James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development. He was formerly a school principal and teacher of history and active in conservative politicsI had the peculiar privilege of attending an independence rally this past weekend in Edmonton and my attendance was not in vain. The air was not thick with grievance, but with something much more formidable: resolve. These were not kooks in tin-foil hats or the caricatures often rendered by our betters in the Laurentian cloisters. These were honest, hardworking people — sincere to the bone — who feel, and rightly so, that the country they once believed in has forsaken them.As I stood there listening to the speakers, to the ordinary citizens-turned- orators out of sheer necessity, I could not help but hear echoes of another age. The air seemed filled with the ghostly murmurs of old Philadelphia, Lexington, and Concord. One could scarcely miss the parallels between the plight of Alberta today and that of the American colonies before 1776 — only now the offending party is Ottawa, not Westminster..Let us not be coy. The grievance list is long and ignoble. The Stamp Act of 1765? We have our own, in the form of the National Energy Program — an infamous dagger plunged into Alberta’s economic heart. The Tea Act of 1773? We have Bill C-69 — the legislative equivalent of pouring cement into our pipelines. The Intolerable Acts of 1774? Pick your poison: the Emissions Cap, Equalization, Net Zero fantasy policies, the Tanker Ban. Injustice by Ottawa has long since moved from aberration to institution.The American colonies had pamphleteers and patriots. We have independent journalists and digital dissenters, though their platforms — YouTube, podcasts, The Western Standard — are now under siege by Bill C-11 and soon perhaps, by Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act. Ottawa’s censors, cloaked in cultural concern and armed with the CRTC, seek to neuter any voice not singing in the choir of federal orthodoxy. They want silence, not dialogue. Agreement, not debate. And, by God, they’re legislating to get it..What does that mean for us? It means our freedoms — of speech, of enterprise, of provincial autonomy — are being strangled under a national bureaucracy that neither understands us nor particularly wants to. And the worst part? It’s been happening for so long, we’ve started to think it normal. It is not.We have forgotten that governments govern only with the consent of the governed. When that consent is withdrawn, the result is not disobedience — it is reformation. It is renewal. It is independence. Those now whispering the word in the West are not traitors, they are realists. After all, how many more elections must Alberta be sacrificed on the altar of the GTA? How many more billions must we hand over to be lectured, maligned, and ignored?We played by the rules. We invested in the country. We believed in confederation. And what did we receive? Dismissal, derision, and discrimination. The Laurentian elite accepted our billions with the gratitude of a czar and the arrogance of an emperor, but when Alberta stumbled, there was no hand extended, no ear bent in empathy..In fact, Alberta has shown more patience than the American colonies ever did — and for less reward. And now, we are told that wanting independence makes us “sore losers.” No. This is not about losing. It’s about waking up. It’s about realizing that Canada, as it is presently constituted, no longer works for us — if it ever truly did.We are told independence “can’t happen.” Ah, but history laughs at the word “can’t.” Remember this: the tipping point for any movement is just 17% of the population. We are well past that. Polls place support for independence between 30 and 40%. And with Prime Minister Carney soon to wield the green sceptre in Ottawa, fiddling with climate dogma while Alberta burns with frustration, I dare say that number will only rise.Let there be no doubt: the script is already being written, the actors are already taking the stage. The West is stirring. Alberta is awakening. Independence is not a fantasy, nor a bluff. It is the logical conclusion of a century of contempt and exploitation.This is not a question of “if.”It is only a question of when.James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development. He was formerly a school principal and teacher of history and active in conservative politics.
