Risk or Reward: The Alberta Pension Plan according to the UCP and the NDP

Submitted by The Free Alberta Strategy Team

A Positive Pension Plan

There’s been a lot of misinformation swirling around Alberta politics in the last few months, and with the election now underway, it’s only ramped up even further.

Perhaps no issue, though, has been as misrepresented as the idea of an Alberta Pension Plan.

As of right now, the UCP says they are still studying the issue, and that any actual implementation of an Alberta Pensions Plan would be conditional on the holding of a referendum after all the research has been done and the reports that have been commissioned have been received and publicised.

The NDP, meanwhile, has completely dismissed the idea entirely, before the research has even been finished, and has spread some pretty crazy ideas around about what a provincial pension plan would mean.

We’ve heard that the provincial government is trying to “steal” Albertans’ pensions.

We’ve heard that the government would gamble all our pensions away.

We’ve heard that they’d take the money and give it to their friends.

We’ve also heard a bizarre theory that if you had an Alberta Pension Plan, you wouldn’t then be able to go and work or retire in any other province.

And all of that is, of course, simply nonsense.

No one is suggesting doing any of those things.

No one has ever suggested doing any of those things.

And, perhaps clearest of all, none of those things happen in Quebec – who already have their own pension plan, remember!

Instead, the plan is actually quite simple.

Right now, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) is administered by an arm’s-length agency of the federal government.

The idea would be to replace that arm’s-length agency of the federal government with an arm’s-length agency of the Alberta government.

But, if the idea isn’t to bring the money back to Alberta in order for the Alberta government to “steal” your pension, why exactly would we want to do it?

The main reason to switch to an Alberta Pension Plan is actually fairness for Albertans.

The fact is that the Canada Pension Plan, as it is currently structured, is essentially just another massive wealth transfer from Alberta to the rest of Canada.

Remember, the “Canada Pension Plan” isn’t actually a personalized pension with your name on it.

The federal government doesn’t keep each Canadian’s money in an individual account and then pay you back with your own money when you retire.

Rather, it’s just another tax that you pay, all the money gets lumped in together, and then when you retire you get a maximum of about $15,000 back each year.

So, Alberta’s young, talented, and hard-working population ends up subsidizing the pensions of workers in the rest of the country.

And it isn’t a small subsidy either – the total subsidy between 2008 and 2017 adds up to $27.9 billion.

As of 2017, Albertans were contributing 16.5% of all pension contributions, while our retirees only accounted for 10.8% of pension payments.

And remember, that was in the middle of Alberta’s biggest economic downturn in a generation.

When we get more updated figures, the subsidy is likely to be even more significant.

Albertans are paying not only for their own pension, but also for a large share of the pensions of everyone in the rest of the country.

Creating an Alberta Pension Plan would instantly remove this subsidy, and Albertans would only pay for their own pensions, instead of for everyone else’s.

And with the subsidy gone, the Alberta government could immediately reduce pension contributions while retaining the exact same benefits retirees receive right now.

Or, they could keep the same contribution levels, while increasing the benefit payments retirees receive, or do something in between the two.

All without the Alberta government interfering in the administration of the pension plan itself.

Certainly, the concept of an Alberta Pension Plan needs much more detailed research before it can be implemented.

A significant amount of work will need to be done to ensure proper risk management and governance practices will be implemented.

And this is all work that the UCP has committed to do before making any final decisions.

But given the significant financial benefits, the fact that the NDP is willing to completely rule out the idea before even seeing the details is incredibly short-sighted.

Their opposition seems entirely based on the idea that the Alberta government would somehow “take over” and “steal” people’s pensions – without any explanation of why that would be possible with an arm’s-length provincial organization in a way that isn’t currently possible with an arm’s-length federal organization managing the money.

It’s also incredibly ironic given that, when the NDP were in power in Alberta, their government did interfere in the administration of the various government employee pensions that are currently managed by AIMCO.

(That’s a whole other story for a whole other email, but the short version is that they took away the requirement for AIMCO directors to be experienced investors, they appointed a bunch of NDP allies to the board, and then set about forcing those directors to invest the money in a bunch of environmental projects that the NDP favoured, until the UCP reversed those changes and restored the independence of AIMCO.)

An Alberta Pension Plan is one of the many proposals in the Free Alberta Strategy that can be used to protect the financial future of Albertans.

