By: Mike Colledge

In October 1904, Sir Wilfrid Laurier delivered what became known as his “20th Century Belongs to Canada” speech. Speaking at a time of extraordinary confidence, Laurier declared that “the 20th century shall be the century of Canada and Canadian development.” He was addressing a young country blessed with vast natural resources, abundant land, a rapidly expanding railway network, growing immigration, and a widespread belief that each generation would enjoy a higher standard of living than the one before it.

More than a century later, Canada remains a prosperous, stable, and resource-rich nation, but the circumstances confronting Prime Minister Mark Carney are very different from those that inspired Laurier’s optimism. Canadians today face an aging population, persistently weak productivity growth, housing affordability challenges, strained public services, increasing geopolitical uncertainty, and growing disparities in financial well-being. While most long-term forecasts continue to project economic growth, few suggest a return to the pace of expansion Canadians experienced during much of the 20th century.

Just as importantly, many Canadians are increasingly uncertain about the future. For generations, Canadians believed in a broadly accepted social contract: work hard, contribute to society, and your children will enjoy greater opportunities than you did. Today, that assumption no longer feels as secure as it once did. The country’s challenge is no longer simply economic. It is psychological, social, and increasingly political.

Laurier’s Canada was defined by expansion. Railways connected regions. New communities emerged. Immigration fuelled population growth. Industry developed rapidly. Government, business and citizens largely shared a common objective: growth. Progress was visible and measurable through an increasing population, larger harvests, new infrastructure, and growing trade.

Today, Laurier would be speaking to a very different country. Despite the need to build Canada’s infrastructure, Canada is no longer a young nation focused on settlement and expansion. It is a mature economy focused on maintaining prosperity in a world where growth is slower, competition is more intense, demographic realities are less favourable, and many of the country’s most pressing challenges appear structural rather than temporary.

If Laurier were giving an updated version of his speech today, he might begin by acknowledging that housing consumes a growing share of household budgets, a reality that many Canadians experience every day. He might also note that access to health care is a significant concern and has been for a long time. He might further note that younger Canadians are increasingly questioning whether homeownership, retirement security, and upward mobility will be available to them on the same terms enjoyed by previous generations. Laurier might conclude that, while economic indicators may suggest stability, many households feel as though they are working harder simply to maintain their position.

In short, where Laurier once spoke of limitless opportunity, today he might speak instead about adaptation. The central question facing Canada today is more complicated than the speed of growth alone. That complexity might be described as asking how we successfully adapt in a period where growth is both harder to achieve and hard to distribute equally.

Because progress was assumed to be inevitable, governments, businesses, and citizens shared a common way of operating for much of the 20^th century. Businesses planned around expanding consumer demand. Governments relied on economic growth to generate revenues and sustain public services. Families expected that each generation would move further ahead than the last. Those assumptions have become less certain.

At Ipsos, we increasingly believe Canada has entered what we describe as the “Endurance Economy,” a period in which households, institutions, governments, and businesses adapt to sustained economic and social pressures rather than waiting for conditions to return to a previous normal. The gap between headline economic performance and lived experience has become one of the defining characteristics of the Canadian economy. In this environment, consumers are increasingly motivated by affordability, trust, security, and resilience rather than optimism, expansion and aspiration.

A modern Laurier would likely recognize that preserving living standards in this environment depends increasingly on productivity. During his era, growth could be driven by population expansion, resource development, territorial settlement, and industrialization. Today’s Canada cannot rely on those same engines to the same extent. If Canadians hope to improve living standards while supporting an aging population and maintaining strong public services, productivity growth must play a far more central role in the national conversation. Progress can no longer be assumed as inevitable.

At the same time, slower growth changes the nature of politics. When economies are expanding rapidly, questions of distribution often attract less attention because many people feel they are benefiting. When growth slows, questions of fairness become more pressing. Who benefits from economic gains? Who bears the costs? Which generations are moving ahead, and which feel they are being left behind? Debates about housing affordability, taxation, immigration, health care, public spending, Artificial Intelligence, and intergenerational equity become more politically significant because they are increasingly viewed through the lens of fairness rather than growth.

This may be the greatest challenge confronting Carney. On one hand, as an economist, he likely understands the structural nature of many of Canada’s challenges. On the other hand, as a politician, he recognizes that voters naturally respond more positively to messages centred on growth and opportunity than those focused on adaptation and constraint.

His government’s rhetoric has reflected both realities. It has emphasized ambitious goals around housing, investment, and economic growth while simultaneously urging patience and acknowledging that many of Canada’s challenges will take years to address. In some respects, this balancing act reflects the broader mood of the country. Canadians still want growth. They still aspire to greater prosperity. But they are increasingly looking to institutions for stability and competence.

To date, that approach has helped sustain public support for the government because it reflects an important truth: Canadians are not looking for promises that everything will soon return to normal. Increasingly, they are looking for leaders who understand the pressures they face and who can help them navigate an era of prolonged adjustment.

Yet empathy alone will not be enough. The larger challenge is rebuilding confidence in Canada’s social contract. When citizens stop believing that effort will lead to opportunity and advancement, trust in institutions becomes harder to sustain. Governments can no longer rely exclusively on promises of future prosperity or appeals to upward mobility. They must demonstrate their ability to deliver security, fairness, affordability, and social cohesion with the resources already available.

That does not mean abandoning growth. Growth remains essential. But in the decades ahead, growth alone may not be sufficient. Success will increasingly be measured by whether Canada can translate growth into broadly shared improvements in quality of life and renewed confidence in the future.

Laurier famously asked Canadians to look beyond the horizon toward a future defined by expansion and possibility. A modern Laurier would likely offer a different challenge. He might argue that Canada’s success in the 21st century will not be judged solely by how fast the country grows, but by whether it can preserve fairness, strengthen social cohesion and reinforce trust.

Mike Colledge is the Executive Insights Lead at Ipsos Canada

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By: Greg Quinn

In my piece for The Line in April I argued that Canada should join the U.K., Italy and Japan in the snazzily titled Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP). It has now done so as the first observer nation.

Thank you, Canada, and welcome to the party!

While any program of this size is open to some risk, the reality is that, in the current world we find ourselves in, there is little alternative. Especially now that the competing Franco-German fighter program has fallen by the wayside over apparent internal bickering. Can we expect Germany to now join GCAP?

What is the reality mentioned above? Well, for all of us, and Canada most obviously, it is an unreliable and untrustworthy United States, led by a president who, with every passing day, shows that unreliability ever more.

The United States launched a conflict against Iran that has caused huge global economic turmoil and whose main goal now is to open up the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the conflict began. All the conflict seems to have achieved is to have made clear how vulnerable the Strait is to Iranian control.

Then we have new claims to Greenland, attacks on USMCA and, perhaps most spectacularly, a threat to put tariffs on Canada as a result of wildfires (while also levying other ones on various loose justifications). Even Monty Python might have said something like that was far too outlandish.

All of this shows that those of us who are like-minded need to work together and get away from any belief that we can rely on the United States come what may. Those days are past. It’s time for us to accept that.

However, while joining GCAP is a good step, Canada needs to be careful about any attempt to placate or mollify the United States. Yes, diplomacy is good, talking is good, but bending over backwards to placate an unfriendly supposed ally is not good.

There are therefore questions to be answered about the changes to the agreement on the Gordie Howe International Bridge. The Conservative Party of Canada doesn’t seem to be completely clear about where its loyalties lie — is America a threat to be united against, or a political opportunity to be exploited? And the referendum in Alberta has all the hallmarks of trouble and potential interference by erstwhile allies down south.

So, from the perspective of this Brit, Canada needs to stand strong. Maybe it is trying to be all things to all men. That probably isn’t going to work and risks satisfying no one. And while it is good to talk, ultimately Canada will have to decide where it wants to stand. With us like-minded or with an unreliable neighbour. Because it won’t be able to do both.

Notwithstanding that it is a big and powerful neighbour.

To me Canada’s future lies with those who share its values. Mark Carney has spoken at length about the importance of middle powers standing together. That becomes ever more important as every day passes.

Part of that does, however, mean that the United States simply becomes another country. One to be dealt with exactly like any other — be that China or Russia or whomever. One that cannot be relied upon and which will act in its own interests.

That is the clear U.S. approach now. Sometimes that interest will align with Canada and the rest of us, sometimes it won’t. It is important that we accept this reality.

It is also important that we don’t think this will change in any future U.S. administration. There has been a generational shift in U.S. politics. The more selfless U.S. of old has gone. It’s been replaced by a more selfish country — determined to do what it thinks is best for it.

I have no problem with that. It is unfortunate, but the world is one of reality, not idealism. We need to accept that is the Unites States’ choice and deal with it.

That does, however, mean that we need to pick sides. We cannot sit on the fence and try and make everyone happy. Picking sides will be difficult, it will cause stress, but it is the way it has to be.

Canada will be more affected than others, I suspect. But to paraphrase, the road to success is paved with good intentions and hope. As an old boss of mine once said, “hope is not a policy.” What is needed is firmness and working with those who share your views.

Canada, the U.K., the EU, Australia and New Zealand (among others) need to be clear about where we stand and not afraid to upset the United States.

Is Canada willing and able to do that?

Greg Quinn OBE is a former British Diplomat who has served in Estonia, Ghana, Belarus, Iraq, Washington DC (seconded to State Department), Kazakhstan, Guyana (as High Commissioner), Suriname (as Ambassador), The Bahamas (as High Commissioner), Canada (as Consul General Toronto and Calgary), and Antigua and Barbuda (as resident British Commissioner) in addition to stints in London. He now runs his own government relations, business development and crisis management consultancy: Aodhan Consultancy Ltd (www.aodhaninc.co.uk).

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent.

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In this episode of On The Line, host Matt Gurney is joined by two guests for conversations about two of the West’s most pressing security challenges: military readiness and cyber defence.

This episode is brought to you by BioCanRx, a Canadian not-for-profit working to help Canadian researchers and companies develop new drugs, especially immunotherapies for cancer.

A key challenge for Canada will be familiar to anyone trying to grow a business here: we have some of the brightest people in the world, we just can’t keep enough of them. Canada is home to researchers making breakthrough discoveries every day. But bringing a new therapy from the lab to patients takes more than great science. It also requires specialists who know how to manufacture complex products, navigate regulatory approval, and help new treatments be integrated into the health-care system. Too often, that expertise leaves Canada before the work is done.

BioCanRx has supported hands-on training for more than 900 trainees over the past decade, but without a strong domestic industry, retention becomes a challenge. So how do we keep these highly-skilled people? Next time we’ll talk about how changing what we incentivize can maximize the impact of research money Canada already spends to sustain more drug development here in Canada. For now, go to BioCanRx.com to learn more.

First up is Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and one of the authors of a new report examining the alarming state of Western ammunition stockpiles. Drawing on the lessons of the wars in Ukraine and the Persian Gulf, Cancian explains how the United States and its allies are consuming critical munitions far faster than they can replace them. The West still possesses enormous military strength, but rebuilding industrial capacity has become an urgent strategic priority. Matt and Mark discuss what’s driving the shortages, what governments are finally getting right, and why there are at least a few encouraging signs that production is beginning to catch up.

This episode is also brought to you by the Forest Products Association of Canada. Canada’s resilience will not be built through diversified trade and good intentions alone. It will be built with strong domestic supply chains, reliable Canadian materials, and industries that invest in workers and communities here at home.

Two months ago, the federal government acknowledged the Forest Sector Transformation Task Force Report and the practical path it set out. Now the focus must be action. Canada’s forest products sector can help deliver the homes, infrastructure, and economic potential the country needs. But that requires predictable access to manage our forests, transportation systems that work, and a regulatory environment that rewards investment rather than delays it. The direction is clear. Now Ottawa needs to turn recognition into results.

Learn more at FPAC.ca.

Then Matt is joined by David Shipley of Beauceron Security to discuss a coordinated cyberattack that recently struck a series of public utilities across the United States, causing real disruption to critical infrastructure. They examine who may have been behind the attacks, why utilities remain such attractive targets, and what governments and operators can do to improve their defences. The conversation also turns to whether growing political dysfunction in Washington is making it harder for the United States—and by extension its allies—to respond effectively to increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.

