James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership developmentIn recent weeks, I’ve found myself wrestling with an all-too-familiar irritation: taxes. Not the paying of them — which is a civic duty — but the monstrous, ever-expanding burden of them. We Canadians have long accepted that our governments dip deeply into our pockets because, we told ourselves, the returns were worth it. Roads. Healthcare. Security. Civilization itself.But I ask you now — with each paycheque devoured by line after line of tax deductions, with fuel bills padded by carbon schemes, and with Ottawa hatching new levies in the name of saving us from ourselves — are we truly getting value for our sacrifice?As it happens, the Fraser Institute’s latest Canadian Consumer Tax Index dropped into my lap around the same time the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) released its cost-benefit projections for Alberta independence. What began as a curiosity turned quickly into something more serious. The numbers don’t just suggest a better deal — they indict the current one. .According to Fraser, the average Canadian family — two working adults pulling in $106,430 — now pays a staggering $48,199 a year in taxes. That’s over 45% of their total income. Let that settle. You’re working nearly half the year not for your family, not for your future, but for bureaucracies, bailouts and bloated budgets far beyond your reach. You spend less on housing, food, and clothing combined than you do feeding the federal beast.What would Alberta independence mean for your wallet?The Alberta Prosperity Project suggests that we can — and must — reverse this. Their proposal is not just a flag-waving exercise; it is a spreadsheet revolution, and it starts with basic fiscal sovereignty:Alberta collects its own income taxesAdministers its own CPP and EI replacementsAxes the federal carbon tax and excise leviesReplaces Kafkaesque property taxes with a flat, $50-per-frontage-foot modelAnd cut away the hidden parasites: tariffs, red tape, and federal regulatory bloatUnder even a moderate reform, APP estimates a typical Alberta family could save $23,500 annually. With full implementation? $30,500..Let’s break that down:$14,500 saved just by eliminating federal and provincial income taxes$3,200 to $4,500 from replacing CPP and EI with Alberta-run alternatives$1,020 saved by cutting federal carbon and fuel taxes (GST remains)$1,575 in savings from the flat municipal property taxAnd between $4,000 to $6,000 by shaving off the hidden taxes and regulatory costs that inflate prices on everything from groceries to gasAll told, this represents a net income increase of 22% to 29% for Alberta households. Let’s compare that to the Carney–Trudeau–Freeland Liberal “gift” of a 1% tax break. That’s like handing out umbrellas during a flood and calling it a rescue..Now here’s the sobering part. Think about this: $48,000 in taxes a year — nearly six months of your working life — goes to government. Compare that to a Russian serf in the 18th century, who was obliged to give half the year to his landlord. Serfdom. That grim institution we were told was the dark past of authoritarian feudalism — have we simply replaced the whip with Revenue Canada?Can you imagine what an extra $20,000 to $30,000 per year would mean for your family? What it could do for small towns, local businesses, the trades and yes — even young people dreaming of buying their first home?It's time to ask the real question. The APP makes a serious, sober case — not just to secede out of grievance, but to thrive by design. And as Ottawa sinks further into debt, printing future taxes with abandon, Albertans must ask: is this arrangement serving us, or suffocating us?We are not beholden. We are not peasants. And we are not fools.Time to go, Alberta? I say... Time to rise.James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.
