EDMONTON– Premier Danielle Smith told Albertans on Friday that the committee charged with modifying the Electoral Boundaries Commission's majority report's maps will be the "clear directions" laid out by the commission's chair in his alternative recommendation. "The judge was pretty clear about which areas he felt that the majority got right, but he was also very clear about the need to add two additional seats in order to address the issue of rural representation," said Smith during a press conference on Friday. Smith is referring to a recommendation added to the report, in which the Commission's chair, Dallas Miller, without the support of any of the other commission members, offered an alternative recommendation for the UCP if they believe they can not accept the majority's maps as proposed. ."In the circumstance that the Legislative Assembly of Alberta finds that it cannot concur in the proposals of the majority of the Electoral Boundaries Commission in its final report to remove two electoral divisions from areas outside of the Cities of Edmonton and Calgary, the majority of the Commission recommends that the Assembly make amendments to the Electoral Divisions Act, increasing the number of electoral divisions from 89 to 91 for the next general election, and restore the two electoral divisions that this Commission has removed," reads the recommendation from Miller on page 66 of the report. "The rest of the province, as we propose, must be maintained to the extent possible." Miller goes on to provide direct guidelines on the changes that should be made when reinserting the rural districts, including what should and should not be done. UCP critics believe that the government have no intention of truly abiding by Miller's directions. Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi believes the new committee will return with drastic adjustments to the majority's maps, an effort by the UCP to gerrymander its way to more seats in the Legislature. "What happened is they were going to adopt the minority, and me and some others from across the province scared them off," said Nenshi. "So now what they're doing is adopting the minority report in slow motion. And we're not going to stand for it.".Smith said on Friday that any accusations claiming the UCP is trying to rig their way to victory in the next provincial election by secretly applying the minority report are false. "Well, he's not telling the truth," Smith said about Nenshi. "He keeps trying to imply that we're accepting the Minority Report. We're not. We've rejected the Minority Report.""We've accepted the majority report, with the addendum from the judge to try to bridge the gap between the two, and the way he proposed bridging the gap was to add two additional seats."She also reiterated the UCP's claims that they are bringing back the rural districts to ensure effective representation for those in more spread-out, less populated rural areas, while also supporting those in densely populated cities. "I think the judge came up with a reasonable solution, that we can make sure that we are appropriately representing our large cities without losing rural areas by just adding two seats," Smith said.
