Go for it!
The Path to Saving Canada with Professor Bruce Pardy—Brave New Normal, Ep. 126, hosted by Jason James.
In Brief by Rights Probe
Canada’s political culture and Westminster system were never built on liberty. Rooted instead in “peace, order and good government,” this quintessential Canadian phrase emphasizing stability over individualism fostered deference to authority. The outcome is a managerial state that claims to pursue the “public good,” wielding a concentrated power where the same few people control both legislature and executive. By handing officials an open-ended authority, this system of governance has evolved into the managerial state—a constitutionally unblocked apparatus that believes its job is to manage society. Many Canadians support this belief while the culture becomes evermore risk-averse, communitarian (sometimes “close to communism”), and apathetic. Even conservatives often fall into the trap of wanting the state to enforce “proper values.” The result is a country that is progressive in outcome but illiberal in practice.
Can Canada break away from this national malaise when the problem is cultural and constitutional, not merely a problem of personalities in power? People still believe the state acts in good faith; widespread outrage is absent.
Changing the culture is “not likely to happen,” concedes Professor Bruce Pardy. The system is self-reinforcing: incremental conservatism maintains the broken apple cart; progressivism expands the managerial state. As it stands, Canadians are not destined to be free—they are destined to remain the loyal subjects of a managerial Crown.
That leaves Alberta independence as the rare revolutionary opening. Separation is not policy tweaking, however; it is a political revolution that demands real risk.
Professor Pardy does not sugarcoat the task at hand. Albertans must bet on themselves: purge the Canada inside Alberta, reject familiar expectations (single-payer health care, unlimited “general welfare” clauses, deference to authority), and design a fresh constitution whose default is individual ownership of one’s life. The alternative is to remain trapped in a system whose very DNA prevents freedom.
Alberta’s choice is stark: stay stagnant, the captive cash cow of a communitarian country, or close its eyes and Jump! toward a future founded on the freedom and responsibility of authorship. The rare opportunity Albertans now possess to write their own way will not stay long.
Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.
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