UCP Government has taken greater control of our pension savings
While many Albertans were enjoying the holidays and entering a new year with optimism, Jason Kenney’s UCP government took advantage of the distractions and quietly seized control of how our pension funds are invested.
The UCP has gone after the Alberta Teachers Retirement Fund, the Special Forces Pension Plan, and—most importantly for AUPE members—the Public Service Pension Plan (PSPP) and Local Authorities Pension Plan (LAPP).
Today, AUPE President Guy Smith joined union leaders from the Alberta Federation of Labour, United Nurses of Alberta, Health Sciences Association of Alberta, and Canadian Union of Public Employees at a press conference to denounce this threat to our pensions. AUPE is asking all Albertans to tell the UCP that our pensions belong to us and that we are prepared to fight them to save our retirement.
What did the UCP do to our pensions?
The UCP has granted themselves and AIMCo even more control over our pension money.
AIMCo is the Alberta Investment Management Corporation. It manages both PSPP and LAPP investments and have made a lot of negative news lately because of its dangerous investments, including gambling on the price of oil when it’s clear no one should.
Now, because of the UCP’s actions, AIMCo and the government’s Finance Minister will control our pension investments and can ignore what the joint-governors of our pension plans actually believe is best for our money.
By doing all the above, the UCP government has finished what they started with Bill 22, the Reform of Agencies, Boards and Commissions and Government Enterprises Act. They created and passed Bill 22 in fall of 2019, which took away our ability to directly appoint who sits on our pension plan boards and took away the boards’ power to choose who manages our pension investments.
First they interfered with how the plans are governed, and now they’ve taken away the pension plan boards’ ability to manage the risks of the plans.
But AUPE members know we can still fight back no matter what the government says.
Share this news with your co-workers and prepare to fight back
We think Jason Kenney’s real plan is to use your retirement savings to hand money to his corporate friends, even if doing so threatens your pension fund! He might even be planning to hand over Albertans’ Canadian Pension Plan savings.
AUPE is reviewing legal options, but members need to be clear that any legal challenge will take a long time, and may not ultimately be successful. So, if we want to stop the UCP government’s attack on our pensions, we need to fight back.
To succeed, we are going to need a whole lot of member engagement and involvement; our energy needs to go into making sure our fellow workers are aware of these attacks and preparing them to act.
If you have specific questions about your pension plan, contact your pension plan:
LAPP Members can call 1-877-649-5277 or visit www.lapp.ca
PSPP Members can call 1-877-453-1777 or visit www.pspp.ca