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The Gang Gets Electoral
949 Plays5 months ago
Jeremy and Duncan review the state of the ANDP leadership race, offer their predictions, and tell you how they'd fill out their ballots today.
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Transcript
Introduction and Technical Issues
00:00:12
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to the Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, recording today here in Amiskwachee, Wisconsin, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty 6 territory on the banks of the mighty Kasiska-Saw, Mississippi, or the North Saskatchewan River. Today we have a feature conversation between myself and just one of the J-Boys, Jeremy Appel. Jim's story was unfortunately not able to be with us due to technical difficulties, but today we are talking about the Alberta NDP leadership race. Such as it is and if you stick around to the end you will get our endorsements or at least our version of endorsements Jeremy Welcome to
Alberta NDP Leadership Race Discussion
00:00:50
Speaker
the pod. How you doing? Great to be here as always ah Pray for Jim listener pray for Jim pray for Jim and his mic And his computer that he can get it to talk to each other but um You know the real reason why you and I are here
00:01:09
Speaker
you know, is to talk about how we were robbed. You know, the Alberta NDP leadership was many things, but one of the things we were robbed of was, um, Glynium and, you know, Gil McGowan not making it to the finish line. Unfortunately, we were not able to post all of the Jeb memes, but. Well, no, I think all Gil still has a chance. Righted campaign for Gil McGowan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm calling it right now. Gil, I think it's going to come down to the wire, um but I think writing Gil is going to do a lot better than people predicted.
Gil McGowan's Campaign and Policy Discussion
00:01:52
Speaker
I mean, honestly, like policy wise, Gil made a lot of good points. And ah we got I mean, we have a whole section on some of the issues that he raised later on in the script. But like, yeah, like, you know, it's it's it's it's probably too is easy and simple to kind of just like make fun of him. But it is like you know he raise some good issues. And and the the race itself is not one that like has really captured the imagination of say a large majority of the province. Like I personally have been impressed by the amount of memberships sold.
00:02:26
Speaker
um And, ah but like, you know, not head and then she seems to be running away with it. And, you know, who needs policy when you're famous and people know your name.
00:02:42
Speaker
ah Yeah, I mean, ah just to rewind slightly to talk about Gil, I think that his campaign served a purpose. ah In all seriousness, of course, he was never going to win. But he was there to keep labor issues on the agenda. But I'm not sure how successful he was in that regard, because I think a lot of his communications were just very partisan, federal, NDP, fair.
00:03:26
Speaker
um while paying lip service to need to keep workers in the fold. But yeah, I mean, he had some good policies. He had some bad policies, too, um which perhaps we'll discuss shortly. But the point is that he had policies.
Critique of Naheed Nenshi's Campaign
00:03:43
Speaker
Unlike front runner Nahed Nenshi, who when he was Calgary mayor, listeners might recall, he had a lot of very specific, detailed policies he was running on.
