Alberta is getting a new electoral map

Voters only getting 2 more MLAs despite huge population boom

Alberta will have a new electoral map when the next provincial election is called. An Electoral Boundaries Commission has been named and will begin travelling the province next week to collect feedback from Albertans about how new riding boundaries should be drawn to reflect population changes since the last time the map was redrawn in 2017.

The redrawing of electoral boundaries in Alberta is done by an appointed bipartisan commission that makes recommendations for changes to the Legislative Assembly. The members of this year’s commission include chairman Honourable Justice Dallas K. Miller, United Conservative Party appointees Dr. Julian Martin and John Evans, and NDP appointees Greg Clark and Susan Samson. Alberta has used this system since 1995.

Legislative changes introduced by Minister of Justice Mickey Amery last year directed the commission to increase the number of ridings from 87 to 89 and removed the requirement that the new electoral map must respect Calgary and Edmonton municipal boundaries. The latter change has left some officials in Alberta’s two largest cities concerned the next electoral map could include bicycle spoke-looking ridings that extend from the city’s suburban neighbourhoods into the surrounding commuter communities and rural areas.

Alberta at 5 million people

One of the commission’s criteria for the new map is to create new ridings with a population within 25% above or below the average population of all the proposed electoral divisions. Past commissions have demonstrated an effort ensure the population differences are not too drastic and the last commission did a fairly good job ensuring most ridings were within 10% above or below the average.

Based on my quick math comparing the 2021 Census of Canada numbers to the last commission report, I’ve identified nine ridings that have experienced population growth of more than 20 per cent since the current boundaries were established in 2017:

• Airdrie-Cochrane (+24%)

• Calgary-Foothills (+26.1%)

• Calgary-North East (+62%)

• Calgary-Shaw (+23%)

• Calgary-South East (+40%)

• Edmonton-Ellerslie (+41%)

• Edmonton-South (+50%)

• Edmonton-South West (+43%)

• Edmonton-West Henday (+27%)

While these ridings have experienced a significant population boom, at least 40 rural and urban ridings saw some level of population decline between the 2016 and 2021 censuses. But that census data could already be significantly outdated as some parts of our province has seen steep population growth since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a Statistics Canada model, the Province of Alberta’s population reached 5 million residents last week — 700,000 more people than were counted in the 2021 census. What population data to rely on will be a challenge the commission will need to consider as it tries to balance population growth in new boundaries that will be used for at least the next two provincial general elections.

Your chance to talk about electoral boundaries

The commission is hosting public hearings to hear from Albertans in Pincher Creek and Lethbridge on May 29, Edmonton on June 2 and 3, Westlock on June 4, St. Paul and Wainwright on June 5, Drumheller on June 9, Calgary on June 10 and 11, Brooks on June 12, Medicine Hat on June 13, Fort McMurray on June 16, Peace River and Grande Prairie on June 17, Slave Lake on June 18, Jasper and Red Deer on June 19.

The deadline for written submissions to the commission is May 23 (tomorrow).

This round of hearings and written submissions will help the commission prepare an interim report and map that will be submitted to the Legislature in October 2025. The commission will then begin accepting written submissions and hold another round of public hearings after the interim report is released to collect feedback for the final report that is due in March 2026.

Does Alberta need more MLAs?

Convincing the public that there is a need for even more politicians could be a hard sell but the number of MLAs in the Legislature has not kept pace with population growth in Alberta.

There were 79 ridings represented in the Legislature when the province’s population reached 2 million in 1979. Forty-six years later, in 2025, there are five million people living in Alberta and there will only be 89 ridings in the next election.

More voices in the Legislative Assembly and smaller constituencies to represent could be better for democracy in Alberta, especially in sparsely-populated rural areas and densely-populated urban centres, but that is not something this commission can included in their recommended map.

Still first past the post

The commission also does not have a mandate to recommend Alberta adopt a different electoral system. Right now, Alberta's MLAs are elected through single-member contests by plurality, also known as first past the post, but that wasn’t always the case. It’s a very simple system, which is a positive, but the winner-takes-all model frequently generates results that are not reflective of the overall vote tally and amplifies regional political divides.

From 1924 to 1955, Alberta used an Alternative Vote Instant-runoff voting system in rural and small city constituencies and Proportional Representation through a Single Transferable Vote system in Edmonton and Calgary. The results under this system sometimes led to more voices being elected to the Legislature but it also generated large majority governments that were not always reflective of the popular vote.

The mixed electoral system was abandoned by Premier Ernest Manning’s government shortly after his Social Credit Party lost ground to Harper Prowse’s Liberals in the 1955 election.

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Upcoming by-elections in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, Edmonton-Ellerslie and Edmonton-Strathcona

The Alberta NDP are scheduled to nominate a candidate in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills by-election on June 14, but rumours are circulating that Premier Danielle Smith could call that by-election along with two others in Edmonton-Ellerslie and Edmonton-Strathcona in the first week of June.

The UCP announced last week that Alberta Grains chairperson Tara Sawyer had been appointed as the party’s candidate in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills. Sawyer’s appointment happened without an open nomination race, which is likely an indication the UCP was concerned a pro-separatist candidate could possibly create a messy nomination contest in that rural central Alberta riding.

The separatist Republican Party announced that party leader Cameron Davies will be their candidate in the central Alberta riding. Davies is a former UCP and Wildrose Party campaign manager who ran Brian Jean’s leadership campaign in 2015 and played a key role in Jeff Callaway’s alleged “Kamakaze campaign” for the UCP leadership in 2017.

A press release sent by the Republicans earlier this week listed James Snell as the party’s press secretary. Snell is the Legislature Reporter for the Western Standard and it is unclear whether he is still working at the right-wing news website while working as a political party’s press secretary. I have contacted the Republican Party to clarify but have not received a response.

The by-elections will be the first test of the UCP’s new restrictive voter ID laws and elections finance rules that allow corporate and union donations to political parties and candidates for the first time since 2015. While I expect there will be a significant flow of corporate donations to the UCP, I suspect the restrictions the UCP placed on how unions can spend money on political activities will make it unlikely that we will see many large union donations to political parties.

Here are the candidates who are nominated by the parties to run in the by-elections so far:

Edmonton-Ellerslie

• NDP: Gurtej Singh Brar

• Republican: Fred Munn

• UCP: Naresh Bhadwaj

Edmonton-Strathcona

• Alberta Party: Samuel Petrov

• NDP: Naheed Nenshi

• UCP: Darby-rae Crouch

Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills

• Republican: Cameron Davies

• UCP: Tara Sawyer

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Provincial Cabinet shuffle splits Health into four

In the first major cabinet shuffle since the 2023 election, Premier Danielle Smith announced a new roster of cabinet ministers last Friday.

Adriana LaGrange, Matt Jones, Rick Wilson and Jason Nixon (source: Alberta Government website)

The biggest change to Smith’s expanded cabinet, which now includes 27 of 47 UCP MLAs, was the decision to split the Minister of Health’s role into four cabinet ministries to reflect the UCP government’s dismantling of Alberta Health Services into four separate organizations — Acute Care Alberta, Assisted Living Alberta, Primary Care Alberta, and Recovery Alberta (a fifth separate entity called Shared Services has been created to promote integration of the now four separate organizations but it is unclear which minister that silo now reports to).