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Online Harms Act threatens free expression in Canada

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News release from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

This repudiates centuries of legal tradition that rightly reserved punishment for what a person had done, not for what a person might do. Under this new provision, a complainant can assert to a provincial court that they “fear” that someone will promote genocide, hate or antisemitism.

On February 26, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Arif Virani introduced Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, in the House of Commons. The Online Harms Act is presented by the government as a means to promote the online safety of persons in Canada and reduce harmful content online. The Online Harms Act would impose severe penalties for online and offline hate speech, including life imprisonment, which is the most severe criminal punishment in Canada. This new legislation would establish a new Digital Safety Commission with power to enforce new regulations created by the federal cabinet. The Canadian Human Rights Commission would acquire new powers to prosecute and punish non-criminal hate speech.

Good intentions should be applauded

Although the Online Harms Act seriously threatens free expression in Canada, there are good intentions behind some of its provisions. It is a laudable goal to force online platforms to remove revenge porn and other non-consensual sharing of intimate images, content that bullies children, content that sexually victimizes children, content that encourages children to harm themselves, and content that incites violence, terrorism or hatred.

Unnecessary duplication of the Criminal Code

However, good intentions do not justify passing additional laws that duplicate what is already prohibited by Canada’s Criminal Code. Additional laws that duplicate existing laws are a poor substitute for good law enforcement. 

Section 162.1(1) of Canada’s Criminal Code already prohibits online and offline publication of an intimate image without consent. Section 163 already prohibits publication of obscene materials and child pornography. Thus, it is already illegal to post online content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor. 

Section 264(1) already prohibits criminal harassment. Section 319(1) already prohibits the public incitement of hatred towards a group that is identifiable by race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and other personal characteristics. Section 59(1) criminalizes sedition: advocating the use of force to achieve governmental change within Canada. Sections 83.21 and 83.22 criminalize instructing to carry out terrorist activity; any online content that incites terrorism is already illegal. 

Further, Section 22 of Canada’s Criminal Code prohibits counselling, procuring, soliciting or inciting another person “to be a party to an offence.” Any person who counsels, procures, solicits or incites another person to be a party to an offence will be found guilty if the person receiving such counsel commits the offence in question. This applies to terrorism and other violent crimes, and even to minor criminal offenses like shoplifting. Further, section 464 of the Criminal Code criminalizes counselling another person to commit an offence even if that offence is not committed.

Those who support the Online Harms Act should explain why they believe that existing legislation is inadequate to address “harmful” online expression.

New government bodies to censor online speech

If passed into law, the Online Harms Act will create a new Digital Safety Commission to enforce compliance with new regulations created by the federal cabinet. This Digital Safety Commission will have the power to regulate nearly any person or entity operating as a “social media service” in Canada. Any person or social media service found to have permitted “harmful content” would face penalties. The severity of the penalties would be established by the federal cabinet. The creators and users of online content will self-censor to avoid the risk of running afoul of the new regulations and government-imposed censorship. The Online Harms Act provides that an Order of the Digital Safety Commission may be converted into an Order of the Federal Court and enforced like a Court Order. This could result in people operating social media services being fined and imprisoned for contempt of court if they refuse to censor Canadians’ speech.

Pre-emptive punishment for crimes not committed

The Online Harms Act, if passed into law, will add section 810.012 to the Criminal Code, which will permit pre-emptive violations of personal liberty when no crime has been committed. This repudiates centuries of legal tradition that rightly reserved punishment for what a person had done, not for what a person might do. Under this new provision, a complainant can assert to a provincial court that they “fear” that someone will promote genocide, hate or antisemitism. If the judge believes that there are “reasonable grounds” to justify the fear, the court can violate the liberty interests of the accused citizen by requiring her or him to do any or all of the following:

  • wear an ankle bracelet (electronic monitoring device)
  • obey a curfew and stay at home, as determined by the judge
  • abstain from alcohol, drugs, or both
  • provide bodily substances (e.g. blood, urine) to confirm abstinence from drugs or alcohol
  • not communicate with certain designated persons
  • not go to certain places, as determined by the judge
  • surrender her or his legally owned and legally required firearms

In other words: a citizen who has not committed any crime can be subjected to one or more (or all) of the above conditions just because someone fears that that person might commit a speech crime in future. Further, if the person who has committed no crime fails to agree to these court-ordered violations of her or his personal liberty, she or he could be sentenced to up to two years in prison.

