The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Alberta's new electoral map will be a fight
Divided boundaries commission gives us a level-headed majority report and drastically different minority report
The final report of the bi-partisan Electoral Boundaries Commission usually settles where the lines are drawn on Alberta’s electoral map, but like most decisions in Alberta politics these days — an injection of polarization and partisanship threatens to tear apart a system that has worked pretty well for the past thirty years.
Alberta is getting a new electoral map for the next provincial election that increases the total number of ridings from 87 to 89 but what that map looks like will depend on what MLAs decide to do when the United Conservative Party government introduces the next version of the Electoral Divisions Act into the Legislature.
With duelling maps included in the final report, it’s unclear what the government’s bill will include and how active MLAs will be in redrawing the map themselves.
A fairly level-headed majority report was supported by government-appointed chair Dallas K. Miller (a retired Judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta) and NDP-appointed commissioners Greg Clark (former Alberta Party MLA for Calgary-Elbow and former UCP-appointed chair of the Alberta Balancing Pool) and Susan Samson (former mayor of the Town of Sylvan Lake).
A drastically different and much more controversial minority report was supported by UCP-appointed commissioners John Evans (a Lethbridge-based lawyer) and Julian Martin (a Professor Emeritus from the University of Alberta and former federal Conservative government senior staffer).
The current Electoral Boundaries Commission model was implemented in the late 1990s and replaced a previous process that had a committee of MLAs draw their own ridings. The commission includes a neutral chair appointed by the government, two appointees nominated by the government caucus (UCP) and two nominated by the official opposition caucus (NDP).
Final reports of previous commissions have usually included a majority report endorsed by the chair, two government appointees and one opposition appointee, and a minority report from one of the opposition appointees. These minority reports would call for more seats in Edmonton when the opposition was Liberal and more seats for rural Alberta when the opposition was the Wildrose Party.
But the split in this final report is much more divisive and unusual because the dissenting minority report was written by the two commissioners appointed by the governing UCP.
Here’s a quick look at the two final reports and what might happen next.
The Good: Majority Report
The final report endorsed by the majority of commissioners is not too dissimilar to the Interim report unanimously supported by the commission late last year.
The map isn’t perfect, as no map is, but it does continue the work of past commissions that did their best to draw maps that reflect the feedback they heard from Albertans through public consultations and would allow for effective representation in the Legislature.
The commission increased the total number of ridings in Calgary by two, Edmonton by one, and the Calgary region by one. And the final report includes a limited number of “hybrid” rural-urban ridings that raised the concern of many urban and rural municipal leaders alike during the hearing and consultation process.
Hybrid ridings in Calgary include Calgary-East, Calgary-Falconridge-Conrich, Calgary-West-Elbow Valley, and Calgary-Glenmore-Tsuut’ina.
Edmonton hybrid ridings include Edmonton-Beaumont, which includes parts of southeast Edmonton and the City of Beaumont, and Edmonton-Enoch, which includes parts of southwest Edmonton and the Enoch Cree Nation adjacent to the city.
The central urban Edmonton-Riverview riding that was first created for the 1997 election is eliminated and merged into the new Edmonton-Glenora-Riverview and Edmonton-Strathcona ridings.
Just outside Edmonton, the current Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland is eliminated and redistributed into St. Albert-Sturgeon, Spruce Grove, Barrhead-Westlock-Athabasca, and West Yellowhead ridings.
Recognizing the large population growth in communities surrounding Calgary, an additional riding was added outside the city. Airdrie-East, Airdrie-West, and Cochrane-Springbank now sit to Calgary’s north and west.
With the removal of Springbank and Bragg Creek from the current Banff-Kananskis riding, the new Canmore-Banff riding is one of three ridings in the majority report that meets the criteria set out in section 15(2) of the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act to be allowed to be as much as 50 per cent below the average population of all proposed electoral divisions.
Two other ridings meeting that criteria are the northern ridings of Central Peace-Notley and Lesser Slave Lake. The Lesser Slave Lake riding is back on the map after northern municipal and provincial representatives, including Lesser Slave Lake MLA Scott Sinclair, spoke out loudly after the riding was removed in the interim map. The sprawling northern rural riding will have its boundary extended south to include the Town of Swan Hills to the southern boundary of Big Lakes County.
Other changes that caught my attention:
Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche is extended south to include Smoky Lake County and the Saddle Lake Cree Nation.
Central Alberta loses a riding, with Lacombe-Ponoka being redistributed into the new Lacombe-Clearwater riding and Wetaskiwin-Ponoka-Maskwacis ridings. The two urban Red Deer ridings, Red Deer-North and Red Deer-South, remain in place. Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills is also redrawn into the Mountain View-Kneehill riding.
In southern Alberta, Carston-Siksika is redrawn into new Cardston-Taber and High River-Vulcan-Siksika ridings, and the two urban Lethbridge ridings remain with minor boundary changes.
According to a rough transposition of votes from the 2023 provincial election done by Kyle Hutton, the final seat count based on the commission majority’s report map is 48 UCP MLAs and 41 NDP MLAs.
The Bad: The Minority Report
The minority report submitted by UCP commissioners Evans and Martin is drastically different from the majority report map, and the interim report map that was unanimously supported by all commissioners last fall. The minority report includes long and detailed explanations and maps about their proposal — which is appreciated but highly unusual for a dissenting opinion in a boundary commission final report.
