The Critical Compass Podcast - April 09, 2026


Fergus Hodgson： ＂Alberta Has the #1 Movement for Freedom & Self-Determination on the Planet＂


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

185.29352

Word count

1,816

Sentence count

53


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 thanks so much Jason yeah I'm just super motivated and pleased to be here this is
00:00:08.680 the number one movement for freedom and self-determination on the planet I've
00:00:13.080 spent my life my adult life looking for freedom around the world and this is it
00:00:17.040 yes so I'm gonna unpack that from two angles the first is why this is so
00:00:22.860 important in the let's say that the arc of history in the world and the second
00:00:27.000 is why Alberta or how Alberta can be and will be
00:00:30.820 the freest nation on the planet.
00:00:33.000 I am the son of a Canadian.
00:00:35.060 My mother was a firstborn child of Irish immigrants
00:00:38.020 on a Indian reserve up in Northern British Columbia.
00:00:41.620 And I planned to make a home here in Alberta
00:00:44.260 and I was in business school in the United States.
00:00:46.820 And just during the COVID era,
00:00:48.300 I just gave up on that idea to be frank.
00:00:50.340 But I first came here looking for work
00:00:52.560 and began working in 2008.
00:00:54.700 And so that gave me the material for my book, Financial Sovereignty for Canadians.
00:00:59.460 And at the time, I mean, I've been a big advocate for Alberta independence for many years.
00:01:03.380 But at the time, I didn't realize it would gain momentum.
00:01:05.940 And that's why I'm so excited about it.
00:01:07.240 Many of us have been hoping for this for a long time.
00:01:10.880 And the current prognosis for Canada is terrible.
00:01:14.180 Canada is on a path to being a post-First World nation.
00:01:17.260 This doesn't happen often.
00:01:18.940 But some nations such as Argentina have achieved this.
00:01:22.640 Argentina used to be, like Canada,
00:01:25.020 one of the most advanced or developed countries in the world,
00:01:27.240 and now it is not.
00:01:28.400 A century has passed, and they're in decline.
00:01:30.700 Why? Because of protectionism, because of stupid ideas,
00:01:32.800 because of socialism.
00:01:34.340 They have a highly educated population.
00:01:36.840 They're very European.
00:01:37.560 You think to yourself, how is this country such a disaster?
00:01:41.500 That is the path.
00:01:42.280 If you want to know where Canada is going,
00:01:44.280 you can go to Atlantic Canada right now, to be frank.
00:01:46.860 If you go to Nova Scotia, people have been leaving for 50 years.
00:01:49.980 They've been moving here to Alberta because Alberta still has the work ethic,
00:01:53.020 it still has the opportunity, but of course now the problem is people are
00:01:56.160 leaving to go south to Texas or Wyoming or Montana or wherever it may be or
00:02:00.380 Tennessee. That is the path. If Canada is stuck in a rut and it needs a
00:02:05.220 disruption, you cannot fix it from within the system that exists. The
00:02:10.260 structure is set and it is toxic. My basic view is that this will actually be
00:02:15.900 a three-part win or a win-win-win outcome if alberta achieves this first of course alberta
00:02:21.580 will have an incredibly dynamic uh renewed uh and more accountable economy than it has right now
00:02:28.460 second canada or the ottawa will have to tighten its belt it'll have to grow up it'll have to learn
00:02:34.220 to pay its own bills in fact it'll rather than being an imperial city over this large you know
00:02:39.420 lance you know landmass it'll have to be accountable because if it does not change its
00:02:44.620 ways and stop preying on the provinces, more provinces will leave. Obviously, Saskatchewan
00:02:48.580 will be next in line, Quebec, and so their power is threatened greatly. They will have to change
00:02:55.420 from being an overlord to being a server to the provinces, which will be healthy for Canada.
00:03:02.960 And the third one is for the rest of the world, basically. There are literally hundreds of
00:03:08.400 secession movements around the planet. So I'm a big fan of Texas or Texit, of Ireland leaving the
00:03:15.320 European Union, of Cortes, a part of Honduras, become a new country in Central America.
00:03:20.980 And the problem is that we have this cognitive bias. We feel more comfortable with what we know
00:03:26.180 than what we don't know. But of course, if we flip the equation and say, if Alberta were
00:03:30.020 independent, would we join Canada? Never. So we know we have this bias that we just feel more
00:03:36.540 comfortable in what we know rather than we don't and that has that is impeding all these movements
00:03:41.820 if Alberta separates it can be a role model to the world because they can do it Albertans can
00:03:47.360 do it peacefully and they can have incredible prosperity they will show that it's possible
00:03:52.280 and they can do it in a much better way than say Brexit did out of the European Union because the
00:03:56.340 political class of Brexit or the UK did not want to comply with this whereas in Alberta there's
00:04:02.180 such a different polity from the rest of Canada, the distinction will be clear.
00:04:07.100 So Alberta can really have an impact on the broader global landscape.
00:04:12.280 And this is particularly important because there was a book written in 1992 called The
00:04:17.400 End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama.
00:04:20.740 And he discussed the fact that we'd basically arrived after the post-Soviet Union era that
00:04:26.000 we had this liberal democracy and we're going to basically settle in and just, you know,
00:04:29.840 everything would be rosy.
00:04:31.620 it has not happened in fact we've been going backwards since that time we have less democratic
