Reclaiming Your Financial Sovereignty

Fergus Hodgson is a triple citizen based in Fort Collins, Colorado. Born in New Zealand to a Kiwi father and an Irish-Canadian mother, he speaks Spanish and has lived as an expat in seven countries. He holds an MBA in finance from Rice University, a BA in economics from Boston University, and a BA in political science from the University of Waikato. His articles have been published with think tanks such as the Fraser Institute and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, academic journals such as Econ Journal Watch, and popular media outlets such as Fox News and the Epoch Times. 

He recently published his book "Financial Sovereignty for Canadians: Untether Yourself from the Ottawa Leviathan" Part of the description of the book, "Canada has a meritorious classical-liberal legacy. This book is a gateway to reclaiming your sovereignty—being a driver and not a passenger—and opening your mind beyond partisanship and political correctness."

Transcript

[00:01] Russell: All right, and we're back. Russell here with the Canadian Conservative podcast. And today on the show, I have Fergus Hodgson. Fergus is the founder of Econ America's llc, an economic and financial consultancy devoted to alternative investments, stakeholder management, and jurisdictional arbitrage. He is also publisher of the Impunity Observer, a geopolitical intelligence service focused on rule of law and economic development at the nexus of Anglo and Latin America. Welcome to the show, Ferguson.

[00:35] Fergus: Thank you, Russell. I'm a big fan. As I mentioned before we get started, I've listened to a bunch of your episodes. This is one of the shows I really wanted to appear on.

[00:43] Russell: Well, thank you for that. And given that you have a lot of titles and you have a lot going for you, I'll give you a chance here to talk a bit about yourself, talk a little bit about, you know, your connection to Canada, your connection to the states, and then we'll get into your book.

[01:00] Fergus: Sure. Well, my connection to Canada comes from my mother. She was born on an indian reserve up in northern British Columbia in a very isolated place in 1950s, so really on the frontier of Canada at that time. She was the first child of irish immigrants and so she grew up there. But when she got married, she moved to New Zealand to be with my father. And I was born and raised in New Zealand. So all of us, she had six children, all of us citizens of Canada through her. But unlike my siblings, I got an athletic scholarship to come to the United States, and that made me much more of, let's say, an international person. You know, four years away from home changed me because I had the passport. When I graduated, I looked to find work and make a home. And I went to Canada at the end of 2008, starting out of 2009, and got work out in Halifax, Nova Scotia. So unlike my siblings, I really built a network in Canada. And so in 2009, I went to what was at the time the Manning networking conference. I'm not sure what it's called these days, but basically a big conference of all the kind of pro liberty, free market types in Canada and build a network there. So since then, I've been writing for various publications in Canada and following more closely. My grandparents had nine children. The vast majority of my aunts, uncles, cousins are all spread across the country, and one of them married a french Canadian. So I've been to Quebec many times, too.

[02:23] Russell: Well, I'm sorry for that. Welcome to the show. So your book, financial sovereignty for how to untether yourself from the Ottawa Leviathan.

[02:39] Fergus: The brain strain doesn't like it yeah. No.

[02:41] Russell: No, it doesn't. But it's available on Amazon. What are the key chapters in that book?

[02:47] Fergus: Yeah. So the book is my attempt to offer practical, let's say, advice for the minority of Canadians who care about freedom a great deal and find themselves not represented in the political world. This became particularly apparent to me during the trucker convoy or the freedom convoy, because you had a wide swath of, just, in my mind, salted the earth Canadians, good people, and they had basically zero support from the political class. I don't know if I heard of anyone speaking positively about them at all. Maybe at the provincial level, I'm not sure, but not at the federal level. And so I have three sections in the book. One is basically an overview of this, let's say, the status of economic freedom or civil liberties in Canada. And the trajectory. The conclusion? My conclusion is that Canada is economically becoming more of a backwater country, more like in Argentina. Not only is it. Is it economically struggling, and everyone can see this. It shouldn't be news to anybody. There is basically a de facto social credit system arising of heightened surveillance and self censorship by which people, they're going to struggle to have independent thoughts or independent activities and keep their economic livelihood. So that's the first section. The second section is what you do about this in your personal life. So this is called direct citizen action. So rather than trying to vote for someone different or whatever, what can you do in your personal life? And I go through three broad themes. One is three broad aspects of that. One is putting a barrier between you and government. So let's say, using censorship resistant payment platforms or communications platforms, social media. The other is fostering what is called the agorist or alternative or parallel economy, which is deregulated. It's the gray market. And then is leaving the country altogether expatriation, why you would or would not want to do that, and if so, where you might want to go and how to do that. Like. So the first section is what's going on in Canada right now, what are the trends? Two, what to do about it yourself. And then the third section is the epilogue. And where I discuss maybe how to just change your thinking. It's more of a philosophical, broader discussion. And there I advocate three things. One, getting out of all government or state propaganda, because, as you know, and this is the whole, one of the reasons for your show existing. There is an incredible problem in Canada of a lack of diversity in media, independent media. And it's just painful me to think about all the government or taxpayer funding going to these outlets which just smother independent outlets. If you're competing with a $1 billion behemoth, I mean, how can you compete with that?

[05:41] Russell: That being said though, we are competing with the $1 billion behemoth. They do view us as a threat. That's why alternative media sources are so negatively interpreted by the mainstream media.

