The Critical Compass Podcast - Stablecoins, CBDCs & Alberta’s New Economy ｜ Fergus Hodgson, Brett Oland & Paz Gomez

00:00:00.000 the governments have used monetary and fiscal policy as control tools forever and they want

00:00:07.520 to be able to harness the power and the use of some technology but also want to keep control

00:00:13.840 of the world reserve currency this is because the stable coins that are based on the on the fiat

00:00:20.320 currency right they can be based on gold and there are stable coins based on gold but these ones

00:00:24.880 especially the U.S. dollar-based stablecoins,

00:00:28.920 they are making that more people in the world use U.S. dollars.

00:00:34.080 In the United States, there are many people,

00:00:36.560 and many of the Americans I've spoken with here,

00:00:39.160 who think, well, we've got to leave.

00:00:40.680 Like, the country's falling apart.

00:00:41.920 You know, the U.S. dollar is going to go down,

00:00:43.760 and the debt is spiraling.

00:00:47.200 And I think, well, where are you going to go?

00:00:49.200 Overwhelmingly, the people pushed back and said,

00:00:54.440 We don't want a central bank digital currency.

00:00:57.200 We don't want this at all.

00:01:04.140 So as I said, we've got on my far left,

00:01:07.420 Brett Oland, chief executive of Bow Valley Credit Union

00:01:10.140 and a leader for, let's say, the microeconomy in Alberta.

00:01:17.260 So a small business, independent people,

00:01:19.640 and not only let's say a leader in terms of his business activities but also being a spokesman to

00:01:25.760 some degree a voice in the matter and then to my immediate left is Paz Gomez or Maria Paz Gomez

00:01:32.540 of Quito Ecuador she has a book available out there when crypto makes sense so she's a she has

00:01:40.140 a master's degree in blockchain and cryptocurrency and she is also co-author with me of financial

00:01:48.000 sovereignty for canadians untether yourself from from the ottawa leviathan so the the title of this

00:01:54.060 panel is capitalize on the new economy now you could interpret that in a variety of ways

00:01:59.920 you know whether it's alberta going it's going her own way or whether it is just us living in

00:02:07.480 a time of incredible change or flux especially with yes both alternative currencies and with

00:02:14.200 the creative destruction of artificial intelligence. Now, I personally have a great

00:02:20.520 interest in cryptocurrencies. And I think a lot of people who care about freedom have an interest in

00:02:24.560 that. So I really want to lean on Paz's expertise in this domain. And there's always a simple

00:02:29.180 question, really. Back in 2010, when Bitcoin became famous, and we all thought cryptocurrencies

00:02:34.220 were going to overthrow the banking system, and there'd be no more central banks. That hasn't

00:02:38.760 quite happened. So, Paz, do you want to walk us through why do you think 16 years later,

00:02:45.960 cryptocurrencies are not more widespread in use than they are? Now, they are in use,

00:02:51.620 but they seem to be more of a buy and hold item. I believe that it's important to have a bath of

00:02:59.580 reality, probably to say everything that is alternative when it becomes a risk for the

00:03:07.300 system and the government, it's going to have a lot of filters and a lot of opposition.

00:03:12.860 And then if it works, probably it is going to change.

00:03:17.460 And that is what happened with the cryptocurrency.

00:03:22.340 There is some cryptocurrencies that have stayed with the original proposal of privacy and

00:03:31.260 independence and financial sovereignty.

00:03:34.420 But others, including probably Bitcoin, have been more part of the system.

00:03:41.020 Because at the end of the day, they are just technological tools that are there to be used

00:03:45.900 in the ways that we want to use them.

00:03:49.260 And the thing is that if we are more freedom advocates using them, probably we are going

00:03:56.700 to use them in the correct way.

00:03:58.960 But if it is just the government and it is just, I don't know, like in El Salvador, the

00:04:03.520 government-based wallet doing it, we're going to have the contrary and goals.

00:04:09.700 Yeah, I have the privilege of editing Paz's article. So we publish financial research

00:04:14.780 with EconAmerica as the sponsor of this event. And you recently wrote an article about how

00:04:20.980 actually stablecoins, rather than undermining the US Federal Reserve System, are actually

00:04:27.980 affirming the treasuries, right? Just do you want to refer to quickly how you came to that conclusion?

00:04:33.520 Yes, this is because the stable coins that have become the actual mainstream right now in the cryptocurrency system are based on the fiat currency, right?

