That the immediate response of all parties to this news *wasn't* "give us the names, we don't care what the names are, we're suspending everyone from our caucus who's implicated" is the first time I actually began to think Matt might have had a point about Canada being broken.
Because it really doesn't get much more straightforward or fundamental to governance than this.
P.S. If the blue, red, and orange parties do what Matt fears they'll do and close ranks to mutually protect themselves from scandal here, I'll vote Reform, I'll vote Bloc, I'll vote for the local Marxist-Leninist candidate if that's the last party left untainted by this. Every sane person in this country is now somehow being forced into becoming a single-issue voter on treason being unacceptable, and as far as I can tell the Bloc is the only party with sitting MPs who seems to vocally be on the right side of that issue.
May I remind you that ANY Marxist-Leninist is so heavily tainted by the past of Marxism-Leninism that they are dripping blood from their deeds and wafting the rifle smoke from their kangoroo courts as they are walking around even today. That past and present includes their generations-lasting pathological antisemitism and also hatred of people who are/were real humanistic intellectuals.
Why would they ever put a single 78” line … multiple smaller lines would have given us the redundancy necessary … 3-42” lines would carry the same or higher volume and 1 went 2 would still be operating.
Second … Gondek pointing fingers is REALLY REALLY bad.
I Just looked at my Enmax bill … I spent $90 on water service, mid March to mid April. Multiply that by 12 and it’s over $1000 a year, multiplied across 500,000 homes is 1/2 a billion dollars for water services. Where is that money going. She does not get to blame the province. Read that again, 1/2 a billion dollars just for water from YYC households, and this is what we get.
They are still married to the green line to NOWHERE, maybe spending money on essentials, instead of that and the million in “rebranding” are areas she could have reconsidered.
We most certainly did not need the rebranding.
On the parliamentarians … I hope you’re right, I want those names, at least 1 is text book treason, that person at least needs to be removed from caucus and all committees immediately. They all should be, but 1 in particular is more egregious from what I read.
One of the many bad effects of the foreign interference revelations is that some people are starting to demand an Elections Canada takeover of party nominations and leadership contests (including some serious thinkers who ought to know better).
This is part of a general pattern in which Canadians have an adorably naïve belief that for any problem, the solution is always government oversight, or even a government takeover of the function itself. And a more specific pattern in which this has bled into politics. Don't like how parties do platform costing? Have PBO do it! Don't like how media outlets organize debates? Have a government commission do it! (And when the government debate commission catastrophically fails in its one and only job, Canadians predictably demand that we IMPROVE the failed government commission, not abolish it).
Parties are not the government, and their operations should not be vertically integrated into the government. Certainly parties play a vital role in democracy, as do journalists, but independence from government is necessary for either to function properly, just as a board of directors independent of management is necessary to guard the interests of a public company's shareholders. To preserve this critical separation, people must pressure and even join parties, to get them to take urgent action to reform their nominations and leaderships. If we don't, we're bound to see a government takeover of parties that will never be undone.
Possibly the most depressing podcast ever. Are we still a serious country? Will the new government do anything to address this crisis? The answers appear to be a resounding no.
I believe they will do something about it. If they put Michael Chong in charge, it will get cleaned up in a hurry. Unless, of course the CPC doesn’t have a majority, then the Lib/Dips won’t let anything worthwhile happen. How long have the Conservatives been calling for a foreign agent registry, while the Lib/Dips sit on their asps.
There is a huge difference between calling for something and implementing when you're actually in power. And as was mentioned, the Conservatives are quiet suggesting their own people are part of this issue. So I'll believe it when I see it.
I've accepted that PP will get a big majority. Trudeau has to go and the LPC are too stubborn to do it themselves. I suspect he'll be a disaster because 14 cents on the litre isn't fixing anything for anyone, and that appears to be his only plan. But I think we agreed we'd debate it in 2029....:)
Fair enough. I blame the Conservative's for not presenting a platform attractive enough to elicit votes. How Andrew Scheer found a way to lose has to be one of the greatest pollical failure questions in Canadian history.
