Horner’s statement is mostly Ottawa bashing rhetoric typical of the UCP. The second bill on the government’s agenda in the session of the Legislature that opened Monday, the tendentiously named Pension Protection Act, says Albertans will get to ratify the pension-exit idea in a referendum, but does not require the government to accept the referendum’s result. Needless to say, this troubles many. Horner’s claim “this will only happen if Albertans vote to do so in a referendum,” rumours abound that if the UCP loses the referendum, or even if it doesn’t hold one, that the Smith Government intends to proclaim it has consulted enough and push ahead with the scheme regardless. The process is opaque and manipulative.Īs for Mr. Nor is it true that “Alberta has been having an open discussion about the possibility of establishing an Alberta Pension Plan.” On the contrary, Albertans have been inundated with intentionally misleading advertising paid for with their own tax dollars to persuade they to swallow the bait. Freeland’s short statement and her vow that “we will always stand up for the Canada Pension Plan and the secure and dignified retirement it provides to all Canadians.”Īssia Billig, chief actuary of the Government of Canada (Photo: Benefits Canada). This undoubtedly explains the forceful tone of Ms. Nevertheless, this is an excellent issue for the federal Liberals, seemingly on the ropes, to portray themselves as the defenders of Canadians in all provinces outside Quebec who are frightened by the harm Alberta proposes to do to the national pension plan and their own retirements. Indeed, they were buzzing like wasps last night on this very topic. The chief actuary’s final number, of course, will undoubtedly prompt a series of conspiracy theories from the hordes of mysterious social media bots that seem to appear out of nowhere whenever a UCP policy runs into public opposition. Nowadays, it is a division of Telus Health, a company most often associated with the controversial and now defunct Babylon tele-health app so beloved by the UCP. Horner noted, presumably in a tip of the hat to the former Liberal finance minister, was previously known as Morneau Shepell. Canadians in every province would be furious if they were told Alberta was walking off with more than half of their retirement fund.Īlberta Premier Danielle Smith (Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). It is also politically impossible, as every provincial, territorial and federal politician in the country well understands – including, presumably, the separatist cabal so influential in the UCP that has ginned up this crisis to advance its independence agenda. Billig’s final number will be considerably – possibly dramatically – lower than Lifeworks’ fantasy number, which has been soundly debunked by a raft of experts. No matter how you spin it, virtually everyone in Canada understands that the infamous Lifeworks report prepared for the UCP government that concluded Alberta should get a whopping 53 per cent of the CPP investment fund is not a reasonable interpretation. In a statement by the federal finance minister after the special meeting of federal, provincial and territorial finance ministers called to deal with the crisis created by Premier Danielle Smith’s scheme to pull Canadians’ retirement savings earned in Alberta out of the CPP, Chrystia Freeland stated that she “would ask the Chief Actuary to provide an estimate of the asset transfer based on a reasonable interpretation in the CPP legislation.” (Emphasis added.) Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner (Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).
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