It’s a pair of conversations about resilience, preparedness, and the growing realization that winning future conflicts will depend as much on industrial capacity and digital security as on military hardware alone.

This episode is brought to you by Cameco. In nuclear energy, timelines and costs matter. Incomplete designs carry real risk of delays and cost overruns. That’s why the AP1000 reactor is the right choice for Canada: it is already operating today and ready now to deliver the power we need, with 100 percent Canadian ownership and strong participation from Canadian suppliers. If we are serious about building Canada and powering it on time and on budget, the choice is clear. The AP1000 reactor is the only option that delivers.

To learn more, visit ap1000.cameco.com.

As always, don’t forget to like and subscribe.

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The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent

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Hey! Hope you all are doing well. The Line won’t publish on Monday due to the long weekend, but we’ll be back and roaring after that. To tide you over, please enjoy the latest episode of The Line Podcast.

Also, don’t miss last week’s On The Line, where Jen Gerson was joined by Jean-François Bélanger, Senior Non-Resident Associate Fellow at the NATO Defense College, for a chat about the future of the alliance.

And now, on with the dispatch.

We’ll open this with both a statement and a confession. The statement, and we hope you agree, is that The Line tries to have a sense of humour. The job is serious. The stories are serious. We take our work seriously. But we try not to take ourselves too seriously, and to have a good time. The confession is simpler: when you’ve been doing this as long as we have, you have to be consciously aware of not repeating yourself. We bang out words so fast it can be legitimately hard to remember whether we’ve covered a topic already, and if we did, what we said.

So when one of your Line editors sat down today to write yet again about the renewed fighting, but then renewed not-fighting, in the Persian Gulf, the thought process went something like this: “Okay, so we’ve written about this a bunch already, but this time we’ll take a more light-hearted approach and bemoan all the absurdity of the U.S. position, while also striking a serious note about how America’s allies have to prepare to defend themselves since the U.S. is clearly too erratic to be counted on. But overall, let’s keep it funny.” We figured that, at least, would let us recap the latest while keeping it fresh.

Not so much, it turns out. That was our take just a few weeks ago. Sigh. At least we double-checked!

If there’s any consolation, it’s that out take then has the virtue of having aged well. The ceasefire fell apart again in recent weeks, the U.S. and Israelis began preparing for a major attack, U.S. sources were whispering to the media that it was going to be unlike anything seen in the war thus far ... and then, at the last minute, Trump called it off. He cited calls from allies in the region claiming that negotiations with Iran had made a breakthrough. In reality, it looks like he simply blinked again. Iran, for its part, swiftly denied that there had been any breakthrough, beyond noting that it was still negotiating with neighbouring Oman about shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

We really do try to give our readers good value here but, one again, this is nuts. It’s hard to imagine how the U.S. could erode its credibility any further, but we’re sure they’ll find a way.

And in the meantime, we couldn’t help but chuckle at a little snippet of actual news buried in some of the coverage by Axios. It was only a few sentences, buried quite a ways down, but it struck us as maybe the single most important bit of reporting we’ve seen on this war in recent weeks. We’ll quote it directly: “A U.S. official said the Iranians have been ‘very aggressive’ in recent days. Some U.S. officials were stunned by how much the Iranians were willing to escalate.”

Of course they’re being aggressive! Iran has clearly figured out what everyone but us has figured out — for all his bravado and tough talk, Trump is fundamentally a wimp. He had no plan for Iran other than Iran swiftly giving up after the initial (and admittedly successful) decapitation strike on its leadership. Every single thing that has happened since has confirmed to the new Iranian leadership that refusing to back down, and indeed escalating, as Axios noted, is the better path. Because they’re banking on Trump getting cold feet. That’s not to say he won’t eventually strike. He might well! But if he does, the Iranians will know that if they can just ride it out for a few days, and launch some attacks on U.S. allies in the region, Trump will rush to call it off and declare victory. For a few more days.

Like we said last time — and sorry for repeating ourselves — every U.S. ally needs to grasp this. No U.S. defence guarantee can be trusted anymore. Trump is too easily cowed. America’s enemies will figure this out fast, if they haven’t already. Its friends had better move fast, too. In the meantime, we’ll keep covering it, and we’ll try to have a sense of humour, because we’re well past the point where you can’t help but laugh. What a fiasco.

We’ll just use this opportunity to repeat ourselves yet again on what we can take from the U.S. administration and apply it to our own dealings at home.
On Sunday, while aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked how he was planning to punish Canada for the wildfires.

“I have yeah,” he said, and nearly chuckling, he noted “you’ll find out about it soon.” And did we at The Line also detect a few notes of laughter from the press scrum while he said it?

Read more

In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on July 31st, 2026, Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson begin by asking whether Canada’s governments are actually prepared to make the sacrifices required to defend the country’s interests. Both come away disappointed. Matt points to the federal government’s decision to block the expansion of an airport in the Toronto area because it was locally controversial and could complicate an upcoming Liberal byelection. If a government isn’t willing to risk losing even a single seat to get important things done, Matt argues, then it’s never going to get important things done.

This episode is brought to you by Cameco. In nuclear energy, timelines and costs matter. Incomplete designs carry real risk of delays and cost overruns. That’s why the AP1000 reactor is the right choice for Canada: it is already operating today and ready now to deliver the power we need, with 100 percent Canadian ownership and strong participation from Canadian suppliers. If we are serious about building Canada and powering it on time and on budget, the choice is clear. The AP1000 reactor is the only option that delivers.

To learn more, visit ap1000.cameco.com.

Next, Jen checks in from Alberta with an update on the separatist movement. While recent polling shows federalist forces comfortably ahead, she’s far from reassured. The problem isn’t the raw level of support for separation, which remains relatively low. It’s the intensity. Separatists are deeply motivated, while federalists may assume victory is inevitable and fail to organize or even show up on referendum day. If that happens, Jen warns, the result could be much closer than today’s polls suggest.

This episode is also brought to you by BioCanRx, a federally-funded Canadian not-for-profit research network dedicated to cutting edge cancer immunotherapy research that they’re helping Canadian researchers bring from labs to patients in clinical trials — all in Canada.

If a drug is discovered in a Canadian lab, and conducts successful clinical trials in Canada, there’s a chance it will be launched in Canada. So how do we get more drugs out of Canadian labs and keep them here? Every year around $500 million is spent on Canadian cancer research, but 70 per cent of that is for early-stage work — discovering whether a therapy can do something in the lab. That leaves limited resources for the complex and often disjointed process of moving Canadian innovations from discovery to a clinical trial and hopefully into the health system.

BioCanRx has stepped into the gap. They specialize in “translational research” — the unsexy work that makes for boring press releases, but gets results: 16 Canadian cancer immunotherapy clinical trials in just a decade, treating more than 400 patients.

Thanks to this, BioCanRx has first-hand experience with the systemic disconnects that are trapping discoveries in Canadian labs, or sending them out of the country to be developed. They have straightforward ideas about how to fix the problems, and spoiler alert: the answer isn’t just “add more money.” Stay tuned to learn more in coming weeks, and visit BioCanRx.com to learn more.

Finally, Matt raises reports about Jagmeet Singh’s possible next job after politics, and he’s unimpressed. Jen offers a different perspective, suggesting that perhaps there’s something to be said for a political class that takes care of its own after public service. Your hosts don’t reach a firm conclusion — but they lay out both sides and leave it to listeners to decide.

All that and more in the latest episode of The Line Podcast.

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The Line has had a nice little break (mostly a break) but we’ll be back at it next week, including a fresh episode of On The Line on Tuesday. Talk to you soon.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent.

To contact The Line with a general inquiry or comment, please email info@readtheline.ca. For other ways to connect with us or to follow us on social media, please see our LinkTree.

The Line is partnering with Lead Not Leave to provide credible arguments for why Alberta should stay in Canada. Click on the link below to learn more about the initiative.

By: Jared Wesley and Patricia Paradis

Planning to dismantle the country is not something you can do off the side of your desk. The process would consume cabinet attention, legislative time, public service capacity, millions of taxpayer dollars, and nearly all of the political oxygen in the province for at least another election cycle. On Oct. 19, Albertans will choose whether that’s what they want to focus on in the coming years. Or whether they want to get on with the work of leading Confederation and solving the real problems confronting the province.

On the surface, the ballot question appears to be a referendum on whether to hold another referendum:

Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?

Option A keeps Alberta in Canada. Option B carries us further down the path to separation, but doesn’t necessarily lock us into independence. This makes Option B look like a cautious middle step. It’s not a direct “leave” vote as with Brexit, or a “yes” vote as with Quebec. It’s only a vote to have another vote, and that’s why separatists can campaign for it without explaining how independence would actually work. They say Option B is merely “keeping the door open,” “letting Alberta have its say,” or “sending Ottawa a message.”

In short, separatist leaders are selling the 10th referendum question as a low-risk way of strengthening Alberta’s bargaining position with Ottawa. Complacent federalists should not accept that premise, nor take the outcome for granted. The stakes are much too high.

The day after an Option B victory, separatists would treat the outcome as a mandate for a second referendum. Some leaders suggest the second vote would happen within weeks or months. That timeline is unrealistic. Indigenous leaders, ministers, officials, lawyers, political parties, and civil society organizations would spend years fighting over consultation, timing, wording, the threshold for victory, and the terms for a hypothetical separation.

In the meantime, an Option B vote would stall all progress toward building new pipelines, killing important momentum toward finding private sector proponents. It would tear up the MOU between Alberta and Canada to expand the TMX pipeline, remove our leverage in CUSMA negotiations, forestall external investment and pause internal growth plans, and put the brakes on economic development in the province more broadly. These opportunity costs arrive at precisely the wrong moment. Alberta is building its influence in Confederation. Option B stalls that progress and replaces practical federalism with another cycle of grievance, litigation, and brinksmanship.

Even with all of the government’s attention, the march to a second referendum would take years. Several obstacles would need to be removed, starting with those concerning treaties with First Nations.

In Athabasca Chipewan First Nation v. Alberta, the Court of King’s Bench quashed the Stay Free Alberta petition after finding that the process triggered the Crown’s duty to consult (and no such consultation had occurred). Alberta has appealed, but the government did not wait for the case to play out before calling this fall’s referendum. Unless the ruling is overturned, the Government of Alberta appears obligated to consult with First Nations before taking any further steps toward a second referendum.

This process would take months if not years, as it would need to address the potential effects of secession on treaty rights, lands, and the continuing relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Crown. Many First Nations have made clear that they do not consent to being carried into an independent Alberta. Some could insist that treaty territories remain within Canada or that their peoples possess a distinct right to decide their future.

Those claims could affect the referendum’s wording and legitimacy, the boundaries of an independent Alberta state, and every negotiation that followed.

The next fight would be over the referendum question itself. Under the federal Clarity Act, the House of Commons must decide whether the wording is acceptable within 30 days of its official release. A question that asks only for permission to negotiate, or bundles independence with promises of economic association, would likely fail the clarity test. Ottawa could not prevent Alberta from holding such a vote, but it could refuse to negotiate afterward.

Only once First Nations consultations are complete and the question is set can the actual referendum campaign take place. At that point, the “remain” and “leave” sides would engage Albertans on the practical meaning of separation. Voters would seek firm, credible answers to questions that separatists, to this point, have dodged: currency, public debt, pensions, citizenship, immigration, tariffs, customs, pipeline access, entitlement programs, border services, criminal law, defense, human rights, and so on. Albertans would be right to demand clear answers on the structure of the ensuing independent government (e.g., republic versus parliamentary democracy), which Canadian laws and institutions would be replicated (e.g., the Crown and Charter rights), and the total cost of the transition.

Most of those answers could not be guaranteed in advance of a second referendum because they depend on negotiations with the rest of Canada. A separatist campaign could promise continued access to public services, frictionless access to Canadian markets, or a favourable share of federal assets. But those are only items on a list of demands; they would have to be negotiated with all nine provinces and the federal government, all of whom would demand steep concessions from Alberta in return.

The central question of the second referendum campaign would revolve, not around whether independence is feasible or desirable, but how much uncertainty voters are prepared to accept about the eventual deal and how much they trust separatist leaders to secure it in a high-stakes, one-versus-ten multilateral negotiation.

