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

00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel. Great to have you along today. Thank you very much

00:00:07.400 for being part of this channel. I do appreciate it. I raise the big blue mug of coffee to you

00:00:12.600 today. And I've got a special guest with me today who's giggling in the background there. I'd like

00:00:17.780 to welcome Sanika Taylor, who is the creator of youngalberta.com. And I would suggest anybody,

00:00:24.980 you don't have to be young, you know, there's no restrictions here. Head over to youngalberta.com

00:00:29.280 to find out what the website is about. But we're going to give you a little background here about

00:00:34.460 youngalberta.com as you watch this video over the next 10 to 15 minutes. Sanika,

00:00:39.420 thank you so much for being here. I do appreciate it.

00:00:41.900 Oh, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to share what we're doing.

00:00:44.920 So before I ask you about youngalberta.com, you know, I did an interview a few weeks back,

00:00:52.480 and it was Seniors for Independence. And 25,000, 30,000 people watched that video,

00:00:58.160 which I was surprised about. Generally, long form videos don't do quite as well on the channel,

00:01:03.540 but people were really interested in seniors and what they were thinking when it came to politics.

00:01:09.160 And in particular, we're going to be talking in relation to the Alberta independence movement.

00:01:13.140 As you know, a lot of seniors voted liberal last year. A lot of the boomers are part of the

00:01:18.080 forever Canadian. And we're trying to get into the psychology of seniors. I kind of wanted to 0.68

00:01:22.880 do the same thing with you, but we'll do it from a young person's standpoint. So when we talk about

00:01:28.620 young Albertans, what age group are you considering when you're doing that? I think basically young

00:01:35.520 millennials and Gen Z, basically anyone who's grown up in the age of social media, because that

00:01:39.820 technology has just defined who we are so much. Yes, absolutely. So what is youngalberta.com?

00:01:46.180 and i guess one word question why it is a platform we've also got a podcast that's kind of where our

00:01:53.380 best content lives but the podcast and the website are all about helping young people connect with

00:01:58.260 each other share their stories about how they're bettering their communities but then also being a

00:02:02.660 resource to find balance and trustworthy information where you can kind of get a whole picture

00:02:07.300 of current events including like the alberta referendum so that um it kind of addresses some

00:02:12.740 of the issues that people young people have with getting information from social media where it

00:02:16.660 feels really fragmented we're trying to bring everything together so you can go to kind of a

00:02:20.660 peaceful place to find a real information okay remind me to come back to peaceful in just a

00:02:26.580 moment okay i want to come back to that word um now this is a wide open question and and you can

00:02:32.740 interpret this any way you want what do young people want today there's a lot of things i i

00:02:40.180 think we really want stability and we really want connection um in general i think even though we are

00:02:46.740 digitally connected i think we feel quite isolated in general right and also the future of our

00:02:52.900 economy and our country and stuff kind of feels unstable and that's a little bit of you know

00:02:57.140 anxiety inducing and i think we want something um that we can count on a little bit more you know

00:03:02.660 okay so this is interesting i'm 61 years of age i was a young person at one time i i am not living

00:03:08.420 in your world. I never lived in the world you're in. I remember having to pull over Sanica to get

00:03:14.340 a phone so I could make a phone call. I remember asking my parents if they could lend me money on

00:03:19.040 Friday night so I could go out with my buddies. They didn't get to the bank. There were no bank

00:03:22.820 machines back then. There weren't even DCRs to record television programs or microwave ovens

00:03:28.500 like we have today. And certainly there was no social media. There was nothing like this.

00:03:33.220 You know, if you didn't know where your friends were when you went on on Friday night, you would

00:03:36.840 never find them. And it's so easy to do that. But you've used a couple of words here that I find

00:03:41.420 interesting. You said the word, you want a peaceful place for young Albertans. And you

00:03:46.300 used the word anxiety, which is a word that I would have never considered when I was a young

00:03:51.500 person. Why are those words important? Are young people anxious? Oh my goodness. I think it's

00:03:59.200 baffling a lot of older people like why our generation is so anxious. And I think there's

00:04:03.520 there's multiple reasons and it depends on your situation but i think just the way that we interact

00:04:08.480 with the world through the internet um algorithms feed off of strong emotion and so that you know

00:04:15.280 coming as a young person into adulthood with very little experience because we're young and then

00:04:21.200 just being fed all of this emotion through the internet about current events it's really hard

00:04:25.120 to orient yourselves and there are very few resources that i've been able to find that just

00:04:30.240 really um kind of counteract that that you know way of getting information you talked about being