Our criminal justice system is not supposed to function this way. Violating the liberty of citizens through pre-emptive punishment, when no crime has been committed (and quite possibly when no crime will be committed), is a radical departure from centuries of common law tradition. The respect that our legal system has for individual rights and freedoms means that an accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty by way of a fair trial, held before an independent and impartial court. We do not punish the innocent, nor do we restrict their liberty based on what they might do. The mere fear that harmful expression may occur is not a legitimate basis for court-ordered imprisonment or other conditions that violate personal liberty.

Life imprisonment for words spoken

For the existing Criminal Code offence of advocating for genocide, the Online Harms Act would raise the maximum penalty from five years in jail to life imprisonment. Free societies recognize the distinction between speech and actions. The Online Harms Act blurs that distinction. 

Considering the inherent difficulty in determining whether a person has actually “advocated for genocide,” the punishment of a five-year prison term is already an adequate deterrent for words alone.

Federal cabinet can censor speech without input from Parliament

The Online Harms Act, if passed into law, would give new powers to the federal cabinet to pass regulations (which have the same force of law as legislation passed by Parliament) that place prohibitions or obligations on social media services. This includes passing regulations that impose fines or other consequences (e.g., the removal of a licence or the shutting down of a website) for non-compliance. New regulations can be created by the federal cabinet in its sole discretion, and do not need to be debated, voted on or approved by Parliament. Parliamentary proceedings are public. Any political party, or even one single MP, can raise public awareness about a Bill that she or he disagrees with, and can mobilize public opposition to that Bill. Not so with regulations, which are deliberated in secret by the federal cabinet, and that come into force without any public consultation or debate.

Apart from a federal election held once every four years, there is no meaningful way to hold cabinet to account for the draconian censorship of social media services by way of regulations and the harsh penalties that may be imposed for hosting “harmful content.” The federal cabinet can also decide what number of “users” the “social media service” needs to have in order to trigger federal regulation of content, or the federal cabinet can simply designate a social media service as regulated, regardless of the number of its users.

New censorship powers for Canadian Human Rights Commission

The Online Harms Act, if passed into law, will give the Canadian Human Rights Commission new powers to prosecute and punish offensive but non-criminal speech by Canadians if, in the subjective opinion of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, they deem someone’s statement to be “hateful.” The Online Harms Act will empower Canadians offended by non-criminal expression to file complaints against their fellow citizens. 

Those who are prosecuted by the Human Rights Commission cannot defend themselves by establishing that their supposedly “hateful” statement is true, or that they had reasonable grounds for believing that their statement was true.

Those found guilty by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal can be required to pay as much as $50,000 to the government, plus up to $20,000 to the person(s) designated as “victims” by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. These significant financial penalties will discourage or eliminate necessary discussion on controversial but important issues in our society.

Advocates for censorship often stress the fact that human rights prosecutions are not criminal. It is true that those found guilty of violating vague speech codes by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal do not suffer the consequences of a criminal record. However, those who are prosecuted for expressing their beliefs face the difficult choice of having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on legal bills or having to issue an abject apology. Regardless of whether they choose to defend themselves against the complaint or not, they may still be ordered to pay up to $20,000 to the offended party or up to $50,000 to the government, or up to $70,000 to both.

Many Canadians will continue to exercise their Charter-protected freedom of expression, but many will self-censor to avoid the risk of being prosecuted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Anonymous complaints: no right to face one’s accuser

The Online Harms Act, if passed into law, will allow complaints to be filed against Canadians in secret, such that the citizen who is prosecuted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission loses the ancient and well-founded right to face and question one’s accuser. This repudiates centuries of common law tradition requiring the legal process to be public and transparent. 