Before that vote occurs, the 2027 provincial election would be consumed by the separation issue. Every party and candidate would have to declare whether the referendum will proceed and under what terms. Internal UCP divisions now papered over by “letting Albertans decide” would become impossible to avoid. Forces would likely split the party into federalist and separatist wings, either ahead of or during the campaign itself. Other parties, united on the issue, would have the upper hand. Instead of debating how to fix health care and schools, or attract investment, Albertans would spend the election dithering over hypothetical borders, currencies, and constitutions.

Even a “leave” victory in the second referendum would not bring finality. The Clarity Act does not guarantee that a simple, 50% + 1 outcome would be accepted as a clear majority. The federal government must weigh in on the matter, judging not just the proportion of ballots cast, but also considerations like turnout and distributions of support among different communities. If it finds both the question and the majority clear, Canada would acquire a constitutional obligation to negotiate. But this is by no means an obligation to accept Alberta’s preferred terms or even to ensure that secession occurs.

Contrary to what separatist leaders contend, Alberta cannot secede unilaterally from Canada. We would have to negotiate our way out of Confederation. Secession itself would require a constitutional amendment involving consent from the federal government and provincial legislatures. If separatists claim that routine constitutional amendments are impossible, securing a secession deal would be even more difficult and time-consuming.

Even an agreement in principle would require precisely the same motion to be passed in all 10 legislatures and the House of Commons within three years. The actual transition would take years more. If they manage to resolve treaty disputes with First Nations (which is a quagmire unto itself), governments would have to create, replace, or share institutions; maintain public services and legal continuity; allocate debt and assets; establish new trade and border arrangements; and seek international recognition and partnerships. This is not something that can be done overnight, especially wheni it involves eleven negotiating partners and Indigenous governments.

The uncertainty during this phase would continue to wreak havoc on the Alberta and Canadian economies as other countries and international investors assess whether the new states can govern, trade, borrow, and protect their citizens.

Option B is not a harmless way to “keep the door open” to independence, or to “send Ottawa a message.” Rather, it is a vote to put the province into constitutional limbo: years of Crown-Indigenous conflict, consultations, court cases, campaigns, and internal party warfare over a departure whose terms cannot be known in advance.

Worse yet, Alberta would spend those years trying to renegotiate the benefits it already enjoys -- access to a national market, shared public programs, national defense, mobility rights, and international reputation -- with no guarantee of retaining them and every possibility of paying more for less.

Opposing Option B requires more than a shrug. Frustrated federalists who want to continue leading Confederation will need to campaign for that side, donate to the cause, and turn out to vote on Oct. 19 (or, better yet, earlier through mail-in ballot or advance polls). Sitting this one out until there’s a “real” vote means supporting years of distracted governance and missed opportunities.

Alberta has maximum leverage when shaping national policy through consensus — not as a landlocked province sitting alone at one end of the bargaining table.

Option A wouldn’t end discussions over Alberta’s relationship with the rest of Canada. Confederation has always been a work in progress and Alberta should continue to press its interests forcefully. But the province negotiates from a position of strength when it builds coalitions to shape national policy, not when it isolates itself against ten other governments.

Choosing Option A allows Alberta to continue the hard work of strengthening our province and country in an uncertain world — to continue to lead, not leave.

Jared Wesley is a professor of political science and leads the Common Ground project at the University of Alberta. He is part of the Lead Not Leave initiative (leadnotleave.ca). Patricia Paradis is the former Executive Director, Centre for Constitutional Studies, University of Alberta. Now retired. Supporter of the Lead Not Leave initiative.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent.

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By: Andrew MacDougall

In the end, there was no head of lettuce left to rot in front of a webcam. Bad as he was, Keir Starmer was no Liz Truss.

Even so, Starmer has still suffered the same fate as Britain’s worst-ever prime minister, wilting in office after his disloyal Labour Party supported Andy Burnham’s (long-planned) internal coup against him. Burnham, until recently the mayor of Manchester, now becomes Britain’s seventh prime minister in 10 years. How very fucking Italy of us.

That Burnham is anyone’s idea of an answer shows just how deep the rot has set in over here in Blighty. The country is spending more on welfare than it is taking in on tax, can’t fund its military, and is paying twice as much for its energy than countries on the European continent, and people think that Andy Burnham — Andy fucking Burnham — is the answer.

Burnham is no God. He is a political lifer. A staffer at the age of 23, an MP at the age of 31, and a minister at the age of 37 in Gordon Brown’s government. Burnham then ran for leader of the Labour Party twice — and failed both times. And so, when Jeremy Corbyn took over the Labour leadership following the 2015 election and began turning the party into a late 1970s socialist revival with a heaping helping of antisemitism thrown in, Burnham slunk off to Manchester to run for mayor, a position he held for nine years.

Which isn’t to say Burnham is completely bereft of accomplishment. During his time as mayor, Burnham improved the bus network (albeit, thanks to a large subsidy from Westminster). Manchester also grew impressively, both in terms of housing footprint and economy. But what Burnham is best remembered for is putting two fingers up to Boris Johnson during the pandemic, when the then-prime minister tried to impose different lockdown restrictions in the north of the country. That’s when Andy became the “King of the North.”

Ah, the north. Andy Burnham loves reminding people that he’s from the north. Just a working-class lad from Liverpool. A true Evertonian with a season ticket. Albeit one who went to Cambridge and then fucked off straight to Westminster the second it became possible to go.

But that’s Andy. He is a man who wants to be all things to all people. As the joke that was making the rounds during the coup goes: “a Blairite, a Brownite, and a Corbynite walk into a bar, and the barman says, ‘Hello, Mr. Burnham.’”

This ideological malleability is how Burnham managed to unite the vast majority of Labour Party MPs behind his coup. That, and the fact that Starmer was truly shit and a drag on the numbers. Starmer took the Labour Party from a massive majority win in 2024 to polling parity with the opposition parties in a vanishingly short period of time. Starmer never looked comfortable in office and never had a clear plan or governing ideology. “There is no Starmerism,” Starmer once famously declared. Now there is no Starmer.

And what will Burnham offer in Starmer’s place?

It’s not yet clear. Burnham’s coup was more about attitude than it was policy. Burnham is naturally more of an optimist and is comfortable speaking about things Britain has forgotten about, like “hope.” He wants more power for Britain’s left-behind regions and “growth in every postcode.” But the policy offer to get there is thin, something that should worry Labour given Starmer’s own thinness. Every leader has banged about Britain’s regional inequality; none has come close to solving it.

In many ways, Burnham is just a better coat of lipstick on the pig. None of Britain’s problems go away just because Burnham has graced us with his presence and optimism. The migrants are still coming across the channel. Defence is still massively underfunded. There are still over a million 18-24 year olds not in education, employment or training. Millions more are claiming benefits for ill-defined mental-health reasons. Britain needs a series of nettles grasped, not a better suite of TikToks from the temporary resident of 10 Downing Street.

That said, one place Burnham truly excels — certainly compared with Starmer — is comms. He is a natural before the camera in a way the stilted Starmer never was. Burnham’s personality jives with the rhythms and demands of the attention economy. He spends a lot of time catering to the platforms feeding content to the kids. And no, that is not a compliment.

On comms, Burnham is a reflection of how politics has now moved upstream to government. Governments used to do things and then find a way to discuss and frame them. Now politicians apply a vibe to government. Instead of policy driving comms, comms is driving policy. The long, slow, boring, complicated work of government is not suited to the attention economy. So why bother doing it when you can vibe instead?

To wit, Burnham’s first week in office featured a suite of bite-sized policy tweaks seemingly selected for their suitability for communication on social media: a small cut to energy bills; a £2 cap on bus fares; a cut in business tax for pubs; a pledge to end “rough sleeping;” and opening a Number 10 North, i.e. an office space for Burnham to work in Manchester on Fridays. And Burnham called the office opening “the best day of his life,” which makes you worry about the state of his marriage.

The fact I had to Google the week’s policy announcements is proof of how much of modern politics is “here today, gone today.” I follow this stuff closely and I didn’t register some of Burnham’s tweaks. Burnham’s operation also floated a few trial balloons, like reforming council tax, increasing the basic personal allowance on tax, and increasing business rates on warehouses (i.e. Amazon) to fund smaller businesses on local high streets. These are all serious policies that would present a step change in Britain’s governance. That all of them were quickly denied is proof that serious change isn’t in the offing.

Lipstick it is, then.

Andrew MacDougall is a partner at Trafalgar Strategy and is a senior policy fellow at the Centre for Media, Technology, and Democracy at McGill University.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent

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For decades, Canada has enjoyed the benefits of NATO while spending comparatively little on its own military. That era may be coming to an end.

This episode is brought to you by BioCanRx, a federally-funded Canadian not-for-profit research network dedicated to cutting edge cancer immunotherapy research that they’re helping Canadian researchers bring from labs to patients in clinical trials — all in Canada.

If a drug is discovered in a Canadian lab, and conducts successful clinical trials in Canada, there’s a chance it will be launched in Canada. So how do we get more drugs out of Canadian labs and keep them here? Every year around $500 million is spent on Canadian cancer research, but 70 per cent of that is for early-stage work — discovering whether a therapy can do something in the lab. That leaves limited resources for the complex and often disjointed process of moving Canadian innovations from discovery to a clinical trial and hopefully into the health system.

BioCanRx has stepped into the gap. They specialize in “translational research” — the unsexy work that makes for boring press releases, but gets results: 16 Canadian cancer immunotherapy clinical trials in just a decade, treating more than 400 patients.

Thanks to this, BioCanRx has first-hand experience with the systemic disconnects that are trapping discoveries in Canadian labs, or sending them out of the country to be developed. They have straightforward ideas about how to fix the problems, and spoiler alert: the answer isn’t just “add more money.” Stay tuned to learn more in coming weeks, and visit BioCanRx.com to learn more.

This week on On The Line, host Jen Gerson is joined by Jean-François Bélanger, Senior Non-Resident Associate Fellow at the NATO Defense College, for a wide-ranging discussion about Canada’s long-overdue military buildup and what it means for the future of the Alliance. Bélanger’s work focuses on deterrence, nuclear strategy, wargaming, multi-domain operations, and military decision-making, making him well placed to explain the strategic thinking behind today’s defence debates.

As Ottawa commits to dramatically increasing defence spending, Gerson and Bélanger examine what those promises will actually require. Is Canada genuinely preparing for a more dangerous world, or simply catching up after decades of underinvestment? What capabilities do the Canadian Armed Forces need most urgently, and how should those investments be prioritized?

The conversation also explores how NATO has evolved in recent years, how the Alliance has adapted to the return of Donald Trump to the White House, and what Canada’s role should be in an increasingly uncertain international environment. They discuss the growing strategic importance of the Arctic, the impact of emerging technologies on military planning, and how the character of warfare is changing.

This episode is also brought to you by the Forest Products Association of Canada. Canada’s forest products sector is not asking Ottawa to start over. The federal government has heard the advice. It has recognized the challenges. And it has put a plan on the table. Now the test is action.

That means clearing made-in-Canada barriers: regulatory duplication, transportation bottlenecks, and uncertainty around predictable access to manage our forests. It means working with provinces to protect communities from wildfire risk and giving companies the confidence to invest here at home. Nearly 200,000 Canadians working in this sector are looking for results.

The playbook is written. Now Ottawa needs to deliver. Learn more at FPAC.ca.

Along the way, Bélanger explains why modern defence planning increasingly relies on forecasting, simulations, and sophisticated wargaming, and why many Canadians misunderstand both NATO’s purpose and Canada’s obligations within it.

For more, be sure to check out our main page at ReadTheLine.ca. Like and subscribe!

This episode is also brought to you by Cameco. In nuclear energy, timelines and costs matter. Incomplete designs carry real risk of delays and cost overruns. That’s why the AP1000 reactor is the right choice for Canada: it is already operating today and ready now to deliver the power we need, with 100 percent Canadian ownership and strong participation from Canadian suppliers. If we are serious about building Canada and powering it on time and on budget, the choice is clear. The AP1000 reactor is the only option that delivers.

To learn more, visit ap1000.cameco.com.

