SPECIAL EPISODE: Choosing Leaders

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist special episode. My name is Zain Velji. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, we're producing the content and we're producing it for our friends of Patreon, which, by the way, now that I say it like that, friends of Patreon sounds like some galactic universe or some cult that we're part of.

Carter 0:20

of. I think it should be a cult. Friends

Zain 0:22

Friends of Patreon sounds like a cult. I

Carter 0:23

I do feel like Corey is the cult leader. um he's he's definitely got david corn Cornish is what

Corey 0:31

what you're thinking of that's a really topical reference wow congratulations someone's

Zain 0:36

someone's watched definitely not a netflix documentary what a vhs documentary on cults i like that carter yeah i mean there's so many cult documentaries out on netflix right now jim

Carter 0:46

jim jones jim jones is the one i should have gone with yeah

Carter 0:49

yeah even better really go back to the 70s drag something back from my childhood uh

Zain 0:53

uh as the friends of patreon on uh we cory we want to talk about how how we vote uh listen in previous episodes we have talked about the conservative leadership race here we've talked about the ucp leadership race we flirted ever so slightly with talking about at least not this round but previous rounds because it happens every two years how the conservatives in the uk vote and in fact if you're not aware they're doing it right now. Again, they're selecting another leader to replace Boris Johnson. But worry not, because Boris Johnson says he may also want to get in on that. That's another thing. That's a totally different thing that I can spend two hours on. We've also talked about on The Strategist, but also in our sister podcast, which we have started and then kind of let crumble kind of like American democracy itself. We've talked about how American presidents are elected. So I want to talk today about how we ultimately, how we vote, how we allow certain people to vote. How we choose leaders. How

Zain 1:56

we choose leaders. Who is able to vote to select leaders? And specifically, who's able to select these leaders in

Zain 2:03

in political party apparatus? Is

Zain 2:05

Is it members? Is it the general public? Is it delegated? Corey, give me a few others. Is it caucus? There's so many different different options. Carter, looking at the playing field in 2022, when you see the multitude of ways that the political parties have in terms of how we choose leaders, do you have a favorite yourself, top line? Is there a particular way and who should be able to vote that you like the best?

Carter 2:32

Yeah, I prefer a wide open party system to select delegates. I think that the delegated process serves the party best because it sends your top people into the

Carter 2:50

convention to actually spend time together. And at the convention, they connect, they build relationships. Corey, I'm sure, has been to different party events. We've all been to different party events where those party events are the stalwarts. And it also creates an automatic healing period, right? We're seeing so so many 51 49s, right? So many 52 48s, uh, really small victories. Um,

Carter 3:12

Corey talked about it in our last part or in, in, in our podcast with the six nines after the decimal point, um, talking about how, uh, you know, Pierre Polyev may want to be pushing really hard to get a big number, right. To hold the party together to show that he's got the victory. I mean, that, that type of thing, is required because there's no immediate healing process there's no ability to take the losing team for a drink to to spend time together to to spend time uh you know talking about the common goals and common realities instead you just have this one member one vote you're still at home no one calls you afterwards and tells you how important you are to the party you're just gone and you don't care anymore because there's so many members the the uh cpc just released that they have 678 thousand members that will be eligible to vote in this process, 678,000 people who won't be getting a telephone call after the process. Um, they don't matter individually. They do not matter collectively. They matter a lot.

Zain 4:14

Corey, um, before I ask you for yours, get me, get me the, the index of types of, okay. So I've, I, of, of, of ways that people can vote or political parties have selected a vote for leader. We've got the wide open, right? So anyone can vote, purchase Purchase a membership, show up, right? Well,

Corey 4:31

Well, not even necessarily purchase a membership. You have the U.S. primary system, for example, where somebody just

Corey 4:37

just shows up. And, you know, there's variants of that from anybody can show up, which we'd call an open primary, to a closed primary where you've got to be on a list and you've got to be a member of the political party. Not really a member, but like a registered Democrat you'll hear in the States, a registered Republican. Which,

Zain 4:52

Which, by the way, in the States, does that mean, do you know if that means any financial transaction with the party? No. It

Corey 4:58

No, you can change your registration. And in states that have registration like that, and I think it's fallen somewhat out of favor, though. You know, these things are all shifting.

Corey 5:07

But in states, usually you can just change your registration every so often. And there might be kind of a period. But the idea is you can just

Corey 5:15

just say, like, I'm a Democrat now. Yeah.

Corey 5:17

Right. Maybe next election. Like, you know what? I think I'm a libertarian. And there are a lot of political parties everywhere, but certainly in the United States as well. So you can register for some crazy French third party too along the way and then there's these big lists of who's registered how. So that's kind of the most extreme version. Anybody can vote or anybody who puts their hand up and says I am gets to vote and there's no filter by the party. It's sort of handled by the state elections boards. boards um the next version out is just you know just to simplify things would be like the caucus where you do have to be a member of the party and you show up and you caucus together so when people are talking about caucus states and you'll recall in 2016 i suppose when bernie sanders was doing so well with the caucus it was because he could actually get members to show up and hang out and go through an excruciating process several hours

Zain 6:06

in a community association hall or some gym you know somewhere

Corey 6:09

and that's really a delegated that that is the contest that stephen carter is talking about

Corey 6:13

you know it's it's the american supersized version but the idea is you're electing delegates who in turn maybe elect delegates who in turn go to the state convention who in turn choose their delegates for president right so that's that's kind of the the american version if we're going on a spectrum the canadian version would be the next one up which

Corey 6:30

is the members uh in a delegated convention would uh usually in person or like at a voting place or multiple multiple voting places get together and cast a ballot for who they want to send as a delegate to the convention and much more direct than the american one the american one is filtered through state conventions and all of that um and then as you go further afield you get contests uh well maybe this is not this is a weird i've broken this spectrum i don't even know what the fuck this is yeah