00:03:58
Speaker
No, he doesn't. His campaign claims that, what are you talking about? he He has all these detailed policies go to his website and I would urge you to do so and tell me if there is a single detailed policy on that website. There are definitely platitudes. He's got a lot of platitudes on there and positive vibes, but nothing that resembles sort of detailed policies that he ran on and was elected on as mayor of Calgary. And I asked him about this after the final debate in the scrum. And the first thing he said was, what are you talking about? I have as detailed policies as any other candidate on my website, which isn't true. But then he said,
00:04:53
Speaker
But it's not as detailed as I normally would get, right? He did admit that there is a lack of specifics this time around. And he gave a few reasons for that. ah One being that the next election is more than three years away. And so if you commit to a concrete set of policies now in the leadership race, you may not be able to commit to them ah come fall 2027. He said, like, we don't know if we'll be able to afford, say, ah Kathleen Ganley's
00:05:46
Speaker
you know income tax. School nutrition plan. We can't afford to
Nenshi's Strategic Approach
00:05:51
Speaker
feed them kids. well well well but he he Interestingly, he framed it in terms of we don't know what policies will be appropriate after three more years of UCP austerity or the words he used, which I think was quite smart. So we don't know if we'd be able to afford cutting taxes. Well, that's the great thing about being the premier is that you can just not do austerity. But I mean, I was very grateful that you actually got Nenshi to open up in the scrum about
00:06:22
Speaker
The fact that yeah, no, I haven't really talked about policy and it's killing him inside or you know, whatever those aren't Yeah, he said it's killing me, uh, which is awesome Um To uh, and that's the sort of nenshi I knew yeah, I covered his last year as mayor uh in calgary and that that is uh, I think something that
00:06:52
Speaker
I respected about him a lot was his self-awareness, I guess you could say. Yeah, no, he he definitely isn't, um you know. there's something there. There's something behind the eyes there. ah you know and And the fact that he had the self-awareness to be like, yeah, you know it hasn't been the most policy heavy campaign is is at least acknowledging reality, which you don't get from a lot of political candidates. And then of course, another key reason, which I think most people when you talk to about this,
00:07:31
Speaker
will identify is that he's coming from outside the party to lead a party. So he he said he wants to take directions from the party membership, which now is, I would imagine, ah overwhelmingly filled with people who signed up to support Nenshi. Whether they actually do cast a ballot in his support in the next A few days week in the bit. Yeah. Well, why don't we get in the BC? Why don't we get into this, the state of the race? So we're recording this Wednesday afternoon on Monday, the Alberta NDP put out a release that said that more than half of the 85,000 eligible Alberta NDP members who could vote had voted for their preferred leadership candidates. And so, you know, the voting ends on June 22nd. Uh, the winner will be announced the same day at 2PM in Calgary.
00:08:33
Speaker
And um you
Context of Alberta Politics
00:08:34
Speaker
know I think before we put on our little green visor hats and predict the winners, I think you know we should probably provide some context, especially for people who have are maybe not close, close followers of Alberta politics or have not been in the weeds. like You and I and Jim, we have followed the policy announcement. We've followed the endorsements. We have a special section of our website devoted to covering this race. But for people who are you know normal, or from outside Alberta, what would you want them to know about this race as we near its conclusion? Nenshi has made the calculation that he can, I think Lisa Young, the professor at University of Calgary, made this observation in her newsletter like,
00:09:20
Speaker
ah very soon after he kicked off his campaign, that he is attempting to merge his movement of supporters in Calgary municipal politics with the Alberta NDP and creating this this much broader tent than
00:09:48
Speaker
um previously existed, um I think people who listened to us and and and us of course would have raised concerns in the past about the centrist drift of the Alberta NDP under Rachel Notley's tenure, though people who've been around much longer would probably argue that that started under Brian Mason, if not earlier, maybe even Grant Notley. But that's a done deal. It's happened already. And I think Nenshi's candidacy, even if he doesn't win, which I think is highly unlikely, but we'll talk about that more later.
00:10:40
Speaker
is the culmination of this this this this ah drift from the NDP being this social democratic labor party to a small out liberal party like it is in BC and Manitoba and Saskatchewan, right?
NDP's Shift Towards Centrism
00:11:02
Speaker
um And
00:11:07
Speaker
and yeah and And so I think those concerned about this drift away from social democratic politics need to realize that it's a gun deal. ah right i think I think Sarah Hoffman, who is clearly running as the social democratic stalwart in this race. If you go back to her record when she was deputy premier, i she presided over ah the NDP, especially after it's last its first year in power really losing its ambition and trying to please more conservative minded suburban voters.
00:11:59
Speaker
And um which has despite, you know, I like a lot of the things Hoffman is saying does I think call into question her credibility as a messenger. I would think that in order to make a stand against Nenshi,
00:12:24
Speaker
the left wing of the party i think would need to match him with another outsider who isn't wasn't part of uh nautly's inner circle and that just never came to fruition i guess the closest thing to that would be gill but uh i mean he was fairly close to the nautly government as well so yeah and and and he has his own issues as well yeah i mean I wrote a piece about how being a political party with 85,000 members in Alberta is quite an accomplishment. And I think that you know that the party should be proud. The people at the top of the party should be like, should be, um you know they should give themselves a little pat on the back. Having 85,000 members is good.
