Letters, Oct. 24: Alberta Pension Plan has many readers speaking, questioning

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I see that Premier Danielle Smith in her letter has invited the PM and the CPP board to come back ahead with their calculation and evaluation on Alberta’s share of the CPP if we depart the plan. I welcome this growth. The extra info the higher.

The Honest Deal Panel had calculated Alberta may obtain a share of the CPP roughly within the $40- billion to $70-billion vary in 2020, and that quantity has now ballooned to $334 billion in 2023. I’ve questions.

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Listening to the phone-in city corridor this week, the LifeWorks calculation of 53 per cent of the CPP was put ahead as gospel and my worry is that Albertans are being snookered. The city corridor additionally revealed authorities spent $1.5 million for the LifeWorks report, $1.5 million for the listening tour and plan to spend $1 million monthly of our taxes on promoting to promote us on this. The identical thought they weren’t prepared to marketing campaign on.

All Albertans deserve a crystal-clear submission forward of a referendum query. Something much less needs to be considered with suspicion. Let’s see the executive prices of organising an Alberta pension plan in addition to the true dialogue on the dangers and exposures of going alone. Who will handle these funds and what is going to the mandate be — maximizing pension returns or the Quebec mannequin of cash for financial growth within the province? Reply these questions earlier than you ask the general public if they’ve any curiosity in a referendum.

If the Alberta authorities just isn’t forthcoming with extra particulars, then we aren’t participating in a fulsome dialogue.

Isabelle Bonneau, Calgary

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How good is the CPP?

Everybody appears to agree that the CPP is likely one of the finest authorities pension funds. “If it ain’t damaged then don’t repair it.”

The 2022 Mercer CFA Institute International Pension Index provides the CPP a “B” ranking. So maybe we should always no less than have a look at the Alberta pension plan info earlier than we type an opinion.

Invoice Peddlesden, Chestermere

Cash may very well be higher spent

I’ve lived in Alberta for 47 years and have labored on a regular basis I’ve lived right here, and paid my taxes repeatedly.

I discover the $7.5 million being spent on promoting the Alberta pension plan to be an abominable waste of cash. We should always put that cash into mental-health companies, that are severely underfunded in Alberta. There are lengthy ready lists for emergency rooms, joint alternative surgical procedure amongst many different issues.

This cash needs to be used to lower ready lists in any certainly one of these wanted areas, not promoting a program that almost all of senior Albertans don’t need.

Philis Heffner, Calgary

Pensions belong solely to people

There’s a profound distinction between cash we pay to the federal authorities as taxes and cash we pay as contributions to the Canada Pension Plan.

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Our taxes can be utilized for any goal the federal government deems acceptable. Our Canada pension cash, nevertheless, should be paid to us, until we consent individually — not by a majority in a referendum — that it’s paid to the Alberta authorities.

Though we reside in a democracy, my neighbour can’t say that my cash, supposed and paid as CPP contributions, ought to go to the Alberta authorities. Solely I can say that.

For the Alberta authorities to transform a contributor’s pension contributions to its personal use, with out the person’s consent, is theft.

Subsequently, the results of a referendum should be 100 per cent in favour, or the prospect of creating an Alberta pension plan fails.

Mark Gottlieb, Calgary

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