Fildebrandt could end up running in new Brooks-Medicine Hat riding

By Collin Gallant on October 21, 2017.

Medicine Hat News

Whether voters in north Medicine Hat will have outspoken MLA Derek Fildebrandt as a candidate in the next provincial election remains to be determined, he told the News on Friday.

Fildebrandt — who sits as an independent representing Brooks-Strathmore — will likely see his current riding split in half after plans to alter voting boundaries were presented this week.

Brooks would join Medicine Hat in a new riding, while Strathmore moves to join with Chestermere.

Fildebrandt could likely rejoin a United Conservative Party at some point, but that party — formed this summer — is still waiting to form local riding associations or decide how future candidates will be selected.

“These decisions are best dealt with diplomatically,” he told the News on Friday.

He said he is still discussing the issue and his future plans with his family, but was generally enthusiastic about the chances of the United Conservative Party in the next election.

He left the party this summer after a controversy erupted over the renting out of his subsidized Edmonton residence.

As for how a new dual-centred riding of Brooks-Medicine Hat might operate, he said the two cities are similar and face similar issues.

“Brooks and Medicine Hat do have a lot in common and should be able to work well together,” he said of the current report.

He said he generally disagrees with the commission’s aims to better rebalance urban and rural ridings to account for growing urban centres and generally declining rural ones.

Fildebrandt’s official statement to the commission was that Strathmore-Brooks should be left unchanged.

However, he said, if change was to occur, moving the entire County of Newell as one piece in with Drumheller was a better solution than joining the Calgary bedroom community of Strathmore into a huge eastern Alberta riding.

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