The Alberta government has introduced Bill 31, the Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2024, which will make changes to several pieces of legislation.
This Amendment Act will make changes to the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, the Public's Right to Know Act, the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, and the Alberta Evidence Act.
"Alberta's population is on the rise. And with that comes a necessity to ensure that Albertans have fair representation in the legislative assembly," Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Mickey Amery stated at a media conference.
Between July 1, 2023, and July 1, 2024, Alberta's population grew by over 200,000 people (or 4.4 per cent), which was the highest growth rate since 1981, and the highest among all provinces.
Under the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, each electoral division in Alberta must have a similar population.
It requires each electoral division to not have a population 25 per cent above or 25 per cent below the average population of all proposed electoral divisions.
But currently there are nine electoral divisions in Alberta that have a population greater than 25 per cent of the average population.
"To assist with addressing this, the amendments would direct the Electoral Boundaries Commision to create two additional electoral divisions, increasing our seat count to 89," Amery said. "Alberta's electoral map also needs to be re-drawn to reflect the current demographic realities of our province."
Amery wanted to re-iterate that the government does not draw the electoral boundaries.
The map gets re-drawn by a legislative process every eight to ten years.
For the re-drawing of this map, there will be an independent electoral commission established that will review existing electoral boundaries and make proposals about changes.
The commission can be established as early as this fall and as late as October 31, 2026, to ensure the changes are in place prior to the next election.
When questioned about the cost of adding two more electoral boundaries and two more MLA's, Amery stated they have an idea of what it will cost.
"We know, relatively, roughly, the number, based on the numbers that are provided by the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. That will vary from place to place," Amery says.
If the map gets re-drawn so an MLA has to travel further to get to Edmonton than others, that may raise the cost a bit, but Amery says the number is relatively similar, regardless of where the MLA ends up.
When they are re-drawing electoral boundaries, the commission considers several requirements to make sure all Albertans are represented.
Those include the sparsity and density of population, communities of interest, geographical features, rate of population growth, and more.
The Justice Statutes Amendment Act will also make changes to the Public's Right to Know Act.
This act legislates the public reporting of crime data, so Albertans know what's happening in their community.
"The amendments would empower the Minister of Justice to request timely crime data from government departments, municipalities, and provincial police forces."
This will help them to have a better understanding of the criminal justice system.
Under the Justice Statutes Amendment Act, there will also be changes made to the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, as well as the Alberta Evidence Act.
The changes to the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act would consolidate the definition of essential infrastructure in one place.
Currently, the definition of essential infrastructure is contained in both the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act and the Critical Infrastructure Defence Regulation, but with the amendment, they will be able to repeal the Critical Infrastructure Defence Regulation.
The changes made to the Alberta Evidence Act would make it so information can be verified electronically, instead of requiring the person to head down to courthouse or pay to swear or affirm an oath in person.
There will still be the option to certify the documents in person.
To learn more about this piece of legislation, click here.