Alberta denies media company’s request for pension survey data, political scientist says issue will ‘quietly go away’
Posted Feb 15, 2024 4:11 pm.
The Alberta government says it won’t be releasing the results of a survey about whether it should establish an Alberta Pension Plan (APP).
Postmedia says it filed an application under the Freedom of Information and Privacy (FOIP) Act just days after the survey was completed last year, but says it was recently told it wouldn’t be getting the requested information because a section of the FOIP Act which allows for exemptions or exclusions based on advice, proposals, recommendations, analysis, or policy options.
Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt tells CityNews he thinks it’s pretty clear why the government isn’t releasing the survey.
“This is just another blunder that we’re seeing with the whole pension plan rollout/consultation process that Jim Dinning led. The questions [themselves] were not an accurate survey,” he explained. “For example, the focus in there was ‘Do you support lower contributions?’ ‘Do you support higher benefits?’ ‘Do you want a retirement bonus?’
“There was never a discussion of whether you should pull out of the pension plan or not. But, there was space for open-ended comments for people to make that and so my guess is they were inundated with open-ended comments saying, ‘This is a ridiculous survey and we don’t want out of the Canada Pension Plan,’ and that’s why they’re not releasing it,” Bratt added.
He explains previous polling not done by the government shows the creation of an APP is not supported by Albertans, and project chair Dinning echoed the comments himself when announcing in December that further consultation would be halted following several town halls.
WATCH: Alberta pauses public engagement on provincial pension plan
Postmedia says it has already filed a request for review of the decision with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.
Bratt says the decision by the province not to release the information is a problem.
“This is a problem for democracy given that this was an outreach, this was a consultation process with Albertans, paid for by Albertans, and now they won’t release the information to Albertans,” he said.
Dinning explained at the time that consultations on an Alberta Pension Plan were on hold until the Chief Actuary of Canada provided information on how much Alberta would get from the CPP should it decide to leave.
In a update Thursday, President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance Nate Horner says delays in the project and its consultation have to do with the federal government.
“The federal government committed late last year to asking the chief actuary of Canada to provide an opinion on Alberta’s share of CPP assets based on an interpretation of the CPP legislation,” he said. “At that time, we were hopeful this work would be done promptly so we could provide it to Albertans.
“Recently, the federal government informed us that the chief actuary’s preferred approach is to strike a panel to interpret the asset transfer formula in the Canada Pension Plan Act. This interpretation would inform the chief actuary’s calculation.”
Horner goes on to say the panel’s interpretation will be ready by the spring, and the chief actuary’s calculation is expected in the fall.
The minister encouraged Albertans to continue to submit their thoughts on the APP, saying the engagement panels is accepting workbook submissions until the end of February “while they do their analysis of the town halls and online survey.”
Bratt says transparency has been a “longstanding issue” across all levels of government.
He points to the Globe and Mail‘s ‘Secrecy in Canada’ Project, which concluded that all governments across Canada — federal and provincial — have a problem with giving legitimate information to people asking for it.
But the project determined that, of all of the governments, the Alberta government is the worst at this.
At this point, Bratt thinks the move from a CPP to an APP is past its prime.
You’re not going to see a press conference where we hear from the government saying, ‘We heard from Albertans and they don’t want this,’ Bratt said.
“It’s dead,” he said. “I think it’s just going to quietly go away.”
Alberta has said they have to wait for the number from the federal government, but Bratt thinks that unless that number from the feds exactly matches the provincial number, the parties will likely end up going to the Supreme Court.
“This is not about the calculation, this is about the interpretation of the law,” he explained. “This is actually a legal matter rather than an actuarial matter and by the time that plays itself out — that’ll be years from now and there will probably be a change in government federally.
Despite Premier Danielle Smith repeatedly saying the push for a provincial pension plan is all about the money, Bratt thinks differently.
“This is about getting back at Trudeau, and if Trudeau isn’t there, where’s the anger about pulling out of the pension?” he said.
-With files from Phil Wood and Mark Strashok
