John Bolton - September 25, 2026


Young People - What Do They Want？ Is It Alberta Independence？

Topics
soft sell commercial for alberta independence
Hosted by
John Bolton
Mentioned
Sanika Taylor Young Alberta Angela Tabak Gen Z Sanica
Can Alberta Afford Independence？ Yes, We Can! with Dennis Kalma Carney's Casualties - The Economy & Jobs, But MOSTLY YOU

Episode Stats


Length

17 minutes

Words per minute

208.56

Word count

3,560

Sentence count

183

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel. Great to have you along today. Thank you very much
00:00:07 for being part of this channel. I do appreciate it. I raise the big blue mug of coffee to you
00:00:12 today. And I've got a special guest with me today who's giggling in the background there. I'd like
00:00:17 to welcome Sanika Taylor, who is the creator of youngalberta.com. And I would suggest anybody,
00:00:24 you don't have to be young, you know, there's no restrictions here. Head over to youngalberta.com
00:00:29 to find out what the website is about. But we're going to give you a little background here about
00:00:34 youngalberta.com as you watch this video over the next 10 to 15 minutes. Sanika,
00:00:39 thank you so much for being here. I do appreciate it.
00:00:41 Oh, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to share what we're doing.
00:00:44 So before I ask you about youngalberta.com, you know, I did an interview a few weeks back,
00:00:52 and it was Seniors for Independence. And 25,000, 30,000 people watched that video,
00:00:58 which I was surprised about. Generally, long form videos don't do quite as well on the channel,
00:01:03 but people were really interested in seniors and what they were thinking when it came to politics.
00:01:09 And in particular, we're going to be talking in relation to the Alberta independence movement.
00:01:13 As you know, a lot of seniors voted liberal last year. A lot of the boomers are part of the
00:01:18 forever Canadian. And we're trying to get into the psychology of seniors. I kind of wanted to 0.68
00:01:22 do the same thing with you, but we'll do it from a young person's standpoint. So when we talk about
00:01:28 young Albertans, what age group are you considering when you're doing that? I think basically young
00:01:35 millennials and Gen Z, basically anyone who's grown up in the age of social media, because that
00:01:39 technology has just defined who we are so much. Yes, absolutely. So what is youngalberta.com?
00:01:46 and i guess one word question why it is a platform we've also got a podcast that's kind of where our
00:01:53 best content lives but the podcast and the website are all about helping young people connect with
00:01:58 each other share their stories about how they're bettering their communities but then also being a
00:02:02 resource to find balance and trustworthy information where you can kind of get a whole picture
00:02:07 of current events including like the alberta referendum so that um it kind of addresses some
00:02:12 of the issues that people young people have with getting information from social media where it
00:02:16 feels really fragmented we're trying to bring everything together so you can go to kind of a
00:02:20 peaceful place to find a real information okay remind me to come back to peaceful in just a
00:02:26 moment okay i want to come back to that word um now this is a wide open question and and you can
00:02:32 interpret this any way you want what do young people want today there's a lot of things i i
00:02:40 think we really want stability and we really want connection um in general i think even though we are
00:02:46 digitally connected i think we feel quite isolated in general right and also the future of our
00:02:52 economy and our country and stuff kind of feels unstable and that's a little bit of you know
00:02:57 anxiety inducing and i think we want something um that we can count on a little bit more you know
00:03:02 okay so this is interesting i'm 61 years of age i was a young person at one time i i am not living
00:03:08 in your world. I never lived in the world you're in. I remember having to pull over Sanica to get
00:03:14 a phone so I could make a phone call. I remember asking my parents if they could lend me money on
00:03:19 Friday night so I could go out with my buddies. They didn't get to the bank. There were no bank
00:03:22 machines back then. There weren't even DCRs to record television programs or microwave ovens
00:03:28 like we have today. And certainly there was no social media. There was nothing like this.
00:03:33 You know, if you didn't know where your friends were when you went on on Friday night, you would
00:03:36 never find them. And it's so easy to do that. But you've used a couple of words here that I find
00:03:41 interesting. You said the word, you want a peaceful place for young Albertans. And you
00:03:46 used the word anxiety, which is a word that I would have never considered when I was a young
00:03:51 person. Why are those words important? Are young people anxious? Oh my goodness. I think it's
00:03:59 baffling a lot of older people like why our generation is so anxious. And I think there's
00:04:03 there's multiple reasons and it depends on your situation but i think just the way that we interact
