Juno News - Correcting the record about an Alberta Pension Plan

00:00:00.000 hey everyone welcome back to the alberta roundup i'm your host rachel emmanuel

00:00:14.000 today for our mid-week episode we are joined by nadine wellwood she's going to talk to us

00:00:19.200 a little bit about what an alberta pension plan would look like for those of you who are familiar

00:00:24.640 with the name nadine is no stranger to politics actually fun fact for you guys i talked to her a 1.00

00:00:29.360 couple years ago when i was still working in the mainstream media at a little outlet called ipolitics

00:00:34.880 at the time she was running for the ppc and she also has a little bit of history with the united

00:00:39.600 conservative party i know that she had sought to be a candidate for them in livingston mcleod and

00:00:44.880 was disqualified nadine maybe you just want to touch on that for a second just to let people know

00:00:49.920 what happened there and a little bit about who you are uh sure well i'm a chartered investment manager

00:00:55.600 and have been working in finance for the last two decades before i got involved in politics

00:01:00.800 and of course as you mentioned i ran with the people's party of canada in 2019 and 2021

00:01:06.960 um just because i liked maxime's platform that was based very much on principles and the need i think

00:01:13.680 politically for change and of course when danielle smith was um won the leadership race for the ucp i did

00:01:21.120 run for livingston mcleod and i actually did win the nomination i did have the ca constituency association

00:01:28.720 put my name forward to be their candidate on the ballot and it was the executive i still think

00:01:35.360 strongly under a lot of influence from the previous jason kenney administration that just made sure

00:01:42.960 i was disqualified yeah well i'm sure a lot of my viewers remember when that happened so just that was

00:01:49.200 a little more information about that but today we really want to talk about you know the alberta

00:01:52.720 pension plan i'm glad to see that despite you know some of your past experience in politics you're still

00:01:57.120 organizing and doing important work so i know that currently you're working on something really big

00:02:01.360 right now you're going around the province you have all these different meetings where you're talking

00:02:04.960 about what an alberta pension pan would look like back in october the premier announced that at some

00:02:10.080 point in the future she is going to hold a referendum to see if alberta wants to pull out of the

00:02:15.920 canadian pension plan she hasn't announced a date yet i know she has said that alberta is owed a

00:02:20.880 certain amount of money and she's waiting for the federal government to get back to the province and 0.99

00:02:24.720 say this is what we think alberta's assets in the canadian pension plan are so why don't you just start

00:02:29.760 by explaining to our viewers today what would an alberta pension plan look like how much money do you

00:02:35.040 think the province is owed sure so i think one of the key things about what we're doing is we are

00:02:41.520 planning on going across the entire province from north to south east to west and i think it's

00:02:47.200 important uh to hold the referendum first and foremost so whether you're for or against an

00:02:52.240 alberta pension plan i think it's very important for albertans to get involved and partake in the

00:02:57.280 process but it's also more important to make an informed decision and for so many people they actually

00:03:02.960 lack i think the knowledge necessary to actually assess whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for

00:03:09.840 alberta and so one of the primary uh functions and purpose for this is to actually provide them

00:03:16.080 with facts data but not just the facts and the data and then send you on your way it's about making it

00:03:22.320 relevant uh to you and to your family and to the future of alberton so what does that look like

00:03:28.480 so from an education standpoint i think it's important to know not only the economics the demographics

00:03:34.640 um the issues around uh the cpp and the numbers because i actually honestly believe the numbers

00:03:41.600 are somewhat irrelevant so we've seen numbers as high as 334 billion that's according to the lifeworks

00:03:48.000 report and then we've seen numbers as low as 120 to 150 billion if you look at trevor tome for example

00:03:57.360 the ufc professor so that's still a significant amount of assets and especially if you consider

00:04:03.520 somebody like aimco who only has 164 billion um in assets to manage to me the number is actually

00:04:11.360 somewhat irrelevant because there are so many reasons to do this when you actually understand

00:04:17.120 the economics the demographics and the immigration those are the key drivers of the pension plan and

00:04:23.360 the biggest risks to the canada pension plan in particular and in those three areas that even the

00:04:29.680 chief actuary for the cpp acknowledges as being their biggest risks um alberta actually outperforms

00:04:37.600 the rest of canada on all of those so for those people you know i'm especially hearing a lot of

00:04:44.240 concern from people who are close to retirement age and i think that's really especially where the

00:04:48.400 mainstream media is fear-mongering saying this would be a very bad thing you know the government's

00:04:52.160 going to steal your pension what would your response be to that um i think it's a little impossible

