Insights with Don Mills and David Campbell- An Acadia Broadcasting Podcast

This week's Insights podcast addresses the challenge of growing crime across Atlantic Canada. This is a concern among business owners and the general public in all four provinces.  To talk about this issue, Don and David are joined by Mike Hammoud, Vice-President, Atlantic Canada at the Convenience Industry Council of Canada and Danny Fournier, Senior Manager with Rothmans, Benson and Hedges Canada’s (RBH) department of Illicit Trade Prevention (ITP).  Mike and Danny discuss trends that could be driving the increase in crime, such as the cost of living, the mental health crisis, expanded drug use and the growing presence of organized crime in our region. More importantly, the conversation focuses on solutions.  We need expanded public education, a stronger focus on prevention, better use of technology, and mobilization of communities through groups such as Crimestoppers and Neighbourhood Watch.  Importantly, our police services need the resources to focus upstream before the 911 call is ever made.  Better prevention and deterrents should lead to a decrease in crime across our region. This is an important conversation. 

On today's Insights podcast, Don and David talk with well-known author and Globe and Mail journalist John Ibbitson.   The wide-ranging discussion covers his two recent books, as well as his thoughts on everything from demographic trends and interprovincial trade.  In The Duel: Diefenbaker, Pearson and the Making of Modern Canada, he makes a compelling case that Diefenbaker should rank higher on the list of Canadian Prime Ministers.  In A Nation's Paper: The Globe and Mail in the Life of Canada, Ibbitson curates 30 essays from Globe writers on the role the newspaper has played at important times in Canada’s history. He has a new book coming out in the Fall with Darrell Bricker called "Breaking Point: The New Big Shifts Putting Canada at Risk." Ibbitson is a fairly rare breed among national writers and commentators in that he has deep knowledge of the Atlantic Canada population and economy.  We discuss immigration, Employment Insurance, trade and other topics with a focus on Atlantic Canada.

Monette Pasher, President of the Canadian Airports Council, joins Don and David on the Insights podcast this week to talk about the council’s new report called “Keeping Canada Connected: The Challenge of Regional Air Service and Federal Policy”.  The transfer of airport management in Canada from the federal government to local authorities in the 1990s is considered by many to be an excellent example of good public policy. However, over the past decade or so, there has been an increasing erosion of services and connectivity between smaller airports and their surrounding communities. The new CAC report finds that flight frequency at regional airports has decreased by 36% since 2014 – a trend exacerbated by the pandemic. Pasher believes that more of the $500 million in rent that airports pay the federal government every year should be allocated to an “Essential Air Service program”, similar to a program in the United States.  We talk about a range of issues, from the rationale behind the transfer 30 years ago to the role of provincial and municipal governments in ensuring regional air connectivity.

We spent the month of June on a tour around the region to promote our newly published book, "Toward Prosperity: The Transformation of Atlantic Canada's Economy." The reception has been very gratifying, and the early reviews have been very favourable. Among those stops was the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Moncton, where their high-energy CEO, Kim Wilson, moderated a lively discussion about the book with us, covering the main themes of the book and why we are so bullish on the future of Atlantic Canada. We wanted to share that conversation with you.  You can purchase the book at local bookstores, Indigo, Amazon and even Costco. Enjoy! 

This week's Insights Podcast is the second of three in our special series on the bioeconomy sponsored by the Greenspring Bioinnovation Lab and BioIndustrial Innovation Canada and features a very interesting conversation with Greg Wanger, the Founder & CEO of Oberland Agriscience. Oberland has a brand new 100,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Ragged Lake that is nearing completion that uses Black Soldier flies to produce fertilizer for the agricultural sector and feed for the pet food market and the aquaculture and farming sectors. The plant when fully operational will divert 100 tons of organic waste from landfills on a daily basis to feed the Black Soldier flies to produce 20 tons of fertilizer and 20 tons of feed protein per day. Prior to forming Oberland, Wanger worked with the Jet Propulsion Lab in California and helped develop equipment for the Mars Rover. The company is proud to introduce the lowest carbon-footprint protein ingredient to the market and expects to be totally off the grid and using only renewable power in the near future. Wanger is just getting going and plans more manufacturing facilities in the future.