[05:55] Fergus: They do see you as a thread. All I'm saying is that it's a bit like me writing this book and having, let's say, a few thousand people buy it versus all the universities having a million students. It's very tough for me to compete with that kind of stature, infrastructure. And I remember years ago one of my colleagues in the think tank community was saying that we were basically an intellectual competitor with the universities. And I thought, man, that's a tough battle because we don't have, I mean, I'm not sure what the total funding of higher education is in Canada, but it would be huge. And so in that, that final section I refer to, yes, getting unplugging yourself. And I call, I have a chapter on basically getting out of what I call the COVID hysteria, the fear mongering, and then another chapter on the. Basically my view that Canada really needs secessionist movements. And I advocate Brexit, but I'd also support independence for Atlanta, Canada, Quebec and the like. Because one of the real reasons why Canada is faltering is because of a lack of accountability and a centralization of power in Ottawa. That's why I say that the subtitle to my book is untether yourself from the Ottawa Leviathan, because you have this class of people in Ottawa who are not accountable, have a kind of arrogance towards the common Canadian. And this was just so clear during the COVID era where they would speak down to people and think nothing of basically defying rules on their own, but implying them to others. And the final section is basically just looking beyond the political world, that it's not really a secret. Obviously, I believe in non governmental solutions. So I've got, a friend of mine wrote a book called the Social Singularity about what comes after government or kind of like a post classical liberal world, because we have benefited from, you might say, liberal democracy. But that is not the end of the story. There was a great famous book by Francis Fukuyama called the end of history explaining why liberal democracy was kind of like that was it. And I argue in my friend argues in his book, and I echo the sentiment that there's more to come in that sphere and we should consider what comes after that, do you think the.

[08:02] Russell: Bend after liberal democracy is more libertarian, or do you think it's going to go more authoritarian?

[08:09] Fergus: Well, unfortunately, the last 20 years have gone more authoritarian. There have been no new democracies in the last 20 years. Right. So obviously there was a great deal of, let's say, flowering of new democracies after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union. But in recent times, it has gone more towards dictatorships you could look at in the Americas. You've got glaring examples of Venezuela and Nicaragua, and I talk about others that are on the horizon. There are other places it gets more complicated. When you go out to Eastern Europe, you've got places like Moldova, Belarus, that have retrenched or gone back into the sphere of what was, I guess, de facto Soviet Union. It's hard to describe. Also places in Georgia, the country Russia invaded, and I think it was 2007, 2008, and took two parts and created two soviet states within that country. There's still a conflict over that now, but in the western world, where at least there's a semblance of free speech and more, more, let's say, ingenuity, you have the whole decentralized finance world. And in my view, that can be a game changer. Game changer. I'm very excited about it. Obviously, the book is financial sovereignty. Finance is my great interest. And the conventional financial sectors in Canada and the United States, immensely over regulated. And in my view, this regulation is just a capturing, what we call regulatory, capturing where those insiders have created all sorts of compliance and reporting burdens such that independent individuals have a hard time getting started. You have to have basically 20 million to really get started as a financial advisor in the United States, to really have sufficient assets under management to cover the compliance costs. So thats a huge hurdle for many people getting started.

[10:03] Russell: Most Canadians, I think they take home a salary. I mean, 40% of the canadian workforce is some type of government workforce, municipal, provincial, federal workforce, and thats a huge percentage of people. So its left up to the 60% to generate the wealth for Canada because 40%, while they can give government services, at some level, they can't actually produce wealth for the country.

[10:31] Fergus: I see it as a downward spiral because the public sector unions have incredible power in Canada. And if you would understand where that leads, you look at a place like Atlantic Canada. I know Nova Scotia the best because I lived there for a while and my uncle still lives out in Anakinish. And basically they have almost suffocated the economy. It's like the parasite has almost killed the host. There's almost nothing left to devour. And it's the same in Argentina, like I said, that's why I use that parallel, that Argentina unionized the economy earlier than Canada, but now Canada has done it, too. And as you say, pretty much half the workforce is now in this unionized setup. It really is deleterious towards, let's say, meritocracy, competitiveness, innovation. It changes the culture. It changes the culture away from revering the entrepreneur, the Peter Thiel types, or the, gosh, I can't believe I've forgotten this. The guy who owns X or Twitter, these big entrepreneurs. And if you go to a place like Atlanta, Canada, people aspire to have a government job. And that's the culture there, unfortunately. And in Newfoundland, I heard a great podcast recently. It's almost worse where people aspire to just get employment insurance, which is a tragedy.

[11:54] Russell: It's difficult in Canada to really get ahead because so much of our salary base is tied to some type of government jobs sector and regulation on the business market. We're incredibly regulated country when it comes to business. You have your federal regulations, then you have your provincial regulations, and then you have your municipal regulations. And it seems like the noose just gets tighter and tighter. And one of your chapters is how and where to start your own business. And starting a business in Canada, it looks easy on paper. It's not difficult in Saskatchewan. You can just go to the website and check for a name, and if the name's available, then you can take the name, and then you can apply for your business license. It's everything that comes after that. It's all the reporting mechanisms, it's the tax mechanisms that, you know, come in after that that make it incredibly difficult for someone. Let's say you're, you know, a, I don't know, your husband works in a factory, and you're at home, and you're, you know, the kids are at school, and you decide, you know what, I'm good at baking, so I'm gonna bake some stuff and sell it. And then you're like, well, I might as well make a small business out of it. And then all the regulations start pouring in, and then people say, well, you know what? Back off. I'm not going to even begin to try to unravel this because I don't want to get in trouble with Cra. I don't want to get in trouble in Saskatchewan with sets or anything like that. And so instead of making a business that could be viable, it could generate more income, could eventually lead to something where you could open an actual brick and mortar or something like that. They back off at the entry point because it's too difficult to really even dive into it.

