Dispatch from the Front Lines: Clauses, finances and weather balloons

And why you should help us grow.

“The Battle of Los Angeles,” 1942.

A note right at the top before we get into it. We know we talk about this a lot, but we’re never sure we talk about it enough. The Canadian media landscape in 2025 is increasingly subsidized by various federal programs. These programs are in response to a widespread collapse in advertising revenue, which had long been the lifeblood of the North American press.

It’s not that advertisers aren’t spending money. It’s that a lot of that money has migrated away from the news media to other platforms such as Google and Facebook, where audiences are larger and analytics data is more precise. We understand why people felt that there was a need for the government to step in, but we think it’s a bad idea. And we haven’t been shy about saying why, including Jen Gerson testifying about this before Parliament. We think it has stifled innovation in the media sector and that it put the media companies that take the money in an unavoidable conflict of interest. It is very difficult to freely cover people who are signing the cheques that keep you alive. Even in situations where the journalists and the outlets are behaving with complete professionalism, there is still the appearance of a conflict of interest. That erodes public confidence, and makes the outlets ever-more dependent on state support. It’s a vicious circle that can only end in one place. It’s not a nice place.

That, combined with our lack of interest in becoming dependent on a federal program that can be withdrawn at any time, is why The Line has written off these programs. We have never accepted nor sought any subsidy or bailout; we have only ever sought the usual tax credits available to any small business.

This is a necessary precondition for us feeling like we can look you in the eye when we tell you what we think, but we’re not going to lie to you: it does put The Line at a competitive disadvantage. We are now large enough that we would probably qualify for some of the subsidies, but we are refusing to take them as a matter of economic pragmatism and moral principle, despite the fact that this makes our lives harder.

There are a few other independent media companies that are behaving similarly to us, but fewer and fewer all the time. We have heard that a big one threw in the towel and decided to take federal booty just last week, saying it had lost faith that the programs would ever be repealed. “If you can’t beat it, accept it” seems to be the decision.

Okay! That’s their call to make. We don’t think these programs will be repealed either, at least not any time soon. We just think signing up for them would be corrosive to our brand, our personal integrity, and our audience’s faith in us.

So we haven’t taken the money, and we won’t. But that means we are dependent on our advertising partners and our readers to keep The Line healthy and thriving and growing.

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This is a very hard industry to operate in. It’s getting harder. But we are committed to our pragmatic and philosophical position on this issue. If it ever becomes economically necessary to take the money or else face a shutdown, that’s an easy choice for us. We’ll shut down.

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Another great way to help? Listening to The Line Podcast’s latest episode.

Also worth your time? Last week’s On The Line, where Jen Gerson talks about the nature of science, and how it’s constantly changing, with science writer and author Philip Ball.

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And now, on with the dispatch.

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We at The Line contend that Sean Fraser, the current minister of justice and attorney general, has made two major mistakes of late.

The first was in deciding not to rescind his decision to spend more time with his friends and family when it became clear that Justin Trudeau was no longer an anchor on his electoral chances. After failing to fix Canada’s housing problem and proving himself integral to blowing apart a pan-partisan consensus on immigration that was once the envy of the world, the man had a real opportunity to leave office on a high note. But, no.

Instead, after hitching his bloated baggage to Mark Carney’s trunk, Fraser decided that Canada needed more of him.

And so, as justice minister, instead of addressing petty stuff like, oh, bail reform, or fixing prisons, or getting crime under control, he turned his attention to ... Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The notwithstanding clause.

You may recall that Quebec’s contentious Bill 21 — which prohibits public-service employees in positions of authority, and teachers, from wearing religious symbols while on the job — is currently before the Supreme Court of Canada. Despite numerous mixed rulings on the law, Quebec moved forward with its stance on secularism by invoking Section 33, which allows parliaments to temporarily override judicial rulings.

Section 33 was placed in the Charter for precisely this kind of situation; one in which the courts and parliament disagree about governance. As we still live in a democracy, and are still nominally governed by representatives we elect, the clause was always a bit of a compromise gesture intended to preserve parliamentary supremacy after granting the courts broad powers to basically reinterpret law according to an expansive and ever-expanding understanding of both their jurisdiction, and of the concept of “rights” writ large.

Section 33, nonetheless, has maintained a heavy odeur about it, which has generally limited its application, especially outside Quebec. Among the Sean Fraser set, and the largely Liberal collection of lawyers who will insist that the Supreme Court isn’t remotely political, and how dare we entertain the thought, Section 33 was only ever intended as a symbolic right.

But as the definitely-not-political Supreme Court has edged ever deeper into the territory of override and governance, so too have provincial parliaments responded with a very not-symbolic application of the clause.

We do think there’s some blame to be placed at everyone’s door, here. But we also never really took much issue with Section 33. That’s because, at heart, we at The Line believe in, well, democracy. We believe that the people we elect should be able to decide our laws; and we believe that while the Supreme Court of Canada serves as an important check on Parliamentary power, that power doesn’t and should never override the will of the people.