I really enjoy most of the commentary I read and listen to on The Line. You folks step up and as you put it and deliver “No bullshit” journalism. I’m very appreciative of that. That is until I read your endorsement of one of your advertisers Unsmoke. Unsmoke is a big tobacco funded initiative. They are in the business of hooking people/ young people on non smoke products like vaping and nicotine packages. Smoking ended my mother and father’s lives too soon. Keep doing no bullshit journalism and stop pedalling bullshit tobacco propaganda. I’m just one person so ignore this if you want but I’m done with The Line after my June subscription expires.
Running an ad is not an endorsement. Do you really think radio announcers across Canada were all sleeping on a My Pillow? I ignore ads, but I did smile when the ad first came out. I'm glad Matt and Jen are getting money from ads. I do wish the ad were shorter, but whatever, I tune out until we're back to the regularly scheduled programming.
Matt's point about the "muscle memory" was bang-on, and so depressing. Having Freeland, Leblanc and others flail around looking like they're trying to cover something up is in no way politically beneficial for the government, but that was their default response anyways.
I think someone in charge of communications at Calgary city hall must have listened to or read Jen's rant about the vague and unreliable information being given out to us. This morning the Mayor gave us a more comprehensive outlook with details we needed. Thank you Jen!
It’s not secret that many members of the Liberal establishment have a sympathetic attitude towards China: ever since Chretien’s “Team Canada” trade missions in the ‘90s, there’s been a lot of people with Liberal bona fides and connections who’ve made a living as consultants and facilitators for Chinese companies and other entities. One thing I’m grateful for is that Trudeau cooperated with the US in arresting Meng Wanzhou and did not capitulate to the demands of the China-adjacent Liberal establishment to simply cave in and return Meng when China took Canadians hostage.
I wonder what else was going on behind the scenes in government regarding foreign influence? I’d like to know the names of the politicians involved, and I’d like to know the countries involved. Then we could see what government actions and policies might’ve been influenced.
Looking at the Meng Wenzhou affair, one might reasonably conclude that whatever influence China cultivated didn’t actually prove useful in what was apparently a very important issue for them. However, did it turn out that way because the influence isn’t that useful, or because the profile of the affair was so large in the public eye that the influence was neutralized?
Jen says that she will be sued for libel if she names the parliamentarians who have been named by the committee investigating the threat of foreign interference.
Of course she means slander and not libel but I have a broader question.
I listen to many -- too many? -- current affairs podcasts. None of them mention laywers and trying to avoid being sued as Jen and Matt do. Are they being ultra-conservative? Are they working based on advice from ultra-conservative lawyers? Or is slander chill such a huge issue in Canada.
Could they not name parliamentarians based on their sources? Is not truth a defence?
Are our subscription fees going to a massive legal defence fund?
Meant to comment sooner, but adding this here as this was the first podcast after The Line's "Is Canada Ready for the Next $#!%storm?" event in Edmonton held on the 6th of June.
Simply wanted to say to others who read and/or subscribe to The Line that if you have the chance to attend one of the live events in the future I recommend you do so. I really enjoyed listening to Jen and Matt and their guests discuss Canada and whether Canada is prepared for the next crisis.
That the immediate response of all parties to this news *wasn't* "give us the names, we don't care what the names are, we're suspending everyone from our caucus who's implicated" is the first time I actually began to think Matt might have had a point about Canada being broken.
Because it really doesn't get much more straightforward or fundamental to governance than this.
P.S. If the blue, red, and orange parties do what Matt fears they'll do and close ranks to mutually protect themselves from scandal here, I'll vote Reform, I'll vote Bloc, I'll vote for the local Marxist-Leninist candidate if that's the last party left untainted by this. Every sane person in this country is now somehow being forced into becoming a single-issue voter on treason being unacceptable, and as far as I can tell the Bloc is the only party with sitting MPs who seems to vocally be on the right side of that issue.