00:13:11
Speaker
um you know But the thing I wrote in that piece is that I was worried that the Alberta NDP would squander the opportunity that so much excitement and energy and potential you know would just be lost by, you know if Nenshi takes over, but even if anyone, whoever takes over, Nenshi or anyone, that it would just be the same old top-down oil and gas boosterism, but with rainbows kind of liberalism that we saw with Notley. You know, I'm very curious about how many of these 85,000 members end up voting. Like what's the kind of final percentage, but like, do you think the Alberta NDP, even taking ah aside the whoever wins, but even just as a broadly speaking, the leadership of the party, do you think they'll take up that proposal? Do you think they'll be interested in doing mass politics or is it just kind of be more of what we saw more kind of cultural personality top down?
00:14:11
Speaker
you know, leadership that we saw under Notley. Well, you know, that was another thing I asked Nenshi when he talked about how the party needs to decide what policies he would run on if he wins leading up to the 2027 election. I pointed out to him that that sounds an awful lot like the grassroots guarantee, an analogy he was not fond of. understandably so. And just I have I have my own little grassroots guarantee thing if I could interject for a second which is that I actually they they sent out an email to the media being like Jason Kenny will do a thing and he like I went to I think it was the matrix hotel and there was a bunch of cameras there and I like went and saw Jason Kenny sign a giant piece of coral blast like in front of cameras just
00:15:07
Speaker
I don't know, a very silly ah thing. And just for context, for people who know what the grassroots guarantee, it was like some bullshit promise Kenny made to be like, I won't do anything that the grassroots of the party says. I will do exactly what the grassroots of the party says, essentially. Yeah, if you want to read more about the grassroots guarantee, you should buy my book. where I talk about it at length. But I think Nenshi made an astute observation there that the grassroots guarantee was just a name for a very centralized campaign.
00:15:48
Speaker
ah He said it was coming from the blue pickup truck. They just called it the grassroots guarantee, but really Kenny brought his own agenda to the conservative movement in Alberta, which I think is quite correct. Now. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. and It remains to be seen because.
00:16:16
Speaker
A lot of new people have joined the Alberta NDP who were never involved before, whether they joined to vote for Nenshi, as I suspect, or someone else, um they're um engaged in NDP politics in a way um that I don't think thousands of people have ever been engaged in that party. I mean, their leadership race a decade ago when Notley won. How many people voted in that?
00:16:53
Speaker
like 3,000 or like 3,400 or something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, going from four digits to five digits is a big deal.
00:17:08
Speaker
by um but but But I think a lot of these voters who joined, I mean, aren't coming from the left, right? I mean, they're coming from the center, center right, center left.
Can Nenshi Inspire a Mass Movement?
00:17:27
Speaker
So it's a big tent. But then, I mean, you look back at Trudeau in in also in 2014 or 2013, I think was maybe when he won the liberal leadership race.
00:17:42
Speaker
open the doors of the party, right? You could sign up for free, which Nenshi didn't do here. um not Well, he wouldn't have had the ability to. But the Liberals opened the doors to anyone who just wanted to sign up as a party supporter could vote in their election. So making it even more accessible for large amounts of people to join. I don't have the membership figures in front of me, but I would imagine they were quite high. They revitalized interest in the federal liberal party, but I don't think anyone at this point would accuse Justin Trudeau of doing mass politics, right? No.
00:18:30
Speaker
so and in and and and um Certainly, I don't think the NDP is going to do mass left politics.
00:18:43
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Again, but true. So I don't know is a mass politics that is very centrist and technocratic better than being centrist and technocratic without mass politics, without having a large membership mobilized like. Yeah, I mean, like under not really. Under not only the party was a very kind of tightly held operation, right? And they never engaged in a large scale membership campaign. They never sought to, ah you know, their efforts at engagement.