And that’s basically where we part ways with Fraser and many of his — dare we say it? — Laurentian Consensus ilk. Because the unstated critique of the use of Section 33 is basically always the same: these people dislike the application of the clause because they think politics is icky, and that politicians fundamentally cannot be trusted.

In other words, these people don’t actually want a democracy.

They want a technocracy. One in which the smartest and ablest individuals (as defined by them, of course) are the ones who actually get to set the rules and guardrails for society writ large. One in which parliament really is as theatrical, symbolic and pointless as it often regards itself.

There’s an obvious illogical inconsistency here — Fraser and his colleagues are politicians. We aren’t sure if this desire to go out and limit the ability of he and his fellow parliamentarians to do the best jobs they can for the citizens reflects mere self-loathing, or a particular brand of Liberal blindspot, one that leads them to believe that they alone among politicians are exempt from anything as crass political considerations and/or motivations. Those moral failures are apparently for the other guys. But in any case, we have an elected official making the case that unelected courts should have the ability to override legislators, and that the legislators should have no recourse. However Fraser rationalizes this to himself, it’s where we are.

We think the people who have issues with Section 33 are generally not being honest with themselves in that regard; we also think that their instinctual aversion to politics (or their exemption of themselves from it) tends to make them naive. If you vest all the real power of governance in a “non-partisan” Supreme Court, what you’ll get is not a dispassionate government, but rather a heavily politicized Supreme Court. We need only look at what has happened in the U.S. over the past 30 years to see how that pans out in the long run.

Look, we at The Line don’t like Bill 21. It’s a bad law. It needlessly tramples on minority rights. But there’s a very obvious way to get that law repealed that doesn’t involve flirting with a full-blown constitutional crisis in the midst of, you know, all of the other crises going on right now.

Elect a government that will repeal that law.

That’s what democracies do.

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“Interest rates are at historic lows, Glen.”

If you’re looking for quotes that perfectly capture Justin Trudeau’s cavalier attitude towards the public purse, there are plenty to choose from. For example, you could start with his observation that budgets will balance themselves. Or his election promise to grow the economy “from the heart out.” But what probably cements his legacy is his amazingly condescending response to the reporter Glen McGregor, who in 2020 had asked Trudeau how the government would carry the costs of servicing the projected $260 billion in COVID-related deficit spending (the deficit that year ended up being $320 billion).

The country’s finances were already in bad shape, thanks to Trudeau’s campaign pledge in 2015 to abandon a 20-year consensus around federal fiscal responsibility. He went on to run nine consecutive deficits, including last year’s $51 billion hole in the ground. And now his successor, Mark Carney, is planning to deliver a budget in early November, which the Parliamentary Budget Officer expects will include a deficit of $68.5 billion, with ongoing deficits of $60 billion projected as far as the eye can see.

We humbly submit that this is madness. When it comes to spending beyond its means, Ottawa always has an excuse: the economic crisis of 2008; the pandemic; Trump’s tariffs. And these are good excuses! We are happy to be good Keynesians when circumstances demand it. The problem is, Ottawa never seems to get around to cutting spending once the crisis fades. The mantra seems to be: Spend a lot when times are good; spend even more when times are bad.

It wasn’t always like this. Some of us here at The Line are old enough to remember when the federal government being a fiscal basket case was seen as a big problem. After decades of deficit spending, by the mid-1990s interest charges were eating up over a quarter of all federal spending. The federal debt-to-GDP ratio peaked at 70 per cent in 1996. All of this prompted the Wall Street Journal to describe Canada as “an honorary (sic) member of the Third World” in an editorial that also referred to the Canadian dollar as the “northern peso.”

That international shaming played a big role in prompting the Liberal government under Jean Chrétien, along with finance minister Paul Martin, to get federal spending under control. Martin’s infamous 1995 budget contained direct spending cuts of $25.3 billion over three years, or close to 20 per cent across the entire government. Transfers to the provinces for health and social services were cut by $7 billion. Around 55,000 public service jobs were eliminated. The impact? In 1998, the federal government presented a balanced budget, for the first time since 1969. For the next decade, federal budgets were largely good news occasions, when the growing federal surpluses were directed toward a strategic combination of tax cuts and new spending.

When Minister of Finance François-Philippe Champagne presents his budget in five weeks, we’ll be told that this is the biggest crisis of our lifetimes. That our economy, our security, and even sovereignty are at risk. That meeting this challenge demands investment in economic growth, and greater spending on defence and security.

All of which is true. But a big part of crisis leadership is focus and prioritization. Another big part of it is managing expectations, preparing people for the worst while showing them how you plan to get them through it.

The Carney Liberals have done none of this. The public service has been told that any cuts would be managed through attrition. The provinces have been promised that transfers won’t be cut. Carney himself says the budget will be about both “austerity and investment.” This isn’t focus and prioritization, it’s telling Canadians they can have their cake, eat it, and go back for seconds.

The interim Parliamentary Budget Officer, Jason Jacques, said in an interview this weekend that while federal finances have not yet gone over the precipice, they are “looking out over the cliff.” He warned that at some point the government is going to have to look at cutting programs, raising taxes, or, more likely, both.

But that’s not a conversation Mark Carney seems prepared to have with Canadians. Not yet, anyway. If we’re lucky, maybe the Wall Street Journal has another editorial spooled up.