Carter 6:58

yeah yeah yeah because i skipped

Corey 6:58

skipped over one member one vote which

Corey 7:01

which i think would be in between there but you've got one member one vote which uh allows anybody to just buy a membership and vote remotely there's variants of that too where it's just an instant roll-up or there's actually rounds of voting which is steven will be familiar with because he's run elections like that and

Corey 7:16

and then you know in the more extreme gatekeeping versions um and it's a spectrum you've got more delegated

Corey 7:23

delegated conventions where the delegates are more hand-picked you know it might be the party bosses it might be the in the canadian context the presidents of party associations the people on the executive and their power it's not like delegated conventions disappeared overnight like their power got diluted you had more and more delegates elected that would go with the party bosses to these conventions and then the most extreme version is like the caucus chooses the leader you you are the leader of the caucus so the caucus gets to pick who you are and there's there's a lot of versions in between you know the french do a weird thing the the uk UK does a combo thing where you've got to have like a caucus filter. The UK one's a strong one. It's like the top two candidates from caucus go for it. The Labour one is you need at least 10% support of the caucus in order to move forward. To go to

Zain 8:11

to the membership, right?

Corey 8:12

right? Yeah. Like there's no shortage of ways to choose leaders. And often we find that we'll oscillate between them when the weaknesses of one become too much to bear. And then, you know, the strengths become taken for granted. So

Zain 8:24

So with that being said, Carter, I'm going to come to you in a sec. like, Corey, do you have a favorite that you particularly favor? And I want to get into your last comment too, in a second, right? Which is one of the reasons we even, at least I was interested in this topic when you guys brought it up as something to do an episode. And it's because we've been railing on a bit around one member, one vote, especially here in Alberta, which lets you exploit a system, find a fringe of a fringe and win based on that. But is there a favorite you like, Carter? You've kind of chosen that delegated model with the healing and the folks Folks coming together, physical locale, kind of filtering up. Is there something you like, Corey, from like a personal bias or personal preference perspective?

Corey 9:04

You know, I've been thinking about this since we sort of decided we're going to talk about the topic. And I think the answer is no. I think that reality is it's ever shifting. And if you asked me 10 years ago, my answer would be different than if you asked me today. And not because I've, I mean, I've changed as a person. But I'm saying if you put present me in a time machine back 10 years, I might suggest a different system than right now. And where I think these systems run into trouble is people try to create the purest versions of them

Corey 9:28

instead of trying to create like practical versions of them that that deal with the downsides where all of a sudden it's like, yes, we want party democracy. We like the idea of more parties being involved, but maybe we shouldn't go so overboard that it's instant members are able to determine the entire party. Or, yes, we like delegated conventions. We like the things Stephen Carter talked about in terms of being able to, you know, have the beer afterwards and bring the party together and have a more manageable group. But maybe we shouldn't create these gates where all of a sudden it's an entirely elite exercise that seems removed from the general population. And, you know, that's something that you've got to calibrate over time. time. The system you could put in today may resolve today's problems, but new problems will arise. It's why we're always changing election laws too. It's a fluid environment. And I think people would do better than rather saying, I believe in this system to the death. It's, well, I'm going to react to the situation and how it's evolving. And I'm just going to keep moving with the flow here and try to keep some principles in mind. Become more principles-based than rules-based. What are we trying to get out of a party election? We're trying to involve the members. Whereas we're trying to make sure that we're palatable to all Canadians, whatever your principles may be, and then adjust your party mechanisms to follow. Carter,

Zain 10:40

Carter, jump on this. And I also want to pick up, if you don't right now, this pure versus practical frame Corey's put on the table, but jump in on here. Well,

Carter 10:46

Well, I just want to jump into that because every system has an unintended consequence,

Carter 10:50

right? Every system has an unintended consequence. This is one of the reasons that we rail against proportional representation. Or, you know, why did we record that special episode, you know, in the last run of fantastic episodes? Well, we recorded that because we're trying to explain the unintended consequence. I know the unintended consequence of the delegated system. It does favor the elites. It favors the people in the party already. ready um but if you were to marry a one member one vote delegated system with

Carter 11:22

with the with the uh you

Carter 11:23

you know so you have one member one vote at the constituency level to select all the delegates from the constituency what

Carter 11:29

what you're essentially doing is creating a modified point system and then instead of just having the modified points rally up you're actually sending delegates it's the same as the electoral college in the united states which we sometimes forget is a a real thing you're actually sending you know the electoral college members to to washington dc to cast their ballots we've we learned that in 2020 uh right

Corey 11:53

but well they don't go to dc they they meet in

Corey 11:56

their state capital and they certify

Carter 11:58

yeah but it's more fun to go to to go to dc anyways

Carter 12:01

anyways the the point is that everything has an unintended consequence and the the question is is that unintended consequence better or worse right um the caucus themselves tend to force moderation because the caucus wants to get re-elected right the the members uh tend to move towards uh you know their ideological purity it's

Zain 12:24

it's funny you say that that that's exactly and i'll interrupt you in a second with like the live wire example of what's happening in the uk right now rishi sunak the more moderate sort of candidate the former chancellor in the uk has the more caucus support, Liz Truss has more member support, at least as it relates to polling and where she's kind of standing in terms of members. He's the more moderate. He's like, I can beat Labour, and she's the, I'm the purest version. Not dissimilar, perhaps, to what's happening here with Jean Charest and Pierre Polyever in some ways, despite the fact that Pierre's also got the caucus

Carter 12:55

caucus support. I think the better example is actually the UCP. Travis Taves has 30 plus endorsements of caucus members. Great example.

Carter 13:02

And and Danielle Smith is is just raking in the memberships. So they say, you know, this is this is the the challenge that we're faced with is is that there is an unintended consequence from the choice that has been made because you've chosen one member, one vote. It has in its own way perverted the outcome.

