The final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission has been released, and if accepted by Alberta MLAs, it would see the local constituency grow to a population of over 53,800. The dubbed Cold Lake-St.
The final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission has been released, and if accepted by Alberta MLAs, it would see the local constituency grow to a population of over 53,800.
The dubbed Cold Lake-St. Paul constituency, would be 15 per cent above the provincial average population size. It would expand the current Bonnyville-Cold Lake boundaries to include the Town of St. Paul, the Saddle Lake First Nations Reserve, the Town of Elk Point, and portions of the County of St. Paul.
Town of Bonnyville Mayor Gene Sobolewski was strongly opposed to changes to the constituencies, specifically in northern Alberta.
"I am definitely not happy about it, particularly now that our average population is going to be higher than the median they had set," Sobolewski stated. "I think it's going to be a detriment to our constituency, and the residents in the new one, because we're going to have less representation."
His concern is the urban centres will take precedence over the needs of rural communities, using hospitals and roads as a prime example where funding has been spent in the city centres, with little to none left for smaller and more rural communities.
"We need to have a voice in the legislature, and I am not happy about the way things are starting to shake out," noted Sobolewski.
Bonnyville-Cold Lake MLA Scott Cyr also has concerns about the size of the constituency.
"We're actually the largest population percentage over the average for all of Alberta," he said. "Size of the constituency will matter, because we are looking at a lot more travelling for an MLA to get to the different areas."
He continued, the number of municipalities within the constituency has nearly doubled, meaning less time spent with constituents, and more time spent on the road.
"As everybody understands, they want their MLA out there talking with the different councils and making sure their voices are heard, but that's hard to do when all of your time is spent in a car."
The electoral boundaries review started last year, and has since undergone a number of public hearings and written submissions.
According to Justice Myra Bielby, chair of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, the "review was required by law with a view to producing recommendations to the Legislature aimed at ensuring continued effective representation notwithstanding significant population growth in recent years."
The report, which has been submitted to the Speaker of the legislative assembly and will be presented to MLAs for decision on whether to accept all or portions of the recommendations, is also not favoured by outgoing MD of Bonnyville Reeve Ed Rondeau.
More specifically, he did not agree with the report's suggestion that the area won't see much future growth, one of the reasons the Electoral Boundaries Commission believe it can support a high-population constituency.
According to the report, the population will fall below the provincial average by the time the next electoral review comes around.
"The problem is that they're guessing," Rondeau expressed. "They're guessing that this will be an area of low development in the future, but how far down the future are they talking about? I don't see this being an area of low development in the next 10 to 15 years."
Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland described the report's claims that the geographic size of the new Cold Lake-St. Paul constituency as small was inaccurate.
"The ridings in Edmonton are very tiny. It's well known that MLAs in rural Alberta have far more issues and their areas are so much more vast to travel. It's just going to make it that much more difficult for the MLA," he said. "They can throw those comments up in the air, but I think it was all about making this work so they could make another riding or two in big cities. Rural Alberta is going to get sacrificed, and it looks like they have picked our area."
Cyr compared the recommended constituency area to that of those in the urban centres.
"In some of the Edmonton and Calgary constituencies, you can literally walk across their entire riding within an hour or two. With ours, you can't even drive across it in that time," he expressed. "This seems to be a very unfortunate thing that they have decided to use only population when they drafted the boundary review. This has essentially eroded rural Albertan's ability to speak to their government."
Outgoing mayor of St. Paul Glenn Andersen disagreed that the recommended constituency population was over the top.
During discussions and public hearings with the Electoral Boundaries Commission, he had lobbied to see the town included in the Bonnyville-Cold Lake constituency.
"That's a natural pattern of trade, Bonnyville, Cold Lake, and St. Paul. We're in the northeast, and we dead-end in Cold Lake," Andersen explained. "We share in healthcare, and the economy is really the same all the way through. We have a lot of similarities, and we're in close proximity to each other. It's just natural to have us all in one constituency."
When it came to the scope of riding, Andersen noted that when compared to the constituencies of MPs, MLAs have a much smaller population and area to cover.
"If you have an MP dealing with 105,000 constituents, and we are only 15 per cent over (the provincial average), to me, it's really not a big issue," he expressed.
David Hanson, MLA for Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills, reflected the same concerns as Cyr, that by increasing the scope of the constituency, the government would be diluting the voice of rural Alberta.
He is concerned that by taking four constituencies and blending them into three, northeastern Alberta is losing a voice.
"It's unfortunate that we are losing three voices here in rural Alberta, especially here in the northeast part of the province, which is really the economic driver of the province. I think we deserve a little bit more recognition than that."
Changes to the boundaries won't occur until after the next MLA election, which is over a year away. But, even before it gets to that point, they will vote on whether or not to accept the report as it stands.
