Over the course of the last couple of years, I have visited and revisited the issues of sovereignty: sovereignty of the nation, the province, the self. The exploration was initially triggered by the quip that Canada become the 51st state. The quip served to trigger both elbows up and some serious soul searching including a realization that the greatest threat to Canada’s sovereignty may be from within – the product of ignoring to resolve significant internal issues.

David Redman cited a few of the issues in last week’s webinar HERE  Some people are so frustrated with the lack of leadership as to propose an X-it. Others counter with Fix-it. This week’s article makes the point that if X-it is to be countered that means leadership as described my Mark Kolke of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy. Thank you Mark:

“Lead me, follow me, or get out my way” is too small a frame for CEO’s real work. Best leaders do more than lead; they steward the place so conditions prevail in which best leaders emerge. They widen the tent, invite dissenting intelligence, protect original thinkers, and make room for people who can imagine futures the current leadership cannot yet see. Succession is not a name in an envelope; it is a culture under construction. The CEO’s highest duty is to paint the horizon, then build enough trust, protection, and permission for tomorrow’s architects to step forward before tomorrow arrives.”

If the issues are significant.  If the thrust to X-it is to be countered, then leadership is called for. Now but from where?  – Editor

Note. Education Curriculum Needs Reform HERE is the newsletter’s companion Fact or Fiction feature for this week.

Canada Day 2026: Fix-it, Or X-it? The Question Canada Must Answer

As Canadians gather on July 1 to celebrate the founding of our country, we have every reason to be proud. Canada is prosperous, progressive, diverse, and deeply fortunate. It is home to a well-educated population, strong democratic and liberal institutions, peaceful communities, and a long tradition of democracy, compromise, civility, and respect for difference. These are not small

achievements. They are the foundation of a country admired around the world.

Canada is equally blessed by geography and natural resources. We possess vast freshwater reserves, extraordinary agricultural capacity, immense boreal forests, abundant critical minerals, and coastlines on three oceans that provide both maritime opportunity and natural defense. Our weather and wilderness have shaped a resilient people. We are also an energy superpower, possessing the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves and supplying the overwhelming share of the natural gas imported by the United States at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty and rising global energy demand.  Continued below

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Finally, we share the world’s longest peaceful border with the largest economy and the strongest defense partner on Earth. Canada’s history, like that of every nation, is neither one of unbroken triumph nor one of unrelenting injustice. It is a story of achievement and failure, cooperation and conflict, reconciliation and unfinished business. We have built institutions admired around the world while also confronting difficult chapters involving Indigenous peoples, regional tensions, and social inequities. Mature nations do not erase either side of their history. They learn from both.

Yet every gift carries a hidden risk. Such abundance and comfort can also sow the seeds of complacency. Prosperity can make reform seem unnecessary. Stability can dull urgency. Good fortune can tempt leaders to manage problems rather than solve them. The urgent increasingly
crowds out the important. Short-term politics too often triumphs over long-term nation-building. Over time, unresolved grievances accumulate. Citizens become frustrated. Regions feel unheard. Trust in institutions gradually erodes. Most importantly, resilience weakens, because resilience is not created by avoiding problems but by confronting them. That is Canada’s challenge today.

The measure of a mature federation is not whether disagreements arise. They always will. The measure is whether those disagreements are acknowledged, debated honestly, and ultimately resolved through reform rather than allowed to harden into alienation. The renewed debate over Alberta’s future should not be dismissed as mere regional discontent. Like Quebec’s sovereignty debate before it, Alberta’s frustration points to a deeper question: does Confederation still serve all parts of the country as fairly and effectively as it should?

Alberta is taking a leadership role in expressing that political and economic power have become overly concentrated in Central Canada while resource-producing provinces are expected to shoulder disproportionate burdens without sufficient influence over decisions affecting their future. Whether one agrees with every grievance is not the point. The point is that serious grievances deserve serious attention. Calls for separation are rarely the beginning of a problem. They are usually evidence that problems have been left unresolved for too long.

Canada does not need to break apart. It needs to grow up. A mature federation should not fear reform. Greater provincial flexibility in workforce development, immigration priorities, resource management, healthcare innovation, infrastructure, and regional economic development need not weaken Canada. Properly designed, such reforms would strengthen Confederation by allowing decisions to be made closer to the people most affected while preserving a strong national government responsible for matters of common purpose.

Stronger provinces and a stronger Canada are not competing ideas; they are partners, not subordinates. The transition from adolescence to maturity is now upon us. The greatest threat to Canada is not disagreement, but our growing inability to listen to one another long enough to fix what is broken. This Canada Day, the choice before us is not unity versus division. It is complacency versus renewal. It is whether we cling to yesterday or commit to building a stronger tomorrow.

If Ottawa listens, if provinces collaborate, if citizens engage respectfully, and if leaders possess the courage to modernize Confederation, the arguments for “X-it”; naturally weaken because the reasons for leaving begin to disappear. Alberta’s message should therefore be understood not as a final threat, but as an invitation: fix what is broken before frustration hardens into rejection.

Canada remains a nation of extraordinary relevance. But relevance is never permanent. It must be renewed by every generation. Canada’s founders did not leave us a finished country.

They left us an unfinished project. Every generation inherits the responsibility not simply to celebrate Canada, but to strengthen it.

The greatest tribute we can pay those who built this country is not merely to preserve it, but to improve it for those who will follow. This Canada Day, let us reject the politics of slogans—whether they tell us Canada is beyond criticism or beyond repair. Neither is true. Let us instead choose reform over resentment, conversation over confrontation, listening over accusation, and renewal over complacency.

Canada does not need X-it. Canada needs Fix-it. Because the strongest nations are not those without faults, but those with the wisdom to acknowledge them and the courage to correct them.