Danielle Smith defends upcoming government motion to reassess riding boundaries

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks at the Alberta Municipalities Convention in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is defending her government’s upcoming motion that, if passed, will revisit recently proposed boundary changes.

Smith told her provincewide radio show that the proposal to establish a new panel, that will reassess a previous bipartisan panel’s recommendations on new boundaries, is about securing effective representation for rural Alberta.

She says a new panel made up of legislature members — a majority from Smith’s caucus — is also being proposed because the bipartisan panel’s members are exhausted and its chair Dallas Miller, a judge, has indicated he doesn’t want to be partake in a new review.

The bipartisan panel’s report was delivered to the legislature last month, but the document was full of internal conflict.

In it, UCP-appointed members on the panel recommended merging some urban and rural ridings, which the majority of panel members said was an indefensible suggestion that favoured the rural-dominant UCP at the ballot box.

Miller and the NDP-appointees who formed the majority had presented new boundaries that added seats in Edmonton and Calgary, condensed rural seats by two, and also recommended some rural and urban hybrid ridings, though far fewer than what the UCP panellists had suggested.

The Opposition NDP has said Smith’s government is proposing a new panel to allow the UCP to redraw boundaries in its favour ahead of the October 2027 provincial election.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 18, 2026.