Wexit Is the Path Forward

Martial Law Shows Canada Is Over, Alberta Must Lead Independence

This is a chapter from the epilogue of Financial Sovereignty for Canadians: Untether Yourself from the Ottawa Leviathan (2024). Wexit would be an untethering en masse from Ottawa, and favorable sentiment has risen swifter than I anticipated. Please consider buying the book (which includes extensive references) and listening to my interview with Michael Wagner on how to achieve Alberta independence. My recent analyses of the Canadian situation appear with the Impunity Observer: “Three Reasons Why Canada's Days Are Numbered” (video) and “Six Silver Linings from Canada’s Vote for Serfdom.”

My response to the Liberal Party victory: Alberta will be free.

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There is no turning back for Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's nine days of martial law in February 2022 forever undermined trust in the British Commonwealth nation. His childish, authoritarian, and hypocritical crackdown on the Freedom Convoy of truckers was, as described by the last living author of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, "completely and absolutely unnecessary."

If ever there were a moment to catalyze Wexit—independence for Canada's Western provinces—this is it. With no moral legitimacy and an incoherent confederation, the only thing holding Canada together is status quo bias. On the flip side, newly independent nations in Western Canada could lead the world in state-of-the-art governance and in protecting natural rights such as property and privacy.

Canadian-born legal scholar Andrew Fraser writes that the Laurentian ruling class (of Ontario and Quebec) attaches "no significance to the British roots of their now proudly 'post-national state.'" According to Trudeau, Canada has "no core identity." We should not be surprised then that he and the other deracinated parasites in Ottawa are, as Fraser explains, "prepared to sacrifice history, tradition, and cultural identity" and "undermine the community they profess to lead."

The Maverick Party, formerly Wexit Canada, acknowledges, "It is time for the West to break free from the shackles of Ottawa's tyranny and take the first all-important step to declare the four Western provinces a nation-within-a-nation." Paul Hinman, former leader of the Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta, has condemned Ottawa's police-state tactics and says, "It's time to let go of the thing that's biting us."

If Alberta were to lead the way and leave, so too would fellow Prairie province Saskatchewan. Manitoba and British Columbia would be the next to join the departing Western provinces. Quebec, which came excruciatingly close to secession in 1995, would reconsider and go her own way rather than remain on a sinking ship. The Atlantic Canadian provinces—New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island—could also form a more cohesive constituency.

Tyranny Has Crossed the Rubicon

The silver lining to Ottawa's Third-World lawlessness is that it is naked. Independent media have forgone federal subsidies—which are shameless bribery—and broadcast the truth to audiences far and wide. The likes of Ezra Levant's Rebel Media and Dan Dicks's Press for Truth have gone around regime media and revealed the centralization and intolerance in Ottawa that has been growing for decades.

Now it is out in the open, outlandish, and undeniable. Hundreds of donors to the convoy lost access to their bank accounts, and convoy organizer Tamara Lich has been in and out of jail on bogus charges. Retired judge Brian Giesbrecht describes her treatment as part of a two-tier justice system that persecutes those with "unacceptable views … They are no longer citizens but enemies."

Western Standard Publisher Derek Fildebrandt, whose outlet has been at the forefront of independent journalism in Canada, wrote that martial law laid bare the fecklessness of common-law and constitutional restraints: "ineffectual courts have proven that in any real dispute between the power of the state and the rights of the individual, they've got the government's back."

Fildebrandt deemed the so-called Emergencies Act "an act of war" against peaceful constituents and called for people to be "ungovernable," a de facto secession. Alberta and Saskatchewan should also declare the war measures "null and void within our territorial borders." That is nullification in the best sense of the word.

Although Canadians across the country have backed the convoy and opposed martial law, the movement's populist, profreedom roots came most stridently from Western Canada: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Residents of Calgary, Alberta's commercial center, were the biggest donors to the convoy. Sadly, GoFundMe's freezing of funds and the federal seizing of bank accounts mean little money got to the desired recipients.

Unresponsive for the two years of COVID-19's arrival, the Alberta and Saskatchewan provincial governments were eventually the swiftest to address convoy concerns. All COVID-19 mandates and restrictions have finally ended in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

This geographic imbalance underlines how Western Canada is distinct from Laurentian Canada. The distinction is weakest in coastal British Columbia and strongest in Alberta and Saskatchewan. This comes from the West's rooted rural population and greater inclinations toward rugged individualism, cultural and Christian conservatism, free-market policies, and pro-US sentiments. The anti-Americanism that defines Laurentian Canada is less pervasive in the West, especially the Prairie provinces, which have more in common with neighboring mountain states such as Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

The 2022 election of Danielle Smith to United Conservative Party leadership and the Alberta premiership exemplifies the Western sentiment. She is a longtime advocate for business-friendly policies and natural rights, and she was one of the precious few politicians to back the convoy. Smith has pushed back strongly against COVID-19 vaccination mandates, even suggesting that police acted unlawfully when enforcing lockdowns. Beyond words, she has removed budgetary and rule-making powers from the unelected Alberta Health Services.

