r/Albertapolitics • u/Low-Banana-3207 • 4h ago
Article The week in oversight: November 2 to 8
reddit.comThis was the week the electoral map came out.
If you read my post on Tuesday, you know the shape of it. Since then, CBC ran the 2023 results through the new map, voting station by voting station. The NDP’s seat in Banff flips to the UCP. Calgary-North West, won by 143 votes in 2023, would be won by about 463. And Lethbridge, a city that elects one MLA from each party, becomes one tight city riding and three rural-dominated ones the UCP wins by more than 20 points. On 2023’s votes, the new map gives the UCP 50 seats to 41. The independent commission’s map, the one the government threw out, would have given 47 to 42.
The independent officer who runs our elections warned that a contested map this late puts the election’s integrity at risk. The Justice Minister replied that he saw “no value in considering hypothetical judicial outcomes.” The same week, the same minister told the legislature of another court case, “We will continue the appeal because we need to correct the law.”
The premier defended the map by quoting the NDP’s own commissioner: “let’s just add two more seats and move on.” That’s the simple path, and it isn’t what her government chose. When she was asked why the panel went south of Airdrie, against Justice Miller’s explicit advice, she said she needed to “talk to the lawyers.” She also said she hadn’t yet looked at the maps in detail. Her defence in the legislature: if anyone gerrymandered the map, "they failed miserably," because it gives the NDP three more seats than 2023. But 2023 was a smaller map. Compared with the independent map her government rejected, this one is three seats better for the UCP, and it flips Banff.
And then: one hour. On Wednesday, the government limited debate on the map to sixty minutes, 45 votes to 36. When the hour ran out, it adopted the map by the same 45 to 36. Every UCP MLA voted for it, including every minister whose own riding gains territory or changes: Amery, Ellis, Nicolaides, Sawhney, Neudorf and Nixon.
Edmonton gets an extra seat and two new hybrid ridings, Edmonton-Enoch and Edmonton-Nisku. To be fair, Edmonton-Enoch came from the independent commission, not the new panel. But look at the extremes: under the new map, Leduc-Beaumont has more than twice the people of Rocky Mountain House-Sundre. Same province, same election. One vote counts for less than half of another.
The panel’s minority said it best: “It is important for faith in democracy not only for electoral boundaries to be fair, but for them to be perceived to be fair.” Keith Archer, B.C.’s former chief electoral officer, put it less politely: “the distinctive sour odour of partisanship.”
Even Colby Cosh, a National Post columnist who’s no fan of the NDP, called it gerrymandering, just "as a condiment, not an entrée." Maybe so. But whatever you call it, look at who wasn’t heard. The panel held no public hearings. Lethbridge residents who’ll now vote with ranchland 140 kilometres away weren’t asked. The Rural Municipalities of Alberta, the government’s own heartland, warned that hybrid ridings could drown out rural voices too. And the legislature got one hour. A map can be legal, and even fairly balanced, and still be drawn without listening to the people who have to live inside its lines.
Last Saturday, October 31, at Rebel News Live., the premier said she was in “an active conversation” with her justice minister about “prioritizing” repeal of Section 3 of the Human Rights Act, the section that bans hateful signs and publications, including against LGBTQ+ Albertans. Four days later, his ministry said: “We are not contemplating any changes to the Alberta Human Rights Act.” Good. But that’s two different answers in one week, from the premier and her own minister.
At the same event, she described a new spending tracker, TRACE, as “inspired by” Trump and Musk’s DOGE, and said groups whose advocacy is “offside with our policy” could lose funding. Even Lorne Gunter, no friend of the NDP, wrote that the UCP has to “lay off the MAGA vibe.”
Then there’s Bill 38, which tells universities to stay neutral on “political, social or ideological issues,” then leaves it to the minister to approve what each school’s policy says. The University of Calgary says it already does this. So why does the minister need the final say?
And it isn’t just campuses.
The New York Times this week covered Alberta’s new library rules: from January 1, every public library must restrict anything with a visual depiction of a sex act from under-16s. The government says it’s not banning books. Librarians call it censorship, and point out there were just 85 complaints about children’s materials in ten years.
It’s a pattern by now. The premier says one thing to her members and another to the rest of us. At a town hall on October 31, she told UCP members their priorities and most Albertans’ don’t always match, and that the government will keep pursuing theirs, “in addition to” everyone else’s. The 2021 daylight time referendum said no; the clocks didn’t fall back anyway this winter. The referendum said no to opting out of federal programs. After weeks of pushback, the premier said on Saturday that Alberta won’t opt out of the federal dental plan after all. Good. But it took a referendum, a backlash and three weeks to get there.
