The Line – Détails, épisodes et analyse

In this episode of On The Line, host Matt Gurney sits down with Peter Sankoff, a Alberta-based criminal defence lawyer and law professor, to talk about one of the country’s more heated current debates: should non-citizens receive legal leniency in criminal cases to avoid disrupting their immigration status?

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For context, recent cases have seen judges issue lighter sentences, or defence lawyers argue for them, so that a non-citizen resident of Canada wouldn’t face deportation. These decisions have sparked controversy and political backlash. Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner has even tabled a private member’s bill that would prevent judges from taking immigration status into account when handing down sentences.

Matt supported the proposal on Twitter; Peter disagreed. After a spirited exchange online, Peter remarked that the issue was better suited to long-form discussion than social media — so Matt invited him on the show. Together they dig into the controversy itself, why Peter believes judicial discretion is essential and already well-established, and also, moral and fair. Matt points out what he thinks are inconsistencies and blind spots in that argument — the kind that can come from being too close to an issue.

But while they disagree on specifics, both men share a broader concern: that public faith in the justice system is eroding, and not without reason. Peter offers some ideas for how the system could regain public trust.

You can learn more about Peter’s work at Sankoff Criminal Law and his educational platform Criminal Defence Essentials, or find him on LinkedIn.

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.

In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on October 31, 2025 — spooky! — your hosts take on the big political issues in Canada today, including, God help us, the prospect of a federal election. They don’t think it’s likely, but they do think it’s possible. 

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.

After that, they turn to the latest turbulence in U.S.–Canada relations. It’s been another difficult week. Both hosts hope the situation might finally knock some sense into our political leaders — though Matt Gurney warns Jen Gerson that Canadians may be almost immune to having sense knocked into them.

Finally, Jen gets everyone caught up on the fallout from Alberta’s recent teachers’ strike and notes that Danielle Smith took an awfully big swing to bring it to an end. We’ll see how that works out for her.

All that and more in this week’s episode of The Line Podcast. Check us out at ReadTheLine.ca.

This week on On The Line, Matt Gurney is joined by Clayton Campbell, president of the Toronto Police Association, for a frank conversation about the state of law and order in Canada’s biggest city — and beyond.

They start with morale inside the force, the kinds of work officers are being asked to do, and the kinds of work no one ever wants to do again. They also talk about ways to prevent people from entering the criminal justice system in the first place.

From there, the discussion shifts to eroding public confidence in law and order — a trend that’s driving some Canadians to arm themselves or hire private security firms to patrol wealthy neighbourhoods. Bail reform inevitably comes up, as does sentencing, and the challenge of deterring young offenders from doing the dirty work of organized crime groups that see underage recruits as an asset.

And, because it’s Matt, the episode wraps with a look at the federal government’s gun confiscation plans. Clayton doesn’t like them any more than Matt does, and he isn’t convinced Ottawa can actually make the program work if it ever goes forward.

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.

In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded a day earlier than normal on August 22nd, 2024, after Jen Gerson offers up some shockingly TMI stuff, your hosts start by noting, with amusement, that Jagmeet Singh, leader of the federal NDP, tried once again to tweet about how mad he was at Justin Trudeau and got zapped by Twitter's crowd-sourced fact-checking service. The Twitter hivemind, in its wisdom, noted that as Trudeau's confidence-and-supply agreement partner, Singh could hold Trudeau to account basically whenever he wanted. How strange that Singh seems to keep forgetting that. Nothing lasts long on Twitter, Matt Gurney notes. But it was glorious.

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.

After that, your Line editors move on to another big chat involving federal politics this week. Charles Adler, long-time broadcaster, has been appointed to the Senate. After Gurney makes a personal disclosure, Gerson takes the lead on a discussion about accountability, bias and the currying of favour, and why all members of the press wince a little bit when one of them makes the jump to political life. She also establishes what Gurney has dubbed the Gerson Scale for political ickiness.

