Mo Elsalhy – Page 2 – daveberta.ca – Alberta Politics and Elections

final report of the electoral boundaries commission.

Enilghtened Savage may have beat me to the punch with the link to the report, but posted below are the Alberta, Calgary, and Edmonton maps from the Final Report of Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission (pdf). It appears the sleuthing author of the aforementioned blog discovered the link to the report which had been loaded online before it has been officially posted on the Boundaries Commission website. You can download the full report here (pdf). Score 1 point for the citizen media.

UPDATE: The EBC appears to have removed the original link to the report, so I have replaced the above links with new ones provided by Enlightened Savage. You should be able to download the final report now.

COMMENTARY
Overall, I believe that the members of the Electoral Boundaries Commission have presented a fair report given the guidelines and political environment in which they were operating. I would have liked to see the commission merge some of the larger sparcely populated rural constituencies in the north of the province, but I understand the arguments for allowing exceptions in special circumstances.

Airdrie/Foothills-Chestermere: Large areas of Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson‘s former Airdrie-Chestermere constituency have been merged with Fiance Minister Ted Morton‘s Foothills-Rockyview riding to create Rockyview-Chestermere. It is unlikely that Mr. Anderson will challenge Minister Morton in the next election, so he may opt to run in the new Airdrie constituency.

North Calgary: There is a significant amount of shuffling in this area of Calgary. I’m not familiar enough with the area to say if it reflects communities of interest. I imagine that there will be an ample amount of confusion created when anyone talks about either Calgary-North Hill (singular) and Calgary-Northern Hills (plural). Anyone?

Edmonton-Centre: I was pleased to see that my riding remains intact. The boundaries make sense for Edmonton’s downtown constituency.

Edmonton-Glenora: Glenora has been shifted further west than was proposed in the interim report, moving more Tory polls into the constituency. They new boundaries also remove the NDP-voting polls north of downtown that were included in the interim boundaries report and cut out the Liberal-voting polls west of Mayfield road that were included in Glenora during the 2008 election. It could create a more favourable electoral situation for PC MLA Heather Klimchuk, who will face strong challenges from the Liberals and former NDP MLA David Eggen.

Edmonton-McClung: McClung has been split in two. I believe that the northern half is where former Liberal MLA Mo Elsalhy‘s stronger polls were located, so David Xiao might run for re-election in the new Edmonton-Southwest constituency in 2011. Elsalhy is planning on running again, so these changes could be good news for him.

Edmonton-Riverview: There was speculation that Liberal MLA Kevin Taft‘s constituency could be on the chopping block. It remains largely intact.

Fort McMurray-Conklin/Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo: Independent MLA Guy Boutilier will have the choice of running in one of these two constituencies in the next election. Mr. Boutilier is widely expected to join the Wildrose Alliance at this weekend’s policy convention in Red Deer. Mr. Boutilier was elected as the PC MLA for Fort McMurray in 1997, 2001, 2004, and 2008.

St. Albert/Sturgeon: I am surprised that St. Albert has not reached the size to have two constituencies of its own. I was not surprised to see that the towns of Morinville and Legal are still included in Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock, though it would make much more sense for those communities to be included in a Sturgeon Valley riding that lumped in with a constituency that stretches all the way to Swan Hills.

Minority Report: Commissioner Allyson Jeffs wrote a minority report arguing for Edmonton and Calgary to receive more than the three additional constituencies awarded in this Final Report. The politically uncomfortable necessity of removing large numbers of rural seats in favor of new urban ones was solved when Justice Minister Alison Redford introduced legislation that increased the number of MLAs from 83 to 87. In 2003, Commissioner Bauni Mackay
penned a minority report opposing Edmonton’s loss of one-seat in that Final Report.

Political Responses:
Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman (media release):

“The Stelmach administration’s sticky fingerprints are all over this report,” Blakeman says. “There’s been major tinkering with boundaries in Edmonton to reflect personal requests from Tory MLAs. Edmonton-Southwest, for example, is a mess.”

Wildrose MLA Paul Hinman (media release):

“…once again they displayed their disrespect for democracy in Alberta and fear of losing the next election by pressuring the Commission to make the changes that they believe will favour the PC Party.”

NDP MLA Brian Mason (media release):

“Generally the boundaries make sense. The NDP has a solid chance in several Edmonton ridings, and we plan to run a full slate of candidates in the next election.”

alberta politics notes 6/03/2010

– The Inspiring Education report was released by Education Minister Dave Hancock yesterday. I wrote about it earlier and the Public School Board Association of Alberta has a list of links to related articles on their Legislature Watch Blog.
– Calgary Herald editorialist Licia Corbella reflects on Finance Minister Ted Morton‘s new role as the default-Premier of Alberta.
– The Edmonton Journal’s Graham Thomson has written an interesting column on the synergizing happening at the Competitiveness Review.
– Sustainable Resource Development Minister Mel Knight has declared Grizzly Bears as a threatened species in Alberta. This decision follows a public campaign calling for increased protection for Grizzly Bears in Alberta.
– Armed guards will be removed from public hearings being held by the Energy Resources Conservation Board northeast of Edmonton.
– An abundance of witnesses may further delay the trial involving Greenpeace‘s oil sands protest at a Fort Saskatchewan upgraded last summer.
– The Friends of Medicare have begun their province-wide public consultations on the proposed Alberta Health Act, including recent meetings in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.
– Trustee Sue Huff has blogged about her experience at a Big Listen hosted by the Alberta Party.
– Federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff will in Edmonton on June 19 to hold a policy discussion meeting at the University of Alberta.
– Former Liberal MLA Mo Elsalhy is already gearing up for the next election and has launched a website promoting his nomination campaign. Mr. Elsalhy served as the MLA for Edmonton-McClung from 2004 to 2008 and ran for the Liberal Party leadership in 2008. I have been told that he is likely to seek the nomination in the new Edmonton-Collingwood pending the final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission expected to be released this summer.
– Elections Alberta has started the search for 87 Returning Officers and Election Clerks for the next provincial election expected in 2011 or 2012. This is a very early start compared to the 2008 election, where a last minute scramble to hire elections officials and organize riding offices put Elections Alberta in the embarrassing position of having hired an estimated over 50 staff who had direct connections to the PC Party (including candidate nominees and constituency organizers).
– Today in Alberta Politics History on June 3, 1920 a by-election was held in Athabasca following the death of the Honourable Alexander Grant MacKay. Mr. MacKay served as Leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario from 1907 to 1911 and as an Alberta MLA from 1913 to 1920. Mr. MacKay died of pneumonia in the Edmonton General Hospital in 1920 while serving as the provincial Minister of Health. The by-election was contested by Liberal G. Mills and Independent J.K. Cornwall. Mr. Mills was elected 640 votes to Mr. Cornwall’s 286 votes.

Read more in the Alberta Politics Notes archive.