Episode 999.99999999: All in the family

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 999.99999999. My name is Zain Velji, with me as always Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, the counting metric never

Zain 0:14

10 fingers, eight nines, not bad.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Yeah, I stopped counting. I have no idea if you actually counted the right number. I

Zain 0:21

I thought he was

Carter 0:21

was one short. I thought he was

Zain 0:22

was one short. It's almost like I could say it doesn't matter, which

Zain 0:25

which seems on brand, which seems on brand. You know what, Carter? Do you know what else doesn't matter? Capri Sun.

Zain 0:32

Now, they're doing a voluntary recall because they have cleaning solution in

Zain 0:36

in 5,000 cases of their Cherry Capri Sun.

Zain 0:39

Why is it voluntary? You know why? Because it doesn't matter. How are you guys doing?

Zain 0:43

Pretty good. I mean, I'm

Carter 0:46

a Capri Sun, which makes me very happy. You

Zain 0:49

You know what? We can go deep on this. We could go very deep on this. You know why, Corey? Capri Sun, do you know who their parent company is?

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Is it Flair Airlines? lines because it's

Zain 0:57

it's craft heinz the same assholes okay that have not gotten the bun and hot dog situation together okay they're trying to but they're failing interesting

SPEAKER_03 1:07

interesting so wait craft heinz is the same company and they're pretending that they were doing a peace summit between two of their divisions i think

SPEAKER_03 1:13

i missed that during the whole hot dog bun conversation they

Zain 1:16

they they pretended to do a bit of a peace summit it's like they owned two of the companies but ultimately didn't

Zain 1:24

didn't want want anyone to know craft

Zain 1:26

craft times i mean sneaky sneaky

Zain 1:28

sneaky and um recently sneaking in cleaning solution in their cherry flavored capri sun um carter

SPEAKER_03 1:33

carter welcome back welcome back probably an accident probably didn't sneak it in uh just for the for the legal protections here okay thank you so

SPEAKER_03 1:41

much we missed your libelous ways with potential pseudo sponsors i'm

Zain 1:45

i'm sorry carter was still here very much libelous very much constantly libelous very

Carter 1:50

very well behaved this week

Carter 1:53

the patreon special that you haven't listened to yeah

Zain 1:56

yeah no we have to mention we have uh

Zain 1:59

uh cory is it what 11 hours or 11 episodes also a strategist dozen uh and and nearly 14 hours of uh which is also a strategist doesn't both 11 and 14 uh both

Zain 2:12

both are called a strategist doesn't uh 11 episodes 14 hours of content available for patreon subscribers including uh

Zain 2:19

uh what was it another episode of of carter and hogan on that's just since

SPEAKER_03 2:23

since june that's just since june my friend

Zain 2:25

friend there's tons of stuff what

Zain 2:26

what happened last week give me a bit of a summary what topics did you include because we've uh maybe we'll help me planning for what happens oh

Zain 2:32

oh i don't know like in the next 30 seconds i remember

SPEAKER_03 2:34

remember the soundboard didn't work very well at the end yeah

Carter 2:37

yeah okay soundboard has created problems for us um i think you guys talked about that essay contest

Carter 2:42

essays yeah oh yeah we did some conversation about an essay uh

Carter 2:46

uh we may have talked about something two other things and i can't remember what they were i think we

SPEAKER_03 2:50

about daniel smith we talked about pierre poliev whether we thought they actually were unassailable

SPEAKER_03 2:58

what did we decide well

SPEAKER_03 2:59

well you're gonna have to listen i think people have you're gonna have to pay six dollars you're gonna have to i

Zain 3:04

should subscribe i should i should i should uh i should listen to that um yeah uh

Zain 3:08

that's good um well that all sure throws out my entire show uh which uh means i have to talk about this let's move on on to our first segment. Our first segment, leading from behind, Corey, they

Zain 3:19

they have done it.

Zain 3:20

The Alberta Liberals have done it. They have selected absolutely

Zain 3:25

the best leader possible. In fact, I think their newest leader will be their best leader because Corey Hogan, it's

Zain 3:33

one is leading the Alberta Liberals. As a former executive director of the Alberta Liberals, do

Zain 3:39

do you want to issue a moment of silence or do you want to go straight into the analysis of what a no-leader Alberta party will do? Will it overperform and outperform a leadered Alberta party?

Zain 3:50

Or should we take that moment of silence that I recommended off the top?

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Yeah, listen, I think the thing about the Alberta Liberal Party people need to appreciate is it's We

Zain 3:57

We did not go with the moment of silence. I just want everyone to recognize that Corey did not choose that. Go ahead, Corey.

Corey 4:01

It's been dead for years is the reason why. And just every couple of years, Albertans

Corey 4:06

Albertans stumble across the body once more in

Corey 4:08

in a state of deeper decomposition. That's all I I can say about the Alberta Liberals at this point. They haven't been a sincere, legitimate political force since, well,

Corey 4:18

well, for sure since they were wiped out in 2019, but I would argue even 2015 when they were down to one MLA, which was David Swan. At the 2015 election, David

Corey 4:30

David Swan at his concession speech was jubilant talking about how they did it finally. I mean, he was He was the only person who was reelected from

Corey 4:39

from the Alberta Liberals, but his enthusiasm for an end of the PCs could not be missed.

Corey 4:43

missed. And I think this is fundamentally the problem with the Liberals, is they were sort of defined by opposition, right? And wherever the PCs were, they were going to be somewhere else. You saw that through the 90s, you saw that in the 2000s.

Corey 4:57

And I have described them many times, including on this show, as a loose confederation of people who hate each other marginally less than they hate the conservatives. And

Corey 5:05

so once the Conservatives lost in 2015, they lost what little reason to exist they had. And that support went to the, you know, by and large to the not the government.

Corey 5:16

I'm sure there were a couple of people who went to the one of the two Conservative options. And then there's, you know, maybe 1% of the population who's holding

Corey 5:24

holding a candle for an Alberta Liberal Party to return. But that seems pretty unlikely, especially now, given that they were unable to

Corey 5:32

find a leader to run in this contest. So they still have the same interim leader, John Roggeveen, who's a Calgary lawyer. A really nice fellow, by the way. I've known him for many years.

Corey 5:42

I have so many questions. Why would you run a leadership contest without knowing even a single person would enter it, being top of the list? So maybe I'll just shut up and

Corey 5:51

see how Carter reacts to this. Are we going to do like a whole, are we actually doing a segment on this? No,

Zain 5:55

No, I've actually got one serious question, but now because you've asked, I'm going to ask a stupid question to Carter. Carter, how does it feel to you personally that

Zain 6:05

that the Alberta Liberals are perhaps the only party in the province of Alberta that hasn't cut you a check for your services? How does that make you feel as someone who's worked with almost every party thus far? I

Carter 6:17

I have not worked with the Alberta Liberal Party, and I have not worked with the Alberta NDP.

Carter 6:22

there's a vast swath of parties. Oh, and I also haven't worked with the UCP. So

Carter 6:28

So really, when you look at active parties, I've worked with very few. And I'm really quite upset with your allegation of being

Carter 6:37

being something of a political whore. I'm very upset.

Carter 6:41

But I can understand why you'd be lashing out. i mean cory and i did manage to cobble together the six thousand dollars we did get the signatures and we did submit your paperwork on time and you were rejected it was upsetting for everybody um it turns out you can't run for the leadership of three parties simultaneously uh so you mean you

Zain 7:00

you mean a poster uh with a paper clip of six thousand dollars attached to it just doesn't work you they really liked the

Corey 7:07

the poster they really liked

Zain 7:09

they felt like it was our

Zain 7:11

How are poster sales going? Just want to let you, strategist.ca, you can buy a poster, Zane for leader. How are they going, Corey?

Corey 7:17

You know what? They're infinitely better off than they were last time you asked. Wonderful.

Zain 7:22

That's good to know. You

Corey 7:23

too much more than that.

Zain 7:24

Okay, thank you. Carter, actually, serious question here. Ramifications for the NDP.

Zain 7:31

Is there any? Because here's what inevitably happens in this province, Corey. Regardless of who the leader of the Alberta Liberals is, there's

Zain 7:37

there's a group of people, what is it like three percent four percent no it's

Zain 7:40

it's not even no okay was it how much is it so

Corey 7:43

so to answer your question no it has no effect on i wasn't even

Zain 7:46

asking you the question i wasn't asking

Corey 7:48

carter the question let

Carter 7:49

me answer let me answer cory because mine is going to be completely different than yours no it has no impact on the ndp it

Zain 7:57

doesn't have an impact about here's here's the actual question it's

Carter 8:01

it's it's been dead for it's been dead since 2015 Did you hear my...