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We hope you enjoy the episode — and don’t miss us next week. We’ll be back with more On The Line.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent

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By: Matt Gurney

The extent of Canadian justice system dysfunction, not to mention our shameful and ongoing neglect of the Jewish community, can now be neatly summarized in a timeline.

It’s ugly reading.

Last week, Ahmad Hassan Hajahmad was arrested by the Toronto Police Service and charged with “Participate in or Contribute to Activities of a Terrorist Group.” I’m going to quote quite liberally from the police statement about the arrest and charges here, because these are just allegations, Mr. Hajahmad is innocent until proven guilty, and getting the details right matters. So here’s how the police themselves describe the alleged crime: “It is alleged that on May 25 and September 7, 2024, the accused attended pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the Bay Street and Front Street West area, where he used amplification devices to make public statements that advocated for the detestation and harm against members of the Israeli and Jewish communities.” The investigation that followed those incidents is apparently what led to the unusual decision to charge Mr. Hajahmad with supporting, in some as-yet-unspecified way, Hamas.

Those are the facts of the alleged offence, as we know them. The Toronto Police Service statement also contained a timeline. Here are the key dates:

• May–September 2024: alleged offences occur

• March 7, 2025: police execute search warrants and seize Mr. Hajahmad’s electronic devices

• July 22, 2026: Mr. Hajahmad arrested and charged

Sooooo. Anyone else notice something about those dates? Mainly, the spread? The Toronto police, plus the unit of the RCMP dedicated to national security threats, needed 26 months from the time of an initial offence to arrest a guy they think was supporting a terror group and threatening Jews?! Really?

Really. And remember — Canadian courts are so notoriously slow and backlogged that we had to impose a hard limit for how long someone can wait before having serious charges heard, lest the case be thrown out. For a major crime like this, the Canadian definition of a sufficiently speedy trial is 30 months. Two and a half years. This could mean that, should Mr. Hajahmad be convicted, it’s possible that a full 56 months could pass between the time of the first alleged crime and the conviction.

It’s the latter two dates that really alarm me — the spread between the search warrant and the arrest. By the logic of the charges, there was evidence this guy supported a terror group 15 months before he was arrested for it. It’s not like he was unknown to police, either — Mr. Hajahmad was prominent at some of the protests in Toronto (he was literally using a megaphone in public, which seems like a joke but is just the literal description of what he was doing), and had also been charged with mischief after setting off a smoke device inside Union Station on News Year’s Day of 2025, months before the search warrants were issued. He was, of course, released after his arrest. It was another 19 months before he was arrested on the terror charge.

To recap: We have an accused terrorist, who was known to police and had in fact already been arrested once before being released, and we need over two years to bring the terror charge and re-arrest him. Wow! Great work, everyone.

Is there literally anyone in this country, especially in the police, court system or our politics, who’s prepared to step up and defend this insanity? Is there a single politician, Crown attorney or police leader who’d have the guts to go to a Jewish victim of criminal assault, harassment or intimidation and say that this was justice? That this was protection? That this was anything other than a disgrace?

If so, hey, there’s good news. It wouldn’t be hard to find some Jews to receive the message. Two more Jewish businesses were hit in Toronto over the weekend — one with a smashed window, the other by gunfire. No doubt my Jewish friends are hoping against hope that police might find someone and arrest them for this crime sometime between now and, uh, September 2028, which is apparently how long it takes.

I say the above with tongue somewhat in cheek. I know full well that no police leader, no Crown prosecutor, no judge and no elected official would dare defend this. They’d all agree it’s a major failure and, indeed, an embarrassment. I know this because I’ve talked to all those groups. They all agree on two things: that the status quo isn’t nearly good enough, and, it’s not their fault.

It’s someone else’s fault. And I should go talk to those other guys.

It’s pathetic. It’s a sick joke, all at the expense of our vulnerable Jewish community. It’s embarrassing. And it’s not at all surprising.

It doesn’t have to be this way, friends. A few years ago, shortly after — that’s the key phrase there, “shortly after” — the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, U.S. courts were sentencing participants. Obviously, events since make the fate of the Jan. 6 perpetrators hard to hold up as a case study of effective justice, but if only as a point of comparison, Texan Guy Reffitt was convicted of five charges related to the attack in March 2022. That’s 14 months to go from the crime to the conviction, or about half as long as it took Toronto to get from crime to a charge being laid. (Reffitt was ultimately handed an 87-month sentence before being pardoned by President Donald Trump on the day he retook office in 2025.)

Perhaps American justice isn’t to your liking? Let’s look across the sea to the United Kingdom. Last month, there was rioting across the United Kingdom targeting police officers after horrible footage was released showing a man bleeding to death in police custody after the man was stabbed; his cries for help to the police were ignored. It was a horrible disgrace, but for our purposes today, what actually caught my attention was the speed with which the British restored order. Southampton was one of the cities that saw disorder, and the courts there were handing out multi-year sentences for the mob violence within days — yes, days — of the crimes occurring.

Can you even imagine Canadian police or courts attempting to move in days? They’d break out in hives at the suggestion.

And that’s a major problem, because swift arrests and sentences are a known deterrent. The Line has been lamenting for years now that the failure of the police to intervene rapidly, decisively and publicly to root out the unlawful elements from within the broader post-Oct. 7 anti-Israel protests was a massive strategic error, and a major missed opportunity. A swift pruning out of criminal elements from a broader and legitimate protest is good for everyone — including the rest of the protesters. It sends a strong message that lawful protests are permitted but crimes won’t be tolerated, even and perhaps especially when they’re committed as part of an otherwise peaceful event.

Not intervening, or arresting someone and then immediately releasing them, sends the opposite message. Look at what’s happening in our streets. Look at these two more Jewish businesses, attacked in the dead of night. And tell me that you really don’t think that the inaction of our police and the appallingly delayed court processes we’ve now accepted as normal haven’t contributed to the sense of impunity that the perpetrators of these gutless acts must feel?

And spend a minute, as well, thinking of what your Jewish friends and neighbours have absorbed from all this. For almost three years, their schools, religious sites, businesses and their very neighbourhoods have been repeatedly targeted by criminals. People have been assaulted. And the Canadian state has demonstrated, clearly and unequivocally, that they’ll take years — years! — to step in to protect Jewish Canadians and public safety more broadly. Hell, I’m still not convinced that what little action we’ve seen to date hasn’t been driven mostly by fear of what America would do if anyone shot up their consulate again. That seemed to be what it took to kick officials here into something resembling action. (Oh, and not for nothing, but in the small handful of hours between when this column was written and before it was published, the U.S. Consulate was apparently shot at, again. So let’s see what happens on that one.)

All of this official cowardice and judicial dysfunction combines to send a message that I know for a fact that many Canadian Jews have received loud and clear. Something has gone very, very wrong in this country, and since we now have a federal government committed to building at speeds we haven’t seen in generations, let’s hope they save some energy for making sure we restore order and safety at a fair clip, too. Until and unless that happens, Canadian Jews will continue to do what they’re already doing — buying guns, or just leaving the country entirely. And I won’t blame them.

Oh, and Toronto readers? The two businesses targeted this weekend were Kiva’s bakeries. There are a few locations in the city. I’ve been to two of them, but I admit not in a while. That’s going to change this week. I hope you guys can join me in showing them some support. They might need years to get anything official. The least we can do is buy some of their food. And apologize.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent.

To contact The Line with a general inquiry or comment, please email info@readtheline.ca. For other ways to connect with us or to follow us on social media, please see our LinkTree.

Hello, Line readers. We just took two weeks (mostly) off but we’ll be getting back to work this week. We hope you had a wonderful time. There won’t be a dispatch today but we wanted to check in with everyone and say that we are, sadly and reluctantly, leaving the quiet weeks of a nice summer behind and preparing, once again, to throw ourselves into the mess that is our civilization today.

You can tell we’re jazzed, right?

Talk to you soon. And to our freelancers — start yer engines. We’ll need content!

— Matt and Jen

In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on July 24th, 2026, hosts Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson set out with the ambitious goal of keeping each segment to a specific, fixed time.

They do not succeed.

This episode is brought to you by BioCanRx, a federally-funded Canadian not-for-profit research network dedicated to cutting edge cancer immunotherapy research that they’re helping Canadian researchers bring from labs to patients in clinical trials — all in Canada.

If a drug is discovered in a Canadian lab, and conducts successful clinical trials in Canada, there’s a chance it will be launched in Canada. So how do we get more drugs out of Canadian labs and keep them here? Every year around $500 million is spent on Canadian cancer research, but 70 per cent of that is for early-stage work — discovering whether a therapy can do something in the lab. That leaves limited resources for the complex and often disjointed process of moving Canadian innovations from discovery to a clinical trial and hopefully into the health system.

BioCanRx has stepped into the gap. They specialize in “translational research” — the unsexy work that makes for boring press releases, but gets results: 16 Canadian cancer immunotherapy clinical trials in just a decade, treating more than 400 patients.

Thanks to this, BioCanRx has first-hand experience with the systemic disconnects that are trapping discoveries in Canadian labs, or sending them out of the country to be developed. They have straightforward ideas about how to fix the problems, and spoiler alert: the answer isn’t just “add more money.” Stay tuned to learn more in coming weeks, and visit BioCanRx.com to learn more.

They begin by unpacking a remarkable week in Canada–U.S. relations. New details about the Gordie Howe Bridge agreement have emerged, and neither host likes what they see. Combined with another round of American tariffs, Jen argues that Prime Minister Mark Carney has committed his first major political fumble. Matt agrees that it’s a setback, but also argues that the White House is undermining its own objectives. In an unusual role reversal, Matt even attempts to make the best possible case for Carney’s strategy — despite having been the more hawkish voice in recent month. Jen isn’t convinced.

This episode is also brought to you by the Forest Products Association of Canada. Canada’s forest products sector is not asking Ottawa to start over. The federal government has heard the advice. It has recognized the challenges. And it has put a plan on the table. Now the test is action.

That means clearing made-in-Canada barriers: regulatory duplication, transportation bottlenecks, and uncertainty around predictable access to manage our forests. It means working with provinces to protect communities from wildfire risk and giving companies the confidence to invest here at home. Nearly 200,000 Canadians working in this sector are looking for results.

The playbook is written. Now Ottawa needs to deliver. Learn more at fpac.ca.

The conversation then turns inward to Canadian politics. Jen argues that Carney is trying to do too many jobs himself, and that much of the bridge controversy could have been avoided if he’d simply trusted his communications team. That observation leads both hosts to an amusing realization: Carney relies on his communications staff so infrequently that neither of them even knew who the key players were. They had to look it up. Matt also argues that while the Conservatives remain effective at opposing the government on domestic issues, they’re badly missing the mark on foreign affairs, and that’s probably because they don’t want to admit some things that they’d find awkward and unpleasant. Jen concludes that Canada really needs the Liberals’ strategic instincts combined with the Conservatives’ tactical effectiveness. Matt predicts, with characteristic optimism, that the country will somehow end up with neither.

This episode is also brought to you by Cameco. In nuclear energy, timelines and costs matter. Incomplete designs carry real risk of delays and cost overruns. That’s why the AP1000 reactor is the right choice for Canada: it is already operating today and ready now to deliver the power we need, with 100 percent Canadian ownership and strong participation from Canadian suppliers. If we are serious about building Canada and powering it on time and on budget, the choice is clear. The AP1000 reactor is the only option that delivers.

To learn more, visit ap1000.cameco.com.

Finally, Matt ties together many of the themes from the episode by examining the recent arrest of a man alleged to have been involved in terrorism on behalf of Hamas against Canadian Jews. Rather than editorializing, Matt simply walks through the timeline of the investigation and the eventual arrest. The chronology, he argues, speaks for itself — and paints a deeply troubling picture of how seriously Canada has treated both public safety and the protection of its Jewish community.

All that and more in the latest episode of The Line Podcast.

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The Line has had a nice little break (mostly a break) but we’ll be back at it next week, including a fresh episode of On The Line on Tuesday. Talk to you soon.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent.

To contact The Line with a general inquiry or comment, please email info@readtheline.ca. For other ways to connect with us or to follow us on social media, please see our LinkTree.

