UCP voters' support for Alberta pension plan slides, new poll suggests

A new poll from Leger released Monday suggests Albertans are becoming less keen on opting out of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) in exchange for a provincial plan, with a pronounced decline among UCP voters.

«We saw, in late October, a little bit of an increase in the percentage of Albertans who were inclined to support the move by the government to create an Alberta pension plan,» said Andrew Enns, executive vice-president of Leger.

«What we saw in this poll, in early January, was actually a decline in the support numbers.»

The Leger poll suggests overall support for the UCP government's pitch to develop a new, provincial pension plan has decreased by five per cent since last fall, and now 22 per cent of Albertans believe the switch to an Alberta-only plan should happen.

When Leger conducted a survey in October, 54 per cent of UCP supporters were on board with the government's proposal. Now, that number is at 40 per cent.

The report is from an online survey of 1,012 Albertans aged 18 and up, weighted for Canadian census figures using non-probability sampling. There's no margin of error, but for comparative purposes, a probability sample of 1,012 respondents would have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Enns believes there are a few components behind the decline in support for the province's pension proposal — namely, a lack of engagement.

«When we fast forward to January, you've just come through December, which is typically a month where a lot of public affairs-type issues tend to drop in intensity because there's other distractions,» he said.

«I think the [provincial] government itself hasn't been as active, from what I understand, in really … promoting this issue.»

In an email statement to CBC