CPP

[ivbinconned]

Weekly Note to Supporters of the Citizens Centre
from Link Byfield, Chairman

October 20, 2003

SPECIAL NOTICE TO CITIZENS CENTRE SUPPORTERS

The Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy has launched a major radio advertising campaign in Alberta to promote the establishment of a provincial pension plan, to replace the Canada Pension Plan. Please read the following news release.

We urge our supporters in all provinces to be aware of the potential of this initiative to help lead Canada towards Refederation, with more provincial responsibility and less central government.

We also urge all our supporters either to attend Citizens Centre public meetings on the Alberta Pension Plan now underway throughout Alberta, or to notify Alberta friends and relatives who might want to attend them.

Times and locations of the public meetings are listed at the end of the News Release.

-----------------------------------------

NEWS RELEASE

October 20, 2003

CAMPAIGN BEGINS TO OPT ALBERTA OUT OF THE CANADA PENSION PLAN

EDMONTON - A province-wide radio campaign began today, urging Alberta to opt out of the Canada Pension Plan and set up its own replacement.

Sponsored by two provincial rights groups, the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy and the Alberta Residents League, the three-week campaign is aimed at informing Albertans that they would be better off under an Alberta Pension Plan than under the CPP.

"Albertans pay over $1 billion more in CPP premiums than they receive in benefits," said Link Byfield, Chairman of the Citizens Centre. "If Alberta opted out of the CPP and established its own plan, premiums could be cut by $500 a year for the average working family."

The Citizens Centre and Alberta Residents League are working to advance what is now called the Alberta Agenda, which would see Alberta regain control of areas which fall under provincial jurisdiction but have been given up to Ottawa. These include a provincial police force to replace the RCMP, provincial personal income tax collection and a provincial pension plan.

"We want to initiate a province-wide discussion on this important issue," Byfield explained. "In addition to our radio campaign, we are holding public meetings across the province and encouraging the public to take a close look at the issue."

The Citizens Centre has produced an eight-page policy report on an Alberta Pension Plan, which is being distributed across the province and is available free-of-charge on the Citizens Centre's website (www.citizenscentre.com). The report explains that Alberta can legally opt out of the CPP on three years' notice to the federal government.

Byfield noted that the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta has set aside most of its annual policy convention in Edmonton on November 14-15 to discuss the Alberta Agenda, and encouraged Albertans to let their MLAs know they support an Alberta Pension Plan.

Public meetings will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the following locations:
October 21 - Grande Prairie, Elks Lodge
October 23 - Lethbridge, Travelodge and Convention Centre October 28 - Red Deer, Black Knight Inn October 30 - Calgary, Days Inn (Old Highlander Hotel) November 3 - Stony Plain, Community Centre (sponsored by the Alberta Residents League) November 4 - Lloydminster, Tropical Inn November 6 - Edmonton, Coast Terrace Inn.

-----------------------------------------
Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy
#203, 10441 - 178 Street
Edmonton, AB T5S 1R5

Phone: 780-481-7844
Fax: 780-481-9983
Email: contact@citizenscentre.com

[carebear300]

I always thought it was west against east but am starting to realize that Alberta with all its natural resource revenues is beginning to think it is too good for even the rest of us westerners. And the more that Alberta manipulates the system for its own betterment the worse off its poor cousins are in Western Canada. They also fall right into the trap that the eastern establishment has laid to divide the west.

[wilagro]

Total BS. Don't fall for this fallacious scheme. Do you really want the Alberta Gov't looking after YOUR money. Look what they have done with the Heritage Trust Fund. They have been milking it for years and LOSING money with poor investments as well.
They just want another pool of money to manage with no guarantee that it will surpass expectations of our current CPP.
The current CPP works for all Canadians not just Albertans.

[cowman]

Now I'd be the last person in the world to suggest the current clowns we have running the show in Edmonton are great fiscal managers! Or the ones in Ottawa either!
The current Canada Pension plan is in reality a pyramid scheme and like all such scams someone ends up getting screwed somewhere down the road. The idea of more provincial autonomy is a good one if you look at it as a step to independence and a new country!
Carebear: How can we forget our so-called "poor" neighbors? About one in every two Albertans is from Saskatchewan or Manitoba(to our great advantage, I might add)! And are you really poor? Or have you had these really weird governments who don't understand that business makes the world go round and instead are lost in ideology that died 50 years ago?

[jensend]

i dont know wilagro, alberta is a have province and the federal government is turning us into a have-not country so i think i'd go with the alberta scheme. you're right cowman, saskatchewan is a victim of itself. if you look back seventy years sask should now be better off than alberta but instead people are trying to drag it into the second half of the twentieth century (and there is great resistance). if sask wants to be part of w. canada maybe it will have to make some accomodation. it shouldn't expect alberta to stick with a bad federal program just because then everybody is equally badly off. if you see a good idea go with it. the feds are doing nothing for the west and we would be better off out of it. the leadership has to come from somewhere and maybe people who stayed in sask are going to have to lose their aversion to ideas from alberta if they are worthwhile.

[ivbinconned]

I would not blame the east for causing division in the west. I would blame western politians for letting them selves be divided.
In this province of Saskatchewan we are always encouraged by the NDP, the media our university intelectual class who live in the past, that we are to look at Alberta as a little Texas and we should never ever seek solutions like Alberta.
Sadly they have succeeded. Fifty years ago Regina, Calgary and Edmonton were the same size.
The ruling class here have a vested interest in keeping things as they are because it is that constituency that seeks handouts that keeps them in power.
In Alberta, growth, development is what your government stands for and they have to keep it going for that is their constituancy.
If we get lucky and get a solid change in government here, Alberta could do itself and Saskatchewan a big favor and do what ever it can to make it a succesfull experiance.
It has been said that the Canadian roots of socialism are in Saskatchewan. And what they need is a good dose of roundup!

[cakadu]

Given the current rate at which people are drawing down CPP and the rate at which those numbers are growing, I hold no delusions that it will be around when I am in a position to finally get back what I have been paying in - even at a nominal rate.