00:04:57.840 for the government to steal your pension so the only way that this could happen a we need a referendum

00:05:05.360 people need to speak as to whether or not this is something they want to do or they don't want to do

00:05:09.840 i my hope is that we do it based upon reliable information and informed uh consent and informed

00:05:16.560 decision and with respect to stealing it i mean the it's very clear that in order for alberta to leave

00:05:24.640 the canada pension plan it has to have at a minimum an infrastructure and a plan that provides at least

00:05:33.040 the same or better benefits to albertans so this is not something that you know i i laugh because

00:05:40.720 rachel notley and the ndp have been really fear-mongering in my opinion that you know we're putting the

00:05:47.600 pensions of albertans at risk we are actually in my opinion at far greater risk staying with the

00:05:56.320 canada pension plan than we are starting our own why is that um the reason for that comes back to

00:06:03.920 i'll give you an example so there's a false sense of security i think around the canada pension plan

00:06:10.960 i think there's also a lack of confidence and trust in the government which is a bad combination for

00:06:17.600 the ucp at this particular time because you know people believe that the cpp is this untouchable best

00:06:24.960 in the world which is not true it has its faults for example unfunded liabilities to the tune of 1.14

00:06:33.120 trillion dollars now that number is not getting smaller it's getting larger by the year back in

00:06:39.040 2019 that was 884 billion as of 2021 that was 1.14 trillion dollars and it will grow again in 2026 for

00:06:51.600 example expenditures for the first time in the history of the canada pension plan and canada the

00:06:59.280 expenditures will actually exceed the contributions so you can only then um imagine how large those

00:07:08.880 unfunded liabilities are actually going to become economically there's some assumptions that are being

00:07:15.040 made um to prop up the canada pension plan and economically canada is not in a strong place

00:07:22.880 so alberta however is very much in a much stronger position economically demographics again canada you

00:07:31.040 look at birth rates and mortality rates right the death rate as well as how many live births we have

00:07:36.720 and the birth rate is declining and our mortality rate is increasing again that doesn't bode well for

00:07:43.600 canada as a whole but alberta is one of the few provinces that's bucking that trend we have the youngest

00:07:50.080 we have more people moving into the province than leaving and we also have higher incomes so from

00:07:56.240 a contribution perspective alberta is actually propping up the rest of canada right now yeah i

00:08:03.760 mean that makes sense to me even just what you said about us having a lot of young people moving

00:08:07.360 here i've covered this extensively on my show my viewers know there's more people moving to alberta

00:08:11.760 than any other province in canada and i think a lot of it is young families who have been priced out

00:08:16.240 of places like bc and ontario you know speaking a little bit from experience there and you know i

00:08:21.920 know a ton of conservatives who have massive massive families lots of kids so all the things that you're

00:08:27.120 saying are very easy to believe so then if l if alberta was to actually leave the canada pension plan

00:08:33.440 what would that mean for us as a province what would the benefits of that be

00:08:37.920 um well i mean it's really for us to define so what if we want to see better benefits if we want to see

00:08:44.400 lower contribution rates um you know the numbers make sense and from an economy perspective i think

00:08:51.760 it puts us in a a fantastic position as far as better leverage also with the federal government

00:08:57.520 and with ottawa so one of the biggest concerns i have with the canada pension plan is the political

00:09:02.720 interference people believe that it is independent and it is on a day-to-day basis nobody tells it what to

00:09:10.320 buy or when to trade or when to sell investments but it is still subject to a lot of political

00:09:16.400 influence from legislature and other government agencies of sea for example the office of

00:09:22.320 superintendent for uh financial institutions um and it right now most of those policies are very

00:09:30.080 anti-alberta because they are very anti-oil and gas and i have an example and this is we're trying to

00:09:36.880 make things relevant to people for example quebec has its own pension plan could you imagine if quebec

00:09:42.880 came out and said hey we are going to stop all hydroelectric um production and um we're not going

00:09:50.880 to support we're not going to invest we're not going to provide any kind of financial uh security

00:09:57.120 and we're eliminating hydroelectricity do you think the quebec population is going to support that 0.99

00:10:02.800 so for me as an albertan i think one of the biggest things is taking back control of the things that we can

00:10:09.680 especially around our natural resources and i think this is such a huge opportunity for albertans

00:10:15.520 in establishing their own alberta pension plan to do exactly that i personally do not recommend that

00:10:22.080 albertans partake in their own demise and the canada pension plan is um not very alberta friendly from a policy standpoint

00:10:31.600 so you know when premier smith first announced this there was a lot of pushback i think some of the