00:19:25
Speaker
we're We're very like cynical, right? And we're we're very kind of focused around specific polities. We're very focused around um specific issues. And it was very focused on Calgary. And they spent a lot of time on Calgary. you know Rachel, not the inner staff, spent practically lived there. And you know to their credit, they won 14 out of 23 Calgary seats in the last election. you know and like it did There was a bit of a payoff to their work. but ah you know I think you're dooming a movement off the hop if you're going to do kind of mass politics for the center because no one gives a shit if you're just going to be talking about incrementalism, if you're not willing to actually talk about how things actually are, if you're not willing to engage with big popular ideas that we know will work. And if all you want to do is is is twist the dial a quarter turn to the left, like
00:20:16
Speaker
You can be a personally very popular person, but I think you're still going to find it very difficult to spark a mass political movement. and The reason why I talk about a mass movement and mass politics is because that is what it is going to take to defeat the UCP. They are an absolute juggernaut of a political party and you are not going to inspire the people needed to defeat the UCP in this province if all you're going to do is just you know talk about improving stuff on the margins. but
00:20:47
Speaker
Right now, I think there is a a lot of unity. There's a lot of love in the room. You were at the last ah Alberta NDP leadership debates, and I can't remember your exact turn of phrase, but was it fair to say that I think you characterized it as a love fest or a love in or something of that nature? I don't think I called it that, but certainly would be an accurate portrayal
00:21:16
Speaker
I mean, the one note of disagreement was the provincial party's relationship with the federal NDP which Nenshi wants to sever and Hoffman wants to keep. But the consensus, I think, was reflected by Ganley and Callahu Stonehouse, who said the voters need to decide. They didn't even take a position on it. And Nenshi and Hoffman also agreed with that. But ah now,
00:22:02
Speaker
Another commonality between the campaign then cheese rounding and the one Kenny ran for the UCP is that I think a lot of his most enthusiastic supporters are supporting him primarily because he can win. right, he has electability that he's bringing to the table that the other leadership candidates aren't perceived as possessing. And in Kenny's case, that allowed his supporters to overlook how his interests in theirs weren't
00:22:58
Speaker
necessarily aligned. Oh, and his myriad weaknesses as well. Yeah, and and eccentricities and um her in character deficiencies. um ah Now, i don't I don't know if that's the the case with Manchi because he's
00:23:27
Speaker
Because given the trajectory of the Albert and NDP and given how he governed Calgary as mayor, and I think he was a solid progressive mayor of a very conservative city,
00:23:47
Speaker
I'm not sure that the expectations of him
00:23:56
Speaker
really depart from that. yeah and i like like i think I think what unites people like us and with the establishment of the Alberta NDP is the view that any NDP leader would be better than Danielle Smith, right?
00:24:19
Speaker
And Nenshi's pitch is that we need to convince as many people as possible in many different parts of the province that that is indeed the case.
00:24:31
Speaker
And so, I don't know, i my expectations are are going to be low for NDP leader Nahid Nenshi and I don't think you'll disappoint me. Yeah, keep those expectations low and you'll you'll never be disappointed. um I mean, it's interesting that you bring up the one real area of policy disagreement, which is disaffiliation with the federal NDP. And that's really one of the few things
Challenges for Nenshi as Leader
00:25:03
Speaker
that N.G. has actually been clear on and has like actually, actually, several times has come out and talk expressed his interest. But the Alberta NDP and the people who run it, the people at the top, the people who put in the work of stuffing envelopes and sending mail and knocking on doors, a lot of those people are NDPers,
00:25:25
Speaker
provincial and federal, and I think that if Nenshi's first act as leader of a party that he was never a part of is to sever that historical tie between the provincial and the federal party, I don't think that sets him up for a good working relationship with the party that he's trying to lead. um you know like What do you think happens if Nenshi wins the leadership and the first thing he does is like, all right, we're out of the federal NDP, folks.
