Transcript
Corey
0:00
You look haggard. You look like
Corey
0:03
like you have aged 30 in campaign years. I
Carter
0:06
I aged 30 years. I got to turn off my phone. I aged 30 years just yesterday.
Carter
0:12
Heather's been giving me a hard time because I have the standing table at home.
Carter
0:17
So in the standing table, I can stand at it and do my work and stuff. I don't have any of that shit here. i have
Carter
0:23
i have this table that i'm at right now which is fucking horrible i'm sitting on this this chair and
Carter
0:29
and then at the office unbelievably it's like i'm on the least ergonomically effective like i'm typing here i have to lift my head up in order to see over my keyboard and
Carter
0:40
and so my my shoulders and everything has just been like
Carter
0:45
that yeah i mean Not to mention you had
Corey
0:47
had like that bike accident a
Carter
0:49
Yeah, well, and my separated shoulder, right? So like I'm falling apart is
Carter
0:54
is what I'm trying to get at you. And Heather's
Corey
0:56
Heather's all over me. She's like- Present tense, not past tense. Yeah.
Carter
1:01
Falling apart. It's a disaster right now. Yeah,
Corey
1:03
Yeah, you fell apart. Yeah,
Carter
1:08
Trying to share a story with you and you're
Carter
1:11
Anyways, Heather's like, go get a massage. And I'm like, where
Corey
1:16
where am I supposed to go? It's a joke I could make here.
Carter
1:18
Well, exactly. Where am I supposed to even go in Surrey to get a massage, right?
Carter
1:23
So she has been on me for two weeks to get a massage. Go get a massage, go get a massage, go get a massage. So
Carter
1:29
So I look up on Google, right where the office is for the Surrey Forward HQ. This
Corey
1:35
This is not going good places, I can already tell.
Carter
1:37
tell. There are literally seven massage places within a single block of where
Carter
1:43
so i send her the picture i'm like i don't even know where i'm gonna go how will i choose how will i choose and she says just pick the one with the highest rating that's there that's that's like relaxation massage right without
Corey
1:54
without like a neon sign that says girls girls girls out front probably i
Carter
1:59
i did not have girls girls girls instead i got i walk in walk
Carter
2:04
walk in and and uh it's this um giant guy like he's a giant like and he's not like one of those giant muscular guys he's one of those giant fat guys that's just got fat guy strength you
Carter
2:20
we go into the room i send heather pictures i send heather pictures because i had to go to the bathroom before i'm in the bathroom and it's the storage shed the storage closet for cleaning stuff and
Carter
2:30
and then i go into the room the walls don't even go to the ceiling right like the walls are are like half walls like
Carter
2:38
yeah it's the it's like a bathroom stall and it's all like there's there's no accoutrement right like there's no there's
Carter
2:45
there's nothing there's nothing in the room at all okay you know what i said i was going to do this this is probably still going to be a good idea you know do we really need the little fountain in the corner you don't need the fountain right like kind of need the fountain it's
Carter
3:00
it's gonna be fine it's gonna be fine it's
Carter
3:02
it's got signs on the the wall that says 80 dollars 80 dollars 80 dollars i'm like i'm
Carter
3:07
i'm getting a deal this is gonna be fine so
Carter
3:11
so you know he he puts me in this room tells me to you know do the the regular thing like it's exactly the same as anywhere else you
Carter
3:18
you know get down to whatever level i feel comfortable in pull
Carter
3:21
pull the sheet on top of me and i'm lying there and i'm like okay this is i'm in he
Carter
3:24
he comes in and
Carter
3:26
and uh the very first thing is he grabs my shoulder puts his finger through
Carter
3:30
through like like a pressure point on my shoulder and
Carter
3:33
my back leg starts kicking my back right leg so he's on my left he's on my left shoulder my back legs holy fuck and he's like oh that's really bad i'm like it hurts it hurts and normally i muscle through right like because you don't want to tell people that it hurts so i'm like fuck that it hurts it hurts he's like oh grabs my elbow and touches my elbow in the same pressure so like they're connected in some way and my back leg i swear Swear to God, shot up like my figure skater. My back is straight up. I was like, oh, so anyways, he does the shoulders, does that. And he comes down my legs to do the pressure points. Did you see The Incredibles with your kids?
Carter
4:09
So he did this thing on my knee and my hip together. He pushes in and I'm like Elastigirl when she's got the kids in the boat. You know, where her back arches up like this and she's just like, the kids are in the boat and she's ripping
Corey
4:21
ripping through the water. Spoilers.
Carter
4:24
head touched my ass when I was tilting back. It was unbelievable.
Carter
4:28
Then he goes in and he says, okay, I'm just going to do a normal massage. I'm like, finally.
Carter
4:32
Finally, I just get a normal massage. I'm not going to do therapeutic.
Carter
4:36
So he gets to the point where he's got my shoulder. Like, you know how when you're a kid, you get your arm locked behind you in grade five?
Carter
4:43
And then they lift up on the arm and you're like, oh, stop, it hurts so much. That's what he was doing to me. And he had both arms that way. and
Carter
4:50
then he gets to my legs and i'm like oh thank god my legs are fine right like i don't have any pain in my legs he goes down my legs and
Carter
4:57
and he starts shaking out my ankle using just my big toe well
Carter
5:02
well i've got i've got gout right so he's using
Carter
5:06
he's using my big toe and he's like flipping my foot around and my ankle and like i am dying at at this stage then he starts bending my leg and playing put my toe up my ass you know like my leg is being bent and my toe is going up my ass i'm thinking maybe if he wins the game and gets my toe in my ass i
Corey
5:25
i can like stop but
Carter
5:28
he's trying so hard and then he flips it and then he flips to the other side and my right side is actually where my gouty toe is really bad right
Carter
5:36
right so he does the same thing and he gets down to the gouty toe and he's like shaking it i'm like oh it hurts so bad and And then he squeezes it and I think I pass out at that point because I wake up and he's still playing the toe up the ass thing. And oh,
Carter
5:51
anyways, then he flips me over and I don't think I should even talk about the stuff then. But anyways,
Carter
5:56
anyways, I got an appointment with him again next week. So hopefully things work out and
Carter
6:00
and I can be relaxed again. But right now
Corey
6:02
now I feel like shit.
