An advisory panel issued a report on Alberta’s electoral boundaries Monday, restoring rural ridings removed from the map by a prior commission while extending the boundaries of several Calgary ridings into surrounding rural communities.
Normally a dry, administrative affair, this year’s boundary redrawing process has been marked by accusations of U.S.-style gerrymandering, which refers to a tactic wherein politicians redraw boundaries in order to give their own party an unfair electoral advantage.
In an executive summary, Brian O’Ferrall, a retired Alberta Court of Appeal justice, wrote that the panel’s proposals were worthy of the legislature’s consideration on their merits, even if he acknowledged he “failed miserably” in dissuading the panel from focusing on the constitutionality of the panel’s work.
“Having read the law governing electoral boundary making, which in many ways is in its infancy in this country, my opinion is that the proposals contained in this report are not unconstitutional,” O’Ferrall wrote.
Two rural ridings proposed for removal have been added back onto the map, albeit with slightly different names: Lac Ste. Anne and Rocky Mountain House-Sundre.
A few Calgary ridings have also been expanded across municipal boundaries.
And a dedicated urban seat has been established for Lethbridge, alongside three hybrid ridings that pair portions of the city with surrounding areas.
A map of a part of Lethbridge included in the panel report. The report proposes one Lethbridge electoral division made up solely of Lethbridge and three other hybrid divisions ‘made up of Lethbridge residents and residents of towns, villages, and rural areas of southern Alberta.’ (Advisory panel on electoral boundaries)
Minority warns court ‘likely’ to become involved
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 — wrote that it was encouraging that the panel had achieved unanimity in restoring the two previously-removed rural ridings.
But they wrote that they could not agree with the panel’s recommended boundary changes to other electoral divisions south of Airdrie, which they argued fell outside of the panel’s mandate.
“The courts are likely to become involved. A real possibility is that the courts end up imposing a map for the next provincial election,” they wrote.
“If so, the elimination of the two rural electoral divisions may well be ordered. This will be a most unfortunate outcome for Alberta democracy.”
The report was presented to committee members last week, but wasn’t released to the public until Monday.
The Alberta NDP has said it will take the new maps to court on constitutional grounds. In part citing delays such a challenge would pose, Elections Alberta chief electoral officer Gordon McClure wrote in a letter that the government should maintain the electoral boundaries currently in place or postpone the next election.
Justice Minister Mickey Amery rejected that call on Sunday, stating that he expects the new boundaries to be in place for the legislated date of the next election, which is Oct. 18, 2027.
Off the map
This most recent redraw is actually a do-over of a prior commission’s work.
For three decades, bipartisan Alberta commissions, usually chaired by a judge, have headed up the redraw of electoral boundaries.
The government has the final say on what is accepted and passed by the Legislative Assembly, but Alberta’s history with these commissions has typically seen the recommendations turned into law.
It seemed to be following a similar trajectory earlier this year, when the latest iteration of the commission — made up of a judge and four other members, two appointed by the government and two appointed by the Opposition NDP — submitted its report, completed after a cross-province tour spanning months.
But the report was atypical. In a protest against the majority proposals of the commission — which suggested dissolving two rural ridings in order to add seats in the province’s big cities to compensate for population growth — the two UCP appointees argued such a move would weaken effective representation.
“It is not merely a question of numbers; it is a question of access, voice, and practical governability,” the minority wrote, instead proposing a series of hybrid rural and urban, or “rurban,” ridings.
The majority of the commission, which included the two NDP appointees as well as judge Dallas Miller, suggested that practice would be akin to U.S.-style gerrymandering, and said it objected in “the strongest possible terms” to the “unconstitutional” minority report.
Also atypical: the minority’s inclusion of competing maps, something not seen in these types of reports before. If implemented, the two maps would have produced very different results for Alberta’s electoral landscape.
The Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission gets feedback from the public at a hearing on Jan. 19, 2026. (Natasha Riebe/CBC)
Miller, the justice appointed by Premier Danielle Smith’s cabinet, also wrote a solo addendum to the report, not supported by the two NDP members on the committee.
He recommended that if the legislature rejected the majority report, it should expand the legislature from 89 to 91 seats to avoid losing two rural seats.
New panel members
The UCP, stating that it was following Miller’s suggestion, rejected the report and formed an all-party committee of the Alberta legislature. The UCP held a majority of votes on that committee.
Its task was to oversee a separate advisory panel that would again make recommendations to redraw provincial electoral boundaries.
The UCP appointed Monte Solberg, founder of New West Public Affairs and a cabinet minister for former prime minister Stephen Harper, and Darwin Durnie, who had made a submission under the previous iteration of the commission that would’ve combined several Calgary ridings with rural and urban areas.
The NDP appointed Kennedy, the professor of constitutional law at the University of Alberta, as well as Robinson, the councillor for the town of Okotoks.
This process saw Alberta’s acting chief justice decline the committee’s request to find retired or sitting judges to lead the effort, citing the “irregularity” of the process.
Ultimately, O’Ferrall, the retired Alberta Court of Appeal justice, was appointed to chair the panel.
Keith Archer, pictured in a file photo during his time as chief electoral officer for Elections BC, says urban and rural areas often face different pressures. (CBC)
In leaning on a legislative committee in order to pass changes instead of an electoral boundaries commission, Alberta has effectively gone back in time, according to Keith Archer, who served on a previous Alberta commission and was chief electoral officer in British Columbia.
“It is always controversial when a committee of MLAs is given the job of redrawing electoral divisions, since the result is so obviously self-interested,” Archer wrote in an email.
The next provincial election is set for Oct. 18, 2027.
More to come.