00:04:47.000 They can be based on gold and there are stable coins based on gold.

00:04:49.800 But these ones, especially the US dollar based stable coins, actually what they are doing is they are making that more people in the world use US dollars.

00:05:03.520 And to have this reserve, the central banks need to have U.S. dollars, and then they can,

00:05:12.820 the act, when you issue a U.S. dollar stable coin, you have to have reserves in treasury bills

00:05:23.400 and U.S. dollars in the account, in the bank account. So that makes the multiplying and

00:05:31.540 multiplying U.S. dollar and it is basically supporting the U.S. fiat currency and of course

00:05:38.000 it is also supporting the problem or the solution to the U.S. debt. So it's like a strategy.

00:05:48.480 It's increasing demand to hold U.S. treasuries. Now, Brett, in your role, do you have any

00:05:54.940 insights on the rising of a central bank digital currency? It seems to tie in there.

00:06:01.540 Sure. Yeah. I think probably right around the rise of when Bitcoin was happening, the governments definitely saw the incredible power behind what was happening. And of course, typically form with governments, they try and take that control.

00:06:19.000 And it's like the governments have used monetary and fiscal policy as control tools forever.

00:06:27.440 And so naturally, when they say something as powerful as when Bitcoin started to rocket forward, they wanted to basically harness that power.

00:06:37.700 And so hence what they coined the term a central bank digital currency.

00:06:42.860 So basically, the central banks issue those digital currencies.

00:06:47.860 They definitely have a negative connotation towards them.

00:06:50.980 And I think it was in June 2023, the Bank of Canada issued a survey that basically said,

00:06:57.960 hey, how are you going to use these central bank digital currencies?

00:07:01.360 And I think overwhelmingly, the people pushed back and said, we don't want a central bank digital currency.

00:07:11.060 We don't want this at all.

00:07:12.140 And so the Bank of Canada has stepped back and said, oh, well, yeah, we're not worrying about that program anymore. But you can bet dimes to donuts that in the background, they're probably working towards something like a central bank digital currency. But the momentum, especially behind something like a US dollar stablecoin, and a stablecoin, just for layman's terms, a stablecoin, all it is, is a representation of something else, a digital representation of a dollar, a digital representation of gold.

00:07:42.040 a digital representation of Bitcoin. That's all it is. And so when you take something like the

00:07:48.640 US government, they want to retain control of the world reserve currency. And so enter something

00:07:54.680 like a stable coin, and they want to be able to harness the power and the use of some technology,

00:08:01.260 but also want to keep control of the world reserve currency. So I kind of answered your question

00:08:08.860 scenario. So basically you're saying that the CBDC is just on the shelf for now because it's

00:08:15.380 so unpopular with consumers or voters? Yes, especially issued, but out of the

00:08:21.500 central banks. And so you almost see two different models sort of forming right now.

00:08:27.900 There's the European model, which is definitely more geared towards, hey, listen, we're the

00:08:32.300 government, we're going to take care of you, and we're going to issue this central bank digital

00:08:35.320 currency versus where the American model is going is like, let free enterprise figure this

00:08:40.620 out on their own with the stable coins. We're just going to back it with US debt is what we're

00:08:46.160 going to do. Now, again, in your role working with so many clients, are you seeing an evolution

00:08:54.060 in terms of, let's say, a transition more to the gig economy, more small businesses? Because I think

00:08:59.980 in my own life, if we are living in this age of disruption, of economic change, you know, I think,

00:09:06.060 how do I invest in my vocational application? What about business ventures? And what about

00:09:10.180 just personal portfolio management? So we could, do you see any, from your, let's say, bird's eye

00:09:17.320 view, do you see this happening before your eyes? Do you see people evolving in their decisions

00:09:22.740 away from what was, let's say, a decade ago? Yeah, no, absolutely. You can almost see a

00:09:27.760 transition towards and whether they naturally do it or consciously do it, you sort of see people

00:09:35.640 gravitating towards tangible things. So they recognize that they're sort of holding a melting

00:09:43.000 ice cube with just deposits and only getting 1% interest rate. They recognize that they want to

00:09:48.880 get in a house. They don't know why, but they recognize that the value goes up and they sort

00:09:54.420 of intuitively just know that happens in the background. So that's sort of the intuitive way