I will admit that I spent a lot of the last two weeks sitting by a pool in cottage country, sipping local ciders, and thinking about ways to blow up the Gordie Howe bridge.

“Vacations” take me to the bad place. Normal people get to wind down and relax. For me, the sudden liberation from schedule and constraint seems to free my brain to contemplate the implications of industrial sabotage.

And after such consideration, I have decided against it — blowing up the bridge, that is. (Please note, law enforcement: Take me seriously, but not literally, here. I am not going to blow up a bridge. I do not condone or endorse blowing up a bridge. Blowing up a bridge would be impractical. Worse than that, blowing up the bridge would be wrong.)

I’m merely illustrating that these are the sorts of bad thoughts that tend to fester in my head in the face of growing and incontrovertible evidence that Canada is weak, America knows it, and the U.S. administration is going to continue to escalate its aggressive trade policies towards us because we will allow it.

This week’s announcement of 50 per cent tariffs on a raft of goods is more proof that the Liberals’ ironclad strategy of “say tough things in public but then capitulate quietly on issue after issue” isn’t panning out. And I write that knowing full well that the statute being used to implement the tariffs is old, tenuous, and may not hold up. I’m not talking about them, for a moment. I’m talking about us.

Where do we even start with Prime Minister Elbows Up? Dropping the Digital Services Tax and retaliatory tariffs? The apology for the terrible sin of running a Ronald Reagan ad? And now we have the business of the Gordie Howe Bridge: to recap, Canada fronted $6.4 billion to build the span between Windsor and Detroit, which was to be paid back over decades through bridge tolls. At the last minute — and presumably at the behest of the rich MAGA donor who owns the competing bridge — Donald Trump announced the bridge would not open until the U.S. got a better deal. After more quiet negotiations, such a deal was struck.

Initially, Carney claimed that the U.S. would take a split of the operating profits — but only after the debt was paid off, something which was expected to bring real profits down to a very small amount. Effectively, he said the deal would give the Americans chump change.

Subsequent reporting suggested this wasn’t the case at all; that the Americans are to take their cut from operating revenue, which presumably will have the effect of dramatically extending our payback period.

In short, it’s a major concession, made worse by the fact that Carney appears to have lied.

And, frankly, I’m not sure which of these two pills is harder to swallow. Regular press conferences aside, Team Canada has been rather shockingly non-communicative about what the hell is going on with USMCA re-negotiations. I give the government some credit for the need to maintain “strategic silence” in order to pursue “strategic patience,” but if your entire brilliant communications strategy for rallying the Canadian public in the face of unprecedented American economic aggression amounts to “Shush. Just trust us. Carney’s super smart. He’s got this,” well, then, you really can’t lie and be dumb about it.

Carney came to power 18 months ago with an explicit “Elbows Up” promise that is deteriorating into a punch line. I don’t object to choosing not to rise to the bait of every provocation. But when “doing nothing” is accompanied by caving on everything, what you have is no longer “strategic patience.” It looks a lot more like “showing the Americans that we have no appetite for retaliation.” We’ve indicated with crystal clarity that aside from the odd mean speech, and the fact that Canadians are Big Mad, we will extract no material consequence for anything they choose to do. And absent consequence, they will continue to escalate past the point of diminishing returns.

Why?

Because they can.

Because they don’t care.

Because they take delight in their own contempt for our demonstrated weakness.

Every capitulation incentivizes greater demands. And if that’s the cycle we’re locked in, then the longer we put off extracting penalties, the more expensive the penalties become. Take a hit now, take a bigger hit later, or give it all up in the end. Standing up to the threat will require sacrifice. We understand.

Driving around Ontario’s cottage country — Loyalist Parkway, represent — I took note of all the ostentatious Canadian flags and “Elbows Up” signs. And, guys, it’s adorable. It really is. The Americans are charmed.

I don’t know how to say this kindly, but our anger doesn’t matter. Our feelings of frustration and betrayal are both legitimate and irrelevant. We are foreigners with no constituency — barely even real people — to most Americans. We are bit players in their expansive internal drama. We are flies, volunteering to have our wings removed for their amusement on a slow summer day. Do bullies care when the fly gets upset?

Anger without purpose, direction, or meaningful action is pointless. No, it’s worse than pointless. It’s indulgent.

This U.S. administration has calculated — correctly — that they can tolerate our anger because we’re not willing to engage in anything other than superficial expressions of that anger. They can afford to pay the bargain bin price we have set.

Oh, so now I see the Gordie Howe Bridge will open under terrible terms, but we’re not going to … hold a ribbon cutting ceremony. Good God, could we be more pathetic?

Once again, we’re retreating to costless symbolic action in a fit of pique and expecting the Americans to get the message. Watch out, guys, this little Pekingese is going full Elbows Up. Uncle Sam’s pinky toe is about to get a sharp and meaningful nibble.

Enough.

Better to submit with dignity than to subject ourselves to the humiliation of a fight of half measures.

If we’re that pissed off — and we ought to be — then we shouldn’t be wasting time on symbolic nonsense like cancelling parties. Keep the bridge closed. Renegotiate the deal. Shut it down for years, if necessary. Do what we elected you to do.

I bet a prime minister that doesn’t have the balls to accept the consequences of keeping a bridge closed for a while is not generating the credibility required to re-order the Western alliance. But thanks for coming out. Please enjoy the official portrait and the retirement villa in Nice. All due credit will be granted for trying so hard. Golf claps all around.

Look, I realize that I run into problems whenever I allow myself just enough room to hope that some leader in this country might have it in him to be serious. My disillusionment is entirely my own fault.

But here is my best read of the situation: the Americans are attempting to back us into a “Fortress North America” in which we become progressively more militarily and economically dependent while still being subject to whatever trade demands they choose to impose. They aren’t even being decent enough to spell out the terms of our own surrender, here. What they are aiming for is our subjugation and vassalage. One in which we buy the weapons they demand, die when we’re told, accept whatever economic conditions they’re willing to offer and thank them for the privilege of our continued protection.

Further, once these terms are put forward and accepted, there’s no reason to count on the kindness and magnanimity of the Democrats — presuming they ever hold power again — to secure a better deal or an improved relationship. Contempt for weakness is not confined to one party.

The stakes, for us, are existential.

And our response to date has been: angry polls, Mike Myers cameos, chippy slogans, pissy tweets, a Cathal Kelly column about the boorishness of American hockey players, Heinz ketchup, pulled bourbon, some leisure travel re-arrangements, and the defacement of a cute little beaver statue that was dressed up in an American jersey for the World Cup.

Jesus fuck, everybody. Pack it in. We used to be notoriously ruthless. What the hell happened to us? If this is all we’ve got, we might as well become the 51st state because there’s nothing left in the tank.

We are faffing around while the Americans turn up the pressure in a bid to break our “strategic patience.” And I can’t help but think that, maybe, a technocrat who has spent his entire life in obeisance to elite power structures — a guy who has probably never had to tell so much as a Burger King manager to fuck off — is perhaps not temperamentally well suited to tell the new American Empire to pound sand.

The Liberals were re-elected — tenuously and with significant reservations — to rally Canadians to the cause of enduring punishing retaliations and economic sanctions, to use Donald Trump as an opportunity to restore some national dignity and shared purpose after 10 years of sad and self-inflicted decline. All of this is fundamentally rooted in the country’s capacity to trust them — to both tell the truth about how they intend to handle this threat, and to demonstrate the competence to manage the crisis as it unfolds.

It requires honesty, resolve, and clear demonstration of purpose and strength.

Once those crack, there’s not much left to fight for, with elbows or anything else.

At least we built a bridge, and I guess nowadays that ain’t nothing. But it sure as hell is not enough.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent.

To contact The Line with a general inquiry or comment, please email info@readtheline.ca. For other ways to connect with us or to follow us on social media, please see our LinkTree.

In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on July 17th, 2026, Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson keep things refreshingly brief as both are juggling family matters. They begin with Jen’s unsuccessful attempt to achieve cottage zen, as she unloads on the latest complaints from American politicians about wildfire smoke drifting south from Canada. Both hosts independently arrive at the same tongue-in-cheek solution: if the Americans don’t stop griping, Canada should simply schedule its forest fires for days when the wind is blowing south. (They’re kidding. Mostly.) They also discuss Donald Trump’s latest bizarre speech and the increasingly revealing comments from senior U.S. officials, who seem unable to hide just how much Prime Minister Mark Carney has gotten under their skin.

This episode is brought to you by Fractional Execs Canada. Need help with a serious business problem? As Canadian businesses grow they often require expert help to solve key business challenges. Fractional Execs Canada have assembled a team of experienced strategists, implementors, sales and marketing operators that can help transform your business into a growth engine. They match you with the right person, or team to move your business forward at a pace your business can manage.

Talk to Fractional Execs Canada and discover a better, more collaborative way to take your business and your ‘busyness’ in a better direction. Canadian expertise to support the growth of Canadian businesses. Build your business with those that know how.

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Your hosts then turn to the slow-burning civil war within Canadian conservatism. Jen, still falling well short of cottage zen, has a few things to say. Matt observes that while Carney may be a practicing Catholic, he also seems to have accumulated an extraordinary amount of good karma in previous lives — politically speaking, he’s facing remarkably little effective opposition from either the left or the right. Matt also warns the Conservatives that, whether they realize it or not, they’re in danger of getting “Jagmeet Singhed.” And it’s not subtle.

This episode is also brought to you by BioCanRx, a federally-funded Canadian not-for-profit research network focused on cutting-edge cancer immunotherapy research that they’re helping Canadian researchers bring from labs to patients in clinical trials –– all in Canada.

A new treatment for your cancer has been approved. Can you get it? Maybe, maybe not. Canada isn’t just one health jurisdiction. At the federal level, Health Canada assesses the safety and efficacy of all drugs and therapies in the country, and in a year — sometimes less — they can approve one for sale in Canada. Once approved, — or sometimes while the assessment is happening— the drug’s cost effectiveness is evaluated by Canada’s Drug Agency.

Then the ball goes to the provinces. They work together to negotiate prices with the drug maker, to confirm that it doesn’t duplicate something they’re already stocking, and that its potential value justifies its cost. Only after that can it be provided by each province’s ministry of health. This process can take years. It’s one reason that Canadian innovations leave the country to be developed elsewhere, and why drug companies don’t always choose Canada to initially to launch their products. In the U.S., they get FDA approval, set a price, and wait for the market to decide if the price is right. In Canada, Heath Canada approves and lengthy negotiations start, with no revenue or guarantee of future approval.

Organizations like BioCanRx are willing to wait out the dry years because they’re not-for-profit, but companies with shareholders might skip the Canadian market until they’re making big money elsewhere. This means Canadians have to wait on the system for drugs that could save them, and are saving people in other countries. We’ll talk more about these problems in the weeks to come. Stay tuned for more.

The hosts wrap up by discussing Naheed Nenshi’s apology for speaking with an Israeli, which Matt suggests has elevated the Alberta NDP leader to full windbag status. Matt reminds Jen that he used to complain Nenshi needed to get himself into the public eye more often. After this week, he’d like to politely withdraw that recommendation. Jen wonders if maybe this is why he’s been invisible — he might just actually be awful at this. Anyway, congrats to Danielle Smith. At this rate, she’ll be premier for life.

All that and more in the latest episode of The Line Podcast. Be sure to like and subscribe, and keep your kindling and torches ready. Wait for the code word.

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Please sign up at those options not just for this episode, or future episodes of The Line Podcast, but so that you can also receive our other podcast series, On the Line, which releases new episodes every Tuesday morning. In case you missed it, here is last Tuesday’s episode, where Matt Gurney sits down with Reece Martin, transit and transportation expert and new media entrepreneur, for a conversation about infrastructure, public policy, and how an online passion project turned into a career.

Thanks, all. Talk to you soon.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent.

To contact The Line with a general inquiry or comment, please email info@readtheline.ca. For other ways to connect with us or to follow us on social media, please see our LinkTree.

In this episode of On The Line, host Matt Gurney sits down with Reece Martin, transit and transportation expert and new media entrepreneur, for a conversation about infrastructure, public policy, and how an online passion project turned into a career.