00:04:36.240 connected um and my generation would say that we're more connected than ever but then at the

00:04:42.800 same time we would say we're not really connected at all because we used to have personal interactions

00:04:48.000 with people now people interact you know with their thumbs they do a lot of their interaction

00:04:53.200 through that so um are young people not feeling connected with each other even though all of this

00:04:59.120 technology exists? Yeah, there's really no replacement for one-on-one information. And,

00:05:04.460 you know, I'm a parent of young kids and even for very young people, there's just a struggle

00:05:09.300 to find, you know, ways to have people just spending casual time one-on-one. Everyone

00:05:14.520 wants to be on their devices. So it is isolating. You talked about peaceful, you talked about

00:05:20.640 anxiety, but what do young people worry about? I mean, specifically, are they worried about the

00:05:26.440 future? Are they worried about owning a home? Are they worried about a good paying job? Things like

00:05:30.760 that. Oh, I think absolutely. It's sometimes very hard to find a decent job, you know, that will

00:05:35.560 actually cover the expenses that you need. And I mean, I understand this. I'm a young person. My

00:05:39.700 husband just got a new job. It's a difficult process. And also like home prices. I've been

00:05:44.520 renting my whole adult life and I don't know when we'll be able to afford a home because it's just,

00:05:49.220 it is what it is, you know? Who do young people blame for that?

00:05:51.780 oh it depends on who you follow on social media really i you know there's the i can't speak for

00:05:58.700 everyone i think everyone kind of just generally just generally any idea but i think generally it

00:06:04.380 is like yeah politicians are the people in power um and i i think there is some validity to that

00:06:10.040 that you know they're making decisions that are not making it easier for us right right okay so

00:06:14.780 i want to move over to sort of leading us into alberta independence because that's how i connected

00:06:20.200 with you. I wanted to talk to you about that. I think you've kind of got conflicting feelings

00:06:24.840 about it yourself from the discussion I had with you for a few minutes. So maybe you can

00:06:28.440 clear that up with me, but how do, how do young people feel about the Alberta independence

00:06:33.620 movement? And maybe right off the top, are they paying attention to what's going on with this

00:06:37.740 right now? I think, I think a lot of them are. I think a lot more young people are than are

00:06:43.960 willing to talk about it because online shaming is just a part of our lives now. People have to

00:06:48.220 really careful about not getting on the wrong side of like the internet you know um so i think

00:06:52.220 there are a lot of people who are thinking about it but maybe quietly um of course there are young

00:06:57.660 people who are willing to talk about it on the internet and maybe even in person um but i i think

00:07:03.980 i think there is a broad spectrum like i think there are a lot of young people who support it

00:07:07.260 and there are a lot of young people who really disagree with it um but i think the big thing is

00:07:12.220 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

00:07:16.380 um without conflict and so is really kind of hard to gauge just off the bat you know kind

00:07:21.980 of where young people are as a whole you said did you say online shaming so it must be hard

00:07:29.420 to get a true understanding of what people are feeling about independence and canada because

00:07:35.820 people are afraid to discuss those things online right well and especially like consider you just

00:07:41.660 got a new job you're just establishing yourself in this really difficult economy and maybe your

00:07:45.500 your boss is anti-Alberta independence. If you come out online and say that you're pro-Alberta

00:07:49.360 independence, you have to wonder, like, are there ramifications among my co-workers or in general?

00:07:54.580 Like, you just don't want to be cancelled kind of thing. And I think that goes both ways. Like,

00:07:57.620 whatever side you stand on, if you're worried about what people on the other side are going

00:08:01.620 to think, and maybe before that wasn't such a big deal, but now on the internet, what people say

00:08:05.840 about you is kind of permanent. It can be really hard to erase that. I think maybe a conclusion we

00:08:11.520 can come to here is that it's really kind of hard to know what young people are going to do on

00:08:14.740 october 19th on any of the questions that are there because they don't want to reveal how they

00:08:21.220 feel about these things and it's kind of sad that that's the case too isn't it it is because you

00:08:25.640 know for healthy society i think we really need to be able to talk about hard issues and to be

00:08:30.240 able to share very different opinions and not feel like there's going to be conflict or like

00:08:35.280 huge ramifications yeah you know what you should do you should start a website called youngalberta.com

00:08:40.100 or something. Talk to people about these things, right? Oh, what a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. So

00:08:44.500 that's the idea of youngalberta.com. So people go over there, check it out. And you know,

00:08:49.340 if you're a young person that wants to talk or you've got a stand on something and you'd like