All we have left is the Bloc. Damn, I didn’t see that coming. I’d imagine that they’ve been laughing at us for years in Beijing.
Only the FIRST time (you) actually began to have a thought that Matt may have had a point about Canada being broken 🤯
Have you been in a coma?
Glad you're feeling better!
Yeah...Canada IS broken.
May I remind you that ANY Marxist-Leninist is so heavily tainted by the past of Marxism-Leninism that they are dripping blood from their deeds and wafting the rifle smoke from their kangoroo courts as they are walking around even today. That past and present includes their generations-lasting pathological antisemitism and also hatred of people who are/were real humanistic intellectuals.
So our choices are: anti-Semites or traitors?
Calgary’s water system …
Why would they ever put a single 78” line … multiple smaller lines would have given us the redundancy necessary … 3-42” lines would carry the same or higher volume and 1 went 2 would still be operating.
Second … Gondek pointing fingers is REALLY REALLY bad.
I Just looked at my Enmax bill … I spent $90 on water service, mid March to mid April. Multiply that by 12 and it’s over $1000 a year, multiplied across 500,000 homes is 1/2 a billion dollars for water services. Where is that money going. She does not get to blame the province. Read that again, 1/2 a billion dollars just for water from YYC households, and this is what we get.
They are still married to the green line to NOWHERE, maybe spending money on essentials, instead of that and the million in “rebranding” are areas she could have reconsidered.
We most certainly did not need the rebranding.
On the parliamentarians … I hope you’re right, I want those names, at least 1 is text book treason, that person at least needs to be removed from caucus and all committees immediately. They all should be, but 1 in particular is more egregious from what I read.
Wish I’d been in Edmonton.
About Gurney saying that Liberal leaning people's first reaction to NSICOP report is "see, they do their work."
That's exactly how Aaron Wheery's analysis starts
Plan B begins with taking the Firearms Safety Course
For decades, certain gun advocates have been saying that there's only one reason a government wants an unarmed populace. I guess they were right.
Yes. It actually should be a mandatory in any senior high school. THEN we could as a society have rational discussions about firearms.
I think the feds are doing us dirty by failing to say who the traitors to our country are.
That is all
One of the many bad effects of the foreign interference revelations is that some people are starting to demand an Elections Canada takeover of party nominations and leadership contests (including some serious thinkers who ought to know better).
This is part of a general pattern in which Canadians have an adorably naïve belief that for any problem, the solution is always government oversight, or even a government takeover of the function itself. And a more specific pattern in which this has bled into politics. Don't like how parties do platform costing? Have PBO do it! Don't like how media outlets organize debates? Have a government commission do it! (And when the government debate commission catastrophically fails in its one and only job, Canadians predictably demand that we IMPROVE the failed government commission, not abolish it).
Parties are not the government, and their operations should not be vertically integrated into the government. Certainly parties play a vital role in democracy, as do journalists, but independence from government is necessary for either to function properly, just as a board of directors independent of management is necessary to guard the interests of a public company's shareholders. To preserve this critical separation, people must pressure and even join parties, to get them to take urgent action to reform their nominations and leaderships. If we don't, we're bound to see a government takeover of parties that will never be undone.
Possibly the most depressing podcast ever. Are we still a serious country? Will the new government do anything to address this crisis? The answers appear to be a resounding no.
I believe they will do something about it. If they put Michael Chong in charge, it will get cleaned up in a hurry. Unless, of course the CPC doesn’t have a majority, then the Lib/Dips won’t let anything worthwhile happen. How long have the Conservatives been calling for a foreign agent registry, while the Lib/Dips sit on their asps.
There is a huge difference between calling for something and implementing when you're actually in power. And as was mentioned, the Conservatives are quiet suggesting their own people are part of this issue. So I'll believe it when I see it.
I've accepted that PP will get a big majority. Trudeau has to go and the LPC are too stubborn to do it themselves. I suspect he'll be a disaster because 14 cents on the litre isn't fixing anything for anyone, and that appears to be his only plan. But I think we agreed we'd debate it in 2029....:)
Kind of like running on a slogan like "open and transparent by default."
