Poilievre Walks a Tightrope over Alberta’s Pension Uproar

In an obvious effort to inoculate himself against being identified as an enemy of the Canada Pension Plan, federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre Friday inserted himself into the open-letter uproar over the Alberta government’s plan to force the province’s citizens out of the CPP with a statement of his own.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent a forceful open letter to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith vowing to defend the CPP and Canadians’ pensions. Smith responded with an open letter of her own, accusing the PM of fear-mongering and warning of unspecified “serious legal and political consequences.”

Poilievre’s not-so-open letter — apparently sent only to a reporter of the Conservative-friendly National Post — half-heartedly encourages Albertans to remain in the CPP, seems to imply Alberta is justified in seeking “to get some of their money back” and thereafter degenerates into a tendentious rant about how Smith’s campaign to wrest control of Albertans’ pension savings from the CPP is all Trudeau’s fault.

It’s not possible to confidently analyze what Poilievre’s position is — how much he really supports the Canada Pension Plan — based on the 77 words the Post has given us to work with. However, we can draw certain conclusions.

Obviously, “I encourage Albertans to stay in the CPP” is pretty weak beer when it comes to an endorsement of our popular and secure national pension plan.

The remaining words attributed to Poilievre in the National Post story are as follows:

“The division today on the CPP is entirely the result of Justin Trudeau attacking the Alberta economy. His unconstitutional anti-development laws and painful carbon taxes have forced Albertans to look for ways to get some of their money back.

“We would not be having this CPP debate if I were today prime minister because Alberta would be free from carbon taxes, unconstitutional anti-energy laws, and other unfair wealth transfers.”

First, let’s parse these statements.

“The division today on the CPP is entirely the result of Justin Trudeau attacking the Alberta economy.” Whether or not Trudeau has attacked the Alberta economy, a belief not founded on persuasive evidence but held sincerely by many Alberta Conservatives, the division today is entirely the result of United Conservative Party premiers Jason Kenney and Danielle Smith saying they want to pull Albertans’ retirement savings out of the CPP. It is intensified by the dishonest and manipulative advertising campaign by the Smith government to persuade Albertans this is a good idea. Moreover, the debate about the merits of an independent Alberta pension goes back decades, long before Trudeau was prime minister, and among its advocates was former Conservative leader Stephen Harper, who dropped it like a hot potato when he became prime minister.

“His unconstitutional anti-development laws and painful carbon taxes have forced Albertans to look for ways to get some of their money back.” This is based on the tendentious claim that Trudeau’s policies have imposed an unfair burden on Alberta and the false premise that Albertans have somehow paid too much into the CPP investment fund, which, since all CPP members pay according to the same formula, is nonsensical. The blanket statement that federal environmental laws are unconstitutional is also obviously false, notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that federal environmental impact legislation exceeded federal jurisdiction.

“We would not be having this CPP debate if I were today prime minister because Alberta would be free from carbon taxes, unconstitutional anti-energy laws, and other unfair wealth transfers.” Notwithstanding the inflammatory language and dishonest characterization of federal policy dating back to both Conservative and Liberal governments, this is probably true.

Now we can safely draw at least five conclusions from Poilievre’s known words on this subject.

He is not a strong supporter of the CPP, if he is a supporter at all. Indeed, it would be reasonable for Canadian voters in all provinces and territories to now assume that Poilievre will not fight to preserve the CPP with much enthusiasm, if he bothers to fight for it at all.

He completely supports the quasi-separatism of the Alberta and Saskatchewan governments, and the Smith government’s efforts to break up national institutions with no concern about the impact on citizens in other parts of Canada, or for that matter Alberta’s own citizens. It additionally raises the question about whether he supports the outright separatism of some Alberta Conservatives, like the Take Back Alberta faction that now dominates the UCP.

He is prepared to perpetuate the myth — the lie, really — that Alberta as a province has been forced to pay too much for programs that are in fact based on personal income taxes and individual pension contributions.

As a result, he is likely to favour Alberta, the province in which he was born and grew up, in any negotiations over the division of CPP assets.

A government he leads will probably abandon meaningful environmental measures and end Canadian equalization programs, surely matters of concern to voters in all parts of Canada.

Now, a caveat. We can’t tell if this was Poilievre’s entire statement or only part of it. Lacking that information, we can’t fully analyze what his position is.

I asked the author of the story if he could provide a copy of the entire statement and tell me the time at which it was received by the Post, and he informed me that since I planned to include what I learned in this column, I would have to make my request to Postmedia’s communications director.

This is Postmedia’s policy and as an employee, he has to live with it. However, readers will understand why I didn’t bother wasting time tilting at that particular windmill. Been there, done that, didn’t get the information.

It will have to be incumbent upon media with access to Poilievre to insist on seeing a copy of his entire statement, and to ask him appropriate questions about the obvious conclusions listed above.