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Pipelines, protests and politics are a volatile stew in western Canada. Presumably they don't make for a great investment climate for an Alberta crown corporation about to be tasked with managing considerable public pension funds.

But in December the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIIMCo) charged into a major ownership position in the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline in B.C.  AIMCo and U.S.-based KKR & Co. are buying a 65-per-cent stake in the $6.6-billion pipeline designed to ship gas from northeastern B.C. to an LNG facility in Kitimat.

While the B.C. government is happy with the pipeline, the hereditary chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation are opposed.  They issued a symbolic expropriation order to the company which has put a hitch in pipeline work.

And on Tuesday this week, protesters supporting the chiefs staged a demonstration at AIMCo's downtown Toronto office.  It's not the sort of attention big conservative investment funds really like to have.

AIMCo's timing on this pipeline investment had some Albertans scratching their heads even before the latest First Nation's protest.

Alberta's UCP government recently passed Bill 22, which moves some provincial pension and other investment funds, including the assets of the teachers retirement fund, to AIMCo's management.  Teachers are in an uproar over the decision which didn't involve any consultation with the pension holders.

There is also a government road show travelling through Alberta right now determining the public appetite for patriating the province's portion of the CPP and putting those assets under AIMCo's control as well.

Opposition is mounting to these pension moves, based on a fear that Premier Jason Kenney's government will use AIMCo's financial clout to shore up the faltering oil and gas industry in the province, thus putting pension security at risk.  Critics are railing about the potential for Kenney to use the pension funds as a policy tool even as large institutional investors sound the alarm about the risk of holding positions in fossil fuel industries.

The roar of concern grew loud enough that AIMCo CEO Kevin Uebelein penned an oped for Postmedia in early December protesting that AIMCo's investment decisions are not tied to government policy.

"The Alberta government has no say whatsoever regarding where or how we invest," declared Uebelein.

But the Dec. 26th press release about the Coastal GasLink investment only reignited all the fears about pension money going into the oilpatch.  AIMCo also made a $1.15 billion deal for a major stake in the Northern Courier oil sands pipeline in May.

While the government may not be calling individual investment shots, that doesn't guarantee that AIMCo will steer clear of the oil and gas sector, despite mounting financial guru opinion that the risk involved in carbon emission intensive projects must be factored into investment analyses.

Uebelein has argued that taking on the new public funds designated under Bill 22 will add $30 billion in assets to the AIMCo's $115-billion kitty and thus create a more globally competitive investment corporation.

However, AIMCo's already impressive size didn't yield a great result in 2018, with a 2.3 per cent return on investment.  Granted, that was an unusually poor year when compared to the previous four years.

Kenney's trial balloon on pulling Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan is still a ways off and may not come to fruition, given the enormous difficulties of severing Alberta's contributions from the existing fund and mounting a whole new bureaucracy in Alberta.  Controversies like this latest pipeline investment only rile up already nervous seniors about the safety of their savings may also give some pause in political terms.

AIMCo generally operates under the radar of the average Albertan, but no doubt for the next few months every press release it issues about what it plans to invest in will be carefully parsed by analysts and social media pundits.

The AIMCo 2019 financial report is due out on Jan. 30, after the market closes.  If the rate of return isn't relatively hefty it will further reinforce the gathering opposition to Kenney's plan to centralize public fund investments and pension plan assets under the crown corporations umbrella.

Photo Credit: Calgary Herald

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


The future has a funny way of sneaking up on you.  One minute it's 2000, you're 13 at a New Year's party and your dad's friend John has snuck to the basement to cut the power to the whole house at exactly midnight for Y2K — an all-time prank, truly — and thinking how great this Will Smith album is and boy isn't Star Wars great, and the next minute it's 2020, you're living in Québec and have taken to lighting scented candles during the day while a cat sits on your lap.  You no longer care for Star Wars.

The way the future unwinds itself into becoming the present is a strange and unknowable thing.  What makes sense in one moment, is utterly baffling the next.  How did we get from there to here?  And where will here take us?

Which brings us to the point of all this: predicting what 2020 has in store for us.