Zain 13:24

Corey, jump in on here, but I've got a question I want to see in both of your minds, which is, how should we be asking this question? Fundamentally, if you're listening to this right now, because often the way it is covered is, which of these systems is the most democratic? And

Zain 13:39

is that the right question we should be asking? Because often we'll hear things like, I'm going to insert an example. Oh my goodness, like the UCP are about to go elect a new leader, which will become premier with only 2

Zain 13:50

2% of the population. Or in the UK, the conservatives are going to select a new prime minister with a membership pool of 160,000 in a country of what, 50, 60 million, something in that range. So Corey, what is the question and how should we be viewing this? Is it purely what's the most democratic system and then we try to make it practical versus pure?

Corey 14:08

I mean, that's so fascinating frame

Corey 14:11

frame that you've just thrown at me here, because I'll tell you, one thing is like, what do you mean by democratic? You mean party democracy? It's a great question. Do you mean general public? Is democratic just the existing members? Does democratic include potential members? I'll say

Zain 14:23

say when it gets covered in the broader media landscape, it's usually about general public versus the sliver of people selecting a new leader.

Corey 14:31

Right. Well, but like the reality is, even when you're trying to create a system, being democratic within your party might not be the same as being democratic within your public. You know, you're not necessarily reflecting the will. And the idea of these instant members, I think, is part of what's kind of gotten people upset in various contexts here. So it's not really clear to me that even if we're just going to be simple about the word democracy, that it's obvious what democratic means. Because there is a case to be made that you lock the membership as soon as there's a vote. Basically, if you weren't on the boat, that's the membership anyways. That's democracy because those are the people who are truly members of the party. Everything else is just a sales drive. But beyond that, we tend to think of the word democratic not just as mob rule.

Corey 15:14

There's balances. There's checks in it. There's this idea that you want to appeal to a lot of people and consider the interests of a lot of regions. So if you're talking about a leadership vote, maybe mob rule democracy, one member, one vote is anybody can come in. And many people would see that as democratic. Maybe another person would see it only democratic if those points are weighted by region. So you're making sure you're getting voices in rural areas as well, and they're being heard. And of course, that somewhat reflects our actual system. We create ridings and we say, this is worth one MP. Even

Corey 15:46

Even if the turnout in that riding is 10% and the turnout of the riding next door is 80%, they don't get eight times as many MPs just because they've got 80% turnout. We sort of acknowledge that representation doesn't necessarily require voting.

Corey 16:02

You can represent people from a region, even if those people didn't show up for you. So, you know, there's a lot of questions there. But Zane, to your point, you've totally derailed me from like almost what I was going to say in response to Carter's here, but I think you've asked a good question. Parties should do the work of defining that and saying, what are we trying to get done with our leadership? Are we trying to create policy

Corey 16:24

policy that will resonate with all Albertans? Are we trying to have a system that is going to get the most motivated volunteers? And be really intentional about that and then sort of track their leadership over time. Now, the big problem is you define those principles. And the minute you do, people are going to start trying to game the systems regardless, because some people will do better in one system versus another. You know, some reward intensity, some reward moderation, and people will fight over the levers of the party in order to dictate what kind of system it is. And Carter and I have said this a lot, you choose the system, you choose the leader. Like, imagine it was a caucus vote for the UCP. Travis

Corey 17:02

Taylor. Daniel Smith wouldn't even be in the conversation. True, should be. It would be done. Great point. It would be over, right? That's a legitimate system, but they've made a different choice along the way here.

Zain 17:12

Carter, a similar question. Like, is the argument that X percentage of the population, where X denotes a very small percentage of the overall population, is now going to select the next insert blank, premier, prime minister, whatever. Is that a lazy argument? Is it an erroneous argument? When you hear that as a criticism of voting systems, plural, how do you react to that? I

Carter 17:36

react to that by thinking we need to teach social studies in schools again. I think there's two courses that every reporter needs to take.

Carter 17:44

One is social studies. How do people actually get elected in this fucking country? Because they have no clue. And the second is statistical analysis so they can understand the polls that they're reporting because they don't understand those. but let's go back to the first one we can we can deal with the second one in a different special episode but the the first one is you know what we didn't choose in the general election we didn't choose who the prime minister was going to be i chose who my local representative was going to be and that's it because

Carter 18:10

because all we actually elect is

Carter 18:12

is the individual representative and then it turns out that justin trudeau was selected by you know he was not selected by 15 million canadians to become come the the prime minister he was selected by a small group of people to lead a party and the party leader by virtue of the members of parliament choosing to vote with that person and and establish a government with that person as the first minister that person is in charge that is the system and and and that you know we we have to actually separate the leader of the party the process by which we choose the leader of the party and the leader of the government which is actually chosen in the legislature yes it is de facto we expect it's going to be the leader of the party but it is actually a different process that is governed in a different way in the legislatures this is not just some sort of willy-nilly thing where you

Carter 19:05

you know all of a sudden you know danielle smith is going to be premier yes she will be premier maybe

Carter 19:11

imagine a situation where danielle smith is elected by the ucp membership to become the leader and

Carter 19:16

and she then fractures off enough members of MLAs in Alberta that those MLAs no longer support her in the House, in the legislature.

Carter 19:24

She would not be premier come October 31st, right? She would not be sworn, you know, if she can't form a government,

Carter 19:31

your mother-in-law is going to have to make a really tough decision, right?

Zain 19:35

means that generally everyone's mother-in-law

Carter 19:36

-law will have to make it. Everyone's mother-in-law will have to make really difficult decisions. And that's the beauty of the system. She does not necessarily become the president. the premier. She becomes the leader of the UCP. Whether those MLAs choose to stay members of the UCP is up to them as individuals.

Zain 19:55

That's interesting. Corey, jump in here.

Corey 19:56

Yeah, I mean, that's true. They are separate roles. And we've seen that manifest in a couple of different ways, including like right now to you in Alberta.

