In a refreshing sign of intelligent life on the Great Plains of Alberta, voters in the Lethbridge-West byelection sent New Democrat Rob Miyashiro to the provincial legislature in Edmonton Wednesday.

And if the UCP thought running a former Lethbridge police chief would do the trick for them, that flopped too.

Mount Royal University political science professor Keith Brownsey said last night the byelection results “are a very good indication of NDP strength.”

“The NDP focused on economic issues,” Brownsey told Alberta Politics. “There was also, anecdotally, a lot of concern over pensions” — that is, Premier Danielle Smith’s plan to replace the Canada Pension Plan with an Alberta pension.