On The Line: How left and right combined can save our cities

In the latest episode of On The Line, Matt Gurney welcomes two very different guests for two very different conversations — and both of them are well worth your time.This episode of The Line Podcast is brought to you by Forestry For The Future. Canada’s housing crisis demands bold, scalable solutions. Build Canada Homes is an opportunity to leverage Canadian wood in modern construction. Wood-based methods like mass timber and modular construction can significantly reduce build times, waste, and carbon emissions, while supporting local economies. Expanding building codes, streamlining approvals, and prioritizing domestic wood in federal projects could double demand and foster job creation in rural and northern communities.Despite trade challenges and market volatility, a partnership between industry and government is vital to stabilize the sector, enhance competitiveness, and deliver innovative, sustainably sourced Canadian wood products for homes across Canada and abroad. With capacity growing across provinces, stable demand and predictable financing are key to unlocking the sector’s potential.We need to Build Canada Homes with Canadian wood. To learn more, visit ForestryForTheFuture.ca.The episode opens with a wide-ranging chat with Dan Seljak, who joins Matt to unpack an issue that somehow turned into a strangely complicated political fight in Toronto. The whole thing should have been simple: should the city allow small retail outlets inside residential neighbourhoods? Most of us grew up with corner stores, coffee shops, and little walk-in places woven into the communities around us. But Toronto’s own governance rules have made these kinds of businesses nearly impossible to open, and the city has been steadily losing the ones it still has. Dan set out originally to save one small store that committed the terrible sin of … selling coffee to customers. What followed was an unexpectedly intense battle to protect all the remaining shops and to make space for new ones. Dan talks about how he found himself pulled into the fight, what it revealed about the way cities make decisions, and why something so basic became so hard. He and Matt dig into a bigger question, too: how did urban governance in Canada become so tangled that even the simple things are impossible to achieve? This isn’t a left-right issue — there’s a surprising amount of agreement across political lines — and yet nothing gets done. How did we box ourselves into this, and how do we get out?You can read more from Dan, and keep up with his work, at Another Glass Box.After Dan, John Wright joins the show. John is a long-time friend of The Line and has been involved in a campaign to raise public awareness about a once-celebrated Canadian military hero who has almost disappeared from our national memory. He and Matt pick up the thread from last week’s discussion about Remembrance Day on The Line Podcast, exploring why these stories fade and why they matter. John also shares a quick update on his own professional world — and it’s worth sticking around for. For more information about John’s new venture, go here. To learn more about the RCAF Foundation, go here.New episodes of On The Line drop every Tuesday. Subscribe at ReadTheLine.ca, follow us on your favourite podcast app, and don’t forget to leave us a nice review. Audio drops every Tuesday morning, with video rolling out Tuesday evening on YouTube and our social channels. Catch it wherever you listen or watch.YouTube (video goes live in 30 minutes):Spotify:Apple:And plenty more options here.We hope you enjoy this episode, and don’t miss us next week. We’ll be back with more On The Line.The Line is entirely reader and advertiser funded — no federal subsidy for us! If you value our work, have already subscribed, and still worry about what will happen when the conventional media finishes collapsing, please make a donation today. Please note: a donation is not a subscription, and will not grant access to paywalled content. It’s just a way of thanking us for what we do. If you’re looking to subscribe and get full access, it’s that other blue button!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: [email protected]. Get full access to The Line at www.readtheline.ca/subscribe