Editor:
Something that Premier Danielle Smith had been trumping before the provincial election – a made-in-Alberta pension plan – managed to be dropped off of her list of election promises.
However, it's raising its ugly head again, in full-page “advertisements” by the UCP. And it has been getting lots of notice.
The big question is why? Smith is trying to charm Albertans into giving up our cherished Canadian Pension Plan (CPP).
A commissioned report by the UCP was made public last month. It reckons we have paid too much for far too long. Smith wants you to believe Alberta can withdraw from the CPP and take along with us more than 50 per cent of CPP coffers.
She says the secret to success, after plundering our CPP, lies in our young, employed generation. They are large in number and are high wage earners. She wants to woo them into believing they can contribute less and get more. I think that that is called new math – is it part of the new curriculum?
In good faith, the UCP has an online survey Albertans can sign on to, to help our government really get the pulse of its constituents. It asks how we'd like the funds to operate, but amazingly omits the question of whether we want to opt out in the first place.
She's picking a fight with Canadians, because if she really walked away with 53 per cent of the CPP pool, the rest of Canadians would be severely impacted. For one thing, they would have to pay higher premiums, and could well expect less in pensionable earnings.
I expect this dream would plump all these ill-gotten gains into AIMCo – where else. Then Smith could back oil and gas, smaller companies that don't attract big, outside investments. The ones she is scaring away from this province in the first place.
Let’s take back the $7.5 million she has already spent on this campaign, and re-direct it into issues that really matter, like housing, education, healthcare.
Marilyn Foxford,
Canmore
