New ridings keep urban-rural imbalance

Legislative seats will still be split almost evenly between Alberta's urban and ruralareas if the province accepts a final proposal by the Electoral Boundaries Commission.

Ina final report Thursday, the commission maintained its interim February recommendation of adding four new provincial ridings: two in Calgary, one in Edmonton and one in Fort McMurray.

'The Stelmach administration's sticky fingerprints are all over this report.' Laurie Blakeman, Alberta Liberal deputy leader

The proposed changes wouldincrease the total number of legislative seats to 87 from 83.

Despite calls from critics to increase representation for urban areas, which have a bigger population than rural regions, the commission only issued a warning for future re-mapping.

"The legislative assembly needs to seriously consider how the urban/rural perspectives will be addressed in the future," stated the report led by Judge Ernest Walter. "The commission believes that this is a province-wide issue which will have to be addressed, probably before the next commission is appointed.

The commission noted that outlying ridings may be fewer and larger in the future.

"This raises a question about how large a division can be before it involves so many non-common interests that it is impractical for the disparate issues of the electors to be represented, and for the MLA to represent them."

The report noted that if current growth patterns continue, the concentration of people in the Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie and Wood Buffalo areas will significantly impact how electoral divisions are drawn.

Rural ridings should have been cut

The commission was asked to add four new divisions, which Premier Ed Stelmach admitted in March was designed to protect rural areas the traditional base of his ruling Progressive Conservative party.

"The Stelmach administration's sticky fingerprints are all over this report," said Laurie Blakeman, deputy leader of the Alberta Liberals, on Thursday.

"Edmonton should have received two additional seats, Calgary three, with the balance subtracted from sparsely populated rural ridings," she said.

"Our position all along has been that constituencies should be redistributed, not added. But the influence of the premier's office has preserved rural seats solely for the benefit of his party."

Abandoned interim re-mapping

Allyson Jeffs, a member of the five-member commission and an Edmonton lawyer, wrote a dissenting opinion in Thursday's report, arguing that Edmonton should get two seats.

After the commission's interim report in February, it examined 500 subsequent written submissions and 117 presentations.

The final report dropped the interim recommendations of redrawing boundaries along Edmonton's west end which would have created three new divisions. Also abandoned was a proposal to create an urban riding for the City of Grande Prairie, rather than ones that incorporated both urban and rural areas.

The legislature must still vote to accept the riding recommendations before they become law.