Canadians have become so accustomed to monopolies and oligopolies that we barely notice them anymore.We fly mostly on two major airlines. We bank with a handful of enormous banks. Our cell phones and internet connections are dominated by a few telecommunications companies. Two national railways control most freight transportation. Three major grocery groups dominate food retailing. Dairy, poultry, and eggs are protected by supply management. Even in Alberta, the heart of Canadian cattle country, two multinational companies process roughly 84% of Canada's beef slaughter.We call this capitalism. Much of it looks more like managed competition.The cost is buried in virtually everything Albertans buy: phone bills, airline tickets, mortgages, groceries, and freight charges built into everything from lumber to lettuce. An independent Alberta could attack that problem directly by opening our economy to foreign competitors while making it much easier for Alberta entrepreneurs to challenge entrenched incumbents.Done properly, that could reduce the cost of living across the board while driving investment, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. The principle should be simple: if a reputable company can meet Alberta's safety, solvency, and consumer-protection standards, it should be allowed to compete here, regardless of where its shareholders live.No Canadian ownership requirements. No protected national champions. No artificial barriers simply because the competitor comes from Montana, Texas, Britain, or Australia. And no protection for Alberta companies simply because they are Albertan. Independence would accomplish little if we escaped Canada's oligopolies only to recreate smaller versions of them at home.Consider what genuine competition could mean.Air Canada and WestJet dominate domestic air traffic. To encourage competition, allow foreign-owned Alberta airlines and negotiate open-skies and cabotage agreements. Research shows that adding an extra airline to a route can reduce fares by 5–10%..Six banks control approximately 93% of banking assets. We welcome foreign retail banks, fintechs, and Alberta challengers under stringent prudential regulations. For instance, a 0.25 percentage point reduction in mortgage interest rates translates to approximately $1,250 less interest paid in the first year.Grocery stores are dominated by three major groups. Support international grocers and Alberta independents by removing barriers to entry and restrictive property controls. Even small reductions in these barriers could significantly impact a family’s annual food bill.Dairy, poultry, and eggs quotas and high import barriers stifle competition. Gradually buy out quotas and open the market to increased competition. OECD reports average over-quota dairy tariffs of approximately 223%.Beef processing in Canada is dominated by JBS and Cargill, who control approximately 84% of the slaughter market. To promote competition and strengthen the industry, it’s crucial to encourage independent and producer-owned processors in Alberta. Simplifying expansion processes will also help attract more buyers for cattle, increase processing capacity, and foster a more competitive market. Rail freight is dominated by two national railways. Negotiate competitive track access, switching rights, and short-line opportunities. This would lower freight costs for agriculture, energy, construction, and manufacturing.Telecommunications demonstrates how powerful this can be. Canada's Competition Bureau found wireless prices were generally 35 to 40% lower where the three national carriers faced a strong regional competitor. Nothing magical happened to the technology. It was the result of increased competition. Alberta knows this story. Shaw began as an Alberta cable company and became a major national telecommunications competitor. Canadian Western Bank grew out of Edmonton into a serious Western banking alternative. WestJet began in Calgary with three aircraft and became Canada's principal challenger to Air Canada. Remember Pacific Western, Ward Air, Time Air, and Canadian Airlines? Government planners did not create those companies. Albertan entrepreneurs did. Yet Shaw was eventually absorbed by Rogers, and Canadian Western Bank by National Bank. WestJet is now owned by the Onex Corporation. The lesson is not that Alberta needs government-owned replacements. It is that we need an economy where the next Shaw, WestJet, or Canadian Western Bank can emerge, and where successful challengers are not routinely swallowed by incumbents..Foreign competition would reinforce that pressure.An independent Alberta could negotiate aviation agreements allowing more American and international carriers into our market. If another competitor reduced a $500 airline ticket by just 7%, a family of four would save $140 on one trip. Multiply that competition across routes and years, and the numbers become meaningful.Banking could matter even more. Canada's six largest banks hold roughly 93% of banking assets. Alberta could establish a conservative banking regulator while admitting qualified American and international banks, fintech companies, and new Alberta institutions. Would you