Thank you from The Line!

Our long national nightmare is over (until next year).

Our smiles can light up rooms.

Last night we capped off our week-long fundraiser with a hugely successful livestream event on YouTube. Yes, yes. It’s over. Until next year. Because we’ll definitely do this again. Because it worked. Your support completely exceeded our expectations. We are so, so humbled. Thank you all so much.

We wanted to start today by also offering a few quick thank yous to everyone who took part in our event, starting with our guests: Paul Wells, Scott Stinson, Supriya Dwivedi and Rob Shaw. All very smart people, all great friends. We appreciate them so much.

Also: special thanks to Friend of The Line Phil, who got everything for the livestream fired up behind the scenes and helped us with moderating the questions. It helped a lot — thank you, Phil.

As per tradition, during these livestreams, your hosts pick a local restaurant and order dinner from there. These aren’t sponsorships. Just a way we can show some love to a local place we like. Last night, Jen dined on takeout from Jane Bond BBQ of Calgary, while Matt had the traditional fare from Olde Yorke Fish and Chips in Leaside. Thanks to the staff there for feeding us!

But mainly, our thanks to you, the audience. Thank you for joining us, for spending an evening with us, for your questions and your ongoing support of The Line.

And thank you especially for the support during our fundraiser. As we’ve told you all over and over, this was a key part of our strategy for staying off any and all government support. In a market where our competitors are increasingly wards of the state, The Line has made both a philosophical and also a business choice to refuse any support from government that goes beyond what’s available to any small business via tax credits (etc) or via normal commercial contracts. This makes our lives harder and poorer. There’s no other way to put it. But we believe that, in the long term, that’s the only way to keep our independence and our credibility. Your support makes the consequences of that choice a little bit easier to live with. Thank you all so much.

If you didn’t donate, and meant to, the link will still work for the next two days. We won’t be flogging it anymore, but here it is, one more time, with feeling. Last chance!

And if you missed our livestream, check it out below! It was a ton of fun. We’ll do more of them.

With that, we’re going to rest today, but we’ll be back to normal soon. Talk to you then.

— Matt and Jen