Alberta’s hotly debated riding boundary proposals were released to the public Monday as the Opposition NDP renewed its call for the government to change course.
NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi says Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservatives are aiming to use their legislative majority to rig the new boundaries in order to give themselves an unfair advantage in next year’s election.
Nenshi has said they plan to challenge the plan in court.
“I believe that this report is illegal. I believe it is unconstitutional. I believe that the government still has the opportunity to do the right thing,” Nenshi said.
The proposals will go to a debate in the legislature, expected later this week.
“If they have the nerve to cheat to win, I’ll say two things: we’re going to win anyway, and their legacy will be that they lost even after cheating,” Nenshi said.
The NDP has accused the UCP of trying to gerrymander ridings in battleground election districts in Lethbridge and Calgary.
Gerrymandering, which is common in the United States, sees electoral districts drawn up not for reasons of shared geography and priorities but by voting patterns in order to assist one political party.
The panel’s report recommends, among other proposals, splitting Lethbridge’s current two ridings into four, with three districts stretching into adjacent rural areas.
And, it creates new boundaries that amalgamate three urban ridings in west Calgary with adjacent rural constituencies.
The report itself is riven with disputes between the minority NDP appointees to the panel and the UCP-appointed majority and chair. They disagree not only in their conclusions but also in what their mandate was supposed to be.
Meanwhile, Alberta Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure warns he’s running out of time to have everything ready for the scheduled polling day on Oct. 18, 2027.
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McClure said last week the election should be held with the current electoral boundaries or be postponed, citing time and resource constraints. Justice Minister Mickey Amery rejected that suggestion over the weekend, saying he expects the agency overseeing the vote to prepare within 11 months.
He said he expects the legislature to determine the final boundaries before the Christmas break.
Nenshi said last week in the legislature the report suggests the panel in charge of drafting new boundaries appeared to receive instructions from the government and wasn’t independent.
“Everything about it violates every democratic norm in Alberta. Why is the government so scared of fair elections?” he asked.
Premier Smith accused Nenshi of questioning the integrity of judges, including Brian O’Ferrall, a former judge and the chair of the panel responsible for the redraw. Last week in the legislature, she told Nenshi to quit complaining and begin campaigning instead.
Smith’s chief of staff, Rob Anderson, took to social media last week to deny accusations from the NDP that her government is pulling strings to manipulate the vote in her favour, saying the new maps were drawn by an independent judge-led committee.
“It’s a lie to say it’s the UCP,” he wrote.
He also said the NDP is pushing back because “they don’t want any change whatsoever that could level the playing field.”
The process has been mired in controversy since Smith rejected the main recommendations of a public boundaries commission early this year when the commission came back with a split report.
Bucking political norms, Smith’s government voted it down in the legislature and restarted the redrawing process with a new advisory panel.
That new panel was given new marching orders based on some recommendations from the previous commission’s chair — including expanding the number of ridings to 91 from 87.
The panel did not conduct public hearings and had a tighter timeline than the previous commission.
McClure is scheduled to appear before a legislature committee later this week.
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