Corey 20:05

Jason Kenney has resigned as leader of the UCP. He's no longer leader of the UCP. He's still premier of our province because they are separate jobs, right? Or maybe he's interim leader. I can't remember how that shit it baked down but the point is they are separate jobs um carter

Corey 20:18

carter you said something really interesting that i think i want to jump on here uh which was the idea that uh the prime minister is actually chosen by the mps and and you know that's that's where it comes through there is an argument to be made that the most democratic might be the caucus because it is then being decided by mps who are elected by the broadest group possible so while it's intermediated by one everybody's involved Or maybe some version that's like the MPs or the past candidates, which is like a little shakier because obviously they're not elected by as many people. But all to just sort of underline the point, these things are not as cut and dry as sometimes people try to make them out to be. And, you know, I think that in general, people should be very leery of like the very absolute statements about only this can be a reflection of democracy. right the hypocrisy in political parties is massive um let's start with the obvious they all use instant runoff for their leadership contests but god forbid we use instant runoff in general elections yeah there's some sort of magic is at the minute we go in the you know they're worried about all of a sudden candidates splitting in funny ways and then there's like a you know there's a like an extremist candidate with 20 of the vote who wins but apparently Apparently that's not a problem in a general or, you know, they're not so fussed because they may be the extremist in that case. But, you know, there is no, you

Corey 21:40

you know, there is no perfect system. And the bleed between these systems is the other thing I really want to underline because they do have sort of fundamental mechanisms underneath them that are not so different. Like when we talk about the delegated system, I mean, I was, I've been to delegated conventions and the last delegated convention I was at was in 2006 in Montreal for the Liberal Party of Canada.

Corey 22:02

I was elected as a delegate in Calgary Center. It was hotly contested because it was during a leadership contest, right? I think there were 14 delegates elected. And you had to go in with a fairly complex ballot where you chose the leadership candidate you wanted on one side and then the delegates you wanted to send on the other. And basically- And

Corey 22:21

sorry, this happened at

Zain 22:22

at the like the riding level, correct? This

Corey 22:24

This is at the riding level. If you went to a building, at this point, it was like the Liberal Party of Canada in Alberta office on McLeod Trail, I can recall. And so

Corey 22:34

you voted for your leadership candidate, and that sort of determined the distribution of delegates. And then it went down based on the

Corey 22:41

the list. And there were certain demographic criteria hit and all of that. Super complicated. But if you want to get simple about it, who

Corey 22:48

who had the most people show up and vote for them? And so it was like, in a way, an intermediated one member, one vote. You know, I had to go out and hustle and sell memberships and convince my friends to buy liberal memberships and vote for me.

Zain 22:59

So that you could

Corey 23:00

could be a delegate. So that I could be a delegate, right? And so, you know, it's not as though the delegate system was so pure, I guess, is the point I want to make. There were a lot of instant liberals, people who just showed up to vote in that one election and then fucked off and were never seen again. But, you know, to Carter's

Corey 23:18

Carter's first point, when

Corey 23:20

when it was all done, when I was elected, you know, I called them, I thanked them all. You did the things you're going to do, stuff that doesn't happen in a one-member, one-vote, and you try to create these connections. But the bleed between these all is significant, is the point that I want to underline. Because

Carter 23:33

Because the relationships are owned at the local level as well. Right. The relationships that are owned in a one member, one vote are owned by the leadership candidates that are selling the memberships and they are owned by the party. They are not owned by the constituency association, which is supposed to be the fundamental building block for parties and for governance, right? Like the stronger your CA is, the stronger your community and constituency association is, the stronger your party is. And by creating a process that builds really strong CAs, you are building the ability to win elections in areas that you didn't necessarily expect it before. One of the great challenges of politics federally is regionalization, right? You have regionally strong areas, you have regionally weak areas. If you want to build out your regionally weak areas, you have to build individually strong constituency associations. associations. That's one of the reasons that the delegated process works so well. It does fail. I mean, there will be tons of areas where you don't get the 14 delegates that you can send because there's just literally not enough people in the constituency association. But that's okay. You have to be starting somewhere. Just by signing up 678,000 members doesn't necessarily mean that you are stronger. Now, it does mean that you've got $15 per 678,000 members. And it does mean that there is a donation value that we can project based on prior performance of members against donations. Maybe it's another, you know, $45 per member that will happen in the next two years. That's a lot of money.

Zain 25:14

Let's talk about, Carter, you brought up something interesting, the financial component of membership and the fundraising component. Corey, what do you think about this? Should we detangle those two things? Because often the system is chosen, I shouldn't say often, but sometimes it's pretty clear the system is chosen with an eye towards what will net us the most amount of money, whether the membership sales, whether the cash call for the candidates, whether they they be small or large? What do you kind of think of the financial component here? Because these are entities that need to keep breathing and working financially. Talk to me about that. What's your thoughts there? So

Corey 25:51

So no, I disagree. I think that's, I think that's, you're kind of forgetting how expensive a delegated system is and

Corey 25:59

how much money it can pull out of people and how that can be to the advantage of the party. It's not just about those $10 memberships, but like, let's use that That 2006 election, as an example, delegated convention in Montreal. They sent, so 14 elected delegates from Calgary Centre and other two that were what we call ex officio, the president and the past candidate. Plus there were probably a bunch of party executives that were there, Calgary Centre being kind of an obvious hub. Every single one of those people needs to pay their convention fees, for starters, that's money. And like we're talking hundreds of dollars, sometimes pushed into the thousands, right? Just for the privilege

Zain 26:38

privilege of showing up. Just for the privilege of showing up.