00:08:53.320 to discuss things with Sanica, you're looking for people. You can go over there and sign up

00:08:58.420 and be part of your show, youngalberta.com, correct? You get podcasts. Terrific. So what

00:09:05.600 is the best way to connect with young people now i know that might seem like a stupid question i am

00:09:10.880 61 years of age i'm not meaning from a standpoint you know i think i think i'm pretty good when it

00:09:17.120 comes to technology but you know i know that getting in touch with people digitally is a very

00:09:22.000 good way of doing that with social um social media and whatnot but what kind of message do they need

00:09:28.000 to hear we've talked about uh being peaceful we've talked about online shaming we want to make this

00:09:33.200 a comfortable we've talked about anxiety without making young people anxious how do we connect with

00:09:38.000 young people um that's a toughie isn't it it is um i think first of all um young people need to be

00:09:47.040 able to trust the space that they're in when they're talking online you know online and so

00:09:50.960 that's what we're trying to do with our podcast is no matter who we're interviewing whatever side of

00:09:54.880 the issues that they're on um it's always respectful and it gives people a chance to

00:09:59.600 actually like hear their neighbors out because they trust that there's not going to an argument

00:10:03.120 is not going to erupt from this kind of thing or it's not going to become like really in your face

00:10:07.280 um it just gives them a chance to like oh okay this is where the other side of the issue is

00:10:11.120 coming from so i think they wherever you're connecting with them whether it's in person or

00:10:15.760 online i think they just need to trust that like there's going to be real communication here

00:10:19.600 everyone's going to have a chance kind of to share their where they're coming from and have a real

00:10:24.240 dialogue. Do you know the difference between a hard sell and a soft sell commercial? You ever

00:10:30.360 heard those phrases before? You do know. So I'm wondering, you know, I mean, a soft sell commercial

00:10:36.960 for Alberta independence would be, are you interested in having a future where you might

00:10:41.480 be able to afford a home? Are you interested in a future where you might have more money to spend

00:10:46.560 on your family and friends? The hard sell might be the reason why we have to leave is because of

00:10:51.600 the awful government in Ottawa, what one would be more, would, would young people connect with

00:10:57.180 more? What do you think? I think, I think definitely the soft sell,

00:10:59.820 because we have the hard sell all day, all day on social media. We're, we're surrounded by that

00:11:04.100 from everybody. And so a soft sell, you know, it can be difficult sometimes to draw people into

00:11:10.520 the dialogue, but I think ultimately that opens more doors. Do you think, do you think young

00:11:15.160 people are risk averse? Hmm. I think it depends, but in terms of like political conversation,

00:11:23.720 right. It depends on the issue too, but I think in general, yes.

00:11:27.480 Well, you see, so, but my, my, the way I'm thinking of risk averse here is this way.

00:11:32.440 See, I see Alberta outside of Canada as something that I is, is a better thing as opposed to having

00:11:38.920 Canada or Alberta inside of Canada. But you might have young people who think it's a danger

00:11:45.160 to go Alberta independent. So we'd rather not do that. I mean, you're talking about peace,

00:11:49.720 people who want peaceful discussions and are anxious about things. Do they feel anxious about

00:11:54.960 the fact that this is, this is the great unknown that we're talking about here, but I'm not afraid

00:11:59.540 of the great unknown, our young people. I think some people definitely are,

00:12:03.920 especially if they are kind of more prone to feeling anxious about the future or they are

00:12:06.880 experiencing a lot of difficulty, like economically, because yeah, like you said,

00:12:10.640 But there's not a lot of great information out there about what would Alberta look like outside of Confederation.

00:12:18.100 And so, yeah, it can be scary.

00:12:21.480 Yeah, it can be scary for sure.

00:12:23.380 Do you think a lot of young people are going to vote?

00:12:26.240 Very often they stay home.

00:12:27.660 I mean, seniors are more likely to go out and vote than young people.

00:12:30.960 I voted since I was 18 years of age and I voted in every election.

00:12:34.460 I was engaged like that. 0.97

00:12:36.060 Young people have a lot of other things to worry about.

00:12:37.980 Do you think a large percentage of young people, young adults, are going to go out and vote on October the 19th?

00:12:45.120 You know, I really hope so.

00:12:46.260 It's really hard to gauge.

00:12:48.200 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.

00:12:55.360 So I'm really not sure, but I really hope so, because young people, I mean, have a lot of political power.

00:13:00.360 Our voice really matters.

00:13:01.600 And I think we can really shape our future by voting.