Zain 8:06

Here's the actual question. Will the Alberta Liberals be a party now, next

Zain 8:08

next election? They didn't get a leader. What are the ramifications here on that front, Carter? That's what I'm trying to ask. They should shut it down.

Zain 8:16

Explain to me the choice there. What happens? How does that choice get made?

Carter 8:20

There's 14 people currently. I'm making up the number 14, but it's not a big number.

Carter 8:25

It's not actually much smaller than the number of people that are in charge of a viable party. There's a very small number number of people who are involved with any party managing

Carter 8:34

managing the board level and managing the governance and making sure that all the forms are submitted on time and all of those types of things.

Carter 8:41

And that very small group of people needs

Carter 8:42

needs to get together and decide whether or not this is the volunteer project that they want to spend their time doing.

Carter 8:50

They don't want to do this. They shouldn't want to do this. There's no market desire, if you will, for the product. And

Carter 8:57

And they they should shut it down and say, we gave it a good run.

Carter 9:02

The Alberta Liberals governed the province at its inception, and now that's

Carter 9:08

that's over. And move

Carter 9:09

move on, find something else, form another party or come

Carter 9:12

come up with a different hobby. I've chosen mountain biking, but

Carter 9:17

but they can find a different hobby.

Zain 9:21

your hand, Carter. Move on, find something else. I will move on. Corey, to

Zain 9:24

to be clear, the fact that no one ran to be,

Zain 9:27

full-time leader of the alberta liberal party um

Zain 9:30

um doesn't automatically mean that they will not be appearing on said ballots in the next election right just so we're clear just so people can understand that what what are the actual what did and did not happen as a result of this yeah

Corey 9:43

yeah they're still a political party they still have an interim leader they they had a failed leadership search which is a bit unheard of because again why start a leadership contest when

Corey 9:52

when you don't necessarily have any candidates there they could have just maintained an interim period a bit longer but

Corey 9:58

they ran 51 candidates out of 87 they got less than one percent of the vote the person who ran in what was a liberal incumbent seat their leader david khan i think came in fourth that

Carter 10:10

that was the most embarrassing name

Corey 10:12

name in fourth and what was a liberal incumbent seat they are they are not a political force in this province anymore which does not mean they are not forever right there

Corey 10:20

there have been times for example when um the

Corey 10:23

the uh the pcs were a totally spent force And there was this young Calgary lawyer who thought maybe he could turn that into something. And you know him as Peter Law. He had a very legendary leader in Alberta.

Corey 10:35

Similarly, the Liberal Party went without leader for, this is not the first time this has happened to them.

Corey 10:40

Let's put it that way.

Corey 10:41

But Mayor of Edmonton, Lawrence de Koor, decided it might be an interesting vehicle. And he took it over from Nick

Corey 10:48

Nick Taylor, who was keeping the lights on for the Liberals in the late 70s here in the province, and turned it into the official opposition, almost turned it into the government. it's

Corey 10:56

it's not impossible that somebody at some point in the future will see this vehicle and say well this is a strong national brand maybe we can do something with it but in order for any of that to happen the liberals have to answer some pretty basic questions the top of the list being why do you exist and

Corey 11:11

and um unless there's this strong force that is going to pull it together um

Corey 11:15

um it's it's not going to go anywhere it's not going to go anywhere just like all of the other political parties in Alberta that you never hear about that exist. There's a huge swath of them, right? And

Corey 11:25

And it's not uncommon on the prairies. There's not a Liberal Party really in any real sense in Saskatchewan anymore. There's barely one in Manitoba. The one in British Columbia is thinking of dropping the name. It's not really Liberal.

Corey 11:38

It's not unusual in Western Canada to find that there's no Liberal Party. It's not a requirement that a Liberal Party exists. And certainly, I don't think its existence or not in

Corey 11:49

in the most legal technical sense is particularly relevant at this point so i mean this is probably the most conversation not

Corey 11:58

not just us but i mean them not getting a leader that the liberals have gotten in

Corey 12:03

in years in years because it just seems like such a falling on your face moment but

Corey 12:09

it's no different than uh when ross sherman ran for a political party he was was not allowed to run for it's true it's sideshow politics it's interesting it's it's

Corey 12:19

it's pretty cringy you like look through fingers like oh god is this actually happening but

Corey 12:24

but it's not going to change the course of alberta history i

Zain 12:27

i i personally thought that young lawyer uh pc lawyer talking about was uh doug schweitzer i thought that story was going differently um

Zain 12:34

uh thank you thank you guys for humoring me on that that that segment of course brought to you by flair airlines flair airlines the alberta liberals of the sky let's move it on to our next segment okay

Corey 12:44

wasn't okay keep moving do

Corey 12:47

do you want to say something no

Corey 12:49

we're not gonna get sued for that not sponsored by not sponsored by them but okay our

Zain 12:52

our next segment let's move it on to our next segment

Zain 12:57

guys oh here we go the family office needs some help we

Zain 13:00

we need we need some assistance because alberta premier yes still alberta premier uh

Zain 13:05

uh even though some may like like to call him acting leader we'll

Zain 13:08

we'll get to that in a second

Carter 13:09

second oh yeah uh

Zain 13:10

uh jason kenney has so far declined to pick a favorite in the race to succeed him but he said on

Zain 13:15

on his radio show which he still has by the way um

Zain 13:18

um that the platform plank um for alberta sovereignty so to speak uh is alberta sovereignty act

Zain 13:26

yeah yeah the platform plank known as the alberta sovereignty act as corey said is nuts. He was appearing on the radio show, as I mentioned, targeting Danielle Smith. He also said that even if the legislature passed the law, the Lieutenant Governor would refuse to give royal assent and Alberta would become a laughingstock.

Zain 13:48

We'll get into the whole back and forth between him and Smith. But guys, I feel like there are more important things to discuss, which is the mention of Lieutenant Governor, which always perks my ears. It has for years, namely two

Zain 14:00

two years uh and it's

Zain 14:03

it's because of uh the the situation that my office by extension would face so stephen carter could we actually be in some sort of constitutional crisis is kenny just adding gasoline to it uh chirping from the sidelines because he's going to be leaving or is or are the prospects of

Zain 14:23

of the alberta sovereignty act as corey's called it by its official formal name, enough

Zain 14:29

enough on the surface, that's all we really know right now, on the surface to

Zain 14:34

to actually create a version of a constitutional crisis in this province. What do you think?

Carter 14:38

Yeah, absolutely it is. I mean, and we also talked about another potential constitutional crisis on our last episode. So we'll get to that eventually here.

Carter 14:46

But yeah, I mean,

Carter 14:48

you can't pass legislation that is unconstitutional. Well, you can pass legislation legislation that's unconstitutional. But

Carter 14:54

But in the historic sense, the LG of Alberta has taken action in the past that has prevented non

Carter 15:02

non-constitutional legislation from being signed into law. And

Carter 15:06

And that is to refer the law to

Carter 15:08

to the Supreme Court of Canada, where they can weigh in prior

Carter 15:11

prior to the LG giving royal assent.

Carter 15:13

You'll note, of course, everybody who took their social studies classes, that you don't get a

Carter 15:18

a law just simply by passing it through the legislature. You have to to give

Carter 15:22

give it royal assent, and the Queen's representative in Alberta is your mother-in-law.

Carter 15:27

So off we go. She has to then make that determination. Most of the time, we don't have to make that determination. Most of the time, the government of the day is keenly aware of when they may be skirting close to the line. For example, you're going to love this. When we passed the 0.05 law, when I met with Mad Canada, we passed the 0.05 law knowing knowing that there may be a court in the future that was unable to uh declare it um a

Carter 15:59

you know constitutional and i think that we have had some setbacks subsequently i also

Carter 16:03

also want to let people know

Zain 16:04

know that 0.05 is also the percentage of our audience who hasn't heard this story but keep going carter this is a different

Carter 16:10

element of the story yes

Zain 16:12

yes but it's a

Carter 16:13

a different element of the story but it's not unheard of for a legislator for a legislature to get close to where the line And the difference between that and what the Alberta Sovereignty Act and the three pieces of legislation that

Carter 16:24

that the lieutenant governor dealt with in 1937 is

Carter 16:28

is in 1937, they

Carter 16:31

this is clearly unconstitutional. I can't give it royal consent. I can't. So

Carter 16:36

So that's different than I don't want to or I won't. I

Carter 16:39

I can't give it royal consent without the Supreme Court weighing in. And that's what I think we'd be faced with with the Sovereignty Act. So there you go. So that's

Zain 16:50

thoughts on that same top line question. Is this enough meat

Zain 16:53

meat on the bone, at least from what we know, to create a possibility

Zain 16:57

possibility of a constitutional crisis in some ways?