00:25:55
Speaker
Well, I don't think he's going to do it by fiat. I think he's going to consult the party membership, which will have supported him in a leadership race where the only thing he's been explicit in his commitment to, unprompted, has been
00:26:20
Speaker
severing ties with the federal NDP and I think he'll get overwhelming support for that move within the the party if he goes there but and my instinct would be that that wouldn't be the first order of business because there are far more important things. But the longer you wait to do something like that, the more confusion there is, the the more persistent the the UCP talking point that the the Alberta NDP takes its orders from Jagmeet Singh.
00:27:11
Speaker
will will will will will will persist. Now, I don't think that's that big of an issue. I don't think, and I think a major error that NDP made in its past two provincial election campaigns was to personalize it, to talk about how dangerous Jason Kennedy and Danielle Smith are rather than offering a positive vision, which
00:27:43
Speaker
I know Ganley has been very clear, she thinks was in error. um I don't think then she has quite said it that way, because again, he's coming from the outside, he doesn't wanna shit on the party he's joining. But I think it's, um it would be a perpetuation of this
00:28:12
Speaker
personalized politics if the Alberta NDP was saying, okay, we need to disavow Jagmeet Singh, as if Singh is some sort of far left radical and and and, you know, not just, you know, a couple steps to the left of Justin Trudeau. But um
00:28:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it would be a waste of time and a distraction from mobilizing this mass party membership that's been built up around things that actually affect people in Alberta, like education, healthcare, housing, the climate crisis.
Impact on Organized Labor
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, one other thing that I think is at risk of happening if Nenshi wins, which again, we're all assuming is what happens, is ah you know labor becoming an increasingly junior partner in the coalition. like As the ah the big tent expands and expands, and you know you you have all these people that Nenshi's bringing to the party, all these Calgary people. ah So, labor seems to be like organized labor, seems to become an increasingly kind of junior partner. And you know we you can even look to Manitoba, but you know, Wab Kinu won there. His government introduces good labor legislation, 50% plus one car check, anti-scab legislation. But do they go out onto the steps and the media and do they actually defend it? No, they bury it in some omnibus bill.
00:29:52
Speaker
And so, you know and and the i mean the context is different here, but I think the kind of continued marginalization of organized labor is at risk of happening under an Nenshi, an Alberta NDP led by Nenshi. And you know the fact that Gil McGowan couldn't get his candidacy to the finish line, I think is unfortunate because he did make a bunch of good points about reaching out to working class voters. uh you know if nenshi wins do you see nenshi having any kind of success talking to working class people well i think that the labor movement has already been demonstrated a willingness to take a beating from the ndp with the mentality that well
00:30:44
Speaker
we're not going to get any better from anyone else, right? I mean, as you mentioned in your interview with Sarah Hoffman, the NDP forced public sector workers to take zeros, or I know some in the labor movement in NDP would say that they agreed with the ah public sector unions to take zeros, but um not exactly in agreement between people with equal degrees of institutional power. So I mean, I don't,
00:31:24
Speaker
I think that what Nenshi will do, especially if he's keen on disaffiliating with the federal and NDP is take away the sort of special place that organized labor plays in the NDP historically in and just make organized labor one of many stakeholders to engage with, right? To put them on equal footing to corporate leaders who have way more power.
00:32:01
Speaker
um there wouldn't be much to take away at this point, because they took away they took away the special the part of the labor the the leadership vote that went to the labor movement or affiliated labor movement. And then, I guess what, you'd be getting rid of the year like your labor vice president within the party? You'd get it rid of the labor caucus within the party? like i I don't know, man. i see If Nancy really wants to... like do a full on Mackenzie fucking reorg of the Alberta NDP. I think he's going to find that a lot of people are getting a lot of people are going to get pissed at him very fast and he's going to have a lot of internal dissension, which is not what you're looking to do. I mean, if you want to build a big working, uh, if you want to build a big, big tent party, like
00:32:47
Speaker
casting out or marginalizing one of your kind of longtime members is just one way, ah a quick way to make a bunch of people who know how everything works and who do a lot of the work to get pissed at you real fast. Yeah.
