From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Marco Navarro-Genie

One in three Canadians chooses Alberta to start over. But to stay Canada’s top destination, it must fight Ottawa’s barriers and complacency

No province has captured the Canadian imagination quite like Alberta—and not because of oil.

One in three Canadians leaving their provinces in the past five years headed to Alberta. They were escaping stagnant wages, high housing costs and suffocating bureaucracy. They came for freedom and opportunity, and Alberta delivered. Its edge is cultural: it rewards enterprise instead of strangling it.

The question now is whether Albertans can keep that edge before Ottawa and complacency close in.

Prosperity, like liberty, vanishes the moment people stop fighting for it. If Alberta wants to remain Canada’s economic engine, it must continue to move forward, tearing down old barriers while fending off the new ones that Ottawa and other provinces are always erecting.

The cost of standing still is staggering.

Economists say provincial trade barriers (rules that prevent goods, services, and workers from moving freely) cost the Canadian economy up to $130 billion a year. For Alberta, even a 10 per cent reduction would be worth $7.3 billion a year.

When Quebec killed the Energy East pipeline that would have carried Alberta crude to eastern refineries, Alberta lost the chance to export oil worth as much as $15 billion annually.

That’s not theory. That’s lost paycheques, lost tax revenue and public services that never materialized.

Alberta has always been more willing than others to break free from the barriers that hold back growth. Liquor sales were privatized decades ago, as were property registries. The New West Partnership with Saskatchewan, Manitoba and B.C. opened labour mobility and procurement, though it has since stalled. Alberta doesn’t impose cultural tests and it doesn’t levy a provincial sales tax. Families arrive because life here is easier. They can work, start a business, raise kids or simply breathe without bureaucrats looking over their shoulder.

But cracks remain. Liquor shelves may be free, but the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission monopoly clogs the warehouse. Professional associations in law, teaching and health care are slow to recognize credentials and drown their members in red tape.

Procurement often tilts local, because, apparently, free markets stop at the city line. And like every other province, Alberta still bows to Ottawa’s anticompetition telecom rules, the dairy and poultry cartel and the banking oligopoly, systems that consistently benefit Quebec farmers and Bay Street lenders at Alberta’s expense.

And as if the old cracks weren’t enough, new barriers are appearing. One of the worst is protectionism. Canadians love mocking Donald Trump’s tariffs, yet happily embrace the same thing at home. “Buy local” sounds warm and fuzzy but props up cartels in groceries, banking, telecom and construction. The truth? We’ve imposed more barriers on ourselves than Trump ever dreamed of.

Prime Minister Mark Carney exemplified the problem when he promoted subsidies for canola farmers. It was a double insult. First, it showed Ottawa would rather hand out cash than negotiate hard. Second, it reminded farmers that the “help” isn’t free. They pay for it through their own taxes, scooped from Saskatchewan and Alberta, laundered through federal bureaucracy, then mailed back with a ribbon.

Carney also vowed that interprovincial barriers would vanish by July 1, 2025. That deadline came and went. His shiny new “process” for expediting infrastructure looks like more of the same: more Ottawa mediation that risks slowing everything down.

But it isn’t only economics standing in the way. Ideology is becoming a barrier of its own. Diversity, equity and inclusion has morphed into a system for entrenching gatekeepers. It compels people to think and act in ways they didn’t choose. It drains productivity, creates make-work compliance jobs and sorts people into categories. Worst of all, it punishes anyone who doesn’t conform. Alberta resists this infection better than most, but its universities and federally dependent agencies are already hooked.

Then comes debanking. In 2022, Ottawa showed how quickly it could freeze accounts, and banks complied without hesitation. Since then, regulators have only expanded their reach under the banner of anti–money laundering and climate policy. The message is blunt: if Ottawa decides your sector is undesirable, access to financial services can vanish. For Alberta, with its energy industry branded a planetary threat, this is no hypothetical.

A free economy is meaningless if citizens can be financially exiled from it by decree. Alberta must shield its people by turning ATB, its provincially owned bank, into a fortress institution and enshrining access to financial services as a civil right.

So what does moving forward mean? It means doubling down on being the most desirable province to live and work. That requires bold reforms. Cut regulators down to size. Protect banking access in law. Decentralize big-city governments to make them more accountable and give residents real choices. Reform health care to expand choice and slash wait times. Deregulate housing and trucking to lower costs. Confront public-sector unions that act as ideological monopolies.

Canada loves to brag about free trade, but governs like a feudal kingdom. Alberta has already shown that a freer path is possible. The task now is to resist cartels, fight the banks, tear down old walls and stop new ones from rising.

Alberta has always been a frontier of builders, risk-takers and prosperity seekers, and to thrive it must keep moving. If Alberta leads, it will stay prosperous and desirable. If it falters, doors will close.

The choice is clear: Alberta can either be strangled by regulations or break free and keep its frontier spirit alive.

Marco Navarro-Genie is vice-president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and co-author, with Barry Cooper, of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).