Thank you, Madam Chair and colleagues at PROC.
I've provided an objection to the Alberta commission electoral boundaries proposal as well. I have two concerns with the proposed riding.
The first concern is around the northern boundary of Calgary McKnight, and the other concern is about the proposed names of the two northeast Calgary ridings.
Starting off with the northern boundary of Calgary McKnight, there are two maps here for your reference. One is of the whole city, and the other is an image that provides some clarity on the areas I will be discussing.
The proposed northern boundary of Calgary McKnight should include all homes south of 96 Avenue, which is Airport Trail. That's a highway that divides both of these constituencies. The most northeastern corner of the Saddle Ridge neighbourhood is currently included in the new riding of Calgary Skyview, as highlighted in yellow on the map. You'll notice that highlighted in blue is the highway that divides both communities.
You will also notice that north of the blue Airport Trail there are a number of lands that are undeveloped. Those are future undeveloped lands. This part of the city has some of the highest growth that we've seen as a city. From the 2021 census, I would argue that we may have already potentially increased population in the new north riding by 25,000 to 30,000 individuals. The other important item to note is that the yellow-shaded area cannot be accessed by the constituency to the north. All entry points into that area of Saddle Ridge must be through Calgary McKnight. This area of Saddle Ridge also shares a community association or, as it's referred to in other cities as well, a “community league”.
The submission originally provided by many local leaders, elected officials and community organizations requested that a proposed riding use Deerfoot Trail, and northeast Calgary is very unique along boundaries such as major highways.
The commission also acknowledged that paragraph 15(1)(b) of the act goes on to provide that the commission shall also consider the following criteria:
the community of interest or community of identity in or the historical pattern of an electoral district in the province
I'd like to note for committee members that there is no impact on any ridings other than Calgary McKnight and Calgary Skyview, which is the new riding defined by the electoral commission. As mentioned, Calgary Skyview is the fastest-growing riding in the city of Calgary and the Calgary region. There's a lot of land that is currently planned and ready for development.
In terms of the impact on the two ridings, for the total population of Calgary McKnight, with the yellow area included in Calgary McKnight, it would bump up the numbers to about 131,000. The total population of Calgary Skyview would be reduced to about 107,000. This is not including any growth that has occurred over the last three years and, as mentioned, I believe we've seen about 25,000 to 30,000 new residents already in this area of Calgary Skyview.
There is a population variance. There is a precedent for this variance across the country. We've seen Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, with a variance of close to 19%. We've seen Moncton, with a variance of about 18.5%, and Kingston and the Islands, with a variance of about 15.3%. There is a precedent nationally.
The most important thing is that community members living in these communities be kept together and not separated from their places of worship—