Under-representation on city council a historical problem

By Letter to the Editor on September 9, 2020.

Historian and counsellor Belinda Crowson notes that Lethbridge’s consideration of the ward system has been going on for more than a century. She says it began in December 1907 when William Henderson made the ward system a key plank in his campaign for a seat on Lehbridge’s first city council.

Henderson’s argument was that it would give fairer representation to the citizens of north Lethbridge but he failed to persuade the majority of council to support him. As a consequence, over the last 100 years north Lethbridge has been under-represented on city council and, in some instances, it has had no representation at all. I have endeavoured to obtain information from city hall with regard to the number of councils that had no representation from north Lethbridge but to date I have been unsuccessful.

However, the composition of the present city council demonstrates the problem. West Lethbridge, the largest of the three comunities in the city, elected the mayor and three councillors. South Lethbridge, with the second-largest population in the city, elected four councillors, while north Lethbridge, with a population only marginally smaller than south Lethbridge, elected only one councillor. It would seem that the problem William Hendeson foresaw in 1907 has been confirmed in 2020.

Robert Tarleck

Lethbridge