On this week’s Insights podcast, Don and David speak with Dr. Trevor Tombe, Professor in the University of Calgary’s Department of Economics and Director of Fiscal and Economic Policy at the School of Public Policy.  Dr. Tombe has published a number of papers related to interprovincial trade barriers including a recent one for the Public Policy Forum specifically covering the benefits to Atlantic Canada from making it easier to trade across provincial borders.  We discuss a variety of barriers to provincial trade including rules and regulations, and we go deeper with a lively discussion of issues such as government subsidies to industry, provincial tax rate differentials, infrastructure investments and other government-related benefits that may provide advantages to industries in one province but not another.   This one got a little wonky but we are sure you will enjoy the conversation.

This episode of the Insights Podcast was live recorded at the recent Biocon Conference held in Saint John, New Brunswick. This was the thirteenth annual conference for this sector. The podcast features a conversation with David and Don that was moderated by Meaghan Seagrave, the Executive Director of Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, an organization that provides critical strategic investment, advice and services to business developers of clean, green and sustainable technologies. There are many new companies in the bioeconomy that are leading the way, including Vyterra Renewals which was the focus of a recent podcast and Oberland Agriscience which will be a future podcast. Vyterra turns wood into fuel and Oberland turns insects into feed and fertilizer. This podcast focuses on the opportunities and challenges facing the bioeconomy sector and what needs to be done to accelerate its growth.

Dennis Campbell, the Founder of Ambassatours, first became interested in the tour business at the age of seven years ago when he accompanied one of his sister's guided tours and started his company in 1987 while still in high school. At its peak, the company had annual revenues of $30 million and employed nearly eight hundred people,100 buses and served 19-21 ports. Last year the company had 450,000 customers using the company's various land, water and amphibious tours. In this podcast, Dennis takes us on his personal business journey as he built his company, including some of the early challenges financing its growth, eventually selling off parts of his business as he begins winding down his long successful career. From the Harbour Hopper to double decker buses, the Silva, Harbour Queen, Theodore Tugboat, and the Magic Winery Tours, there is a very good chance listeners will have been on one of Dennis's tours. His role in the development of the hospitality sector within the region cannot be overstated. He is the consummate storyteller as you will see from this conversation.

This week's Insights Podcast is the first in our sponsored BioEconomy Series over the next three months in partnership with the Greenspring BioInnovation Hub and Bioindustrial Innovation Canada and features a conversation with JC Amado, Chief Development Officer with Vyterra Renewals and Cassie Turple, member of the third generation of family owners of Ledwidge Lumber about their interesting collaboration that will see the construction of a 40 million litre plant on Ledwidge's property using Vyterra's proprietary Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP) technology and the wood by products from Ledwidge's operations to convert wood into low carbon fuel. The plant will cost $200 million to build and is expected to be operational by the end of 2027 and will use the feedstock of 2-3 sawmills in the province, which lost a significant customer for their products with the closure of Northern Pulp. If successful, Vyterra's has hopes of building two other similar plants in the province.

Everyone who owns a vehicle has used a parking meter, whether an old-fashioned coin operated meter or the new electronic smart meters. It is highly unlikely that you have ever heard of MacKay Meters of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, but there is a good chance that you have used one of their meters. MacKay is the only company manufacturing parking meters in Canada and has been in business for more than sixty years. Parking meters have become increasingly sophisticated, and MacKay Meters has been among the most innovative companies in this space. The company was the first to introduce the use of credit card payment and has the best coin validation system in the industry. The modular design of their smart meters makes it easier to keep the meters current. The company has developed software support to manage and maintain their meters, including the management of time-of-day parking rates around special events. Indeed, there are some years where revenue from their hosted subscription services exceeds their hardware sales. MacKay just completed the world's largest parking project ever undertaken when it installed 13,000 of its smart meters and 3,000 of its pay stations in San Francisco. Since its inception, the company has installed over a million meters.Our podcast with third generation CEO James MacKay provided an excellent overview of the secret to the company's success over such a long period of time and another reminder of the opportunities that exist for manufacturers in Atlantic Canada.