It’s a common misconception that the point of establishing an Alberta Pension Plan (APP) is to let the Alberta government decide what the money would be invested in.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

An essential part of the APP plan is a guarantee that the fund must be operated without government interference – no matter what political party is in power.

In fact, this independence is so critical to the plan that the Alberta government has recently introduced a new law – the Alberta Pension Protection Act – to legally mandate that:

“No amount paid or transferred to, or assets received by, the Government of Alberta pursuant to paragraph 113(1)(b) of the Canada Pension Plan (Canada) shall be used for any purpose other than the establishment and operation of the provincial pension plan.”

Of course, this was always the plan.