00:04:35.540 accountability we've had more tyranny and of course the covert era just uh brought a new
00:04:39.860 level of uh autocracy or of over governance not just canada but more broadly speaking we're stuck
00:04:45.940 in a rut to some degree in terms of economic freedom in terms of advancing and alberta can
00:04:49.940 can shake that now so i made i made the claim which is not hyperbolic at all that alberta can
00:04:55.060 and will be the freest nation on the planet now just one proviso there aren't many free places
00:04:59.780 to go to so so there's not a lot of competition in this regard if if people are following the
00:05:05.540 rankings of economic freedom around the world does anyone have an idea which countries are
00:05:10.100 the top right now uh well so the united states is fifth but so it is hong kong singapore switzerland
00:05:17.140 and new zealand and then the united states and canada used to be always in the top 10
00:05:21.860 and she's been hovering around 11th to 14th in recent years okay and so the question is what
00:05:30.860 does Alberta need to surpass those countries and Ireland is sick so I would kick out Hong Kong
00:05:36.620 because the data needs to be updated for the fact that Hong Kong is basically overrun by the Chinese
00:05:41.520 Communist Party now but so what does what would Alberta have to do to surpass those countries in
00:05:47.960 fact, it would basically be automatic. All the changes that would come with
00:05:51.140 Alberta separating from Canada would be enough to get Alberta to
00:05:55.760 number one. We've had a lot of people talk about transfer payments or
00:06:00.080 equalization or just redistribution. There is a great disparity in terms of
00:06:05.240 government spending as a portion of the economy across the provinces. So as I
00:06:11.120 noted, Nova Scotia is one of the poorest provinces, maybe the poorest, but more
00:06:15.180 than 60% of the economy in Nova Scotia is just government spending. So it's a hollowed out place,
00:06:21.840 it's a backwater, and it's embarrassing. What economy do they have left? And my uncle is a
00:06:27.440 professor at St. Francis Xavier University, and they just live it. All the young people leave,
00:06:31.900 right? Okay, so if we're spending more than 60% of the economy is government spending in Nova
00:06:37.740 scotia what is it in alberta okay 30 percent mate you beat me okay so it's it's less than half of
00:06:47.260 what it is in nova scotia okay and what is it in canada more broadly it's between those two obviously
00:06:53.420 so it's 44 this is the challenge the biggest impediment to canada being a free country is
00:06:59.900 the size of government right these rankings have five different i think it's five or four different
00:07:05.340 categories i think it's five and size of government canada is a winner on the wrong end right so it
00:07:11.740 can't even crack the top 100 uh countries in terms of a smaller government so it is 102nd
00:07:17.740 and to assess this they take it's quite a complicated formula but they take spending
00:07:23.420 the highest marginal income tax rate uh combined uh payroll taxes what have you we don't need to
00:07:29.260 get into the into the weeds there the fact is that if canada were to go from 44 to 44 percent to 30
00:07:37.420 that would put that would basically on its own put alberta up at the top however that's just
00:07:42.140 that's just an automatic change if alberta had no central bank and had currency competition
00:07:48.540 that would also put us put the albertans up to the top right because it would be like panama where
00:07:53.980 you can choose the currency and whether we use the loonie or the us dollar or a cryptocurrency
00:07:58.460 what have you that would be the ideal scenario the best would rise to the top there are many
00:08:02.540 other changes now there's one important element which many of you here i'm sure are familiar with
00:08:07.660 the fact that the canada's charter of rights and freedoms has no right to property there
00:08:13.260 was a deliberate omission of property which is fundamental to western civilization the
00:08:19.100 enlightenment coming from the british isles a key ingredient from the likes of john locke and adam
00:08:24.380 smith was property canada has rejected that and albertans because they're more rural because
00:08:29.900 they have a resource oriented economy they understand the importance of this so the first
00:08:33.900 thing that would go into any alberta constitution would be right to property that sets you apart
00:08:39.580 it's not just a spectrum it's not just a spectrum of difference it is a difference of kind that they
00:08:45.420 do not believe in property they're i don't know i don't want to use too much hyperbole about
00:08:49.580 socialists or they have a collectivist notion of property versus individual
00:08:53.640 rights or natural rights. These are irreconcilable differences you might say.
00:08:59.000 There are many other changes that would come with Alberta and in my opinion the
00:09:03.920 sky is the limit. However the fact is that a simple departure from Canada
00:09:09.920 alone would get Alberta to the top without any additional changes basically
00:09:14.080 just with the natural proclivities of albertans and relative continuity and so in many ways alberta
00:09:22.240 can be the beacon of the free world to come it can offer basically the freedoms that many americans
00:09:28.960 promote or tout but unfortunately the united states fails to deliver those right so it's
00:09:32.960 almost like the declaration of independence but in albertan style and so i'm very optimistic about
00:09:38.800 that and thanks so much for your attention and please do consider my book
00:09:43.720 I'm selling those at the door. Cheers.