Corey 26:41

I, of course, have to get a hotel. I have to get a flight. One of the major complaints of a delegated system is it is very disadvantageous for groups who do not have the financial means to get themselves to conventions. And,

Corey 26:55

know, parties did a lot of things to fundraise and offset, and there were all sorts of, you know, waivers to try to bring that equity. But one of the main reasons the delegated system died was because it was seen as fairly elitist. You've got to have the time and the means to go across the country for four days in the middle of a week quite often and go do it. But you're

Corey 27:15

you're giving the party a pile of your money. And, well, it may seem like even in the conservative example, they've got $675,000, $10 a pop.

Corey 27:29

I can't remember what the membership

Zain 27:31

it's $10,000 or $15,000. $15,000, yeah. So

Corey 27:33

let's just say for easy math, that's $10 million that they get. They've got to run that. There includes mail for all of those $675 return envelopes, all of the things that go involved there. I doubt they make all that much money on it. Certainly, I can tell you from my own experience running a political party, the membership fees, I

Corey 27:54

mean, from like a pure nuts and bolts point of view, we barely recouped, right? You just hoped they were on the list, and then the money of them would become donors, and you treated it more as the start of a funnel. And I think when you think about it in a leadership context, that's even more so the case, because you've got to put on contests

Corey 28:09

contests and debates and all of the other things that go with

Carter 28:12

with it. You have to rent a helicopter to put behind your stage.

Zain 28:17

I'll write purchase it.

Carter 28:19

purchase it. You make so much money. Well,

Corey 28:20

Well, look, those entry fees will probably be worth a lot more than the membership fees because

Corey 28:25

because that's in some ways gravy, even though it's not really supposed to be treated as that. And you can have entry fees in any kind of contest. You don't need to have a one member vote, one vote to have entry fees. Yeah.

Zain 28:37

Carter, talk to me about some other considerations here. You know, what this kind of, at least for me, brings back is a previous discussion of ours, which is political

Zain 28:45

political parties, when it's most opportune, say they're private clubs, when it's least opportune, say that they're more than private clubs and they need public support, public dollars. dollars. And when pundits like us or commentators kind of make comments about their system, it's kind of more of a fuck off for a private club. Let us do our thing. You know, I'm kind of trying to reconcile all that with voting system. What kind of considerations are you kind of giving now? Like if your system, your favorite system is kind of falling out of favor, it seems like Carter, isn't that fair? And so where are you leaning towards these days? Like what are you pushing towards? What are you kind of thinking, knowing that to Corey's criticism of the delegated model as being elitist and perhaps inaccessible. What else are you thinking about these days? I'm

Carter 29:29

I'm thinking about what we learned during COVID. I think we learned a tremendous amount about technology and how to bring people together using technology. You know, Corey's absolutely right. I mean, I know that for me, early in my political career, the idea of going to a delegated convention was just off the table. I couldn't afford to go to a political camp, you you know spend uh spend two thousand dollars going to toronto because also like these things aren't held in small areas with you know lots of hotels that are super duper cheap i

Zain 29:58

remember cory and i went to montreal and that was a uh that was an expensive trip it was like a vacation you had to be like okay i'm budgeting like 2 500 bucks to do

Carter 30:06

do this is going to be a big big number and uh

Carter 30:09

you know i remember you know lots of people sleeping you

Carter 30:12

you know piling in eight Eight people in a room and, you

Carter 30:15

you know, especially the youth delegates would do crazy things to make it more affordable for

Carter 30:22

But I think you can use things like the technology. I mean, keep in mind that a point system is essentially a delegated process without the people.

Carter 30:29

What if you assembled the, what if you created the point system with the people? How do you, how can you involve and build your CAs? Like there may be some sort of a hybrid model where you can, you can build your CAs, select your delegates and still and not necessarily fly everybody to you

Carter 30:45

know into uh into these you know the middle of whatever um

Carter 30:49

um to actually have the process the vote could be held remotely we're we're learning these types of things with how you can build stuff using our new technologies um you know 1976 is leadership didn't have the ability to to go live to various like you could could have provincial gathering points uh one in the lower mainland one in red deer because it always needs to be in red deer uh one in regina one in you know winnipeg that could really change the cost structure uh and open up the the way that that you do these these types of events it would change the way that uh individuals certainly felt the cost meaning the parties would have to bear it themselves i'm just not sure that this idea that it's more democratic to have one member one vote, should survive. I think that we need to stop having that discussion and start actually having a discussion about what serves the party best. And what serves the party best, I think, ultimately is electability. And the good news is that the more electable the party, like if you choose the best process that's going to create the most electable government, you're also choosing the process that reflects the majority of Canadians' points of view. And right now, we have chosen processes that are using the minority's point of view, right? Pierre Polyev is able to micro-target minority

Carter 32:08

minority points of view to find a way to get him elected. Danielle Smith is mirroring the exact same thing. Donald

Carter 32:15

Donald Trump took his minority view and turned it into the majority view in the U.S. That was fucking toxic, right?

Carter 32:22

right? That was toxic. It was racist. It was misogynistic. and he was able to grab that and say look it's okay and now i'm elected so it's all going to be fine and it wasn't fine it isn't fine so refining our processes so that we don't fall into that pattern is kind of where where my thinking goes these days and i think that that puts us kind of on the same plane as some of the you

Carter 32:44

know people looking at proportion to representation they're saying well let's find let's find a new represent a new model that will eliminate some of these ills yeah

Carter 32:52

yeah let's find a new model that will eliminate some of these ills but let's not create new ills at the exact same time.