00:09:59.340 that people are moving towards sort of this gig economy. But they also recognize that things need

00:10:05.360 to be faster as well. And that's sort of where something like stable coins or cryptocurrencies

00:10:09.360 come in as they recognize that the legacy payment rails are disappearing and are ancient. And in

00:10:17.700 some cases they're 70 years old, 7-0 years old. So they're absolutely just designed to be refreshed

00:10:26.080 with something like a stable coin. And does this new era, I mean, first we've got, assuming,

00:10:32.200 I assume or understand that inward migration within, well, migration within Canada is heavily

00:10:37.920 towards Alberta. So that would be a benefit for Bow Valley, but also in this era of, let's say,

00:10:45.180 just almost guerrilla marketing. It was just like a free-for-all with promoting businesses.

00:10:49.820 Is a smaller bank like yours better able to compete or attract an audience, whereas in the

00:10:55.060 past through major media, they may not have been able to do so? Yeah, absolutely. Especially,

00:10:59.780 you know, our sweet spot for loans is anywhere from about 1.5 million to 10 million. And so

00:11:06.740 most of the major banks won't even touch anything less than 10 million nowadays. They say,

00:11:11.940 It's too much work. I don't want to deal with it. Move on type thing. So there's absolutely a place

00:11:17.980 for niche market credit unions like ourselves that are actually wanting to build up the economic

00:11:26.220 development of Alberta. And that's actually even probably a history story that you know about is

00:11:31.660 Germany after World War II was just decimated, of course. And what they did, one of the things

00:11:39.620 that they did is they created thousands and thousands of little financial institutions

00:11:46.420 because they went in all these different communities and competed with each other

00:11:49.760 and they know Joe from down the street as starting a dairy or something like that

00:11:55.720 and they know Joe personally.

00:11:57.460 And so the recovery of Germany happened so quickly because there were so many minor

00:12:03.520 little tiny little credit unions in the background, little banks in the background

00:12:08.080 not actually are willing to put their money to work for their people in their community

00:12:13.080 versus some big bank out in Toronto basically saying yes or no to a loan.

00:12:18.200 And I'll just say Paz is in many ways a role model of this transition to a gig economy. 0.62

00:12:24.160 She founded her own think tank.

00:12:25.500 She's been working not quite full-time for me, but with me for a long time.

00:12:29.180 And she has other side businesses.

00:12:31.280 I don't know them all, to be frank.

00:12:33.320 But Paz, you've been through challenges in this process.

00:12:37.520 if people want to get out of regular employment and be more of an independent contractor

00:12:41.600 or small business person what would you say to yourself let's say from five or ten years ago

00:12:46.520 to speed up that process well basically is doing it like business because i mean we have this

00:12:56.400 freelancing and panorama in which you say i'm home working or things like that and you have

00:13:04.000 a more alternative. But then when you treat you as a business, as one providing service and one

00:13:11.200 building a business, it becomes different because you can also treat others like clients.

00:13:18.680 So I don't know if this answers, but the thing is, sometimes I believe that the geek economy

00:13:24.980 is considered to be something very different from it was. And one part of my journey has been to be

00:13:32.460 outside of any regulation system. In that sense, I'm not necessarily completely regulated by Ecuador,

00:13:39.420 I'm not necessarily completely regulated by the United States. And that's the way that globalized

00:13:44.620 economy is working nowadays. And probably those rails are more easy to be managed by these new

00:13:53.580 financial rails as well, because disconnects. I have been receiving my remuneration in crypto,

00:14:00.940 in sometimes in remittances systems and things like that but at the end of the day i guess that

00:14:07.340 it's also trying to trying to to make this more common and more communicated just just like

00:14:16.940 globalized businesses because more and more people are doing this and that changes the

00:14:23.100 narrative because the gig economy is not an alternative and to remain as an alternative

00:14:30.060 it is the new way of doing things. And one thing that I was discussing before

00:14:34.140 is also the thing that this can become a way in which we can also reduce or discourage

00:14:44.300 migration, especially for those that are doing services, because people do not have to come to

00:14:50.300 North America to have those jobs. If we can somehow connect North and South America, for instance,

00:14:59.980 Maybe more people can stay in South America and do not have to leave their countries because they can have those kind of jobs that maybe in Canada or the United States, people are not willing to do. 0.63

00:15:11.040 But in this way, of course, we stop migration and all the problems related with that. 0.55

00:15:17.180 Yeah.