[13:42] Fergus: Yeah. What you've created is a scenario, and we, you know, it's not a secret I'm here in Colorado, but both in the US and Canada, you have this where honest people struggle to comply with the law. It reminds me a little bit of rugby. I don't know if you followed this, Canada has the Canucks team, but you have professional players struggling to understand the roles, and the referees basically have to talk them through the whole game. And that's what's happening in Canada, that in order to remain in compliance with the laws or tax requirements, whatever it may be, you have to almost have an ongoing dialogue with the compliance authorities. And that's a totally. It's a huge redistribution or distraction in terms of resources. Often these rules are just insane. I mean, for example, why do you need a license to cut here? Right. It's absolutely the nanny stay. I remember years ago, I saw a story out in Nova Scotia of someone who I think was getting prosecuted for not having a license for cutting hair, and he said, well, it takes so much time to get these licenses, I can't afford it. And I'm going, this is an honest argument. And rather than saying, you know what? You shouldn't need a license to cut here, this is insane. They said, well, maybe we can come up with an alternative licensing system and go, you don't get the point, mate. You know, why not? Begging all the time. Yeah.

[15:02] Russell: Well, in that case, the government just expands where we're going to have an alternate licensing system. So we'll need to hire people into it, and we'll need to pay them, and then we'll need to just build another layer of bureaucracy. So it's not really parallel. It's. It's just sub. It's. It's subbed under the main heading of the license.

[15:20] Fergus: Well, this is one of the challenges that face that conservative, or let's say, market oriented individuals in Canada. They face the challenge that they feel like it's almost impossible to actually uproot any kind of program. So we're trying to make it better managed, and unfortunately, you almost make the state more sophisticated by doing that. Yeah.

[15:42] Russell: Yeah. And then once. Once the person, let's say, does start the business and they're going down, going through all the hoops and trying to make the business work along the way, they have to pay the province, they have to pay the municipality, they have to pay the federal government. And at the end of the day, a lot of them, they say, well, there's tax offsets. You can write off so much on this and so much on that. But at the end of the day, all those costs are paid upfront. And at the end of the year, you go with your hands out and saying, can I get some of that money back, please?

[16:22] Fergus: It's humiliating to me. It is humiliating the way that Canadians have to go and beg for handouts like that. And then the political class think they're so charitable, but, oh, we're going to give you some kind of relief from this burden. I'm going stop removing the burden to begin with. I'm not going to give you some kind of honor for giving us some kind of break if you happen to have more kids or whatever it creates. This is the problem with income taxes in general. Of course, income taxes do just take a lot of your income, right? So in candidates, probably, I don't know, 40% or something insane overall, right? But the real problem with the income tax to me, is that it is an instrument of tyranny that with all the income tax, in so many ways, one, it redistributes income, right? So it's graduated. It's this progressive kind of marxist tax where you take more from the rich and give to the poor. So it's redistributive, but with all the carve outs, you can basically plan industry, you can plan families, you can subsidize schools or universities or whatever. It's a social engineer's dream or policy tool. So I try to opt out of it as much as I can.

[17:35] Russell: Well, how can Canadians opt out of it besides just going underground? And that because at the end of the day, the tax person, like you talked about, social credit system, every dollar in Canada is tracked. I mean, if you look at criminal enterprise, if. If tomorrow someone went out and they sold methamphetamine and they made $10,000, they're going to have to launder it somehow. Because if they went to the bank and they said, okay, I want deposit $10,000, they're going to say, okay, but where did the money come from? We want to know where that money came from. And then they're going to. And so really, I heard someone joke before, that money made underground in that is just grocery and gas money.

[18:22] Fergus: First, Canadians, as quickly as possible, should try to make their money from capital gains or from investments and not from their labor, because the labor is taxed so punitively. Now, of course, there are various ways to get around taxes. You know, this is a long. A bigger, broader topic, but of course, you can participate in a parallel or cash economy when you want to. Right. So whether it's someone mowing your lawn or doing a babysitting or doing transport or whatever. And I. I'm quite fine with people basically engaging in what I believe is civil disobedience against a tyrannical tax system, which, in my mind, is basically crippling the. The under. Both the underclasses and just the younger generation of Canada. But I also recommend, and I give ideas in the book for how to basically conceal your transactions and how to use cryptocurrencies that traceless. Right. The other option I recommend is basically starting an LLC here in the United States, and then you will only be. Because if you're working online, if you have an online or service only business, you'll only be taxed on what you bring out of that. Right. Because online activity, I mean, technically, who knows where it's actually taking place, right? It's not actually physically in any location. So that's. That's what I recommend in terms of getting the most flexibility in your life and being. Because then not only is your business mobile, you are mobile. Because if you want to move to. I mean, someone even tried to make New Brunswick a free province project in Canada. I don't know whether that's taken off or not. But, you know, let's say you want to move to Alberta or New Brunswick or Princewood island or wherever you can. You're more mobile in that regard. I must admit, though, that if you really want to become a successful, big time businessman or entrepreneur, there's very little way to avoid that in Canada that the tax man will hurt you, because you will be in the spotlight. And this is where. This is why, like I said at the beginning, my personal view is Canada really needs a decentralization because the. The burden is just getting so painful, so high, that I don't know how Canadians can stomach it or survive it. And we're even seeing a rise of what's called onward migration, where many people move to Canada and then just leave like I did.

[20:46] Russell: Yeah. Well, I've heard people talk, got about the. What do they call it? The passport shopping. They come to Canada, they do what they need to do to become a canadian citizen. They get that coveted canadian passport, and then they either move back to their home country or they move on somewhere else, because the canadian passport has very few visa restrictions and so it's viewed as a high profit passport to get because you don't have to apply for very many visas unlike many other passports.

