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

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.

On this week’s podcast, entrepreneur Blair Hyslop, Kathryn Lockhart, CEO of Propel and Jeff Larsen, head of the Creative Destruction Lab in Atlantic Canada, discuss a new proposal for a new regional equity tax credit to help grow investments in the region's companies.Under the proposal, qualified businesses could receive angel investment from across Atlantic Canada and the investors would receive a tax credit no matter where the company is located within the four provinces. The three make a strong case that the time is now for such a program as a vital tool to expand the pool of risk capital available to early-stage companies across the region. All three believe Atlantic Canada is well-positioned to benefit from innovation-led growth in the coming years.

Francis McGuire has a very interesting background, having been both a Deputy Minister during the Frank McKenna era and the CEO that built Moncton-based Major Drilling into the second biggest company in its sector in the world.In this edition of the Huddle "Insights" podcast, McGuire talks with co-hosts David Campbell and Don Mills about the strategies he used to grow Major Drilling and the current ones he is employing to take Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) in a new direction.Convinced by others, including Frank McKenna, to take on his current role as the CEO of ACOA, McGuire has taken the organization in a new direction. The organization has placed a greater emphasis on immigration to help address the growing labour market needs within the region, as well as preparing organizations for automation and the digitalization of the economy in Atlantic Canada.

This week's Huddle "Insights" podcast features a conversation with arguably the most influential IT leader in Atlantic Canada: Gerry Pond.Pond chats with co-host David Campbell about his career starting out in the mid-1960s at NBTel dealing with "party line" complaints in rural New Brunswick rising to CEO of Aliant and then nearly two decades of founding and investing in IT startups across Atlantic Canada, including Radian6 and Q1 Labs.He weighs in on everything from the pipeline for tech entrepreneurs in the region; the role of government to help encourage tech startups; and why he is bullish on the ocean technology cluster.

In part two of their conversation with longtime CTV Atlantic broadcaster Steve Murphy, Don and David chat with Steve about his favourite interview in 45 years of broadcasting. Steve also shares his thoughts on the most significant Atlantic Canadian premiers in the last four decades.