This episode is brought to you by BioCanRx, a federally-funded Canadian not-for-profit research network focused on cutting-edge cancer immunotherapy research that they’re helping Canadian researchers bring from labs to patients in clinical trials –– all in Canada.

A new treatment for your cancer has been approved. Can you get it? Maybe, maybe not. Canada isn’t just one health jurisdiction. At the federal level, Health Canada assesses the safety and efficacy of all drugs and therapies in the country, and in a year — sometimes less — they can approve one for sale in Canada. Once approved, — or sometimes while the assessment is happening— the drug’s cost effectiveness is evaluated by Canada’s Drug Agency.

Then the ball goes to the provinces. They work together to negotiate prices with the drug maker, to confirm that it doesn’t duplicate something they’re already stocking, and that its potential value justifies its cost. Only after that can it be provided by each province’s ministry of health. This process can take years. It’s one reason that Canadian innovations leave the country to be developed elsewhere, and why drug companies don’t always choose Canada to initially to launch their products. In the U.S., they get FDA approval, set a price, and wait for the market to decide if the price is right. In Canada, Heath Canada approves and lengthy negotiations start, with no revenue or guarantee of future approval.

Organizations like BioCanRx are willing to wait out the dry years because they’re not-for-profit, but companies with shareholders might skip the Canadian market until they’re making big money elsewhere. This means Canadians have to wait on the system for drugs that could save them, and are saving people in other countries. We’ll talk more about these problems in the weeks to come. Stay tuned for more.

Martin explains how his fascination with transit and transportation grew into a successful YouTube channel, and how that work eventually made him a go-to commentator for conventional media on major infrastructure issues, with his own successful Substack platform. They discuss the opportunities created by the new media landscape, the challenges of building an audience around complex policy topics, and why expertise can now emerge from outside traditional institutions.

From there, the conversation turns to Canada’s infrastructure record. Matt and Jen often joke that “Canada no build good,” and Martin largely agrees — but with important caveats. He explains where Canada consistently goes wrong, why projects take so long and cost so much, and how political incentives often work against good long-term planning.

This episode is also brought to you by the Forest Products Association of Canada. Canada’s forest products sector is not asking Ottawa to start over. The federal government has heard the advice. It has recognized the challenges. And it has put a plan on the table. Now the test is action.

That means clearing made-in-Canada barriers: regulatory duplication, transportation bottlenecks, and uncertainty around predictable access to manage our forests. It means working with provinces to protect communities from wildfire risk and giving companies the confidence to invest here at home. Nearly 200,000 Canadians working in this sector are looking for results.

The playbook is written. Now Ottawa needs to deliver. Learn more at fpac.ca.

At the same time, Martin argues that Canada has real infrastructure success stories that deserve more attention. Rather than assuming failure is inevitable, governments should study the jurisdictions that consistently deliver major projects on time and on budget, both at home and abroad. If Canada can learn those lessons — and avoid the kinds of procurement failures that have plagued everything from pipelines to military equipment — our cities could finally get the transit systems they need.

And yes, that conversation inevitably leads to the question every Canadian transit enthusiast eventually asks: will Canada actually build true high-speed rail?

Be still, our beating hearts. Enjoy the episode, share it widely, like and subscribe! And be sure to check out and follow Reece’s YouTube channel and Substack, as well.

This episode is also brought to you by Cameco. In nuclear energy, timelines and costs matter. Incomplete designs carry real risk of delays and cost overruns. That’s why the AP1000 reactor is the right choice for Canada: it is already operating today and ready now to deliver the power we need, with 100 percent Canadian ownership and strong participation from Canadian suppliers. If we are serious about building Canada and powering it on time and on budget, the choice is clear. The AP1000 reactor is the only option that delivers.

To learn more, visit ap1000.cameco.com.

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We hope you enjoy the episode — and don’t miss us next week. We’ll be back with more On The Line.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent

To contact The Line with a general inquiry or comment, please email info@readtheline.ca. For other ways to connect with us or to follow us on social media, please see our LinkTree.

Hey, folks. We didn’t think we’d do a dispatch before heading off on holiday, but we can’t be helped, we guess. Just to be clear: we’ll be throttling down for a week or two, while we rest and attend to urgent family matters, but we’ll continue podcasting throughout, and will return in writing if news developments warrant.

Speaking of podcasts, check out last Friday’s episode of The Line Podcast.

Also, don’t miss last Tuesday’s episode of On The Line, where Jen Gerson spoke to Professor Andrew Leach about all the fascinating little pipeline politics stories that have been bubbling up of late.

And now, on with the dispatch.

The Line is not, and shouldn’t be, your one-stop shop for American news and analysis. At least not yet! (We aspire above our station, perhaps.) But as we prepared to shut down here before a vacation, we chose to sneak in one more dispatch simply because the sheer volume of stories relating to our southern neighbours was too tempting for us to ignore. There’s a lot goin’ on, is the thing, and we hope our readers will indulge us a U.S.A.-centric final word before we head off for a break.

First, we note the sudden passing of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham at the age of 71. Graham had just returned from a trip to Ukraine when he reportedly experienced a sudden medical emergency and died. We won’t speculate any more than that, except to note that in these turbulent geopolitical, the sudden death of a U.S. official after a trip abroad must be investigated, and we hope it will be.

As for Graham himself, we have no eulogy to offer. We only ever observed him from afar. He was a fascinating character, to put it mildly, but we’ll limit our comment to this: he was perhaps the single most perfect embodiment of the wrenching change that swept over U.S. politics over the last decade. Graham was a proponent of a strong, aggressive but generally principled U.S. foreign policy — one that understood the role and necessity of U.S. power, but also believed it was enhanced by cooperation with allies and must be rooted in traditional U.S. principles of liberal democracy and Western strength. The kind of foreign policy he believed in was one that was very close to our view of America’s role in the world. He was somehow able to mostly remain a champion of this version of U.S. foreign policy while also transitioning from one of Donald Trump’s earliest and harshest critics a decade ago to one of his most sycophantic supporters.

No man should be reduced to a mere symbol, but to the extent Graham will be remembered for anything, we suspect it might be that — he was a walking, talking embodiment of the torturous and still-ongoing transformation of the Republican Party. The senator leaves behind only a sister, and our best wishes go to her.

One of the most especially obnoxious aspects of America’s increasingly obnoxious targeting of Canada is the refusal by Americans to accept that Canadians have agency in all of this. The comparison with Russia’s ongoing assault on Ukraine has been made many times, and for good reason. Just as Putin assumed he could take over Ukraine in three days, on account of Ukraine not being a real country made up of real people with real views on how their country should be run and by whom, it is pretty clear that Trump and his cronies figured all they had to do was shout “51st state!” a bunch of times, slap on some tariffs, and we would just give them the keys to the place.

And again, just as Putin has spent every night of the last four years massacring Ukrainian civilians as they sleep while any comparable retaliation by Ukraine is met with screeches of outrage in Moscow, Americans seem incapable of accepting that Canadians have an absolute right to respond in kind to American hostility and aggression.

To be clear, the comparison has limits — Ukrainians are facing death and suffering at a massive scale, and that’s far beyond what Canadians have had to endure. But the key similarly that holds is the blinding arrogance of the larger power in an asymmetrical relationship — the more powerful country simply cannot understand how and why the smaller one would resist in the first place, whether it’s bombs or tariffs and nasty rhetoric. Here in North America, this failing is common in the high reaches of the American administration, in particular Jamieson Greer, Howard Lutnick, and the gaslighter-designate Pete Hoekstra, who continues to insist that “there’s fault to go around” in the bad blood between Canada and the United States, and that “some of the language your premiers have used” has been unhelpful.

Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative, has spent months telling anyone with a microphone that Canada’s counter-tariffs are “a problem” for negotiations, having previously blamed the provincial booze bans, the digital services tax, and Ottawa’s flirtation with Chinese EVs for the stalled talks. His favourite line is that only two countries on Earth have retaliated economically against the United States: the People’s Republic of China, and Canada. “That’s the company they’re running in.” Note the logic here: the aggression is normal, and it is the response that is deviant. Lutnick, the commerce secretary, dispensed with logic altogether at a Semafor conference in April, where he summarized Canada’s negotiating position with the words “they suck.” The Commerce Department later clarified that the secretary had been misquoted, and merely meant that Canada “sucks off of our $30T economy.” O RLY.

But now that the CUSMA deadline has come and gone with no obvious end to the trade war in sight, other American officials are starting to get annoyed, and, true to form, are looking to place the blame north of the border.

Exhibit A: Adam Schiff, Democratic senator from California, who took to X this week to complain that Canada’s boycott of California wine is causing “devastating harm” to winegrowers. Schiff wrote to Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette in June asking her to lift the SAQ’s ban on American booze, a few weeks after a bipartisan group of 14 California lawmakers, Nancy Pelosi among them, did the same, mourning a lost $434-million market.

Exhibit B: Claudia Tenney, a Republican congresswoman from New York, who introduced a bill this week called the Combating Attacks on our National Alcoholic Drinks by Allies Act (the CANADA Act, geddit?) that would trigger a Section 301 investigation into the provincial liquor bans as an unfair trade practice, potentially leading to still more American tariffs.

It is hard to know where to start with these people.

So maybe let’s start with what is being asked. Schiff is not demanding that his own government drop the tariffs that started all this; he is demanding that Canada drop its response to them. “California doesn’t agree with these tariff wars,” he pleads, as though that settles the matter. But that is not how any of this works. Canada is not in a trade war with red states. Foreign policy does not come with sub-national carve-outs: when Washington attacks the Canadian economy, “America” is what attacks it, blue bits included. We cannot punish Republicans without also punishing the Democrats who, the record will show, have done approximately nothing to stop them. As one Canadian put it in a widely shared Reddit reply to Schiff: you don’t blame the trees when the forest fire you started spreads to your house.

Then we can move on to the nature of the supposed offence. The provinces have not tariffed American wine. They have not seized anyone’s assets or blockaded a port. Their liquor monopolies have simply declined to buy a product, and Canadian consumers have declined to miss it. This is the mildest, most law-abiding response available to a country whose sovereignty is being openly threatened. Nobody has a right to a market. That U.S. wine exports to Canada collapsed by 78 per cent in a year is not an attack, it’s a response to Trump’s preferred line about how the U.S. needs nothing from Canada.

At the heart of all of this is a sense amongst Americans that Canadians who defend their country on routine nationalist grounds are, in some profound but inexplicable sense, being silly. And that sense is a thoroughly bipartisan temperament, as common amongst the most progressive Democrats as it is amongst diehard MAGA Republicans, the only difference being that the Democrats expect to be thanked for their sympathy while washing their hands of any responsibility for what is coming out of D.C.

That “all other countries are a joke” narcissism has always been a part of the American psyche, but it has now reached such a state of pathology that it is not clear any of them can see how the rest of the world sees America right now: a country that starts a fight and then sues you for hitting back; that threatens to annex you, and then sends a letter asking why you’re being so cold. Meanwhile, VQA sales at the LCBO are up 44 per cent on the year, and Canadians are discovering they quite like their own wine.

In the meantime, as Schiff himself as so ably demonstrated, anyone who thinks this ends with Trump is dreaming.

Speaking of American power, we have to throw our hands up a little bit in consternation at the events of just the last couple of days. It’s truly bonkers how much stuff is happening. We had originally planned to write a few different blurbs about all of these stories, but when we sat down to actually do it, we realized it’s actually all the same blurb: U.S. foreign policy is an absolute train wreck.

We’re not even really sure how to structure the argument, so we’ll probably just try to get away with listing all of the things that were on our minds.

First, check out what happened last week at the NATO summit. The allies were able to get through it without any particular eruption from Trump, though he did end up petulantly resuming his talk about controlling Greenland. The response from the allies is exactly what we think it should have been — basically nothing. We truly do believe that the Europeans are figuring out that the best way to handle Trump is largely to ignore what he says on a day-to-day basis and stay focused instead on more obvious and tangible issues.

Of which there are many. The Americans are signalling that they plan to wind down some of their military commitments to European defence, and that’s where Europe should stay focused. We don’t even object to that. We think it is entirely appropriate for Europe, and Canada, to carry a much higher share of the allied defence burden. There was a way that Trump, or someone like Trump, could have achieved that while still largely preserving U.S. credibility.