Predictions on Leadership Race Outcomes
00:33:01
Speaker
Well, I think that the next and NDP AGM or council, whichever one is happening this year,
00:33:15
Speaker
will be very interesting if Nenshi wins the leadership race. I think there are going to be a lot of a lot more debate than happened under Notley for better and for worse. Yeah, which would would not be very hard. Again, setting the setting the bar very low. All right, well, let's let's get to the part of the ah of the podcast that everyone has been waiting for. our predictions, our endorsements. Um, I know you're not a member of the Alberta NDP. I am also not a member of the Alberta NDP, but yeah, we had the, the, the one person at the progress report who is in Alberta NDP member had technical issues. Couldn't make it on, but, but if you did, have so what we yeah. So what we say doesn't actually mean anything, but if you did have a ballot, Jeremy, what would your ballot be?
00:34:19
Speaker
Hoffman. One.
00:34:30
Speaker
I might just vote for Hoffman. You know, it's blank. Yeah, I yeah, I mean, because it doesn't like that in my mind, the the choice between Ganley and then she. And I suppose Kalhu Stonehouse. is who is more suited to take the party across the establishment liberal finish line. And if that's the competition,
00:35:09
Speaker
then I think Nenshi is better suited to do that than Ganli. However, I do appreciate that Ganli has come out with a lot of detailed policy, ah some of which are very good, some of which aren't as good, but she's talking about investing only in public long-term care, creating i a public option with auto insurance, which I mean,
00:35:39
Speaker
I don't think it should be an option, but I'm glad that she's talking about um public ownership in some capacity. ah She committed to raising the minimum wage, but I think she erred in in in giving a specific number. because it's 2024 and the next selections in 2027. I think Gil's approach to that ah was better in terms of just saying ah it needs to be. Just tied to inflation kind of thing. Yeah, and retroactively tied to inflation from when it was last raised. Yeah, I liked that approach from Gil. But
00:36:30
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think Ganley is essentially the candidate of keep things the same except engage more with party membership.
00:36:53
Speaker
Um, whereas Hoffman, I mean what she's running on represents, uh, move to the left. But she's framing it in terms of, no, we need to keep being a strong social democratic party like we've always been, which is simply not been the case since I lived in Alberta. Um, so if I had joined the party vote, my vote would be going to Sarah and so yeah, maybe I'd put Ganley as number two just to keep the race interesting in case.
00:37:30
Speaker
Sarah, in case Nenshi didn't win a majority on the first ballot, but yeah, I mean, I'm i'm really indifferent. i think as I think the theme of what I've been saying here is that that Alberta NDP is what it is, what it has been for the past 10 years, decade. Yeah. and
00:38:03
Speaker
that's the trajectory it's on and so Sarah Hoffman would halt that trajectory which I and um so I would support her but I'm also skeptical of how genuinely committed she is to all these bold policies that didn't happen when she was the deputy premier. I mean, as someone who's not a party member, I i feel a little flexibility here. And so I think I'm going to take ah a page out of the old 2015 Globe and Mail book when they endorsed the conservative party, but not Stephen Harper.
00:38:45
Speaker
and and that and I'm just going to endorse a completely mythical version of what I would like to happen, which is I will endorse not head Nenshi, but a not head Nenshi that actually does mass politics and engages with the 85,000 members of the Alberta NDP, commits to growing that number and actually getting them involved and actually ah leading a mass political movement. um Actually, you know I changed that then. I endorse Shannon Phillips of 2008. Oh yeah. Dope as hell. Yes. Back when she was like writing them, like how to do banner drops, uh, books with Michael Dima and shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that. That's my endorsement. I guess we, yeah. I mean, I guess. Yeah. Shannon would be, uh, her decision to leave politics, uh, which is interesting in its own, right? It would be a discussion for a separate pod.
