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.

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 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.