Albertans dread a Canada Pension Plan exit. Will Danielle Smith's $334B claim fix that?

Premier Danielle Smith may have wanted Alberta to go it alone on pensions for more than two decades, but to fulfil her dreams she'll have to convert a wary Alberta public.

Polls have shown Albertans clearly don't dream her dream with her. Pick your pollster: it was opposed by a margin of 31 per cent to 60 in a Janet Brown poll last October, or 21 per cent to 54 in Leger this spring.

With numbers like that, it's a heftier turnaround task than persuading a majority of Quebecers to separate from Canada after decades of unwillingness. Or, for a local example, getting rural and small-town Albertans to suddenly prefer NDP over UCP.

Smith has the benefit of the premier's bully pulpit to tilt public opinion in her favour on this one, to persuade people as she's been arguing since at least 2003 that Alberta has "the obligation" to opt out of the Canada Pension Plan, and pay much lower premiums for equal or higher benefits.

She has now also armed herself with some of the biggest, rosiest numbers ever wielded in all the years of hardened conservatives trying to turn the public tide on the pension issue.

At the centre of her new argument is that eye-popping figure, $334 billion, which a government-commissioned report estimates Alberta is entitled to if it wants to become like Quebec, and separates from CPP.

That's one-third of a trillion dollars, or more than half the CPP program's total assets in a fund that collects contributions and pays out pensions of every Canadian who lives in a province that doesn't start with Q. 

For perspective, the amount Alberta is claiming as its rightful share of CPP is more than triple the ransom amount that Austin Powers film villain Dr. Evil demanded from world leaders, with pinky diabolically extended to his mouth. (That's after the not-good doctor realized $1 million wasn't a sufficient ask).

It's also nearly equivalent to the value of Alberta's entire economy in a year. 

Sovereignist leaders would say: separate, and "all this becomes possible." Smith was musing Thursday about how all sorts of good becomes possible if Albertans agree to start their own nest egg with a $334-billion principal.

Dramatically slashed premiums! Larger paycheques! Higher benefits for seniors! Maybe a $10,000 bonus for retirees!

But the reality checks on the Lifeworks report's central assumption rolled in almost instantly after the astronomical estimate rolled off the premier's tongue.

It's an "impossible figure," says Michel Leduc, senior managing director of the non-partisan Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, which stewards the assets for Canadians. While he maintains any province has the legal right to withdraw and start its own pension plan, he urged skepticism of the numeric claims.

If other provinces used the "alternate formula" and demanded their shares be paid out too, he explained, there would be a negative balance by the time Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta left. (Sorry, other provinces.)