Alberta's new riding map favours governing UCP as Calgary margins widen and Banff seat flips

A CBC News data analysis shows that Alberta's new electoral boundary map, approved on Wednesday (November 4) by the UCP-dominated legislature for the 2027 provincial election, favours the governing United Conservative Party (UCP). Transposing votes from the 2023 provincial election onto the new boundaries flips the Canmore-Banff riding to the UCP and widens Conservative leads in several Calgary seats. (Photo: file photo of the Alberta Legislature Building.)

Banff: from an NDP win by 10.5 points to a UCP win by 0.7

The analysis found that the NDP would have won Canmore-Banff by 10.5 percentage points under the boundary commission's maps from April, but the newly approved map flips the seat, giving the UCP a narrow victory margin of 0.7 percentage points. The change follows the addition of small communities along the Cowboy Trail. The majority of the new panel said it moved those communities because their acreages and rural residences have stronger connections to the neighbouring city of Calgary.

Calgary margins grow

In Calgary, a few thousand residents of the hamlets of Springbank and Bearspaw were moved into neighbouring city ridings. A UCP minister was re-elected in Calgary-North West last time by a mere 0.6-point margin, or 143 votes; under the redrawn Calgary-North West-Bearspaw riding, that margin grows to 1.8 percentage points, or 463 votes. The UCP leads in Calgary-Bow and Calgary-West also grow by a few hundred votes each.

Overall projection: 50 UCP seats to 41 NDP

If the last election's votes were replicated on the approved map, 50 ridings would be won by the UCP and 41 by the NDP, according to the analysis. The new map also reworks Lethbridge, converting its two urban seats into one city-only riding and three rural-urban hybrids, and restores rural seats in central and northern Alberta. The analysis cautions that the transposition may not be replicated in next October's provincial election: the NDP won the Calgary-Shaw byelection in September with a 17-percentage-point swing in its favour.

(Source: CBC News, November 5, 2026.)