Comments on Alberta Premier's Economic Proposals

Obviously, Danielle Smith has been floating around the news in the last few days with her grandiose economic proposals to 'revive Alberta'. Its hard to know exactly how Premier Smith benefits from the separatist movement, likely by putting pressure on Ottawa, distracting the public from her failures, or consolidating her leadership status. However, most Albertans do not want to separate from Canada[1].

If Alberta were to separate, at the very least, there would be significant economic uncertainty that would likely translate to higher unemployment, capital flight, and so on. Additionally, they are not poised to separate in any way- there is no separate currency, no legal precedent, and no 'central bank of Alberta' (among other things you would need). In summary, its an extremely pointless proposal.

There is also the case of creating a provincial pension plan. Talking about CPP can be incredibly frustrating, almost no one who talks about it has actually looked at the data or done any analysis, but it performs very well (which is why it forms one of the four general institutional investment models- 'the Canada model'). For example, I often hear alternatives such as, 'why don't we move to the Norway model?' And the answer is pretty simple- better returns and better risk-adjusted returns. There are a lot of potential questions to answer, and you should ask them to someone who knows what they are talking about.

A provincial pension plan would almost definitely perform worse than one of the best performing pension plans in the world.

Danielle Smith had been somewhat successful in her dealings with the Alberta trade deficit. In 2024, there was an unexpected surplus, however, that has since reversed and is expected to continue as a deficit[2]. Given the relative size to GDP (about 1.4%), its not concerning at all. On trade issues, Alberta appears to be doing fine. The Albertan economy is concentrated however in oil and gas (about 18% of their GDP and almost half of their investment[3]), which isn't ideal and leaves them vulnerable to commodity prices. I would expect this to get worse with policies focused on expanding oil and gas, when they probably want to look elsewhere.

Additionally, Alberta does not have the highest GDP in Canada- I don't know who came up with this but Alberta's GDP is lower than Ontario and Quebec's for 2020-2024 at least[4].

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[1] CBC News. (2025, May 28). CBC News poll looks at Alberta's political leaders, top issues for Albertans and separation. CBC. Retrieved July 17, 2025, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-janet-brown-may-2025-poll-separation-sentiment-1.7544074

[2] Johnson, L., & Farrell, J. (2025, February 27). From boom to bust: Alberta back deep in the red with $5.2 B deficit budget. Global News. Retrieved July 17, 2025, from https://globalnews.ca/news/11051771/alberta-budget-day-2025-government/ 

[3] Economic Dashboard – Alberta. (n.d.). Investment. Alberta Treasury Board and Finance. Retrieved July 17, 2025, from https://economicdashboard.alberta.ca/topics/investment/

[4] Statistics Canada. (n.d.). Gross domestic product (GDP) at basic prices, by industry, provinces and territories (Table 36-10-0402-01). Government of Canada. Retrieved July 17, 2025, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3610040201