The final recommendations of Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission released yesterday are probably about the best that could be expected given the ridiculous limitation that only two additional seats could be added to the Legislature’s current 87 despite the province’s burgeoning population.
After all, the commissioners had to draw the lines somewhere, and the way they drew them would see Calgary get two new seats and Edmonton gain one, while two rural electoral divisions were consolidated in Central Alberta. So, mostly, pretty much the same old same old.
But a minority report by the 2025-2026 commission’s two United Conservative Party appointed members, Lethbridge lawyer John Evans and retired University of Alberta professor Julian Martin, would slice the province’s cities into pizza pies of “rurban” ridings, diluting the Opposition NDP’s vote.
This signals that the report may be in serious trouble even before the ink on its pages is dry. Remember, the commission makes recommendations, but the Legislature, with its UCP majority, makes the decision.
Minority reports by individual commissioners are nothing new in Alberta Electoral Boundary Commission reports, which are drafted every eight to 10 years to account for population changes in the province. But minority reports by government-appointed members on the commission are extremely rare. And minority reports complete with maps illustrating Texas-style gerrymandering were unheard until yesterday.
It’s probably significant that when the commission issued its interim report last fall, the commissioners’ recommendations were unanimous. Now they are wildly at variance. Something happened, obviously, between then and now.
So would the government of Danielle Smith be bold enough to ignore the majority recommendations of a thoughtful independent report? Since the commission was established a year ago tomorrow, it’s held more than 30 public hearings throughout Alberta, in person and online. It received close to 2,000 written submissions.
Well, let me put it to you this way: I wouldn’t recommend betting against that happening. After all, Premier Danielle Smith is determined to remain in power and she’s already proved she’s prepared to tear up the rule book on any number of issues, from fundamental rights to public health care to separatism.
In the report, commission Chair Dallas Miller, a retired judge of the Alberta Court of King’s Bench, and the commission’s two NDP-appointed members, former Alberta Party MLA Greg Clark and Sylvan Lake resident Susan Samson, describe the maps presented by the two UCP members as, “1) procedurally unfair; 2) substantively unreasonable as an exercise of this Commission’s statutory mandate; and 3) likely to offend s. 3 of the Charter.”
“If the Legislature adopts the minority maps, it risks significant legal consequences by way of a court challenge that is likely to be successful,” they warned. “Even more importantly, it risks jeopardizing faith in Alberta democracy.”
Alas, jeopardizing faith in democracy might be small beer to Ms. Smith. And would a court challenge be successful in time to block an unfairly turbocharged UCP majority? Doubtful.
If this pizza-pie model sounds familiar, it may be because it reared its head last summer when Lethbridge-East MLA Nathan Neudorf submitted a recommendation to the commission calling for the southern Alberta city to be sliced up into three or four rural-urban ridings.
Boldly, the map accompanying the minority report would see Lethbridge divided into four rurban ridings, just as prescribed by Mr. Neudorf, who is the government’s utilities minister. So would Red Deer and Airdrie, while St. Albert, where a few local conservative supporters recently launched a recall petition against popular NDP MLA Marie Renaud, would be cut up into three.
The fringes of Alberta’s largest city would really get it under the minority proposal – 11 rurban gerrymanders around the city of Calgary.
Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi issued a milquetoast statement thanking the commission for its work and promising to review its recommendations. Later, though, he made tougher remarks to reporters, calling the minority report “nuts” and “obvious gerrymandering.”
“The fact that the UCP-appointed chair of the commission felt the need to write that it was unconstitutional and wrong tells you what you need to know,” Mr. Nenshi said.
For its part, the UCP didn’t reveal its intentions, letting UCP Caucus Whip Justin Wright issue a bland statement promising to review the report.
Now, about population growth in Alberta, Postmedia noted in its coverage that the population of Alberta has grown 20 per cent since 2024, while under the commission’s recommendations the seats in the Legislature will increase by 2 per cent.
But consider that in 1979 there were 79 seats in the Alberta Legislature and if the commission’s recommendations are accepted there will only be 89 after the next election, an increase of 12.7 per cent. In the same period, the population of Alberta has grown about 150 per cent!
OK, so why not increase the size of the Legislature to about 130 and build benches to accommodate the extra MLAs? Please don’t tell me that would cost too much. Isn’t democracy supposed to be worth the money? And 130 MLAs would sure as heck make for a more exciting and vibrant democracy!