Corey 17:01

Yeah, well, constitutional crisis is one of those phrases that's

SPEAKER_03 17:05

that's thrown around a lot. But really,

SPEAKER_03 17:07

all it means is that the Constitution doesn't clearly define what's going to happen next, either in its reading or in the

SPEAKER_03 17:14

the application of it. So could

SPEAKER_03 17:16

could this be a constitutional crisis? Yeah, of course it could, because it's a, you know, it's not actually that ambiguous at all, but

SPEAKER_03 17:22

but the government of Alberta is claiming they're

Corey 17:23

they're just not going to enforce federal laws in the province of Alberta, which is deeply

Corey 17:29

deeply unconstitutional. But the challenge becomes how does the federal government stop that?

Corey 17:33

Because at the end of the day, laws need to be enforced by individuals. And so obviously it's something that a lot of constitutional experts have weighed in on pretty universally have said,

SPEAKER_03 17:43

said, as it's being understood, as Danielle Smith has talked about it in

SPEAKER_03 17:48

concept as people around her have talked about it. It's unconstitutional and

SPEAKER_03 17:52

it would precipitate this constitutional crisis you're talking about. What I think in some ways Jason Kenney was trying to do was almost will into existence the idea that this thing would not even be passed. And clearly it was part of an overall bundle on Saturday on his radio show of putting some serious doubt as to the wisdom of this approach, right? The laughingstock comments, The fact that it could create this constitutional crisis and maybe even the lieutenant governor refusing to sign and God

SPEAKER_03 18:20

God help. I mean, thank God, let's put it that way, that your mother-in-law has actual lawyers supporting her and not just the three of us.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

situation will largely be based on precedent. People will point to the 1937 situation where a number of social credit bills were not given the

SPEAKER_03 18:39

the royal assent we were talking about here.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

But, you know, that's

SPEAKER_03 18:44

that's it's all uncharted territory. It's all pretty wild stuff.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

And as a bit of a side note here in Alberta, some Albertans will be aware that we have a government house that our lieutenant governor does not live in. It is just there. It's a formal kind of like meeting space.

Corey 19:02

And that's because in retribution for all of this action where the lieutenant governor withheld royal assent, they

Corey 19:08

they unfunded the lieutenant governor's office and kicked them out. They refused to pay the heating bill for this house. And, you know, it just classic Alberta pettiness there. there but um these things these

Corey 19:21

these things just they go forward it you know it's hard to say that this is exactly like the case before it's hard to say people would act in the same way i

Corey 19:30

i mean i can't help but think for example that at the time that was sent to the supreme court of canada that wasn't even the final court of appeal go

Corey 19:35

go to the premier

Corey 19:37

uh of the you know the house of lords in the United Kingdom in 1938. So we're

Corey 19:43

we're in uncharted territory. It has been almost 100 years since that happened.

Corey 19:50

But I think that the premier was trying to plant

Corey 19:54

some serious doubts that this thing could even be passed if it were passed.

Zain 19:59

Many things to pick up on there, Carter, and I'll get to you in a second as it responds to a few things Corey said. So you're referring to 1937 when the the lieutenant governor when the province refused to pay for the power electricity kicked the lg out

Zain 20:13

yeah that was actually

Corey 20:13

actually that was in 1938 the 38

Corey 20:16

triggering action was in 37 37

Zain 20:19

um you know that's what happened to the lg you know what they don't talk about carter is what happened to the lg son-in-law back then unspeakable okay yeah unspeakable acts uh

Zain 20:27

uh and cory also mentioned the house of lords i have to say uh i just got to go see the house of lords it was very cool it was very very cool uh it's um it's smaller than you think carter no it's not it's

Corey 20:38

it's exactly the size i think it is no

Zain 20:39

no it's smaller than you think carter cory cory um does the online tour so he knows the size but carter you and i didn't know it's much smaller than we know i

Zain 20:51

let's talk about the players here i

Zain 20:52

i because this is a strategy podcast when it isn't a capri sun podcast um let's talk about the the players of the situation cory

Zain 21:01

cory brought up jason kenny let's to start with him strategic

Zain 21:05

tell me what it was for him was it was it to poison the well was it legacy was it i wanted i want to be ahead on this was it to actually derail daniel smith all of the above none of the above like give me a strategy motivation here what do you think it is and what

Zain 21:22

what would have made it better if if it is what you you're you're highlighting you

Carter 21:26

know we rail on uh jason kenney all the time uh we're not fans of jason kenney jason Jason Kenney is not on my Christmas card list, I am not on his. However, he has a deep respect for parliamentary tradition. He

Carter 21:38

He has a deep respect for government in general.

Carter 21:42

He understands, and he has made his life pursuit,

Carter 21:46

the pursuit of better government. Now, we will disagree on

Carter 21:49

what better government looks like.

Carter 21:51

We will disagree on how better government is implemented by Jason Kenney. But

Carter 21:55

But we cannot disagree and we cannot fault him for his honest

Carter 21:58

honest view that government is a good, you

Carter 22:05

a good structure. And that is the, that's

Carter 22:10

that's what we have to go with. So I think that you

Carter 22:13

know we have uh

Carter 22:16

we have jason kenney feeling like uh

Carter 22:19

uh he wants to reflect the truth um

Carter 22:22

um against a leader in danielle smith that is that

Carter 22:27

that gives zero shits about the truth you

Carter 22:28

you know she doesn't care about process she doesn't care about precedent

Carter 22:32

she's just out there to win an election and she's spewing shit all over jason kenney's shoes so he's just not going to let that happen. And that's where we are.

Carter 22:41

That's where we are. So it's a little bit frustrating for

Carter 22:46

Jason, I think. And that's where we are now.

Zain 22:49

When we did our live show in Edmonton, I recall specifically, both of you said, Jason Kenney won't be

Zain 22:55

be able to stay out of it.

Zain 22:56

There's just a part of him that he just won't.

Zain 23:00

Does this count as that?

Corey 23:02

Of course. Absolutely. It

Zain 23:03

It does. It does. Like even even considering the situation where I shouldn't say a normal person because I don't want to be disparaging, but a person

Zain 23:12

person with perhaps more conventional takes on politics would be like, you got to call this out. Like, this is kind of nuts. Like, you

Zain 23:18

you still think that this was him.

Zain 23:20

He just couldn't help himself and had to say this.

Corey 23:23

Well, of course. And you can

Corey 23:25

look at it strategically. You can look at it as no fucks to give at this point. I'm sure he's not at all a fan of this particular approach. As much as he has skirted towards the line on things like his referendum,

Corey 23:40

you know, I worked for Jason Kenney. I've heard him talk about it. His view there was a theory of constitutionalism that most people would reject. But it wasn't it wasn't

Corey 23:50

wasn't just saying we're going to ignore the Constitution. It was this idea

Corey 23:54

well, because of what the Supreme Court said in the 90s about the Quebec referendum and

Corey 23:58

and this duty to negotiate that may exist under the Constitution, we will have a referendum. And that will force the duty to negotiate in

Corey 24:05

in the rest of the country on other matters, not just the breaking up of the country, not

Corey 24:09

secession, but also the idea of equalization, the idea of, you

Corey 24:14

you know, whatever you want it to be.

Corey 24:17

He believed you could trigger that conversation using a referendum with a clear majority as long as you hit that Supreme Court standard. So that's Jason Kenney's version of this. And it's frustrating to a lot of people. I can feel Stephen Carter's frustration about it.

Corey 24:31

But, you know, what Danielle Smith is talking about doing really is the next level out.

Corey 24:37

Right. This is saying, well, we're just not going to do the things that the federal government does. And

Corey 24:42

And there is no kind of constitutional authority for that. You can't point to anything and say that there's a constitutional right to that. that so i just believe that it's a view of the constitution that as much as some people think jason kenney plays fast and loose with it this is really next level stuff this is not even trying to create like an intellectual reason

Corey 25:02

reason that this is just a different interpretation of the constitution that's backed up by case law or or whatever right that's you know jason kenney's is uh i'm in a minority opinion about the constitution daniel smith's is i i don't want to follow the constitution Yeah,

Carter 25:16

Yeah, I don't care about the Constitution. And

Corey 25:18

And that's that's very, very different. The other thing I will say, though, is I'm

Corey 25:22

I'm hearing all sorts of conversations and, you know, acrimony around Jason Kenney's 51.4%. And I think people with hindsight have said, Danielle

Corey 25:33

Danielle Smith may have been the source of a number of those votes against. I have no idea if that's true or not. We've talked about that. That's starting to become kind of a feeling. Yeah.

