Alberta allowed to leave CPP, but would be a 'one-way ticket': employment minister

Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault says while Alberta is legally allowed to withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan, doing so would be a 'one way ticket,' with no chance of return.

Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault says while Alberta is legally allowed to withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan, doing so would be a “one way ticket,” with no chance of return.

Alberta’s UCP has been mulling the idea of leaving the CPP and forming its own pension plan since 2020, but Premier Danielle Smith recently took the next step by releasing a report about a plan to do so and saying public feedback would determine the need for a referendum.

Boissonnault told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday that once a province chooses to withdraw from the CPP, it kicks off a timeline laid out in the 1965 legislation and can’t be undone.

“If Albertans decided a referendum to pull out of the CPP, they will be able to do that, but it's a one way ticket,” said Boissonnault, who is also an Alberta MP.

“You don't get to come back, that's also very clear in this legislation,” he also said, adding he believes Alberta’s withdrawal would be “destabilizing.”

The report by the consulting company LifeWorks — on which the Alberta government is basing its cost-benefit calculations for a possible Alberta Pension Plan — estimates that the Western province will be entitled to $334 billion by the time it leaves the CPP in 2027, which is nearly half the total amount in the federal fund.

Smith and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went back and forth this week about the possible move.