Bow Island residents vote in new riding this election

By Collin Gallant

Alberta Newspaper Group

The process that changed the boundaries of two ridings around Medicine Hat in 2017 will also mean that Bow Island and the County of Forty Mile will shift ridings.B

Those areas are now part of a redrawn riding of Taber-Warner constituency, where voters will have four candidates to choose from on Election Day, April 16.

Grant Hunter, the MLA for Cardston-Warner-Taber, is seeking the seat for the United Conservative Party.

Laura Ross-Giroux, a former Taber town councillor, is the Alberta New Democrat candidate.

The Alberta Party’s Jason Beekman is a resident of Coaldale, which is also in the riding. Another Coaldale resident, Amy Yates, will represent the Alberta Liberal Party.

In other ridings in the region, Drumheller-Stettler, which includes the Special Areas, Empress and the M.D of Acadia, incumbent MLA Rick Strankman is registered to run as an independent after losing the UCP nomination to Nate Horner.

The Alberta Independence Party’s candidate is Jason Hushagen.

Mark Nikota is registered to run for the Alberta Party, while former Calgary District Labour Council president Holly Heffernan has secured the NDP nomination.

The deadline to register as a candidate is March 29.

The Electoral Boundaries Commission convenes about every 10 years to rebalance ridings in terms of population with some consideration for trading areas and community geography.

Its most recent recommendations led to altered boundaries for Medicine Hat and Cypress-Medicine Hat, giving the latter most of the addresses in southern Medicine Hat and Cypress County. Northern city and county residents, as well as Redcliff, join the Brooks-Medicine Hat riding alongside the County of Newell.

The general dividing line within Medicine Hat is the South Saskatchewan River and Third Street in the downtown core.

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