Danielle Smith's pension trifecta: Trudeau, Notley and Poilievre agree on something
CBC
It's not clear if Pierre Poilievre had already devised a position on Alberta's proposed quitting of the Canada Pension Plan, but the Conservative leader issued one barely a day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proclaimed his own stance.
The Liberals' unusually forceful opposition to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's pension ambition has doubled as a political wedge against Poilievre. Alongside trying to criticize the CPP-weakening gambit itself, Liberals applied pressure on Conservatives to squeeze their leader through one of three doors:
Lend support to Smith's Alberta Pension Plan withdrawal;
Oppose the Conservative premier's ambition; or
Be cool, quiet and neutral, like some minor alpine lake in Switzerland.
Every option had its downsides, even the Swiss one, given that Liberals had begun hectoring in Question Period and scrums that the Conservatives' passive silence amounted to tacit approval of the giant rock Smith threatened to throw at CPP, that large placid lake of a federal institution.
So which door, and which demons on the other side, would Poilievre choose?
He picked Door Number 2, leavening the conservative-against-conservative friction by yelling "Trudeau sucks!" as he crossed the threshold.
"The division today on the CPP is entirely the result of Justin Trudeau attacking the Alberta economy," Poilievre's written statement began. The first three of its five sentences focused on his chief rival, his carbon taxes and energy policies.
Smith undoubtedly didn't much like the rest of it: "I encourage Albertans to stay in the CPP. As Prime Minister, I will protect and secure the CPP for Albertans and all Canadians…"
However, the parts where he pins blame on other Liberal policies also serves to undercut much of Smith's messaging on CPP — that this isn't a political bargaining chip to settle other provincial grievances with Ottawa.
It's abundantly true that the modern Alberta-firster's APP dream was born in the days of Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and was reborn in the "fair deal" push by ex-premier Jason Kenney in the wake of Trudeau's 2019 re-election.
But Smith has long treated an Alberta pension scheme as a wise pursuit unto itself, and the provincially commissioned Lifeworks report gave her enticing numbers — like a $334-billion claim on more than half of CPP assets — to make her argue it's a no-brainer, regardless of which party is pulling levers in Ottawa.
Neither Smith nor Poilievre likely want to be seen as undercutting a fellow conservative. Were the premier to push back hard against Poilievre, she'd also be attacking the more popular conservative in her own province — 55 per cent favourable to 38 per cent unfavourable for him in Alberta, compared to an even 47 and 47 for her, both in recent Angus Reid Institute polls.