Zain 33:00

Corey, is a one member, one vote in particular, you know, do we slag on it because of recent examples or because the top line sort of assumption by many is that this is the most democratic? Why not? Right. Make it make it remote, make it by mail, make it pretty easy to vote. Anyone can kind of jump in a reasonable membership cutoff so that you can join after the rules are sort of in place, which, by by the way, is not the case in example for the UK, right? Like we were just discussing this prior to the show, you had to be a member for three months of the UK Conservative Party to get voting voting

Zain 33:32

voting rights. Exactly. Versus if you bought a UCP membership, before August 12, you're able to vote just as fairly as someone who's been a UCP member since the founding of that party. So this one member one vote unfairly slagged because of recent examples? Or do you feel like it's it's now now exposing what the system actually is, and which is, you know, ready to be exploited, so to speak? Well,

Corey 33:55

Well, look, I think, yes, it is being slagged because of recency bias. There's no doubt in my mind, if we were living in a world of entirely delegated conventions, we would probably be a lot more critical of that we would remember things like, you know, how expensive they are. And we would have such recent examples of people unable to go from disadvantaged groups, lower income groups uh i can tell you the liberal party of canada was always it was always one of those things where uh you kind of wince at how low that you know you'd have elected delegates uh you know a certain percent for indigenous populations and then like the conversion to actually showing up at the convention was very poor right and a lot of it had to do with the cost so i think um you know it's easy to forget those problems this is all this is sort of what i was saying at the start Like we oscillate between these systems because we take for granted their strengths and we can only see their weaknesses at a certain point. And we take for granted, I think, the strengths of one member, one vote. It's exactly what you talked about, the convenience for people, the kind of the egalitarian nature, the ability that you can sit there. But as soon as you set a system, that system is going to be gamed. And often that will be gamed in a way that makes those ills seem really, really ill. and uh and what we see right now with one member one vote is like just a full-throated embrace of what's the most likely to we talked about this a few days ago on this six nines episode right but what what's most likely to um to get you um to act well we know from a history of like fundraising that it's the most extreme messaging it's the most aggressive messaging and so you you know, leadership candidates are seeing that they're seizing the opportunity and, and you know, you can drum people up on all sorts of crazy shit. And that's exactly what people are doing right now. Now, does that mean we need to bail on one member, one vote? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe we have one member, many different versions of votes we're talking about. Maybe you have

Corey 35:55

for continued membership. Like if you've, if you've been a member for one year, you get one vote, two years, two votes, like almost a point system out that rewards long service in a party.

Corey 36:04

maybe we just look at a way that it's moderated in other ways like we don't need to throw the baby out with the bath water but that also remains true of the delegated convention there were probably ways we could fix the delegated convention uh

Corey 36:16

uh you know including having some of those fees go back into deeper subsidies for people but uh yeah

Corey 36:22

yeah i mean i guess what i would say is absolutely

Corey 36:25

absolutely we are more critical of this system because it's now the system we have to deal with

Corey 36:31

that's also not a defense of the system carter

Zain 36:34

carter i want to talk about you know i use the word exploit core uses the word gamed um take take me back to your experience tell me has there been a time where you've actually told a candidate to either run because of the system you saw or sit on the sidelines because the system you're like your strengths don't work here like because we've talked about this right certain candidates have certain systems that favor them and then you add on top of that the exploitation and the gamification so talk to me about your experiences have you like encouraged a candidate to run because you're like i can make shit happen for you in this system or you've told a candidate to sit on the sidelines because like it's fucking not your game here man like if you were advising jean trey as you did for 15 minutes uh which i suspect is what you told him uh before you came back to the pod so tell me about your experiences here around exploitation gamification whatever you want to call it yeah

Carter 37:18

yeah i mean i think that the exploitation is super easy to do in this one member one vote points structure so cpc liberals liberals, and the CPC liberals and BC liberals all have a point structure that they overlay on top of the one member, one vote structure, right? So by putting the points in, now some memberships are worth more than other memberships. So you've now said, you know, in Surrey, for example, they buy a ton of memberships, there's eight ridings, tremendous amount of participation participation in those eight ridings, those memberships become very, very watered down. You

Carter 37:58

You know, you'll have a thousand members in one riding putting out 100 votes. Northern

Carter 38:03

Northern British Columbia, you'll have 150

Carter 38:06

150 members. So 150 members going to one, you know, 100 points, 1.5 to, you know, 0.01. So it's a much easier model to create an

Carter 38:21

an outcome when you actually have the point system you can then say well can we be strong so if i was advising jean charre i would say to charre you should run because you've got points overlay and because you've got points overlay you can now do better in toronto you can now do better in um in

Carter 38:39

in quebec you can do better in atlantic canada each of those areas atlantic canada and quebec alone have 10 000 points right Right. So when there's only three hundred, you know, thirty four thousand points and you can do ten thousand out of Quebec and Atlantic Canada, you're in the game. And

Carter 38:56

And that point structure shifts things around with Redford because

Carter 39:00

we were doing the instant runoff.

Carter 39:03

The instant runoff can now be gamed. Right. So the instant runoff. How did you game

Zain 39:07

game that? Tell me

Carter 39:08

basically because the conservative, the progressive conservatives in Alberta used to have this model where they would cut down to the top three candidates and the cut down to the top three candidates was

Zain 39:21

super based on what just just to be clear based on what one

Carter 39:26

one member one vote up

Carter 39:27

up to the top three and

Carter 39:29

and then one member was a couple of

Corey 39:30

of weeks and then another yeah

Carter 39:31

yeah and then one member one vote with an instant runoff for second choices a couple

Zain 39:37

couple weeks later so

Carter 39:37

so it wasn't the caucus

Zain 39:38

caucus to be clear that selected the top three right

Zain 39:40

that was still campaigned with the with the membership to get the top three so

Carter 39:44

so all you need to do is get to the top three right

Carter 39:46

right your your entire race becomes can i get you to the top three and

Carter 39:50

and this ultimately wasn't that much different than when the nenshi in 2010 can you be in the top three at a certain point because

Carter 39:57

because that point is actually the top is when the real election begins and the real election because also the progressive conservatives at that time enabled membership sales up to the vote you could walk into the voting station and buy Buy your membership

Zain 40:13

membership there. Right. Which is a total, you know. Do you mean that the second vote or the first one? Second vote. That's the thing. I forgot about that. Jesus Christ. So

Carter 40:21

So in Redford's case, I mean, we're going in. We know that basically we know that Gary Maher is polarizing. You either voted for Gary Maher in the first ballot or you're never going to vote for Gary Maher. Right. The same thing that happened to Jim Denning. The same thing that happened to Nancy Betkowski. um

Carter 40:39

you know like the the model is in this in these instant runoffs if you don't choose the winner the first time your odds of you choosing the winner the second on your second challenge or the leader is very very minimal so we have a built-in advantage when you're coming in second or third so allison was not going to run she said you know on february 14th 2011 i was sitting in the lobby of her office and she was talking to hawks and she said i'm out out. I'm

Carter 41:08

I went into her office and I explained to her how this system enabled us to actually win.