00:15:17.880 So we've actually done a lot of work in Central America, and there are so many businesses set up there to cater to North Americans, notably call centers.

00:15:26.120 That's a simple option.

00:15:27.400 They're everywhere.

00:15:27.980 and the young people are basically training themselves

00:15:30.580 to have strong language skills to work in those

00:15:33.520 and so there's still a huge gap

00:15:36.680 and opportunity to create these businesses

00:15:38.820 where the local people will make

00:15:40.120 $500 to $1,000 a month, right, full time

00:15:43.680 so there's just a tremendous

00:15:45.640 I don't know, arbitrage opportunity

00:15:48.800 to hire people who would be productive

00:15:50.940 and as Paz said, there's much more flexibility

00:15:53.700 in that regard to operate outside of

00:15:57.500 let's say conventional norms with employment i told paas when she first started working with me

00:16:02.640 i don't want a full-time job and i don't expect you to have a full-time job so let's do what we

00:16:07.820 really believe in and and we think will generate value and have flexibility in our lives and i

00:16:12.880 think we'll get much more done in fewer hours so maybe paas you want to give is there is like

00:16:18.560 like a a failure story a kind of like a more interesting story that you've you've had because

00:16:22.740 know you used to put on crypto classes in quito and did they end sourly or what happened with that

00:16:28.500 venture uh well no well what i can tell you is uh basically i don't know i went to

00:16:39.300 okay the the one government agency told me to like ask me to work with them and that was my

00:16:46.020 failure story actually yeah i can i can tell you that yeah so basically i am political scientist

00:16:52.500 And once they called me and I worked in the Ecuadorian Presidency, which was a good job.

00:16:58.380 And then they called me to another ministry and I was trying to reduce the size of that

00:17:05.940 ministry and everyone was happy because it's like, wow, someone comes here and is trying

00:17:11.580 to reduce the ministry, reduce the budget and everything.

00:17:15.140 And then they just fired me.

00:17:17.380 Yeah. And then I realized that one person in the whole system is difficult. So you have to go there

00:17:26.060 or somehow with a strategy and a team because just one is difficult.

00:17:31.680 Okay, Brett, obviously one of the themes here is the rising distinctive economy of Alberta

00:17:36.560 with more of a self-awareness of the opportunities here and getting to such a scale now that it can

00:17:44.140 be more broader or more diverse. Do you want to push back against or speak about the opportunity

00:17:52.500 because obviously the chambers of commerce will say that there's this huge cost or huge risk

00:17:57.600 and I'm not saying you've got to have an answer to this, but do you want to speak about the

00:18:02.700 opportunities that come with a more independent or more self-governed region of Canada?

00:18:09.000 Sure. I think it's first I'll start the place where people get just stumped by an actual transition or something like that, where they say we can't do it because we don't have whatever, in my case, the banking infrastructure.

00:18:26.840 And the truth of the matter is 92% of the payments go through the United States anyway. And so think about that number. It's most of the payments in Canada get routed at some way, shape or form through the United States.

00:18:41.220 So if people think that's going to hinder things, it really won't. I can't stress enough how the reduction of red tape and regulatory burden and overhead, that type of thing, it frees up businesses and it frees up entrepreneurs to start thinking about starting businesses, about failing faster.

00:19:05.520 about. And we just see sort of a glimmer of capitalism in a place like China and all of a 0.92

00:19:13.060 sudden it explodes. And so think about something like that in a place like Alberta. If we were

00:19:18.740 just sort of able to reduce that regulatory burden and that overhead, I would be very confident that

00:19:24.780 things would just explode in productivity. Have you had the chance to review that portion of the

00:19:31.500 Alberta Transition Council's report, the banking portion. Did your author want that one?

00:19:36.860 Yeah, I wrote chapter eight.

00:19:38.120 Okay. Okay. Okay. What were the conclusions there? I mean, how many words were in that section?

00:19:45.420 Oh, I can't remember how many words were in the section, but it got significantly reduced down

00:19:50.360 from what it was originally. People definitely wanted almost even a watered down version of an

00:19:57.560 easing into, here's how we transitioned to a new system outside of Canada.

00:20:06.100 Definitely people wanted to know about, in the background, currency.

00:20:09.620 What are we going to do?

00:20:10.940 Are we going to have our own Alberta dollar?

