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

Premier Tim Houston of Nova Scotia wants to be remembered for setting the stage for growth when people look back on his government's achievements decades from now. Population growth is a top priority along with improving access to healthcare, he tells Don Mills and David Campbell on the latest Huddle "Insights" podcast."People drive economies so we need people," says Houston of his ambitious goal to grow the population to two million by 2060. "We know the flip side of that from depopulation. We know what happens when communities lose people. Schools close, stores close, and then you get caught in that negative3 vortex because it's oftentimes it's those that remain are aging. The cycle goes on and on.""The cycle is being broken; the population is turning around. People are realizing what we already know, and that's the quality of life here, where you're never far from a city and you're never far from a beach. You can have everything you want in between, so we have a lot to offer people."In his chat with Mills and Campbell, Houston also says improving access to quality healthcare is his other main priority.This is the third of our exclusive series of "Insights" interviews with Atlantic Canada’s premiers; on the last episode Mills and Campbell spoke with New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs.This episode of Insights is brought to you by MNP Digital – a firm that guides, protects, and empowers organizations along their digital journey. See how at mnpdigital.ca.

This is the second of our exclusive Insights interviews with Atlantic Canada’s premiers. New Brunswick weathered the pandemic better than most jurisdictions in the areas of public health, economic growth, population growth and government finances. Premier Blaine Higgs discusses a wide variety of topics from how his government tackled the pandemic to economic development, municipal reform, bilingualism and the new health care strategy.Higgs says the province is emerging strongly from the pandemic, both in the eyes of people who already live here and those looking to move here from somewhere else."It caused people to look within and see what a great province we have," he says."As a province, I've always felt it was a belief in one's self-worth - not, we can't do that in New Brunswick, but yes we can...then you see people looking at us for the first time and started to call and buy houses virtually."This episode of Insights is brought to you by MNP Digital – a firm that guides, protects, and empowers organizations along their digital journey. See how at mnpdigital.ca.

In this episode, Don Mills and David Campbell start a series of conversations with the Premiers of Atlantic Canada, beginning with Dennis King of P.E.I.Progressive Conservative Premier King is an unconventional poilitical leader in these highly partisan times. He is a collaborator - a friendly, affable and self-effacing person who gives credit to and works well with others, including opposition parties and former premiers from other parties.A noteworthy example would be former Liberal premier Wade MacLauchlan. King credits him with creating the right policies and setting the right tone for immigration, which has helped P.E.I. outpace the country in attracting newcomers to the province. King says it's important to make it easier for people to settle down there."Anybody who moves here, whether you're a refugee or an immigrant, or whether you're relocating back from Calgary after having lived there for 20 years, you want a place to live, a place to thrive, a place for your family to be safe, and you want those comforts of home," says King.This episode of Insights is brought to you by MNP Digital – a firm that guides, protects, and empowers organizations along their digital journey. See how at mnpdigital.ca.

Don Mills and David Campbell chat with Bernard Leblanc, the CEO of the Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport, about the impact of the pandemic and the efforts underway to rebuild its routes and increase cargo traffic. They also discuss how important the decision to move to a community-based airport authority was to improve infrastructure and service in air transportation across Canada.When the airport released its last economic impact study in 2016, it showed the Moncton airport was a significant economic driver, employing about 500 people full-time and generating around $665-million in economic activity."There's a huge benefit in having an airport and that's why no region or municipality wants to give up their airport," said LeBlanc.This episode of Insights is brought to you by MNP Digital – a firm that guides, protects, and empowers organizations along their digital journey. See how at mnpdigital.ca.

On this episode of the "Insights" podcast, Don Mills and David Campbell take a closer look at the importance of the agricultural sector to the economy both across Canada and in Atlantic Canada with a wide-ranging conversation with Sylvain Charlebois - one of Canada's top food experts widely known as the "Food Professor."Charlebois, the Senior Director of the Agri-Foods Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, chats with Mills about the opportunities for growth in an Atlantic region that already employs from 25,000 to 27,000 people and generates up to $7-billion in exports."There's so much potential, not only in Atlantic Canada but across the country, to grow the economy by fostering this mentality of growing processing," he says. "That's where the innovation will happen. The biggest challenge we have in the Atlantic is processing. Increasing processing captivity should be the number one priority."Charlebois also talks about issues like food inflation and the potential for growing the organic sector.This episode of Insights is brought to you by MNP Digital – a firm that guides, protects, and empowers organizations along their digital journey. See how at mnpdigital.ca.

Kathryn Lockhart, the CEO of the startup accelerator Propel, says start-up incubators and accelerators are playing a vital role in nurturing the tech sector across Atlantic Canada, supporting, in some way, around 90 per cent of all recent successful tech startups across the region. Lockhart shares her vision of an Atlantic Canada that is home to dozens of ‘baby unicorns’, startups with a valuation of at least $50-million.

This episode features a fascinating interview with one of Canada's most distinguished market researchers, Michael Adams, the Chairman and Co-Founder of Environics Research. In this wide-ranging conversation, Michael provides listeners with a data-based analysis of the diverging differences in values between Canadians and Americans through the pioneering work done by Environics in social values research.

David Campbell and Don Mills continue their series profiling the region's top entrepreneurs with one of Atlantic Canada's most successful business leaders, Clearwater Seafoods co-founder John Risley, someone who has been part of building three different companies that sold for more than $1 billion each.

When people think about the Atlantic Lottery Corporation (ALC) they usually focus on lottery tickets and big prizes, but its impact is much greater than that. It's an important contributor to the economy through its role as an employer and the indirect jobs created in the region which support the lottery.ALC has contributed $10-billion since its inception in the 1970s to provincial governments in support of public services like health and education. In the latest Huddle "Insights" podcast, Don Mills and David Campbell chat with ALC CEO Patrick Daigle about the economic impact of the region's lottery corporation.

The Century Initiative is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that is advocating an audacious long-term population strategy for Canada to achieve a goal of 100 million Canadians by the end of this century. In conversation with co-host Don Mill, CEO Lisa Lalande outlines the reasoning behind this ambitious goal and what it would mean for Atlantic Canada.