The pretext for eliminating this necessary and long-standing legal protection is that some complainants might be subjected to “threats, intimidation or discrimination.” This ignores the fact that threats and intimidation are already Criminal Code offences, and any illegal discrimination can be addressed by way of a new and separate complaint. Those filing complaints about expression should be accountable for their decision to do so; this is an inherent and necessary component of both criminal and civil legal proceedings. 

No need to establish that someone was harmed

If the Online Harms Act is passed into law, the Canadian Human Rights Commission will not even require a victim in order to prosecute a citizen for what she or he has said. For example, a man in Vancouver can file an anonymous complaint against a woman in Nova Scotia who made disparaging online remarks about a mosque in Toronto, regardless of whether that mosque’s members were harmed, or even offended, by the post. No actual victims are required for the Canadian Human Rights Commission to find guilt or to impose penalties. Nor does a victim need to prove that he or she suffered loss or damage; feeling offended by alleged “hate” is all that is needed to become eligible for financial compensation. 

Conclusion

For reasons set out here above, the Online Harms Act will harm freedom of expression in Canada if it is passed into law. Many Canadians will self-censor to avoid being prosecuted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Canadians who do not self-censor, by practicing courage and by continuing to exercise their Charter-protected freedom of expression, will still see their online expression removed from the internet by the operators of social media websites and platforms. These operators will seek to avoid running afoul of Mr. Trudeau’s new regulations. Everyone will live in fear of the Digital Safety Commission.

The Justice Centre urges all Members of Parliament to vote against this legislation.

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2025 Federal Election

Canada is squandering the greatest oil opportunity on Earth

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Canada has 3X US oil reserves but less than 40% the production. Why? Anti-oil politicians like Mark Carney who say they’re protecting Earth’s coldest country from global warming.

  • Canada has 170 billion barrels of proven oil reserves—by far the largest of any free country. And its producers can profit at $44 oil, vs. >$57 for US shale.
  • Canadian oil production is also continuing to get cheaper. Oil sands operating costs have dropped 19% over the past five years, and the industry—which is still fine-tuning how to coax oil-like bitumen out of oil sands—has substantial room for further cost reductions.
  • In addition to its massive proven oil reserves, Canada also has massive unexplored oil resources. Canada’s Northwest Territories may contain up to 37% of Canada’s total oil reserves, much of it light crude, which is even cheaper to extract and transport than bitumen from oil sands.

Canada is squandering this opportunity, with < 40% of US production and much slower growth

  • Given Canada’s massive oil reserves and lower production costs, Canadian oil should have been growing far faster than US oil—on a path to producing even more oil than the US does.

    Instead, Canada is totally squandering its oil opportunity, with less than 40% of US production and slower growth since 2010.

The lost opportunity is costing Canadians 100s of billions of dollars a year—and undermining global security

  • In 2023, oil sands directly contributed C$38 billion to GDP—while total economic impact was 100s of billions of dollars. It could have been far, far greater.
  • Canada’s oil underproduction is undermining both Canadian prosperity and global security. E.g., Europe’s dependence on Russian oil triggered an energy crisis after Russia invaded Ukraine. By doubling its oil production, Canada could make oil dictators weaker, the free world stronger—and Canada more powerful.

