Dispatch from the Front Lines: Canada ain't perfect, but we still stand for it

Our position, made clear. Trump's position in the Middle East, less clear. The CRTC's position, unfortunately clear. And more!

Hey, all. Hope your weekend is great. You know what’ll help? The latest episode of The Line Podcast.

And if that doesn’t do it, also, check out last week’s On The Line, where Jen Gerson spoke with Flavio Volpe about the latest on the U.S.-Canadian trade negotiations. Or trade war, really.

And now, on with the dispatch.

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Just a quick note right off the top: On Thursday, Danielle Smith announced Alberta will hold a referendum to begin a process that may lead to a separate binding referendum on secession. Given Jen Gerson’s quintessentially Gerson response to this news, we don’t think any of our readers will be surprised to learn that The Line is staunchly Team Federalist.

We do think that ought to be said explicitly and openly. Separatists have created numerous independent media outlets to promote their cause. That’s fine. We don’t find them particularly compelling, but they’re perfectly entitled to state their case.

As are we. We at The Line are not obligated to be dispassionate on the matter of embarking on a process that may lead to a process to break up the country. Nobody is so obligated, in fact. Whatever anger or frustrations Albertans have toward Ottawa — and we’ve been covering many of those for many years — separatism is simply not a productive solution to any of those problems. In short, we think it’s a grift that is attempting to channel genuine frustration and outrage toward enriching and benefitting a small number of people who are engaging in a pointless fantasy exercise that can only lead to division and damage for the province and good people within it.

We staked our publication on rejecting bullshit, whether that bullshit is coming from the left or the right. We have a duty to be fair. “Fairness” does not extend toward treating the separatist cause as an intellectually valid position worthy of equal weight and consideration. Separatism is bullshit. Plain and simple. It’s a suicidal response to a series of, ultimately, policy disagreements between Alberta and the rest of Canada. The notion that any of these disputes rise to the level of oppression or abuse, or in any way justify a serious call to leave the country, simply doesn’t pass muster with us.

You can disagree with us if you like, and we know some of you will, but that’s where we stand. And it’s where we stand openly.

There is simply no real future for an independent statelet of five million people; we think there are useful ways to channel frustration and grievance toward a Canada that works for Alberta, and an Alberta that works for Canada. We’ll be talking more about that tomorrow.

In the meantime, we’re pleased to disclose that co-founder Jen Gerson will be working with the Vote to Stay campaign in whatever capacity her skills can be utilized. The group will be a third-party advertiser in the coming vote, however, Gerson’s role is not a paid position — the people working on this campaign are doing this for the good of the country. If you are an Albertan who wishes to sign up, volunteer, or donate money that will be put toward advertising and organizational efforts, we’d be happy to have you.

www.votetostay.ca

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“Oh, I’ll do a blurb on whatever the Iran deal ends up being,” or words to that effect, have been haunting one of your Line editors all weekend. When we first sat down to plan this dispatch, it seemed likely there would, in fact, be an Iran deal. Now? Who knows.

To recap the last week or so, U.S. President Donald Trump had been hinting heavily that he was preparing to resume military strikes on Iran. That may well have been true. It was certainly a pressure tactic. By the weekend, reports emerged suggesting a deal was close. Not a peace agreement, exactly, but rather a new phase of the truce: Iran would receive billions in sanctions relief and access to previously frozen funds, while unimpeded maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would resume. That, in turn, would supposedly pave the way for another round of negotiations focused on the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

The problem, as even pro-Trump commentators and analysts quickly noticed, was that the United States appeared poised to make major concessions in exchange for remarkably little. Iran would receive billions. The U.S. would continue to have a ceasefire. Iran would remain functionally capable of controlling access through Hormuz and, at least in theory, could threaten to close the strait again at any time. If accurate, the rumoured deal would amount to a significant strategic defeat for Washington.

We wish that made the reports seem implausible. It didn’t.

As The Line has noted before, without any pleasure or satisfaction in saying so, Iran has behaved with notable strategic prudence since this phase of the conflict began. We genuinely have no idea what the United States is trying to accomplish. It has become increasingly obvious over the last several weeks that Trump’s overriding objective is simply to find an exit from the conflict — ideally one that lowers gas prices ahead of the November midterms. Broader American or allied strategic goals increasingly appear secondary.

Dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, ending Tehran’s support for regional terror proxies, and securing meaningful democratic reforms for the Iranian people would all be genuinely transformative outcomes. None currently seem especially likely.

We couldn’t help but laugh at a recent statement by Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is, hands down, one of The Line’s favourite American politicians. That is not entirely a compliment. He is simply endlessly entertaining and fascinating. The best part about clicking one of Graham’s tweets is that you genuinely never know what you’re about to get: either an appallingly sycophantic exercise in Trumpian sanewashing, or, as happened this time, an entirely accurate and cogent summary of geopolitical reality and American interests.

In any case, whether it was Graham or someone else, someone appears to have gotten through to Trump. By Sunday, there was noticeably less chatter about an imminent deal. American media reports now suggest there is still substantial bargaining ahead and that Trump is in no particular rush. That marks a significant change from where things stood just 24 hours earlier. Our instinct is that Trump simply did not want to be seen taking a loss and realized that the proposed arrangement would look exactly like one.

So, we find ourselves more or less back where we started. And, to us at least, nothing fundamental appears to have changed.

Iran, improbably, still seems to possess both the strategic initiative and the firmer grasp of reality. We do not say that happily. Readers will know we have plenty of qualms about Trump, but not to the point of preferring the Iranian regime. Still, we call them as we see them. Iran appears more capable of waiting out Trump than Trump is of waiting out Iran, and we honestly do not see a clear path forward for the United States here. Increasingly, it does not seem as though Washington sees one, either.

Oh, and just as we wrote this, the president has weighed in. Read this and decide for yourselves if this guy has a plan:

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Speaking of bad deals, we note, with enormous eye rolls, this brain wave out of the CRTC last week. Here’s how CTV News summed it up:

On Thursday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) unveiled new rules on streamers such as Netflix and Disney. Companies like those would be compelled to pay 15 per cent, up from five per cent, of revenue. The CRTC could not say exactly when the new rules will be enforceable.

The money would be used to support Canadian and Indigenous content, including news and French-language media. It would also contribute to a new fund supporting “services of exceptional importance,” according to the CRTC.

There are some nuances here worth unpacking briefly — the revenue percentage comes from Canadian operations specifically. Netflix wouldn’t be forking over 15 per cent of their total revenue to Canada, but 15 per cent of what they earn in Canada. And none of the revenue apparently owed under the existing five-per-cent rule has actually been paid yet, as the streaming companies have challenged the law in court. Collections are held until a ruling is made.

That being said, this issue has been a major irritant in the U.S.-Canadian trade relationship in recent years. Whatever the merits of the proposal — The Line is not a fan, but we get the arguments in favour — the timing is awful. The U.S. is clearly going to seize on this to continue the softening up process they’re already commencing ahead of the July 1 CUSMA negotiation deadline. They’re not going to have a hard time finding stuff to hit us with. We really don’t need to hand them more.

We are cynical enough to have raised an eyebrow at this — could the CRTC’s announcement be part of a negotiating ploy? Will we “concede” back to the original five per cent to help lock up a new deal with our neighbours? It’s possible, but we don’t think it’s likely, partly because we aren’t normally that savvy, and more critically, because of how rapidly Heritage Minister Marc Miller — the minister responsible — got out there with a notably unenthusiastic response to the CRTC’s decision. If this is a ploy, he ain’t in on it.

So in the main, we think this is probably what it looks like — bureaucrats bureaucratin’. The CRTC is not part of the government’s overall comms plan for foreign affairs. It shouldn’t be — it has a job to do. We find the CRTC annoying and would probably be happier without it, but as long as it exists, it has to function as directed, not as a conscript to our foreign affairs team.

So going on the assumption that this was unfortunate coincidence, not strategy, our plea is simply this: to any and all Canadian technocrats, just … don’t make things worse for like two months. Just be quiet. Lay low. Don’t issue anything that could even plausibly make things harder for the PMO and our trade negotiators. We aren’t urging anyone to bend a knee. We’re hoping y’all will just hold still briefly.

Is that too much to ask?

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Thanks, everyone. Talk to you tomorrow. Lots coming up this week.

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