Corey
6:03
Hope he buys you chocolates or something for that kind of
Carter
6:06
of thing. You want to do
Corey
6:08
Yeah. Let me just hit the –
Corey
6:12
Yeah. Okay. We'll just start now.
Corey
6:15
Just listen to the
Carter
6:16
The music. Okay. So, am I introing this time?
Carter
6:19
Hey, welcome to The Strategist. I'm Stephen Carter and I'm here today with Corey Hogan for another episode of Carter and Hogan.
Carter
6:29
We don't have Zane today.
Carter
6:31
Do we actually know where Zane is? He sent us a note.
Carter
6:34
Was it Thursday morning? He
Corey
6:35
He sent us a note Thursday morning. This is classic Zane. Let's give an insight into the The World of the Strategists recording schedule.
Corey
6:43
He texts us Thursday morning and
Corey
6:46
says, hey, guys, I can't record tonight because I've got this gala in Toronto. So it's going to have to be you two. And
Corey
6:54
And so I said, oh, no problems. And you obviously just learned about this gala you're on a flight for this morning. This is clearly something that's just come up. And there's no way you could have given us some foreknowledge on this.
Corey
7:07
He doesn't sort of respond to that. But yeah, so he's not there. You and I were going to record, but I was a little under the weather. So we thought, well,
Carter
7:13
well, we'll do Friday morning.
Corey
7:15
we didn't do Friday morning. I actually don't know why we didn't do Friday morning. What day is it today?
Corey
7:20
I honestly don't know. Today is Saturday morning.
Corey
7:24
Hey, Saturday morning. Okay.
Corey
7:26
As we're sort of even
Corey
7:28
even rescheduling to Friday morning, I noticed that Zane didn't put his hand up to say, hey, not going to still be at the gala Friday morning. Maybe I could jump into this.
Corey
7:37
And we were texting last
Carter
7:38
last night about this. we were texting on the strategist yeah group chat
Corey
7:41
yeah he was engaging on other matters but seemed
Corey
7:44
seemed to always find an opportunity to go silent when we were talking about recording yeah
Carter
7:50
so i've done like no prep i've
Carter
7:52
i've got i'm in the middle of a show like i'm in the middle of a campaign right yeah
Corey
7:59
ready for a big
Carter
8:00
week of announcements we're doing like the big week of announcements of real stuff pretty
Corey
8:04
that's very exciting yeah
Corey
8:05
i mean i would would ask you to tell me all about them but i feel like that would sort of undo the purpose of a big week just
Carter
8:15
as always though like the media will not cover any of our policy announcements right
Corey
8:19
anything that has to do with policy
Carter
8:21
policy it's i always tell the campaigns it's like eating getting people to eat their vegetables right occasionally they will eat their vegetables but they're really much
Carter
8:28
much more interested in the candy so you have to give them
Carter
8:31
like, you know, one of the campaigns did the fake memo trick this week. Oh,
Corey
8:36
Oh, yeah. The fake
Corey
8:36
fake memo trick. It
Carter
8:38
It was good. You
Corey
8:38
You know, the other thing is, you know, like the fake contention in the campaign, like this policy is coming out, but it was very contentious. And there were people who, they were mad. They were thinking about quitting the campaign because they were worried that, well, they agreed with it fundamentally. They just didn't think people were ready to hear this brilliant truth, you know? Exactly.
Carter
8:54
Exactly. I mean, you know, are the voters ready? Ready?
Carter
8:57
Are the voters ready for
Carter
8:59
for this wonderful new thing that we're proposing?
Corey
9:05
Yeah. That's my personal favorite. I might try that on Tuesday.
Carter
9:10
you see that on Tuesday, that's what I've done.
Corey
9:14
Well, I want, yeah, I want a byline credit if that's the case. Oh, yeah, for sure.
Carter
9:18
sure. For sure. I'll get it to you.
Carter
9:19
I credited the strategist for the fake memo strategy that uh
Carter
9:24
uh i can't remember his name brad zubik
Carter
9:26
zubik brad zubik did it for uh
Corey
9:30
saw that there was like a picture of a memo as though somebody had you
Corey
9:35
you know like it was sam's debt and the soviet union you know this idea somebody had smuggled it out of the campaign office this uh this memo i
Carter
9:43
i can't talk about the polling right now but let's just say that we're doing very well oh
Corey
9:47
oh it's so ridiculous because of course like what made you need to take the picture on the desk like it was the top memo on a pile of papers yeah no instead of just using
Corey
9:57
using the memo scan feature on your phone yeah exactly like a perfect yeah
Carter
10:03
it's it was so 1980s it was fantastic we got
Corey
10:06
got the film out
Carter
10:06
out i just shut up my ass yeah and
Corey
10:11
and then people sort of like just sort of unfailingly accepting it well
Carter
10:16
well you know and the people who fall for it you're always so disappointed like jazz johal has been a former mla uh and now he's a ck and w host and he falls for it i'm like jazz come on how
Carter
10:27
how do you do that okay
Corey
10:29
okay this is a good point though like if it's a real leak do you know what it looks like it
Corey
10:32
it looks like a word document or a pdf it doesn't look like a picture of a piece of paper artfully presented on another pile of papers yeah
Corey
10:41
i mean i have we
Carter
10:41
we i mean we do have files you don't want to necessarily be emailing around but you
Carter
10:46
you know you don't print print out these memos and just hand them out like they're candy. Like what the, I just don't understand. Anyways, it's a, it's a, it's
Carter
10:54
it's a conundrum. It's a thing that we're fighting through, but that's what my, my world is like, you know? And again, I mean, we talked about logistics that other time. I'm still working on logistics, large sign logistics. I want to have people killed.
Corey
11:06
It is just, there's so,
Carter
11:09
there's such a pain in the ass. I hate them.
Corey
11:13
But they have to
Corey
11:14
Have to be done.
Corey
11:15
a couple of things going on in the world. That's actually why I'm recording the
Carter
11:17
the podcast, though, so I don't have to do large science.
