Which 'next' is Danielle Smith's Ottawa-affairs panel steering Alberta toward?

Before taking their latest chance to weigh in on the wisdom of exiting the Canada Pension Plan, Albertans must first watch a five-minute video, most of which tries to persuade them how great an idea it is.

The promise of lower premiums and higher benefits hasn't sold well in the past. We recently learned that only 10 per cent of respondents favoured the idea in the 2023 round of government consultations on an Alberta pension plan.

But with her Alberta Next feedback project, Premier Danielle Smith is treating this as a new day, full of fresh possibilities to alter the province's place within Canada on finances, constitutional powers, immigration and more.

This video pitch on pensions endeavours to sell the public with suggestions of a "big upfront payout," better paycheques, and a provincially led investment strategy that "steered clear of ideological decision-making."

The voiceover narrator notes some potential downsides. Among them: "The CPP exit rules aren't clear in the federal legislation and Ottawa is notoriously anti-Alberta with its decisions, so the size of the lump sum Alberta is offered could be lower than it should be." (Italics mine; federal officials might dispute that matter-of-fact assertion.)

After that video, respondents get asked three multiple-choice questions, none of which let Albertans say whether they actually like the provincial pension idea. Perhaps they can chime in with that answer at one of the in-person town halls that begin in mid-July.

The premier launched this review into the future of federalism in front of a recreated vintage oil well at Heritage Park in Calgary. Alberta Next is, in a way, a recreation of the Fair Deal Panel that Smith's predecessor Jason Kenney launched, two Liberal federal election victories ago in 2019. 

As separatist sentiments intensified, the then-premier had tasked his panel to study the viability of an Alberta-only pension and police force, an overhaul of federal transfers and more.

That's just what Smith has done, though with some pivotal distinctions.

Kenney tasked long-retired former politician Preston Manning to lead his panel. Smith assigned herself as chair. While this stands to boost the interest in upcoming town halls, some of the Alberta Next event attendees might want to bend the premier's ear on other matters, as this month's fiery meeting on coal mining may have foretold.

The current premier is also specifically soliciting referendum questions to put on a ballot next year. Those would interact in unknown ways with a citizen-initiated plebiscite on separation, one which proposes a vastly more dramatic shakeup in Alberta-Canada relations. Kenney's panel took a slower march to referendums, ultimately recommending that the federal pension and police withdrawals merely be studied.

The loaded language of the videos and surveys also takes Smith's initiative to a different level, says Jared Wesley, a University of Alberta political scientist.

He's uniquely positioned to assess what Smith is doing: in his current role, he routinely conducts  public opinion research. Before academia, he worked in the Alberta government's intergovernmental affairs division under both Tory and NDP premiers.

The government is clearly not attempting to genuinely collect public opinion here, Wesley said in an interview. "What they're trying to do is to direct public opinion."