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We try to avoid the bad writerly habit of whipping up op-eds in list form. But there were a few foreign policy items that came across our radar this week that are worth mentioning, even if they wouldn’t necessarily carry the weight of a full blurb. So forgive us as we move through them rapid-fire style.

First, in a delightful little bit of Canadian domestic and global politics colliding: the Ukrainian government gave us a laugh this week when it rejected a dumb idea left over from the Trudeau era. As Line editor Gurney recounted at length in a column last week, gun control policy in this country became a mass of politically performative but terrible ideas that were all tossed into a blender over the last few years. One of the more comical products of that era was the announcement by the Trudeau government in late 2024 that now-banned firearms held by Canadians would be seized and then donated to the Ukrainians. (Bill Blair said at the time that the Ukrainians came asking about them.)

This was always hilarious because anyone who knew anything about this plan could see it was an incredibly stupid idea. The various rifles and shotguns the Trudeau government — and now the Carney government — targeted are completely unsuited to military applications. The Liberals are loath to admit this, but it’s the truth. These aren’t battlefield weapons. They’re hunting rifles and target plinkers.

And you know who came to the same conclusion? The Ukrainians. It emerged last week that Ukraine has said thanks but no thanks to the offer of transferring these firearms to their control. The reason? They aren’t military weapons and would not be useful in the defensive military conflict that country is currently waging.

So, thank you, Ukraine. They were polite about it, but they just blew an awfully big hole in yet another stupid Liberal gun pledge. It’s all the more delightful because we have no doubt that the members of Trudeau’s inner circle must have giggled and slapped themselves on the back, in awe of their own cleverness, when they came up with the idea. Haha, how can those gun-toting idiots possibly object to us sending more help to Ukraine? We are geniuses and no one will possibly be able to resist the brilliance of this plan.

Well, the Ukrainians could — because unlike the Liberals, they know what is a weapon of war, and what is not.

Second, we noted with interest a long statement issued by the American president via his TruthSocial account last week. The statement is by far the most hawkish, pro-Ukraine position the president has thus taken during the conflict. We liked it! We thought it was exactly the right message to be sending, and at exactly the right time.

As always, the problem with this president is that he will probably change his mind in the next few days, after one of the other disparate factions of MAGAland gets him on the phone or arranges a dinner at Mar-a-Lago and bends his ear. As soon as that happens, there’s a damn good chance that the president will post something else on social media, and U.S. foreign policy will once again turn on a dime.

All things being equal, that’s what we expect to happen, which is why we are certainly not celebrating what the president declared. The only note we would insert here is that Vice-President J.D. Vance — a man who spends a ton of his time cleaning up the verbal eruptions of his boss — went out after the president’s post and largely echoed it. The language was a bit more MAGA-coded, but the meaning was the same. He then went out and said much the same thing today.

And that is interesting. We still don’t expect to see a coherent U.S. foreign policy position on Ukraine anytime soon, and if there is one, it’s more likely than not that it would be terrible. But Vance going out to echo what Trump had said, twice!, was interesting. We’ll keep an eye on that.

Third, and finally, we would note that a series of other NATO allies have been reporting drone incursions in their airspace in recent days. Joining Poland and Romania are Germany and Denmark. Indeed, in a late-breaking addition to this dispatch, the Danish air force scrambled fighters this evening, responding to apparent drone incursions.

Your Line editors are cognizant of history. We have no doubt that many of these drone reports are going to be a modern-day version of 1942’s so-called Battle of Los Angeles, during which a series of panicky sightings of an errant weather balloon passed through the fog of war and triggered an air-raid alert for that California city. Well over a thousand rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition were fired into the air against what was thought to be a flight of Japanese bombers. Five civilians were killed by panic and chaos on the ground. There was not and had never been any Japanese strike force. (See, at top, the famous photo, now in the public domain, of spotlights locking in on something over Los Angeles, leading to a barrage of anti-aircraft fire at it.)

We offer up that little historical anecdote as something to bear in mind in the weeks and months to come as we hear reports of drones penetrating allied airspace. Some of them will just be idiot kids showing off their new toys. Some will be misidentification of normal and legitimate aircraft conducting routine flight operations. Some reports will be entirely mistaken.

But, unfortunately, it does seem certain that some will be hostile drones operated either by Russia or the Belarusians or agents operating on their behalf. Russia seems to be probing NATO’s defences, response times, and political willingness to respond. Further, air travel disruptions will impede the flow of Western aid into Ukraine. It’s a relatively low-cost way for Putin to throw some wrenches into our machines.

It’s a serious situation, and the risks of escalation are obvious. But so are the risks of under-reacting. The Russians are clearly pushing us in Eastern and Central Europe, and we’re probably going to have to push back. Let’s just keep our heads about us, is all.

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The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Please follow us on social media! Facebook x 2: On The Line Podcast here, and The Line Podcast here. Instagram. Also: TikTok. BlueSky. LinkedIn. Matt’s Twitter. The Line’s Twitter. Jen’s Twitter. Contact us by email: lineeditor@protonmail.com.