The Critical Compass Podcast - August 25, 2026


Building a Free Nation Starts with Parallel Institutions ｜ Fergus Hodgson


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

167.66

Word count

1,588

Sentence count

17


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 my focus is on building let's say the foundation the infrastructure such that this free nation
00:00:08.760 and people can can express themselves that they because right now what the various traditional
00:00:14.540 institutions that we might think of as being aristocratic or representative are captured
00:00:20.480 we all know this higher education regime media various crony business lobbies even i hate to say
00:00:28.500 the various think tanks which are largely controlled opposition because they've all been
00:00:33.180 neutered and captured and they're not really threatening to the ottawa regime a nation of
00:00:41.900 people who are proud defiant self-reliant that is incredibly threatening to ottawa who assert
00:00:50.780 themselves defend themselves and push so that's my focus so that that's my broader mission which
00:00:58.320 i mean i'm going to introduce and talk about more at the event i call it the free uh free nation
00:01:03.280 project and i've got a website up i'm building a website just freenationalberta.org you know so
00:01:09.200 that's my personal approach or project in terms of the event capitalism and morality calgary
00:01:15.200 is september 11 to 12 but the main conference is on september 12 and this is the most
00:01:21.200 potent or radical conference for liberty, maybe in Canada's history, at least in my memory,
00:01:29.520 and I'm assembling an incredibly impactful or disruptive array of speakers and structuring
00:01:37.180 the event to have a, let's say, a strong after effect or to have momentum. So I'm really putting
00:01:45.840 all my chips on the table in terms of delivering an event that will have ramifications i have
00:01:52.720 written an article which went out on my own website econ america's this my sub stack and then
00:01:57.120 on to the western standard and that is the what makes this event distinct so i said uh we have
00:02:05.280 five attributes and one is that yes this is a conference that so it's unlike any other in the
00:02:12.720 world so it's not just unique to alberta or canada but across the world because we have
00:02:17.200 first we have an an actual nation state that can be built and so i have a great interest in the
00:02:24.880 values and way of life the people of alberta which i i called the broader alberta nation the the
00:02:33.280 people who populate alberta and the surrounding regions who has the capacity or potential to
00:02:40.320 build a state around it that fits second it is radically pro-liberty third emphasis is on
00:02:48.640 self-action and not just complaining fourth all the speakers are dangerous to the status quo i
00:02:55.600 mean half of the people seem to have been either imprisoned or prosecuted or kicked out of their
00:02:59.600 jobs or whatever i mean so you you can go on the list amy ham lost her job as a nurse
00:03:05.200 the we've got a state senator from idaho coming up and he got into an open uh civil disobedience
00:03:12.000 case with the irs which takes balls of steel to be frank i mean you've got to be incredibly
00:03:17.160 courageous to take on the tax agency so we've got these incredibly bold or courageous people
00:03:22.400 who threaten the status quo and then finally the way i've structured the event all the talks are
00:03:29.380 basically about 10 minutes 10 minutes with a question or two to get to about 15 and then we
00:03:34.560 have round tables, so that it's really more of an engaging or social environment. So it'll be an
00:03:41.460 incredibly concentrated group of people who are devoted to these things to a free nation, to
00:03:47.820 liberty, to challenging the status quo, to actually being active and not just a complainer. So
00:03:55.240 obviously, I'm incredibly passionate about this motivated, and I'd love more people to realize
00:04:01.160 how this is just a one-of-a-kind opportunity and i'm again i'm putting my my heart into this
00:04:09.080 and offering what i hope people will see as a very unique opportunity or unique experience and
00:04:13.960 my goal and aside from let's say the number of numbers of people coming or buying tickets or
00:04:18.920 what have you is that out of it we get half a dozen or more organizations fresh organizations
00:04:25.240 that will change the landscape in Alberta.
00:04:29.300 It's very cool.
00:04:31.460 I'm remembering the event you hosted earlier,
00:04:35.040 just a couple months ago in Calgary at the Bourbon Room
00:04:38.300 with Keith Wilson and Eva Chippyuk.
00:04:41.380 And that was a similar, it sounds to me like it was a similar sort of format
00:04:44.940 because we had a couple introductory speakers
00:04:47.600 and that concept of the 10 minutes-ish and a few comments after
