In April 2012, spooked by the dangers posed by a far-right Wildrose government, progressive voters in Alberta abandoned the parties they supported by the thousands to vote for Premier Alison Redford's Conservatives.

What they got when they walked away from the New Democrats, the Alberta Liberals and the Alberta Party, it turns out, was a Wildrose government.

By this, of course, I don't mean a government headed by Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith. No, Alberta was spared the embarrassment of having a glib Fraser Institute intern occupying the premier's office. Rather, I mean they got a government in which the far-right, highly ideological Wildrose Party drives the locomotive.