In the latest episode of The Line Podcast, recorded on Sept. 26, 2024, your hosts take a long, hard look at the federal stories that all came out this week and rub their temples long and hard.

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On the federal front this week: shit gets crazy, and, strangely, shit also gets discussed in Parliament. So that's great. The Liberals survived the confidence vote, and the Conservatives are preparing the next. The Bloc lays out their terms, and they're ... a lot. The NDP seems content to keep the Liberals in power, but they're going to need to work on their cover story. And in the background, we have Tory MPs cracking juvenile gay jokes, the PM losing it in the House, the health minister clutching his pearls so tightly they turned into diamonds, and lots, lots more.

God. So, so much more.

The other big story this week: CTV News and the Tories have been trading broadsides after someone(s) at CTV manipulated a Poilievre quote in a misleading way. This is, to state the obvious, bad. But the CPC, of course, has escalated, because of course they did. That's what they do. That's what all the parties do. We keep telling you this, and we keep meaning it: every incentive for all the parties will lead to ever-further escalation and enshittification of everything because, in the short term, it works. It always works. And we all pay the price.

Important note: because this was recorded early on Thursday, we did not yet know — it had not yet happened! —  that CTV News was going to release a statement on Thursday accepting responsibility and noting, vaguely, that the two employees responsible were no longer with CTV News. We think our thoughts hold up, but we wanted to flag that for you, for the sake of accuracy and transparency.

After that, they chat about Trudeau going on The Late Show, and firearms. Don't worry, it makes sense.

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