge of red or perhaps more of the center as part of his coalition? Well,

Corey 32:35

Well, you bring up an interesting point, and maybe it's not the point you wanted to dig into, but one of the best things Justin Trudeau has going for him in terms of party unity and not necessarily bleeding those blue liberals somewhere else, that is a giant gap to leap over to join today's conservative party, right? They have really put themselves in a relatively extreme extreme position. And, and I suspect that if you had somebody like Jean Charest as the leader of the conservatives, yeah, they would have trouble keeping their rightward flank together, but might be much more appealing to some of those blue liberals who, who would never join, for example, even the O'Toole Conservative Party, certainly not the sheer Conservative Party, certainly not the Harper Conservative Party. So it's tough to say, like, all of this is so very much in flux But if I were Jean Charest, I know I would be using it as a bit of a proof point that the center is opening up.

Corey 33:29

The center is opening up and we have a chance to reset

Corey 33:32

reset this generational change before it occurs. If we allow the liberals to solidify the

Corey 33:38

the center and the left through some sort of informal coalition or through any of the changes that I've teased out, the conservative party will be –

Corey 33:48

I'm not saying they'll never win an election again. I've actually always believed that that

Corey 33:52

that kind of rhetoric is overblown. The conservatives are the only party that's gotten an outright majority of the vote in the past 70 years. But it

Corey 34:01

it certainly stacks the deck against.

Zain 34:05

Carter, talk to me about Sharae. You gave me a message for a blue liberal. What would Sharae be saying? Would it be that exact same message? What would you tweak? What would you alter for the audience he's trying to win over, but with very different sort of ambitions and goals? He's on a very, very tight window runway to sell memberships. What would he want to say when he sees this tonight? night um

Carter 34:25

um you know the the conservative party is a big you know also believes in a strong social safety net the conservative party was the group that brought in the uh the canada health act for example uh the last major change that we saw to to health in this country um and he was part of that government that brought that in um but

Carter 34:46

but they're also for making sure that the the health care that is provided is something that is affordable uh they've always made sure that the health care system doesn't collapse underneath its own weight. You can promise infinite amount of health care, but you can't pay for an infinite amount of health care. And that's what makes the Conservative Party under a charret leadership different. Charret balances the social need with the cost. The Liberals don't. I mean, when the Liberals start falling in line with the NDP that have never cared about the cost of a program, that is a serious problem. It's a serious problem problem for Canadians. It's not a problem of socialism, which is, you know, what Pierre Polyev is screaming about tonight. It's a problem of affordability. It's a problem of putting our wants and needs on a sheet of paper and saying, what do we actually need? We need an economy that works before we get into all these social programs that we can't afford.

Zain 35:43

Corey, is socialism the right message for Pierre Polyev? Like, you know, like, Like, talk to me about, you talked about fundraising, you talked about there's a win in it for them. When we talk about the conservatives, we think about Pierre, at least I do, and I know many do right now as the frontrunner. What is the win for him? And what are you messaging Pierre Poglieva right now beyond the barking about socialism?

Corey 36:10

Well, I'm sure if I Googled socialist communist coalition right now, I would see a number of quotes by many of the people who will blindly support the most right wing candidates they can find in the Conservative Party. So is that the line? I don't know. So I think it is basically not

Corey 36:28

not a bad strategy to try to say the liberals have left the mainstream here. They've solidified that. They've inked the fact that they are no longer a mainstream political party and a sensible conservative government needs to come back to right the ship here.

Corey 36:44

They'll find an audience for that. There's no question that regardless of if you're Pierre Polyev or if you're Jean Charest, frankly, there's an audience for that. But I have

Corey 36:57

have many thoughts. But one of them is that Pierre for prime minister seems a little bit sillier now that the next election is not for like a guaranteed four years. And I do wonder if there's not going to be some sort of recalibration to talk about this coalition as something that kind of denies the will of the people. Less about socialism and more about democracy. Going back to that old, well, the conservatives got a higher percent of the popular vote, that kind of stuff. Yeah,

Carter 37:22

Yeah, I think that's it relatively. That's why one of the reasons I took my thing, right, saying that the majority of Canadians would have chosen this direction, right, between the NDP plus the Liberals. I think that's the way to defeat that. But I think that, you know, that is still part of it. Running a minority at least is democratically more, you know, authentic.