The cause: False climate ideas have led Canada to senselessly strangle its oil industry

Canada is squandering its oil opportunity by preventing its abundant oil from being transported to world markets

  • With 3X US oil reserves but 1/8 the people, Canada can produce far more oil than it can use. So it needs a lot of transportation. Yet it wages war on pipelines, which are the cheapest, fastest, safest way to transport oil.
  • In 2016, the Canadian government rejected the Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to B.C. after nearly a decade of review, citing insufficient Indigenous consultation. The pipeline would have carried 535K barrels of oil per day to Asia-Pacific markets, generating ~C$300B in GDP over 30 years.
  • To make matters worse, several years after the cancellation of the Northern Gateway pipeline, Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-48 (the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act), banning large oil tankers from calling at northern B.C. ports and effectively shutting the door on any future pipeline to that region.
  • In 2017, TC Energy canceled their Energy East pipeline project after the Canadian government demanded they calculate all of its indirect GHG emissions. The pipeline would have carried 1.1M barrels per day of Albertan and Saskatchewan oil to Eastern Canada, generating ~C$55B in GDP over 20 years.
  • The Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX), operational in 2024, is Canada’s only new major pipeline in over a decade. Proposed in 2012, it barely survived years of political hurdles, progressing only after the federal government bought it in 2018. By completion, its costs had ballooned from the projected C$7.4B to C$34B.
  • The main government-created obstacle for pipelines in Canada is the onerous federal “environmental review” process called the Impact Assessment Act (IAA), and before that, its precursor, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA).
  • Under the Impact Assessment Act, the Canadian government can effectively veto a pipeline project by deeming it not in the “public interest,” as determined by factors including “sustainability,” alignment with climate goals, and impacts on Indigenous groups—but not economic benefits (!)
    • Before the Impact Assessment Act was instituted in 2019, pipelines faced similarly onerous environmental reviews under its precursor, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA). Under CEAA, government could veto projects it judged to cause “significant adverse environmental effects,” a vague and open-ended criteria.
    • Even if a pipeline project isn’t formally rejected by the Canadian government, the environmental review process can stretch on for years—often causing projects to collapse from escalating costs or investors withdrawing amid uncertainty. This is exactly what happened with the Energy East pipeline in 2017.
  • If Canada built ample transportation, it would have the potential to produce even more oil than the US does and sell it around the world. Instead, its production is < 40% of the US’s, and 97% of its exports are to the US—at below-market prices.

Canada is also strangling oil investment, production, and refining

  • Canada isn’t just strangling oil transport, it’s sabotaging oil at every stage—from Mark Carney’s proposed emissions cap to “Clean Fuel Regulations” to EV mandates to drilling bans to refinery restrictions.
  • Investment in Canadian oil plunged over 50% (C$76B to C$35B) between 2014-2023—with investors pointing to regulatory uncertainty, inconsistencies, and compliance costs as major barriers to investments.
  • A further looming threat to oil investment is the proposed cap on oil and gas sector GHG emissions. If implemented, as promised by Mark Carney’s government, this proposal will require the oil industry to reduce its GHG emissions to 35% of the 2019 level, which would significantly discourage investment and production.
  • The Clean Fuel Regulations (CFRs), which mandate that Canadian fossil fuel producers reduce the emissions from fuels to 15% lower than 2016 levels by 2030, harms Canadian oil production by significantly increasing the cost of production and thus decreasing the domestic demand for gasoline and diesel.
  • Canada’s EV mandate, which requires that 20% of vehicles sold in 2026, at least 60% of vehicles sold in 2030, and all new vehicles sold in 2035 are electric, harms Canadian oil production by greatly reducing the demand for gasoline and diesel.
  • Canada’s consumer carbon tax, which until earlier this month imposed a fee of C$80 per ton of CO2, harmed Canadian oil production by raising gasoline prices by 17.6 cents per litre, thereby decreasing demand. Though this tax has been repealed, gasoline and diesel remain subject to the industrial carbon tax.
  • In addition to measures that heavily disincentivize oil production, the federal government also directly limits production through moratoria on oil development on Canada’s Pacific and Arctic coasts, blocking access to hundreds of billions of barrels of oil.
  • On top of Canada’s oil underinvestment and underproduction, Canadian oil refining has stagnated, with Canada’s refineries able to process less than half of the oil it produces and only one new refinery built since the 1980s.

The leading stranglers of Canadian oil, such as Trudeau and Carney, say they are protecting Canada and the world from a climate crisis

  • The root cause of Canada’s squandered oil opportunity is leaders’ belief that world’s coldest country must stop global warming at all costs.