00:04:52.620 in a really tight-knit kind of room of like-minded people.
00:04:56.520 That worked really well.
00:04:57.800 We were really struck, actually, because, as you remember,
00:05:00.680 we were filming it.
00:05:02.300 Yeah.
00:05:02.760 We were really struck by how clean it was.
00:05:04.740 It was such a, some of these events, and God bless any of these guys
00:05:10.020 who want to host events for heterodox ideas and thinkers,
00:05:14.440 but some of them can get a little bit long in the tooth,
00:05:17.480 and it's hard to, people can get stuck on certain minutiae,
00:05:21.300 And it's hard to, but the way you have your structured with quick talks, quick comments,
00:05:26.700 and rotating back into more of a round table, it just works really well.
00:05:31.700 And I guess maybe I'm just wondering how you, how is it organizing something like that?
00:05:36.820 You know, I can imagine it might be a tough sell for a senator from the U.S. to,
00:05:42.320 hey, do you want to come up to Calgary and talk for 10 minutes?
00:05:45.720 Well, it's interesting, Mike.
00:05:47.600 great question because you can see why the event went dormant right so i'm reviving an event that
00:05:54.180 has been dormant for the last two years and so because the people were losing money right so
00:06:00.880 they were putting time in and making negative money it's a tough sell right in terms of getting
00:06:06.740 people to come you know we basically built you almost like it's like a ratchet you're going to
00:06:11.760 of build on what you've done before you kind of push up and fortunately and i don't know why this
00:06:18.320 is over my let's say more than 20 years promoting freedom as much as i can wherever i wherever it
00:06:25.760 lived i've built up a wonderful rapport with many people and that i really appreciate so
00:06:34.240 i am shocked at the the way they've come to the table to really support me in this venture so i
00:06:41.120 met the state senator from idaho i mean maybe 15 years ago at an event in salt lake city
00:06:48.000 and we just chatted and he had some opinions about 9 11 actually which were kind of fascinating
00:06:52.560 which were fascinating so he's actually an engineer by trade and so it was a fascinating
00:06:56.400 chat about about it with him and i thought this guy he's a bit of a free thinker here and
00:07:01.520 and so he remembered that so when we got back in touch even years later you know he was warm to me
00:07:08.400 and he said that he had actually used to live in alberta and had friends in lethbridge so he was
00:07:12.400 going to come up and visit them oh and but basically it was just putting in the work
00:07:18.240 and it's easy for me because i believe in it right so it's not a tough sell from my perspective
00:07:25.760 i'm saying all these five things i said to shared with you i really believe in them so and i hope
00:07:31.680 people can see that that i'm not faking it or there's no kind of like i don't know performance
00:07:36.560 here i i believe in it i'm invested in it and there's some kind of almost like a welcoming
00:07:43.920 community in that there's strength in numbers to some degree because a lot of these people
00:07:49.280 they're courageous but they have been hung out to dry and to be frank i i would like to invite more
00:07:53.840 there's a guy i think he's been on your show jim mcmurtry have you had him on from bc we haven't
00:07:58.960 had him on but we're familiar with yeah the name yeah yeah for sure you know he's he's he's been
00:08:04.000 all over x lately and so there's this he's another one of these thought criminals in canada and we
00:08:10.800 kind of need we need to rally around them to show them that they're not alone because they're sticking
00:08:16.240 their necks out they're getting punished and that we're all the beneficiaries of their courage
00:08:21.200 because they're kind of taking the the hit and just today i was having lunch with a friend of
00:08:29.360 mine who's helping me with this event you'll know her benita peterson and she was telling me about
00:08:34.240 the case against her and it is just heartbreaking that this lovely lady who just you know doesn't
00:08:39.920 support a certain event or a certain um sign being put on public property is going through
00:08:46.880 a legal fight right and it's human rights yeah the quote-unquote human rights tribunal of alberta
00:08:53.760 which is really I should I don't know how much I can say here but is almost an enemy it's perverted
00:08:59.660 the term of natural rights or civil liberties and so but we we've really come to a point where
00:09:05.860 we are entering a very totalitarian or expansive apparatus where obedience to the state is
00:09:14.460 basically a new religion and it's scary how far it is going when even your your friend just for
00:09:22.560 saying something that maybe was politically incorrect
00:09:25.160 is suddenly being hauled before this thought police tribunal.