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Rob Breakenridge: Straightforward process becomes politicized to boost rural ridings

Given the UCP strength in rural Alberta and the competitiveness within urban centres, the political motivation behind such a change seems rather obvious

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Five years ago, an Elections Canada report called for a redistribution of seats in the House of Commons, which resulted in three new seats for Alberta.

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Arguably, if left to former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government, such a change would not have occurred. But political self-interest should never be a guiding principle in designing electoral boundaries.

As it happens, Parliament eventually passed a law ensuring that provinces will never have fewer seats than they did in the 43rd Parliament (December 2019 to August 2021). That change ensured that Elections Canada’s recommendation of one fewer seat for Quebec was a non-starter.

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Perhaps politics can never fully be removed.

Here in Alberta, however, these principles are being put to the test. The government’s response to the latest recommendations for Alberta’s electoral map risks setting a troubling new precedent.

For the first time, an Alberta government is rejecting the electoral boundaries report delivered by an independent commission. Instead, the UCP government is proposing a new government-controlled committee to draw up a new map.

This is ostensibly a result of differing opinions and recommendations from those on the committee. It appears, though, that some of this disagreement was orchestrated.

To be clear, there is a report from the commission’s majority. But for the first time, there is a different electoral map put forth by the two UCP appointees on the commission. Their proposed map would merge more than a dozen urban and rural ridings.

Given the UCP strength in rural Alberta and the competitiveness within urban centres, the political motivation behind such a change seems rather obvious.

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Premier Danielle Smith insists that her government isn’t accepting the minority report and that her motivation is to redress the loss of two rural ridings in the majority’s proposed map. That means instead of 89 ridings, we’ll end up with 91.

It is true that the chair of the commission, Court of King’s Bench Justice Dallas Miller, suggested that if MLAs disagree with the removal of the two seats, they could reinstate them and add two more ridings. His caveat, though, was that the majority’s proposed map “must be maintained to the extent possible.”

We obviously don’t know what the government’s final map is going to look like after we go through this new process. And as committee member Greg Clark noted, “what we can’t do is simply drop two new seats onto an existing map.”

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There’s an important point here — the commission drew up a map with 89 seats because the government legislated that it should have 89 seats. In late 2024, the government passed the Justice Statutes Amendment Act, which mandated that just two new electoral divisions be added in the next commission review.

Suddenly and conveniently, though, 91 turns out to be an ideal number.

And even though the premier is distancing herself from what is essentially a gerrymandered map, there is still political self-interest in preserving, and thus favouring, rural ridings. If rural populations are declining while urban populations are growing (and growing quite rapidly, as the premier herself frequently points out), that cannot be ignored.

It’s the same reason Alberta deserved more seats in Ottawa, and perhaps deserves even more.

The other problem we face is that Elections Alberta needs at least 18 months to implement any new plan to redraw the electoral map, which (assuming the next election is indeed October 2027) wouldn’t be a problem if the government simply accepted this report. A rushed timeline is going to mean higher costs for Elections Alberta.

We’ve needlessly complicated and politicized what has been — and what should be — a straightforward process.

Hopefully, the government resists the urge to go even further in its tinkering, but that won’t undo the damage that’s been done.

Rob Breakenridge is a Calgary-based podcaster and writer. He can be found at robbreakenridge.ca and reached at rob.breakenridge@gmail.com.

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