00:20:12.980 Is it going to be a Canadian dollar?

00:20:14.420 Are we going to use the U.S. dollar?

00:20:16.120 What is it going to be?

00:20:16.980 There's definitely a palette for information around that.

00:20:19.460 um so yeah there's a lot of topics that that basically highlighted it's not as scary as you

00:20:28.860 think well i'm not sure i'm stumped right now uh the in my case i have just recently moved back

00:20:38.200 to alberta and i'm settling in the calgary area and still frankly it is a hit financially to move

00:20:45.820 back here and we even have a lady here who's considering it you know considering the move

00:20:49.820 and i said well probably you'll be working for a u.s company from calgary if you want to get the

00:20:54.300 best uh compensation is there any way to promote alberta to people south of the border and attract

00:21:05.660 the right people to come and want to live here right to get these entrepreneurial migrants

00:21:10.300 from south of the border, do you see any opportunities that would make them 0.85

00:21:14.940 go beyond, let's say, a higher tax burden?

00:21:20.060 It's hard to see right now. I know a lot of people in and a lot of friends that are

00:21:24.780 considering leaving because of the state of affairs type thing. You're an anomaly, my friend.

00:21:31.500 I know. I've read recently that for every one American moving to Canada, there are about

00:21:37.100 40 Canadians moving to the United States. It's pretty brutal. And I think that's not going to

00:21:44.460 get better anytime soon. I think it'll just be kind of be consistent there because the gap

00:21:49.580 has grown over the last, let's say, 15, 20 years. Back in the 90s, there was much more comparable

00:21:55.240 economic opportunity. And I don't claim to be an expert on what exactly happened at that time,

00:22:01.080 or why the strength of the currencies diverged, why the compensation diverged, but this just

00:22:06.060 happened. There are people in the United States looking for a way out. This is the irony. We all

00:22:11.360 think that our place is going to hell in a handbasket or whatever, but the grass is always

00:22:17.100 greener. How can I put it? In the United States, there are many people, and many of the Americans

00:22:24.320 I've spoken with here, who think, well, we've got to leave. The country's falling apart. The

00:22:28.780 US dollar is going to go down, and the debt is spiraling. I think, well, where are you going to

00:22:34.680 go and at the last capitalism morality conference i spoke about the prospect of leaving canada

00:22:41.740 as as someone who's both lived here and lived the united states and other places

00:22:45.020 and unfortunately i just don't think there's anywhere to run to right so i think the

00:22:52.780 uh you could you can go and live in paraguay and pay no income tax i don't want to live there

00:23:00.700 right i mean i don't know if you've been there it's a struggling place okay but you can go and

00:23:05.760 have this let's say short-term kick of improvement but in the long run i i still think the uh the

00:23:13.180 united states and canada offer better prospects than the alternatives and joanna yeah she is

00:23:19.060 speaking here is from mexico she's fled uh political persecution and so she's one person

00:23:24.660 is shown through her actions that she believes in being up here now yeah so i personally i still

00:23:31.060 believe that yes that this alberta let's say broader alberta national region is the best place

00:23:38.180 to be now you might get places like new hampshire that are of comparable let's say

00:23:43.180 nature in terms of focusing on liberty or opportunity so my my hope is just that here

00:23:51.120 because this is this is something i'm wrestling with right now i really want to attract the right

00:23:56.080 migrants to alberta because i just i fear it's it's not going in that direction right now that

00:24:01.800 that the welfare state is attracting the wrong people that canada's generous refugee policies 0.99

00:24:06.320 are attracting the wrong people and we we don't want to be in a situation where canada is has a

00:24:12.240 more generous welfare state versus the united states and so people who don't like that will

00:24:16.920 go to the United States. Okay. So it's still something I'm wrestling with. That's why I

00:24:21.360 thought maybe Brett would have some wisdom, but it's a challenge I'm facing that why would you

00:24:25.620 come here when you can live in Montana? You know, it's a really tough one because right now I'm not

00:24:31.880 a big supporter of the 51st state idea. I'm opposed to that, but I do see that we're really

00:24:37.420 struggling in that competitive battle. So really our easiest attraction is from people elsewhere

00:24:42.900 in Canada, from Newfoundland or wherever it may be, to come here.

00:24:47.940 Okay.

00:24:48.940 Well, do we have questions from the audience for Brett?