Corey
11:19
science. Oh, so you're avoiding the installation of science. I'm avoiding installation
Carter
11:21
installation of large science. That's very
Carter
11:23
Got to record the
Corey
11:27
listen, I'll throw a couple of topics at you. You tell me when one sounds interesting to you.
Corey
11:31
Obviously, everything that's going on in Ukraine right now. We don't normally do the whole foreign affairs thing, but there's the Canadian angle.
Corey
11:39
Yeah. And when, so of course, Putin came out and said, annexing these territories based on these sham, you know, referendum results, the response from Ukraine was to request membership
Corey
11:54
And immediately, Canada said, yeah, we're good with that. So there's the Canadian angle on that. And what's the strategy on that? And what are the considerations? You sent
Carter
12:01
sent this to me last night, and I was really interested because, first
Carter
12:06
first of all, let's go back to the sham referenda. Because
Carter
12:10
Trudeau, when they were called, said very clearly, these are fake. We're not going to ever recognize them.
Carter
12:16
And he's been very consistent. And I think that that was one of his most clear foreign policy statements. And it was from him, whereas so many of his Ukraine statements have come from Jolie or Freeland. Yeah,
Corey
12:28
Yeah, not the toughest call when they're actually at gunpoint, getting people to fill out ballots. Super
Carter
12:32
Super easy, super easy point of view. But you pointed out the, I hadn't actually seen the NATO, I mean, I'd seen the NATO request, but I hadn't seen our NATO response. And I was shocked that we took that quick of a reaction, given that, I can't remember the actual article, but it's been quoted a lot. You have to defend fellow
Carter
12:52
fellow NATO countries when they are under attack. attack.
Carter
12:56
So you pointed out that you
Carter
12:58
you thought that there's a reason for that.
Carter
13:00
Do you want to tell the others, tell the class,
Corey
13:03
class, Mr. Hogan, share with the class? So I'm trying to be... We'll unpack the charitable after, but the thing that bothers me about this, that bothers me is that I don't actually think Canada was being particularly sincere in this request because Ukraine is under attack. And
Corey
13:22
And if for whatever reason, And everybody in NATO said, yeah, okay, we're willing to accept Ukraine as a member. That would basically immediately require us to come to the defense of Ukraine, which would immediately set us into a shooting war with Russia.
Corey
13:37
one of the reasons I think Canada was so quick to get out there, this is the cynical version of me, right?
Corey
13:44
you know that this
Corey
13:46
this can only happen with unanimous consent of NATO. NATO, it is zero risk for you as Canada to say, oh yeah, no, I want Ukraine and NATO because you know, a more responsible country along the way is going to say, I
Corey
13:58
I don't know about that. I mean, I don't know if I, because there are easier ways to declare war on Russia. Let's put it that way. And that's what ultimately this would be.
Corey
14:07
you know, this kind of shows a shallowness in Canadian foreign policy that we would immediately be saying, oh no, we're willing to do that when it seems very clear to me, we're not actually willing to have Ukraine as a member of NATO. The thought exercise, Carter, is this. If we were last, if every other country in NATO said,
Corey
14:26
okay, sure. Yeah, we'll have Ukraine and NATO. And we were last. Does anybody think Canada would be the one to say, okay, let's go. Let's war with Russia. Let's do it.
Corey
14:38
I just don't believe that's the case.
Carter
14:40
Well, and even taking the thought exercise further, I mean, essentially what you're you're doing is you're committing Canadian troops to this action. Would
Carter
14:46
Would you commit Canadian troops to this action today?
Carter
14:48
Because if you're prepared to stand with your allies, if this is something you actually believe, is this something you believe so strongly that you'd send Canadian troops today to fight with Russia?
Carter
15:00
Great point. Because it is the same thing, right? I mean, it kind of reminds me of the little-
Corey
15:06
- Oh, no. It's like the hold
Carter
15:07
hold me back, right?
Corey
15:07
right? It's like, oh, I'd fight you, Russia, but my guy's here. That was my
Carter
15:14
Absolutely. I mean, I'm very familiar with that. It's
Carter
15:18
It's absolutely what it was, right? We'd be right there for Ukraine, but sadly, Biden, the old general doesn't want to do it. So we're going to have to sit. He's a pacifist, really. We're fighters here in Canada.
Carter
15:32
I mean, it's a joke.
Corey
15:34
Now, if I'm going to be more charitable, Why
Carter
15:36
Why would you do that?
Corey
15:37
Well, you know, let's
Corey
15:39
let's talk about what else might be going on if it's not just Canada trying to get like a quick domestic win and playing fast and loose with foreign policy and taking it relatively unseriously.
Corey
15:50
That's what I believe is probably happening. But if I'm going to be more charitable, maybe
Corey
15:54
maybe NATO got together, talked
Corey
15:56
talked to Zelensky, ahead
Corey
15:57
of all of this even going on and said, We want to show the Russians that there is some risk of this. So we'll have a certain number of member nations immediately come out in support of this. If they're going to try to keep the temperature up on nuclear war, maybe we'll try to keep the temperature up on mutual defense. And so a number of nations, but not all, will come and say, yes, I would support this, which will also show momentum for Ukraine's NATO membership. We'll make it more likely down the road. And yeah, you know what? Canada. We're going to have Canada be one of the countries coming out. That's
Carter
16:27
That kind of thing happens
Corey
16:28
happens in diplomacy all the time.
Corey
16:30
So that's a possibility. I just don't believe it's what happened.
Carter
16:33
No, I think that it's a bit more rogue than that. And if it was a little bit more orchestrated,
Carter
16:39
orchestrated, I think you'd see, I
Carter
16:42
I mean, and I haven't seen, I haven't knee deep in the campaign, but have any other NATO countries jumped in
Corey
16:48
round? Yeah, Lithuania and I think Latvia. I might be wrong on that. A couple of the Balkan states have done the same. Oh, esteemed company for,
Carter
16:56
for, you know, but I'm linking like, you know, Great Britain, Germany. Anybody who's actually got an army.
Corey
17:02
When I went to bed last night, the answer to that is no. Yeah.
Corey
17:06
You know, they've been up. We haven't been. If
Carter
17:08
If I was orchestrating it, I'd have the French hold out because that very, very stereotypical French.