00:10:38.240 polling the early polling that we saw come out on this wasn't super in favor of pulling out of the

00:10:43.040 canada pension plan you're going around to the province you're having these meetings trying to

00:10:46.880 really convince people or just lay out the facts and i guess even let them make up their own minds as

00:10:50.640 to this is something that would be a good thing how successful do you think these meetings are going so

00:10:56.160 far and how when people show up to them what are kind of some of the concerns that they initially have

00:11:02.000 um i think the biggest concerns are about mobility whether or not they can move across provinces or

00:11:08.000 international and still collect their pension and of course they can all those agreements are already

00:11:13.200 in place those are simple things the other one like i pointed out earlier seems to be a lack of trust

00:11:20.480 or lack of confidence in the government to be able to do this but again setting up a pension fund i

00:11:25.920 know there's a lot of moving parts but there's a lot of private investment funds out there that are

00:11:32.560 large and once you get past you know the billion five billion ten billion mark you have access to

00:11:39.440 the same quality of investments they find you you don't have to go find them and people in the industry

00:11:46.160 like myself and you know my colleagues this is not a hurdle that can't be overcome it's just going to

00:11:53.440 take us a little bit of time and then of course there is going to be a bit of a transition so i think

00:11:58.640 the fears that people have really just boils down to a lack of information and or the misinformation

00:12:06.480 and some of the fear around making the change that people some people more than others have been

00:12:13.280 emphasizing and playing upon so again really important to get relevant facts and most people

00:12:20.000 honestly don't even know what questions to actually ask because they don't understand what the key

00:12:26.560 parts the moving parts of this actually are and where to focus their attention and that's where

00:12:32.160 somebody like myself having worked in the industry and having you know colleagues that are still

00:12:37.680 managing multi-billion dollar funds to rely on as far as numbers and models and getting the actual

00:12:43.600 data and then presenting it in such a way that it makes sense to you we're not trying to you know

00:12:50.320 convince you one way or the other although it's very obvious which way i'm leaning but at the end of

00:12:56.320 the day you know we need to have a referendum we need people to get actively involved seek

00:13:02.000 out the right information get informed and then cast a ballot a vote one way or the other so that

00:13:08.640 we can you know resolve the issue and then move on to the next big issue that you know we have here

00:13:14.800 in alberta when would you like the referendum to happen ideally i think the referendum needs to happen

00:13:20.640 before the federal election and my reason for that is a little bit political because i think so many

00:13:25.600 people are so reliant on politicians to fix our problems and politicians as i think most of your

00:13:34.080 viewers will agree are part of the problem they're not the solution and so i think you know people will

00:13:39.440 become more laissez-faire i think if we see a uh pierre polyev and a conservative government come back into

00:13:46.160 power in the federal jurisdiction and the problem with that is this problem wasn't just created as a result of

00:13:53.440 justin trudeau i think it's really he's exposed the majority of the problems but i think alberta

00:14:01.120 as a whole needs to take back control of those areas of jurisdiction that belong to it it's much

00:14:07.920 easier for individuals for albertans to influence an alberta government than it is for us to influence

00:14:14.480 a federal government i'm sure that some of my viewers will be very interested in what you have to say

00:14:20.240 and for those who are hoping to maybe come out to one of your meetings and pepper you with some

00:14:23.920 questions where can they find more information so we are establishing a website called the alberta

00:14:30.400 first pension and you can go to that website for more information currently we are working with a

00:14:36.480 number of groups including alberta prosperity project which has listed the events as well as i think

00:14:43.840 tba taking back alberta has listed some events as well for us and there'll be more but our next event

00:14:50.480 is actually in caroline on saturday at 6 p.m it's going to be at the ag center then there's another

00:14:56.480 event in calgary at the riviera on wednesday evening at 7 p.m we're going to be in beaumont i think is

00:15:04.560 already scheduled czar's already scheduled westlock has already been scheduled and of course we'll be

00:15:10.960 filling that schedule out and literally doing a hundred stops across the province so definitely

00:15:17.520 check the alberta pension albertafirstpension.ca and of course if you're members of some of the

00:15:23.840 other groups in here in alberta check with them as well we are trying to reach out to as many and

00:15:30.320 provide a united front to make sure that people get the information that they need nadine thank you so

00:15:35.840 much for your time today and to the rest of my viewers i will see you guys all on saturday i hope

00:15:39.920 you have a great rest of your week wonderful thank you so much

Juno News - February 14, 2024

Correcting the record about an Alberta Pension Plan

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