From there, they move onto the rail lockout (for the record, this was recorded before the federal government announced that it would use its powers to end the disruption; as we prep this podcast for publication on Friday, it's not yet clear if the trains will actually start running -- everything is moving fast on this one, folks, so bear with us). They don't talk about the disruption itself so much as how vulnerable (or not?) our supply chains are, and how strange it is to live in a time where the average Canadian has to spend so much time thinking about supply chains! It didn't used to be this way.

They end with what Gurney dubs a "vibe check." Ontario premier Doug Ford has taken a step that will close down a series of controversial safe injection sites in Toronto, and Gurney believes that this speaks to a bigger, broader cultural shift that's underway. That big ole pendulum is just swinging hard back to the right, ain't it?

All that, and much more, in the latest episode of The Line Podcast. To subscribe and read more, check us out at ReadTheLine.ca.

In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on August 16th, 2024, Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson bring the heat. Actually, Matt's just melting visibly onscreen without air conditioning. (He explains, don't worry. At least his microphone is fixed?)

More seriously, your hosts talk about two damning stories out there right now on the immigration front. The first is the latest on the arrest of two apparent/alleged/etc ISIS terrorists who were planning an attack (police claim) on Toronto. This is a bit awkward since both men were fairly recent arrivals to Canada, and obtained Canadian citizenship after one of the men (allegedly!) took part in a brutal ISIS execution video in 2015. Oops. Also, the UN is slamming Canada's temporary foreign workers laws as being akin to modern day slavery. And honestly, The Line thinks that's pretty fair, when you consider the rules.

Then, Jen goes off on "Raygun," the Australian breakdancer. Like, she really goes off on her. It was ... surprising. So enjoy that, we guess.

Finally: a couple of media stories. Your Line editors note, with regret, the closing of CHML 900, a news-talk radio station in Hamilton, Ontario, that had been operating for 97 years but can no longer survive in the modern media environment. Your hosts explain why. Matt then tells Jen about the brave editorialist who apparently took on Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and won, according to Twitter. Matt checked out the editorial, thinking he was going to read a smackdown of the CPC boss ... and came away less than impressed. He explains why.

All that, and more, in the latest episode of The Line Podcast.

Take care, and as always, like, subscribe, share, and visit our website at ReadTheLine.ca.

Hello, fans of The Line, and welcome to the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on August 9th, 2024, in which your hosts are totally not struggling to find things to talk about during the doldrums of political silly season.

They start by chatting about U.S. politics. A new wave of polls has shown that the Biden-Harris switcheroo has ... worked. It hasn't doomed Donald Trump, but it has put Kamala Harris and her new running mate in a position where they can absolutely win this. The race is competitive again, a toss up. Jen explains why she thinks Trump might still have the inside track. Matt taps sports psychology to suggest why he's not so sure. Jen also gets deeply existential on why she thinks progressive parties are struggling across the West.

Next, they talk about a story that had a certain segment of the Canadian commentariat fired up this week: CPC bots! Neither of your hosts would be shocked if the Conservatives, or any political party, was using bots-for-hire to amplify their strategic communications. But both of them also suggest some caution here. We should all be skeptical of what we see on social media, even if — maybe especially if — it's something we really want to believe.

From there, they chat about the riots in Britain, and Matt tells Jen that he noticed something coming out of that coverage that Canadians should be paying attention to, because even as the Brits are burning their own towns down, they're still better at a pretty important thing than Canada.

And finally, Matt makes a bold proposal that he hopes all Canadians can unite behind, because it will radically improve our quality of life and, frankly, change human civilization as we know it — for the better. And Jen instantly rejects that proposal. Listeners and viewers — have your say.

All that, and more, in the latest episode of The Line Podcast.

Take care, and as always, like, subscribe, share, and visit our website at ReadTheLine.ca.

Important correction: During this episode, Line editor Gurney utterly brain cramped and repeatedly referred to Jeff Simpson when he meant Lawrence Martin. No excuses. Just a mortifying flub. Mea culpa.