    That’s why they advocate pursuing “net zero” by 2050—which necessarily means destroying Canada’s domestic oil industry.

  • Canada has embraced climate catastrophism for over 3 decades now. For example, it was one of the original signatories of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992. The UNFCCC has been the driving force behind “net zero” policies.
  • Justin Trudeau took Canadian anti-oil policy to a new level, making the destruction of Canada’s oil opportunity a central focus: “We need to phase [oil sands] out,” he said in 2017, “We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels.”
  • While Trudeau’s opposition to Canadian oil and therefore its economy is well-known, most Canadians do not know that Mark Carney is a far more committed opponent of Canadian oil than Justin Trudeau ever was. Indeed, Carney is one of the world’s leading “net zero” advocates.
  • The last several decades of Mark Carney’s career have been focused on pressuring countries like Canada to adopt “net zero” policies that have proved ruinous. He did this as the head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, and as the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action.
  • Mark Carney’s past statements on climate include:

    “investing for a net-zero world must go mainstream” (2019)

    “those that fail to adapt [to net-zero] will cease to exist”​ (2019)

    “build a financial system in which every decision takes climate change into account” (2021)

  • Myth: Mark Carney used to be for carbon taxes but has changed his mind, as shown by his elimination of Canada’s carbon tax.

    Truth: Carney is still for carbon taxes—because he is still for the net-zero agenda that requires taxing CO2 along with all other means to eliminate fossil fuels.

But while climate change is real, it is not a crisis—thanks to increasing resilience—nor is it addressed by unilateral Canadian sacrifice

  • Far from facing a catastrophic climate crisis, Canada and the world are safer than ever from climate.

    The global rate of climate disaster-related deaths has fallen 98% in the last 100 years—thanks to increasing climate resilience from reliable, affordable energy, including oil.

  • Myth: Even if climate-related disaster deaths are down, climate-related damages are way up, pointing to a bankrupting climate future.

    Truth: Even though there are many incentives for climate damages to go up—preferences for riskier areas, government bailouts—GDP-adjusted damages are flat.

  • Sacrificing Canadian oil won’t make the coldest country in an increasingly climate-resilient world safer from global warming—since countries like China and India will never follow suit. What it will do is leave Canada far poorer, weaker, and more endangered from lack of energy.

The solution: Unleashing responsible oil development will make Canada rich, resilient, and secure

The rational path forward on climate is to embrace prosperity, which drives resilience and energy innovation

  • Canada is safer than ever from climate, and other countries won’t cut emissions until it’s truly cost-effective to do so. The path forward is to embrace prosperity.
  • The more prosperous Canada is, the more it can make itself more and more resilient to all manner of climate dangers. And the more prosperous Canada is, the more it can innovate new forms of energy that have the long-term prospect of outcompeting fossil fuels.

The number one path to Canadian prosperity is unleashing responsible development in the oil industry and other energy industries

  • Canada must finally seize its enormous oil opportunity, unleashing investment, production, refining, and transport from irrational restrictions. Only then can Canada can deliver oil to eager markets worldwide.
  • Canada should renounce its pledge to achieve “net zero by 2050” by repealing the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act where it is enshrined and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. This will massively increase investor certainty about the future viability of the oil industry.
  • Canada should reject the proposed GHG emissions cap for the oil industry. Canadian provinces that have their own carbon taxes and emission credit trading schemes should eliminate them too. This will improve investor expectations about the oil industry’s future viability.
  • Canada should repeal the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) and replace it with a framework that minimizes the cost and duration of reviews and enshrines clear and narrow criteria for rejecting projects. This will help build more oil pipelines and reduce investor uncertainty about environmental regulations.
  • Canada should revise the Canadian Energy Regulator Act (CERA) by limiting the certification review of the covered oil pipeline projects to the question of whether there is sufficient proven demand for the oil they are planning to transport. This will expedite pipeline approval.
  • Canada should repeal the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act (Bill C-48), which bans large oil tankers off the northern and central coast of British Columbia. This will open the door to building pipelines to B.C. that can transfer oil to crucial Asian markets.
  • Canada should repeal the Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR) and the EV mandate. This will boost investor confidence in oil by increasing both current and anticipated domestic demand for oil-derived fuels.
  • Canada should repeal the federal moratoria on offshore oil drilling on the Pacific Coast and in the Canadian Arctic. This will unlock up to hundreds of billions of barrels of Canadian oil.
  • To stop squandering the world’s greatest energy opportunity, Canada must start electing leaders who value Canadian energy, and stop electing leaders with a proven track record of destroying it.

