Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche
Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche is a current provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada. The district will be 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche within Alberta (2017 boundaries) | |||
| Provincial electoral district | |||
| Legislature | Legislative Assembly of Alberta | ||
| MLA |
United Conservative | ||
| District created | 2017 | ||
| First contested | 2019 | ||
| Demographics | |||
| Population (2016)[1] | 44,166 | ||
| Area (km²) | 32,317 | ||
| Pop. density (per km²) | 1.4 | ||
Geography
The district is located in northeastern Alberta and is named for its main communities: it includes all of Lac La Biche County and the southern half of Fort McMurray (Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo). It also contains two reserves belonging to the Fort McMurray First Nation (Clearwater 175 and Gregoire Lake 176), all three reserves of the Chipewyan Prairie First Nation, the Heart Lake First Nation (on Heart Lake 167), the main reserve of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Beaver Lake 131, and one of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation's reserves (Whitefish Lake 128). Major transportation routes include Alberta Highways 36 (Veterans Memorial Highway), 55 (Northern Woods and Water Route), 63, and 881.
History
| Members of the Legislative Assembly for Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assembly | Years | Member | Party | |
| See Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills 2012-2019 and Fort McMurray-Conklin 2012-2019 |
||||
| 30th | 2019–Present | Laila Goodridge | United Conservative | |
The district was created in 2017 when the Electoral Boundaries Commission recommended abolishing Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills and extending the border of Fort McMurray-Conklin southward, renaming it in the process. The new district differs from the historical Lac La Biche-McMurray district in that it does not contain the whole of Fort McMurray. Its northern boundary is formed by the Athabasca River, Thickwood Boulevard within Fort McMurray, and the Clearwater River.[2]
The district first elected United Conservative MLA Laila Goodridge who had previously been elected to Fort McMurray-Conklin in the July 12, 2018 by-election following the resignation of Brian Jean on March 5, 2018.[3] Goodridge had previously stood as a Wildrose candidate for Grande Prairie-Wapiti in the 2015 Alberta general election, placing third behind PC Wayne Drysdale and NDP candidate Mary Dahr. The 2019 election would in many ways be a rematch of the 2018 by-election with Goodridge once again defeating Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo councillor and NDP candidate Jane Stroud, this time by 6,231 votes.[4]
Electoral results
| Redistributed results, 2015 Alberta election | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Votes | % | ||
| Wildrose | 4,910 | 42.59% | ||
| New Democratic | 3,833 | 33.25% | ||
| Progressive Conservative | 2,433 | 21.10% | ||
| Others | 353 | 3.06% | ||
2019 general election
| 2019 Alberta general election | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | ||||
| United Conservative | Laila Goodridge | 9,836 | 66.33% | +2.63% | ||||
| New Democratic | Jane Stroud | 3,635 | 24.51% | -8.79% | ||||
| Alberta Party | Jeff Fafard | 857 | 5.78% | – | ||||
| Alberta Independence | Mark Grinder | 271 | 1.83% | – | ||||
| Green | Brian Deheer | 230 | 1.55% | +0.45% | ||||
| Total | 14,829 | – | – | |||||
| Rejected, Spoiled and Declined | 95 | – | – | |||||
| Eligible electors / Turnout | 25,622 | 58.25% | – | |||||
| United Conservative notional hold | Swing | 5.73% | ||||||
Source(s)
Source: "60 - Fort Mcmurray-Lac La Biche, 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
- 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.
- McDermott, Vincent (2018-07-13). "United Conservatives win Alberta byelections". Edmonton Journal. Retrieved 2018-07-13.
- Walsh, Melanie (February 19, 2019). "NDP choose Jane Stroud and Steve Drover as provincial candidates". MyMcMurray. Rogers Digital Media. Retrieved 30 June 2020.