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.

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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In this episode of On The Line, Jen Gerson speaks with Ronnen Harary, co-founder of Spin Master, the Canadian company behind some of the world’s most successful toys and entertainment franchises, including PAW Patrol.

Harary takes Jen through the early days of Spin Master and the risks that he and his partners were willing to take while they were still young enough — and perhaps naive enough — to take them. They discuss why your twenties can be an unusually valuable time to take big swings, what entrepreneurs can learn from failure, and why intuition and an understanding of history can matter when trying to distinguish a durable trend from the latest industry bubble.

The conversation then widens to Canada’s entrepreneurial culture. Harary argues that Canada has enormous creative talent but needs to become more comfortable with ambition, risk and the possibility of failure. He and Jen discuss the difference between building and servicing, the importance of protecting time for deep creative work, and why a successful innovation economy needs diversity not simply of backgrounds, but of ideas, experiences and ways of thinking.

This episode is also brought to you by the Forest Products Association of Canada. Every budget season brings endless ideas for how Ottawa should spend. But some of the best ways to strengthen Canada’s economy don’t require a massive price tag.

For Canada’s forest products sector, real growth starts with dismantling made-in-Canada barriers: cutting regulatory duplication, fixing supply chain bottlenecks, securing predictable, cost-competitive access to fibre, and creating more certainty for investment.

We can’t control every global challenge facing our industry, but we can remove the barriers created right here at home.

Discover how smarter policy drives economic growth at FPAC.ca.

Finally, they look at what Canada could do differently. Harary offers ideas for encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation, attracting and developing talent, and creating a culture in which more Canadians are willing to build companies capable of competing globally.

It’s a conversation about toys and business, but also about ambition, creativity, risk and what Canada needs to do if it wants to produce more globally successful companies.

As always visit our main page at ReadTheLine.ca, and don't forget to like and subscribe!

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In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, Jen Gerson speaks with Bloomberg senior White House correspondent Josh Wingrove about the collapse of the Canada–U.S. trade deal, the politics behind it, and why Canadians and Americans increasingly seem to be talking past each other.

Jen and Josh unpack the breakdown of the latest negotiations, including the competing Canadian and American accounts of what happened and the domestic political pressures shaping both governments. They discuss what Washington actually wants from Canada, how the dispute looks from inside the United States, and what Canadians may be misunderstanding about the political forces driving American policy.

They then widen the lens to the broader state of U.S. politics: Donald Trump’s hold over the Republican Party, the strength of America’s democratic guardrails, the coming midterms, and where the country may be heading politically. Finally, they consider what all of this means for Canada—and for a bilateral relationship that Canadians can no longer take for granted.

All that and more in the latest episode of The Line Podcast. Check out our main page at ReadTheLine.ca. Like and subscribe!

#TheLinePodcast #CanadaUSRelations #TradeWar #DonaldTrump #MarkCarney #CanadianPolitics #USPolitics #JoshWingrove #USMidterms #CurrentAffairs