Corey
17:15
Well, that's not good.
Carter
17:18
That's not good? So there is interesting
Corey
17:21
domestic politics now as a result of everything going on in Russia,
Corey
17:27
There's decisions that need to be made. I think by and large, the world, not even just the Western world has said, yeah, I'm sorry, Russia, but that's beyond straining credulity that you invade a country, declare
Corey
17:40
declare that country part of your country, and then start saying this is an act of self-defense when that country is still fighting you in their country. I like that's not really believable.
Corey
17:50
But at a certain point,
Corey
17:53
you know, okay, so we're not a foreign affairs podcast, but no,
Corey
18:00
do find it really interesting the box that Vladimir Putin has put himself in. Because
Corey
18:05
Because it seemed to me that the way that you sort of get at least something out of this disaster you've created for yourself if you're Putin is you get the Western world to put pressure on Ukraine to accept some sort of deal and then the bloodshed. And
Corey
18:19
And you probably, if you had just kept your ambitions to the areas that Russia has de facto controlled through separatists since 2014, plus
Corey
18:28
and you'd said, okay, this is now all part of Russia. like the parts of the Donbass that we controlled are part of Russia, it would be kind of difficult for people not to say, okay, well, that's a grounds for at least a ceasefire. And from there, who knows what goes on and maybe there's an easing. But by claiming all four of these Ukrainian provinces, including huge swaths they don't actually control right now that are under control of the Ukrainian army and saying they're forever more under the defense of the Russian Russian people,
Corey
18:57
what are your options, right? Your options are either one, to
Corey
19:01
to fight until you have that territory,
Corey
19:04
whole bunch of ugly there, or two, make a deal down the road that gives this areas back to Ukraine. When you've just held sham referendums that say 90 plus percent of people want to be part of Russia. So domestically, if you're Putin, all of a sudden, your
Corey
19:17
your choices are either admit those were sham referenda, never going to happen, or you
Corey
19:23
you basically say, yeah, yeah, we know they all want to know, right? We all know these were bullshit, but you know, yeah,
Corey
19:28
yeah, these were 90% of these people wanted to be in Russia and we're just going to let them go.
Corey
19:33
That's not good. Either one is going to destroy them.
Carter
19:35
think that, you know, we're not a foreign affairs podcast, but we can equate this to local, right? This is the local politician that has doubled down and then doubled down and then doubled down. And
Carter
19:45
And we often talk about the double down as a great strategy, right? When you double down, you are, you
Carter
19:50
you know, you're protecting your initial position and you are reinforcing it in the face of insurmountable
Carter
19:56
insurmountable odds sometimes. And for the most part, we think of it as a good, timely
Carter
20:01
timely strategy if the time frame is going to run out on
Carter
20:07
And we've seen that with Trump, right? Trump has really been the double-down expert, right? Something blows up in front of him, he doesn't care because next week's going to bring another crisis that he's able to walk away from.
Carter
20:17
Problem is that Putin's doubled down so many times on this, especially with the call-up.
Carter
20:22
he has doubled down and now he's called up a million Russians or tried to call up a million Russians, had to back away from
Carter
20:29
from some of that yesterday and put himself in a really tough position where now he's got opposition in a place where opposition is impossible. So that is kind of unbelievable. And when you look at what's
Carter
20:48
what's going on in Iran, what's going on in Russia,
Carter
20:51
Russia, you're seeing resistance
Carter
20:54
resistance to dictatorship or autocratic rule that
Carter
21:01
that we haven't seen for quite some time. And I
Carter
21:04
I don't know. I mean, I'm actually more for stability than I am for democracy everywhere. I know that that's the United States line, right? Democracy everywhere. And I think that that type of thinking has gotten us into all kinds of problems in areas that
Carter
21:19
that don't really value democracy that we do.
Carter
21:22
Maybe they will in the future, who knows? But you just can't enforce and say, okay, Russia will now be democratic. Yeltsin tried that and it didn't work out until some wannabe
Carter
21:33
wannabe dictator named Putin came along and
Carter
21:35
and managed to take over the country. So this
Carter
21:40
this is an interesting, not
Carter
21:43
not good situation where we have turmoil throughout the world and turmoil that's going to cost people lives and
Carter
21:51
and could spread, which makes me very nervous as we're tentatively
Carter
21:55
tentatively recovering from our pandemic and financial crisis and other issues
Carter
22:00
issues of the last 15 years.
Corey
22:03
Well, so let's bring it home. Domestically now, we've got a prime minister who's got to make some choices. I think even based on his NATO comments yesterday, it's
Corey
22:11
it's pretty clear we're putting our chips with Ukraine and we're going to be strong allies. But there are decisions about how much you support Ukraine, what kind of weapons you give Ukraine, and
Corey
22:22
what are the ramifications of that?
Corey
22:24
I, you know, I don't know. I mean, this is going to be an interesting one to watch. And certainly in the Canadian context, the conservatives have held strong in support of Ukraine. It's not like the states where you have like the,
Corey
22:34
the, you know, CPAC, the conservative group, talking
Corey
22:37
talking about the areas that Russia has taken over having had been occupied by Ukraine.
Corey
22:42
Like just totally bonkers shit. They were handing out flags, Russian
Corey
22:45
Russian flags that said Trump, like not them, the organizers, but people on the floors of that conference.
Carter
22:51
Well, the right wing in the United States, the right wing in Canada has taken a decided turn towards,
Carter
22:59
you know, it's too far to call it fascism, I think.
Carter
23:03
But it certainly has fascist tendencies. I know that when
Carter
23:08
called it, what did he call it, fascism light or something like that? I
Corey
23:12
I don't know if I saw that. Or moderate fascism
Carter
23:13
fascism or something along those lines.
Corey
23:17
That's a terrible phrase. I
Carter
23:18
I think he got a tremendous amount of negative feedback, but it's
Carter
23:22
it's difficult because we've never seen anything in this lane, right? We just saw Italy elect a neo
Corey
23:31
I mean, certainly far right. That's the language.
Carter
23:33
That's the language that they're using, neo-fascist. So
Carter
23:36
So that's the language she's self-identifying.
