The Feds have entered the chat

Just another day of epistolary federalism

One of my many worries about the idea of a referendum on Alberta’s departure from the Canada Pension Plan has been the asymmetry of resources between the yes and no sides. While public opinion appears to still favour the no side, the significant resources the province has thrown into its advertising campaign certainly look like an attempt to put a giant provincial thumb on the scale to get the yes vote up over the 50% threshold.

Think back to the 2021 equalization referendum. There had been lots of activity in favour of the yes side, including the hearings and report of the Fair Deal Panel. There wasn’t much in the way of advertising for the ‘yes’ side — it wasn’t really needed. But there was essentially nothing by way of a ‘no’ campaign. Except, of course, the intrepid Trevor Tombe patiently explaining the equalization formula to anyone who would listen and a few other academics pointing out that taking equalization out of the constitution wasn’t likely and wouldn’t really change anything. In any event, we know how that turned out.

Even without the federal government entering the chat, the pension debate has been far more even. The opposition NDP have been vocal critics and various civil society organizations have been expressing their concerns. Trevor Tombe, as always, has done a great service to the public by setting out the facts and offering an analysis grounded in reality, rather than Lifeworks’ fantasy. But even Trevor Tombe can’t singlehandedly counteract a million dollar a month advertising campaign and a “public consultation” process that appears to be “not about engagement at all” but rather about selling the plan.

And that’s where the federal government’s intervention gets interesting. Trudeau writes that he has “instructed his Cabinet and officials to ensure Albertans — and Canadians — are fully aware of the risks of your plan.” I interpret that to mean that Alberta won’t be the only government spending big bucks on advertising in the next few months. (Please let the feds rent digital billboard trucks and have them circling the Leg in Edmonton! That alone would be so funny it could take our minds off the endless, grinding inter-governmental disputes in this country).

All joking aside, a well-crafted federal campaign could inject a note of reality into this conversation. Ideally, Ottawa will lock an actuary and an ad exec in a room together until they come up with a campaign that helps inform the debate in terms people can understand. The key message: more risk, minimally higher returns.

Of course, in the age of epistolary federalism, no open letter goes unanswered. And so Premier Smith has fired back. Smith takes aim at Trudeau for “stoking fear in the hearts and minds of Canadian retirees” over this issue. Did she think that the Government of Canada was just going to say “okay, fine. You take half the assets from the CPP. We’ll figure something out”? And then she talks about the carbon tax because … well, I don’t know. I mean, if we warm the planet up enough, Ontario retirees won’t need to heat their houses, or something.

But the really interesting part of Smith’s letter is the last paragraph, where she invites the Prime Minister to provide its number: the share of the CPP assets it believes Alberta is entitled to under the outdated Act.

I agree with Premier Smith that we need to hear this number. We can’t have a reasoned, conservative conversation about an Alberta Pension Plan without hearing it. If the feds do provide a number, it could have a couple of quite interesting effects.

On one hand, it would take the air out of the Alberta “you might be better off” campaign, because it would make it clear that the financial benefit to contributors/pensioners would be substantially less than the numbers Alberta is throwing around right now.

On the other hand — and I suspect this is what Smith is gambling on — Smith and other proponents of the APP will interpret the number as yet another historic humiliation of Alberta at the hands of the federal government. If the long-term game is to try to foment separatist sentiment, this is exactly the strategy a premier would adopt.

The winners in all this? Ad agencies with government contracts. And absolutely no one else.