Zain 37:43

we're gonna a lot of a lot of ink to be spilled uh on this topic when i'm gonna leave that segment there moving on to our next segment our next segment war has rules mud wrestling has rules politics has no rules stephen carter we're focusing on alberta again alberta's governing ucp is expecting up to 20 000 people on april 9th a lot of speculation on whether april 9th happens as of sunday nearly 14 000 people have registered according to ucp executive director We now go back to what we were talking about last week, guys, the logistics and the legitimacy, the relationship between the logistics of this many people voting and the legitimacy. Stephen Carter, you know, ink to be spilled, ink not yet dry in terms of what the UCP are going to do. There's much speculation. Is it more polling stations in Red Deer on April 9th? Is it remote polling stations in Calgary, Edmonton, and other parts of the province on that day, but now also thinking other days, including the entire weekend? The deadline to become a member, to be clear, has ended. You could still register to go for the special meeting, the leadership review, but a deadline to be a member has elapsed. Stephen Carter, top line, regardless of what the vote change is or the rules change is, does a rule change have distinct winners and losers here in your mind? Let's start there and then we'll dig into what the rule changes could be. But top line, does a rule change at this moment when it's been solidified that you have to be a UCP member, does it have winners or losers? Yes or no?

Carter 39:20

Yeah, it does. It does have winners and losers. losers um you know you you'd like to think that it doesn't have winners or losers that it it is you know it's it's just all

Carter 39:30

the rules are the same all the members are the same making it easier for the the the members is in everybody's best interest but you sold all those new memberships based on a premise and that central premise was everybody had to go to uh red deer and cast a ballot that took that required um the

Carter 39:49

the hundred dollar investment which

Carter 39:51

which was minimal but

Carter 39:53

but the hundred dollar investment plus uh the time now became a much larger piece to get over how many people would have bought a membership uh paid the hundred dollars if they knew that they could vote in in whatever city they were in um or if it was electronic voting the

Carter 40:09

the rules change is going to impact or or give someone the edge here i think the only question is and where i think people have kind of gotten off on the wrong foot here is trying to say well this is obviously who it benefits i'm not sure um there is an obvious this is who it benefits uh so much as this is the way that it is um because it's it is confusing who who does this benefit in fact that that is a that That is an open question.

Zain 40:38

Corey, is it an open question? Or is there a clear winner and or loser with the rules change here?

Zain 40:45

and the rule change is probably going to be an expansion rather than a contraction, right? So let's

Corey 40:48

let's be clear. For sure. So look, I mean, the rule change that is being floated out there is potentially multiple days of voting, potentially multiple voting locations. So Calgary, Edmonton, and Red Deer. Who it benefits?

Corey 41:01

Look, I'm of two minds. One is that it is unclear who it benefits because, keep in mind, the rebel constituencies who brought forward the resolution that the UCP executive largely ignored besides just saying, okay, we'll move this up a little bit of time, asked that this be a vote where people could vote anywhere, that it would be as expansive as possible. So if your lens is, I don't like Jason Kenney, and I believe calling for a vote anywhere is to my advantage, plus Jason Kenney's executive says, I do like Jason Kenney, and I believe a narrower vote that drags you to Red Deer is to our advantage, then it's not necessarily immediately clear to me that expanding the franchise is good for Jason Kenney and bad for everybody else. That said, all warfare is based on asymmetry, and there is a big asymmetry of information here.

Corey 41:50

If one side knew that

Corey 41:52

that after the membership cutoff, you could vote anywhere or not anywhere, but in one of the three centers in Alberta, and the other side thought you needed to drag people to Red Deer, well, then to Stephen's point, different decisions would be made, right? There are undoubtedly people in this province who thought, yeah, you know what? I'm not going to Red – I would have bought the membership. I would have paid the registration fee, but I'm not going to Red Deer. That's pretty far. And I hear there's already 14,000 people, and it's going to be chaos. And I just, I don't hate myself enough to do that. Meanwhile, though, you could have a number of people who are organizing in the Jason Kenney camp, when

Corey 42:28

when they run into those people saying, Well, yeah, that's fair, but just buy a membership, keep your options open, and

Corey 42:32

and doing that secondary push much more aggressively than they, you know, the anti Kenney camp is potentially doing, all of a sudden creating for them a secondary pool that they can then pull votes forward to. And that asymmetry, I think, is both the

Corey 42:46

the opportunity, if you want to be cynical about it, for Jason Kenney, if he was using this opportunity for the last bit. Because let's be clear, they knew for well over a week before that this thing was going to run up the numbers beyond what was sustainable in Red Deer. We talked about it on the pod. But, you know, beyond that, I

Corey 43:03

I don't know. What do you say? Like, there's also the reality that, I

Corey 43:08

I don't know, Carter, what do you think? These numbers are not what the Kenney camp obviously wanted. So it cuts kind of back against that the other way, too.