[21:19] Fergus: Yeah, I don't have that problem because I've got New Zealand and irish passports as well. But it's true that if you're from, let's say somewhere in Central America or somewhere in Africa, whatever, I mean, yeah, if you could get a canadian passport, it would reduce challenges in your life immensely. Yeah, so. But no, but basically my just point is that the level of tax burden in Canada sometimes defies explanation in my mind. I still remember when the NDP was leading Alberta, so under Rachel Notley, until Jason Kenney came in, they literally had on their website, you know, low taxes in Alberta. And I think the highest tax rate was 47% on income. Just on income. Forget sales, property, everything else you can imagine. And I thought, on what planet is a 47% top income tax rate low?

[22:14] Russell: Well, I think the most insulting part of it is if they're going to tax us at such a high rate, where's the services for that? That's the thing. I mean, I don't agree with it, but if they were going to say, okay, we're going to have a high tax base like this, then you would expect exceptional services. But instead, if I owned a business and I called CRA because I have a question, I have to be on hold for 3 hours and then maybe they might not even be able to answer my question. And I just. Where's the value for tax money on that? And I mean, I mean, it comes back to no taxation without representation. But I guess the question is, what do you think the breaking point is for Canadians? What will be the Boston harbor moment? Tossing the tea into the river moment? Because, you know, we talk about a high tax rate, we talk about Canadians are broke, but people are spending just as much money as they were before. People are spending money. The restaurants, you know, that are there, people are eating out just as much as they used to. So I mean, we can say on one hand that people are suffering and we're overtaxed. And I completely agree that we are. But the spending habits don't really reflect that. People are still spending and getting into just as much debt, if not even more now than ever.

[23:37] Fergus: Russell, look, this is a great point because the challenge with Canadas, lets say economic decline, is that it has largely come on slowly. So it has been normalized in our perceptions. Thats one reason why the COVID era was almost useful is that it raised peoples awareness. It catalyzed, realized something's wrong here. And it's kind of like one moment we can really get behind it. We can really make change. And I detailed this in detail. I detail this in the book. The level of insolvency in Canada is out of control. People don't seem to realize that there are just record numbers of people declaring bankruptcy, businesses going under and mortgages failing, credit cards getting, you know, not being paid back, whatever. This has basically doubled, I think, in the last 15 years, that the level of indebtedness and insolvencies in Canada. So let's say policies and have consequences, and minimal or low growth also has consequences. Right? So I say that this basically, it's almost like a tautology. If costs go up, you know, if taxes go up, if interest rates rise, if income, but while incomes are stable, people are going to default. It's almost like they have to because there's nowhere to go. There's not the money to cover what they have to pay for. And I just feel like indebtedness and borrowing have basically become normalized in Canada. I can't remember the statistic right now, but a high percentage of people borrowed from family and friends during the COVID era. They had to. They were kind of backed into a corner. And so they've almost given up on the sense of, like I said in my book, financial sovereignty that you and I aspire to. So I agree that people are almost just kind of almost given up. They're just throwing in the towel and just, you know, just trying to enjoy living for today in terms of getting a return on your money. This is a. It's a really sensitive issue for Canadians because a lot of them take pride in things like having, let's say, enviable education or government healthcare, whatever it may be, but it's not. Well, it's almost. What I mean is that it's almost like a. It's painful to this sense of national pride and identity, the recognition that this is just a lie, that it is not, you know, and look, I've got. My cousins would disagree with me or challenge me or challenge me on this, but the truth is that if you have money, you don't go to Canada for medical care. Right. And Canada is one of the very few countries in the world that basically bans private medical provision because there's this ideological, I don't know, just imperative to many people that we all must have the same miserable medical care. Now, it's not necessarily cheap in terms of percentage of the economy I mean, it's not necessarily expensive because the percentage of the economy in Canada that goes to medical care is relatively low versus the United States or some other countries like New Zealand, where I'm from. But the problem is that the service is terrible. The waiting lists. I, when I was in, living in Calgary for a while, I broke my arm. You have to call in and basically their job is to persuade you not to go. But they go, well, you've broken your arms, you better come in. And then I waited for hours in the waiting room. You realize that if you've got anything that requires deeper investigation, just get to the back of the queue. And that's why people leave. People have got the wherewithal leaving. This is not news to anybody or should not be, that there's all sorts of data on how many Canadians every year go across into the US for treatment. If it was so wonderful, that would, that wouldn't be a thing.

[27:17] Russell: Well, I know people that have gone to the states. You know, I mentioned it on my show before. I had a friend, Maria. She came to Canada from Brazil. Lovely lady. Lived here her whole life. Married, canadian here, had children, raised kids, you know, like the canadian dream type situation. She worked here, she worked hard.

[27:40] Fergus: Yeah.

[27:40] Russell: And then she started to feel like a numbness in her foot. And so she kind of shrugged it off for a bit. That's what we do in Canada. It's minor. We just shrug it off. And then eventually she went to the doctor and the doctor shrugged it off and, you know, said, well, okay, well, we'll order some tests and we'll do this. And she got put on a waiting list for these tests and eventually it turned out she had a tumor in her brain. And by the time it got time for surgery, talking surgery, it had grown so big, they said that it was inoperable. And they referred her to palliative care, end of life care. So she flew to Brazil and she had some separate doctors look at it and they said if this had been tackled within the first few months, they could have done the surgery right. Instead, couple of years later, she passed away. And to me it's just, it's another medical horror story in Canada of our system, the one that, you know, a lot of leftists like to prop up failing, just absolutely failing someone. And it's a real shame. It's not, not only shame, and it's almost criminal in a way. And then the rise of euthanasia and Canada, the, you know, but there's still some people I know, like, I've like, I've had a family member that was very ill, and we. We would wait in the waiting room for 14 to 16 hours, and it was serious. It wasn't like. It was like this family member had the sniffles or something. They had serious illness. And people say, well, you're not paying for it. Well, you are actually paying for it through your taxes. So you are paying for. People say, you don't pay. That's the biggest lie, is when people say, well, it's free. It's free healthcare. Well, it's not free. We're all collectively paying for it, but we're collectively paying for a miserable experience that doesn't actually benefit any Canadians generally.