But, like any policy proposal, it requires robust research to ensure it is implemented properly.

We have a small team of researchers, funded entirely by grassroots donors like yourself, and we need your help to continue developing and promoting detailed solutions.

If you’re in a position to do so, please consider making a donation:

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Alberta’s huge oil sands reserves dwarf U.S. shale

Alberta

Alberta’s huge oil sands reserves dwarf U.S. shale

Published on December 21, 2025

Todayville

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Will Gibson

Oil sands could maintain current production rates for more than 140 years

Investor interest in Canadian oil producers, primarily in the Alberta oil sands, has picked up, and not only because of expanded export capacity from the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Enverus Intelligence Research says the real draw — and a major factor behind oil sands equities outperforming U.S. peers by about 40 per cent since January 2024 — is the resource Trans Mountain helps unlock.

Alberta’s oil sands contain 167 billion barrels of reserves, nearly four times the volume in the United States.

Today’s oil sands operators hold more than twice the available high-quality resources compared to U.S. shale producers, Enverus reports.

“It’s a huge number — 167 billion barrels — when Alberta only produces about three million barrels a day right now,” said Mike Verney, executive vice-president at McDaniel & Associates, which earlier this year updated the province’s oil and gas reserves on behalf of the Alberta Energy Regulator.

Already fourth in the world, the assessment found Alberta’s oil reserves increased by seven billion barrels.

Verney said the rise in reserves despite record production is in part a result of improved processes and technology.

“Oil sands companies can produce for decades at the same economic threshold as they do today. That’s a great place to be,” said Michael Berger, a senior analyst with Enverus.

BMO Capital Markets estimates that Alberta’s oil sands reserves could maintain current production rates for more than 140 years.

The long-term picture looks different south of the border.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that American production will peak before 2030 and enter a long period of decline.

Having a lasting stable source of supply is important as world oil demand is expected to remain strong for decades to come.

This is particularly true in Asia, the target market for oil exports off Canada’s West Coast.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects oil demand in the Asia-Pacific region will go from 35 million barrels per day in 2024 to 41 million barrels per day in 2050.

The growing appeal of Alberta oil in Asian markets shows up not only in expanded Trans Mountain shipments, but also in Canadian crude being “re-exported” from U.S. Gulf Coast terminals.

According to RBN Energy, Asian buyers – primarily in China – are now the main non-U.S. buyers from Trans Mountain, while India dominates purchases of re-exports from the U.S. Gulf Coast. .

BMO said the oil sands offers advantages both in steady supply and lower overall environmental impacts.

“Not only is the resulting stability ideally suited to backfill anticipated declines in world oil supply, but the long-term physical footprint may also be meaningfully lower given large-scale concentrated emissions, high water recycling rates and low well declines,” BMO analysts said.

Alberta

Canada’s New Green Deal

Published on December 21, 2025

Todayville

From Resource Works

By Nelson Bennett

Nuclear power a key piece of Western Canadian energy transition

Just reading the headlines, Canadians can be forgiven for thinking last week’s historic agreement between Alberta and Ottawa was all about oil and pipelines, and all about Alberta.

It’s much bigger than that.

The memorandum of understanding signed between Canada and Alberta is an ambitious Western Canadian industrial, energy and decarbonization strategy all in one.

The strategy aims to decarbonize the oil and gas sectors through large-scale carbon capture and storage, industrial carbon pricing, methane abatement, industrial electrification, and nuclear power.

It would also provide Canadian “cloud sovereignty” through AI computing power, and would tie B.C. and Saskatchewan into the Alberta dynamo with beefed up power transmission interties.

A new nuclear keystone

Energy Alberta’s Peace River Nuclear Power Project could be a keystone to the strategy.

The MOU sets January 1, 2027 as the date for a new nuclear energy strategy to provide nuclear power “to an interconnected market” by 2050.

Scott Henuset, CEO for Energy Alberta, was pleased to see the nuclear energy strategy included in the MOU.

“We, two years ago, went out on a limb and said we’re going to do this, really believing that this was the path forward, and now we’re seeing everyone coming along that this is the path forward for power in Canada,” he said.

The company proposes to build a four-unit, 4,800-megawatt Candu Monark power plant in Peace River, Alberta. That’s equivalent to four Site C dams worth of power.

The project this year entered a joint review by the Impact Assessment Agency and Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

If approved, and all goes to schedule, the first 1,000-MW unit could begin producing power in 2035.