Carter 43:16

I continue to be baffled by the numbers, Corey. I mean, they're now talking about 20,000 different people coming into this process.

Carter 43:25

It could have bounced back and forth. If it's 20,000 people and Kenney knows he's dead,

Carter 43:30

why is he even pushing a process change? Why isn't he just simply stepping down? Because this could be, you know, if he gets if he doesn't have identified votes on this, because they're calling everybody they spent, you know, Friday and Saturday, they had every staffer from the ledge making all the calls. They know where they sit right now. If they're dead, why are they continuing to push? It's a big question for me. Why wouldn't you just let

Carter 43:56

let it go? go.

Zain 43:58

Corey, react to that.

Corey 43:59

Yeah, well, exactly. And so if that's the case,

Corey 44:04

maybe he feels he's in a better position than from the outside it looks. I will tell you something, just based on the idea that rules may be changed and that there may have been some awareness these rule changes were coming and that they're occurring after the membership cutoff.

Corey 44:19

I'm not willing to walk back entirely in my sense that Jason Kenney's in a lot of trouble here, but it It certainly changes the math for me, makes me think that this thing might be a much different contest than I was previously thinking. Isn't

Zain 44:31

Isn't there a tension for Kenny, though, like between some of the public narratives that people know about him, like some of the generalizations about Kenny? Let me put a couple on the table. And I think this is where the contradictions, perhaps, with this leadership review occur. Number one, he's a warrior. He'll keep fighting, keep fighting all the time. he will ensure that he he's at the battle blah blah blah he's there he's a warrior okay second one he put on the table carter is that he does it he will he will save face he's smart enough to know when he's losing he doesn't want an embarrassment he knows how to like ultimately exit he's savvy enough to make that happen doesn't

Zain 45:09

doesn't this kind of put both of those things in tension for him the warrior who never quits versus the guy that you know doesn't want an embarrassment on his hands because he's got enough political sense to know that leaving on that note isn't wise. Yeah,

Corey 45:23

Yeah, but on that second one, Zane, I don't actually see a ton of evidence of that in Jason Kenney's career. There's been times he's been forced to back down, but

Corey 45:30

it's usually after there's already an awful lot of blood on the floor. Certainly, I would say he holds to these positions longer than many politicians I've seen. To his credit or to his detriment, he doesn't like to back down even in the odds of some of those things one

Corey 45:46

of the things that i want to throw out there before you throw to carter here is with all of these process changes it will even if everything is run totally above board even if we all just said okay they didn't want to do this they felt at the last minute after the membership cut off they needed to do this certainly we were people saying this is going to be nuts in red deer and this is absolutely not workable even if it's all totally above board this now looks bad right yes this calls into question the result to come there's no way that if there's rule changes that they're not bundled with some of the some of the requests of the anti-kemi camp any anti-kenny camp like there's going to have to be third party auditing there's going to have to be additional scrutineering and oversight and even that i don't think is necessarily going to be enough to stop people calling into question this result but But I

Corey 46:37

guess I'll put it there, no

Corey 46:39

no matter how you cut it, this is a mess. And so Jason Kenney, let's just say two

Corey 46:44

two weeks ago we thought maybe Jason Kenney can win clean, maybe he'll lose clean, maybe he'll win dirty, maybe he'll lose dirty, right?

Corey 46:51

Now it doesn't feel like winning clean is on the agenda. And so that's already not as good for him as what we thought some of his possibilities were a couple of weeks ago. So it's hard to say this is an outright win for Kenney, and it's hard to say this is an entirely positive situation for Jason Kenney. Carter,

Zain 47:07

Carter, how much has this poisoned it, right? There's two L's here. Logistics was one, legitimacy is the other. Give me your sense on legitimacy. To Corey's point, how illegitimate or

Zain 47:17

or how will this be called? We talked about it from cynical terms last week, right, from the perspective of this is going to be a shit show. Someone could just point to the legitimacy. That's not cynical anymore. It seems like that's going to happen regardless, right? That's already part of the script, scripted for both sides. Whoever loses, right, is going to flip up that script and talk about it. So talk to me about that, Carter.

Carter 47:36

We calculated it down to two seconds a vote when we were imagining it to be 10,000. Now it's something like, you know, it's one second a vote. So you have to have multiple locations. You can't do this the way it was prescribed in the notice. So there has to be a brand new process brought in. So my view is legitimacy can be there if you put the proper processes in. Last episode, we were talking about making sure that people,

Carter 48:08

you know, that it was still all held in Red Deer. That's now off the table. Again, it's 20,000 people. You're going to have to put this into, I think, every major center. And, you

Carter 48:20

you know, that way you can say we've made it easier for everybody, rural or urban. And we're going to have all of these locations. And this is the way we're now conducting it.