Carter 41:16

At the very least, we were going to be the kingmaker. We were going to be the ones who chose the premier, which would elevate her status in the caucus from justice minister somewhere down the level of hierarchy, you know, in terms of the friends of the premier to,

Carter 41:33

you know, friend of premier highly

Carter 41:34

highly capable cabinet minister so your your best out your worst out your best outcome is i'm going to be you're going to be the premier your worst outcome is you're going to be a highly highly influential cabinet minister so that changed her mind and actually you know allowed her to continue continuing the race and uh we made you know we were able to take advantage of that now in another situation my work with mike de young and my partnership with with uh katie Merrifield from the Andrew Wilkinson campaign we were able to take candidates that were in

Carter 42:06

know fourth and sixth and turn that into an actual victory because of the point system and the the laddering up of the instant runoff because we were able to elevate because it was all very very close the everybody got quite quite the same number of points and laddering up became came um relatively straightforward because the system dictated a particular outcome right so when when one of the people are like well there is no way that a system dictates an outcome well yeah there is when you do a proportional representation race you are inviting more extreme types of parties into your into your system that's just the way that it works because you're rewarding the 5% ideas. You reward 5%ers and you discount or you don't reward as much the 35ers, right? The 35%ers are handicapped in your proportion of representation. The same thing happens back to in this particular situation where you've got, you

Carter 43:06

you know, an instant runoff or a point situation. Both of those systems, super easy to manipulate if you have the right structures and strategies.

Zain 43:16

Corey, talk to me about like, first, I've got two questions for you. When you were watching Carter do the Redford thing, you were also, if I'm not mistaken, executive director of the Liberals at that same time. I was, yeah. Were you watching that shit show and what were you thinking? That's my first question. And then secondly, I want to go back to caucus only because I want to dig deeper on that before we round this out.

Corey 43:34

all thought that Gary Maher was going to win, right? At least going into this, you know, there was some doubt seeping in as we got a little bit closer to the thing, but he was the presumptive. And the liberals had just elected a new leader in September, on September 12th of that year. And your election, I think, was in October, right, Stephen?

Corey 43:52

And so there was this, you

Corey 43:54

know, the personal anecdote is I was asked to stay on to run the campaign. And I thought, I'll do it because it's going to be next month. And then it ended up being in the fucking spring. So I had to stick around for longer than I'd kind of wished for. but the um you know the thing that was interesting there was that that

Corey 44:13

that whole like let's just grab everybody and and let's stop gary maher and the antipathy towards gary maher that's not like that was just a conversation happening in the conservatives it really bled into the liberals i was at a dinner party the night that that was all announced on the second ballot and i i remember i was texting you steve and just sort of you were giving me kind of inside scoops and whatnot not but um i

Corey 44:34

i was in a dinner party of liberals like liberal organizers for the alberta liberal party and they were elated that allison redford had won and i thought well we're well and truly fucked here you know and that was borne out in the polls like almost overnight the liberals dropped half their support yeah allison because allison

Zain 44:51

allison it was yeah

Corey 44:51

yeah it was an absolute disaster it went from the low 20s for the liberals uh to like 11 overnight overnight uh and so you know the We treat these party contests like they're vacuums, but they can have such a significant effect, especially if they're contests of the nature of what Stephen has said, where anybody can get off the benches. And so, you know, like there are some benefits to a system like that, like that system made liberals feel like they could just be five minute Tories and get invested in that support went to the Tories. And, you know, Stephen

Corey 45:23

Stephen Carter would not have won the 2012 election without people like that going very aggressively towards the PCs. So, you know, it's very interesting as we sort of tease out all of these systems here. Corey,

Zain 45:35

Corey, talk to me about the caucus-only system. I want to round out our episode on this, which is perhaps

Zain 45:40

perhaps on the surface, the most restrictive, the most, you know, the least democratic. How, what? No one gets to vote. These people, they just select. Like, what the hell? Talk to me about that system. Like, have you, how are you analyzing? How are you viewing it? You've given a bit of your remarks on it, but I want to loop back to it a bit. Well,

Corey 45:58

Well, let's talk about the positives of it. First, it most aligns with what our system of government actually is. Which is a representative democracy. And so it creates a certain stability. I mean, one of the big challenges with all of the systems, except the caucus only system is, and Stephen can speak to this too, like quite often you're elected by the members and deposed by the caucus. We have this real disconnect where you're being elected by one group and you're asked to oversee another group who don't actually need to listen to you. You know, there is the ability to walk away and, you know, there are certain – And

Zain 46:31

And to be clear about it, this is what Carter was mentioning earlier where the Smith example, she could be the leader but the caucus can say fuck off sort of thing.

Corey 46:38

Well, I was actually thinking more specifically about how Alison Redford lost her leadership. Because of

Zain 46:42

of lack of caucus support, you mean.

Corey 46:44

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, there is an argument to be made that you create much more stable governments if you have caucus support. Now, we're just talking about the UK Conservatives, which require a heavy amount of caucus support. Yes.