The minority report’s map drastically increases the number of hybrid rural-urban ridings, slicing the cities of Calgary, Lethbridge, Airdrie, and Red Deer into multiple ridings that sprawl into the surrounding rural areas and significantly redraws the urban seats in Calgary. The minority map also adds a third hybrid riding attached to Edmonton. This deviates significantly from the current electoral map, the commission’s interim report, and what the commission heard in public hearings during their cross-province consultations.
In the case of Lethbridge, it echoes UCP cabinet minister and Lethbridge-West Lethbridge-East MLA Nathan Neudorf‘s proposal to carve the City of Lethbridge into multiple large rural-urban ridings. In his submission to the commission last year, Neudorf called for the southwest Alberta city to be reconfigured into “three or four complementary ridings that create a cohesive “agri-innovation corridor.”
Neudorf’s proposal to carve up Lethbridge was supported by near identical submissions from Town of Coaldale Deputy Mayor Lisa Reis, Coaldale Chamber of Commerce President Robert Woolf, and Town of Coaldale Chief Administrative Officer Kalen Hastings and Deputy CAO Cameron Mills.
Neudorf’s proposal was not included in the commission’s interim report or the majority report, which largely kept intact the two urban ridings that have existed in Lethbridge since 1971 and are electorally competitive between the UCP and NDP.
Both the majority and minority reports raised concerns about MLAs being able to effectively represent increasingly large rural ridings, which is a legitimate worry and something that has become increasingly difficult for Electoral Boundaries Commissions to address. This is not a problem the commission has the magic ability to fix. But diluting urban representation by shoehorning excessive hybrid ridings into the map is not a good option.
One actual solution could be to increase the total number of ridings in order to decrease the geographic size and population of all ridings, something only MLAs in the Legislature have the power to decide.
The minority report earned a scathing response from the majority commissioners, who wrote that “the minority’s approach violates the principles of procedural fairness, and, relatedly, the values underlying s. 3 of the Charter” and that “the minority’s reasons are substantively unreasonable.”
The majority report commissioners wrote that:
The minority made a complete about face with new electoral maps without any public participation. These boundaries not only do not provide effective representation, but are entirely unfair to impose on Albertans without significant submissions as to the strength of their proposed communities of interest and the impact on their ability to enable effective representation.
I make a real effort to not stray into hyperbole when I write about Alberta politics, but I don’t believe it is an exaggeration to describe the minority report as gerrymandering. It’s difficult to read the minority report maps without thinking that they were drawn to increase the partisan advantage for the UCP in the next election.
Hutton’s vote transposition of the minority report boundaries gives the UCP 57 MLAs and the NDP 32. The number of competitive ridings in the minority report map would also drop, as the hybrid ridings sprawling into rural areas surrounding the urban areas would cement the UCP’s majority.
The UCP would win re-election today under the current existing boundaries that were drawn in 2017 and the majority report’s map, but the minority report’s map would make it basically impossible for the NDP to ever win in enough ridings to form a majority government — and it seems like that’s the point.
The Ugly: What could happen next?
What MLAs do with this final report and the two proposed maps is the big question. The final report has been submitted to Assembly Speaker Ric McIver, and the UCP government is expected to introduce an Electoral Divisions Act that will propose a new map for the next provincial election.
We don’t know what map the government bill will include — the map supported by the majority of the commission or the map endorsed by the two UCP appointees? We also don’t know how empowered will UCP MLAs feel to redraw any map put before them.
While it is not uncommon for MLAs to make small changes to the maps proposed by the final reports, including slight edits to boundaries and riding names, the entire point of the commission is to take away the ability of MLAs to draw their own ridings.
UCP MLAs should vote for the majority report and respect the arms-length process, but I wouldn’t be shocked if they don’t.
The UCP under Premier Danielle Smith leadership have demonstrated a troubling eagerness to break political norms, concentrate power, and weaken independent institutions, so it would not be out of character if they made the Electoral Boundaries Commission their next target. Undermining this process would not be good for elections in Alberta.
Alberta should dramatically increase the number of ridings and keep boundary redraws independent
Having read both reports thoroughly, I have two recommendations that I offer for consideration for future boundary redraws:
The boundaries commission can’t solve the problem of rural depopulation, but what can be done to decrease the size of large rural ridings is add more ridings. Alberta’s population has rocketed over the last five decades but the number of ridings has barely increased. In 1979, when the population of Alberta was around 2 million there were 79 ridings, almost 50 years later the population is around 5 million and there will be 89 ridings in the next election. Significantly increasing, perhaps even doubling, the number of ridings would decrease the geographical size of rural ridings, improve effective representation, and add additional voices in the Legislature.
The deep divide between the majority and minority reports suggests that the bi-partisan commission model might no longer work. Alberta should consider adopting a non-partisan model for future boundary redistributions, similar to the one used to redraw federal electoral ridings. Preserving the independence and credibility of institutions that should be free from partisan influence, especially when it comes to drawing electoral maps, is key to preserving public confidence in our election system and democracy.
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Cheers,
Dave
Maybe it’s just my perpetual cynicism nowadays when it comes to AB Politics but I feel like this next provincial election is going to be another political and legal clusterfuck before we even make it to the voting booths
A thoughtful and well-reasoned examination, Dave. I don't think your comments concerning gerrymandering are hyperbole at all. That has been a feature of electoral maps in Canada and the U.S. for decades, although not as severe in Canada as in the U.S. (particularly "red states"). The UCP is well aware of what's taking place in this regard in states like Texas, so, of course, their appointees will want to follow suit. Can the majority of UCP MLAs be trusted to adopt the majority recommendations? I know what the evidence indicates is likely.