In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on September 11th, 2026, Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson begin by marking the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They reflect on how profoundly America changed after that morning, how the world changed with it, and how the media environment has transformed in the quarter-century since. They also consider how an attack on that scale would be covered today. Their conclusion? Worse. Much worse.
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Next, your hosts turn to drones. Canada is partnering with Ukraine as warfare rapidly evolves, and Matt explains why the deal makes a great deal of sense for both countries. Ukraine has extraordinary real-world expertise in drone warfare, while Canada urgently needs to build up its own capabilities. But buying and building drones is the easy part. What exactly is Canada going to do with them? Where will they be stored? How quickly could they be deployed? And under what circumstances might Canada actually use them in, ahem, contingencies? The technology is moving quickly. Canadian defence policy will have to keep up.
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Finally, Matt and Jen wrap up with a grab bag of looming problems. The Canada–U.S. trade war has become strangely lower-energy on the American side, and they discuss some of the reasons Washington may be increasingly hobbled in pursuing it. Then there’s time for a quick tour through the AI apocalypse and the latest on Alberta’s referendum.
This episode is also brought to you by BioCanRx. We’ve been partnering with federally-funded Canadian not-for-profit BioCanRx to learn how made-in-Canada immunotherapies offer new ways to beat cancer. This September we’re focusing on the “made-in-Canada” part. Since 2015 BioCanRx has supported the Canadian-Led Immunotherapies Collaborative, or CLIC, in building a truly Canadian pipeline so Canadian patients don’t have to wait for cancer therapies developed elsewhere to reach a clinical trial here.
In the first iteration, genetic engineering happened in labs in Vancouver, a lab in Ottawa created a viral delivery system, and a facility in Victoria modified each patient’s immune cells. The resulting therapy was shipped to a research-intensive hospital where the patient received it. More than 100 patients in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario received treatment. Now the network is growing: new biomanufacturing facilities are preparing to produce cells in Calgary and Ottawa, and new clinical trial sites are being onboarded in other provinces. CLIC technology is being used in three active Canadian clinical trials, with more on the way.
So when it comes to producing made-in-Canada cancer immunotherapies, Canada isn’t starting from scratch. Thanks to BioCanRx for continuing to help us share these stories. Visit BioCanRx.com to learn more.
All that and more in the latest episode of The Line Podcast. Check out our main page at ReadTheLine.ca. Like and subscribe.
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That’s all for now! Talk to you guys soon.
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