Alberta trying to stick foot in sovereignty door
By Lethbridge Herald on November 15, 2023.
Editor:
As June and I were walking home from SACPA on Thurs. (Nov. 2 ), she asked: “Could I say no to the Alberta Pension Plan (if it were to come about) and demand that I stay in the CPP?” We think the answer is yes.
We have always paid into the CPP and we now, in our 80s, receive benefits from the plan we paid into. The plan is like an annuity and is a contract between the CPP board and ourselves. If the Province of Alberta were to attempt to buy our contract with the CPP, without our personal consent, would that not violate that contract and the law?
Equally, how could an APP, born in a province with a very sketchy record in other pension management (AIMco, for example) legally or morally risk our pensions, with no legal guarantee that we would be as secure as in the CPP?
We would like to take our chances with the CPP, thank you very much, and we should have the personal right to demand our choice. If forced on this, we could, of course, move away from Alberta, taking our CPP pension benefits with us, which until now has been spent (along with private pension funds) almost exclusively in Alberta.
As we see it, the current government of Alberta is trying to stick its foot into the sovereignty door. When we became Canadian citizens in the mid-1980s we thought we were becoming Canadian citizens only and wholly. If the UCP wants to attempt sovereign status for Alberta through the backdoor of pension plans, they might better attempt it in several other ways not worthy of mention here, and not worthy of our support either.
James and June Tagg
Lethbridge
9-8
If it ever comes to a referendum you will have the opportunity to vote yes or no as per democracy. Democracy demands we have a say, but democracy again demands that every one may not agree with the outcome despite how much shouting and vitriol is emitted from either direction and all directions. You still will vote, yes or no, and live with the decision, as we have for years.
“Alberta proposes law on pension exit referendum, but bill doesn’t make result binding”
http://www.globalnews.ca/news/10067680/alberta-law-pension-referendum/
A referendum whose result would not be binding? Classic UCP.
Your comments make it seem like you think there has to be a referendum or the process is not democratic. That is false my friend. Your democratic choice is made at the ballot box during elections. If the elected representatives want to decide on this pension without a referendum, that is 100% democratic.
James and June My friends and I are all in our 80s and 90s and we know that we have received a lot more from our Canada Pension Plan than we ever put into it and the fact that 40 million people can provide a lot more than 4 million can has made that possible. We think that if Smith was allowed to get her hands on it anyone who has received more would be cut off. We know she could not provide what we have been receiving. We have no intention of letting her get control and the majority Canadians including her own Reformers agree.
The fact there are 40 million people (your number that is not accurate at all) instead of 4 million is not the reason the return on the pension is good. That fact is actually irrelevant. The good investments the plan has made are the reasons for the good returns, no the number of people in the plan.
Absolutely the number of people in the plan matter, where do you think the money that went into the pool came from to make those investments? And we all know how good the conservatives in Alberta are in funding funds don’t we? Example Heritage fund 30% of royalties then 15 then 0 for the last 36 years.
Let’s invest $1.3 billion in an oil pipeline to nowhere. Or a couple hundred million more for another handful of empty irrigation reservoirs. Or tens of millions more on fanciful technologies like carbon sequestration. How about ‘picking winners’ in the free market and shutting down the profitable renewables industry. It’s Casey at the bat.
Don’t forget the $75 million wasted on Children’s pain medicine bought in Turkey and proven to be ineffective. $3.5 million lost on trying to convince ignorant Albertans that foreign corporations were attacking our oil industry, yet oil executives knew it was a lie and wouldn’t back it. Now $2.2 million given to Preston Manning and his group and he only repeated what he has said in the past. It didn’t surprise any of us. The list goes on and on, helping their friends fill their pockets proving their is nothing Conservative about them Of course with the Auto Industry only going to produce electric vehicles in the future Albertans won’t have the power to recharge them thanks to these boneheads.
i agree. to be fair, though, how about the feds overpaying for the kinder-morgan scam of a pipeline? the only place that one is going is through the clouds with tens of billions in cost overruns. what that purchase served most was lining the pockets of kinder-morgan shareholders; that company was more than happy to dump off a white elephant, and we have trudeau-freeland et al to blame for our getting fleeced with the purchase price, and then the forever ballooning costs.
my broader point is that the masses need to get wise, and stop getting played. does not matter what govt name we have in power, they each serve the massive wealth holders of the planet foremost, and then each govt gets to serve their own in-crowd.
when will folks stand up? the easiest, most peaceful first step is to run an X through the entire ballot federally and provincially in upcoming elections. this simple approach will demonstrate that we are not apathetic, and foremost, we are no longer legitimising the far too routine corruption, lies, and smothering of actual democracy.
as it stands, the trudeau years are easily the most corrupt, pathetic, undemocratic, sleazy reign by any fed govt in my lifetime…hard to believe they have made the sleaze of the mulroney years look like a comparative govt of integrity.
I guess you don’t know how math works. It does not matter at all. It is the return on investment that matters. The more people you have paying into it, the more people you have withdrawing from it so it is a balanced equation. The return on the investment is what matters. I don’t know how people don’t get the math of the whole thing.
You can have one billion people paying into it but if it loses 25% a year in 4 years you have zero dollars and have to split it with one billion people. If you have 1 million people paying into it and earn 25% a year you double your money in 4 years and only have to split it with one million people.
It’s simple MATH people!!!
Are you really that stupid? It’s got everything to do with it.
I guess you don’t know how math works. It does not matter at all. It is the return on investment that matters. The more people you have paying into it, the more people you have withdrawing from it so it is a balanced equation. The return on the investment is what matters. I don’t know how people don’t get the math of the whole thing.
You can have one billion people paying into it but if it loses 25% a year in 4 years you have zero dollars and have to split it with one billion people. If you have 1 million people paying into it and earn 25% a year you double your money in 4 years and only have to split it with one million people.
It’s simple MATH people!!!
I guess my 32 years as a banker, working in 16 branches of the royal bank and manager of 7 of them doesn’t qualify does it? The point that you are missing is the fact that return on investments at this time is extremely low and volume is the greatest thing we can rely on, isn’t it?
Us seniors find it amazing at how many ignorant seniors there are in this province. These Reformers were able to convince them that the financial mess were are in is all Notley and Trudeau’s fault yet it all started with Ralph Klein 25 years before, and Peter Lougheed called it a “Horrific Mess”.. Not only did Klein help the Packing Plants screw the beef producers out of millions on dollars , he allowed the oil industry to pollute their land , rendering it worthless if they want to sell it and retire. He slashed royalties and taxes and put Alberta in financial ruin and replaced the lost revenue with privatization pushing our cost of living through the roof and creating one of the highest percentage of people needing Food Bank help in North America we are told. Yet who do these fools support? The very people who created this mess, Reformers, trying to pretend they are conservatives, when there is nothing conservative about them. They find it smart to hurl their sarcastic comments at those of us who aren’t that stupid proving how stupid they really are.
I hope I have been sarcastic enough I fully intended to be. The true Conservatives in my world have no respect for these fools who blindly support these Reformers while they ignore the facts and what they have done to our children’s future, do you?