Tag: Laurie Livingstone

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Alberta Politics

Oh, Grant Hunter. Where do I start?

Grant Hunter and Jason Kenney (source: Facebook)
Grant Hunter and Jason Kenney (source: Facebook)

Photo: Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA MLA Grant Hunter and UCP leader Jason Kenney. (source: Facebook)

While announcing his plans to run for re-election in the new Taber-Warner district, United Conservative Party MLA Grant Hunter is reported to have compared the New Democratic Party’s 2015 election win to the 2004 Tsunami that ravaged southeast Asia and is estimated to have killed upwards of 280,000 people.

Hunter offered an apology to anyone was offended by his comments, but this is just the sort of ridiculous anti-NDP hyperbole that we have become accustomed to hearing from some Wildrose/UCP MLAs over the past three years.

But when talking about his decision to run in the new Taber-Warner district, rather than challenging his caucus colleague Dave Schneider for the UCP nomination in the new Cardston-Siksika district, he made another statement that caught my attention.

“…the NDP have put us in a bad position in this southern part here, in that when the boundaries were redrawn, they split Cardston-Taber-Warner into two different ridings.”

The Cardston-Taber-Warner district Hunter currently represents will see significant changes when the next election is called. While he may have legitimate concerns about the redistribution of the electoral boundaries in southern Alberta, it is misleading to blame the NDP for putting him “…in a bad position…”

The new district boundaries for the 2019 election were drawn by a commission composed of an independent chairperson (Justice Myra Bielby), two NDP Caucus appointees (Bruce McLeod of Acme and Jean Munn of Calgary) and two Wildrose Caucus appointees (Laurie Livingstone of Calgary and Gwen Day of Carstairs). The commission was appointed in October 2016 and held public hearings and received hundreds of submissions from Albertans throughout 2017.

Of the Wildrose appointees, Livingstone supported the final report recommending the new electoral map, including the changes to Hunter’s district, and Day submitted a minority report opposing changes to rural district boundaries.

The bi-partisan commission submitted recommendations for a new electoral maps to the Legislative Assembly for debate and it were voted into law by 40 NDP MLAs and Alberta Party MLA Greg Clark last December.

The process used to redraw Alberta’s electoral boundaries certainly has its flaws (I will write more about this soon), but with Hunter’s own party’s handpicked appointees deeply involved in the process it is misleading for him to blame the party in power for changes he might not like.

Note: 25 MLAs voted against the new electoral map, including two NDP MLAs, Colin Piquette and Eric Rosendahl.

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Alberta Politics

Alberta’s electoral map is being redrawn, here’s how to participate.

Justice Myra Bielby is chairing Alberta's Electoral Boundaries Commission.
Justice Myra Bielby is chairing Alberta's Electoral Boundaries Commission.

The process of redrawing the electoral map for Alberta’s next provincial election will begin in a few weeks. The Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission will propose a new map of provincial constituency boundaries to reflect changes in population since the last time the map was drawn in 2009/2010. (Here is a link to the current maps)

The Commission has launched their website and released the dates of the first public hearings to collect feedback from Albertans about how their provincial constituencies should be shaped.

The Commission has announced eleven locations where public hearings will be held. Public hearings in Calgary have not yet been announced but I expect they will be soon.

  • January 16 and 17 in Edmonton
  • January 18 in Fort McMurray
  • January 19 in Peace River and Grande Prairie
  • January 20 in Red Deer
  • January 23 in Wainwright and St. Paul
  • January 24 in Drumheller
  • January 25 in Lethbridge and Olds
  • January 26 in Medicine Hat

The Commission is also accepting written submissions until February 8, 2017.

An interim report will be available by May 31, 2017 and the final report by October 31, 2017.

The Commission’s membership is made up of a neutral chairperson, Justice Myra Bielby​, two government appointees, Bruce McLeod of Acme and Jean Munn of Calgary, and two official opposition appointees, Laurie Livingstone of Calgary and Gwen Day of Carstairs.

I have more thoughts about how Alberta’s electoral boundaries are drawn that I will share in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, I encourage all Albertans to participate and provide their feedback into this important process.

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Alberta Politics

Justice Myra Bielby to chair Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission [with updates]

Justice Myra Bielby is chairing Alberta's Electoral Boundaries Commission.
Justice Myra Bielby is chairing Alberta's Electoral Boundaries Commission.

The chair of the next Electoral Boundaries Commission was appointed last Thursday with little fanfare. Justice Myra Bielby, a Court of Appeal judge for Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, will chair the commission charged with redrawing Alberta’s provincial electoral boundaries before the next provincial election. She is the first woman to chair this commission in Alberta.

The other four members of the commission will be appointed tomorrow (update: see a list of appointees below) and will include two appointees selected by the government and two by the official opposition.

As I wrote last September, the NDP should have used an opportunity to amend the Boundaries Commission Act to allow for the appointment of a completely non-partisan commission, similar to the commissions appointed in every province to redraw federal electoral boundaries (they did not).

The final reports of previous commissions, which included two appointees chosen by the Progressive Conservative government and two from the then-Liberal Official Opposition tended to end with one or both of the opposition appointees publishing a minority dissenting report (which usually argued that Edmonton was being under-represented in the Legislative Assembly).

With the rhetoric running high from both the NDP and Wildrose this week, I expect we might see a similar situation develop with the appointees to this commission (but with the Wildrose appointees claiming rural areas are under-represented).

While the population of Alberta has grown since the last boundary redistribution in 2010, the population centres in our province have not shifted dramatically. Some boundaries will shift to reflect population changes but I would not expect a massive redistribution to create dozens of new constituencies in urban areas, as has been in the case in the past.

The final report from the 2009/2010 Electoral Boundaries Commission included a handful of recommendations for future commissions:

  • The Legislative Assembly needs to seriously consider how urban and rural perspectives will be addressed in the future.
  • The Legislative Assembly should consider reassessing the resources allocated for constituency offices.
  • Future commissions should be appointed early in the calendar year.
  • The Legislative Assembly may wish to consider adopting a protocol for the naming of electoral divisions for the guidance of future commissions.

Update: The commission appointees were announced on October 31, 2016:

Nominated by Premier Rachel Notley:

  • Bruce McLeod, Mayor of the Village of Acme and former president of CUPE Alberta.
  • Jean Munn, a lawyer with Caron & Partners LLP in Calgary and NDP candidate in Calgary-Montrose in the 1993 election.

Nominated by Official Opposition leader Brian Jean:

  • Laurie Livingstone, litigation lawyer from Calgary and the former Secretary of the Wildrose Party executive committee.
  • Gwen Day, former councillor in the County of Mountain View and co-owner of the Silver Willow Sporting Club (the location of a June 2016 fundraiser for Wildrose MLA Nathan Cooper).
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