John Bolton - May 02, 2026


I Almost Called It Quits Yesterday - Maybe You Can Relate


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

174.78847

Word count

1,687

Sentence count

125


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel 420 a.m. Saturday, May the 2nd. I hope you're having a
00:00:09.020 great start to your Saturday and to your weekend as well. I tip the big blue mug of coffee to you
00:00:14.560 today and my Saturday May 2nd is starting better than my whole Friday May 1st was. I'm thinking
00:00:23.820 back to what I was told when I was in college and now this takes me back to Fanshawe College,
00:00:28.640 London, Ontario, 40 years ago. Oh my God, it's been 40 years. I had a teacher named Ray Wilmot.
00:00:36.440 He taught announcing, production, things like that in school. We used to use tape
00:00:40.300 in school back then, folks. Records. I remember Ray saying one day, you know, if you go on the
00:00:47.140 air and you're hung over, you're not feeling well, you're having a bad day, don't tell people about
00:00:52.880 it because they don't care. They've got problems of their own. I always remember that. And I'll
00:00:58.600 tell you, back in the day when I used to drink, I used to go into work sometimes not feeling very
00:01:03.880 good, but nobody who was listening to me knew it. So you might say, John, you're complaining about
00:01:10.540 what happened yesterday, but I think some of you may be able to relate right now, and I hope it's
00:01:15.340 helpful. I had a crisis of conscience yesterday. Now, what is that? I had anxiety yesterday. It
00:01:22.140 was an inner struggle, and I was kind of conflicted between what I've been doing and
00:01:27.420 talking about over the last year all this stuff that's happened this week has had a toll on me
00:01:33.000 it really has this centurion project stuff i haven't mentioned the name of that group
00:01:38.000 all week long i'm trying to stay positive about this but i had a crisis of conscience
00:01:44.300 i went on x yesterday i was reading what was going on on x yesterday and i try to be positive
00:01:51.460 and this is what I posted after reading comments from people who are involved in the independence
00:01:57.980 movement eating each other alive online. Reading what goes on here shows me why I stay away from
00:02:05.480 social media. Would all of you just S-T-F-U? I didn't put an exclamation point at the end. I was
00:02:12.140 asking them to please stop. And I don't have a big footprint on social media. I don't go there
00:02:20.600 very often. I don't have a large following. A few people followed up right after you. Tommy on my
00:02:27.680 side here. Rosemary on my side here. Carrie Ann on my side here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
00:02:35.800 Thank you. I don't want this to be a negative post today, but I'm concerned about the discussion
00:02:42.160 that's going on right now. I was saying to my wife yesterday, how can we stop all the people
00:02:46.780 who I admire in this movement from fighting with each other. She said, John, you can't do anything
00:02:51.180 about that. They're going to do what they're going to do. My hope is, my hope is that some
00:02:56.920 of these people who are battling it out online, that they can stand side by side somewhere down
00:03:03.680 the road and shake hands and realize that we're all in this together. I really hope that happens.
00:03:08.820 Somebody who I admire very much in the independence movement sent me a text message yesterday and I
00:03:14.800 spoke to him and he said, I admire that what you're doing and trying to stay positive, but it has been
00:03:19.460 very hard. A lot of things came at me yesterday. And I said to my wife, I'm thinking about hanging
00:03:25.440 it up. I'm so discouraged at what's going on right now. But you know who kept me grounded yesterday
00:03:32.020 other than my wife, who is my rock? I'm going to tell you. I spoke with Mitch Sylvester yesterday
00:03:39.680 and we laughed our asses off on the phone. We talked about a lot of things yesterday. He's
00:03:44.500 excited about Monday. Mitch has stayed out of the fray. He realizes that Stay Free Alberta has got
00:03:51.020 nothing to do with this. I'm getting a tear in my eye because the guy kept me positive and optimistic
00:03:57.800 yesterday because he's not letting this bother him. He's got his eyes on the prize. And thank
00:04:05.140 goodness we've got him. He's been a rock through this, folks. Mitch, I don't think he's even on
00:04:11.720 social media and good for him. If it wasn't for Mitch yesterday, I would have walked away
00:04:17.980 because I'm tired of this. Now, what you need to understand is this, the other side is going to
00:04:24.240 try to divide us and things like this can divide us. And that's what concerned me. What's fascinating
00:04:31.380 to me is earlier this week, I spoke with Matt Rowley from the Renew Project, from Renew Alberta,
00:04:36.820 Sorry. Very nice guy. I don't think has any ill will towards the independence movement. And some