Carter
23:40
you know, it's nerve wracking.
Carter
23:45
fortunately, it's Italy, and we'll probably see a new government in nine to 10 months because of their wonderful proportional representation system. But we'll
Corey
23:52
talk about that later.
Corey
23:52
later. Are you trying to bring proportional representation into this? No,
Carter
23:55
No, I don't want to, because
Carter
23:57
we've already done that episode, and we've already dissected it. And
Carter
24:00
And if you're a $10 a month patron, you
Carter
24:03
you can listen to those episodes. Okay.
Corey
24:06
Okay. Great plug. Upgrade
Corey
24:08
Trying to upsell now. Upgrade
Carter
24:13
patreon slash the strategist or
Carter
24:15
or what strategist pod what are we i don't even know strategist
Corey
24:21
or the strategist.ca we got so many domains oh
Carter
24:24
oh my god i mean we're
Corey
24:25
we're really just none of them there we're
Carter
24:26
we're practically a multinational yeah
Corey
24:29
yeah you know very
Corey
24:30
very much so unbelievable
Corey
24:32
hey listen uh so speaking of our beloved patrons we got the youtube chat going and somebody asked, can you discuss the Janet Brown poll in Alberta?
Carter
24:41
Oh, I haven't seen it.
Carter
24:43
Are you kidding me?
Corey
24:44
Have you really not seen it?
Carter
24:45
No, you'll have to update. Do
Corey
24:47
Do the talk and I'll be
Carter
24:47
be smart at the end. Well,
Corey
24:49
I'm going to have to do some Googling here to get the numbers right. But I'll do that while you're giving your first round of talking here.
Corey
24:54
Long story short is Janet Brown brought out a poll along with some commentary along with the poll. So those who don't know, Janet Brown is a very well-regarded pollster here in Alberta, is generally seen as one of the most accurate pollsters, has probably
Corey
25:06
probably the most robust methodology of the pollsters who are in the field, really does everything exactly as you would want a pollster to do, and as a result has been accurate more often than not. Another thing is this is her turf. And we've talked about this not for a long time, but in other episodes, pollsters can really start to unpack the idiosyncrasies of their geography and really get to know like, okay,
Corey
25:28
I could be led astray if I wait to this demographic, but if I wait to these things, it's more likely to to find me exactly where i need to be anyhow
Corey
25:36
her her poll showed the ucp i believe in the lead uh i will pull up those numbers as we're talking here but more importantly it showed there was like a serious erosion in the ucp's uh brand in calgary if danielle smith were
Corey
25:50
to be leader you know the approve disapprove of danielle smith in calgary was was, forget
Corey
25:55
forget the second digit, but it was like 35-55 in favor or opposed. And the reason this matters is, as we've talked about here, to win government in Alberta, you need to win two of three regions. That's the conventional thinking. It's not quite so shorthand anymore as the cities continue to grow, but you need to win
Corey
26:16
Edmonton, you need to win Calgary, you need to win rural, pick two. And
Corey
26:20
And historically, the Conservatives have won rural
Corey
26:25
Calgary and a bit of Edmonton, and it was more than enough to get government. Obviously, in 2015, what happened was something entirely different.
Corey
26:32
The NDP got Edmonton,
Corey
26:34
Edmonton, they got a bit of Calgary, in large part in Calgary because of vote splits, and a bit of rural, although not a ton of rural. I don't want to overstate that. And that was enough for a strong majority government. government.
Corey
26:46
Doesn't necessarily look like rural is going to be the path for the NDP this time. So I think it's fair to say, Carter, you tell me if you disagree, but you and I would agree, it's all about Calgary. If the NDP can win two thirds of the seats in Calgary, they will win what they need in Edmonton.
Corey
27:02
They're going to be government in that scenario.
Corey
27:05
- But that's always been a big lift.
Carter
27:08
Well, and especially because Calgary is not uniform in
Carter
27:11
in and of itself. I think the people look at the northwest of Calgary and think it's the same as the southwest or the southeast. And it's just not true. I think everybody understands that the northeast is a little bit different animal. But actually, when you look at the northeast, the penetration of visible minorities in the northeast is actually less than the penetration of visible minorities in the northwest. The difference is generation of immigration, right? So, you
Carter
27:38
you know, and I use generation of immigration when I'm talking about any level
Carter
27:43
level of immigrant, right? Because first-generation immigrants from any country have always behaved similarly, including
Carter
27:50
including living close to one another, supportive
Carter
27:54
supportive businesses, very community-based economy. That type of thing happened when the Italians came over to Canada as well, as much as the Ukrainians, as much as the South Asian population. So all of these populations have come over.
Carter
28:11
Chinese has been a little different because forced labor, those types of things. But the rest of the populations have been pretty
Carter
28:19
identifiable as they move through.
Carter
28:23
Northwest votes different than Southeast. And Southeast is the whitest group.
Carter
28:28
And the NDP made virtually
Carter
28:30
virtually no penetration down there before, except for, as you describe it, a vote split.
Carter
28:35
Because there was the Progressive Conservatives and there was the Wild
Carter
28:40
Wild Rose under Brian Jeans. So this is a different model. And when you look at the model, there is virtually no way for the NDP to hold a bunch of seats that they held last time.
Carter
28:53
We had this conversation, I think on a regular episode a couple of weeks ago, where
Carter
28:56
where we debated about Calgary, Glenmore, and a couple of other key
Carter
29:01
key spots. But if Janet's starting to show penetration
Carter
29:03
penetration by the NDP and growth and
Carter
29:06
and Danielle losing the Urban,
Carter
29:09
I think that that's a predictable outcome
Carter
29:14
the positions that Danielle has taken.
Carter
29:17
And I haven't seen the numbers. I would love to see a full-style collapse in Calgary, but
Carter
29:22
but I know that that's just simply not going to happen because especially in the South, there are just far too many people who agree with Danielle's style of thinking. And again, there's
Carter
29:33
there's a high degree of concentration in certain ridings for Danielle Smith-style thinking. And whether I was working on
Carter
29:42
on the referendum for the Olympics or working on the mayor's race, I always know that the South is the last place to move.