welcome a mortgage with a 25-year term? At a much more competitive interest rate? Because you can get one in the US. The savings would not primarily come from eliminating a monthly chequing fee. They would come from competition for mortgages, commercial loans, merchant services, and investment capital. A quarter-point reduction matters when a homeowner owes $500,000. It matters much more when an Alberta company is borrowing millions to expand.Agriculture offers another opportunity. Canada's supply-management system deliberately restricts production and imports. Alberta should not simply confiscate quotas from farmers who purchased them legally and financed them in good faith. A fair transition would buy them out over time, then allow producers to expand and consumers to benefit from genuine competition.Beef demonstrates why foreign ownership itself is not the problem. JBS and Cargill are already foreign-owned. The problem is concentration. Alberta needs more processors bidding for our cattle, another Harmony Beef, producer-owned facilities, and specialized processors able to compete throughout North America.The objective should not be protection from foreign companies. It should be competition with them.I have written previously in the Western Standard about the billions in new investment continuing to flow into Alberta despite claims that the independence discussion is frightening capital away. The next step is to create an economy where that capital, and Albertan capital, can enter markets without running into artificial barriers designed to protect Central Canada’s interests. Or the interests of whoever got there first. With a clear, stable, fair, and competitive regulatory environment, that investment capital flow would increase exponentially. .Yes, there is a danger here. Five million Albertans could easily end up with an economy even more concentrated than Canada's if independence became an excuse to protect local favourites or manufacture government-backed "Alberta champions." We should do precisely the opposite.Make Alberta relentlessly competitive. Welcome outside capital. Simplify licencing. Recognize equivalent American and European standards where practical. Build and defend property rights. Punish collusion. Make it easy to start a business, easy to compete, and easy for consumers to walk away from companies that overcharge or underperform.Could Canada make these reforms? Certainly. It has had decades to do so, even against relentless pressure, but these types of reforms are not in the interests of the Laurentian elite who rule over us. That is the real issue. Independence would not magically make groceries, mortgages, or airline tickets cheaper. But independence would give Alberta control over the rules that determine who is allowed to compete for our business. That distinction matters.The economic argument for independence cannot be confined to calculating how much money leaves Alberta for Ottawa. It should also ask what Alberta could become once we controlled the economic architecture ourselves.Imagine banks fighting for our mortgages instead of customers begging for approval. Airlines fighting for passengers. Telecommunications companies fighting for subscribers. Grocers fighting for each consumer. Meat processors fighting for cattle. International companies entering Alberta while Alberta entrepreneurs challenge them here and eventually compete with equal access across all of North America.That kind of competition would force prices down, reduce our overall cost of living, improve service, and reward innovation. Capital will move toward opportunity. Inefficient companies would either improve or lose customers. New businesses would emerge because the door would finally be open. That is not radical economics. That is how capitalism is supposed to work.For generations, Alberta has operated under economic rules written largely elsewhere, for the benefit of others, often designed around Canadian political compromises, protected industries, and national incumbents. We have accepted the resulting higher costs as though they were unavoidable.They are not. An independent Alberta could decide who may operate here, how markets are regulated, which trade barriers remain, and whether consumers or incumbents come first. We could build an economy around competition rather than protection, and entrepreneurship rather than political privilege.Why should Ottawa continue deciding who Albertans are allowed to buy from, borrow from, fly with, sell to, or compete against? We are capable of making those decisions ourselves.Independence means accepting responsibility for our own mistakes, but it also means gaining the freedom to make our own choices. If Alberta wants lower prices, greater competition, more investment, and another generation of companies like Shaw, WestJet, and Canadian Western Bank, then Alberta should have the authority to create the conditions that make them possible.Canada has had more than its share of opportunity to build that economy. Alberta should now build its own. Take control of the rules. Open the markets. Trust Albertans to compete. And take control of our own destiny.Vote for an independent Alberta.