Daniil Gorbatenko, Steffen Henne, and Michelle Hung contributed to this piece.

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2025 Federal Election

Mark Carney: Our Number-One Alberta Separatist

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By George Koch

While envisioning Carney as an intentional saboteur is probably the stuff of parody, one can seriously state that were he trying to bring about Canada’s destruction, he could hardly fashion a more devilishly effective policy platform, nor a more toxic mode of practising federalism. If he doesn’t alter course dramatically as Prime Minister, he’ll be practically goading Alberta to launch a bid for independence.

You probably need no reminding of how cringeworthy Mark Carney’s professions of devotion to Alberta – “I grew up here” – or his “regular guy” stunts gliding shakily around the ice in an Oilers jersey have been. After rolling our eyes, most of us Westerners instead focused on the Liberal leader’s policies, which would devastate Canada from coast to coast but most particularly the energy-producing West – and which some tried to warn would once again
enflame Alberta separatism. The state-subsidized Laurentian media, however, scoffed at these potentially nation-cleaving risks.

But what if Carney is being true to his word in both cases? What if the Oxford PhD and former governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England is a loyal Albertan to his very bones, his carefully curated persona as bespoke globalist climate-cult prophet an elaborate illusion; but that, at the same time, his policies are intended to wreck Canada, thereby rekindling a Prairie fire of separatism? Imagine that this is precisely Carney’s plan.

Imagine, in other words, that Mark Carney is some kind of Manchurian Candidate or 21 st century Scarlet Pimpernel, a deep-cover sleeper agent, sent East into the very heart of darkness – Ottawa – by a cabal of crafty Albertans intent on gaining independence. His secret mission: to worm his way deep inside Laurentian Canada, gaining the trust of Canada’s immensely arrogant yet not terribly bright Eastern elites, becoming both the manager of an enormous multi-billion-dollar investment fund and the secret right-hand-man of the Prime Minister himself, instructed there to wait until the right opportunity arrived.

And in January 2025, with Justin Trudeau’s resignation, that moment was at hand. Carney was given his ultimate mission: to gain the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada and then to win electoral office with the mission of so misgoverning Canada as to bring about its dissolution and trigger the separation of Alberta.

This might all seem a bit far-fetched, possibly even satirical. But seen this way, certain strange things do begin to make some semblance of sense. Not just Carney’s weird lines about Alberta, but the sheer, wanton destructiveness of his policies.

Think of the $225 billion in federal deficits Carney intends to run over the next four years. Or his hapless responses to U.S. President Donald Trump. His unwavering advancement of the net-zero madness, capable of wrecking Canada’s economy from coast to coast. The equanimity towards Communist China.

Closer to (our) home, the contemptuous dismissals of Premier Danielle Smith who, as premier of Canada’s last remaining truly productive province, is someone whom logic and self-interest would suggest Carney should keep on his side. Instead, he ignores Smith and on the key issues of approving new energy pipelines and ditching the oil and natural gas emissions cap, he speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

While envisioning Carney as an intentional saboteur is probably the stuff of parody, one can seriously state that were he trying to bring about Canada’s destruction, he could hardly fashion a more devilishly effective policy platform, nor a more toxic mode of practising federalism. If he doesn’t alter course dramatically as Prime Minister, he’ll be practically goading Alberta to launch a bid for independence.