[29:35] Fergus: Yeah. Look, Mike, that story just. It kills me. It just hurts me because this is where people who just, let's say, adhere to the socialist ideology and turn a blind eye to the truth, which is right before their eyes. Right. We can. Like I said, it's not a secret. Everyone knows someone who's gone to the United States or gone elsewhere for treatment. It's reported in by think tanks. The Fraser Institute covers it. So you have to basically actively turn away to not know this is happening. We all know there are year long waiting lists for any kind of surgery in Canada. And you have to, like I said, actively kind of, like, block this out to keep up the facade that you have some kind of magical or, you know, incredible world leading medical sector, which is just a joke, or it's a terrible joke. And also, what do you expect if you're not the one? You know, I do self pay. I pay directly for my medical care. If you're not the one who's paying it, who's calling the shots here in the United States, it's almost always an insurance company. Unfortunately, in Canada, it's the province. Right. And people go, oh, we have such. So much cheaper drugs. I'm going to. Yeah, because you've got a monopoly. There's not the research going on in Canada. They basically piggyback on american research and then have monopoly buying power so they can negotiate a lower rate. It's not a, let's say, innovative space. And also, if you're a proud person, you don't want just sick care for when you have problems. You want to be able to invest in nutrition, lifestyle, exercise, whatever it may be. And of course, that that's not covered. Taxes are not going to cover that. So it's basically a redistribution away from healthy people to sick people or unhealthy people. And it's just another kind of like, almost like egalitarian initiative to make us all the same, to punish the people who are taking initiative and subsidize people who are not.

[31:29] Russell: To me, it seems like we're almost sadomasochistic in a way. Like where. Well, every step along the way, we. Or getting punished for trying to get ahead. I mean, if you're at your workplace and you work overtime because you want to have a nice vacation, or maybe you want to pay off debt sooner, and you're like, you know what? I'm going to take on some overtime to pay off my credit cards. And so you take on extra overtime, and then tax season comes up, and because you took on overtime, you have to pay a higher tax rate now. And so now you owe money. And so that money you paid off on that credit card, now you have to take off your credit card to pay the tax man back.

[32:08] Fergus: Yeah. So you asked about where is the kind of finish line? Or where will this end? And there are a few ways to answer that. It's already happening. Okay, so the people with upward mobility or income mobility, they will leave Canada, right? So it's already been happening. And there's something like a million canadians living in the United States. It's a huge number, canadian citizens. And then, so first, people will leave. Second, I mean, I want this to happen. Of course, there will be rising separatist or independence movements. Now, I don't know whether you're, let's say, a canadian nationalist or against these ideas, and many people are, and that's fine. That's their choice. But my personal view is that it would be a healthy thing for one of the provinces to get the ball rolling. And because it's a bit like the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, that had an incredible, let's say, healthy incentive placed on the European Union that if you want us to stay in, you better offer a better deal. So it just, to me, it would be healthy that if it gets to the point where the burden is so high and the services are so poor, some provinces will just say, we can't, we can't stomach this anymore. And this is going to happen because this is, I mean, you. Yes, I've talked about the Canada pension plan and other shows, but this. Forget the Canada pension plan, just all the general government pension plans. What's going to happen over time is that more and more of the tax intake will be paying the retirement or pension or, you know, kind of benefits of people who've done things in the past so less and less of the money that you pay now will actually go to present services until it's just kind of a hollowed out welfare state pretending to be what it once was, perhaps while all the people who worked in that welfare state are collecting retirement benefits.

[34:04] Russell: Well, kind of the mantra of the liberal government the last few years is that we need a high immigration rate to Canada because we need more people to pay for these services. But it's. There's no way to close that loop. It becomes an endless spiral because more people come to Canada, which means there's more political incentives, whether it be rebates or whatnot. And yes, the boomers and the older generation, they get to keep their benefits, but at one point, it's going to break. It's an unsustainable system.

[34:42] Fergus: Yeah. Whenever someone says, we need immigrants to pay our bills, it is a red flag that this is an unhealthy, like you said, unsustainable system. You kind of need something coming from the outside to keep propping it up. And because the problem is, too, that we forget that, yes, immigrants come and they'll pay taxes, but they create obligations, too. They're going to retire. Right. So when they retire, they're going to want more immigrants to pay for them. It doesn't really. It's a very lazy or cowardly way of addressing a fundamental problem. I don't see a way out of it. Like I said, my view is that you're going to see more and more people both leave the country or push for independence movements to create more accountable, leaner government or competitive government at the local level. And I don't know what that's going to look like. I mean, I suspect you're more plugged in than I am in terms of how healthy these movements are. But it is the case that there is an established legal framework for provinces to leave with no need for violence or anything like that. And I think, too, that there would be, let's say, tolerance in the canadian public. If Quebec, for example, actually did get a vote of more than 50%, people would say, fine, we've got to manage healthy or orderly separation.

[35:59] Russell: William? Yeah. Talking about people leaving Canada, I have friends that came here from South Africa. They came here to flee the issues going on in South Africa. Some of them came here about 15 years ago or so, and the stories they'll tell you are absolutely insane. But they came here from South Africa, and now three of them that I know, one is looking to move to kind of deeper Latin America, and two of them are looking to move to Mexico. They're looking at. They're starting businesses and they're starting the process to leave, and they're saying Canada is in the nineties of where South Africa was.

[36:42] Fergus: Yeah, I don't know that. Yeah.

[36:44] Russell: And so. Yeah, and so they're saying, we know what's coming. We're getting out of here.

