The Critical Compass Podcast - April 09, 2026


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

Mentioned
Brexit Financial Sovereignty Francis Fukuyama John Locke Jason
“What Happens If We Do Nothing？” ｜ Independence： 5 Key Questions w⧸ Tanya Clemens Ottawa Has Gone From Not Helping, to Interfering, to Downright Threatening Alberta ｜ Martyupnorth

Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

185.29

Word count

1,816

Sentence count

53

Harmful content

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, I speak with Jason Kenney, the author of Financial Sovereignty for Canadians, about why Alberta should leave Canada and why it can be the freest and most accountable nation on the planet. We talk about the economic and political benefits of an independent Alberta, the challenges facing Canada, and the potential impact it can have on the world.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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, 1.00
00:01:32.800 because of socialism. 1.00
00:01:34.340 They have a highly educated population.
00:01:36.840 They're very European. 1.00
00:01:37.560 You think to yourself, how is this country such a disaster? 1.00
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 0.99
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, 0.99
00:06:31.900 right? Okay, so if we're spending more than 60% of the economy is government spending in Nova 0.99
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.