Legal and Morinville residents could lose up to two of their trustees under proposed changes to ward boundaries for the region’s Catholic schools.
Greater St. Albert Catholic parents will meet this month to debate proposed changes to the district’s electoral ward boundaries.
GSACRD is split into three wards — St. Albert, Morinville, and Legal — with four, two, and one trustee allocated to each respectively. During trustee elections (which correspond to municipal council elections), voters affiliated with the Catholic district pick one or more trustees to represent the ward they reside in.
The Education Act requires boards to review ward boundaries every four years to ensure proportional representation, said GSACRD board chair Lydia Yeomans.
“We’re looking to create a little more equity between communities.”
Redraw the map?
Ideally, GSACRD's seven trustees should each represent about 12,900 of the 90,300 people in the district to grant everyone equal representation on the board, the GSACRD website on the ward review says. This is not currently the case; right now, each St. Albert trustee represents about 18,600 people, while Morinville and Legal trustees represent 6,900 and 2,000 respectively.
The boundary review asks voters if they want to keep this setup or change it.
One option is to merge the Legal and Morinville wards and give St. Albert one more trustee, resulting in five for St. Albert (about 14,900 people per trustee) and two for everywhere else (around 7,900 per trustee).
The other two options merge Morinville and Legal but also trim the number of trustees to six — a situation where each trustee would ideally represent about 15,100 people. This would leave the Morinville/Legal ward with either one trustee representing about 15,900 people, or two trustees representing about 7,900 each.
Yeomans said trustees are meant to speak for all residents regardless of their ward, and would endeavour to speak for Morinville and Legal if any changes to the ward boundaries were made.
“Under no circumstances will communities not be represented.”
Trustee Cathy Proulx, who represents the Legal ward, said she and other residents believe local representation on the board is important and are concerned about how these proposed changes would affect Legal, the smallest community in the district.
“There is some fear of losing that local voice.”
Yeomans said the board wants to hear what residents think of these proposed changes. They have launched an online survey, and will hold open houses at the old Father Jan school on Oct. 23, the Legal School on Oct. 24, and Morinville Community High on Oct. 29. The open houses run from 7 to 8:30 p.m., with guests asked to register in advance.
Yeomans said the board will take comments from the survey and open houses and decide how to adjust the ward boundaries (if at all) this November. Any revisions will be sent to the provincial government for approval by Dec. 31 and be in effect for the fall 2025 trustee election.
Details on the ward review can be found at www.gsacrd.ab.ca/trustees/board-of-trustees-ward-boundary-review.
