Sask. political panel reacts to early voter turnout for the Alberta referendum

Our neighbours are heading into a big vote on Monday. Many have cast ballots already. Eyes on Alberta, of course, and Monday's referendum and how voters feel about separation. Marie Madrigal is a political columnist. CBC reporter Alexander Kwan is with us as well. They joined us in the studio to talk about this. Alex, what's been the reaction to the early voting that's already started this week? Yeah, the numbers are pretty significant. They include 186,000 Albertans who cast their votes in the first day of advance voting. Elections Alberta has also received and processed 454,000 special ballots. Now, that's a significant amount of people. Prime Minister Mark Carney was in Calgary last night. He urged Albertans to vote against the nine referendum questions that are on the ballot and, of course, urged them to vote to stay in Canada. Carney is also set to spend a few more days in the province ahead of the vote next week. The Federalist push is also receiving some more support from Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who is set to speak in Calgary today. And Elections Alberta says they're expecting a turnout of about 85%, which is significantly higher than most elections in Saskatchewan, in Alberta, in Canada. So a large turnout for this this kind of monumental vote Marie, what does this mean for the vote on Monday given that there is such a big turnout we've seen long lineups people are being patient and now these rallies that are happening i can't let that 85 percent number go like i mean i have not seen that in my lifetime and like back in the days if you got 80 percent turnout for a general election it was an amazing thing no one's going to be elected to office as a result of this so there'll be no immediate change uh i i think that's great for the anti-separatist side uh it's hard to tell because there's certainly a lot of enthusiasm on the part of the separatists to get out to get their vote out if you're committed to that notion you're committed to casting uh your ballots your ballots so the heavy initial turnout or mail-in ballot hard to say uh i'm a little concerned that if you're looking at a situation where you got 400 some odd uh thousand uh votes already uh cast in one form or the other plus early voting that seems an impressive number which it is but if you're looking at 85 percent of turnout that's still in essence 60 70 percentage points of people lining up for a long time to cast their ballots and in the nature of this particular referendum that's often been kind of driven by emotion. In some cases, conspiracy theories. In other cases, wild ideas. I'm fearful that the net result is only going to add to the angry discourse that's going to happen afterwards. We probably won't know the results on election night simply because there's so many ballots to cast. We know what happened in the 2024 Saskatchewan election, probably the 2020 Saskatchewan election, where things are delayed. Now, I know they're casting the ballots related to the separation question first, and that will satisfy a lot of voices if there's a vote on that. But I think anything that adds to the distrust of government and distrust of the system is going to be a bad thing for Alberta in the long run. And I see that whole scenario unfolding right now as it is simply because there is going to be so many people out that want to have their say. Now, if it's a huge turnout and if the results go the way they're going, that's less— Based on the polls. Yeah, based on the polls. That's less of an argument for the separatist side to say there was anything other than a definitive answer that people want to stay in Canada. And so I think that might be a good news, but at this point, that's just going to be wild speculation. I guess we'll kind of see how that vote goes and how many people do actually turn out.