The story of Canada is one of greatness. Bold explorers, hardy pioneers, brave soldiers and passionate nation builders, all working together to create a new country from whole cloth. This nation required a people who had a shared sense of their values, looking to the British Constitution, the mother of Parliaments, and the great principles of Magna Carta. 

In Canada the unthinkable was possible. People from anywhere could come, roll up their sleeves, and make a greater life for themselves and their families. When a neighbour decided that they should not be able to exist they banded together and defended their freedom. When a new railroad was necessary to maintain that freedom they built across a whole continent in the face of all odds, crossing even the great Rocky Mountains. When people on the other side of an ocean faced threats to their freedom, the great people of Canada rose up to defend them against the aggressor, fighting so fiercely that they were known as the Red Patch Devils by their enemies. They were an example of freedom and sound principles to the world. Peace, Order, and Good Government were the watchwords of this society. 

The Canadian dream has been something to be proud of in the past, and it is something that Albertans have the right to be proud of today. But something has happened to Canada. As the 20th century rolled on, a new force came to the forefront. Instead of being proud of our past, our heritage, and all that we had built, this new force wanted to create something new, to destroy the past, to deny what and who Canada was meant to be. The embodiment of that force was Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Dashing, magnetic, energetic, Trudeau burst onto the scene with a new vision for Canada. Gone was the British Dominion. In its place would be a new, inclusive, tolerant, post national mosaic where an ever-centralising government would encroach on more and more of people’s personal lives, forcing them to fit into a progressive mould through court rulings and heavy-handed human rights legislation. This new Canada would not care for the freedoms of the individual but would encourage ever greater collective conformity to its nebulous values of inclusion and niceness. The values and wishes of the Laurentian elite would reshape the great Dominion into a country that catered to ever greater experimental visions of what society should look like. Gone would be respect for the institutions that anchored Canada in the past. The Monarchy, the Westminster tradition, the legislative supremacy of Parliament would be replaced by government by judges and human rights tribunals, but public mockery and cancelling of all who didn’t conform, and by sanctions and even imprisonment for those who refused to bow down to the mandate of Ottawa. Peace, Order, and Good Government were replaced by Lawlessness, Control, and Coercion. 

For the last forty years Canadians have watched as the rule of Law and the original structure of Confederation have been whittled away and broken down through legislation and court action. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been revealed as a tool to limit and destroy the rights of Canadians, while enabling the Ottawa government to coerce and abuse the provinces and individual citizens of Canada. Where once Canadian could look at society and see a proud, united, and law abiding nation, now we see one where the worst kinds of excesses are permitted while people who stand for their rights are punished. We see a world where a rapist walks free from prison while someone who dared challenge the government is charged and imprisoned without bail. We see lawful gun owners robbed of their property while gang bangers are patted on the head and sent out to steal, kill, and destroy once again.

Above all we see a country where the ability of the people to prosper free from let or hindrance is being strangled by bad policy, bad debts, and heavy taxes. The government in Ottawa has become a source of pain and corruption rather than protection and service for the people of Canada.

But Alberta can say enough. Alberta does not have to continue on the path of a broken Confederation, falling deeper into the traps of centralisation, authoritarianism, and corruption. We can save the old Canada and renew Alberta. We can build on the foundation of all the great people who came before us. Where the government of Canada encourages the tearing down of statues, the renaming of memorials, the slander of the greatness of our history, we are there to build the statues, restore the memorials, and to preserve that greatness for all generations. 

Alberta can and must turn back from the national destruction that the Ottawa government is driving our country towards. We must boldly stand with the explorers, the pioneers, the soldiers, the nation builders who made our country great. We must free ourselves from a political system that centralises, devalues its people, and destroys the rule of law. We must carry on the great work that MacDonald and Cartier, Laurier and Diefenbaker began and build the new nation of Alberta into a testimony of what can be done when we love and believe in the principles that guided Canada in its days of greatness. 

We have a heritage in this Province as well. It is one of personal freedom and personal responsibility. It welcomes people from anywhere in the world, but expects them to participate fully in our civic life. It does not see government as the answer to every problem. It respects faith, morals, principles, and ideals as more than inconveniences to be crushed in the pursuit of political power. It is a heritage of hard work, honesty, and the belief that if people are just given good laws and safety they will do the rest to make a place were peace, order, and good government truly can guide a free and prosperous people. We have a heritage of loving the old Canada, the Canada that calls us to greatness.

We will not be controlled, we will not be coerced, we will not be swallowed up. We will stand our own two feet and show the world what can be done when we cast off all the hindrances and run the race like we were truly meant to run it. We are a free and powerful people, unafraid of anything that may come, caring for those who are weak, and ready to build the greatest country this world has ever seen.