Corey 25:40

And if that is a feeling that exists and it's held by the premier in any way, shape or form, I'm sure he's not feeling a lot of personal love towards her and wouldn't mind throwing a couple of bombs that way. And then the third is he just can't help himself.

Corey 25:51

Right. Yeah. Someone asked the question. He's gonna he's gonna say it. It's the kind of the standard Jason Kenney disease where he will give the answer. And in the moment, it will be kind of tactically like sticking the knife. But again, it goes to this idea of was

Corey 26:05

was a good strategy. Does it actually make it less likely for Danielle Smith to be elected? I think

Zain 26:09

think the jury's out on that. This is the question I want to pose to you, Carter, because now we've got a fixed universe.

Zain 26:15

As of last week, while I was away, if I'm not mistaken, guys, membership sales have halted, right? We're done with membership sales. Yeah, that was the 12th. Yeah, okay. So, Carter, fixed universe.

Zain 26:24

Day after Kenny comes out on the program, calls this, you know, horse

Zain 26:28

horse shit. I don't know if he called it horse shit, but he called it nuts.

Zain 26:35

Does he help Daniel Smith here? Is this a win for Daniel Smith? Because her response is ultimately, this is interference. You're ill-informed. You're the acting leader, right? A little bit of a rib to him. And says, finally, this is disrespectful to a large and growing majority of UCP members.

Zain 26:52

Is Jason Kenney coming out on this just further emboldened? Let's put emboldened aside. This is strategically help, Danielle Smith, now that we've got a fixed universe of voters, Carter. It's not like moderates can go buy memberships on the heels of kind of hearing this from Jason Kenney and kind of coming to their senses.

Carter 27:09

don't think it helps her. I think that Dwayne Bratt's article today, a number of different pieces that have

Carter 27:14

have come out that are universally

Carter 27:17

universally deriding her and taking the premier side. And again, kind

Carter 27:20

kind of like myself,

Carter 27:22

myself, a little more than Corey, Corey

Carter 27:24

and I both had a nuanced

Carter 27:26

nuanced position about Jason Kenney's thoughts before.

Carter 27:29

We were more nuanced. We didn't come out in support of him. We

Carter 27:38

daniel smith has occupied the space again there

Carter 27:40

there is no oxygen left for sonny to get you know start cultivating

Carter 27:44

cultivating or switching votes there's no lila

Carter 27:46

lila here momentum that's coming through there's no rebecca

Carter 27:49

rebecca schultz talking about this brand new policy idea that

Carter 27:52

that really matters to her that's really going to make a big difference to to the conservative party instead

Carter 27:57

instead the the oxygen as it has been for the last five or six weeks is completely taken up by daniel smith and sometimes Sometimes, you know, if you've got first place, you're best just to let yourself on fire sometimes and suck up all that oxygen. She still is in the

Carter 28:15

Jason Kenney going after her, I don't think it gives her a bump.

Carter 28:18

But, you know, if

Carter 28:20

if they're still talking about you and they're still spelling your name right,

Carter 28:23

it's not necessarily a bad day.

Zain 28:25

Corey, I'll ask you the same question.

Zain 28:27

this a win for danielle smith that

Zain 28:29

that jason kenney spending this disproportionate energy kind of like the rest of the last five weeks as carter has mentioned the media all of us been like this is hers to lose sort of narrative is

Zain 28:40

is this a win for her it's

Corey 28:42

it's not clear to me um and so as much as i said i'm not sure if this is part of a greater strategy it seemed more it was like a tactic and a reaction in the moment than it was necessarily part of a strategy there's a couple of of things you've got to keep in mind one

Corey 28:55

one is that uh the existing membership base before this leadership was called did

Corey 29:00

did support jason kenney so if you think about that like that block's not going to be hegemony it's not going to all go to jason kenney's uh you know selection or deselection right it's not it's not all going to follow one way or the other but

Corey 29:13

but 51.4 percent of a rather large portion

Corey 29:16

portion of people the membership of the ucp was not small at that time i

Corey 29:20

i supported So him being

Corey 29:22

being quite critical of Danielle Smith could

Corey 29:25

could very well be damaging for Danielle Smith. The

Corey 29:28

The other thing is, Stephen's exactly right. There's not a lot of voices out in support of Danielle Smith today.

Corey 29:33

And even the people who say the Premier shouldn't have done it are saying, but Danielle Smith's idea is even worse. And I think about Dwayne Bratz's column in CBC today as a perfect example of that. Yeah.

Corey 29:45

flip side is, of course, that if this is actually a majority view of the UCP, if you are making the election about the Alberta Sovereignty Act and

Corey 29:56

Daniel Smith's the only one supporting it, Daniel Smith will win.

Corey 30:00

Not clear to me. Not clear to me it is a majority view. And even if it was the majority view right now, not clear to me how durable that is. So we talk a lot about, well,

Corey 30:08

well, I say all the time, beware of novel concepts. You

Corey 30:12

You can put put something out and if somebody's thought about it for one second and say, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, it will take maybe two seconds of effort to get them to change their mind.

Corey 30:21

It's not as though people have been thinking about the Alberta Sovereignty Act for the last 20 years. It's not one of these big cultural touchstones. You may have ideas about Alberta's place in confederation, but the actual nuts and bolts that Danielle Smith is putting on the table here, trying

Corey 30:33

trying to build something out of, that's

Corey 30:36

that's not something that's going to be a strongly held belief of many.

Corey 30:41

will it survive contact

Corey 30:42

contact with criticism? The unconstitutionality of it, the risks, the laughingstock, the idea it might turn us to Quebec in the 70s, which

Corey 30:50

which by the way, I'll take the opportunity to remind people, Quebec

Corey 30:52

Quebec in the 70s had lower corporate taxes than Ontario and the banks went to Ontario from Quebec, right?

Corey 30:58

Because the instability in Quebec

Corey 31:01

Quebec was so damaging to economic interest.

Corey 31:03

So when these things are all thrown on the table in that way,

Corey 31:08

Who knows? Maybe even if it is a majority opinion, maybe Jason Kenney, maybe other candidates who are whispering in Jason Kenney's ear have rightly assessed this thing will not survive contact with reality.

Zain 31:20

talk to me about Smith's response here, right? I said I wanted to go through the players. We talked about Kenney and his strategy.

Zain 31:26

Assess Smith's strategy here. The

Zain 31:28

The prongs I gave you, right?

Zain 31:29

right? Calling him acting leader, going, you know, ribbing him a bit, saying

Zain 31:34

saying he doesn't understand it, ill-informed and disrespectful, calling

Zain 31:37

calling it interference and saying that this is disrespectful as an extension to that point to the large and growing majority of UCP members.

Zain 31:46

What do you make of her messaging?

Carter 31:49

Well, I mean, it's fascinating because she's obviously trying to go after Jason Kenney as, you

Carter 31:54

you know, the same, I think using the same techniques that Jyoti Gondek used to go after Jason Kenney.

Carter 32:00

You know, if you go after Jason Kenney, he's the the big boogeyman and you're able to gather more voters.

Carter 32:04

I think that the problem is that

Carter 32:09

is currently the front runner, right? And the traditional psychology of a front runner is that if

Carter 32:15

if you don't vote for them on the first ballot, you're not very likely to vote for them on the second or your second or third choice. Most people actually get to the top when they're the front runner, not because of votes moving to them, but by votes falling off the ballot. it. And that's a longer explanation that I need to do at a different time. But basically, people stop voting and then the number of people, the

Carter 32:35

the number of votes being counted shrinks,

Carter 32:37

shrinks, which means the number of votes that you require to win also shrinks.

Carter 32:43

Danielle Smith may be putting herself in a position this week by

Carter 32:46

by going so hard against Jason Kenney where she's not able to pick up anybody else's votes. By making this about the Sovereignty Act, you are with Danielle Smith if if you're with the Sovereignty Act, and maybe that's 40% of the votes or

Carter 32:57

or 40% of the people in the UCP, but

Carter 32:59

but the other 60% are defining themselves as against the Sovereignty Act,

Carter 33:03

this may be something that actually hurts her in the long run.

Carter 33:06

And we'll only find out in a couple of months when the switches start.

Carter 33:10

But it may also give people like Brian Jean or, well, I'll just say Brian because it looks like um uh

Carter 33:18

uh the other guys all over supporting uh

Carter 33:23

but if brian jean supporters

Carter 33:25

supporters don't go to danielle smith because they think that the sovereignty act is a step too far then she's really shot herself in the foot cory

Zain 33:33

cory from from the perspective of the final player here i'm gonna just call the lieutenant governor just so not to make it weird oh good yeah

Zain 33:42

whoever whoever would be in that office yeah whoever

Carter 33:44

whoever it is and

Zain 33:46

and whatever sort of podcast and one of the relatives would have um cory the lg here how

Zain 33:53

one who's in that position prevent

Zain 33:56

prevent themselves from wearing this because this could be really interesting from that perspective right where where you know they may have to sign a particular grant royal royal assent to something that is deeply unpopular.