Carter 48:35

Returning officers in each area that are neutral, scrutineers, the whole nine yards. It all has to happen. Well,

Corey 48:42

Well, that would be a hell of a give to

Corey 48:44

to say, okay, we're going to open it up to places outside of the major centers, like there's going to be a polling place in Grand Prairie and Fort McMurray. Could you imagine Fort McMurray after what went down in this by-election here, right?

Corey 48:56

But it would certainly do a lot to bring legitimacy back to the process. I don't think they can do that, though, because – not if it's close. I mean, that would just kind of sign Jason Kenney's death warrant.

Zain 49:09

Corey, do you think there's any chance they open this up? the membership sales again that's one of the other asks so to speak in addition to the third party auditor that if you change the rules you open up the memberships again that means you open up the pool of people what

Zain 49:21

what do you think about that do you think that could be on the table yeah

Corey 49:24

yeah i think i think it could be and it would probably be super limited like okay it's open for one more day the party will always say we need the time to process the memberships we need the time to do our work this was the latest membership cutoff that was possible that's why we said it then but however However, through great miracles, we found additional resources, and we're able to push that membership cutoff from Saturday to Wednesday. And we're telling you now on Tuesday. So there is the chance for people who are party faithful, who otherwise would have come, to do so. Like, I could see that happening. I could absolutely see that happening.

Corey 49:58

If that happens, that's a bit of a sign of weakness as well, because that will show that they were very worried about the legitimacy.

Zain 50:05

Carter, I have to ask you about this, and it's a bit of a detour. But we've talked on this podcast a while ago about political

Zain 50:13

political parties, are they private clubs, or

Corey 50:16

or are they democratic

Zain 50:19

institutions to help, you know, pursue and kind of propel democracy? When you see this from an Albertans perspective, non-UCP member, rules are changing, all that sort of stuff. What do you kind of think of it from the democracy side of things? Do you kind of just be like, oh, this is a party, let them deal with their shit? it? Or are you kind of, how are you thinking about this as like a non-party member? I just want to get your thoughts on that before we dive back into, I know the exciting stuff that is the day-to-day action from it. But if we zoom out for a second, give me that perspective from your perch. My

Carter 50:51

My thinking's changed, and it changed today. It changed when we started to talk about the fullness of the participation. Because the fullness of the participation is such That all of a sudden we're going from, you know, this

Carter 51:05

this being essentially the delegated leadership review style or the small group that passed their judgment on Alison Redford and Ed Stelmack. This is now more like an actual leadership. And this does fall into the category of what parties do. I mean, is this democratic? Is it not? This doesn't matter. Parties are allowed to do what parties do. do. They can change the rules at any time. That is the joy of being a party instead of being the government. Political parties are not designed to be forever. They're not designed to go forever and ever and ever. They are designed instead to be of the moment. And this particular Frankenstein of a party has

Carter 51:52

has only been around for a few years. So it's interesting that uh the ink will barely be dry on the last leadership well the last leadership that was conducted jason kenney still being investigated by the rcmp for voter fraud so you know this

Carter 52:08

this could be over before his the leadership even gets done being investigated i'm just i think that this is a good party process and they can do what they need to do but any party would give their left arm to have two 20 000 people pay 100 bucks each just to vote in a process that's two million bucks like they're

Carter 52:29

they're coming out ahead on this either way either way well

Corey 52:34

said that they're going to do a rebate back to anybody who purchased and it will just be cost recovery so uh it depends they can easily do things where money is moved to cover certain costs like staff or whatnot and essentially put the party ahead still but they've

Corey 52:49

they've made some commitments that'll make that a little bit harder to go it's a private club it's a public interest it can be both things i think that's what i would say we look for these clear lines saying it's one thing or the other but they just simply don't exist even with other private clubs we can think about god with the rotarians you can't make that clear line for crying out loud yeah

Corey 53:07

so there is uh there is a lot of great guys remember that

Carter 53:10

that that show we did for the gyros yeah

Corey 53:12

yeah i was just thinking about the gyros

Zain 53:16

killed it best comedy trip they've heard in a long time it

Carter 53:20

was unfortunate they had to call the ambulance on that one guy for but it was it was a good show nonetheless it worked out well uh

Zain 53:27

uh we're you know what we're we're gonna leave this there because there's so much more to talk about we're gonna dive into it deeper and when we get clarity when we have more but we'll leave that segment there Moving on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, I'm going to start with you. We do the show for you, and the first question I have for you, Stephen Carter, the website URL to purchase tickets for the Strategist Live show, what is it, Stephen Carter?

