New boundaries may quiet local urban voices

Medicine Hat: Growing mid-sized city or home for retired ranchers. An increasingly urban centre or more concerned with rural issues. Are we a big city or a small town?

The answer to those complex questions depends on who you ask and the current plan to redraw the region’s electoral boundaries shows that it also depends on what’s at stake.

A new proposal by the independent Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission would see Hatters living north of the river join a new riding that includes northern Cypress County and Brooks.

The existing Cypress-Medicine Hat constituency would gain all of south Medicine Hat but lose the County of 40 Mile.

It’s a move to so-called “blended ridings,” in which each would have a similar number of voters and a similar split of urban and rural population.

It also cleans up a messy initial proposal for three ridings in the area, including a wholly urban riding and two large — some say unwieldy — rural districts.

Perhaps, coincidentally, the reconsidered blended ridings are only happening here and come about after new testimony this summer from local political interests lauded the idea.

Moving from the practical process of drawing maps to the political implications, it’s apparent the new map gives more clout to rural issues and dilutes urban voting power as well as voices in Medicine Hat.

In general, it solidifies conservative election chances when large rural blocks are joined with more diverse urban areas.

Consider Saskatchewan, where federal redistricting in 2015 did away with blended ridings. The changes loosened Conservatives’ near stranglehold in the province.

That year they won 10 out of 14 federal seats, compared to 47 out of 51 in the four previous elections — a feat accomplished while earning only half the popular vote.

Alberta’s new districts also require us to re-examine our complicated self-image.

Tourism officials and economic developers love to advertise that the Hat is more vibrant and younger than we may think.

We like to believe that Medicine Hat is big enough on its own to warrant singular focus of our provincial MLAs.

The city is, after all, a power generator, petroleum explorer and more recently investor in provincial investment funds.

It’s a point of civic pride to decry the idea we were simply a retirement centre for an aging farm population.

There’s no doubt a certain kinship and common cause exists between voters inside the city’s limits and Cypress County.

Does the same extend to those in downtown Medicine Hat and the people of Brooks and Bassano, or between petrochemical interests and a large and powerful irrigation lobby?

At its current size, Medicine Hat is in a difficult inbetween stage.

Red Deer (99,800 citizens) and Lethbridge (92,700) each have two ridings wholly within their city limits.

St. Albert, Sherwood Park and Grande Prairie each have a wholly urban riding with a smaller portion mixed with the outlying county — close to how CypressMedicine Hat is currently configured.

Now, the “Brooks-Medicine Hat” riding would include 12,118 Hatters in the north end addresses, while the population of Brooks is 14,451.

The new Cypress-Medicine Hat will have 38,000 urban voters compared to 12,000 on farms and in county hamlets.

Redrawing electoral maps is complex. Changes to one are paired with changes to at least one other.

Massaging many ridings to account for declining rural population or growing urban areas is devilishly difficult.

The new proposal for Medicine Hat and region, however, will likely be a loss for representation for urban voters and urban voices.