Corey
29:52
Yeah, so I think I may have conflated the Think HQ poll with Janet Brown's in terms of those specific numbers, numbers, but I have not misrepresented basically what Janet Brown's thesis here is. This is from Don Braid article.
Corey
30:03
UCP campaign has badly damaged the party's image with Alberta's voting public. Consequently, the NDP would form a majority government under current situations. That's the startling conclusion of Calgary-based pollster Janet Brown, who has a long record of spotting and tracking trends that can seem off-center at first, but later turn out to be true.
Carter
30:20
How is that startling, Corey?
Corey
30:22
is that startling? I honestly don't believe it is either because A, and this is the thing, it just makes me want to throw my head through a wall every bloody time this comes up, including when I was talking to new Democrats when I worked for the government, because they would say things like, oh, well, Calgarians won't go for that. Albertans won't go for that. So point number one, they
Corey
30:41
they fucking voted for you. The NDP were elected in 2015. They were sitting at a fork in the road and they said, well, I don't like the PCs anymore.
Corey
30:54
I they vote at NDP. And then the NDP seemed to immediately forget that and just feed into all of these ridiculous stereotypes of what Albertans think and don't think.
Corey
31:03
Ultimately, the NDP won on a platform that talked about royalty review and raising the minimum wage and action on climate, and you name it. Pull up that 2015 platform, compare it to the 2015 Wild Rose platform. Albertans had a choice. So point one, you shouldn't be surprised on that. Point
Corey
31:21
how many polls have the NDP led? I mean, not universally, I think since the spring as the economy started to rebound, but
Corey
31:27
but the NDP have been in the lead as much as not in the last two years in this province. How would it be startling to anybody that the NDP might win?
Carter
31:34
More than not. I mean, there's been a few in the recent months. That's it. Because you would point out on the podcast, like for two years, we had the NDP leading polls. You
Carter
31:46
You know, like this is not startling.
Carter
31:50
this is anticipated and predictable especially when you choose a wingnut like danielle smith i mean i
Carter
31:58
mean at least she's not promising to end royalties so that albertans don't have to pay taxes or something stupid i i mean brian gene did that and it made me want to throw myself through a wall i mean do any of these guys actually know how the alberta government raises money and how it spends money like have they read the budgets do they know how how
Carter
32:17
this works at all like i
Carter
32:19
i i understand when tom dick and harry on twitter don't read the budgets don't understand how the budgets work but if brian gene and daniel smith don't understand how our economy functions and how um
Carter
32:33
you know where our spending goes and where our revenues come from i i worry for the day that they're in charge well
Corey
32:39
well there's a time where we're kind of of showing that fundamental misunderstanding of how Alberta's economy works would be considered deeply disqualifying. You're
Corey
32:49
You're talking about Brian Jean on
Corey
32:51
on Twitter. He said that he was going to make it so Albertans wouldn't have to pay royalties. And I'm
Corey
32:59
I'm shorthanding it. It was part of a thread back and forth, but here's the bottom line.
Corey
33:03
Albertans get paid royalties. You don't pay pay royalties. Royalties are literally... So here's the thing. Here's your 101 of resources in Canada, right?
Corey
33:16
Subsurface mineral rights are all, not all, I think 92% owned by the crown. So you might own your house. If there's oil underneath your house, it's owned by the good people of Alberta.
Corey
33:27
And when somebody drills that oil, they don't just get to drill it for free. they have to pay the government, us, all of us collectively, money for each barrel of oil that they pull out of the ground because it's our oil. So a royalty is us charging, the collective us, the person who's drilling the oil for the sale of that product from underneath our feet.
Corey
33:50
And so when Brian Jeans starts saying things like, I'm
Corey
33:53
I'm going to make it so Albertans don't have to pay royalties, I don't know what the fuck he's talking about. I assume it's some sort of mechanism wherein if you're selling the gas in alberta or
Corey
34:02
or something like that you effectively like you
Corey
34:06
you find a complicated formula this is me being charitable steven you
Corey
34:09
find a complicated formula you
Carter
34:11
you are being in that case where
Corey
34:12
where those things don't come in in alberta but then just take get rid of the gas tax like why are you doing this in the most insane most complicated way possible uh you know through some sort of mechanism that is just going to hurt albertans i don't understand i
Carter
34:25
mean we saw what happens when royalties don't get paid in alberta that's called a recession and
Carter
34:30
and the oil prices are super low
Carter
34:32
low and we get no royalties. When
Carter
34:34
When those royalties are low, we have huge deficits. Jason Kenney might be familiar with those huge deficits. It's a shame that Brian Jean wasn't paying attention.
Carter
34:43
I just don't understand how the
Carter
34:47
the UCP leadership group can be so ill-informed and expect to govern. And I think that this is what the poll is saying. right
Carter
34:54
right the poll is punishing them for not being informed and not understanding what's going to happen um
Carter
35:00
with the economy and with health care um
Carter
35:03
um they're taken when you take the position of the 20 percent uh you will be rewarded with 20 percent so
Corey
35:11
so one of the things in the braid article about janet's poll that um
Corey
35:16
um really i sort of i think struck me is that she sees albertans as alienated by the UCP leadership race. And this is a point that was in the Braid article, but I think it's worth talking about here.
Corey
35:28
Normally, we think of leadership races as something that's supposed to help a political party.
Corey
35:32
Seems really clear that this leadership race has hurt the UCP. I want to cast you back to when this leadership race started.
Corey
35:39
Some of the conversations we were having, right? We said, oh, this could be messy. It could be contentious, could split the party.
Corey
35:45
What I don't think we gave enough airtime to at the time was, what if it doesn't split the party? What if they all get into a bidding war with each other to see who can be the most conservative to try to win that coalition, which seems to be what's happened. But the
Corey
35:58
economy in Alberta is doing great. Government revenues, as you've mentioned, have rebounded. I did want to kind of throw myself off a cliff when you made recession and deficit the same thing, but that's okay. No, I said we have a deficit
Corey
36:12
we have a recession. We'll forgive you today.