00:04:08 with the world through the internet um algorithms feed off of strong emotion and so that you know
00:04:15 coming as a young person into adulthood with very little experience because we're young and then
00:04:21 just being fed all of this emotion through the internet about current events it's really hard
00:04:25 to orient yourselves and there are very few resources that i've been able to find that just
00:04:30 really um kind of counteract that that you know way of getting information you talked about being
00:04:36 connected um and my generation would say that we're more connected than ever but then at the
00:04:42 same time we would say we're not really connected at all because we used to have personal interactions
00:04:48 with people now people interact you know with their thumbs they do a lot of their interaction
00:04:53 through that so um are young people not feeling connected with each other even though all of this
00:04:59 technology exists? Yeah, there's really no replacement for one-on-one information. And,
00:05:04 you know, I'm a parent of young kids and even for very young people, there's just a struggle
00:05:09 to find, you know, ways to have people just spending casual time one-on-one. Everyone
00:05:14 wants to be on their devices. So it is isolating. You talked about peaceful, you talked about
00:05:20 anxiety, but what do young people worry about? I mean, specifically, are they worried about the
00:05:26 future? Are they worried about owning a home? Are they worried about a good paying job? Things like
00:05:30 that. Oh, I think absolutely. It's sometimes very hard to find a decent job, you know, that will
00:05:35 actually cover the expenses that you need. And I mean, I understand this. I'm a young person. My
00:05:39 husband just got a new job. It's a difficult process. And also like home prices. I've been
00:05:44 renting my whole adult life and I don't know when we'll be able to afford a home because it's just,
00:05:49 it is what it is, you know? Who do young people blame for that?
00:05:51 oh it depends on who you follow on social media really i you know there's the i can't speak for
00:05:58 everyone i think everyone kind of just generally just generally any idea but i think generally it
00:06:04 is like yeah politicians are the people in power um and i i think there is some validity to that
00:06:10 that you know they're making decisions that are not making it easier for us right right okay so
00:06:14 i want to move over to sort of leading us into alberta independence because that's how i connected
00:06:20 with you. I wanted to talk to you about that. I think you've kind of got conflicting feelings
00:06:24 about it yourself from the discussion I had with you for a few minutes. So maybe you can
00:06:28 clear that up with me, but how do, how do young people feel about the Alberta independence
00:06:33 movement? And maybe right off the top, are they paying attention to what's going on with this
00:06:37 right now? I think, I think a lot of them are. I think a lot more young people are than are
00:06:43 willing to talk about it because online shaming is just a part of our lives now. People have to
00:06:48 really careful about not getting on the wrong side of like the internet you know um so i think
00:06:52 there are a lot of people who are thinking about it but maybe quietly um of course there are young
00:06:57 people who are willing to talk about it on the internet and maybe even in person um but i i think
00:07:03 i think there is a broad spectrum like i think there are a lot of young people who support it
00:07:07 and there are a lot of young people who really disagree with it um but i think the big thing is
00:07:12 just that we're not we don't feel like we can talk about it there's not a space for us to do that
00:07:16 um without conflict and so is really kind of hard to gauge just off the bat you know kind
00:07:21 of where young people are as a whole you said did you say online shaming so it must be hard
00:07:29 to get a true understanding of what people are feeling about independence and canada because
00:07:35 people are afraid to discuss those things online right well and especially like consider you just
00:07:41 got a new job you're just establishing yourself in this really difficult economy and maybe your
00:07:45 your boss is anti-Alberta independence. If you come out online and say that you're pro-Alberta
00:07:49 independence, you have to wonder, like, are there ramifications among my co-workers or in general?
00:07:54 Like, you just don't want to be cancelled kind of thing. And I think that goes both ways. Like,
00:07:57 whatever side you stand on, if you're worried about what people on the other side are going
00:08:01 to think, and maybe before that wasn't such a big deal, but now on the internet, what people say
00:08:05 about you is kind of permanent. It can be really hard to erase that. I think maybe a conclusion we
00:08:11 can come to here is that it's really kind of hard to know what young people are going to do on
00:08:14 october 19th on any of the questions that are there because they don't want to reveal how they
00:08:21 feel about these things and it's kind of sad that that's the case too isn't it it is because you
00:08:25 know for healthy society i think we really need to be able to talk about hard issues and to be