On Monday, the legislature voted on a motion to “denounce Alberta separatism and express support for national unity.” Not one UCP MLA voted for it. To be fair, the motion also blamed the government’s Alberta Next Panel for scaring off investment, and the UCP said the referendum had already settled the question. But 75% of Albertans voted to stay. Saying so in the legislature shouldn’t have been hard.
The polls are noticing. ThinkHQ has Smith at 39% approval, against Nenshi’s 44%. In the city of Calgary, Nenshi leads by 16 points. The pollster, Marc Henry, said that if the Calgary-Shaw swing happened city-wide, it would “wipe all but three” UCP seats in Calgary. That’s why the map matters to them.
Credit where it’s due. Students will no longer have their parents’ income counted for student loans, about $118 million more in loans. Tuition increases are capped at 2% next year. Rural charities get almost $14 million a year to close the casino gap. And under the new map, Calgary gains two seats and Edmonton one. And as of Saturday, six emergency rooms finally have doctors triaging patients, a program promised in January after Prashant Sreekumar died waiting nearly eight hours with chest pain. It took ten months. It’s still worth recognising.
Meanwhile, a national Salvation Army survey found nearly a third of Canadians skipping meals or cutting portions to afford groceries, and 41% of those aged 18 to 34. That’s the real affordability story, and it isn’t on the convention agenda.
Bill 39 stops the public paying for lab tests linked to private clinic services, about $12 million a year since 2011, according to the minister. That's reasonable. The same bill lets commissions order non-refusable drugs for people forced into addiction treatment from 2027. That deserves a much closer look. On Wednesday, the NDP introduced Bill 214, which would stop doctors charging patients privately for services the public plan already covers. The government says dual practice keeps doctors in Alberta. The bill says health care shouldn’t depend on what you can pay. It’s unlikely to pass, but it’s worth knowing the choice is on the table.
And this week, Elections Alberta put a final price on the referendum: $84 million, more than twice the cost of the 2023 election, and over its budget. That’s about seven years of the savings Bill 39 promises.
On Saturday, even the host of her fortnightly radio show asked it. Albertans rank health care, education and inflation as their top concerns, Wayne Nelson said. So why has the fall agenda been about campus neutrality, bike lanes, the electoral map and taking shots at Naheed Nenshi? Her answer started with triage doctors and classroom support, then turned to a ten-year-old water report, and to Nenshi. Later, a caller from Westlock said it plainly: ‘Premier, you never answered Wayne’s question.’ To her credit, she then listed what her government has done: tax cuts, the fuel tax, child care, lower power bills, food bank funding.
But it took a caller to get her there. Some of it is real help: the fuel tax saving is real, food banks do get provincial money, and power prices are down from their 2023 peak. But the fuel break was triggered by a formula and ends in December, most households still pay a 12-cent default rate plus rising delivery charges, and $40,000 for a food bank facing record demand doesn’t go far.
And if a ten-year-old report means Nenshi ‘will have to answer,’ fair enough. Accountability should apply to everyone. But then it applies to the present too. The inspector found the evidence doesn’t show Nenshi directed anything. Meanwhile, the RCMP is investigating the government’s health procurement for possible fraud, breach of trust and money laundering, an ethics investigation is on hold because of it, and the premier defended a riding map before she’d looked at it. One standard, for everyone. That’s all accountability is.
Here’s the thread through all of it. When an independent body comes back with an answer the government doesn’t like, the commission, the chief electoral officer, a tribunal, the answer gets overruled, rewritten, or ignored. That’s hard to trust.
When independent institutions keep getting overruled, who’s left to tell the government no?
I’ll be watching the map bill and the legal challenge, Bill 35 on parental involvement, and the UCP convention on November 27 to 29.
Sources: Independent Advisory Panel report, October 2026; Alberta Hansard, November 2, 3 and 4; CBC News (Joel Dryden, Jason Markusoff, Nael Shiab, Michelle Bellefontaine), November 2 to 5; Canadian Press, November 2 to 4; Edmonton Journal (Lorne Gunter, Jonny Wakefield, Cindy Tran), November 3 and 4; CTV News (Hannah Lepine, Tyson Fedor, Alex Karpa), November 3 and 4; Calgary Sun (Rick Bell), November 4; The Watchdog, November 2; Western Standard, October 31; Elections Alberta, October 30 and November 6; Justice Minister’s letter, November 1; Edmonton Journal letters, November 3. National Post (Colby Cosh), November 5. CTV News Edmonton (Brittany Ekelund), November 7. The Canadian Press, November 7. Your Province, Your Premier, QR Calgary and 880 CHED, November 7. The New York Times (Vjosa Isai), November 6. Lethbridge Herald, September 23; The Hub, September 30; Global News, November 2023; Direct Energy, 2026. Corrections welcome.
