There’s no doubt – the amount of money you save for retirement should grow, and it should be there for you when you retire.

But with the Canada Pension Plan, that isn’t happening for Albertans.

In 2017 Albertans contributed 16.5% of the total contributions to the CPP but only received 10.6% of the expenditures. During the decade between 2008 and 2017, Albertans paid almost 28 billion dollars more than they received.

That isn’t a retirement plan.  It’s robbery of our retirement savings.

The government explains this as a demographic difference compared to other provinces. Alberta has fewer retirees and more people engaged in the workforce.  It’s not a good explanation – it only tells us how they calculate how much to take from us – it doesn’t justify the taking. As usual, Alberta subsidizes the rest of Canada, and the CPP is just another transfer program.

That money isn’t going to be available for retiring Albertans, either.  In fact, right now the government says that the maximum monthly CPP retirement payment as shown on the CPP website is $1,306.57 per month (2023). The average is $811.21.  That isn’t a lot of money for Albertans – certainly not $28 billion dollars with.

We’re not making up the numbers we cited above.  We get them from a report on CPP done by the Fraser institute a little while ago.  They also point out that the CPP is not very sustainable – but Alberta’s payroll taxes would go down if we had our own pension plan. That’s more money left in Albertans’ pockets now, and more when they retire. There’s no doubt that Alberta can do better than the lackluster offering of the CPP. 

That’s why the Wildrose Independence Party stands for an Alberta founded, Alberta funded and Alberta managed Pension Plan instead of one that is directed by the federal government of the day in Ottawa.  

It’s the best deal we can make for Albertans – and the only kind of deal we’re interested in.

Rick Northey

President, Wildrose Independence Party