00:24:53.080 Thank you.

00:24:56.440 It's not a question so much as it's a clarification.

00:24:59.960 The Bank of Canada has tested CBDC settlement and they've built retail designs.

00:25:07.400 Yes, they scaled back the public rollout with – because the polling was kind of negative.

00:25:14.260 But technologically, they're ready.

00:25:17.640 I think they're waiting for political will and I wonder if you agree to that.

00:25:24.140 A bit of insider baseball.

00:25:26.360 They did attempt to try and do what was called a wholesale central bank digital currency.

00:25:31.720 So they basically tried to sell off a digital treasury and it worked.

00:25:36.440 And it was fine, but on the retail level, I think they're woefully behind and woefully naive if they think they can pick something up like this.

00:25:46.600 Because banking, whether you sort of see it, oh, I saw my money go to Fergus, you know, banking's easy, right?

00:25:54.180 There's a lot more to it than something like that.

00:25:57.680 Retail is probably more complicated than even business banking just because there's so many microtransactions that are happening.

00:26:05.640 and if the Bank of Canada thinks that they can do that, I just think they're sadly, sadly mistaken.

00:26:11.540 So now, that being said, there is a Soviet Union example of where they had an actual central bank

00:26:17.460 and one commercial bank and everybody had to be part of that commercial bank.

00:26:22.120 So now here's my concern is, oh, you know what, we're issuing these universal basic income checks

00:26:30.000 and guess what, everybody needs to have an account with RBC

00:26:33.260 and if you don't have an RBK bank account with RBC or you've been debanked or whatever,

00:26:39.720 tough luck. And so effectively, I think that's probably the tool that they would use

00:26:45.260 versus a direct central bank digital currency with the central bank. They would employ one

00:26:51.540 of the commercial banks to basically say, everybody needs to have an account with that

00:26:55.840 commercial bank.

00:26:57.080 Paz, do you want to comment on why a central bank is such a concern? I think we had a chapter

00:27:01.400 or two in the book. I lose track now. But why is that so different from just the banking system

00:27:06.580 we have now? Almost everything is digitized and we're being tracked and I don't feel like I have

00:27:10.500 any privacy when I make transactions. Yeah, actually, it's very similar what we have right

00:27:17.980 now. Is it negative interest rates that they want to basically tax you for even having a cash

00:27:24.360 balance that's one that's one of the things because uh it the the issuance policy can also

00:27:31.300 be more manipulable if if they have the whole system that is one thing not necessarily the

00:27:37.840 negative interest right but also uh the the issuance and some things that will uh yeah

00:27:44.640 could alter the monetary system in the long run it is just more direct access to control of that

00:27:51.340 Yeah, and the same with control and privacy, because right now you have to ask some private agent to block, to throw accounts or things like that.

00:28:03.900 But if you have all the system, you are just able to do whatever.

00:28:08.340 Yeah, I want to go back just quickly to what can attract people to Alberta in a positive sense.

00:28:13.700 if this independence movement can be seen as credible and likely that would be huge the number

00:28:24.560 of americans like jim who'd want to move here would be enormous i'm just saying that so many

00:28:31.720 americans feel like their liberties are dying as well that their their federal government is against

00:28:37.100 them they would just be like they would be into it and already i've spoken with people in montana

00:28:43.900 wyoming so i just i think the more this that idea becomes credible and likely the more you see i

00:28:52.060 know it seems strange right now because everyone's going the other direction but you'd see americans

00:28:55.420 coming to alberta to enjoy that promise i mean mylene was talking about just the way that even

00:29:01.100 having any kind of choice between jurisdictions is healthy and she works with a man who has a

00:29:06.060 business expat money i'm not sure what it's called right now but basically people trying to escape

00:29:09.980 the united states in canada to go and live in panama or wherever they want to go live there's

00:29:13.580 huge demand to escape both the united states and canada and largely they're looking for like a

00:29:18.540 jurisdictional renewal but drew you want to ask a question mike yep please uh thank you i have a

00:29:24.220 question for both of you uh pause first of all i'm pro development pro business all the time

00:29:30.620 time, data centers. I understand data centers are directly connected to cryptocurrency.

00:29:36.900 It's a whole area I don't even begin to understand. So I'd like to hear what you think

00:29:42.260 about data centers and Alberta going ahead, becoming a leader in data centers under the

00:29:48.020 right way. And Brett, if you wouldn't mind tackling the same question if you want,

00:29:51.860 but at the same time, I liked what you said about reducing regulation.

