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

In the fall, Alberta will hold a referendum on Canada’s Equalization system. The Alberta government wants leverage to force the federal government to negotiate a new formula that could significantly reduce the amount provided to Atlantic Canada each year.   Do provincial governments in Atlantic Canada rely too much on tax revenues generated elsewhere in the country? Do we suffer from a culture of dependency? Huddle editor Mark Leger hosts a conversation with Don and David about this important and controversial topic. In addition to the Equalization program, Mark, Don and David discuss Employment Insurance and other income and transfer programs. What role do things like geography, wages and immigration play? Don and David offer their insights and what they think can be done to address the challenges governments face with such programs. 

Frank McKenna, Deputy Chair of TD Bank, joins Don and David on Insights this week to discuss economic development today compared to 25-30 years ago when he was Premier of New Brunswick. He weighs in on the importance of attracting industry as well as supporting homegrown firms. McKenna doesn’t pull any punches when talking about natural resources development, immigration and provincial fiscal sustainability.  He also provides good ideas on how to engage with the public in the social media age.  Not that he is thinking about running again but McKenna does say this would be a great time to be in politics. 

On this week's episode of the Insights podcast, David Campbell chats with City of Moncton Mayor Dawn Arnold and City Manager Marc Landry. This is the third in their series of discussions with municipal leaders in Atlantic Canada about how we can build prosperous cities.  There is no doubt about the City of Moncton’s status as a successful city. It has been one of the fastest-growing larger cities in Canada over the past five years and the metropolitan region (including the City of Dieppe and Town of Riverview) has outpaced Halifax for gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past 10 years. Mayor Dawn Arnold shares her views on the importance of immigration, arts and culture and the city’s bilingual population and Marc Landry stresses the importance of partnership and collaboration. We hope you enjoy this conversation!

Charlottetown is the fastest growing city in Atlantic Canada, having grown by nearly 10% since the last census. This growth has not been an accident and is based on good planning and strategy as well as close collaboration with the various public agencies involved in economic development including the Port Authority, the Greater Charlottetown Development Corporation and the Downtown Business Inc. Our conversation with former four-term Mayor Clifford Lee offers many insights for other communities wishing to emulate Charlottetown's success.

Cranes in the air and growth in the GDP and population. This week, Don and David begin a series of conversations with the leaders of successful Maritimes communities. First up, the mayor of the region's largest urban centre.

The conventional wisdom around the global population, backed by the United Nations' own projections, is that it will continue to grow in the coming decades. Economies around the world are banking on that outcome, tying their growth plans to having more and more people generate new economic activity.Darrell Bricker, Global CEO of Public Affairs for Ipsos and co-author of ‘Empty Planet’, says the global population is actually going to shrink instead and policymakers around the world have to rethink their growth strategies as a result. On the latest episode of the Huddle "Insights" podcast, Mills talks with Bricker about what that means for Atlantic Canada, which has experienced slow growth in terms of population and GDP for more than a decade.

In his first in-depth interview since leaving the premier's office in 2018, Brian Gallant chats with David Campbell about how to grow an economy that has been pretty flat for the past 15 years. They talk through strategies to grow the population, focus on development in the northern region that continues to fall behind the urban regions in the south, and achieve true reconciliation with Indigenous communities.Now the CEO of the Canadian Centre for the Purpose of the Corporation, Gallant also talks about the successes and shortcomings of his own time in office and answers Campbell's questions about whether he'd like to return to politics sometime in the future.

Don Mills and David Campbell look at the economic challenges and opportunities in Nova Scotia in the third of a four-part series on provincial economies in Atlantic Canada. This episode features an in-depth interview with Scott Brison, the Chair of the Economic Growth Council, who provides his insights on how best to grow the economy within Nova Scotia.Scott provides some interesting examples of emerging opportunities in the province, some addressing a key challenge for Nova Scotia - growing the economy beyond Halifax where most of the population and economic growth is happening in the province.

With the recent release of the re-opening plans by each of the four Atlantic Provinces, David and Don, in conversation with Huddle editor Mark Leger, look at the opportunities to jump-start the economic recovery. In this podcast, the lack of a coordinated re-opening strategy for the whole of Atlantic Canada is specifically questioned. Don and David look at several impacts and potential strategies to advance the re-opening of the region without undue risk to the population and challenges the seemingly ultra-conservative approach currently in place given the pace of vaccinations and declining cases and hospitalizations across Atlantic Canada.

The recently released Greene Report underscores the financial difficulties faced by Newfoundland and Labrador. A province with a debt load of $47-billion, an aging and declining population, and an over-reliance on the oil and gas industry. The province has a structural deficit as a result of spending during premier Danny Williams' time in government and has had 61 deficits in the 71 years since joining Confederation. The question is whether or not the province is ready to face its problems head-on and accept the strong medicine prescribed by Dame Greene. Former Liberal Finance Minister Cathy Bennett joins us to address this question.