Carter 53:51

The Strategist Live. No, strategistlive.com.

Zain 53:56

That is right, Stephen Carter, strategistlive.com, not the strategistlive.com. Corey, I'm going to ask you the same question. You may have just heard the interaction between Carter and I, the answer that I gave. But I just want to have you take your shot at it.

Zain 54:08

I was paying no attention.

Corey 54:10

What are we talking about here?

Zain 54:11

Well, it's $34.75 for a ticket at strategist.com. It's a little bit on the pricey side, but it isn't because $9.75 of that, Stephen Carter, $9.75 of that, go into Arts Commons.

Corey 54:22

StrategistLive.com. StrategistLive.com. Thank you, Corey. I really

Zain 54:26

really appreciate it. Corey, overrated, underrated. Actually, no, let's do this. Give me the scale on—what do you think the scale is going to start on, Corey? Between 1 to 10, Corey, the risk for the Liberals with this potential agreement with the NDP, the risk for the Liberals between a scale of 1 to 10.

Zain 54:47

Overrated. Carter, the risk for the Liberals on a scale of 1 to 10, what is it on this potential agreement that we may see details as early as tomorrow or this week? I

Carter 54:57

think it's a D minus in terms of risk, Zane. D minus. Carter, overrated,

Zain 55:01

overrated, underrated, the rules change in the UCP leadership review.

Carter 55:05

It's obviously an A plus. I mean, you have to respond to the real realities on the ground, and they're responding.

Zain 55:13

Corey, what are you giving it?

Zain 55:17

I'm going to ask you because I want to see if you're paying attention. It's tough. I think

Corey 55:23

it's Schrodinger's leadership review at this point. It could be overrated rule changes or underrated. We need a little bit more reporting of what's happening behind the scenes. For me, the clear trigger is, did

Corey 55:35

did the Kenny campaign or did the pro-Kenny anti-leadership contest campaign act in a way that

Corey 55:41

that made it clear they knew a rule change was coming? If the answer is yes, then underrated, because they will have had

Corey 55:46

had a bit of a head start on that.

Corey 55:49

And if the answer is no, then overrated. They had to react to a certain situation as it unfolded.

Zain 55:55

Corey, I'm going to stick with you. The live show. I mean, it is happening April 10th. It's a Sunday, 8 p.m. Engineered Air Theater. I mean, it's going down. I mean, it is going down. The Strategist Present, The Strategist Live brought to you by The Strategist.

Zain 56:07

Tickets, strategistlive.com. Overrated or underrated in your mind?

Corey 56:12

Underrated. I think that we're probably going to have a lot of UCP leadership candidates there.

Zain 56:16

Carter, overrated or underrated?

Carter 56:20

It's going to be underrated. Already, I've received information from

Carter 56:26

every single political party in Alberta that they will be sending representatives to the live show to make sure that we pick

Carter 56:33

pick on them appropriately. What's

Carter 56:34

What's weird is the Green Party of Alberta is sending a representative.

Carter 56:39

I'm shocked. I didn't even know we had a Green Party of Alberta.

Zain 56:42

We do have VIP seats available for all political party members. It's at the back. You will be getting your seat at the back of the Engineered Air Theater, capacity of 168. It's a limited supply of tickets, Carter, for a limited amount of time to get those tickets and a limited URL, strategistlive.com, not the strategistlive.com. Carter, I'm

Zain 57:04

I'm going to ask you one final question. If

Zain 57:07

If you're whispering in Brian Jean's ear tonight, tomorrow morning, about his strategy going forward, what one sentence of advice would you leave Brian Jean with on this Monday evening?

Carter 57:17

I love your red hair.

Zain 57:20

Corey, what advice would you be giving Brian Jean as he fights for his political life? I asked that with a question mark. What advice would you be giving to him as he deals with the rule change, asks for an external auditor, asks for memberships to be opened up? What are you telling Brian Jean this

Corey 57:36

this Monday evening? It's not about you. The more this becomes Jason Kenney versus Brian Jean, the worse it is for Brian Jean. better to keep Jason Kenney against a perfect conceptual leader that doesn't exist than to have a very concrete individual human being with drawbacks and benefits.

Zain 57:54

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on Episode 975 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belgey. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

Transcript