00:08:30 able to share very different opinions and not feel like there's going to be conflict or like
00:08:35 huge ramifications yeah you know what you should do you should start a website called youngalberta.com
00:08:40 or something. Talk to people about these things, right? Oh, what a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. So
00:08:44 that's the idea of youngalberta.com. So people go over there, check it out. And you know,
00:08:49 if you're a young person that wants to talk or you've got a stand on something and you'd like
00:08:53 to discuss things with Sanica, you're looking for people. You can go over there and sign up
00:08:58 and be part of your show, youngalberta.com, correct? You get podcasts. Terrific. So what
00:09:05 is the best way to connect with young people now i know that might seem like a stupid question i am
00:09:10 61 years of age i'm not meaning from a standpoint you know i think i think i'm pretty good when it
00:09:17 comes to technology but you know i know that getting in touch with people digitally is a very
00:09:22 good way of doing that with social um social media and whatnot but what kind of message do they need
00:09:28 to hear we've talked about uh being peaceful we've talked about online shaming we want to make this
00:09:33 a comfortable we've talked about anxiety without making young people anxious how do we connect with
00:09:38 young people um that's a toughie isn't it it is um i think first of all um young people need to be
00:09:47 able to trust the space that they're in when they're talking online you know online and so
00:09:50 that's what we're trying to do with our podcast is no matter who we're interviewing whatever side of
00:09:54 the issues that they're on um it's always respectful and it gives people a chance to
00:09:59 actually like hear their neighbors out because they trust that there's not going to an argument
00:10:03 is not going to erupt from this kind of thing or it's not going to become like really in your face
00:10:07 um it just gives them a chance to like oh okay this is where the other side of the issue is
00:10:11 coming from so i think they wherever you're connecting with them whether it's in person or
00:10:15 online i think they just need to trust that like there's going to be real communication here
00:10:19 everyone's going to have a chance kind of to share their where they're coming from and have a real
00:10:24 dialogue. Do you know the difference between a hard sell and a soft sell commercial? You ever
00:10:30 heard those phrases before? You do know. So I'm wondering, you know, I mean, a soft sell commercial
00:10:36 for Alberta independence would be, are you interested in having a future where you might
00:10:41 be able to afford a home? Are you interested in a future where you might have more money to spend
00:10:46 on your family and friends? The hard sell might be the reason why we have to leave is because of
00:10:51 the awful government in Ottawa, what one would be more, would, would young people connect with
00:10:57 more? What do you think? I think, I think definitely the soft sell,
00:10:59 because we have the hard sell all day, all day on social media. We're, we're surrounded by that
00:11:04 from everybody. And so a soft sell, you know, it can be difficult sometimes to draw people into
00:11:10 the dialogue, but I think ultimately that opens more doors. Do you think, do you think young
00:11:15 people are risk averse? Hmm. I think it depends, but in terms of like political conversation,
00:11:23 right. It depends on the issue too, but I think in general, yes.
00:11:27 Well, you see, so, but my, my, the way I'm thinking of risk averse here is this way.
00:11:32 See, I see Alberta outside of Canada as something that I is, is a better thing as opposed to having
00:11:38 Canada or Alberta inside of Canada. But you might have young people who think it's a danger
00:11:45 to go Alberta independent. So we'd rather not do that. I mean, you're talking about peace,
00:11:49 people who want peaceful discussions and are anxious about things. Do they feel anxious about
00:11:54 the fact that this is, this is the great unknown that we're talking about here, but I'm not afraid
00:11:59 of the great unknown, our young people. I think some people definitely are,
00:12:03 especially if they are kind of more prone to feeling anxious about the future or they are
00:12:06 experiencing a lot of difficulty, like economically, because yeah, like you said,
00:12:10 But there's not a lot of great information out there about what would Alberta look like outside of Confederation.
00:12:18 And so, yeah, it can be scary.
00:12:21 Yeah, it can be scary for sure.
00:12:23 Do you think a lot of young people are going to vote?
00:12:26 Very often they stay home.
00:12:27 I mean, seniors are more likely to go out and vote than young people.
00:12:30 I voted since I was 18 years of age and I voted in every election.
00:12:34 I was engaged like that. 0.97
00:12:36 Young people have a lot of other things to worry about.
00:12:37 Do you think a large percentage of young people, young adults, are going to go out and vote on October the 19th?
00:12:45 You know, I really hope so.
00:12:46 It's really hard to gauge.