00:13:05.060 So you're asking for people to contact you.

00:13:07.640 how do they do that so you can go on our website um you can go ahead and um like suggested the

00:13:13.420 podcast guests you can suggest yourself if you want to come talk to us about you know your

00:13:17.700 perspectives on various current issues you can read our resources there we also have social media

00:13:22.000 right now we have facebook and instagram and we're working on getting like youtube and x and things

00:13:26.120 up and you're on apple podcast spotify cast box iheart radio pocket cast amazon music i haven't

00:13:32.840 heard of most of these things. You're everywhere. I do YouTube. So that's where I am as a 61 year

00:13:37.900 old man. But I really admire you for what you're doing here. And you're trying to get both sides

00:13:44.260 of the story. Let me ask you this. Sure. How do you feel about Alberta independence? What are

00:13:49.940 you thinking right now? I'm not asking you how you're going to vote. Right. Well, first off,

00:13:53.820 I want to make it very clear that young Alberta, we don't take stances on issues because we want

00:13:57.480 of just be a really trustworthy source of information so so whatever you find on young

00:14:02.440 alberta we're not we're not going to try and convince you any either way we're just going

00:14:05.820 to provide resources from other people where you can research but for me personally i i think i am

00:14:12.340 more of a careful person of like and i really am aware that there can be unintended consequences

00:14:17.020 to big decisions and so it's taken me a long time to think about alberta independence i think

00:14:22.540 ultimately it might be Alberta's best chance to, um, to have a better, you know, economic future.

00:14:29.020 And that really matters to me because I'm a parent, you know? Um, but yeah, I, I totally

00:14:34.640 understand people's hesitancy because there, there is a lot of unknown and it would, it would require

00:14:39.420 a lot of change for sure. I think a lot of people will wait to the last moment. I think they'll walk

00:14:43.760 in on the day and, and decide, and I think it's important. I don't want to get deep into all the

00:14:48.620 different questions that are there. There are nine other questions that I'm very sure of myself.

00:14:53.240 And I'm not, because of what you do on your podcast, people know how I feel about those

00:14:57.100 questions and how I will vote, obviously. But there's a lot of questions there that need to

00:15:02.500 be answered. So everybody should go into the ballot box, knowing what those questions are.

00:15:06.760 You could be standing there for an hour trying to figure everything out. Now on your website,

00:15:11.720 again, youngalberta.com, it says a podcast by young Albertans for young Albertans. Do you

00:15:17.760 not talk to older people on your podcast? We do, actually. Our first two episodes have been with

00:15:22.760 older women. We recently did one with Angela Tabak from the Alberta Women for Independence.

00:15:26.860 Great lady, super lady. Yeah. Talking about how she's changing the way they do political

00:15:31.640 messaging. And then I also interviewed another lady who's using musical theater to improve her 1.00

00:15:35.380 community. Yeah. And speaking of Angela, she does talk about the nine questions. I know that the 0.99

00:15:40.540 Alberta Women for Independence, that's a big part of what they do. And you've talked to somebody who

00:15:44.820 uses theater to do what? To build bridges over divisive topics in her community. You should go

00:15:50.720 listen. It's very interesting. So I do want to mostly interview young people, though. That's

00:15:54.680 what this is for. And so our goal is to interview young people, share their stories, but also bring

00:16:00.440 in experts about current events who can share more information. Great. Again, so it's

00:16:05.280 youngalberta.com, and you can just click on podcast, and there is a form there for you to

00:16:09.360 fill out and Sanica, we'll get back to you. And I applaud you for doing this. And thank you so

00:16:14.740 much for talking with me. I mean, I used to be a young person, but I don't understand it quite

00:16:20.140 like I used to, because as you get older, you know, they say youth is wasted on the young and

00:16:25.320 wisdom on the, on, you know, on older people like myself, I think. But I really do admire you for

00:16:31.840 what you're doing. And I hope young people will visit your website and be part of what you're

00:16:37.040 doing. Thank you so much for talking to me.

00:16:39.240 Thank you. I really appreciate it.

00:16:41.340 Sanika Taylor, creator of youngalberta.com. Check it out, go over, be part of what she's doing.

00:16:47.440 Suggest a podcast guest, or if you think you're a good guest yourself and would like to talk to

00:16:51.820 Sanika and get both sides of the story, I think that's a great place to do it, youngalberta.com.

00:16:56.740 Thanks very much for watching this. If you liked it, give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel,

00:17:01.080 ring the bell for notifications. I will see you in the next one.

John Bolton - September 25, 2026

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

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