[36:49] Fergus: Like you said, one of the most important aspects of my book, financial sovereignty for Canadians, whether or not to leave the country and if so, where to go. I have a chapter basically saying, think very carefully before doing this. I do not recommend people just up and leave Canada, because, how can I put this? As bad as things might be looking in Canada, I mean, look around the world. There are such grave challenges around the world that Canada still is one of the better places to live, and there still is, let's say, a memory in the country of people of a more classical liberal legacy that Canada did begin with british common law, which, which includes policing by consent. And people still have a bit of a sense for that. Right. There's still a kind of like a. At least a portion of the country still has a memory of a more subdued or peaceful police force, a less intrusive nanny state, and a stronger sense for civil liberties. How long that will remain, I don't know. But basically, I just say that it is a fact that, let's say Canada is in the top 20 countries for economic freedom, and not many people would dispute that. So if you're going to go, you better think carefully about where you're going to go. Otherwise you're going to go to a worse place. And also, especially if you grew up in Canada, you're going to have a family network. You'll have so much more like, let's say, local knowledge that you cannot replace elsewhere. And so I'm very cautious about it, about recommending anyone leave haphazardly or hastily. When it comes to people who come from places like South Africa, of course, they're engaging in onward migration, so they don't really have the deep roots there to begin with. So it makes much more sense for them to leave. And they would also know how to handle third world countries. You kind of face this challenge where in Canada, the cost of living in the taxes are enormously higher than, let's say, a place like Guatemala. Right. But how much are you willing to pay for, you know, let's say better roads. Right. Or I'm trying to think of other, other, let's say, advantages to Canada, you know, somewhat more trustworthy institutions. Maybe so, but you kind of face that trade off that in Canada, you do still get a little bit more, let's say, civility or first world civilization versus these countries that would have a lower cost of living and lower tax burden.

[39:17] Russell: Yeah, I'll agree with that. I mean, I've been to South America before. A family that lives in Peru, you go to Lima, you go to some of these cities in Peru, and no one has a front lawn with grass on it. It's just a twelve foot wall with broken glass in the motor, spikes on the top and a big no trespassing sign. Cameras everywhere. Each district has its own, not even police force. They hired, like, these kind of deputized security guards, and they're everywhere. The security industry there is insane. They're absolutely up there in every store. They're on every street corner in that, you know, in their big cities in Peru, like Lima, I'm talking specifically, and that's because people have, it's so low trust there. It's such a low trust society. No one trusts anyone there. And, you know, the aide family, first time ever leaving Peru, they came to Canada. And I remember one of them was taking pictures of, like, my neighbor's house. And I was like, why are you taking pictures of the neighbor's house? And they just, where they're from, the only people that have lawns are rich people, and they have like, a big wall in front. And then when you enter in through the wall, they have like, a lawn area on the inside of the, of the wall.

[40:42] Fergus: Yeah.

[40:42] Russell: And, and people say, well, you know, I could move to Peru, I guess. But at the end of the day, there's, there's some definite trade offs and different cultural, you know, exposure there. And, you know, I don't want to be too doomsday or here, but Canada is slowly becoming more and more like that. People are building higher and higher walls. They're building bigger fences in Toronto and some of those cities in Ontario, the auto theft is so bad that they're starting to get those rising blockers on their driveway so that if someone comes to hotwire their car, they actually can't drive it off the driveway. And that's common in Peru. Like, you see those, they put them in parking stalls and stuff like that so that people can't either park there because, because it's paid for parking or so that people can't take what's there and take it out. And so it's just a slow intrusion of heightened security measures that people are taking to combat the crime and the dysfunction. And that's one thing that really worries me is that as people lose money and as people become more dependent on the government that they'll take, the people that have a little bit are going to have to take these exceptional security measures just to have their own safety, their own peace of mind, their own property.

[42:03] Fergus: Yeah. Yeah. Russell. Look, mate, I've been to Lima a few times, and someone attempted to steal my cell phone when I was just in a cab, for example. He just reached in and tried to grab my phone. And you're right that even if you live in a gated community in Peru, I know Ecuador better, but people will be still stealing within the gated community. So, like you said, the level of trust is so low. And that's one of the key, let's say, distinguishing attributes of a first world nation, that you have a higher level of trust. And for many Canadians, especially in, let's say, the more remote places like Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, or whatever, they've really enjoyed that for generations. And that is frat, you know, coming apart, no doubt about it. Yeah, but that doesn't mean, like I said, that doesn't mean other places are just going to flower and have it, but. So, in the book, I discuss places you can go, whether it's us states or us territories or just parts of. I put the Americas because I felt like that's more kind of realistic, closer to home. And I said, so you're going to have a hard time, though, finding countries that are more civilized and free than Canada. I said places like Switzerland, then micro states like Liechtenstein, but they're pretty few.

[43:24] Russell: Well, I run a substack as well as my podcast. And on that sub stack, I wrote an article basically describing why going off grid isn't the solution. Because there's been a lot of talk about, you know, I'm just done with canadian society. I'm going to take my family, we're going to move into the wilderness, build a cabin somewhere in the boreal forest, and live our lives out there. I mean, it's very romantic, individual, rugged. You know, rugged individualism is always a nice thing and should be promoted, but we're a soft society. And, I mean, I lived in a town in Saskatchewan that had maybe, maybe 500 people living in the town, and it was remote. It was at least an hour and a half, almost 2 hours away from major city. And I'll tell you, it's isolating, even with 500 people there. And, you know, there's a quintessential small town convenience store where the prices are higher, there's the small, you know, the only restaurant town was a chinese restaurant and there was just a kind of like a dive bar. And that's it. That's absolutely it. And so I think a lot of people, they had the, you know, I would, I tell people in that article, if you're going to look at, get weird, grow beard, disappear type thing, then I would suggest that people try living in a really small town first and see if they can survive that, because it isn't easy. It really isn't. When that convenience is out of reach.