Indigenous consultation and experienced leadership

“I think that having this strategy broadly points to a cleaner energy future, while at the same time recognizing that oil still is going to be a fundamental driver of economies for decades to come,” said Ian Anderson, the former CEO of Trans Mountain Corporation who now serves as an advisor to Energy Alberta.

Energy Alberta is engaged with 37 First Nations and Metis groups in Alberta on the project. Anderson was brought on board to help with indigenous consultation.

While working on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, Anderson spent a decade working with more than 60 First Nations in B.C. and Alberta to negotiate impact benefit agreements.

In addition to indigenous consultations, Anderson is also helping out with government relations, and has met with B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix, BC Hydro chairman Glen Clark and the head of Powerex to discuss the potential for B.C. beef up interties between the two provinces.

“I’ve done a lot of political work in B.C. over the decade, so it’s a natural place for me to assist,” Anderson said. “Hopefully it doesn’t get distracted by the pipeline debate. They’re two separate agendas and objectives.”

Powering the grid and the neighbours

B.C. is facing a looming shortage of industrial power, to the point where it now plans to ration it.

“We see our project as a backbone to support renewables, support industrial growth, support data centres as well as support larger interties to B.C. which will also strengthen the Canadian grid as a whole,” Henuset said.

Despite all the new power generation B.C. has built and plans to build, industrial demand is expected to far exceed supply. One of the drivers of that future demand is requests for power for AI data centres.

The B.C. government recently announced Bill 31 — the Energy Statutes Amendment Act – which will prioritize mines and LNG plants for industrial power.

Other energy intensive industries, like bitcoin mining, AI data centres and green hydrogen will either be explicitly excluded or put on a power connection wait list.

Beefed up grid connections with Alberta – something that has been discussed for decades – could provide B.C. with a new source of zero-emission power from Alberta, though it might have to loosen its long-standing anti-nuclear power stance.

Energy Minister Adrian Dix was asked in the Legislature this week if B.C. is open to accessing a nuclear-powered grid, and his answer was deflective.

“The member will know that we have been working with Alberta on making improvements to the intertie,” Dix answered. “Alberta has made commitments since 2007 to improve those connections. It has not done so.

“We are fully engaged with the province of Alberta on that question. He’ll also know that we are, under the Clean Electricity Act, not pursuing nuclear opportunities in B.C. and will not be in the future.”

The B.C. NDP government seems to be telling Alberta, “not only do we not want Alberta’s dirty oil, we don’t want any of its clean electricity either.”

Interconnected markets

Meanwhile, BC Hydro’s second quarter report confirms it is still a net importer of electricity, said Barry Penner, chairman of the Energy Futures Initiative.

“We have been buying nuclear power from the United States,” he said. “California has one operating power plant and there’s other nuclear power plants around the western half of the United States.”

In a recent blog post, Penner notes: “BC Hydro had to import power even as 7,291 megawatts of requested electrical service was left waiting in our province.”

If the NDP government wants B.C. to participate in an ambitious Western Canadian energy transition project, it might have to drop its holier-than-thou attitude towards Alberta, oil and nuclear power.

“We’re looking at our project as an Alberta project that has potential to support Western Canada as a whole,” Henuset said.

“We see our project as a backbone to support renewables, support industrial growth, support data centres, as well as support larger interties to B.C., which will also strengthen the Canadian grid as a whole.”

The investment challenge

The strategy that Alberta and Ottawa have laid out is ambitious, and will require tens of billions in investment.

“The question in the market is how much improvement in the regulatory prospects do we need to see in order for capital to be committed to the projects,” Anderson said.

The federal government will need to play a role in derisking the project, as it has done with the new Darlington nuclear project, with financing from the Canada Growth Fund and Canadian Infrastructure Bank.

“There will be avenues of federal support that will help derisk the project for private equity investors, as well as for banks,” Henuset said.

One selling point for the environmental crowd is that a combination of carbon capture and nuclear power could facilitate a blue and green hydrogen industry.

But to really sell this plan to the climate concerned, what is needed is a full assessment of the potential GHG reductions that may accrue from things like nuclear power, CCS, industrial carbon pricing and all of the other measures for decarbonization.

Fortunately, the MOU also scraps greenwashing laws that prevent those sorts of calculations from being done.

Resource Works News