00:39:38
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And like, yeah let's kind of just wrap up or put on our green visors and just kind of wrap up. Like, what do you think is going to happen when the final results going to be, you know, percentage ranges, how many ballots, et cetera, et cetera. What do you think is going to happen? Okay. Uh, I've been sort of hinting at this, this whole episode, but I think then she's going to win on the first ballot. Ooh.
00:40:03
Speaker
I think that turnout will be 70% because I do think there's a lot of excitement for this leadership race.
00:40:23
Speaker
I think that, yeah, I was actually, I was doing the math in my head ah last night preparing for this episode. I think Nenshi is going to get 58% on the first ballot, at least. Oh, wow. Yeah. Second place, I would say is Hoffman with 21%. Ooh. And then.
00:41:02
Speaker
Gan Lee with 18% and then Kalahu Stonehouse with the remainder which I believe is 3%. That's my prediction for the first ballot. What about you? I think it's going to go the, all the, the number of ballots, I guess two ballots. I don't think Nenshi will win it. I don't think Nenshi will, I think he'll have a clear lead on the first and second ballots, but I think it is going to take the final two other people dropping off to get him over the edge. So I'm predicting still a pretty runaway victory for Nenshi, but like say 40% in the first ballot and then Calhoun stone house in Hoffman, maybe Ganley dropping off. And the final two being Hoffman.
00:41:48
Speaker
And, uh, and then she, but then she was like a very clear win. I think turnout is going to be around a little higher, like 80%. Like I don't think, I think the UCP sold a bunch of junk memberships. And i think as they, as they are known to do. Yeah. And I don't, I don't think yeah allegedly, actually not allegedly not played well document pretty well, document pretty well documented. they There were a few hundred memberships that were suspect. based on vp of they on ah IP addresses. ah And we also know that the Kenny campaign, because Doug Schweitzer and Brian Jean told us you used VPN. So that's with a VPN, they found a few hundred suspicious IP addresses.
00:42:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's my prediction. Hoffman and then she on the on the on the final ballot and then she with a clear win. I'm pretty clear. I think it'll be quite clear ah and decent turnout. and um Yeah, and then and then you know then we get to do another pod and talk about the results. um you know Jeremy, I'm really glad you came on the pod to talk about this with us. and you know we We got through all of the stuff we wanted to talk about, like um where can people buy your book?
Closing Remarks and Promotions
00:43:06
Speaker
Do you have anything else to plug? you know time and the The time is now to plug your pluggables.
00:43:11
Speaker
You can buy my book wherever you buy books, including, I've just been informed, Walmart, ooh, under the Best Sellers Kiver. I'm not advocating you shop at Walmart. I'm not advocating you buy my book from anywhere in particular, but I'm just saying it's there, bit of a flex to end the episode on. But yeah, I don't know, buy at your local bookstore, buy at Audrey's or Magpie. ah Yeah, stay tuned. there will be and I'm going to be ah hosting a book event at at the newly opened Magpie Books. Oh, awesome. Those are the Glass people, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a good question. subscribe to my newsletter, The Orchard. I promise it's not just reprints of stuff I write for the progress report. I do write lots of good original content on there.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah. And I also have a podcast, which you can only listen to in full if you are a paid subscriber. ah So do that. If you want to hear my podcast, I, you know, I've got some interesting guests. that's henry you might know Well, speaking of podcasts, if you like this podcast and you want to join the 500 or so other folks who help keep this independent media project going, it's very easy. Go to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons. I'll put the link in the show notes. Put in your credit card, contribute 5, 10, 15, 50, $500 a month, whatever you can afford.
00:44:48
Speaker
Jim, Jeremy, and I would really appreciate it. Also, if you have any notes, thoughts, or comments, I am really easy to get a hold of. You can find me on Twitter far too often at at Dunkin' Kinney, and you can reach me at email at Dunkin' K at ProgressUpperda.ca. Thank you to Jim Story for editing. Thank you to Jim for coming on. Sorry, thank you to Jeremy for coming on. Thank you to Cosmic Family Communist for our theme. Thank you for listening, and goodbye.