Have you ever counted how many hours and kilometres you spend driving in your car?
Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken knows first hand what it’s like to be on the road all the time. It can take him two hours to travel from one end of our rural constituency to the other.
Sometimes he is put in a spot where he can’t make every event and every meet and greet because there is just not enough time in the day, and cars don’t travel that fast.
Unfortunately, that puts us rural Albertans at a disadvantage. Not only is it hard for our MLA to come out to see us, it is also challenging for us to go see them at their constituency office, especially if there is only one in a large riding.
So perhaps it’s a mixed blessing that the Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission didn’t recommend any changes to the Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock constituency when they released their initial report last week.
On one hand, our constituency isn’t getting any smaller, which will no doubt upset the people of Morinville who wanted to be lumped in with St. Albert. On the other hand, it also isn’t getting any bigger, and Mr. van Dijken’s car ride is thankfully not getting any longer.
Still, as our MLA suggested elsewhere in this edition, perhaps it’s time for the Electoral Boundaries Commission to take a more flexible stance than the one they currently follow.
The commission bases each electoral boundary on a provincial average. For most of the boundaries in the interim report, populations deviated from that average by five or 10 per cent, though up to 25 per cent was an option.
Urban constituencies meet that 40,000 target easily. Thus, it’s no big deal for an MLA to reach any of the town hall meetings or other events they may be called to.
As for rural ridings … well, following that 40,000 target is why the MLA has such long car rides, as we outlined above.
It may be another eight to 10 years before the commission looks at electoral boundaries again, but hopefully they will consider things a little differently in the future.
