Outreach to Albertans on fate of pension plan biased in favour of exit, say CPP fund managers
The professional organization that runs the Canada Pension Plan‘s investment fund is taking issue with a process assessing whether Alberta should break away from the national pension scheme.
In an Oct. 17 letter to Jim Dinning, a former provincial treasurer who has been chosen to lead the Alberta Pension Plan Engagement Panel, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board says advertising and a survey to solicit the views of Albertans are “unbalanced and incomplete” and thus favour the notion the western province should go it alone with its retirement plan.
“We respectfully want to flag to you as head of the panel some troubling elements that in our view undermine the transparency, fairness and integrity of the consultation process that has been put forward to the public so far,” Michel Leduc, CPPIB’s senior managing director and global head of public affairs, said in the letter that was also provided to some media outlets.
CPPIB hired its own third-party market research firm to analyze the survey, and says the resulting report by Innovative Research Group concluded the survey “failed to meet its objectives of effective public consultation.” Among other shortcomings, the report found the survey asked respondents to provide feedback on idealized positive outcomes of a theoretical provincial pension plan without providing any contextual information about how difficult such outcomes might be and the corresponding risks and drawbacks.
“Most concerning is the starting point of assuming that every individual who responds to the survey wants to leave the CPP and start an APP,” Leduc wrote. “The survey is unfortunately formulated to direct opinions rather than seek them.”
When it comes to the advertising campaign, Leduc says it
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