I have met Smith a few times over the years, including in 2009 when I interviewed with her for a job with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, where she was provincial director. While I am reluctant to back any politician, and Smith has made serious missteps in recent years, she has demonstrated her commitment to Alberta sovereignty. As a radio host in 2019, after interviewing Calgary-based economist Gerard Lucyshyn, Smith even supported the idea of redrawing the Alberta and Saskatchewan borders to give sea access.

If Not Now, When?

Longtime Alberta separatist Cory Morgan, author of The Sovereigntist's Handbook (2023), once wrote that Albertans were reluctant separatists: "They will speak out in favor of secession and will begin to poll favorably in support of it for a time. When given any possible lifeline, however … Albertans will quickly cling to it. Most folks really don't want to go."

Morgan's first rule of separatism, therefore, is "you have to mean it."

There is no lifeline, not even close. Those days are long gone, if they ever existed. As Morgan notes, there was a 2001 open letter from prominent conservatives, an incremental plan for greater provincial autonomy: "while the primary author of the Alberta Agenda [Stephen Harper] became our prime minister for years … not a single goal of the Alberta Agenda has been achieved."

As noted in The Sovereigntist's Handbook, the Canadian system was born broken: "When we realize the system can't be fixed, we become truly dedicated supporters of independence." Morgan advocates a bottom-up strategy and movement, growing one person at a time, as opposed to waiting for a charismatic leader or game-changing organization.

Canada's political class have for generations shown their loyalties do not lie with salt-of-the-earth Canadians, especially with the robbing of the Prairie province economies by Ottawa. The so-called people-centered just transition for energy resources, introduced in 2021, portends even more wealth distribution away from Saskatchewan and Alberta. To Trudeau and "enlightened Laurentian socialists," writes Marco Navarro-Génie of the Haultain Research Institute, "it offers a deadly blow to Alberta and yet another opportunity to pit his hated region of the country against the rest."

Aside from eliciting a martial-law crackdown, the convoy received barely latecomer support in the Canadian parliament. Conservative Party Leader Erin O'Toole, now ousted, dragged his feet and was reluctant to say anything positive about what Counter Signal described as "the biggest movement in recent Canadian history."

Meanwhile, as Trudeau was defaming the convoy—who represent the best of honest, hard-working Canadians—he was catering to record numbers of migrants. Canada's population in 2021 grew almost twice as fast as other G7 nations to reach 37 million, with another 1.3 million slated for the next three years. Trudeau is proud of his bromance with Klaus Schwab and his allegiance to the World Economic Forum rather than to Canadian national interests.

If the federal government's lawlessness does not push fence-sitting Albertans and other Westerners, one wonders what can. There is no light at the end of the tunnel within Canada. Ottawa has shown its hand, and no amount of pleading or demonstrations of outrage will make Ottawa prioritize the West. Conversely, as a December 2022 documentary by Rebel News asserts, Alberta is ungovernable and on a "quest for independence."

Nadine Wellwood, a People's Party candidate for Banff-Airdrie in 2021, distills the acute problem for Westerners: "We, the citizens of the supposed free world, are no longer governed by representation from those we have elected, but rather it seems we are ruled by a small number of career politicians, technocrats, and global elitists." Trudeau's Liberal Party got only 32.6 percent of a 62.5 percent turnout in 2021. However, such is the cowardly acquiescence in Ottawa that he has been able to rule with power akin to that of a monarch.

The Buffalo Party of Saskatchewan, whose name signals a desire for independence alongside Alberta, said "freedom died" with Parliament's confirmation of the Emergencies Act. "Our federal government doesn't care about anything other than their own personal mandates. We need autonomy from Ottawa, and we need it now."

The time for theorizing is over. Now is the time for action: get out while you still can and open the door to modern, decentralized, and responsive governance. Given Quebec's 1995 attempt, there is already a legislative framework in place for peaceful and orderly secession from Canada. Western Canada need not be a serf colony of Laurentian Canada, and Alberta can be the first province to break the pathological inertia of Canadian confederation.

Fergus Hodgson, CAIA, is director of Econ Americas and author of The Latin America Red Pill (2024). Book a personal consulting session with him and follow him on X, LinkedIn, and Amazon.