Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo is a provincial

electoral district An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. The district is one of 87 districts mandated to return a single member (MLA) to the

Legislative Assembly of Alberta The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the deliberative assembly of the province of Alberta, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton. The Legislative Assembly currently has 87 members, elected first past the post from si ...

using the

first past the post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

method of voting. The district had in recent years been favourable to the election of Progressive Conservative candidates, a trend broken when Tany Yao won it for the Wildrose. Yao joined the

United Conservative Party The United Conservative Party of Alberta (UCP) is a conservative political party in the province of Alberta, Canada. It was established in July 2017 as a merger between the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and the Wildrose Party ...

when the Wildrose merged with the PCs.

Geography

Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo is a largely rural riding in the northeast corner of Alberta. Municipally, the riding consists of the northern part of the

Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (abbreviated RMWB) is a specialized municipality in northeast Alberta, Canada. It is the second largest municipality in Alberta by area and is home to oil sand deposits known as the Athabasca oil sand ...

and almost all of Improvement District No. 24. The riding is home to the bulk of industrial activity relating to the Athabasca oil sands. The major urban centre in the region,

Fort McMurray Fort McMurray ( ) is an urban service area in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by boreal forest. It has played a significan ...

, is split between this riding and

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 me ...

, with the northern neighbourhood of Timberlea falling within the boundaries of Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo. Other communities in the riding include the hamlets of

Fort Chipewyan Fort Chipewyan , commonly referred to as Fort Chip, is a hamlet in northern Alberta, Canada, within the Regional Municipality (RM) of Wood Buffalo. It is located on the western tip of Lake Athabasca, adjacent to Wood Buffalo National Park, app ...

Fort Fitzgerald Fitzgerald, also known as Fort Fitzgerald and originally Smith's Landing, is an unincorporated community in northern Alberta, Canada within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, located south of the Northwest Territories border, and southe ...

, and

Fort McKay Fort McKay ( ) or Fort MacKay is a community in northeast Alberta, Canada that is located at the confluence of the Athabasca and MacKay rivers. It is approximately north of Fort McMurray via Highway 63 and Fort McKay Road. The community has an ...

. Three First Nation band governments are based in Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo:

Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN, chp, K'ai Taile Dené) is a band government. It represents local people of the Denesuline (Chipewyan) ethnic group. It controls eight Indian reserves: Chipewyan 201 and Chipewyan 201A through Chip ...

, Fort McKay First Nation, and

Mikisew Cree First Nation Mikisew Cree First Nation ( cr, ᒥᑭᓯᐤ, mikisiw, ''meaning: "golden eagle"'') is an Indigenous First Nations government of Woodland Cree people in northeastern Alberta and in Northwest Territories, Canada. Most Mikisew Cree First Nation ...

Smith's Landing First Nation Smith's Landing First Nation ( chp, Tthëbátthı́ dënesųłı̨ne) is a band government headquartered at Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada. Members of the band call themselves, in the Dene Suline language Chipewyan or Denesuline ( ...

is based outside of the riding but has several reserves within its boundaries. All of these bands are signatories of

Treaty 8 Treaty 8, which concluded with the June 21, 1899 signing by representatives of the Crown and various First Nations of the Lesser Slave Lake area, is the most comprehensive of the one of eleven Numbered Treaties. The agreement encompassed a ...

. In addition to Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche to the south, Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo also borders the riding of

Lesser Slave Lake Lesser Slave Lake (french: Petit lac des Esclaves)—known traditionally as "Beaver Lake" (ᐊᒥᐢᐠ ᓵᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ amisk sâkâhikan in the Plains Cree language, and T’saat’ine migeh in Dene Zhatıé) or "Beaver people were over the ...

to the southwest, the riding of

Peace River The Peace River (french: links=no, rivière de la Paix) is a river in Canada that originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows to the northeast through northern Alberta. The Peace River joins the Athabasca River in ...

to the west, the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

to the north, and the province of

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

to the east.

History

The electoral district was created in the 2004 electoral boundary re-distribution by merging the electoral district of

with a portion of

Athabasca-Wabasca Athabasca-Wabasca was a provincial electoral district in Alberta mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using first-past-the-post balloting from 1993 to 2004. Electoral district history The riding was created i ...

residing in the Municipal district of Wood Buffalo. The decade that went by since the district was created saw significant population growth due to exploration and development of the oil sands. The 2010 electoral boundary re-distribution resulted in the splitting of the district in two along north south lines creating Fort McMurray-Conklin in the eastern half.

Boundary history

Representation history

The electoral district was created in the 2003 boundary redistribution. The first election held that year saw Fort McMurray incumbent Progressive Conservative MLA Guy Boutilier win the new seat with a landslide over four other candidates to pick it up for his party. Boutilier was appointed as Minister of Environment by Premier

Ralph Klein Ralph Philip Klein (November 1, 1942 – March 29, 2013) was a Canadian politician and journalist who served as the 12th premier of Alberta and leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta from 1992 until his retirement in 20 ...

in 2004. In 2006 he was shuffled to Minister of International Relations. He ran for a second term as a cabinet minister in the 2008 general election. That election saw him win another big majority. On July 18, 2009 Boutilier was ejected from caucus by Premier

Ed Stelmach Edward Michael Stelmach (; born May 11, 1951) is a Canadian politician and served as the 13th premier of Alberta, from 2006 to 2011. The grandson of Ukrainian immigrants, Stelmach was born and raised on a farm near Lamont and fluently speak ...

after speaking out against the government over a broken promise to put a seniors care facility in

. He sat as an Independent until joining the Wildrose Alliance caucus as an Independent member on June 24, 2010. On October 25, 2010 he became a full member of the caucus. However, Boutilier was defeated in 2012 by PC Mike Allen. Allen was also ejected from PC caucus in 2013 after being caught in a prostitution sting while on an official trip to Minnesota, but was readmitted to caucus in 2014. In the 2015 election, Allen was defeated by Wildrose candidate Tany Yao. When the Wildrose and PC parties merged in 2017, Yao joined the new

along with the rest of the Wildrose caucus. Yao running as a member of the United Conservative Party would once again defeat NDP candidate Stephen Drover in the 2019 general election by a healthy margin of 7,140 votes.

Legislature results

2004 general election

2008 general election

2012 general election

2015 general election

2019 general election

Senate nominee results

2004 Senate nominee election district results

''Voters had the option of selecting 4 Candidates on the Ballot''

2012 Senate nominee election district results

Student Vote results

2004 election

On November 19, 2004 a Student Vote was conducted at participating Alberta schools to parallel the 2004 Alberta general election results. The vote was designed to educate students and simulate the electoral process for persons who have not yet reached the legal majority. The vote was conducted in 80 of the 83 provincial electoral districts with students voting for actual election candidates. Schools with a large student body that reside in another electoral district had the option to vote for candidates outside of the electoral district then where they were physically located.

2012 election

References

External links

Elections AlbertaThe Legislative Assembly of AlbertaDemographics for Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo
{{coord missing, Alberta Alberta provincial electoral districts Fort McMurray