Erin Ridge residents could find themselves voting in a different constituency if the recommendations of a provincial committee go through as proposed.
Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission is recommending that the boundary between the two ridings that serve St. Albert moves to Giroux Road, Boudreau Road and Bellerose Drive.
This would mean Lacombe Park would become part of the St. Albert riding and Erin Ridge would become part of the renamed riding of Spruce Grove-St. Albert. Currently, the area north of McKenney Avenue and west of St. Albert Trail falls into Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert, with the rest of the city in the St. Albert riding.
The change would mean a net shift of 2,200 people into the St. Albert constituency and out of the slightly more populous Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert. However, with Erin Ridge poised to grow rapidly in the coming years, St. Albert MLA Ken Allred thinks the commission missed the mark.
“It really doesn’t make an awful lot of sense from my perspective for them to make that swap,” Allred said. “Plus, it’s always better to just leave things alone if there’s no real reason to change it.”
Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert MLA Doug Horner is concerned about the proposed change because he feels it complicates the split in St. Albert.
“It was pretty easy for me to say if you were north of McKenney and west of Highway 2 you were in my riding,” he said. “I don’t know the reasons why they did what they did and we hope to get some clarity around that.”
Horner’s riding also stands to lose the area north and east of the Alexander Reserve and north of Township Road 552 to Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock. This ignores the natural boundary provided by the county line and Horner’s constituency association will be looking for answers, he said.
The province reviews its electoral boundaries every 10 years or two elections. Last spring the legislature voted to add four constituencies to account for population growth. The commission released its interim report last week and is now seeking further public input. Its final recommendations are due in five months.
The commission is recommending two more seats for Calgary, one more for Edmonton and another for the rest of Alberta, bringing total seats outside the major cities to 43.
The commission’s goals are to have the population within most electoral divisions within 25 per cent of the provincial average of 40,880. There may be four that don’t meet this criteria and the commission is already proposing two special divisions because of sparse population: Dunvegan-Central Peace and Lesser Slave Lake.
The commission is basing its recommendations mainly on 2006 population statistics, which put St. Albert at 12.5 per cent above the provincial average and Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert at 17.3 per cent above the mark. The proposed reconfiguration would put St. Albert at 9.3 per cent above the average and Spruce Grove-St. Albert at 9.7 per cent above.
The City of St. Albert had submitted a request that the city be split either along the river or along St. Albert Trail, because council felt these were natural boundaries. The proposed split doesn’t follow either of these routes but Mayor Nolan Crouse isn’t concerned.
“They’re trying to really balance provincial populations,” he said. “I wouldn’t be concerned about that. Kind of a non-event for St. Albert.”
The commission is recommending that the town of Morinville remain in the Barrhead- Morinville-Westlock division, which is exactly what Mayor Lloyd Bertschi wants.
“The representation we’ve been getting from [MLA Ken] Kowalski has been outstanding and we didn’t want to wind up losing that,” Bertschi said.