[44:57] Fergus: Yeah. There are stories of people who've moved to very isolated parts of Nova Scotia and who have done this, but you have to be a pretty tough person to make that work. And yes, of course, if you are basically building your own house, planning your own gardens, I mean, no one's, no one's going to be taxing you on that. Right. And there's, there's a lengthy feature article in the epoch Times about a couple who did that. Right. But, man, I don't think many people are going to be lining up to do that.

[45:27] Russell: No. Like I said, it's very romanticized and it brings up this idea, you know, it's very canadian and american idea of, you know, taming the wildlands and sort of carving your own path. But it just doesn't work in modern society, just doesn't work in modernity, especially if people are used to those creature comforts. I'll say, yeah.

[45:49] Fergus: And also the problem is, too, that we might, we can maybe say that the provincial, or here in the US, the state level governments are more benign because there is jurisdictional competition between them, but there's basically no escape from the central government. So long as you're within Canada or within the United States, you're stuck. And that's where the real problem is. So unless you deal with that problem, I don't see moving to the woods as a solution. Now, in the United States, there are some exceptions like the US territories, and I'm not sure how it works. There's some kind of. Was it. I'm not sure what it's called. There's an island off Newfoundland that's still part of France. You know, there are these kind of like little, we tiny ways to get out, but it's not. I don't think it's a viable option for most people.

[46:43] Russell: I did want to ask. One of the things that kind of interested me was proven ways to conceal transactions that. Yeah, what does that mean?

[46:56] Fergus: Well, it means that people already do conceal their transactions. So we basically looked, I mean, my colleague and I, Paz Golmes, worked on this, on that section with me, but we looked at what other communities that, let's say, value privacy more, how they approach it. So this is not a secret, but many chinese people in Canada, there's a big community out on the west coast, they are more protective of their privacy, their identity. So they will basically use companies to buy assets rather than in their own name. Right? Or they will put their assets in the form of real estate investments, because they can also buy those assets without using their own name. So there are various ways. There are also people who do live in a more cash based economy. Just culturally, they lean more towards cash, whereas most, let's say, native born Canadians, would be more inclined to be stuck in this 100% traceable system, which proved during the. During the trucker convoy to be vulnerable to having assets frozen or confiscated or whatever, whereas cash is still basically a way to get out of that. And now we have digital forms of cash, like I said, private cryptocurrencies that replicate the privacy of cash. And I discuss a few options there. Cryptocurrencies are still, even though its 15 years since basically bitcoin got started. And I started looking into this, the infrastructure is still growing. To make this come to be, if you have a strong desire to protect your transactions, you can use private cryptocurrencies right now that are untraceable.

[48:33] Russell: Now I guess the question would be, because investing your money into crypto and mining crypto and that sort of thing. But how do you retrieve from the crypto back into canadian dollar? Or is it, you will have to find someone that also accepts cryptocurrency. And how viable is that right now?

[48:56] Fergus: Well, this is one of the challenges, because I used to pay colleagues or partners in cryptocurrencies, but we found it to be, let's say, clunky to make that trade between fiat currency and cryptocurrency. And there are applications arising. So the whole, let's say, what's it called now, the decentralized finance, they have layers to this. They have the underlying asset, then they have, you know, kind of like protocols, and then there are. There are applications. So it's true that you have to do a little bit of work to learn the applications and find people who will engage with you. This is why it's a parallel economy. It's not the mainstream economy, and that is unfortunate. But I do think that within the next ten years, this economy will grow to better rival the mainstream economy, because firms, retailers, they will respond to demand. If they think that people are holding cryptocurrencies, they'll accept them as a form of transaction. So it's almost a way of getting an advantage over your competitor if you accept a currency that is available that your competitor is not accepting.

[50:12] Russell: Clay, my question, and I'm a layperson with this, so don't mind if I sound kind of ignorant on this, but I guess, where does the value come from? Because at the end of the day, if I hold a canadian dollar 20 bill up in front of me, I have to assume, even if it's naively, that there's something that means that it equals $20. There's, you know, there's some sort of, you know, tangible asset or something like that. And I understand that that's a whole other topic. And we could get into whether our currency really means anything or not. But in the cryptocurrency just takes it one level deeper of where. Where the meaning. Where's the meaning derived from that?

[50:51] Fergus: No, good question. So it's tough to say whether cryptocurrencies are money, strictly speaking, yet, right. Because money, in terms of, lets say, economic theory, has three attributes, medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value, and so gold, right. The historic money, it served this purpose well, that it was uniform, right. Gold is basically, what is gold? Is gold. Its a kind of like a uniform entity, and it can be divisible. It is a clear store of value. It is a medium of exchange. So it meets these, these needs. So gold, yes, does have industrial purposes, but its real value in that it is that it meets these three elements of money, medium, exchange, store of account, and unit. Store of value. Unit of account. So cryptocurrencies, without having physical use, their value comes from their ability to serve those three, let's say, services. So in some ways theyre like fiat currencies without the government dictating them. Right. So the canadian dollar, the loony, it does not have any physical backing, and yet it still meets those three needs. Cryptocurrencies are trying to meet those three needs in a similar fashion without being imposed by government.

[52:14] Russell: The bank of Canada has talked previously in the past about potentially having, like a Bank of Canada digital currency. What are the implications if our biggest central banking system decides to get in on the crypto market?