Corey
36:15
But things looked up for the UCP and we thought if there was a leader who could be seen as a bit of a blank slate, so Travis Taves was the example in this case, come forward, Albertans don't really know him, he wins.
Corey
36:28
All they know about him is, hey, the balanced budget's now a thing and the economy's doing good and he was a finance minister and he goes straight to the polls in that scenario, they would have a real chance, he said. But
Corey
36:37
But instead, they've spent the summer talking about the Sovereignty Act, and they've spent the summer talking about guns and all of these other things that are these conservative issues.
Corey
36:46
issues. But when you start thinking about those three regions, Calgary, Edmonton, and rural,
Corey
36:51
they don't just mean nothing in Calgary and Edmonton. They're actively alienating.
Carter
36:56
let's talk about how the format creates the outcome, right?
Carter
37:00
right? Because we talked about this all the way through. And if you go back and listen to the various podcasts all the way through, you'll see that we start off with this, is it going to be contentious? Is it going to blow things apart? And then we get to the money
Carter
37:14
money cutoff and the signatures requirement. The
Carter
37:18
The signatures requirement on
Carter
37:20
on its face didn't seem that high. It was 1,000 signatures from five different regions or 200 from each region. It actually was very high because the period of time was short to get there. And the dollar amount that was required to stay in was also very high. You had a $125,000 entry fee. So everybody except Danielle Smith was running around trying to get their signatures and trying to raise their $125,000. Travis Taves was the most effective and he got his money in just a few days before. But we remember watching Lila here and Lila
Carter
37:53
Lila here, Rebecca Schultz, and a couple of the the other candidates struggle just to meet that deadline. And
Corey
38:01
And I think helping each other, right? Like their team's basically trying to get signatures for both at the same time.
Carter
38:06
The team was exhausted by the end of that period. And then within, I think, two weeks, the membership cutoff was done, right?
Carter
38:12
right? So Danielle Smith was able to sell memberships while everybody else was raising money. And then they found out that the memberships that were sold either by Danielle prior to the leadership review of Jason Kenney or
Carter
38:23
or by Danielle subsequent to that that leadership review. Those
Carter
38:26
Those memberships were all the right wing, the rabid right wingers.
Carter
38:29
So the only way to compete for the members was to out-compete one another.
Carter
38:33
So the format has actually dictated the outcome. We said the same thing when Jason Kenney was trying to take over the PCs. We talked to the PC executive and said, if you do it this way, you
Carter
38:43
you are going to be giving Jason Kenney the outcome. If
Carter
38:46
If you do it another way, allowing
Carter
38:49
allowing proportional representation, representation, you know, like there's different ways within the ridings to select different people. If you play with the outcome, this is why I always get mad with the proportional representative folks who pretend like there's no way to game a PR system. There's a total way to game the PR system, you morons. We know it. Believe me, we studied it. We understand all of this. This is our job. So
Carter
39:12
So when we look at the various systems, you can see that the system dictates the outcome. One member, one vote, with
Carter
39:19
with a high dollar value entry fee, with high levels of entry requirements, with a short cutoff immediately thereafter, means that whoever's in the lead at that time will remain in the lead.
Carter
39:29
And if it's a crazy person like Danielle, then you're going to see Brian Jean, Travis Daves, and the others trying to out-crazy them, because there is no other choice. There is no other choice. And small things like Patrick Brown being tossed out of the the federal
Carter
39:44
federal conservative race seems to have killed Raj and Sonny, right? So Sonny, if that all happens at once, there's no time to recover. And by the end of it, she's still stuck at 1% and no one's able to grow.
Carter
39:56
the format created this outcome where everybody has to go to the right, go to the right, go to the right. And the outcome of that is you lose the big cities, right?
Carter
40:04
right? You'd already lost Edmonton and now you're losing Calgary. Congratulations,
Carter
40:07
you've done a great job.
Corey
40:08
This does go back to some of the things we talked about when building these leadership contests is for way too often and way too many members, this is an afterthought. How do you run the leadership contest? And usually it's determined in the month between when the leader is deposed
Corey
40:23
deposed and when this contest needs to formally kick off. And I think that's a mistake because at that point, it's already too late. Parties, party members need to think an awful lot more about how they choose leadership contests. And let me tell Tell you something, there's
Corey
40:36
there's a not very unrealistic scenario where the NDP wins the next election and Rachel Notley not just runs in
Corey
40:44
in 2023 or 2022 if we get an early one, but also four
Corey
40:49
four years later and
Corey
40:50
then maybe hangs up her
Corey
40:54
The NDP should be thinking now about how they want to run the next leadership contest and what that looks like. Because the minute, let's say it's all of a sudden 2027 and Rachel Notley says, you know what? It's
Corey
41:06
It's been a great run.
Corey
41:07
I got my two non-consecutive terms as premier. I've done the things I want to do.
Corey
41:11
I'm now really excited to go work in Jagmeet Singh's federal government. So I'm making a leap now, right? Maybe that all happens. happens.
Corey
41:22
At that particular moment, there will be this mad jockeying for the rules of the game. And it's pretty easy to say, well, we've got rules of the game, but
Corey
41:30
but those rules were created for a different game. Those rules were created unless they've been updated. So I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but
Corey
41:37
but those rules were created when
Corey
41:39
when the NDP was the third party, the fourth party, if we're going to get technical about it.
Corey
41:44
And things are different now. And the considerations that the party needs to bring forward are different. It's no longer what can can keep the light on in the darkest corners of the province. It's how do we make sure we are always competing for government? Or maybe
Corey
41:57
maybe it isn't, right?
Corey
41:58
right? But the party membership needs to think about these things very intentionally
Corey
42:01
intentionally and build their leadership contests accordingly.
Carter
42:05
Well, and because it will matter, right? If you do a points-based race in Alberta, it's going to look totally different than if you do one member, one vote. Keep
Carter
42:14
Keep in mind, Rachel Notley was like the
Carter
42:17
the heir apparent, right? They had a race only because they chose to have a race. They had, you
Carter
42:22
you know, they pushed a couple of folks into the race to make sure that they had a race.
Carter
42:26
Rachel won it handily.
