Jeff Burgar
Some day, it is possible that Dan Williams for Peace River, or Scott Sinclair for Lesser Slave Lake, might represent all of us in government.
And more people besides.
Everybody from the British Columbia border west of Fairview, north to the Territories, east past Fort McMurray to Saskatchewan, and south to maybe a bit north of Barrhead and Westlock.
That is, if either one lives long enough.
And keeps getting elected.
And the rules of elections unfold as they are now supposed to.
It all has to do with election boundaries, and how many people are in each of our 87 ridings across Alberta. To make that a short story, one day there could easily be 100 MLAs in Alberta. Ninety-two from Edmonton and Calgary. One each from Fort Mac – Wood Buffalo, Red Deer, Grande Prairie and Lethbridge. Four scattered around rural Alberta, and the rest split between the two really big metro centres.
That’s a logical extension of how election boundaries have to be wiggled and jiggled to keep them sort of in balance according to population size.
The arguments for wiggling and jiggling boil down to two: representation by population, or equal representation; and the other, effective representation.
We, in rural Alberta, argue that in Edmonton, a voter can walk across the street to talk to their MLA. In places like Peace River or Lesser Slave, one can drive for two or more hours, one way, to do the same thing. Not effective at all.
NDP politicians want more city MLAs. That’s where most of their voters live. UCP wants to keep rural MLAs. Same reason. Other arguments are just fluff on top of those two main reasons.
But there is more going on here. As one example, both energy and agriculture are two mainstays of the Alberta economy. Any farms in Edmonton? Or rigs in Calgary?
So why should somebody working at an Edmonton Costco have a vote that can run over top of those industries?
Also along these lines is, trees, beavers, cattle, rivers and streams don’t even get a vote. Who in Calgary is going to defend them or speak for them if push ever comes to shove? When people think beef and milk and heat and gasoline comes from a store down the street, or just gets trucked in from California automatically, do they really care when local farmers or ranchers are going broke? Not likely. Not if it costs them a dollar or two. Politicians sure do. Just ask them!
And if we don’t have any?
There are ways to look after rural Alberta. Easy is freeze the size of ridings. Period. Another is harder, but more likely to stick down the road. That’s have an elected senate right here in Alberta. Not based on population, but physical size.
And some mechanism to have real political power, like it does in America.
The American Senate was created to balance population power. In fact, Alberta had a senate. It was given up in 1936 as too expensive.
No matter what happens down the road, just remember one thing: Every year cities grow and rural areas lose political power, is another year it gets harder to make a come back.