Zain 34:09

Talk to me about the strategy here for the lieutenant governor, right? As they think about maybe

Zain 34:15

maybe not their own personal perspective and how they present to community, but how they kind of balance the political with the constitutional in that sense. Your thoughts from that perspective and the strategy involved, because there's certainly strategy involved as much as there's lawyers involved around

Corey 34:33

don't know. So whether

Corey 34:36

whether you're the queen, the governor general, the lieutenant governor, you are the

Corey 34:41

the personification of the state and you have

Corey 34:44

to act in a certain machine-like fashion, really rooted in precedent. So as these situations come up, and quite often they're one-offs, we don't have situations where the LG or GG queen

Corey 34:56

queen even on a daily basis is having to deal with, do I dissolve this government or not? It's part of why they make such great drama when when Harper tries to dissolve Parliament before he can see if he's got the support of Parliament, all of those things, proroguing, I

Corey 35:13

will see this thing, I think, unfold based

Corey 35:16

based on the details. So let's

Corey 35:19

let's put it this way. If we've got a situation where the

Corey 35:22

the Act itself is clearly egregious of federal law, if there's some sort of poking in it, the LG is going to have a much harder time actually signing

Corey 35:30

signing it And may actually be feeling a little bit more beholden to that, you

Corey 35:35

you know, that context in 1937, where it is clearly or there's reason to believe that it could be deeply unconstitutional and require some

Corey 35:45

some sort of weighing in by the courts there. I also think if this thing passes by the skin of its teeth and there's a big mutiny

Corey 35:53

of UCP MLAs, that

Corey 35:55

that in some ways, to

Corey 35:56

to your point about strategy rather than precedent, will feel very different than if the UCP hangs together.

Corey 36:04

then you're going to have a situation where it's a clear majority of the legislature has interpreted things one way, as opposed to a very slim majority. And

Corey 36:12

And you've got to consider that in the context of an election that would be coming anyhow. anyhow, and maybe it's good just to have a bit of a cooling off period.

Corey 36:19

But again, to even look at those things and have those conversations, you'd want to be able to point to some sort of precedent that that's been done in the past. And I simply don't know what the precedents have been across the Commonwealth.

Corey 36:30

If I were the LG, though, I would right now be encouraging my staff to do a bit of a canvassing of that and try to

Corey 36:36

understand what exactly has been the precedent, reaching out to whatever counterparts I need at the Governor General's office, and even going as far as to the the United Kingdom and seeing if there is some sort of parliamentarians who have deeper understanding of what

Corey 36:49

what may have occurred in, for example, India or South

Corey 36:53

South Africa or anywhere else that has been in

Corey 36:57

in a similar kind of governance structure in the past, because

Corey 37:00

because you don't want to be trying to figure this out at the 11th hour just when this thing drops on your lap. So it's tough. I mean, at the end of the day, what the LG wants to do is

Corey 37:10

is say, I'm just the machine operating. Here's the various precedents that are out there. Here's why I'm acting in this particular fashion.

Corey 37:19

over to the courts or over to the people or over to whomever, or it just gets to be the law because

Corey 37:23

because this is how the machine has determined I'm supposed to operate.

Corey 37:27

What the LG needs to avoid is that Danielle Smith says on very flimsy grounds, Trudeau's

Corey 37:33

Trudeau's appointee to Lieutenant Governor has

Corey 37:36

once again thwarted the will of Albertans, right? And I think when you're talking about the Alberta Sovereignty Act, that's a unique risk. risk

Corey 37:43

that's a unique risk because of the way all of these things are appointed and in some ways it becomes it

Corey 37:49

becomes self-affirming as to this is why we need the alberta sovereignty i was

Zain 37:53

was gonna just bring that up i'm glad you did cory because carter this was exactly the point i wanted to bring up around does danielle smith make the lg role political and and the broader question to you carter getting

Zain 38:04

getting you to react to cory is what's the strategy play for an lg in this situation the The Queen's representative, Corey broadened it, right? It could have been the

Zain 38:12

the Queen's rep in a different province, could have been the GG, could have been a different jurisdiction, different country.

Zain 38:19

What is the strategy play here from all the pieces we know that are on the board right now?

Carter 38:23

The strategy play for the LG is the strategy play that my parents told me when I was a young person. You know, don't worry about doing what other people think is great. Do what you think is right.

Carter 38:32

And the LG needs to look at things and say, what is the actual right thing to do here?

Carter 38:37

The right thing to do is, you

Carter 38:39

you know, the first thing to do is to look for precedent,

Carter 38:42

right? So the precedent of 1937 tells us something. There's other precedents of

Carter 38:46

of LGs and GGs acting in

Carter 38:48

in specific manners, right?

Carter 38:51

Some precedents we look back on, I think it was the

Carter 38:53

the 1970s in Australia, when a GG basically

Carter 38:57

overturned a government that we

Carter 38:59

we look back on and say, hey, that wasn't such a great idea. And

Carter 39:01

And now, you know, but other things we look back on and say, well, you know, the 1937 precedent may stand as the right thing to do. And

Carter 39:12

you know, as Corey has suggested, there's a series of smarter people than us who

Carter 39:16

understand this and be advising the LG.

Carter 39:19

The LG just simply needs to sit back and say, what's, you know, if there's counter proposals, if there's two different ideas, if Danielle Smith's trying to politicize the outcome, don't

Carter 39:28

don't fall for any of those traps. jobs. Certainly the LG cannot be Trudeau's appointed LG,

Carter 39:33

LG, right? The LG is appointed by the only one person. That's the queen, right?

Carter 39:37

right? When the queen, you know, a recommendation is made, but the appointment is made by the queen. Stand for that recommendation.

Carter 39:44

Remind people that this is not a position that is sought.

Carter 39:48

This is a position that is simply granted.

Carter 39:50

You know, this is a service position. It is granted to people. And you look at the series of LGs that that we've had, and I count your mother-in-law as part of this, we

Carter 39:58

we have had some spectacular LGs in the last 15, 20 years. Whether it was Normie Kuang, our first Chinese LG,

Carter 40:08

LG, or Lois Mitchell,

Carter 40:11

we have had some great, great people. And

Carter 40:14

And they've done great things in our community, and they should not allow themselves to be tarnished by

Carter 40:19

by the politics of politicians. politicians stand up be

Carter 40:23

be the queen's representative and do what the queen what

Carter 40:27

what you think the queen thinks would be right and you'll have lots of advice from really smart people that aren't named cory hogan and stephen carter we're

Zain 40:35

we're going to leave that segment there moving on to our next segment our next segment strong amongst equals i'm

Zain 40:42

i'm surprised we haven't had a chance to talk about this guys i want to go to ontario i want to talk about doug ford and i want to talk about But what I call and what he calls the strong mayor legislation, Carter, it's not it's not a term, but it's legislation that was tabled last week that would allow mayors. I mean, Doug Ford is obsessed with municipal politics. Let's put that out on the table for those that don't know that

Zain 41:01

that would allow the mayors in certain cities to override council approval of a bylaw such as a zoning bylaw that allow that would hamper a set of provincial priorities that will be set out in later regulations. examples include government officials gave way to include building 1.5 million homes in 10 years as part of critical infrastructure. If the province wants that, the strong mayor could override council's will, but of course they could override the mayor if they have two-thirds majority against the mayor's vote or the mayor's veto. Corey, I

Zain 41:36

I put some of the stuff on the table. Is there anything else that you know or may have seen in the legislation that you feel like is worthy to kind of lay out as context before we discuss, A,

Zain 41:47

A, is this a good idea? And what are some of the ramifications of it going forward?

Corey 41:52

Well, it's not a new idea. In Canada, almost everywhere, we use a mayor and council model

Corey 41:58

model where, and I've said this in other contexts, the mayor is just kind of a super councillor. It's a councillor at large. It has the

Corey 42:04

the power of the bully pulpit, but often not too much more than that, or powers that are softer afterpowers, rather

Corey 42:10

rather than hard codified powers where you can talk to administration, you can get a certain additional level of information because you are the mayor, but

Corey 42:18

but that's not necessarily anything more than a council decision away from being changed, right?

