Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills is a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada. The district is one of 87 districts mandated to return a single member (MLA) to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first past the post method of voting.
This riding in south-central Alberta stretches from the Red Deer River in the east to the area around Cremona in the west. Agriculture is the major employer, with retail a distant second. Household incomes, at $53,174, are below the Alberta average.[1] Seven per cent of residents are considered low income. More than two-thirds of the people here were born in Alberta, while seven per cent are immigrants. People of German origin make up nine per cent of the population. More than 96 per cent say their language at home is English, the second-highest rate in Alberta (2001 census). In 2021, National Post columnist Colby Cosh said that the district "might be the single most truculently conservative anywhere" in Canada.[2]
The electoral district was created in the 1996 electoral boundary re-distribution from the old electoral districts of Olds-Didsbury and Three Hills-Airdrie.
In the 2004 electoral boundary re-distribution the boundaries changed somewhat, with an agricultural section in the far west transferred to Banff-Cochrane, while in the southeast a section of the old Drumheller-Chinook riding - including the community of Carbon - was added. Major communities include Olds, Didsbury, Carstairs, Trochu and Three Hills, as well as Olds College. It covers Kneehill County and most of Mountain View County.[3]
The 2010 electoral boundary re-distribution saw the district absorb the northern portions of Airdrie-Chestermere and Foothills-Rocky View which were both abolished and it lost some land on the eastern boundary to Drumheller-Stettler.[4]
The 2017 electoral boundary re-distribution resulted in the expansion of the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills electoral district to include the northern portion of Wheatland County, formerly part of the Strathmore-Brooks constituency. The resulting population of the district in 2017 was 49,418, 6% above the provincial average population of 46,803.[5]