00:29:55.340 The oil and gas industry in Alberta, like agriculture is one of our bread and butters,

00:30:00.620 But it hurts me that you need five or ten times the reserves to develop oil and gas in Alberta than you would in Saskatchewan.

00:30:07.720 If we could come up with proper regulations for oil and gas in Alberta, would your credit union support small business and support small entrepreneurs?

00:30:18.360 Yes.

00:30:20.520 It's a loaded question.

00:30:22.580 But data centers, I don't even know.

00:30:24.760 Tell us, Paz.

00:30:25.480 Yeah, well, data centers are basically everything that is connected to the, especially artificial intelligence. So you need a lot of this industry. And the great debate with data centers is that they use a lot of energy and a lot of water. But there are different ways and innovative ways to not waste all the resources that is the usual speech.

00:30:52.700 But the thing is that, yes, it can be an opportunity, and not only data centers, I think that all these innovative and disruptive technologies, because we have a lot of new technologies that are emerging and becoming more mainstream, like artificial intelligence, data centers, and all these things, can become part of what a new nation attracts to make businesses.

00:31:15.160 So, for instance, we have the Estonia case, right, that they become a very efficient e-government,

00:31:22.120 and in that way, they have attracted a lot of businesses around the world to register

00:31:28.180 there and to pay taxes there, and it has a very effective system, and that is why people

00:31:34.500 go and create their business there.

00:31:36.840 And I believe that something similar with data centers and other innovative technologies

00:31:42.860 could be done in Alberta to attract new businesses.

00:31:45.860 But Paz, are there concerns about environmental damage or loss of privacy?

00:31:50.220 Because people fear what they don't understand or don't know about.

00:31:52.960 And I feel the same way.

00:31:53.960 I'm going, I don't really know what this is.

00:31:55.360 Yeah.

00:31:56.360 I mean, for everything that related to internet, you will have these problems.

00:32:01.760 What should be the way to reduce or to create more privacy in data centers?

00:32:09.220 could be by connecting blockchain that is the technology underlying cryptocurrencies behind

00:32:15.280 and having a more, yeah, cryptological research. But it is more an infrastructure thing. The data

00:32:23.700 centers are more infrastructure than how data is delivered. So just a little bit more understanding

00:32:31.160 about data centers. Data centers are out there already. There's just a lot fewer of them and

00:32:36.840 they're smaller. So I hear four sort of main issues around data centers. Number one, power.

00:32:42.180 My power bill won't go up. The whole reason it kind of makes a lot more sense in Alberta

00:32:47.340 is that we have a ton of natural gas. And as you sort of start to see the U.S. move towards more

00:32:53.260 nuclear power, which you will, all of a sudden you're going to have this byproduct natural gas

00:32:57.920 that's going to become very inexpensive to power these data centers. So I don't think that's going

00:33:02.020 to be an issue of cost of electricity. Number two, water. You're going to wreck my water.

00:33:08.320 It kind of works like a radiator in a car. So you sort of fill it up and then the technology's

00:33:15.000 farther along that it actually cools down. And before, yeah, sure, they were just flushing water

00:33:20.440 through these things and polluting the water, but now they've created systems where there's

00:33:24.520 actually sort of a radiator system. So you're not using nearly as much water. Number three,

00:33:30.480 the noise, you know, that's also solvable. Like the earlier data centers used to make a lot of

00:33:35.520 the humming. The technology has come a long way. You can put these things in a better spot. You

00:33:40.240 can put them in industrial areas where nobody's bothered by the humming. And finally, there's

00:33:46.180 always that dystopian piece that I hear as a complaint. It's like, well, they're going to

00:33:50.180 collect all my data and they're going to have it there. And it's like, if in my dystopian mindset,

00:33:55.720 I want that data center as close as it can be so I can go smash that fucker if we need to. 1.00

00:34:03.200 Okay, that was great, Brad. 1.00

00:34:05.020 So thank you, folks, and I'll let Darcy take the reins now. 0.52

00:34:09.480 Cheers.

00:34:25.720 Thank you.

The Critical Compass Podcast - September 25, 2026

Stablecoins, CBDCs & Alberta’s New Economy ｜ Fergus Hodgson, Brett Oland & Paz Gomez

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