Corey 42:24

And so you still need to sort of maintain that there's a council here. What Doug Ford is proposing is a model that's much more common in the United States, which is the idea of the strong mayor, where the mayor, and it mirrors the American system more generally, where they

Corey 42:37

governors, where they have presidents and they

Corey 42:39

they have mayors and the mayor has that executive authority within the city. So you see this in, for example, New York or I believe Dallas. And what

Corey 42:49

happens is the mayor has a staff, the

Corey 42:52

the mayor has an agenda, the mayor has a number of tools to meet that agenda and

Corey 42:56

it makes them more than just a councillor at large who has, you

Corey 43:00

you know, kind of this primus inter paris thing where they're the first among equals of the rest of council. And

Corey 43:05

And what Doug Ford's talking about specifically is

Corey 43:08

is the ability of the mayor to propose the budget. So this is my budget. Here it goes forward rather than it running through this council administration route that most

Corey 43:17

cities are familiar with.

Corey 43:19

It would give the mayor veto over areas of provincial interest, I think is how it's phrased or something to that effect. That's right. And

Corey 43:24

And that veto could be overridden, but that would take two thirds of council. I believe it gives the mayor the ability to appoint the chief administrative officer and the department head. So all of a sudden, the

Corey 43:36

the top parts of the bureaucracy within the municipal

Corey 43:39

municipal public services is, you

Corey 43:42

you know, they're working towards the mayor's agenda in a strong way.

Corey 43:45

And that's all very different. And that's very different from the Canadian model more generally. I mean, when we think about the mayor and council model we're more familiar with, in some ways, we've talked about the differences from party politics. But you can see how it has kind of this cultural tie to the idea that the legislature is in charge. And that, you know, your authority comes from the legislature, not from like one individual elected leader.

Corey 44:08

So it's different. But one

Corey 44:09

one of the arguments in favor of it is maybe

Corey 44:12

maybe you can break some logjams, maybe you can get more things done, maybe it will be less of a, you

Corey 44:17

you know, a bureaucracy legislature dance and you have the

Corey 44:20

the executive providing like that impetus to action, which

Corey 44:24

which was one of the big arguments in favor of the US presidency when it was first created, right? Right. Like it becomes this this force, this like heat that's boiling the pot. And it's

Corey 44:35

it's hard to ignore the fact that part of this is tied up in the fact that Doug Ford doesn't like councils. And if you'll recall,

Corey 44:42

his brother Rob Ford was stripped of most of his powers by

Corey 44:45

by the Toronto Council in kind of those last days of

Corey 44:49

of Rob, where, you know, he was under all sorts of scandal and all of that. And it fundamentally changes the balance of municipal politics in Ontario in fascinating ways.

Corey 45:01

And I'm not sure all of them are going

Corey 45:04

to be beloved by

Corey 45:06

by everybody once they start executing.

Zain 45:10

long time coming. Good

Carter 45:15

Absolutely great idea. Really? Right now. Really?

Carter 45:18

Really? I thought I'd set you

Zain 45:19

you up for the... Okay, keep going. Make the justification, because I'm curious to hear. reaction to it too?

Carter 45:25

Right now, because of the weak mayor model, the CAOs, chief administrative officers in cities and

Carter 45:32

and towns, just simply have too much power.

Carter 45:34

They are the ones who run their city. They are the ones who make all the decisions. And by manipulating

Carter 45:38

manipulating what information even goes to council, they

Carter 45:40

they get to have decisions that are made in their favor all of the time. They get to appoint the legal officers. They get to bring in all of their lieutenants. They literally control what what information gets to council, because they're the ones writing all the reports and signing off on

Carter 45:56

on all of those reports.

Carter 45:59

because they've got 15 bosses in the case of Calgary or

Carter 46:05

eight bosses or nine bosses in a lot of other centers, five

Carter 46:08

five bosses in the local municipalities, they wind up running the table. And the elected voice becomes weakened because of

Carter 46:18

is this this really weak model. It reduces how much can be done.

Carter 46:23

And it also increases the strength and power of

Carter 46:27

So when we see something like in Calgary, where something is brought forward, where we're going to change the way that we're zoning

Carter 46:32

zoning properties across the board, a

Carter 46:34

a very small group of people lose their shit. And

Carter 46:39

all of a sudden, the legislation is pushed off to the side. Something like Secondary Suites, which has 75% approval in Calgary, took

Carter 46:47

took almost 10 years to do from a very motivated mayor. And the mayor was, of course, Nahed Denchi. And he had to push super hard in order to get Secondary Suites through. And it took his third council before he was actually able to do it, despite consistent 75% approval from the people that they served. Council,

Carter 47:06

Council, by having the weak model, by listening to the NIMBYs, by listening to the small voices,

Carter 47:12

neutered themselves and cut off their ability to actually govern effectively. So my view is a strong mayor model absolutely works. Two-thirds is a low enough bar that if council needs to get over it in order to hold the mayor accountable for bad decisions, they should they should have no problem getting over it.

Carter 47:33

This is not a high bar that they have to get over if there's egregious behavior. And by giving the mayor control, it actually puts the control of city government back in the hands of the electorate, because

Carter 47:47

because now they get to choose the person who's actually running their city instead

Carter 47:50

of having a person who's appointed for five years at a time be

Carter 47:53

be the person who's running the city.

Carter 47:55

And I'll tell you, there's some really weak people running cities.

Zain 47:58

I want to come back to that actual last point you made in a second, but I want to get Corey's reaction on this. Corey, good

Corey 48:07

Yeah, I'm certainly not as keen on it as Stephen. His CAO argument is not a bad one. I do think that the balance between the electeds and the bureaucracy in municipal contexts in Canada skews pretty strongly towards the bureaucracy, really

Corey 48:20

really strongly in many cases. And a lot of that is because of what he's talked about the idea of having 15 bosses rather than one clearly defined boss where there's the authority you get to manage the information flows um

Corey 48:33

and so as a result you have less political action and you have more kind of bureaucratic

Corey 48:38

bureaucratic action but i or bureaucratic

Corey 48:43

well let's call it the public service is calling more of the shots here um

Corey 48:47

and you know you can you can love that or you can hate that certainly it is a model that sees the

Corey 48:53

the elected officials and the will of the city be put forward less than kind of these this mandarin class within the within the you know the uh city council or

Corey 49:03

or sorry the city administration that gets to sort of determine the shots but you know it's

Corey 49:07

it's not as though this model is so deeply foreign it's kind of like a board ceo model you think of council

Corey 49:13

council as the board you think of the mayor as the chair of the board you think of the the city manager is the CEO. And if they kind of took more of that approach, I wonder if they couldn't get a little bit more done, which sort of leads into what I would say is what I want to... I

Corey 49:27

understand the challenges they're trying to resolve with a strong mayor model. I think that the points are valid that

Corey 49:33

that you've got the bureaucracy not necessarily being responsive to the citizenry.

Corey 49:37

And there are some deep, deep challenges for that. Particularly, I would agree agree that the bureaucracy tends to be much more responsive to

Corey 49:44

negative voices, criticism that comes in. It's easier to do nothing than to do something. And if you're sitting in the job as a city manager and you know doing something's going to get you attacked and doing nothing is just maintaining the status quo is not, you

Corey 49:58

you have all of the levers you need to kind of maintain the status quo, right?

Corey 50:02

But there are other solutions. We could have more of a party system at the the municipal level. We could actually just do away with the position of mayor or make mayor elected

Corey 50:10

elected by council and almost have like the

Corey 50:13

the prime minister, premier, mayor all chosen in the same way as it goes down, where all of a sudden that

Corey 50:18

that authority is not because you're one vote out of 15, but because you carry the votes of council.

Corey 50:23

And that would change the relationship with the administration as well, be a little bit more like our Canadian model in other contexts.

Corey 50:30

I don't know. I don't know if I would jump so strongly into the strong mayor system because Because the flip side is, you

Corey 50:36

you could have a real divide between the legislative body, which is council, and the mayor, and

Corey 50:41

and we don't have a lot of experience with that.

Corey 50:43

We don't have a lot of experience with that in this country, and I'm not sure it would get us what we want. Well,

Carter 50:47

Well, I'm working on a system right now in British Columbia where they do run party systems, right? And they're

Carter 50:54

they're called electoral associations. The mayor essentially

Carter 50:56

essentially puts together the party and the party then chooses the, you know, the councillors

Carter 51:04

councillors are going to run for them. And sometimes those councillors stick together for the course of a term, giving

Carter 51:09

giving essentially a strong mayor model, and

Carter 51:11

and other times they don't.

Carter 51:13

But there's weaknesses to that as well.

Carter 51:16

By having a strong mayor and independently elected councillors, you don't run into what we've seen in provincial governments and federal governments where you're electing a mayoral dictator, right?

Carter 51:29

right? The chief executive dictator is a problem.

