The most devastating news to Conservative politics in Alberta came out this week: Re-drawing the boundary map. Right-of-Center parties may never enjoy a majority government ever again…
Problem: The ridings are currently unbalanced according to population demographics. Alberta allows up to 25% variation in population, creating a theoretical maximum of 50% variation between most and least densely populated ridings. This gives rural Alberta (typically more right-leaning voter base) a higher impact in electoral outcomes. Previously, the inner-city urbanites (typically left-leaning voter base) have been congregated in less than a handful of ridings. The NDP strategists on loan to the Notley gov’t know this. I suspect that they will take ridings like Calgary Mountainview and use it to form the core of three or possibly four riding boundries. Imagine ridings taking the form of pizza slices. Hard-left, inner-city population stretching into the suburban population. Then imagine them placing all the rural populations together. The left wins their ridings with 60%, and the rural wins theirs by 80-90%. Since there are more urban ridings than rural ones, we will get left of centre parties to be the only ones forming a majority.
With all of the talk of uniting the right at the provincial level, it may not matter at all …
