Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul
Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul is a current provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada. The district is one of 87 districts mandated to return a single member (MLA) to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first past the post method of voting. It was contested for the first time in the 2019 Alberta election.
 Alberta electoral district | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul within Alberta. | |||
| Provincial electoral district | |||
| Legislature | Legislative Assembly of Alberta | ||
| MLA |
United Conservative | ||
| District created | 2017 | ||
| First contested | 2019 | ||
| Demographics | |||
| Population (2016)[1] | 53,809 | ||
| Area (km²) | 15,870 | ||
| Pop. density (per km²) | 3.4 | ||
| Census division(s) | 12 | ||
Geography
The district is located in northeastern Alberta, containing the communities of Cold Lake, Bonnyville, St. Paul and Elk Point, the MD of Bonnyville, most of St. Paul County, the Elizabeth and Fishing Lake Metis settlements, the Cold Lake First Nations, Kehewin First Nation, and Saddle Lake. It also includes CFB Cold Lake and the uninhabited Air Weapons Range (Improvement District No. 349).
History
| Members for Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assembly | Years | Member | Party | |
| See Bonnyville-Cold Lake 1997-2019 and Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills 2012-2019 | ||||
| 30th | 2019– | Dave Hanson | United Conservative | |
The district was created in 2017 when the Electoral Boundaries Commission recommended joining part of Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills to Bonnyville-Cold Lake. The Commission recommended naming the district Cold Lake-St. Paul, but the Assembly decided to retain Bonnyville in the name.
Some local officials expressed discontent with the creation of this riding, especially given that it is the most populous of the new districts.[2] According to the 2016 census, its population is 15% above the mean. The Commission justified this variance because, in their opinion, "this is an area where future population growth is likely to fall well below the provincial average."[3]
The district first elected United Conservative MLA Dave Hanson who had previously been elected to Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills as a Wildrose candidate in 2015. Hanson originally contested the UCP nomination against former Wildrose MLA for Bonnyville-Cold Lake Scott Cyr who would drop out prior to the constituency vote.[4] Hanson would defeat his next closest competitor, NDP candidate and teacher Kari Whan by over 12,000 votes.[5]
Electoral results
| Redistributed results, 2015 Alberta general election | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Votes | % | ||
| Wildrose | 7,381 | 43.90 | ||
| Progressive Conservative | 4,901 | 29.15 | ||
| New Democratic | 3,760 | 22.36 | ||
| Alberta Party | 628[lower-alpha 1] | 3.73 | ||
| Green | 143[lower-alpha 2] | 0.85 | ||
| Total valid votes | 16,813 | 100.00 | ||
- No candidate in Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills
- No candidate in Bonnyville-Cold Lake
| 2019 Alberta general election | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | ||||
| United Conservative | David Hanson | 15,943 | 73.09% | -0.01% | ||||
| New Democratic | Kari Whan | 3,061 | 14.03% | -8.37% | ||||
| Alberta Party | Glenn Anderson | 2,223 | 10.19% | +6.49% | ||||
| Independence | David Garnett-Bennett | 217 | 0.99% | – | ||||
| Alberta Advantage | David Inscho | 207 | 0.95% | – | ||||
| Independent | Kacey Daniels | 162 | 0.74% | – | ||||
| Total valid votes | 21,813 | 99.53 | – | |||||
| Rejected, spoiled, and declined | 102 | 0.47 | – | |||||
| Turnout | 21,915 | 61.23 | – | |||||
| Registered electors | 35,791 | – | – | |||||
| United Conservative notional hold | Swing | +4.18 | ||||||
Source(s)
"51 - Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, 2019 Alberta general election". officialresults.elections.ab.ca. Elections Alberta. Retrieved May 21, 2020. Change is based on re-distributed results from the 2015 Alberta general election. | ||||||||
References
- Statistics Canada: 2016
- MacEachern, Meagan (October 24, 2017). "Local dignitaries displeased with the Electoral Boundaries Commission final report". The Bonnyville Nouvelle. Great West Newspapers. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
- Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission (October 2017). "Proposed Electoral Division Areas, Boundaries, and Names for Alberta. Final Report to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta" (PDF). Legislative Assembly of Alberta. ISBN 978-1-988620-04-6. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
- "MLA Scott Cyr withdraws from UCP nomination battle against caucus colleague". CBC News. Edmonton. April 18, 2018. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
- MacEachern, Meagan (January 31, 2019). "Kari Whan: new to politics, but eager to get started". Lakeland Today. Great West Newspapers. Retrieved 30 June 2020.