The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is the

deliberative assembly A deliberative assembly is a meeting of members who use parliamentary procedure. Etymology In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January ew Style, NS1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish Po ...

of the province of

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, Canada. It sits in the Alberta Legislature Building in

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

. Since 2012 the Legislative Assembly has had 87 members, elected

first past the post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

from single-member

electoral district An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

s. Bills passed by the Legislative Assembly are given

royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...

by the lieutenant governor of Alberta, as the viceregal representative of the King of Canada. The Legislative Assembly and the Lieutenant Governor together make up the unicameral Alberta Legislature. The maximum period between general elections of the assembly, as set by Section 4 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is five years, which is further reinforced in Alberta's ''Legislative Assembly Act''. Convention dictates the premier controls the date of election and usually selects a date in the fourth or fifth year after the preceding election. Amendments to Alberta's ''Election Act'' introduced in 2024 fixed the date of election to the third Monday in October in the fourth calendar year following the preceding election. Alberta has never had a minority government and an election as a result of a vote of no confidence has never occurred. To be a candidate for election to the assembly, a person must be a Canadian citizen older than 18 who has lived in Alberta for at least six months before the election and has registered with Elections Alberta under the ''Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act''.

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

s, senators-in-waiting, members of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

, and criminal inmates are ineligible. The 30th Alberta Legislature was dissolved on May 1, 2023. The members-elect of the 31st Alberta Legislature were elected on May 29.

History

The first session of the first Legislature of Alberta opened on March 15, 1906, in the Thistle Rink, Edmonton, north of Jasper Avenue. After the speech from the throne, the assembly held its sessions in the McKay Avenue School. In this school Alberta MLAs chose the provincial capital, Edmonton, and the future site for the Alberta Legislature Building: the bank of the

North Saskatchewan River The North Saskatchewan River is a glacier-fed river that flows from the Canadian Rockies continental divide east to central Saskatchewan, where it joins with the South Saskatchewan River to make up the Saskatchewan River. Its water flows event ...

. Allan Merrick Jeffers, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design was the

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

who was chosen to build the assembly building. From 1908 to 1911 the Legislative Assembly met in a hall annexed to the old Terrace Building. In September 1912 Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, Governor General of Canada, declared the new Legislature building officially open. Louise McKinney and Roberta MacAdams were the first women elected to the assembly, in the 1917 election. They were also the first women in any legislature of the British Empire. The United Farmers of Alberta held a majority of seats in the legislative assembly from 1921 to 1935 and formed the longest-lived agrarian revolt government in Canada. From 1926 to 1955, Edmonton and Calgary MLAs were elected through a form of

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

. In 1935, the Alberta Social Credit Party held a majority in the Assembly.

Current members

The members of the 31st Alberta Legislature were elected in the 31st Alberta general election held on May 29, 2023. Bold indicates cabinet members, and ''party leaders'' are ''italicized''.

Standings during 31st Assembly

The 31st Alberta Legislative Assembly was constituted after the general election on May 29, 2023. The United Conservative Party, led by incumbent Premier Danielle Smith, formed the government with a reduced majority. The New Democrats, led by former Premier Rachel Notley, won the second most seats and formed the official opposition.

Seating plan

* Party leaders are italicized. Bold indicates cabinet minister.

Notes

References

External links

Legislative Assembly of Alberta web site Legislative Assembly of Alberta history - Citizens guide

Canadian Governments ComparedLegislative Assembly of Alberta - History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Legislative Assembly Of Alberta *

1905 establishments in Alberta