[52:31] Fergus: There are huge implications or ramifications, but I don't see it happening for at least another few years because the bank of Canada, in my opinion, doesn't feel threatened enough to do it. If it were to happen, it would probably come from outside pressure, lets say the International Monetary Fund or something like that would say, really, we want to work with you on this technology to try to get ahead of the game. But the bank of Canada does not feel threatened because the percentage of the market, the percentage of people who are using cryptocurrencies for transactions is very low. So it doesnt really, like I said, it doesnt threaten them. But if it were to happen, it would be the cheery on the top of, like I said, the, the social credit system, whereby they wouldn't even have to freeze bank accounts because the bank account would be with the bank of Canada. The central government wouldn't have to go to third parties and freeze from there or go to crowdfund me or whatever it crowdfunding platforms. They would hold the accounts directly. One of the most pernicious elements, aside from, let's say, the targeting of people, would be the ability to have negative interest rates. Right? So apparently we're supposed to all spend like there's no tomorrow. And that's the whole point of lower and lower interest rates. And central bankers dream is to actually have negative. So you just hold your money and it just gets less and less. So you have to spend it now before it goes down. And that's the ultimate stimulus to make people spend right away. Of course, this is a huge distraction, and I refer to this in the book, the way that inflation is a tax, and this would be a tremendous tax to have negative interest rates. And people who buy into keynesian trickery seem to think that by playing games with the money supply, we're going to create a more productive or fruitful economy when the truth is we should have learned the lessons of the 1980s when banks were basically of pulling back from this, that really all you want to have is a stable, sound currency, low inflation, and let people focus on other matters rather than trying to beat inflation.

[54:44] Russell: You've heard of Dave Ramsey, right?

[54:46] Fergus: Absolutely, yeah.

[54:47] Russell: And so he has turned your income into your wealth generation tool by getting out of debt.

[54:53] Fergus: Right?

[54:54] Russell: He has a seven step program to get out of debt.

[54:57] Fergus: Yeah.

[54:59] Russell: Is that really sustainable for most people, though, in Canada? Let's use Canada specifically with our tax rates and our interest in that, because I know a few people that have tried it and they said cutting back everything, they still just don't seem to have enough money to pay down the debts and really get ahead.

[55:21] Fergus: Good question. And this really gets right to the heart of the problem that, and I feel this actually heavily back in New Zealand also, where I'm from. And basically Canada and New Zealand have a similar challenge here, where the discretionary income of most people is so low. Right. So let's say you make in fifty k and you're taxed 20k, you got 30k left, and your living expenses are 25k. You got five k to kind of move around and pay off. So forget buying a house or paying off major loans. You're really stuck. This is where you have to really take the initiative to, yes, work more, be entrepreneurial. You have been put into a corner, and you have to respond. The answer is not to just throw up your hands and give up. But, yes, I recognize that it is very difficult for many people, and I sympathize with them. I realize that, yes, they're overtaxed. The cost of living is too high, and they're being squeezed. So I do encourage people to be very careful about all debts. Right. I agree with Ramsey that too many people take on debts way too casually, and especially when it comes to things like student loans and credit cards. These are dangerous. The Warren Buffett, the famous financier here in the United States, he said, stay away from credit cards. Be very wary of credit cards. Right. If you're paying 25% to 30% on anything of, let's say, rolling over a balance, you can forget ever having real financial freedom. You cannot. That. That is a poisonous relationship for your finances. Also, the efficiency of conventional university degrees. Even though I've spent too many years of my life in universities, the return on investment is poor. You have to be very careful when addressing that. If you really want to become, let's say, financially independent, you need to focus on what is professionally relevant. And often, trade associations are a much better way to go. So, for example, you can do a four year degree like I did and get a degree in economics. What job does that apply for? Get you? Nothing. Right? Zero. No one says, oh, I want to hire a four year degree economist. That doesn't happen. When I went to Canada with two bachelor's degrees, one in economics, one in political science, the top think tank in the country wouldn't even hire me for any possession. They said maybe they'd consider me for an internship. That was how diluted the value of degrees had become in Canada, and I'm sure it's even worse now. So you have to be very careful about, yes, both credit cards and student loans, because, yes, it's hard to stay out of debt, but it's even harder to get out of it once you're in it. Right. So I would. Like I said, it is just a fact that many Canadians are indebted. This is just part of the trend and they're defaulting. I feel for them. You're going to have to work harder and be more entrepreneurial to get around that. And you keep in mind, too, that one of the reasons why I've been able to build a more independent life is that I've been away from debt basically my whole life. Right? So I got a full athletic scholarship to go to university and I worked very hard to get out of debt because I knew that it really is a noose around you. So I'd encourage Canadians to be very careful with that. I sympathize with you. Try to make whatever sort of alternative or side hustle income you can to achieve more independence and not rely upon credit cards or student loans or the like. Or the like. Yeah.

[59:05] Russell: Well, Fergus, I really appreciate you coming on to the show today. I have tons more questions, but I do want to be respectful of your time and. And I want to wrap up here. So plug your social medias and. And I'll give you the last word for anything else. We didn't talk about where you may want to give one last good tidbit of advice to the listeners.

[59:27] Fergus: Well, like, it's very hard to give generic advice for everybody, of course. So if people do want to reach out to me. Yes, find me on Twitter. On Twitter or x and LinkedIn. Just Fergus Hodgson. I'm pretty, you know, my name is rare enough. You'll find me. And yes, please do consider buy my book. Of course. I put a lot of my heart into this. Amazon, CA is the place. Also, if you're already listening to Russell, you're ahead of the game, right? This is the true independent media. So I appreciate people getting, you know, thinking for themselves and going to the likes of Russell and I. I want to encourage you to keep up your work, you know, that you're doing, because I'm sure there are many other Canadians who appreciate this independent voice and who would love to contribute as well, but are just too busy staying above. Above, you know, above board.