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EDMONTON — The leader of Alberta’s Opposition NDP says Premier Danielle Smith’s governing United Conservatives are cooking the riding boundaries for their own advantage ahead of next year’s election.
Naheed Nenshi says a report now before an all-party committee gerrymanders ridings in Lethbridge and Calgary to dilute NDP support in favour of the UCP in multiple constituencies.
“This is a shocking and ongoing assault on our democracy,” Nenshi told the committee on Wednesday.
“If we go forward with this, this will be the legacy of this government: that they cared about power so much that they didn’t want fair elections; that they wanted to cheat to win.”
The report has not been made public and has only been presented to committee members. It’s expected to be tabled in the legislature next week.
The NDP committee members said the report includes proposals to split the city of Lethbridge, which is currently two urban ridings, into four ridings that take in elements of the surrounding rural areas. They said the same is happening in three northwest Calgary ridings.
Lethbridge is currently split between the UCP and NDP.
Gerrymandering is a familiar tactic in the United States that sees voting districts designed not to reflect geography or population patterns but instead to concentrate or fragment voters to benefit one particular political party.
Recent Alberta elections have seen the United Conservatives dominate in rural areas and smaller cities while the NDP have controlled Edmonton, and the two sides have battled for advantage in Calgary.
The UCP hold a majority of votes on the committee overseeing the proposed riding redraw. Committee chair Brandon Lunty — a UCP backbencher — was expected to comment later Wednesday.
The boundary review and report comes after the previous bipartisan boundary commission was split in its recommendations after months of public consultations.
Commission chair Dallas Miller, in an effort to avoid the minority report’s alternative boundaries that would blend many urban and rural ridings, suggested a compromise.
Miller said the legislature could revisit the process, with an eye to boosting the number of ridings to 91.
The NDP has repeatedly called on the UCP to simply adopt the majority report’s proposed boundaries.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 28, 2026.
Jack Farrell and Lisa Johnson, The Canadian Press