1. Elon Musk will be vaporized by a new high-level security system of his stupid Cybertruck.  Forget not-so-bulletproof windows, it's time to take it up a notch.  The eccentric — some might say terminally wacko — billionaire will spend a little too much time watching RoboCop while doing bong rips and start to really hook onto the idea of the MagnaVolt security system.  At a livestream reveal he will personally test the thief-electrocuting system and end up a pile of ash.  "No embarrassing alarm noise, no need to trouble the police," indeed.

2. The Conservative Party will learn an odd lesson from their 2019 defeat with Andrew Scheer at the helm.  The trouble was they didn't hate Justin Trudeau enough.  The people of Canada are really crying out for more anti-Trudeau memes, and they did not do their part in supplying them.  Pierre Poilievre, a true and noble poster, will lead them out of the darkness, the thinking will go.  In Poilievre, the party has what they really think they need: a guy who doesn't give a shit.  He'll say what needs to be said, no matter how ridiculous it sounds coming out of his mouth.  Where Scheer was shameless and bumbling, Poilievre will be shameless and utterly sure of himself.  A true winner, if there ever was one.

3. The gnawing feeling you — yes you — have that the world is getting noticeably worse and the people that could be doing something about it are more concerned with keeping their grubby hands on the levers of power will continue to gnaw away.  Fortunately Father Disney is here to soothe your worries with another lesser remake of a thing you remember liking at some point in the past.  Do you like the new thing?  Probably not.  But maybe you will!  Besides, what other choice do you have?

4. The Toronto Maple Leafs will not win the Stanley Cup this year.  Canada's least-likeable, most-liked-by-people-who-are-wrong team will biff it again.  Probably in painful fashion.  Most of the country will be fine with this, and may even delight in the continued pain of Leafs fans.  I know I will.

5. The world seemed to come pretty close to a wider Middle Eastern war in the first week of the new year, thanks to the intensely noodle-brained actions of the American leadership.  As of this writing, things seemed to have cooled down, but they sure spiralled quick there for a bit.  At a certain point someone's going to be less than perfectly patient and reasonable when responding to the U.S. president, though.  But not this year!  We've been pretty lucky so far, and, what the hell, that luck will hold out another 12 months.

6. Speaking of the Americans, they somehow have been campaigning for what feels like eons, and haven't even voted yet.  One of the Democrats will most definitely win the nomination for the November general election to face down Donald Trump.  The next several months are going to be one king-hell mess.  That the president won a first term is wild enough, that he's in no way out of the running for a second term is unfathomable.  Yet, here we are.  But you came here for predictions, so what the heck, I'm putting a shiny loonie on Bernie.  Way stranger things have happened.

7. The Ford F Series of trucks will remain the best selling vehicles in Canada and the U.S. (and the second best-selling vehicle ever).  We like our trucks here and we like them absurdly oversized and underused, there's no reason for that to slow down in 2020!  Meanwhile, natural disasters will continue to devastate this country — flooding, fires, arctic thawing, you know the ones.  2020 may not be the worst ever year for natural disasters, but it will certainly rate pretty high.  These are in the same bullet point for no reason at all.

8. The Canadian government led by Justin Trudeau will continue to talk to the citizens of this country like we are complete morons, incapable of complex thought.  More ministers will get titles that are little more than increasingly esoteric talking points.  We won't just have the Minister for Middle Class Prosperity, we'll also get a Minister for Governing from the Heart Out, a Minister of Canadians Are Canadians and a Parliamentary Secretary of … Are Canadians, a Minister of Screwing Over Indigenous People But With a Smile, the Minster of Corporate Bootlicking and Undercutting Public Interests, and who else is excited for the Minister of Natural Governance and Democratic Reformation?  This will reach high art when the Minister for Spending More Time With Family has to resign under a cloud of suspicion.

There you have it, the year of our existence two-thousand and twenty.  Which, ah, turned into kind of a bummer, didn't it?  Tried to see the future in a little more of a cheery light, but damn it's started off bleak, and I am but a vessel.  You get what you get.

So there you go, 2020 wrapped up in a neat little bow, whether you like it or not.  See you in about a year to find out how perfectly accurate it is!

Photo Credit: Today

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.