Carter
42:28
And I don't remember how many votes it was, Corey, but it was not the
Carter
42:31
the dominant leadership race of the era. Let's leave it that way. And we can, you know, color around the edges on that, as you will. but this
Carter
42:43
is a different game now. Now you are running to conceivably be premier and it will attract different types of people, especially with the elimination of the center.
Carter
42:54
With the elimination of the center, that means that the centrist, the damned centrist might come in and try and win the leadership of the party. And
Carter
43:04
And you're thinking, well, that couldn't possibly happen, except there's more centrist than there are people on the left. Very
Carter
43:09
Very easily could happen and where the NDP very quickly becomes the Alberta Democrats because the new Democrats weren't protecting their system and weren't protecting their party brand structure.
Corey
43:20
Well, and these are the decisions party members need to make. What matters to them? What do they need to put in place? Because in some ways, the NDP may otherwise find itself, it's not hard to imagine the opposite of the UCP scenario where the UCP is utterly beholden to rural Alberta Florida, and
Corey
43:38
and maybe the NDP, because
Corey
43:39
because of a one-member vote, become utterly beholden to downtown Edmonton, which is perhaps not reflective of absolutely everywhere else in this province. So
Corey
43:47
question that they're going to have to deal with another day. But I guess my point would be, people will say, we got other things going on. I totally agree. I wouldn't distract for a moment from the 2023 election, but post-2023, probably
Corey
43:59
probably something the NDP should be thinking about.
Carter
44:01
Well, and this is actually really in play right now. In British Columbia, we've got David Eby running to be the leader of the BC.
Corey
44:07
BC. Yeah, this has been interesting to watch.
Carter
44:10
And it really was designed, I think, to be a handover, right? John Horgan was just, you know, he was retiring. David Eby was the consensus choice of caucus. And, you
Carter
44:20
you know, there were a couple of caucus members kicking the idea around, but it never really got a hold because everybody just thought, you know, it's David's turn. And out of nowhere appears the Dogwood Initiative. And
Carter
44:30
And the Dogwood Initiative has put forward their own candidate. They have a huge list. They have the capacity to sell memberships. They may be breaking the rules. They may not be breaking the rules. Who knows? Are there even rules in British Columbia? Anyways, this is
Carter
44:43
is the way that a party is lost. And, you know, right
Carter
44:49
right now, no one really knows. I do know that, you know, before, I think the membership cutoff has come and gone. But before that membership cutoff, there was a lot of jockeying, a lot of expectations expectations placed on MLA is that they were going to do
Carter
45:01
do the work of a real leadership contest to make sure that they were protecting their party because
Carter
45:07
because their party may not look the same depending
Carter
45:09
depending on how many, you know, memberships are sold on the other side.
Corey
45:12
Well, and look, I don't know what's going to happen. I've got to make some calls to some friends in BC and get a bit of an update on that race. But Evie
Corey
45:19
Evie has something like 30 MLAs supporting
Carter
45:21
supporting him? No, he has everyone.
Corey
45:23
Everyone here. Yeah. I
Corey
45:24
I mean, that's still
Corey
45:25
still a lot of people. But my point would be between
Corey
45:28
between that and what might happen in Alberta with TAVES having such an MLA cash as well, depending
Corey
45:35
on what happens in the next two months, we might need to really assess the value of MLAs. And you know what part of the problem is, in my opinion, it kind of goes back to a fundamental problem in our system right now.
Carter
45:45
We've created a system where MLAs
Corey
45:48
MLAs are so much less effectual. They are not the power brokers They're not selling the memberships they used to sell.
Corey
45:54
And so having the MLAs might mean an awful lot less because they're not party bosses anymore.
Corey
46:00
They're the person that got a clear path for themselves in a nomination contest in many cases, or
Corey
46:06
or it was just the most perfunctory of nomination contests, and they don't have those same roots with the party. They're not keeping those major membership lists between times. They're not brokers anymore.
Corey
46:16
And it seems like the public doesn't care about those endorsements anymore either.
Corey
46:21
If they did, I don't think Daniel Smith would be in the game, period. And frankly, Stephen, you were a proto version of this in 2012 with the Alison Redford campaign.
Corey
46:29
You had one MLA. And
Corey
46:31
brought in all our
Carter
46:32
our support from outside, right?
Carter
46:34
right? We brought in all our support from outside the traditional. The only difference was we were able to raise a lot of money.
Carter
46:41
But I think that has a very strong correlation to
Carter
46:47
what's happening in BC.
Carter
46:52
The NDP have a very standard
Carter
46:56
standard group of people, standard MLAs. They just won their election again. Again, John Horgan was a tremendous leader that enabled them to kind of jump
Carter
47:04
jump on his back and be carried by his personality, which is the new model.
Carter
47:10
And this Dogwood Initiative woman, I can't remember her name, sadly.
Carter
47:15
My bad. It's early in the morning. It's early in the morning. The brain doesn't work.
Carter
47:22
she's done a great job, and she's had good partners with large membership lists. and
Carter
47:28
we've seen that before on the right with churches and now we're seeing it on the left with environmental activists and i
Carter
47:35
suspect that both groups have the same dogged determination and
Carter
47:38
and they will be impactful in the leaderships so you
Carter
47:42
you know danielle's done her job and uh
Carter
47:45
i'm wondering if david david eby is going to be able to do his
Corey
47:49
be to be determined i guess we just don't know yeah
Carter
47:54
this was a show hey
Carter
47:55
Weren't we going to
Corey
47:59
Anything else you want to get off your chest? Any ways you want to unburden your soul here?
Carter
48:03
Why is it say 48 minutes? We haven't been recording for 48 minutes.
Corey
48:06
minutes. Oh, so I wouldn't worry about it. I wouldn't worry too much about it, at least.
Corey
48:13
Okay. You know, it's
Corey
48:14
it's not always clear when you start streaming. That's all I'm going to say.
Carter
48:19
Well, anyways, it was a good chat. Went quick. Went quick. It was nice. you want to do the uh how
Carter
48:25
how do you want how do you want this to end um
Corey
48:28
i'll start the music here okay
Corey
48:31
now you say the thing oh
Carter
48:33
oh i wasn't ready can
Carter
48:34
can you restart the music i