GUNTER: Alberta pension plan smart, but ultimately a non-starter

Worse still, Justin Trudeau could make this issue the centrepiece of a federal election and win his party a majority by claiming, “Give me a majority so I can protect your retirement from those greedy, oil-soaked, climate deniers in Alberta!”

This figure does not come off the top of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s head. The 1966 federal law establishing the CPP allows any province to withdraw. When it withdraws, it gets to take an amount out of the CPP fund equal to past contributions made by its citizens, minus past benefits paid to them.Since Alberta has a young population, in the nearly 60 years since the CPP was set up, Albertans have contributed billions more than they have received in CPP cheques later in their lives.

If that happened, Albertans would see their premiums fall from 9.9 per cent of eligible income to 5.91 per cent, a savings of $5 billion in the first year alone. If Alberta, like Quebec, were in charge of its own huge retirement fund, even more billions could be directed to made-in-Alberta projects. That might become especially important if the CPP investment board goes all “green” and blocks investments in oil and gas, as seems likely at some point.

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