Carter 51:34

The systems that we should be advocating for should

Carter 51:37

should be ones that balance off the opportunity for dissent and allow for

Carter 51:45

corrective processes that exist electorally or through actual vote counting rather than simple whips. And I think that the whipping process at a municipal level is probably where the weakness lies, where if you have independent councillors who

Carter 52:01

who can then face off against an independent mayor, I think you have a much

Carter 52:04

much stronger form of government. And I think that that's essentially what Doug Ford's suggesting.

Carter 52:08

suggesting. I mean, look at us today. We're praising Jason Kenney. We're praising Doug Ford. I

Carter 52:13

I mean, I don't even know who we are anymore.

Zain 52:15

We've just become three white guys. Carter, I'm going to stick with you for a second. Corey, I'll hold your horses. is would

Zain 52:24

candidate recruitment be easier

Zain 52:28

we get better candidates if we had a strong mirror system the reason i ask is all three of us in some degree have tried to knock on doors go for thousands of coffees convincing people to do stuff especially in municipal politics where it's often harder would

Zain 52:42

would a strong mirror system actually

Zain 52:45

actually help like from from from two guys who've You've had experience recruiting folks. Would this actually help the quality of candidates that

Zain 52:51

that one could be able to get to run for mayor? Is it more attractive to know that this is a quote unquote power you'd

Zain 52:58

you'd have? Is it too sparingly perhaps used or plausible that we'd kind of still have the same pipeline considerations and issues that we've talked about before for political candidates?

Carter 53:08

I have had people say to me, like, why would I want to be mayor? I'm not going to have any, you know, I'm just a counselor with a bigger paycheck. And the bigger paycheck isn't large enough to push jumping in there.

Carter 53:22

I'm not sure we're going to get better candidates. I'm not sure that this is the magic sauce that creates a better candidate, Zane. I think it's one step that could get us towards a better candidate. date. I

Carter 53:33

I think Corey made the argument, I

Carter 53:35

I don't remember when, one of the 9999999s, but

Carter 53:39

but Corey made the argument that there

Carter 53:42

there was a time when a politician's salary was in the top 1%, and

Carter 53:46

and now we're lucky to see it in kind of the top 10%. So I

Carter 53:50

think that we've seen a real degradation in terms of both social standing by being a politician as well as economic.

Zain 53:58

Corey, what do you think of that the quality of candidates, is there any merit to that?

Corey 54:02

Yeah, I think that's an interesting argument. It's certainly not one that I had sort

Corey 54:05

sort of given a lot of thought to in the past, but it would be a more prominent job. It'd be a more powerful job. You'd be more likely to get your agenda through. You'd be less beholden to the whims of council, right? I mean, especially the power to choose the senior leaders and the power to present

Corey 54:23

present the budget. Those are serious fucking shocking powers. I mean, even

Corey 54:26

setting aside the veto, those are significant powers.

Corey 54:29

And so, sure, that seems like a much better job. That certainly, to me, seems like it's less ceremonial and more weighty, and you'd be able to do a lot of the things that you want to do.

Corey 54:41

But I want to throw a bit of a thought exercise out here. yeah

Corey 54:44

because like i you know i'm just not sure if we have as you

Corey 54:48

you know canadians really thought about the potential for gridlock that this could create within major centers i think about toronto running

Corey 54:55

running under this model during

Corey 54:57

during the rob ford era imagine you had a council a legislative body that

Corey 55:02

that was dead set against the mayor and

Corey 55:05

and then you had the mayor who

Corey 55:07

who was able to create the budget and And at higher fire, the most senior people within

Corey 55:13

what would that fight have looked like there?

Corey 55:15

You know, I think it would have been uglier. I think it would have been much more detrimental to Toronto. And I think much less would get done.

Corey 55:21

So in this scenario,

Corey 55:24

Doug Ford was effect or Rob Ford was effectively sidelined.

Corey 55:27

In the scenario where we have, you

Corey 55:30

know, a strong mayor system, it's

Corey 55:33

it's matter hitting antimatter. You know, there's there's things blowing up all over the place. You'd potentially have senior

Corey 55:38

senior administrators saying, I've got to resign, him appointing, and all of a sudden, Doug Ford is the new chief administrative officer. You

Corey 55:45

You would have the inability to pass any legislation because Rob Ford would have vetoed it. You would have had a budget that would be rejected because it was zeroing out all sorts of things related to the enemies. I think it would be pretty fucking crazy. crazy. And

Corey 55:58

And that happens basically whenever you try to set up these balances of power. And

Corey 56:03

And historically in Canada, we don't do that, right? We have all

Corey 56:08

all sorts of these different bodies like the premier's office, the prime minister's office. But at the end of the day, they all get their authority from a legislative body.

Corey 56:16

if you can hold a majority there, you

Corey 56:18

you can do most anything. And if you can't, you can't.

Corey 56:21

But what we're talking about here is having having two different groups of people responsible for the same thing.

Corey 56:26

And that is a recipe for gridlock. Sometimes that's the point. Certainly the Americans would say that's the point. I'm not sure that's in our interest.

Zain 56:37

your retort there, because I was going to move on to something slightly different, but I'm curious because you think it's a great idea. But Corey gives kind of this example where the

Zain 56:44

the Rob Ford example, right? Where kind

Zain 56:47

kind of a bit of a shame and counsels against him, but okay.

Carter 56:50

why not hold up the Rob Ford example?

Corey 56:54

not? He was the mayor of Toronto, the city that's going to be getting this power.

Zain 56:57

power. And don't you think that a mayor that could have this power could actually be quite polarizing to a council, even though they weren't coming in? And all of a sudden they're making these veto style or very executive style, you know, power moves. You can alienate a council very quickly that way. So the position that Corey mentions, I don't think this is necessarily an outlier. I don't know if there's several proof points, but it could manifest itself. I think it's a fair counter argument. I'm curious to hear your reaction to it.

Carter 57:24

Well, my reaction is let's not hold up the Rob Ford era as some great opportunity of governance actually occurring.

Carter 57:30

It's not like things really worked well when Rob was there.

Carter 57:37

stymied, but the entire city stopped working.

Carter 57:40

There were massive problems with the CAO. There were massive problems with the

Carter 57:45

the people who were working in those offices, both

Carter 57:47

the appointees of rob

Carter 57:49

rob ford within his own government i mean basically if you were appointed by rob ford you

Carter 57:53

you were given the opportunity to write your own book when you left this these this wasn't a functional government uh under the system that we currently have let's not pretend that it was going to become all of a sudden less functional uh because now we've got a different form of government it didn't work the way we have it and it probably wouldn't work with the way that it's going to be done. But Rob

Carter 58:15

Rob Ford's not an example that you try and build in a system around. You try and build a system that's got a lot more, you

Carter 58:22

you know, that's built around more

Carter 58:24

more sane choices, because ultimately, if

Carter 58:27

if you're electing insane people, you're going to get insane government. There is no means

Carter 58:32

means around the electorate choosing, making

Carter 58:34

making bad choices. There's no way around that by

Carter 58:37

by building a system. It

Carter 58:39

It has to be the

Carter 58:40

the electorate being responsible for the the shit that they choose.

Carter 58:43

And they chose Rob Ford. It was a bad choice.

Carter 58:46

Don't hold back the choices of bettering

Carter 58:50

governing structure because Rob Ford was a lunatic.

Zain 58:55

Corey, this might be too much of a lift. So we'll maybe just ask you for one of what I'm about to ask, which is strategy

Zain 59:02

strategy implications from a strong mirror system.

Zain 59:05

Is there one that comes to mind? Carter, I'll give you a bit of a time as I ask Corey about this. But as we think Think about the strong mayor system, not exactly like, you know, the parliamentary sort of style system where you elect the party and therefore, you know, as you mentioned, Corey, as an alternative to this. But what's one strategy implication that you feel is interesting or is noteworthy, or

Zain 59:27

or even if it isn't those two, that's perhaps a new feature of a strong mayor system that may not be from a weak mayor system or the current system? Anything come to mind for you? Yeah,

Corey 59:39

Yeah, I think that in particular, when you have a strong mayor system married to a party system, and in Toronto, there were quite a few political parties, you're going to have, you're

Corey 59:49

you're fundamentally changing the nature of government in cities, because what's going to happen is you're going to end up having almost like the prime minister of council, potentially,

Corey 59:58

potentially, who is maybe

Corey 1:00:00

maybe in support of maybe at odds with the mayor, who

Corey 1:00:04

who has this additional authority, but maybe not from the same place, or it doesn't feel like it. like it's from the same place anymore and

Corey 1:00:10

and and so it could just fundamentally change the dynamic of cities in ways that people have not fully considered i

Corey 1:00:17

i also think that one of the challenges with bringing in a model like this and one of the strategic considerations is we're talking about it in terms of it makes the mayor stronger but

Corey 1:00:26

but anything that makes the mayor stronger makes council weaker yeah

Corey 1:00:29

yeah by taking that authority away from counselors you're making that job less appealing and it's already not that appealing of a job right it pays less than the the provincial politicians get than the federal politicians get. You have everybody calling your cell phone at any given part of the day to say, my street light's out. It is 24-7 in a way that even 24-7 politicians in other levels of government would say, not for me.

