EDMONTON– Justice Minister Mickey Amery says the UCP government does not plan to delay the October 2027 deadline for Alberta's next general election, despite the chief electoral officer warning that upcoming electoral boundary changes will not leave Elections Alberta enough time to prepare."Our expectation is straightforward," wrote Amery in a letter dated November 1 and addressed to Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure. "Elections Alberta must undertake the preparations necessary to administer the October 18, 2027, provincial general election under the final electoral boundaries enacted by the Legislative Assembly."The letter comes as Albertans await Monday's publication of the electoral boundaries committee report, which will attempt to redraw Alberta's voting district maps. .Amery's comments respond to a letter McClure sent to Assembly Speaker Ric McIver and all MLAs on October 29, in which the chief electoral officer said his office would not have enough time to receive the updated maps and make the necessary changes ahead of the scheduled election date.McClure asked the legislature to either allow the October 2027 election to proceed under the current electoral boundaries or amend the law and delay the deadline to give Elections Alberta more time to prepare.Alberta is coming off a referendum with 22.1 million ballots cast across 10 questions. McClure said Elections Alberta had to devote time and resources to conducting the referendum rather than preparing for the general election.His concerns are compounded by calls from the Alberta NDP, which has said it intends to legally challenge the electoral boundaries if it believes they are unfair."Elections Alberta cannot conduct election readiness activities while preparing concurrently for two different electoral boundary scenarios: one under the existing electoral boundaries; and one under new maps," wrote McClure."Elections Alberta needs to know what the boundaries are before it can conduct much of the necessary work in the leadup to a Provincial General Election event.".Despite McClure's concerns, Amery is rejecting the request for an extension and telling Elections Alberta to proceed with its preparations.Quebec's electoral office worked around a 110-day turnaround between updated boundaries and election day on October 5, while BC's prepared for a snap election with just 32 days' notice.Theoretically, the UCP government could call a snap election with just 28 days' notice."The Legislature has therefore designed an electoral system in which Elections Alberta is expected to maintain the institutional capacity to conduct a free and fair general election on very short notice," Amery wrote."It would be inconsistent with that legislative framework to suggest that the office cannot reasonably prepare to administer an election where it has many months of advance notice.".Drama surrounding Alberta's electoral boundaries has lived within the legislature for months after the UCP government decided in April to partially adopt the majority-recommended maps of an initial independent commission.The majority maps recommended removing two ridings from rural Alberta and adding them to Calgary and Edmonton, a move that would have reduced representation in regions where the UCP performs well while increasing representation in Alberta NDP strongholds.Some expected the UCP to be reluctant to willingly reduce its rural representation and instead follow the pro-UCP minority-recommended maps.Perhaps in anticipation of that outcome, the commission's chair signed the majority recommendation but added an addendum. He recommended that the UCP adopt the majority maps while establishing a separate committee to reinsert the two rural seats. The UCP adopted this recommendation.A legislative committee was formed to oversee the second redesign and subsequently appointed an independent panel to design the maps in line with the chair's recommendation.The panel submitted its report to the committee, and the committee subsequently voted in favour of it on October 28. However, the public will not see the report until it is tabled in the legislature on Monday..The Alberta NDP is already raising concerns about the maps, saying the panel made excessive changes by fracturing Southern Alberta into four hybrid urban-rural ridings centred around Lethbridge, along with making changes in Calgary."Urban voters having their voices diluted, rural voters being taken for granted, the people of Lethbridge being wiped off the map," said Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi on October 28."I would say to the premier, that's the disgrace. No other premier has ever cheated this way to win an election. How can the premier think this is legal, acceptable, moral, or constitutional?"The UCP has offered little information about what to expect when the report is tabled, but Premier Danielle Smith told Nenshi that no one is ever "fully satisfied" with electoral maps."I wasn't satisfied that the committee arbitrarily changed the name of my riding from Brooks-Medicine Hat to Medicine Hat-Brooks," Smith said on October 28. "It didn't seem to be necessary, but those are the kind of things that you just accept, because what happens is you have to put on your big boy pants.""You got to quit complaining, and you got to start campaigning, and stop trying to undermine the results of a report that hasn't even been released in this legislature yet. I think what we need to do, Mr. Speaker, is wait and see what the justice has recommended, and then we can debate it in this chamber."
