James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.Now, I know I’m old. As much as I try to deny it, the mirror is an unkind reminder that quickly dispels any notion of continued youthful vitality. But lately, I’ve had the creeping suspicion that my vintage is showing not just in the mirror but in my sense of how quickly Canada has “progressed” into the 21st century. Progress, some call it. And some of it surely is. But other parts? Well, let’s just say the label doesn’t always fit the jar.I’ve been in conversations of late about something our schools once taught, and our young seem blissfully spared from: civics. That’s the quaint old subject where citizens learned that freedom isn’t a spectator sport. Instead, it’s about roles and responsibilities — yours, mine, the community’s, and yes, the government’s. Shocking, I know..EDITORIAL: Canada’s new hate crime legislation: A dangerous erosion of free speech .Here’s the kindergarten version: we’re born free, with rights that don’t come stamped “Made in Ottawa” but exist by nature or by God. First government? Mom and Dad. They introduced us to rules, siblings, and the trauma of sharing. Communities came next, teaching us that independence works better when it’s interdependence. And government, in theory, is simply an extension of that community compact.When citizens break the contract, we call it crime. When government breaks it, we call it tyranny. And tyranny, history reminds us, has its remedies too.Constitutions, despite what civics-starved politicians may say, were not written to chain citizens but to chain governments. Why? Because rulers are no less prone to vanity, greed, and the odd lapse of honesty than the rest of us. Early democracies knew this well..Some even refused to pay their politicians — a model many Canadians would still cheer today.We built checks and balances. We insisted on elections. And we believed that no single man or office should hoard power like Halloween candy.But here’s the catch. We also fell for a great illusion: that simply marking a ballot every four years would preserve freedom. Nonsense. That’s like thinking that eating at McDonald’s would make you a burger..EDITORIAL: Defending Alberta’s children: Why the notwithstanding clause is necessary.What we did not foresee — or perhaps what we were too polite to name — was the ascent of the administrative state. That permanent clerisy of bureaucrats and credentialed experts, unelected yet indispensable. They remain when governments fall, whispering their catechism into the ears of ministers, and, when the mood strikes, running the whole show themselves.They are invisible but immovable, unaccountable but unavoidable. Their roots are in those laboratories of fashionable thought we once called universities, where conviction is brewed stronger than reason, and where orthodoxy marches in academic gowns..And how exquisitely sensitive they are to dissent. Should citizens dare step out of line, the mandarins frown. Should citizens insist on independent thought, they call it dangerous. They would sooner disarm the citizen, empower the criminal, and brand speech itself as suspect if it strays from the canon they have blessed.The paradox is stark: liberty, once guarded against the abuse of government, now finds itself hemmed in by the government’s auxiliaries — those who do not govern, but govern nonetheless. And the worst of it is how little we notice, until the bars are already welded..LYTLE: Strike first, ask later: Alberta’s teachers gamble with public trust.And yet, the primary purpose of government was always understood to be simple: protect freedom, secure property, ensure justice (equal standing under the law and due process), and provide for the common good — all under the bridle of limited power. In short, uphold the good, punish the bad, and stay the heck out of our lives.When that contract is broken? The duty falls first to protest, then to exhaust every legal avenue, and lastly — as a tragic necessity — to resist through the authority of a local government..So, where does Alberta stand? After 120 years of politely raising its hand in Confederation’s classroom, we now face Ottawa’s lecture hall of creeping overreach: speech curbs, financial choke points, “voluntary” confiscation of the arms of the citizens, emergency powers at the ready, surveillance schemes, federal jurisdiction elbowing into everything, justice bent like a hockey stick in spring, elections nudged by rule-makers, and a press far too cozy with government cheques. It seems that the lawbreakers are coddled and the lawkeepers are vilified. The mirror image of what a healthy government is meant to be.If you’ve been following, you’ll know these are the exact mileposts that led Germany and Italy into totalitarianism. Different backdrop, same play..CARPAY: Alberta proposes a step towards bigger government.Alberta, unlike many jurisdictions, actually has a constitutional exit door. And after a century of patience that would make Job look rash, perhaps the question isn’t whether Albertans have the right (and we do) — but whether our leaders have the courage.For all their forbearance, Albertans deserve that choice. And if our Premier doesn’t see it, she should look in the mirror, it will tell her. After all, she is an Albertan, and sometimes a frank reconnoissance with reality is the most radical act of all. Remember, Premier Smith, hope is not a plan.James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.
