Chief Justice cites integrity issues, refuses to suggest electoral boundaries chair

Posted on May 28, 2026 by Ryan Dahlman

By Zoe Mason
Southern Alberta Newspapers

Alberta’s acting chief justice is refusing to provide a recommendation to chair the electoral boundary committee.

The committee sent a letter to acting Alberta Chief Justice Dawn Pentelechuk on May 4 requesting she circulate a request for appointments to chair the independent advisory panel.

Typically, the chief justice offers advice about current or retired justices who would be interested in assuming the role.

Pentelechuk is declining participation in the selection process as a result of what she called the “irregularity” of the present process.

The electoral boundaries committee was established in April after the UCP government threw out results of an independent electoral boundaries commission.

The UCP-led committee has been tasked with overseeing a redraw of the electoral map that will add an additional two seats for a total of four new seats in the provincial legislature.

The committee will choose a new independent advisory panel that will have until Oct. 22 to issue a new electoral boundaries report.

Unlike a typical electoral boundaries commission, the committee will not be required to hold any public hearings.

At the first meeting of the committee on May 4, an NDP-led motion to require the chair be a sitting justice selected by the Chief Justice was voted down.

NDP MLA Christina Gray, one of two NDP representatives on the committee, says the self-nomination process will leave room for doubt that an individual seeking nomination may have been encouraged to apply by a partisan figure, or hold partisan beliefs.

“The best way to ensure independence is not to accept or use the self-nominations, but to instead ask for and get the recommendations from the chief justices. If you want independence, that is what we need,” said Gray at a May 12 meeting of the committee.

Gray introduced a motion asking the committee to commit to nominating a chair recommended by the Acting Chief Justice. Her motion was defeated.

The committee voted in favour of moving ahead with circulating a request for self-nominations to the Ministry of Justice, the Canadian Bar Association Alberta Branch and the Law Society of Alberta. They have also extended the request to the presidents of post-secondary institutions across the province.

The May 12 meeting also saw the committee approve a budget of $450,000.

At the May 4 meeting of the committee, several motions introduced by NDP members concerning neutrality and transparency were voted down, including one that would prohibit the chair from having a history of partisan affiliation.

NDP committee members Gray and Kathleen Ganley have maintained they are opposed to the decision to redraw electoral boundaries.

“Alberta’s New Democrats chose to participate in the Select Special Committee on Electoral Boundaries not because we believe it is valid or legitimate – in fact, quite the opposite,” they wrote in a statement.

“We are participating to do everything we can to inform Albertans about what is, in our view, an illegitimate and unconstitutional process, and to attempt to limit the damage being done to our democracy.”

Grey and Ganley say the UCP has blocked the public release of the Acting Chief Justice’s letter.