Todd Pruner

Some pretty wild takeaways from today's electoral boundaries committee meeting: Lethbridge would be split into FOUR ridings instead of its current two urban ones. Three would combine city neighbourhoods with surrounding rural areas. Three urban-rural hybrid ridings are proposed along Calgary's northwest and western edges. Springbank gets split up. Kathleen Ganley questioned why the panel was citing GOLF COURSES to justify its boundaries. Okotoks and Diamond Valley would be split apart, with Diamond Valley paired with Banff. The panel's dissenting members say public submissions overwhelmingly favoured keeping them together. Ganley says Calgary and Edmonton ridings would average 7,000 more residents per MLA than ridings outside those cities. That's a 14 percent difference. The NDP wanted to put its concerns about the maps on the record. UCP MLAs voted 3–2 to end the committee's review before those motions could even be considered. The NDP also wanted taxpayers to know how much the panel and its outside consultants were paid. UCP MLAs voted that down too. Ganley says the panel chair gets an extra $5,000/month on top of regular pay. The UCP says the maps should be debated in the Legislature once they're public. The NDP wanted the committee to scrutinize them now. Meanwhile, Albertans still haven't seen the maps. The report is due November 2. #ableg #abpoli