This week in The Line Podcast, your Line editors are forced to talk about trans issues, which they absolutely hate doing, thanks to a series of proposals made by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Smith could have simply done as Saskatchewan and New Brunswick are doing, and that would have been meat for her socially conservative base. But she went further. The proposals will certainly be popular, but Smith is no so-con — she's a libertarian, and always has been. Why has she decided that youth sports is now the business of the state? Jen has theories! Matt broadly agrees with the Liberal critique of Smith's plans, namely, that these are solutions in search of problems, offered up only to placate base voters. He just thinks that if the federal Liberals now think that that is a bad thing, no one seems to have told the PMO yet, since Liberals do exactly that all the time.

And more broadly, G&G talk about how all the parties are currently being wagged by the tails of their most fringey, passionate base voters, and how this is leaving mainstream Canadians not only alone, but desperately trying to avoid getting hit in the culture-war crossfires.

Moving on, much to their relief, your intrepid editors talk about the foreign interference inquiry, and politely request 144 more inquiries, because that's the only way we can ever find anything out about anything that happens in this country.

They cover a few more topics in rapid-fire sequence after that, but end on a really cheerful note: if you don't have a lot of money, you might not be able to get health care soon. So ... just mull on that a bit. And don't forget to like and subscribe!