But that isn’t Trump’s style. He likes the attention at least as much, and we suspect much more, than he likes any results he might achieve.

So we got the Greenland talk again. He knows it gets a rise out of people, and he can’t help himself. We suspect it’ll get worse the more he figures out that people aren’t listening much anymore.

For what it’s worth, we don’t think the Europeans are moving fast enough to rearm and assume responsibility for their own defence. It will be years before they can even begin to backfill many crucial American military capabilities, and we’re not sure that Europe has the economic or political fortitude to truly stick with this. But right now they are at least moving in that direction. Our advice to all allied officials is simply this: ignore the day-to-day Trump eruptions as much as possible, stay on the best possible terms with key U.S. leaders in the meantime, and rapidly develop as much sovereign or allied military capability as you can afford.

You might need it one day.

And this brings us to Iran, which is back in its state of Schrödinger’s conflict with the United States. We don’t honestly know how many times the ceasefire was on and off over the last week. It was at least twice, and maybe three times? In any case, after Iran fired missiles at a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz a few days ago, the United States bombed a series of targets throughout the country, and Iran responded by attacking U.S. allies across the region with missiles and drones.

So we think, at least as of the time of writing, the war is back on again. But we honestly aren’t really sure. And whatever it is right now, it might not be in 12 hours. But whatever it is in 12 hours, it’ll probably be something else 12 hours later.

rubs temples

Not for nothing, this kind of reinforces what we were just saying above about Europe. And Canada. And, in the Iran context, Israel. All those countries, and a great many more, are well beyond the point where anyone can actually expect the Americans to honour any defence commitment. Even if they wanted to, and that is very much in doubt, we’re not even really sure that they could. The U.S. military is overstretched and desperately short many critical munitions — Patriot interceptor missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles being critical examples. America also lacks any coherent plan and coordinated strategy, and that’s clearly been noticed by its adversaries, and effectively exploited.

Look again at the Persian Gulf. Given how thoroughly Iran has outplayed Trump at every turn over the last couple of months, what U.S. ally can take for granted that America would do any better if facing a much more militarily powerful opponent, such as Russia or China? The desperation among American officials to get to some kind of ceasefire with Iran — and good Lord, it was desperate — is a very clear signal to U.S. allies across the world that America’s pain tolerance has probably never been lower. And its willingness, bordering on eagerness, to override the strategic interests and wishes of its allies to get itself out of any military confrontation is something that every enemy of America, and we hope every ally of America, has noticed.

Iran is lighting up the Strait of Hormuz and hitting U.S. bases and allies throughout the region, and Trump is fuming about Greenland while his secretary of defense continues to be upset when he sees sailors with beards.

These are not serious people. But these are very serious times, and the sooner we all figure out that the absolute best-case scenario for any U.S. ally is that America would come to its defence symbolically and inconsistently, if it showed up at all, the better off those allies may be.

And you better believe that includes us.

And finally, just to tie a bow around everything, we didn’t want to let this dispatch go out without at least a little bit of CanCon. Stick with the theme of U.S. foreign policy, there’s a hell of an example we didn’t bring up above: the Gordie Howe Bridge is set to open in a few days because we were able to hammer out a new deal with the Americans.

We confess we’re a little bit confused about the deal. We aren’t actually sure who got played by whom here. Under the new terms of the deal, Canada has agreed to funnel half the profits from its toll revenues into a regional development fund in the United States. This gave the White House enough of a win to permit the bridge to open — unless, of course, they find some other excuse to shut it down in the next few days. Which they might. See everything above.

But anyway, on the surface, at least, that looks like a massive Canadian concession to the Americans. And that would be embarrassing.

But we couldn’t help but notice that term: “profits.”

Profits are something that can be made to go away by a clever accountant. Canada was always intending to use crossing tolls to recoup the money it fronted for the construction of the new bridge. Are our profits going to be counted before or after we take those repayments?

If before? Okay, that is in fact a pretty huge concession, and it might explain why the Carney government didn’t really make a big deal of it, and why this was announced late on a Friday afternoon. But if we’re taking our repayment share before any profits are calculated, the actual amount of money left over for the American fund could be quite nominal.

So, yeah. We really don’t know what to say about the bridge. Hopefully, by the time we’re back in a couple of weeks, we’ll know more.

But what we can clearly conclude now, not that we were in much doubt, is that in the era of Trump, literally no deal is worth anything with America. We had figured that out long ago, so all we can do now is shrug. But all Canadians, and all other U.S. allies, should heed the lesson of this bridge.

The new America is pretty blatantly channeling Darth Vader from The Empire Strikes Back: “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

And for what? A few million bucks? To keep a Trump donor less unhappy? A pure dominance flex that Trump can brag about? This is the price the U.S. government itself puts on U.S. credibility?

Well, gosh. Okay, then. We don’t like it, but we don’t mind the certainty.

Alright, friends. That’s all from us for a while. Stay tuned for the podcasts, but barring any major news developments, we’ll talk to you in a few weeks.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent

To contact The Line with a general inquiry or comment, please email info@readtheline.ca. For other ways to connect with us or to follow us on social media, please see our LinkTree.

Programming note: The Line is taking a two-week summer holiday. The podcasts will continue, but barring major news events, our page will be quiet for a few weeks. Enjoy the break!

In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on July 10, 2026, Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson begin with a discussion of a recent Wall Street Journal piece highlighting Prime Minister Mark Carney’s role in pulling Europe back toward a more realistic strategic footing and away from its longstanding dependence on the United States. Canada, and Carney in particular, appear to be taking an unexpectedly prominent leadership role. Your hosts wonder what Washington’s response will be, and whether the White House will decide that Canada needs to be reminded who’s boss.

This episode is brought to you by Fractional Execs Canada. Need help with a serious business problem? As Canadian businesses grow they often require expert help to solve key business challenges. Fractional Execs Canada have assembled a team of experienced strategists, implementors, sales and marketing operators that can help transform your business into a growth engine. They match you with the right person, or team to move your business forward at a pace your business can manage.

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Find them Fractional-Execs.ca.

Next, they turn to the proposed Canadian Shield pipeline. On strictly commercial grounds, the project may not make much sense. But Matt and Jen argue that economics may no longer be the primary point. The proposal sends a signal that Canada is prepared to build the infrastructure needed to stand more independently if circumstances require it. That message has value all on its own. As Matt puts it, borrowing from the movie Contact: “Why build one when you can build two at twice the price?”

This episode is also brought to you by BioCanRx, a federally-funded Canadian not-for-profit research network bringing cutting edge cancer immunotherapy research from Canadian labs to patients in clinical trials –– all in Canada.

A drug that can treat your cancer is being tested in a Canadian clinical trial, but can you access it? Depends — where do you live? Clinical trials taking place in Canada usually open sites in major centers with research hospitals. Smaller hospitals face many challenges including having enough know-how to deliver experimental therapies, and administrative, legal, and regulatory responsibilities that come with a trial. There are also data and interoperability issues at hospitals that don’t routinely participate in research.

So if you don’t live in a major centre, participating in the trial requires you to relocate there for the duration of treatment –– the cost of the treatment is covered, but the cost of being in the city where it happens is your responsibility. Patient advocacy groups might be able to help with some of those expenses, but this obviously can be a barrier for a lot of Canadians.

A therapy might only become available to everyone across Canada if a trial is successful and the drug is approved –– but not necessarily, and maybe not anytime soon. More on that next time. Visit BioCanRx.com to learn more.

Finally, the thoroughly hungover shell of Jen Gerson emerges from ten straight days of Calgary Stampede festivities with a political field report. Beneath the parties and pancake breakfasts, she says, the fractures within Canadian conservatism are becoming impossible to ignore. It’s increasingly obvious who is and isn’t willing to speak to whom. What should have been an outstanding month for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has instead been overshadowed by self-inflicted drama. Meanwhile, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre continues to struggle against political newcomer Carney. It’s a remarkable — and, in many ways, surprising — dynamic to watch. Wasn’t Poilievre supposed to be the political pro who’d mop the floor with the rookie Euro banker? Guess not!

All that and more in the latest episode of The Line Podcast. Check out our main page at ReadTheLine.ca and, always and forever, like and subscribe.

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Please sign up at those options not just for this episode, or future episodes of The Line Podcast, but so that you can also receive our other podcast series, On the Line, which releases new episodes every Tuesday morning. In case you missed it, here is last Tuesday’s episode, where Jen Gerson spoke to Professor Andrew Leach about all the fascinating little pipeline politics stories that have been bubbling up of late.

Thanks, all. Talk to you soon.

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent

To contact The Line with a general inquiry or comment, please email info@readtheline.ca. For other ways to connect with us or to follow us on social media, please see our LinkTree.

By: Bruno Couillard

Donald Trump just did something no U.S. president has done since the Y2K era.

He ordered a whole-of-government push to secure digital infrastructure before a known threat arrives. Canadian companies that want to keep doing business south of the border need to pay attention, because this is now a fresh trade concern.

On June 22, Trump signed two executive orders that together mean Canadian companies — from banks to manufacturing — will need to upgrade their cyber security to be quantum-safe in order to do business south of the border.

The first order requires the United States to build a quantum computer at scale and multiple quantum sensor projects by 2028. The second requires every U.S. federal agency to migrate its sensitive systems to quantum-safe encryption by Dec. 31, 2030 and quantum-safe digital signature by Dec. 31, 2031. Every contractor selling technology to the U.S. government, every government they partner with, and every supplier — including Canadian companies — will also have to comply. This sets a date firmer than ever before for Y2Q (Year to Quantum).

Quantum computers already exist, and developers are getting closer to error-correcting variants at scale. Quantum computers will be exponentially faster and more powerful than classical computers, rendering the network security we use now utterly obsolete — the sheer power of quantum computers will overwhelm existing methods of encryption.

The massive global efforts that went into updating digital networks for Y2K must happen all over again. At that time, leaders took swift, concrete measures to protect their systems from an impending threat. Governments convened task forces, boards demanded readiness reports and CEOs signed off on remediation budgets. The world took it seriously and moved early. The difference this time is that quantum-safe migration is technically harder, the hardware replacement cycle is longer, the adversarial dimension is real, and the size of the effort is many orders of magnitude greater than Y2K ever was.

There is no neutral outcome where you simply miss the deadline and systems keep running. The truth is that if your security infrastructure isn’t upgraded before a sufficiently powerful quantum computer exists, your data — and your clients’ data — and the critical infrastructure that society depends on are at risk of being read or taken over by whoever got there first. Bad actors, likely state-sponsored, who get their hands on a quantum computer will have instant access to our power grids, banks, health records, insurance data, sensitive security data or anything else they want.

The procurement dimension is where this gets urgent for Canada. Within 180 days, the U.S. government will propose rule changes requiring every covered contractor to use U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-approved quantum-safe cryptographic standards by 2030. Canadian defence primes, cybersecurity firms, and technology suppliers with U.S. government contracts will have to comply or be disqualified. Canada is a Five Eyes partner, a NATO member and a NORAD actor. When the U.S. government moves its cryptographic baseline, we do not get to stay behind — not if our Canadian government wants to continue to be part of these elite clubs in good standing, and not if Canadian companies want to continue to produce technologies, products and services for the American market, which is still our largest trading partner.

The Canadian government can follow suit and set hard dates for post-quantum migration of its own classified and critical systems — dates that align with or precede our allies’ targets. It can identify which domestic suppliers can support that transition and back them with procurement commitments and the resources to scale. (Disclosure: my company, Crypto4A, manufactures quantum-safe hardware, and I already have contracts with Canada’s defence and intelligence establishment).

Canada is already building quantum-safe hardware security module technology — the physical devices that generate, store, and protect critical quantum-safe roots of trust and cryptographic keys. It’s ready now, certified and has put our country at the forefront of the quantum security race. That advantage exists because of knowledge built up at the Communications Security Establishment, and because Canadian engineers committed to solving this problem before the market demanded it.

