By Staff
The Canadian Press
Posted June 9, 2026 3:33 pm
1 min read
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservatives have tapped a former federal conservative cabinet minister and lobbyist to help redraw the map marking electoral ridings across the province.
Monte Solberg is one of four panel members appointed Tuesday by a legislature committee overseeing the new map-making process.
But the Opposition NDP says that process to re-do the work of a previous electoral boundaries commission — but with a mandate to create more ridings — is illegitimate and can’t be trusted.
Also handpicked by Smith’s UCP was emergency and infrastructure management strategist Darwin Durnie, who co-authored a submission to the previous commission recommending a map that includes multiple mixed rural-urban Calgary ridings.
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Opposition NDP member Christina Gray says Durnie’s appointment shows the fix is in and the UCP is trying to silence voters in Calgary.
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The NDP put forward law professor Gerard Kennedy and former Okotoks town councillor Brent Robinson to serve on the panel.
Solberg is the CEO of Calgary-based New West Public Affairs.
He was first elected as a Reform Party Member of Parliament (MP) in 1993 and 1997, and as a Canadian Alliance MP in 2000.
After the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives, he was re-elected in the riding of Medicine hat in 2004.
He retired from federal politics in 2008.
— With files from Karen Bartko, Global News
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