CARSTAIRS - Former Mountain View County councillor Gwen Day has taken some time to talk about her experience as part of the recently completed year-long review of the province's electoral boundaries.
Day, who lives near Carstairs, sat on the 2016-17 Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission (AEBC).
The commission's report was released on Oct. 19 and recommends adding three new ridings in metropolitan areas while dropping three rural ridings, which would mean other rural ridings such as Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills would have to expand.
Day was the lone member of the commission to vote against the recommendations. She wrote about her opposition in the AEBC minority report that is part of the final report.
Day said she was one of two rural representatives on the commission, along with two urban representatives and either a judge or ethics commissioner.
"I was appointed by Brian Jean of the official Opposition to represent rural," said Day. "We went all over the province in January and February to get feedback from the public. We used the most recent Canada census that came out in February for our numbers. We looked over the ridings to see which were 25 per cent above or below the average (population). We also held public hearings around Alberta in July."
Day said they used the numbers and feedback and other criteria to come up with their recommendations.
"A lot of the growth we've experienced in Alberta in the last eight years since the last time this was done has been in the cities of Edmonton and Calgary," she said. "So the majority of the commission thought Edmonton and Calgary should get an extra riding each and the Airdie area because they grew so exponentially."
To accommodate the three new ridings, three rural ridings would be eliminated.
"So you reconfigure those rural ridings," said Day. "You re-jig those rural ridings and many ridings changed astronomically."
For Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, the final recommendation would expand the size of the constituency to include the northern portion of Wheatland County, currently part of the Strathmore-Brooks constituency.
In her minority report, Day said, "My views and interpretations simply differed from the rest of the commission. The majority began the work with the priority of population carrying the most weight, which, of course, led to the desire to have a minimal deviation from the average number of 46,803 people per constituency."
Day said that "we need to honour our Canadian historical standard of ërepresentational democracy,' which has served us well all across Canada for 150 years."
Day also talked about how sparser population and larger geographical areas in rural ridings creates challenges.
"The increasing geographical size of some rural ridings has made it even more unmanageable for the MLAs to effectively represent their constituents as we heard repeatedly in our hearings," she said. "Now we have not only large geographical ridings but diverse agriculture, oil and gas, and increases the number of municipalities they represent, both counties and towns and increases the number of school boards. Not only the kilometres they have to travel (are increased) but the economic diversity.
"Conversely, in the densely populated urban divisions MLAs are more able to well represent their populations because of easier communications and travel logistics, shared responsibilities among neighbouring MLAs, ease of access to other levels of government officials and the availability of other resources to meet the constituents' needs."
The AEBC's recommendations still need to be approved by the legislature.
"The increasing geographical size of some rural ridings has made it even more unmanageable for the MLAs to effectively represent their constituents as we heard repeatedly in our hearings."Gwen DayCommission member
