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Keith Gerein: Edmonton could lose out in UCP's anti-democratic electoral boundaries move

Just as we don’t want politicians setting their own salaries, it is even more vital that they be prevented from picking their own voters.

One recent evening, in an attempt to improve a mood laid low by the Oilers’ playoff results, I found myself watching YouTube clips of a favoured old Steve Martin movie.

That’s when my phone buzzed with a call from a friend in Ontario who I hadn’t heard from in awhile. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and he asked if he was interrupting anything important.

Keith Gerein: Edmonton could lose out in UCP's anti-democratic electoral boundaries move Back to video

I replied in the negative, telling him that I was just watching a few clips from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. There was a brief pause on the line, after which my friend asked, jokingly, if it was a documentary about the UCP government’s efforts to gerrymander Alberta’s electoral districts.

I laughed, but not really at the joke, which wasn’t particularly clever. Instead, I was amused that my friend had never heard of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels — a 1988 dark comedy about a pair of con men — and, secondly, that he HAD heard of the gerrymandering accusations. Yes, that bit of Alberta news has even found its way through the fog of the self-absorbed Toronto news cycle.

In truth, the movie’s title is not a term that I ever want to use in political discourse. That, and other similar descriptors of general slimeballery are best left for rankings of Game of Throne characters, Bond villains and pro-sports commissioners.

But I do understand the anger that underlies the use of such words, especially here in Edmonton, which seems to be disproportionately hurt by the province’s meddling in elections. I’ve been struggling for a term to describe the pattern, but then fellow Alberta journalist Jen Gerson finally said it last week — democratic vandalism.

Pattern of........

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