Corey 1:00:52

That's mental. I don't want to deal with that whatsoever.

Corey 1:00:56

And now you're taking away its authority and you're giving it to a strong mayor as well. So what does that mean for the quality of council? That's another other strategic consideration you've got to think about.

Zain 1:01:07

Carter, I'll leave that same question to you as we wrap up the segment. A strategic consideration that you find fascinating or interesting as a result of a strong

Zain 1:01:14

strong mayor system being implemented, I should say potentially, but it's more than likely going to happen in Ontario here.

Carter 1:01:21

The mayor having control of the budgeting process is fantastic. You know, I mean,

Carter 1:01:26

mean, anybody who's done budgeting knows that there's many different ways of presenting the information. And information

Carter 1:01:32

information that's coming from administration,

Carter 1:01:37

example, the city of Calgary just passed a budget where

Carter 1:01:40

where all of a sudden it was pointed out that there may have been a couple hundred million dollars coming from unanticipated

Carter 1:01:46

unanticipated reserves. Well, they increased taxes by

Carter 1:01:49

by $60 million. There was no discussion at all about

Carter 1:01:53

about a couple hundred million dollars coming down the pipe from administration. They

Carter 1:01:57

They wanted the ability to

Carter 1:01:58

to to have that type of flexibility in the future. They didn't tell anybody.

Carter 1:02:03

I know the mayor said afterwards that she knew. She didn't know. I was there. So this gives the opportunity for actual better outcomes because the administration's not misleading council. And I keep coming back to that because administrations control

Carter 1:02:21

control what information is presented to council. And that means that administrations are incentivized to

Carter 1:02:28

provide information that enhances

Carter 1:02:32

their abilities to make their own decisions.

Carter 1:02:35

And I've seen that from my own personal experience. It is a system

Carter 1:02:38

system that is challenging for the electeds to try and keep up with.

Zain 1:02:45

I'm going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, we did this for you, so we start with you.

Zain 1:02:53

think I know your answer. Are you in or out? You have to choose. Are you in or out?

Zain 1:02:58

on Doug Ford's strong mayor legislation.

Carter 1:03:01

Big fan of Doug Ford, always have been. I'm going to say I'm in on Doug Ford's legislation.

Zain 1:03:07

Corey, I don't know where you're going to go with this. Are you in or out on this? It seems like you've made both sides of the argument here, but not to say we've comprehensively gone through them, but you in or out yourself on this strong mayor legislation in Ontario?

Corey 1:03:21

You know, I think I'm out. I understand what he's trying to do. I'm not even opposed to everything he's trying to do, but I think there were smaller changes that could have brought some of this out. And like I said, I think maybe

Corey 1:03:33

maybe if I ruled the world, the first thing I would try was stop direct electing the mayor.

Zain 1:03:38

Corey, I'm going to go with the next one here. Doug Schweitzer is saying that he's going to leave as an MLA in Calgary Elbow. He's already indicated that this, of course, talking here in our province of Alberta, he's already indicated that he's no longer going to run for reelection, but now he's leaving early.

Zain 1:03:55

Is there any value, Corey? yes or no for the ucp to

Zain 1:03:59

to call a by-election they don't have to if it's within a year but is there any strategic value for

Zain 1:04:04

for them to call a by-election um

Zain 1:04:07

in in that sense because they can they

Zain 1:04:09

they don't have to they can uh

Zain 1:04:11

uh in that sense well

Corey 1:04:12

well there's some ambiguity on that point because of the way different pieces of legislation are written but i think the

Corey 1:04:19

the consensus has drifted towards they do need to call one within six months uh regardless of what the fixed election date stuff has said

Corey 1:04:26

But let's even just say, if they even thought they were going to polls in six months, would there be an advantage to going? Yes. If they have a situation where the

Corey 1:04:35

the leader is not in the legislature, I wouldn't necessarily think

Corey 1:04:40

think that that's the by-election that's going to work for me. But if Daniel Smith managed

Corey 1:04:44

managed to win in a place like Gallagher-Elbow, I think we'd all be singing a different tune.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:48

Yeah. Interesting point. I wouldn't do

Corey 1:04:50

generally speaking, but there are potential advantages available.

Corey 1:04:54

Carter, would you do it?

Carter 1:04:56

Well, I'm going to just begin by kind of echoing Corey's point about what the legislation actually says. I have read the legislation recently. It refers to the fifth year as the final year and the fourth year as the final year. It is confusing. So regardless, assuming that it does need to be called or it doesn't

Carter 1:05:15

doesn't need to be called and they have the opportunity, I wouldn't call it. I'd leave it open. And I would also keep in mind that Jason Kenney's seat is most likely going to be vacated relatively quick as well. I don't see him sitting as a backbencher in a Danielle Smith government. So that takes down to 85 seats. And I wouldn't be surprised even to see some more people

Carter 1:05:36

either retire or cross

Carter 1:05:38

cross to independent rather

Carter 1:05:40

than serve out their term serving in a Danielle Smith government.

Carter 1:05:44

If enough of them do, Danielle

Carter 1:05:46

Danielle herself could face the unenviable

Carter 1:05:49

unenviable position of going to to your mother-in-law and saying, I no longer have the support of the government, and

Carter 1:05:55

and we're going to need to go to an election, which

Carter 1:05:58

which Corey and I were shamelessly speculating, mostly me.

Carter 1:06:02

Corey's not so much a shameless speculator. He plays it too

Carter 1:06:08

He does. Where's his crazy predictions? That's what people tune in for. That's what I'm told.

Zain 1:06:18

for Daniel Smith, the Alberta Sovereignty Act, as we record now on monday august 15th at 10 12 p.m as

Zain 1:06:24

as it stands in this particular moment is it an asset or is it a liability for her i

Carter 1:06:29

i don't want to live in the world that says that uh illegal legislation is an asset so i'm going to have to say that it's a liability the fact that you're also a

Zain 1:06:38

a raw practitioner of strategy is it an asset or i

Carter 1:06:42

i wouldn't do this strategy it's a liability you wouldn't i know

Carter 1:06:45

wouldn't i wouldn't do this because it's wrong it's

Carter 1:06:48

it's wrong and she shouldn't be doing it either she should be ashamed of herself and i say that as someone who likes danielle but this is a this is this is this

Carter 1:06:57

this is the worst type of politicking the worst type of government i

Zain 1:07:01

think all three of us agree but cory is it an asset or a liability strategically for danielle smith today i

Corey 1:07:08

don't know um one of the things i think is very interesting is that there

Corey 1:07:14

there is a universe where jason kenney knew exactly what he was doing he did it right after the membership cut off he

Corey 1:07:19

would have known the basic size and composition of the membership of

Corey 1:07:23

of the party he

Corey 1:07:24

he would probably have a sense as to whether

Corey 1:07:27

whether um you know these you know this there were enough people sold from the daniel smith camp to sort of override where that where the other camps were these are things we can only speculate about from the outside and

Corey 1:07:39

and maybe he said yeah you know maybe it just needs a nudge maybe maybe this is a little unpopular with certain groups of people we can and push it out.

Corey 1:07:46

Kind of the strongest evidence that it's a liability is that Jason Kenney jumped on it like this.

Corey 1:07:51

Strongest evidence as an asset, she's

Corey 1:07:53

she's selling all the memberships by all accounts. So unclear, but I think it will become rapidly clear. In a couple of weeks, we'll have a good sense.

Zain 1:08:03

Final question to you, Corey, I'll start with you. The House of Lords, too small?

Corey 1:08:08

Just the right size. I'd make it smaller. Abolish the House of Lords.

Corey 1:08:14

because the aristocracy must perish. Not the individuals, but, you know, the positions.

Zain 1:08:21

Carter, the House of Lords, you and I have agreed earlier on this podcast, smaller than we thought, but too small, Carter.

Carter 1:08:29

You know, I think that it's just small enough to hold someone like Conrad Black. So that's fine by me.

Zain 1:08:36

We're going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 999.89. Yes, I'm not saying it. of the strategist.

Zain 1:08:47

is Zane Velgey. Give

Carter 1:08:47

Give the people what they want, Velgey. Corey Hogan,

Carter 1:08:50

Stephen Carter. Give the people what they want.

Transcript