00:12:48 And this is a place where if you're a young person listening, I would love to hear your perspective, like over on our platform, Young Alberta, and kind of hear where you're coming from.
00:12:55 So I'm really not sure, but I really hope so, because young people, I mean, have a lot of political power.
00:13:00 Our voice really matters.
00:13:01 And I think we can really shape our future by voting.
00:13:05 So you're asking for people to contact you.
00:13:07 how do they do that so you can go on our website um you can go ahead and um like suggested the
00:13:13 podcast guests you can suggest yourself if you want to come talk to us about you know your
00:13:17 perspectives on various current issues you can read our resources there we also have social media
00:13:22 right now we have facebook and instagram and we're working on getting like youtube and x and things
00:13:26 up and you're on apple podcast spotify cast box iheart radio pocket cast amazon music i haven't
00:13:32 heard of most of these things. You're everywhere. I do YouTube. So that's where I am as a 61 year
00:13:37 old man. But I really admire you for what you're doing here. And you're trying to get both sides
00:13:44 of the story. Let me ask you this. Sure. How do you feel about Alberta independence? What are
00:13:49 you thinking right now? I'm not asking you how you're going to vote. Right. Well, first off,
00:13:53 I want to make it very clear that young Alberta, we don't take stances on issues because we want
00:13:57 of just be a really trustworthy source of information so so whatever you find on young
00:14:02 alberta we're not we're not going to try and convince you any either way we're just going
00:14:05 to provide resources from other people where you can research but for me personally i i think i am
00:14:12 more of a careful person of like and i really am aware that there can be unintended consequences
00:14:17 to big decisions and so it's taken me a long time to think about alberta independence i think
00:14:22 ultimately it might be Alberta's best chance to, um, to have a better, you know, economic future.
00:14:29 And that really matters to me because I'm a parent, you know? Um, but yeah, I, I totally
00:14:34 understand people's hesitancy because there, there is a lot of unknown and it would, it would require
00:14:39 a lot of change for sure. I think a lot of people will wait to the last moment. I think they'll walk
00:14:43 in on the day and, and decide, and I think it's important. I don't want to get deep into all the
00:14:48 different questions that are there. There are nine other questions that I'm very sure of myself.
00:14:53 And I'm not, because of what you do on your podcast, people know how I feel about those
00:14:57 questions and how I will vote, obviously. But there's a lot of questions there that need to
00:15:02 be answered. So everybody should go into the ballot box, knowing what those questions are.
00:15:06 You could be standing there for an hour trying to figure everything out. Now on your website,
00:15:11 again, youngalberta.com, it says a podcast by young Albertans for young Albertans. Do you
00:15:17 not talk to older people on your podcast? We do, actually. Our first two episodes have been with
00:15:22 older women. We recently did one with Angela Tabak from the Alberta Women for Independence.
00:15:26 Great lady, super lady. Yeah. Talking about how she's changing the way they do political
00:15:31 messaging. And then I also interviewed another lady who's using musical theater to improve her 1.00
00:15:35 community. Yeah. And speaking of Angela, she does talk about the nine questions. I know that the 0.99
00:15:40 Alberta Women for Independence, that's a big part of what they do. And you've talked to somebody who
00:15:44 uses theater to do what? To build bridges over divisive topics in her community. You should go
00:15:50 listen. It's very interesting. So I do want to mostly interview young people, though. That's
00:15:54 what this is for. And so our goal is to interview young people, share their stories, but also bring
00:16:00 in experts about current events who can share more information. Great. Again, so it's
00:16:05 youngalberta.com, and you can just click on podcast, and there is a form there for you to
00:16:09 fill out and Sanica, we'll get back to you. And I applaud you for doing this. And thank you so
00:16:14 much for talking with me. I mean, I used to be a young person, but I don't understand it quite
00:16:20 like I used to, because as you get older, you know, they say youth is wasted on the young and
00:16:25 wisdom on the, on, you know, on older people like myself, I think. But I really do admire you for
00:16:31 what you're doing. And I hope young people will visit your website and be part of what you're
00:16:37 doing. Thank you so much for talking to me.
00:16:39 Thank you. I really appreciate it.
00:16:41 Sanika Taylor, creator of youngalberta.com. Check it out, go over, be part of what she's doing.
00:16:47 Suggest a podcast guest, or if you think you're a good guest yourself and would like to talk to
00:16:51 Sanika and get both sides of the story, I think that's a great place to do it, youngalberta.com.
00:16:56 Thanks very much for watching this. If you liked it, give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel,
00:17:01 ring the bell for notifications. I will see you in the next one.