The Line Podcast: Are Trump's threats forcing us to, gasp, get our act together?

In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on February 21, 2025, your hosts continue to bask in the afterglow of Connor McDavid's overtime goal for Team Canada last night. How sweet it was.They also talk about the news and politics and stuff, but, man. Thank you, McJesus.This episode of The Line Podcast is brought to you by Unsmoke Canada. Canada can be a global leader in reducing the harm caused by smoking, but it requires actionable steps, including giving adult smokers the information they need to choose potentially less harmful alternatives. Learn more at Unsmoke.ca.We don't get to start a lot of podcasts with good news. So yeah, we lean into the hockey a bit. But we also talk about what might be the first major sign of a true structural shift in response to the threat posed by Donald Trump's America. Tim Houston in Nova Scotia has made a fantastic proposal, and one pretty close to what Line editor Gurney had been suggesting in recent weeks. If Houston follows through, and if he can get the other premiers on board, this could be a big deal. To sweeten the pot, The Line hereby makes this pledge: if Houston does what he says he is going to do, Gurney and Gerson will fly to Halifax, throw a party and present the premier with a plaque declaring him the true captain of Team Canada.Unless, of course, another premier beats him to it ...This episode has also been brought to you by Forestry For The Future. Forestry supports 200,000 Canadians in hundreds of communities, generating $87 billion in annual revenues and $37 billion in exports — including $29 billion to the United States. It's also key to addressing some of our biggest challenges. We need an action plan for our forest sector and its employees, one that will help build the homes we need with Canadian wood, reduce the risk of wildfires and create more family-supporting jobs right here at home. To learn more about what forestry can do for Canada, visit ForestryForTheFuture.ca.Having committed themselves to a bash in Halifax, your hosts move onto expressing some sympathy for Chrystia Freeland, who is clearly being largely abandoned by her Liberal compatriots and probably regrets running for leader in the first place. But they also talk at length about how long it will be until there is a Canadian political leader who is truly of this moment. It might take 10 or 15 years for someone actually suited to the 2020s to work their way up into a position of real political power. Can we wait that long?Also, your hosts take a quick jaunt around the world and provide many updates. Things could be going better is the key takeaway. Lookin' decidedly suboptimal on a lot of fronts. And not for nothing, if someone would like to sell us some nuclear weapons, we'd be into that.Look, we frontloaded all the optimism for this episode, okay?All that, and more, in the latest episode of The Line Podcast.YouTube:Spotify:Apple:And plenty more options here.Please sign up at those options not just for this episode, or future episodes of The Line Podcast, but so that you can also receive our new podcast series, On the Line, which will release new episodes every Tuesday morning. It’s gonna take us a while to master the algorithms, which only expect us to release content in the evenings. It would be hugely helpful for us every Tuesday morning if you would make a point of opening up the podcast in your app of choice and enjoying it. After a few weeks of this, our future computer overlords should get the point. We asked you to do this last week and we saw another huge improvement this week! We are winning! We are outsmarting the computers!In case you missed it, here is last Tuesday’s episode. We hope you enjoyed it. More to come on Tuesday of next week.Thanks for all your support. Talk to you soon.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.The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Follow us on Twitter @the_lineca. Pitch us something: [email protected] Get full access to The Line at www.readtheline.ca/subscribe