Creating a Manchurian Candidate/Scarlet Pimpernel named Mark Carney would be nefarious, devious, conspiratorial and downright evil. The way the CBC, Globe and Mail and various Liberal/NDP/Bloc politicians tell it, of course, there’s no shortage of such people in Alberta. So is it truly impossible? Or perhaps simply moot, Carney’s stated policies being so destructive as to render them indistinguishable from those of a spy.

Post-election, what would signal a looming crisis of national disunity? It’ll begin with the predictable political noise: soaring poll results for Alberta separatism, calls from surprising quarters – such as formerly-complacent corporate leaders – that the province get out from under Ottawa, perhaps a burgeoning independence party challenging Smith’s governing UCP.

There’ll be even more intense courtroom efforts by Alberta to resist federal overreach and unconstitutional laws and policies. Increasingly pointed warnings from Smith that the political situation could spiral out of control. Frequent invocation of Alberta’s Sovereignty Act to deflect abusive federal actions; perhaps even open defiance of the most illegitimate of these.

Alongside that, increasingly concerted measures to prepare the province of Alberta to become the self-governing nation of Alberta. The until now incremental steps to decouple Alberta law enforcement from the RCMP will be sharply accelerated. The so-far somnolent plod to unshackle Albertans from the bloated, under-performing and increasingly woke-driven Canada Pension Plan will be rattled into a sprint.

Alberta’s Department of Finance will be tasked with setting up a branch to start collecting – and keeping – federal taxes. Reports might trickle out of Alberta mapping the outlines of an intelligence service and armed defence force. Emissaries will be quietly sent to pitch First Nations that they’d be better off as Albertans.

Among the world’s currently 195 recognized states, an independent Alberta would have:

 The 52 nd largest global economy as measured by its 2024 GDP of $351.4 billion (US$256.2 billion);

 A population (4.96 million as of January 2025) larger than those of 70 other sovereign nations;

 A land area greater than those of 155 other nations;

 Per-capita GDP (US$53,834 in 2024) among the world’s 20 most prosperous nations; and

 A GDP sufficient to finance a military approximately as large and effective as Norway’s, a full NATO ally that already flies the F-35 stealth fighter.

In short, Alberta would be as politically and economically viable as Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand and other small but advanced countries.

Note too that these already-favourable statistics assume “all other things remain equal.” But all of those numbers would improve once the great financial anvil of Ottawa was lifted from around Alberta’s neck. This in turn would enable large cuts to income taxes, pension and EI premiums, and other fiscal burdens, sending Alberta soaring far beyond any Canadian province and making it competitive with the best-run U.S. states.

Meanwhile the under-performing remnants of Canada would be cast adrift to sink further towards Third World status. “Canada” would drop several rungs on the ladder of global economies and world population. The more appropriately renamed “Laurentia” might be sent scuttling out of the G7. An impoverished Quebec might depart in a huff as well.

It would take a man of almost preternatural internal fortitude, unquenchable zeal and unwavering focus to bring about such an evident calamity, throwing the fortunes of tens of millions of mostly innocent Canadians onto the flaming pyre for the good of a few million Albertans. But setting aside all satire: with his widely predicted electoral majority in hand, Prime Minister Mark Carney will have free rein to impose his devastating array of policies, systematically undermining the economy, Canadians’ remaining sense of nationhood, individual hope and social stability.

I doubt any free-thinking citizen of Alberta would believe the outlandish tale of how Carney wrecked Canada in order to bring about the glory of independence. And so in a final and bitter irony, ostracized and alone, the man who sacrificed everything for his beloved province –career, reputation, perhaps even his very soul – will not only be shunned from running in the first Presidential Election of the Republic of Alberta, he will likely be denied even the ceremonial role of Ambassador to the impoverished, embittered remnants of Canada, Laurentia.

The original, full-length version of this article was recently published in C2C Journal.

George Koch is Editor-in-Chief of C2C Journal.

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