Alberta provincial electoral districts
Alberta provincial electoral districts are currently single member ridings that each elect one member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. There are 87 districts fixed in law in Alberta.
History
The original twenty five districts were drawn up by Liberal Member of Parliament Frank Oliver prior to the first general election of 1905. The original boundaries were widely regarded as being gerrymandered to favor the Alberta Liberal Party. Every boundary redistribution since 1905 has been based on the original boundaries, with districts being split or merged.
From 1905 to 1926 with only a few exceptions each district elected a single member on the First Past the Post system. Calgary and Edmonton as well as Medicine Hat were elected on a plurality block vote, where each voter had as many votes as candidates were elected.
There have also been a couple of cases where members were elected at large, and did not represent any districts.
From 1926 to 1955 members in Calgary and Edmonton were elected in Single Transferable Vote super ridings that had five to seven members. Outside of the two cities one member was elected under the optional system, with vote transfer taking place only if one candidate had less than 50% of the vote. There were no district changes between 1926 and 1940.
With Alberta in a population boom in the fifties and Calgary and Edmonton growing, single transferable vote was becoming too complicated, with vote counting taking days before any results could be announced. In 1959 the "super-ridings" were broken up and the voting system was made standard across the province.
In 1977 Elections Alberta was created to independently oversee election laws. Independent boundary commissions were set up to tweak the boundaries to population changes that occurred after every census.
As is the case with nearly every other Canadian jurisdiction, the number of districts has not increased in proportion to the population. Prior to the 1986 election the number of districts was fixed by law at 83 thus any change to that number would have to be enacted by the legislature. Even though the population has increased by more than 40% since 1986, the number of districts did not change until 2010. The 2012 election saw the number increase to 87.
Naming conventions
Like the federal districts in Alberta, urban ridings all begin with the city name. This also applies where an urban area is divided and joined with rural areas, such as Grande Prairie-Wapiti and Grande Prairie-Smoky.
Unlike federal practice, Alberta uses hyphens to join all name elements. This is true for electoral districts named for multiple communities as well as urban districts (where the city name is followed by a direction, a neighbourhood, a landmark, or the name of a historical politician). For example, compare the provincial Fort McMurray-Conklin with the federal Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, where the em dash is used instead of the hyphen to join names of separate communities. Also compare the provincial Edmonton-Strathcona with the federal Edmonton Strathcona, where a space indicates that Strathcona is a neighbourhood of Edmonton.
Current districts named for individuals include several premiers:
- Calgary-Klein for Ralph Klein,
- Calgary-Lougheed for Peter Lougheed,
- Edmonton-Manning for Ernest Manning, and
- Edmonton-Rutherford for Alexander Rutherford.
Three are named for former party leaders:
- Calgary-Shaw for former Liberal leader Joseph Tweed Shaw,
- Dunvegan-Central Peace-Notley for former NDP leader Grant Notley, and
- Edmonton-Decore for former Liberal leader and Edmonton mayor Laurence Decore.
In addition, Edmonton-McClung is named for suffragette and MLA Nellie McClung. The abolished riding of Edmonton-Roper was named for CCF leader Elmer Roper.
List of provincial electoral districts
* District has been abolished and re-established.
Historical provincial electoral districts
See also
References
- ↑ "Alberta Finance, 2011 Census" (PDF).
- ↑ "Alberta Finance, 2011 Census" (PDF).
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