Alberta to lawyer up if NDP challenges electoral boundary report: Smith

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said her government will assemble a legal team to make the case that new proposed electoral boundaries achieve effective representation, if the Opposition NDP advances a legal challenge.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that. I hope we’ll be able to have a debate in the legislature,” Smith told reporters at the Rural Municipalities of Alberta convention on Tuesday.

On Monday, an advisory panel issued a report on Alberta’s electoral boundaries.

It proposed, among other changes, expanding a few Calgary ridings across municipal boundaries, and establishing a sole urban seat for Lethbridge plus three hybrid urban-rural seats.

Provincial boundary adjustments, made every eight to 10 years, are typically not fare for intrigue.

Not so when it came to this round, which involved a long road with many twists, like the rejection of a prior commission’s proposals and Alberta’s acting chief justice characterizing the process as “irregular.”

The Alberta NDP has said that it will take the new maps to court on constitutional grounds. On Monday, Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi specifically highlighted the Lethbridge proposal.

“I believe that this report is illegal. I believe it is unconstitutional,” Nenshi said.

The resulting electoral boundaries brew contains the distinctive sour odour of partisanship.Keith Archer, served on a previous Alberta commission

Brian O’Ferrall, the retired Alberta Court of Appeal justice that headed up the panel, wrote in an executive summary that he did not believe that the proposals were unconstitutional.

The minority of the panel — Gerard Kennedy, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Alberta, as well as Brent Robinson, who was a councillor for the town of Okotoks — disagreed, writing that they expected the courts would get involved.

Lethbridge ‘well-served’ by hybrid ridings: Smith

Effective representation is the legal principle that allows for the balancing of equal-sized voter populations with other factors, like geography.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Smith said Lethbridge would be “very well-served” by having four representatives.

She added that she currently represents a hybrid riding, in Brooks-Medicine Hat.

“Hybrid ridings … may not make sense in all circumstances, but they certainly do in some,” Smith said, adding that she would be briefed on the full report later on Tuesday.

Currently, Lethbridge is divided into two ridings within city limits: Lethbridge-East and Lethbridge-West.

The majority of the panel suggested sketching three ruralized ridings that stretch far from Lethbridge in all directions

• Lethbridge-Cardston, which would go about 100 kilometres southwest to Waterton Lakes National Park and the U.S. border.
• Lethbridge-Taber-Warner, which would stretch east about 140 kilometres to the rural area directly south of Medicine Hat.
• Lethbridge-Little Bow, which would extend north about 140 kilometres to Highway 1 near Strathmore.

A map showing a sole Lethbridge urban seat, as well as three hybrid electoral divisions combining parts of the city with vast surrounding rural regions. (Advisory panel on electoral boundaries)

The majority of the panel argued that southern Alberta was “uniquely united” economically around the agricultural and food processing industries, while the minority wrote they found that suggestion “highly questionable,” suggesting it reduced effective representation.

Keith Archer, who served on a previous Alberta commission and was chief electoral officer in British Columbia, wrote in an email that he was not supportive of the process that had played out over the past several months.

“The resulting electoral boundaries brew contains the distinctive sour odour of partisanship in which the government replaces an administrative review of electoral boundaries with a highly political review. Albertans are not well-served by this process,” he wrote.

Alberta’s history with these commissions has typically seen the recommendations turned into law.