James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.As a Canadian, I confess to watching my country’s troubles not with outrage first — but with disbelief. A stunned, slack-jawed astonishment at how quickly a nation once steady, responsible, and confident has managed to drive itself into the ditch and keep the accelerator pressed. And now, a fresh Liberal budget is upon us — yet another thick, glossy brochure promising “investments in the future,” which in the plain tongue of the taxpayer means more spending, more debt, and another shovel-load of red ink poured into a pit we can no longer see the bottom of.We speak of “sudden decline,” but let us not feign surprise. This collapse did not come overnight. It is the natural, inevitable consequence of a decade of Liberal policy — government as sermon, ideology as scripture, arithmetic dismissed as unfashionable and inconvenient. Momentum alone now carries us downward, and momentum is a merciless companion.Consider the catechism: carbon taxes layered upon fuel standards upon electric-vehicle mandates — a climate altar erected not beside the economy, but atop it. Then came the heavy artillery: the tanker ban off BC’s north coast (Bill C-48), the “no-new-pipelines” regulatory gauntlet of Bill C-69, and now an emissions cap poised to throttle what remains of Canada’s energy backbone. One could almost admire the purity of the crusade — if it were not so economically suicidal..And the results? As predictable as snowfall in February. GDP per capita sagging. Productivity comatose. Investment per worker evaporating. Capital fleeing to saner jurisdictions. Meanwhile, an immigration surge — welcomed without the slightest preparation in housing, healthcare, transit, or energy capacity — has choked our cities and shredded affordability. We are a nation swelling in number and shrinking in prosperity. In any sane country, this would be a scandal; here, it is shrugged off as progress.Then, the sorcery of the printing press — money conjured in such enthusiastic torrents that inflation became the quiet confiscation of household prosperity. Wages stalled while prices soared, and the middle class learned — painfully — that government generosity often comes with a bill pinned to the back of the citizen.Some say this is incompetence. I wish that were true. But when a government repeatedly adopts policies that hobble its own economy, drive out investment, inflate dependence, and centralize authority under the guise of benevolence, we must consider the possibility that the outcome is not accident but design. A weakened citizen is a manageable citizen; the bureaucratic state fattens as the household thins.To my friends in America: look north. Not out of envy, as once was common, but for caution. Had the last US election gone differently, you would be marching down the same marble-paved road to stagnation. The ideological spoor was already there. Policy by aspiration, energy by wish, spending by fantasy..But a reckoning arrived, and the United States — for now — has chosen something braver: discipline. Energy re-enabled. Borders re-asserted. Industry re-shored. Regulation trimmed. Debt confronted. Not perfectly, no — but with more courage than we mustered here. You stopped the bleeding; we opened another vein.And here I must tip the hat to the American Founders — architects of a constitutional fortress against the tyranny of geography and population. The Electoral College and the system of balanced federalism ensure that the few do not permanently rule the many. A safeguard Canada lacks entirely.For a decade now, the political destiny of this nation has been decided by the vote-rich Laurentian belt — Toronto and Montreal — while the West, which feeds the treasury and powers the economy, is treated as an inconvenience. This is not representation; it is regional disenfranchisement with parliamentary varnish.When US citizens feel unheard, they have recourse. Witness Oregon: 13 of its 36 counties voted to explore realigning with Idaho — a democratic escape hatch built into the system. Not merely protest, but process. A constitutional remedy for democratic failure.In Canada, we have no such latitude. And so Western alienation grows — not from tantrum, but from a cold accounting of the balance sheet and democratic arithmetic denied.We are approaching a point where our economy may fail and with it the parliamentary pretense that has served as our civic comfort blanket. Freedom, prosperity, genuine capitalism, limited government — all are being traded for dependency, bureaucracy, and a politics of fear and division.Canada should be a cautionary tale to the United States. Europe tumbles first, we follow close behind, and America — if wisdom falters — could be next.To my American neighbors: take heed and hold fast. Hard choices are not the enemy; they are the lifeboats of nations. We here in Canada did not make them. Do not repeat our mistake.James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.
