Do you accept that there are grievances?
This is a copy and paste, but I think there are a good number of significant points favouring the West.
When I first came to Canada, I landed in Alberta.
And I’ll be honest, it felt familiar. The people had a spark in their eye, the land breathed ambition, and the culture rang with a deep, honest pride. To me, Alberta wasn’t all that different from Texas. It was a land of risk-takers, builders, doers. Of families who made their living from the land, who didn’t ask for handouts, and who believed in something very old and very precious: that your life is your own.
And so for years, I assumed Canada was like that everywhere. That Alberta was simply one reflection of a larger national spirit.
But then I went further west, Vancouver, Victoria. And I felt a shift. Not just in politics or preferences, but in the very framework of belief. The worldview was different. The relationship to government was different. The definition of freedom, even, was different.
And that’s when I realized something that shook me: Alberta isn’t just a province with a different opinion. Alberta is a nation within a nation.
This isn’t about hostility. It’s about incompatibility.
You see, Alberta, and its soulmates in Saskatchewan, in the Yukon, in the Northwest Territories, in rural Manitoba and northern B.C., were not forged in boardrooms or by policy theorists. They were carved out of rock and frost, born in cattle fields and oil rigs, in mines and mills and frontier homesteads. These were places where survival meant strength, where freedom wasn’t philosophical, it was practical. It was necessary. You didn’t wait for Ottawa to tell you what to do, you just did it.
But much of the rest of Canada now operates on a fundamentally different ideology, one built on collectivism, central planning, and a trust in bureaucracy over the individual. These aren’t bad people. They aren’t villains. But they are living a different system, and one that increasingly can’t understand or tolerate Alberta’s.
It’s not that the rest of Canada is horrible. It’s not that Ontario or Quebec are wrong to live the way they do. It’s that the fit no longer works. It’s like trying to jam a round peg into a square hole, over and over again, until the wood starts to splinter and the structure begins to crack.
And the truth is, Alberta is not alone in this. The same pain lives in Saskatchewan. In northern B.C. In the far reaches of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Places that still value territorial integrity, individual sovereignty, and earned freedom. Places that feel more American in spirit than the government ruling them from 3,000 kilometers away.
But here’s where the grief turns into something deeper, something existential.
Because it’s no longer just a matter of cultural friction. This is now a collision between two systems of thought, two incompatible blueprints for how society should function.
One believes that the government is the solution. The other believes that the government is the problem.
One sees taxes as a duty. The other sees them as an obstacle.
One prizes conformity in the name of unity. The other prizes freedom even if it leads to disunity.
And these two systems, these two philosophies, cannot coexist forever in the same house. One will inevitably swallow the other.
That’s the tragedy playing out now, not just in Alberta, but in the heart of Canada itself. A cold war between two visions of the nation. And Albertans feel it acutely. The slow suffocation of their voice. The erosion of their industries. The cultural gaslighting that tells them they’re cruel, or backward, or radical simply for wanting the same freedoms their ancestors bled to preserve.
And that leads to grief. Not just anger, but grief. The grief of being pushed away from neighbors who once felt like family. The sorrow of watching your country become foreign to you. The ache of raising your children in a land that no longer values the things that built it.
Most Albertans don’t want to burn bridges. They want to build something better. But how do you do that when the very structure you live under is designed to dismantle your autonomy?
You can call on Ottawa. You can plead with federal ministers. But if they don’t share your values, if they don’t even recognize them, what hope is there of being heard?
So Alberta, and its kindred provinces and territories, are left with an impossible question:
Do we stay and be swallowed? Or do we step away, and begin again?
And this question isn’t about hate. It’s about hope. It’s about the hope that somewhere beyond the noise and judgment, there is still a place where people can live free, build without asking permission, raise families on their own terms, and pursue prosperity without being punished for it.
Maybe that place is within a renewed Confederation. Maybe it’s within a new federation. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s something entirely new.
But one thing is clear:
If a nation forces one half of its people to abandon their identity just to keep the peace, it’s not peace, it’s conquest by attrition.
And Albertans are tired of being conquered in slow motion.
What they seek is not conflict, but clarity.
Not rebellion, but recognition.
Not destruction, but dignity.
And if the rest of Canada can’t offer that, then perhaps it’s time Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and those who share their spirit stand together and create a home where their values aren’t tolerated as a nuisance…
…but honored as the foundation.
-- Copied and Pasted
Written by & borrowed from Megan Patrick, CEO of Saber Tech Inc