Trudeau's credibility on anything died with SNC. That he has won twice since is entirely the fault of the Conservatives.
lol. I blame Liberal voters blinded by ideology and a false sense of superiority, but you do you, David.
Fair enough. I blame the Conservative's for not presenting a platform attractive enough to elicit votes. How Andrew Scheer found a way to lose has to be one of the greatest pollical failure questions in Canadian history.
Right. We’ll see what we see.
I really enjoy most of the commentary I read and listen to on The Line. You folks step up and as you put it and deliver “No bullshit” journalism. I’m very appreciative of that. That is until I read your endorsement of one of your advertisers Unsmoke. Unsmoke is a big tobacco funded initiative. They are in the business of hooking people/ young people on non smoke products like vaping and nicotine packages. Smoking ended my mother and father’s lives too soon. Keep doing no bullshit journalism and stop pedalling bullshit tobacco propaganda. I’m just one person so ignore this if you want but I’m done with The Line after my June subscription expires.
Running an ad is not an endorsement. Do you really think radio announcers across Canada were all sleeping on a My Pillow? I ignore ads, but I did smile when the ad first came out. I'm glad Matt and Jen are getting money from ads. I do wish the ad were shorter, but whatever, I tune out until we're back to the regularly scheduled programming.
Matt's point about the "muscle memory" was bang-on, and so depressing. Having Freeland, Leblanc and others flail around looking like they're trying to cover something up is in no way politically beneficial for the government, but that was their default response anyways.
I think someone in charge of communications at Calgary city hall must have listened to or read Jen's rant about the vague and unreliable information being given out to us. This morning the Mayor gave us a more comprehensive outlook with details we needed. Thank you Jen!
It’s not secret that many members of the Liberal establishment have a sympathetic attitude towards China: ever since Chretien’s “Team Canada” trade missions in the ‘90s, there’s been a lot of people with Liberal bona fides and connections who’ve made a living as consultants and facilitators for Chinese companies and other entities. One thing I’m grateful for is that Trudeau cooperated with the US in arresting Meng Wanzhou and did not capitulate to the demands of the China-adjacent Liberal establishment to simply cave in and return Meng when China took Canadians hostage.
I wonder what else was going on behind the scenes in government regarding foreign influence? I’d like to know the names of the politicians involved, and I’d like to know the countries involved. Then we could see what government actions and policies might’ve been influenced.
Looking at the Meng Wenzhou affair, one might reasonably conclude that whatever influence China cultivated didn’t actually prove useful in what was apparently a very important issue for them. However, did it turn out that way because the influence isn’t that useful, or because the profile of the affair was so large in the public eye that the influence was neutralized?
Jen says that she will be sued for libel if she names the parliamentarians who have been named by the committee investigating the threat of foreign interference.
Of course she means slander and not libel but I have a broader question.
I listen to many -- too many? -- current affairs podcasts. None of them mention laywers and trying to avoid being sued as Jen and Matt do. Are they being ultra-conservative? Are they working based on advice from ultra-conservative lawyers? Or is slander chill such a huge issue in Canada.
Could they not name parliamentarians based on their sources? Is not truth a defence?
Are our subscription fees going to a massive legal defence fund?
We mainly just have a dark sense of humour. But some of the sub fees absolutely go to making sure The Line can defend itself.
Every podcast has its own schtick and for this one it is a repeated reference to lawyers that I never hear elsewhere.
Jen's transparency rant needs to become a longform column.
I will say that being almost out of water is normal in Australia, a very developed country.
Meant to comment sooner, but adding this here as this was the first podcast after The Line's "Is Canada Ready for the Next $#!%storm?" event in Edmonton held on the 6th of June.
Simply wanted to say to others who read and/or subscribe to The Line that if you have the chance to attend one of the live events in the future I recommend you do so. I really enjoyed listening to Jen and Matt and their guests discuss Canada and whether Canada is prepared for the next crisis.
Solid logic B.