Danielle Smith's big-money sales pitch on Alberta pension plan hasn't worked yet

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can usually only count on polite applause when he's talking to an Alberta business crowd.

But when executives hosted him this week at an Ottawa reception, he found one line worked surprisingly well — praise for the national pension program that Premier Danielle Smith wishes to exit.

In a list of federal programs assisting Alberta (health care, transit, housing), Trudeau added: 

"It's why we strengthened the Canada Pension Plan and why we need to make sure it continues to protect a stable and dignified retirement for all Canadians."

As the solid bout of clapping died down, the prime minister smirked, "Couldn't resist that one."

The assembled energy executives and business lobbyists have ample qualms with federal energy regulations and climate strategies, but they don't have a bone to pick with CPP.

And this is an area where corporate Alberta's attitudes are in sync with the broader public.

According to the first major poll conducted since Smith began her persuasion pitch to remove Alberta from CPP, the proposal remains about as widely opposed as it was before. Fifty-two per cent of Albertans think it's a bad or very bad idea, compared to 19 per cent who think it's a good or very good one, and 15 per cent who are in the middle, the Abacus Data survey shows. 

Last month, Smith released a feasibility study that suggested Alberta would get to start its own pension plan with 53 per cent of the CPP's assets — one-third of a trillion dollars. With that much in its kitty, an Alberta Pension Plan could offer residents a rosy future of both lower contributions and higher benefits, arguments the government is presenting through one of its large new advertising campaigns. (No, not that one; the other one.)

Those boasts don't seem to have shifted public opinion much. The few who support it are overwhelmingly younger Albertans — those farthest away from receiving pensions, and are therefore less vulnerable to any gyrations or risks in the health of the retirement security program.

"The (people) most engaged, most likely to vote, probably the most important to the UCP base itself are the most likely to be resistant to this idea right now," pollster David Coletto said in an interview.

For the pullout to be approved in a 2025 referendum, Smith and other proponents would have to convince all those people who consider it an "OK idea" to support it, convert some opponents to supporters, and ensure those enthusiasts come out to vote in greater numbers than the APP skeptics.

Coletto notes that most referendums to directly change the status quo get rejected, a record that holds from Québec separatism to the Charlottetown Accord right up to Alberta's 2021 ballot question to ditch Daylight Saving Time. (The province's equalization referendum? It directly changed nothing.)

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