Here’s what Ottawa should do now to get ahead of this transition. The federal government should pull forward its own quantum-safe migration deadline to align with Washington’s 2030 target and signal that alignment clearly to American counterparts. It should also inventory which domestic suppliers can support that transition and move to contract them now, before the scramble begins and every implementation partner is oversubscribed. And it should make Canadian-manufactured quantum-safe hardware a condition of procurement for critical systems, both to secure supply chains and to ensure Canadian companies can compete as the global upgrade cycle begins. The companies that build the quantum-safe infrastructure for their own country will be the ones positioned to sell it to others.

The United States just set the date for Y2Q and the countdown timer is now running. The Canadian government is in a unique position to establish Canada as the world leader in that domain and even beat the Y2Q countdown. However, if we do not act soon, our trade woes will get worse.

Bruno Couillard is a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Communications Security Establishment, and the founder of Crypto4A Technologies, a Canadian manufacturer of quantum-safe Hardware Security Modules.

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The Line is partnering with Lead Not Leave to provide credible arguments for why Alberta should stay in Canada. Click on the link below to learn more about the initiative.

By: Jared Wesley

With Stampede upon us, the only thing louder than the Cowboys tent will be the sounds of fresh cowboy boot leather hitting the pavement.

You won’t find me doing the annual pilgrimage or donning the hat, buckle, and boots (my grandfather taught me well enough not to pose). But I have noticed separatist leaders are particularly fond of the costume.

Cowboy culture runs deep in this province, which is why separatists lean so hard into the imagery. Their memes, speeches, slogans, and stagecraft are full of campfire bravado. Ottawa is the black-hatted villain; Alberta, the heartland under siege.

But here’s what separatists get wrong about real cowboys like those in my family: they ride into the storm, they don’t tuck tail.

Real cowboys know that survival on the frontier was never a solo act. It takes showing up for each other when shit gets real. You don’t get everything you want all of the time. There is pride in some self-sacrifice to help those who need it more. You don’t pick fights, but you stick up for yourself and your kin when your honour and autonomy are threatened.

That is the sort of hard work and discipline Alberta separatists refuse.

They talk endlessly about courage, but their politics is built on retreat. Rather than form their own political party to contest elections and build popular support for their cause, they hold leadership hostage with wild threats. They’d rather deem all efforts hopeless than come up with constructive ideas to build a stronger province and a better country.

The separatist approach is like a scene from a bad Western. At one end of the saloon sits the belligerent codger, pounding his fist on the bar, muttering about conspiracies, convinced every setback is the work of some shadowy outsider. He has no plan to fortify the town and no interest in confronting the people who live down the trail. Few bother to ask him about his grievances, but those that do are met with angry fist-shaking.

Then comes the carpetbagging huckster, rolling into town with a freshly-pressed suit, polished grin, and a wagon full of miracle cures. Freedom is in the bottle, sovereignty is the tonic. All folks have to do is loan him their vote, ignore the fine print, and drink the elixir.

Strolling in last is the wily prospector, telling tall tales of treasure he’s sure we’ll all find if we all donate a few dollars and trust that the imaginary map he’s waving is real.

Separatist leaders like these three characters sell Albertans a mirage in which politics no longer requires compromise, negotiation, patience, or perseverance. They promise a place where Albertans can finally be surrounded only by people who agree with them, governed only by people who flatter them, and protected from the hard realities of living in a big, diverse country.

Consensus-building in Canada is hard because it requires living with people who see the world differently. It is much easier to declare the whole project broken, blame shady outsiders, and head for the hills.

But Alberta was not built by people who looked at adversity and said, “Let’s quit.” It was built by people who endured bad seasons, bad markets, bad governments, bad luck, and bad neighbours, then got up the next morning and went back to work. They didn’t sit back and take it. They argued, organized, adapted, traded, voted, rebuilt, and kept riding.

People like Stephen Harper, Ralph Klein, Peter Lougheed, and Ernest Manning.

They chose every day to lead, not leave.

They built alliances and persuaded their neighbours of a better way. Sometimes built fences when disagreements were insurmountable. But they got ‘er done. And they still do.

So let the separatist cowboys have their costumes. Let them pound the bar, or promise miracle cures or gold beyond the next hill.

We have a phrase for that in my family: all hat, no cattle.

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By: Joel McKay

I suppose we could blame Sir George Henry Richards for all this.

He was the British naval officer who named the waters between B.C.’s north coast and Haida Gwaii after his ship the HMS Hecate in 1861, unknowingly sowing a reputation for that stretch of brine as a near-mythical, unnavigable body of water that today means it is off limits for oil tankers (but just oil tankers).

One-hundred and sixty-five years later, our intrepid prime minister, himself no stranger to British conventions, has reinforced our previous prime minister’s Gandalfian proclamation that said tankers shall not pass those waters, as though this liquid strait bridged Khazad-dûm itself.

Probably most British Columbians nodded along as he did so, being perfectly accustomed to the sacred grandeur of our province, especially the far-away bits like the north coast that few of us bother to visit.

But the rest of Canada?

I bet you’re wondering what the hell is so different about the north coast than the south coast, which apparently is far less sacred.

You see, in British Columbia, there are coasts and then there are coasts.

I grew up on the coast. I’ve spent a lot of time on B.C.’s coasts, experiencing and learning about each community, its history, as well as funding and building things there. B.C.’s south coast isn’t any less environmentally unique or sensitive than its central or north coast — or put another way, it’s all environmentally sensitive.

Then again, so is Alberta’s Wood Buffalo region…

Yet in B.C., more of us are comfortable with a pipeline running to the Lower Mainland than through the north because we’re used to that industry there — at this point, tankers moored in English Bay are as much a part of the skyline as the coast mountains.

Not so in the central and north coast, renamed not so long ago from the prosaic, colonial Central Coast Timber Supply Area and Queen Charlotte Islands to the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii, respectively.

There aren’t any more orca, grizzlies, or wolves there now than there were before the new branding, and all those things can be found in and around the Strait of Georgia too.

Yet what the central and north coast don’t have is the density of population, the magnitude of heavy industry, the comfort with the co-existence of these things.

It’s the combination of symbolism — be it the kermode bear, sea wolves, our five distinct species of salmon —alongside the sheer lack of people up north, and a very well-heeled environmental movement that birthed what we unaffectionately call “pipeline politics” today.

That aside, few dispute the economics of investing in a northern pipeline route. Yes, it makes more sense to export oil from the north coast than the south if the target market is Asia. Yes, Prince Rupert is Canada’s fastest growing port and already exports everything from minerals and grains to wood and petroleum products. Yes, Alaska has a near identical environmentally sensitive coast and seems to have no problem at all balancing conservation, tourism, and bitumen exports from that coast to the Strait of Georgia and points abroad without fuss.

And, yes, prior to Sir George’s naming convention, the Haida and Nisga’a were comfortable enough with the Hecate’s conditions (known then as siigaay or ocean) to cross it in war canoes.

I’ve sat in a war canoe. They’re impressive. But if I had a choice whether to cross the strait in a war canoe or a tanker, I’m climbing aboard the tanker.

Which is a sarcastic way of saying, this isn’t about economics. This is about people, culture, and working with Lotus Land’s idiosyncrasies, which, sadly for the rest of Canada, is the only reasonable point of egress to Asian markets.

So, Mark Carney, Danielle Smith, and David Eby cut a deal. A decent one, I’d wager. And I applaud them for it, truly. The deal feels so good, so finely threaded in fact, that I’m reminded of Oprah’s famous “You get a car!” episode.

Yet it remains to be seen whether this is the Corvette for the Canadian economy that it has been billed as — or a Corolla. Given that it’s the south coast and our product will take a little longer to get to Asia, it’s probably somewhere in between, maybe a Camaro.

But I remain skeptical. The deal is so clever, so obvious that if I step back, it looks ham-fisted.

Basically, it boils down to this:

• We need this for the economy, but don’t worry about the economics;

• We want the private sector to pay for it, but you, my fellow Canadians, are going to pay for it;

• It’s extraordinarily expensive and complex, but we’re going to slip it in beside the existing pipeline through one of the most densely populated urban areas in North America; and

• We’re going to be an energy superpower, but, like Iran, we’re going to concentrate our market access infrastructure at one single port and force all traffic to navigate a very narrow strait.

Maybe it’s the recovering journalist in me, or all these years funding and overseeing significant public-sector capital projects, but I hold to the axiom that the devil resides in the details.

Oprah learned that lesson, though she didn’t have to pay for it. It turned out all those audience members had to pay several thousand dollars each in taxes for their new cars.

I get the feeling that eventually the bill will come due and we’re all on the hook for it. I just don’t yet know what that bill is.

For now, it looks like we can all look forward to a new pipeline, same as the old pipeline.

Joel McKay is the current city manager of Quesnel, the former chair of the University of Northern British Columbia, and former CEO of Northern Development. He’s a Mr. Jokey-Joke-maker and writes scary stories by night, which you can find at www.joelmckay.ca

The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent

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In this episode of On The Line, host Jen Gerson is joined by Andrew Leach, noted energy and environmental economist and professor of economics and law at the University of Alberta, for a conversation about Canadian energy policy at a pivotal moment.

This episode is brought to you by BioCanRx, a federally-funded Canadian not-for-profit research network bringing cutting edge cancer immunotherapy research from Canadian labs to patients in clinical trials –– all in Canada.

A drug that can treat your cancer is being tested in a Canadian clinical trial, but can you access it? Depends — where do you live? Clinical trials taking place in Canada usually open sites in major centers with research hospitals. Smaller hospitals face many challenges including having enough know-how to deliver experimental therapies, and administrative, legal, and regulatory responsibilities that come with a trial. There are also data and interoperability issues at hospitals that don’t routinely participate in research.

So if you don’t live in a major centre, participating in the trial requires you to relocate there for the duration of treatment –– the cost of the treatment is covered, but the cost of being in the city where it happens is your responsibility. Patient advocacy groups might be able to help with some of those expenses, but this obviously can be a barrier for a lot of Canadians.

A therapy might only become available to everyone across Canada if a trial is successful and the drug is approved –– but not necessarily, and maybe not anytime soon. More on that next time. Visit BioCanRx.com to learn more.

Recorded on July 2, 2026, just ahead of two major pipeline announcements, the discussion doesn’t cover the specifics of the federal government’s decision to retrace the TMX route or the proposed Canadian Shield pipeline between Alberta and Sarnia. Instead, Gerson and Leach focus on the broader forces shaping Canada’s energy future.

They discuss Prime Minister Mark Carney’s latest Forward Guidance video, the influence of the United States on Canadian energy policy and markets, the promise and limitations of carbon capture and storage, and the political significance of the new Memorandum of Understanding between Alberta and Ottawa. Throughout the conversation, Leach offers his perspective on what has changed — and what hasn’t — in the relationship between governments, industry, and the public.

This episode is also brought to you by the Forest Products Association of Canada. Canada’s forest products sector is not asking Ottawa to start over. The federal government has heard the advice. It has recognized the challenges. And it has put a plan on the table. Now the test is action.

That means clearing made-in-Canada barriers: regulatory duplication, transportation bottlenecks, and uncertainty around predictable access to manage our forests. It means working with provinces to protect communities from wildfire risk and giving companies the confidence to invest here at home. Nearly 200,000 Canadians working in this sector are looking for results.

The playbook is written. Now Ottawa needs to deliver. Learn more at fpac.ca.

The episode also asks a larger question: after decades of political conflict over pipelines, is Canada finally entering a new era? Could this be the beginning of a more grounded conversation about the country’s oil and gas sector, one that focuses less on symbolic battles and more on practical questions of economics, infrastructure, and national interest?

This episode is also brought to you by Cameco. In nuclear energy, timelines and costs matter. Incomplete designs carry real risk of delays and cost overruns. That’s why the AP1000 reactor is the right choice for Canada: it is already operating today and ready now to deliver the power we need, with 100 percent Canadian ownership and strong participation from Canadian suppliers. If we are serious about building Canada and powering it on time and on budget, the choice is clear. The AP1000 reactor is the only option that delivers.

To learn more, visit ap1000.cameco.com.

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The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded. No federal subsidies, no bailouts. If you value our work, please consider supporting us by subscribing or making a donation. Donations are not subscriptions and do not unlock paywalled content, but they help keep The Line independent

To contact The Line with a general inquiry or comment, please email info@readtheline.ca. For other ways to connect with us or to follow us on social media, please see our LinkTree.