The UCP is forever poking its nose into Alberta hotspots, from public libraries to municipal councils, medical practices, speed limits, and much more.

Nothing seems immune from their urge to tinker. Premier Danielle Smith and her crew prompt squeals of outrage and move on to the next target.

That’s one reason we suddenly have a stupendous blowup over redrawing riding boundaries for the next election.

When so little of the status quo is safe from this government, wouldn’t they rig democracy itself to their own benefit?

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Here’s NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi on Thursday, after the UCP brought in a motion to take control of boundary decisions:

“At midnight last night, they finally played the card that they have been foreshadowing for many, many weeks. They took the work of the independent electoral Boundaries Commission, good work that is based on the input of thousands of Albertans, and they threw it in the garbage.”

Nenshi noted that UCP members of the boundaries commission “unanimously accepted and put out an insane minority report, a report that didn’t give Lethbridge any seats. They dissolved those cities into the rural areas (in) a report that made Calgary completely unrecognizable.”

He was talking about the minority call for many “hybrid ridings” that stretch urban constituencies deep into the countryside.

Under that report, Calgary would have 11 of those constituencies. Lethbridge would occupy small corners of four mammoth rural ridings.

You can read the entire report, minority and majority sections alike, without stumbling across the plain fact that these sprawling ridings would vastly increase the power of conservative rural dwellers to unseat urban New Democrats.

That’s what this is about. That’s all it’s about.

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So, the NDP is lighting its hair on fire, a phrase I heard from both the government and Nenshi himself.

There is cause for suspicion given the deep urge of government to twist the rules to its own benefit, and the very unusual decision to create yet another borders panel.

But what’s going on here isn’t quite so menacing. Not yet anyway.

First, the UCP caucus did not adopt or recommend the minority report that calls for all the blended ridings.

Those MLAs and government people both say there will be no splurge of hybrids, no acceptance of the minority report that the commissioner of the panel, Justice Dallas Miller, said was unconstitutional.

Rather, the UCP caucus called for a new independent panel of advisers “to take the majority report of the commission and integrate recommendation 5 of Justice Dallas Miller in his addendum to the majority report.”

In essence, they’re endorsing the majority view, which was much more gradualist and traditional than the minority effort. It’s a careful balance of ridings with due respect for population and municipal boundaries.

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After the minority group spoke up, Miller wrote his own compromise while hotly rejecting their report. He believed the whole dispute could be resolved by raising the number of MLAs in the legislature from 87 to 91.

That combination — the majority report maps, plus Miller’s additions — is what’s now in play.

“We believe this will ensure effective representation as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” wrote Brandon Lunty, chair of the UCP caucus special committee on boundaries.

The new legislature committee will take no public input. Its role is “to conduct a review of the electoral boundaries and make proposals as to the area, boundaries, and names of electoral divisions in accordance with the resolution.”

The majority template, and Dallas’ plan “are subject to any modifications the independent advisory panel considers necessary.”

Obviously, the new panel has power to create entirely new boundaries and maps — the third set in this mind-bruising exercise.

Greg Clark, an NDP-appointed member of the original panel, said governments usually just accept a majority report “so I was surprised and disappointed to learn that a committee of MLAs has instead been tasked with creating a new map.”

Still suspicious? Feel free. The UCP gives itself plenty of wiggle room.

They appear to have rejected massive use of hybrid ridings.

It’s a promise they’d better keep. Tinkering stops at the door to democracy.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald.

X and Bluesky: @DonBraid

© Calgary Herald