Voters line up to cast their ballots in a byelection in Medicine Hat, Alta., on Nov. 8, 2022.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Some things should be obvious to political parties that form a government. For instance. the need for strict separation between the public interest and the interests of the party. Alberta’s United Conservative Party is missing that obvious point in its determination to redraw the electoral map of the province.
A government that redraws the map arbitrarily undermines the democratic will of the people. And even if the party secures no apparent benefit by the redrawing, they will still have raised legitimate doubt about the outcome of elections. Even without malign intent, the result is harmful.
Unfortunately, the UCP government voted yesterday to start in motion exactly this process. A government-dominated committee will choose an advisory panel to draw new maps for next year’s election.
Alberta’s electoral maps are normally created by an arms-length commission and then voted on by the legislature. However, that process was thrown into confusion by an unusual split on the commission.
Three of the five members – including the chair, a UCP nominee, and two nominated by the NDP opposition – produced a lengthy report arguing in favour of one map. But in a highly unusual move, the other two members, both nominated by the UCP, proposed their own map.
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There are key differences between the maps that could affect elections.
The map produced by the majority reduced the number of rural ridings and increased urban ones, to reflect population changes. The minority map, meanwhile, saved the rural ridings and changed a number of urban ones into a combination of urban and rural. The UCP is stronger in rural areas and the NDP is stronger in cities.
To make its case for rejecting the two reports and starting over, the government seized on something noted by the commission chair, Justice Dallas Miller.
Justice Miller called it unfortunate that “we have had to remove two ridings from central and north central Alberta to meet the demands of the high population in and around Calgary and Edmonton.” He added that “we would have been able to provide Albertans with more effective representation had the Legislature allocated an additional two seats.”
Under Alberta’s system, the legislature tells the commission how many seats it has to work with. In this case it was 89, up from the current 87. In turn, the commission divides up the people to fit the number of ridings.
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More effective representation is a worthy goal. And rather than throwing out the commission’s work and starting over, adding two seats to preserve the rural ridings would be an imperfect but defensible solution.
Imperfect because doing so moves further from the ideal of having each vote equally represented in the legislature. This is at the core of democratic legitimacy and worth preserving as much as possible.
But defensible because the number of people each riding represents can vary widely. Mathematical over-representation is already the case in jurisdictions such as Prince Edward Island and the territories.
In fact, Parliament passed C-14 in 2022 to ensure that no province loses seats in subsequent electoral redrawings, regardless of population changes. This came after Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet raised concerns about his province’s share of seats dwindling.
In normal circumstances, Elections Canada sets a target population for ridings but allows them to be 25-per-cent bigger or smaller. And ridings can be further adjusted to reflect geography, historical boundaries or language and culture.
It wouldn’t have been hard for the UCP government to make a case for preserving rural representation. But it would be difficult to argue for that while also diluting the vote of city-dwellers by merging their ridings with rural areas.
The easiest way to avoid this whole situation is for Alberta to go back to the commission and tell them to take another stab at the job, with two additional seats at their disposal.
Instead, the Alberta government has blown up the process. The advisory panel will have only about half a year to do work that the commission conducted over the course of a year. And whatever map it draws will invariably be tainted by accusations of interference.
A government cannot put its thumb on electoral redrawing without smudging the result.