New federal riding boundary changes proposed

Here's the newly proposed federal riding boundaries for the Edmonton area, as Alberta gets more seats.


My thoughts:

Say goodbye urban-rural ridings of (held by):

• Edmonton-Spruce Grove (Rona Ambrose, Conservative)
• Edmonton-Leduc (James Rajotte, Conservative)
• Edmonton Millwoods-Beaumont (Mike Lake, Conservative)
• Edmonton-Sherwood Park (Tim Uppal, Conservative)

Edmonton-St. Albert (Brent Rathgaber, Conservative) remains but it includes just a tiny bit of Edmonton as St. Albert isn't near the 100k mark yet.

Proposed ridings that make perfect sense and boundaries are totally logical:

• Edmonton-Strathcona (Linda Duncan, NDP)
• Edmonton-Riverbend (James Rajotte, Conservative)
• Edmonton-Millwoods (Mike Lake, Conservative)

So why couldn't they make the other proposed ridings on the North side of the River the only three names that make no sensee:

• Edmonton Callingwood (Rona Ambrose / Laurie Hawn, Conservative) should be the former name:  Edmonton-West.  I lived in Callingwood which is South of Whitemud, East of 178th Street and West of 170th Street--a small section of the entire proposed riding.  People in Westridge should be annoyed!
• Edmonton McDougall (Laurie Hawn, Conservative) should be the former name:  Edmonton-Centre.
• Edmonton Griesbach (Peter Goldring, Independent Conservative) should be a combo: Edmonton-East Griesbach.

With these changes, I predict little will change as far as party in the next election except Edmonton-McDougall might be a closer race with Hawn losing more of his West Edmonton base and concentrated to the more liberal areas of downtown west.  And with Peter Goldring now out of caucus, he likely won't run there again, so it is again ripe for the picking from the NDP or Liberals if they put forward a well known name.  Will Ray Martin take yet another stab at it?

Overall, this Albertan is mighty happy about gaining 6 more seats in the House of Commons.  See the green column below under 'New Legislation' to see that while BC, AB, and ON improve their standing in Seats/Pop., it's still not up-to-snuff with the other provinces.  And look at my proposal in the blue column that reduces the number of seats and makes things more even.