In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on August 2, 2024, your hosts Jen Gerson and Matt Gurney discuss Jen's column this week, but they also discuss the broader problem with Canadian governance these days: disasters aren't to be learned from, they're to be blamed on someone or something else. There are undoubtedly things we should learn from the recent devastation of Jasper. We should learn them before something terrible happens to Banff, just to cite one example. But will we? Of course not. The fire in Jasper, like everything else, is just an opportunity for us all to convince ourselves that we're perfect and the other bastards are to blame again.

They also discuss the latest developments in the Middle East, and wonder if something even more awful will have happened by the time anyone actually ends up listening to it. They also make a heartfelt appeal to Canadians, in response to the latest wave of awful antisemitism: maybe don't firebomb and deface Jewish sites? Like, you know, just ... don't? It's not helping! Just a thought!

They wrap up with a chat about the latest media news. Matt is less than impressed with a column he read recently, though he thinks we should put it into a museum as a perfect example of how selfish, petty and petulant many Canadians remain. We are, he says, a very spoiled and childish country. They also talk about a new report on the first year for the Canadian media since the Online News Act passed. It hasn't gone great!

All that, and more, in the latest episode of The Line Podcast.

Take care, and as always, like, subscribe, share, and visit our website at  ReadTheLine.ca.

In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on July 19, 2024, Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson try and wrap up their thoughts on Quite The Week! in U.S. politics. Your Line editors are not Americans, and generally leave American political analysis to those who actually live in that country. But we can't avoid the events in the U.S. They're too big and too important. So, as a compromise, they tried to mostly stay on the topic of what Quite The Week! in the U.S. will mean for us. They also talk about Biden, his options, and why there is literally no position The Line can take on Trump that will please everyone. It's just too hot a topic.

They then move on, back to the relative safety of Canadian politics, and note that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made a move to (politically!) kneecap Mark Carney. They think that's shrewd, but they also think that that confirms what they've suspected: Trudeau won't go unless he's forced out. Also: best wishes to Seamus O'Regan.

To wrap up: a cyber catastrophe and the warning we won't heed, Toronto floods and we won't learn from that either, and Matt has to remind Albertans that he loves them (because he's about to say something that will piss them off). But, for her part, Jen agrees.

All that, and more, in this episode of The Line Podcast.

Take care, and as always, like, subscribe, share, and visit our website at ReadTheLine.ca.

Hello, The Line Podcast listeners/viewers. We hope you had a great Canada Day weekend and that this podcast, recorded on July 5th, 2024, will help you start this weekend off right.

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.

Your hosts, including one in a fancy new (and almost finished!) summer-time studio, start by talking about the coup-that-wasn't. Last week, in our last episode before the break, we told you about the rumours and speculation about the future of Liberal leader (and prime minister) Justin Trudeau. Well, a week has passed, and the coup (if that's what it was) hasn't come to anything. Never say never — there will be other byelections and Lord knows what other political curveballs might be tossed the PM's way. But having survived this, and with not much time left to even install another Liberal leader even if the party wanted to, The Line suspects that, for better or worse, PMJT will lead his party into the next election.

(But we also talk about a few scenarios where he won't! Just to cover the bases/our butts.)

We also cover off a few quick bases. Canada has named a new top soldier, Lt. Gen. Jennie Carignan, who will be promoted to full general and become the first woman to hold the job in just under two weeks. We wish her every success in the role, and offer our thanks to the outgoing Gen. Wayne Eyre as he begins his retirement. We also note that the LCBO is on strike in Ontario, and Matt has some tips on where you can still find something to slack your thirst, if you're so motivated. Jen comments on how drinking is better in Alberta ... including now, yay!, potable water in Calgary, where the situation is improving on the water front. But they mostly talk about the Stampede: why it's awesome, why bigger cities can't pull something like that off, and why the PM cancelled his annual visit this time.

Finally, Matt talks about the reaction to his last column. It was ... revealing.

Take care, and as always, like, subscribe, share, and visit our website at ReadTheLine.ca. Stay hydrated, Calgary, and stay buzzed, Ontarians!