Alberta kicks off electoral boundary review as province swells to 5 million

Amid a surge in the province's population, a process has begun to redraw electoral boundaries in time for Alberta's next provincial election.

Electoral boundaries are the dividing lines that determine which group of voters elect each member of the Legislative Assembly to represent them in the Alberta Legislature.

The redrawing of those lines is an exercise that has long been a source of tension between urban and rural voices, with cities pushing for representation by population and rural areas emphasizing a need for unique considerations.

Provincial law sets out that a five-member commission to review boundaries is to be appointed every eight to 10 years.

Public meetings of the latest commission begin this week and will continue through June in locations across Alberta, including in Calgary, Lethbridge, Edmonton and Red Deer, among other communities.

It comes as the real-time Statistics Canada population model shows that Alberta has crossed the five-million mark in its population. The majority of the province's population growth has been concentrated in its urban centres.

Urban vs. rural debate

For decades, critics and cities have charged that Alberta's electoral system favours the rural portion of the province, the base for provincial conservative governments. 

The report from the 2017 iteration of the electoral boundaries commission lays out the challenge: before new boundaries were drawn, the constituency of Lesser Slave Lake had a population of 28,858, while Calgary-South East had 92,148 people. 

It meant that a vote in Lesser Slave Lake had about 3.5 times more impact than a vote in Calgary-South East, because the rural constituency had far fewer voters but the same number of representatives in the legislature.

Rural leaders, meanwhile, contend that representing vast, sparsely populated areas pose challenges that go beyond simple head counts.

Calgary mayor says growth must be reflected

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek says her city's explosive population growth must be reflected in the province's electoral map.

"Calgary is the fastest-growing city in the country, welcoming over 250 new residents every day. As the province undertakes its review of electoral boundaries, it is essential that this growth is reflected in the representation Calgarians receive in the legislature," she wrote in a statement.

Gondek said growing urban centres like Calgary face increasingly complex challenges, from housing to infrastructure to public safety. 

"I urge the electoral boundaries commission to engage directly with municipalities like Calgary — we have the best understanding of where growth is happening and what our communities need," she wrote. 

"Ensuring fair representation isn't just about lines on a map. It's about preserving the integrity of our democracy and delivering results for the people we serve."

Rural leader says it's more than a numbers game

Bob Marshall, reeve for the County of Grande Prairie, said relying solely on population figures to draw boundaries misses the reality of representation in large rural constituencies.

"Some people have to travel five hours just to see their MLA in the rural areas, especially in the north," Marshall said in an interview. 

"In the city, you can walk 10 minutes to your MLA's office. So there's that disparity."

He added rural MLAs often deal with many community groups.

"In ours, for our MLA … you're probably looking at 40 municipal councillors, and then the mayor and the reeve within those municipalities as well," he said. "So you're dealing with a lot more different dynamics."

He argued that rural Alberta constituencies contribute significantly to Alberta's wealth through industry, and deserve appropriate representation.

Commission must grapple with tensions

Lisa Young, a political science professor at the University of Calgary, says there is a central tension involved here that plays out at both the provincial and the federal level.

"The basic principle for creating electoral districts is the idea of representation by population," she said. "But Canada is a tricky country for doing that because we've got lots of geography and not that many people."

She noted a Supreme Court decision from 1991 authorized deviations of up to 25 per cent in population, in effect allowing for rural districts that have fewer voters and urban districts that have more.

"That right there starts to matter when you've got an electorate that is divided politically when it comes to rural versus urban," she said.

In November, the Alberta government announced it will add two new electoral divisions for the next election, raising the total number of seats in the legislature from 87 to 89. 

The province also announced changes to the way electoral boundary commissioners go about their work. Previously, the commission was required to consider municipal boundaries when drawing electoral maps. Under new rules, this requirement has been removed.

Young said the United Conservative Party and the NDP likely have different views about where they'd like to see those two new districts added. 

"The NDP presumably would like to see districts added to Calgary and to Edmonton. And there's certainly a good case for that. That's where most of the population growth has been," Young said.

"I would imagine that the UCP would prefer to see a different approach to creating new districts, and perhaps having districts that include both some urban and some rural areas together."

Process designed to be neutral, but politics still a factor

The commission consists of five members: a chair appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, two members nominated by the government, and two by the opposition. 

Keith Archer, who served on a previous Alberta commission and was chief electoral officer in B.C., said the structure aims to balance partisanship, but is still influenced by political realities.

"It's not a non-partisan commission as much as … maybe closer to a bipartisan commission," he said.

"The government still has the final say on what is accepted and what is passed by the Legislative Assembly."

Historically, governments have mostly accepted the main report, Archer noted.

Under Alberta's Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, most ridings must have populations no more than 25 per cent above or below the average size. 

The province also has an exception that allows up to four electoral districts to have up to 50 per cent below the provincial average, should they meet certain conditions. 

Nine constituencies in Alberta are currently more than 25 per cent above the average size: Calgary-Buffalo, Calgary-Foothills, Calgary-North East, Calgary-Shaw, Calgary-South East, Edmonton-Ellerslie, Edmonton-South, Edmonton-South West, and Airdrie-Cochrane.

The political challenge at play is that redistributing seats toward cities could weaken the influence of rural areas, Archer noted.

Commissions not being required to align boundaries with municipal borders could also open the door to more mixed rural-urban ridings, he added. 

"It'll be interesting to see whether the commission takes up that opportunity to begin carving out parts of urban constituencies and placing them in sections of constituencies that otherwise look like rural constituencies," he said.

Laurie Livingstone, a Calgary-based lawyer and a member of the 2017 commission, said the last commission heard hundreds of submissions from across the province. She said they often used everyday questions to guide decisions — like where residents go to buy groceries or where their kids play hockey.

"That helped provide us with some really good building blocks of which direction to go," she said.

She added public input is essential to the process.

"The commission is out there trying to make the best decisions they can with the forced requirement that they're going to have to put lines in places," she said. "So the more help that you can give the commission, the better job they're going to do."

The interim report is due to the Legislative Assembly by October.