Alberta will see a provincial pension plan report released tomorrow. Here's what to expect

The Alberta government says it will hold a news conference on Thursday, where Premier Danielle Smith and President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance Nate Horner will release an independent report on a potential Alberta pension plan.

The news conference will begin at 11 a.m. and CBC News will carry it live at cbc.ca/calgary. 

The release of the report has been long-anticipated. Smith tasked Horner with releasing it as a part of his mandate letter in July, and to consult with Albertans about whether a referendum should be held on the possibility of establishing an Alberta-only pension plan.

During her leadership campaign for the United Conservative Party, Smith campaigned on getting Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan, but withheld such ideas during her provincial election campaign. Polling conducted for CBC News prior to the kickoff of the election suggested that 60 per cent of Albertans opposed the idea while 31 per cent agreed with it. 

Smith discussed the report during her phone-in radio show Your Province Your Premier on Saturday.

"We've over-contributed massively. If we had control of our own plan, and we decided to put all of the savings into reducing premiums, it would be substantial," Smith said. "If we decided to keep the premiums the same and just increase the amount we gave to seniors, it would be substantial."

On Tuesday, Opposition NDP finance critic Shannon Phillips held a press conference, stating that the province's plan to "pull out of the Canada Pension Plan" was "based on a flawed and outdated formula that severely overstates the amount Alberta could withdraw from the plan."

"I have learned of some of the contents of this report. By the very credible accounts that I have been given, [it is] a torqued, misleading, fantasy case for leaving the [Canada Pension Plan] and gambling on an Alberta pension plan," Phillips said. 

In a release issued Wednesday by the province, former Progressive Conservative finance minister Jim Dinning is listed as chair of a panel tasked with engagement around the report. Smith has promised Albertans would get to choose in a referendum whether or not to start an Alberta-only pension plan. She has also recently suggested holding public consultations once the feasibility report is released. It appears those consultations will be led by Dinning.

Smith's enthusiasm for exploring such a proposal traces back years. But suggestions in Alberta that the province go its own way on pensions long pre-date her. Jason Kenney, her predecessor, flirted with the same ideas as part of the "Fair Deal" panel, a series of proposed measures that Kenney said would help the province carve out a stronger position for itself within Confederation.

The Kenney government had proposed moves around pensions prior to the announcement of that panel that provoked concern among the province's teachers and public employees, whose pensions were expected to be transferred to the government-owned Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo).

Reacting to that news, Smith appeared on a CBC News panel and mused about it being the first step toward an Alberta pension plan.

"That should be something that should concern Ontario and Quebec in particular, as well as the other parts of the country, because there's a huge transfer of wealth that comes out of Alberta in aid of supporting a lot of these programs, [the Canadian Pension Plan] being one of the most prominent," she said.

Quebec has had its own pension plan for decades, the only province to operate outside the CPP, so it would actually be unaffected.