Corey 46:55

It doesn't seem to fucking matter. They seem to be, you know, like as unstable as like the most cliche of pizza parliaments right now. But that's neither here nor there. there the

Corey 47:06

other thing about the caucus party or like the caucus is

Corey 47:10

is so like with the other positive i guess before i get to like the glaring negatives the other positive is um with the caucus system is that it

Corey 47:21

it empowers the individual mp it makes that job actually relevant and in some ways that might be more democratic because you're creating a system where you're not just electing a party but the individual on the ballot matters more they're not just expected to jump Trump to what the leader says, because they get to pick the leader, and that gives them certain authority. And by empowering, I mean, this is basically Michael Chong's thesis, right? You empower the individual MPs, you strengthen Canadian democracy, because the centralization that comes from these party systems, these party driven leadership systems, is not healthy for democracy. I mean, in a funny way, we all just vote for a dictator every year, we just choose our dictator, you know, we know how little the individual MP actually has an effect on these these things so you know that's the that's the positive right like you could perhaps strengthen democracy uh in a more general sense with a system like that now

Zain 48:12

that is one version

Corey 48:14

version of it the

Corey 48:15

the downside of course especially in a country like canada what

Corey 48:19

what do you do if you've got a caucus let's say you've got the pc caucus of 1993 yeah

Corey 48:24

yeah of two i mean basically they did go with one of of them so

Corey 48:27

let's broaden it let's say it's the reform party caucus all

Corey 48:30

you have is sorry

Corey 48:32

all you have is western canadians you're

Corey 48:35

you're going to elect a leader and

Corey 48:37

and that leader is not going to have any kind of endorsement or support from atlanta canada from

Corey 48:42

couple of mps from ontario that's

Corey 48:44

that's a recipe for a disaster in a country this big so you know you've got to think about how you bring in those regional differences if you're going to have like a caucus system might work in in a country that is a little more unitary, you

Corey 48:55

know, I don't even think it works necessarily in the UK. Obviously they've moved away from a pure caucus system because they've got, you know, England and Scotland and Wales and, you know, Northern Ireland, but it's

Corey 49:05

it's a real problem in a country like Canada.

Zain 49:07

Carter, round us out with your final thoughts here. We, you know, I think a mission accomplished for us. I mean, we clearly have chosen the best system. It's simple. It is clear. We now know it. Yeah. We've explained it to people. No, Carter, This is about adding nuance to the conversation. I think we've done that, which is helpful.

Zain 49:24

helpful. But give me your final thoughts here. Round us out. Well,

Carter 49:26

Well, I just think, you know, Corey's really showing the problem with all the systems.

Carter 49:32

When you're trying to choose one leader and for a party, we

Carter 49:36

we are choosing one person that is going to be, that should be a compromise in some fashion to ensure that you can have that representation across the country or across the ideologies that you're trying to We use these words like conservative, liberal, New Democrat, as though everyone

Carter 49:55

everyone who's a New Democrat understands exactly what that is. But there are so many different types of New Democrats. You know, we've talked before about the John Horgan New Democrats and how that's different than the Jagmeet Singh New Democrats and how the New Democrats under Jack Layton look different than they are now or Ed Broadbent. I mean, because the leadership defines

Carter 50:15

defines the party as much as the party is defined, you know, chooses the leader, you know, you're going to try and find someone who compromises that gives you the best opportunity for electoral success. And I think the ultimate concern that we bring to this is that the one-member, one-vote, the most, quote-unquote, most democratic, may create some unintended consequences when you're running a small system. And that unintended consequence is that you

Carter 50:44

you lose some of that capacity to appeal to the broader segment. When Danielle Smith and Pierre Polyev become the standard bearers of conservatism in Canada and in Alberta, then you are going to have a smaller conservative impact, one imagines. or we

Carter 51:03

we fear that if it stays the large conservative impact that we're going to be following in the steps of donald trump and uh post-truth uh post-truth politics so that is that's kind of the concern you know why do we bring this up why do we talk about it it's not because you know these things are just actually happening and everything's going to be okay it's because these things are happening and it may we may create perverse outcomes and we need need to be aware of that uh and make shifts within our parties uh to try and uh change it in the long run cory

Zain 51:36

cory final thoughts here yeah

Corey 51:38

yeah i mean i think i i agree to an extent with what steven said there uh maybe not as aggressively on his end points about where canada might be heading i i guess the point is these systems are all means to an end right and i think we spend much too much time thinking about the means and much too little thinking about the end political

Corey 51:56

political parties would do a better job of saying, what are we trying to accomplish with this? Having that conversation outside of the heat of a leadership contest, setting some clear boundaries and some guidelines that are not about the moment, but about in general, the principles that they want to bring forward. You know, what does it mean to be democratic to that party? What does it mean to be electable to that party? What does it mean to engage your activists? And how important are these things? And how much weight do we put to all of them as we're building out this system? What I fear right now is that we have a bunch of opportunists who are wrapping themselves in some very extreme language about the virtues of these systems when really they just want to get elected. It

Corey 52:34

It just comes down to that. And parties need to have more care over their systems and not just wait until all of a sudden it's vacant to start arm wrestling over who gets what. what.

Zain 52:44

Nicely done. Good job, guys. That was a great segment on leadership, how we vote, the voting systems. Of course, that was brought to us by our sponsor, Flair Airlines. No,

Zain 52:53

No, not our sponsor.

Zain 52:54

Neither means nor an end. Okay, let's move it on to our final segment,

Zain 53:01

Carter, you know, we do this for you. Even the special episodes, we do them for you. Thank you. And of course, we've been talking about how leaders get elected. So of course, Carter, I just want to ask you this very very simple question. Your thought, knowing how it works in the Republican primary for president, lay it on us, Carter, the 2016 GOP nominee, who's it going to be? Jeb Bush.

Zain 53:25

Thank you, Carter. That's all the time we have. We're going to leave it there. That's a special episode of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belger. With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we'll see you next time.

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