00:04:46.300 people went after me for talking to him. And it wasn't Renew Alberta that ended up in the headlines
00:04:52.500 this week. It was the Centurion Project, which to be honest with you, I know nothing about other
00:04:57.940 than it was an app or something and people shared information. I've never met David Parker. I know
00:05:04.180 he's got a reputation here in alberta but we need to stay positive and stick together on this thing
00:05:12.840 got a big event coming up on monday i'm excited about and we need to focus on things like that
00:05:17.560 but i'm telling you it was a tough day yesterday for me it really was
00:05:20.740 i got i got worried about things i really did
00:05:25.680 and we need to stay focused on what we've been doing over the last year i know i'm sounding
00:05:32.000 like a broken record. It sounds like what I said yesterday, but that's true. But I'm sticking with
00:05:37.760 Mitch on this one, folks. He's remained positive. You could tell when I was talking to him yesterday,
00:05:43.380 he had a big smile on his face. He's very positive about what's going on right now.
00:05:49.940 You need to realize that fear is a good way to motivate people. And the fear is from the people
00:05:57.180 on the other side is that they've released your names and you need to be fearful. Don't trust the
00:06:04.960 independence movement. This has nothing to do with Stay Free Alberta. The petitions that were
00:06:09.580 the signatures that were gathered were all on the up and up. People are trying to say we have to
00:06:15.140 disregard the petitions that will be handed in on Monday because of this list. People walked up to
00:06:21.020 tables for the last four months in the snow to sign the petition. This has nothing to do with
00:06:28.220 the Centurion Project. Nothing. There's a quote I remember. It's a tough one to remember, but I
00:06:34.640 remember it. And it's something that came to mind around the time of COVID. It's by H.L. Mencken,
00:06:43.080 who was a writer, mid-1900s I guess, I'm not exactly sure, H.L. Mencken, the whole aim of
00:06:51.780 practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety
00:06:58.580 by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. Don't be fearful.
00:07:07.960 the people on the other side are going to try to scare people away from independence
00:07:14.640 a fear of the unknown
00:07:17.460 I'm fearful of what's happened in Canada I remember what it was like I know what it's
00:07:24.120 like now and I know where it's going I'm fearful of that I'd rather take a chance at a better life
00:07:31.420 for myself, then have what's coming in Canada. I'm not afraid of what's coming. That's a message
00:07:39.460 we have to pass along to people as we move forward in this movement. I wish everybody a good day in
00:07:47.840 Muir, Alberta today. They're going up to Chris Scott's place. Chris is doing good stuff. I have
00:07:52.420 to say that. I was out in Delburn a couple of weeks ago. You know, I'm going to have to get
00:07:57.620 some of these people. Zane Novak was there. Ben Crane was outstanding, real down-home guy.
00:08:04.080 Chris was outstanding. Corey Morgan was there. I'm going to have to go out to more of their
00:08:09.040 events. I'm excited about that. All the best of the people going to Mirror today. I believe
00:08:15.260 they're leaving around nine o'clock from up at the iFly, 64th Avenue, Deerfoot Trail,
00:08:20.720 Northeast Calgary, if you want to go with them today. I'm staying home. I'm going to take the
00:08:24.000 off today. I'm going to spend some time with my wife, as I said in a video I did, in my backyard
00:08:29.320 after a bike ride. I went for a bike ride yesterday, I'll tell you. Take some time and get away from
00:08:35.160 the perpetual rage machine. Stay off social media. Go for a walk. Walk your dog. Hit some golf balls.
00:08:40.980 Go for a bike ride. There are other things to talk about, I'm sure, today. I'll get back to it. But
00:08:46.340 thank you very much for your support here. You know, keep it positive. Keep it optimistic.
00:08:50.880 Mitch has been awesome this last 11 months that I've known him and he saved me yesterday along
00:08:58.660 with my wife fall back on your family and put your trust in Mitch he's been just an amazing
00:09:03.580 person and I'm glad to know him and for those of you who aren't on this channel later today
00:09:08.940 early tomorrow I hope to see you on Monday in Edmonton at Elections Alberta the event kicks
00:09:14.280 off around 1 30 in the afternoon it's going to be an outstanding day come on out there wave your
00:09:20.480 flags and let's go for Alberta independence. Thank you very much. I hope you don't mind me
00:09:26.040 kind of talking about personal issues I've had, but I think a lot of you are dealing with the
00:09:32.380 same thing. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel,
00:09:36.000 ring the bell for notifications. I'll see you in the next one.