City Notebook: What’s in a name?

By Collin Gallant on June 21, 2025.

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One sub-plot in how provincial ridings in the southeast are drawn is clearly the political realities of blending urban voters (theoretically more progressive) and rural voters (theoretically more conservative).

Another, clearly, how the ridings are named and civic rivalry.

Hatters have always had some anxiety about the city’s standing.

Submissions to the 2017 work of the Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission included a parade of conservative voices outlining the benefits of making the Medicine Hat riding, then held by NDP MLA Bob Wanner, in two.

Currently, Wanner and others are suggesting a return to the former city and city-county ridings, and removing Brooks from the equation to keep a more singular focus on local issues. That’s supported by former PC MLAs Rob Renner and Jim Horsman, who say they don’t have a dog in this fight.

Other conservatives say it’s working just fine, creating a more cohesive region should be the goal. Of course, the United Conservatives hold both currently, including the party leader and premier’s.

But 2017 proposals also featured prominent calls to keep the name “Medicine Hat” in the riding that joined Brooks in a new urban-rural split set up in the southeast.

This spring’s hearings include some wondering about why is it “Brooks-Medicine Hat” and not “Medicine Hat-Brooks.”

“We read left to right,” suggested commission member and professor Julian Martin, noting the maps have Brooks to the west (on the left of a map) and the Hat on the east.

More philosophically, Martin was also taken by an analysis of Hatter Gil Blouin, who said the question is determining where one area of common interest for a centre blends into another’s.

“I use the sea (as an) analogy to describe the surrounding area because seas are somewhat amorphous,” Blouin told the commission. “You look at them on the map and you don’t know where this sea starts, that sea ends, or whether it’s part of an ocean, or how that works. I believe this area is a bit like that.”

“The island obviously to me is the City of Medicine Hat.”

Martin recommended attendees of the hearing read the short novel “Wolf Willow” by Wallace Stegner about growing up in the Cypress Hills in the 1910s.

Everyone should.

Fun with math

This week’s old news feature looked back at flooding in the Hat over the years, and with heavy rain expected this week, let’s run through the terminology.

River flow is measured in cubic metres of water per second moving past a set point (in Medicine Hat it’s near Finlay Bridge, as was 100 CMS on Thursday).

One cubic metre translates to 1,000 litres, if you recall elementary school science class, and one litre of water is the standard for one kilogram of weight.

About 5,000 cubic metres per second was the top flow in the 1995 and 2013 floods in town.

Move the decimal places and you’ll arrive at 5 million litres of water arriving every second. And you shouldn’t need Isaac Newton to tell you that creates an amazing amount of momentum.

A look ahead

The question of creating a municipally controlled corporation for the city power plant and energy distribution systems is the focus of a public hearing Tuesday, starting at 4 p.m. at city council chambers. Such a hearing is a requirement under rules for municipal governments before a decision can be made at a subsequent meeting. Disclosure is available at the city’s “shapeyourcity” website.

100 years ago

A complete list of results for Grade 8 history and geography exams was published in the News on June 15, 1925, including names and final grades.

The practice was not uncommon, and included even those with extremely low marks, which in the case of Connaught School that year was 18 of 100.

Community rink organizers offered a cash prize for anyone who could stay aboard “Shrapnel Pete,” a bucking mule, as a fundraiser that would also feature an exhibition of men’s gymnastics.

The Canadian Militia and 300 regular soldiers with mounts were dispatched to break up rioting in Cape Breton as a four-month strike by 12,000 workers after company stores were looted.

The escalation came after one miner, Bill Davis, was shot and killed by company police four days earlier.

Calgary Power outlined a proposal to built a hydroelectric dam on Spray Lakes in Banff National Park, but would need Ottawa’s approval.

Another “big gasser” in the Foremost field was producing 12 million cubic feet of gas per day after blowing at 2,200 feet.

The Ottawa Citizen and Toronto Globe endorsed a proposed bill to allow voters to cast “an alternate vote” that would be counted in cases where leading candidates secured 40 per cent support or less.

The “current rigid system” left 60 per cent of voters unrepresented, read a reprinted editorial.

Among those ridings which would have been affected were Battle River and Lethbridge along with two each in Calgary and Edmonton.

Collin Gallant covers city politics and a variety of topics for the News. Reach him at 403-528-5664 or via email at cgallant@medicinehatnews.com.