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

This week on the Insights podcast, Don and David speak with Peter Moreira about the 2023 Atlantic Canada Startup Data Report.  Peter's firm, Entrevestor, publishes this report each year covering more than 800 tech-based locally-owned companies across the region.  There was good and bad news in the report.  Combined revenues are up but employment growth has flatlined.  Angel investment has been soft making it hard for companies to scale.  Peter provides his thoughts on the near term prospects for tech companies in the region.  To download the report and follow Entrevestor's daily news feed visit www.entrevestor.com.   

Don and David join Shelley Snodgrass, VP of Sales at Acadia Broadcasting, to review the highlights and learnings from their guests over the last 6 months.  It is an optimistic discussion about the opportunities and successes happening in Atlantic Canada, as well as a future look into the challenges that the region continues to face.  Take a listen to learn what motivates the Insights hosts to educate and influence the discussions of our region, and a sneak peek into some new projects.

On this week’s Insights, Don and David talk with Adrienne Oldford, Executive Director at the McKenna Institute.  Almost 30 years ago, then Premier Frank McKenna had a vision for what was called the ‘information superhighway’ and how it could transform the New Brunswick economy and society.  While there have been some important successes, by some measures New Brunswick is a laggard when it comes to digital technology adoption. The former Premier had an idea to rekindle the province’s leadership in this area and asked Adrienne to help bring that vision to fruition.  Now, $50 million in pledged support later, she has a team of 10 staff and the ambition to help transform the province through digital technology.  Adrienne tells Don and David all about it in this informative and inspiring conversation.

On this week’s Insights, Don and David talk with Blair Hyslop, Co-CEO, Mrs. Dunster’s about the opportunities to develop food manufacturing in New Brunswick. Blair shares his journey building the company from a staff of 50 to more than 270, the building of a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and growing export markets.  He talks about the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in his business and the firm’s retail stores strategy.  We discuss broader themes such as access to capital, the cost environment, talent development and more.  Blair and his co-CEO and life partner Rosalyn will be inducted in the New Brunswick Junior Achievement Hall of Fame this fall.  Hearing his compelling story is well worth an hour of your time.

This podcast was originally published In January of 2024 and was quickly the most downloaded podcast in Insights history. The podcast features legendary entrepreneur Harry Steele. Interestingly, Rob did not join Newcap Inc, his father's company, until he was nearly forty years old. Up until then, Rob was already a successful entrepreneur in his own right and busy building his auto portfolio. While he was the CEO of Newcap Inc, he successfully built a portfolio of one hundred radio stations, which he sold to Stingray in 2018 for $500 million. Since then, he has focused his efforts on building his auto group which had revenues of $2.8 billion in the past year and is the largest auto group in Atlantic Canada, employing 2,500 people in the region. He branched out into Texas a few years ago and has grown to nine dealerships in the state. He now has 32 brands with 64 locations across Atlantic Canada and Texas. We talk with Rob about his father, their working relationship and the lessons he learned working with him.  Rob shares his thoughts on the future of electrical vehicles, as well as what keeps him entertained in his personal time.To stay up to date on all future podcasts, please subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Canada has a productivity problem but many of the diagnoses, such as blaming immigrants, are not compelling.  Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot, Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, makes a strong case that a main reason for our weak productivity has been a sharp decline in investment into Canada’s resource sectors including oil and gas, mining and electricity production.  David talks with Dr. Exner-Pirot about her thesis on this week's Insights podcast.  They talk about the national challenges but also zoom in on Atlantic Canada,  Nova Scotia, it turns out, is one of the worst places in the world for mining according to the Fraser Institute.   David and Heather discuss how places like Nova Scotia and New Brunswick can become mining-friendly jurisdictions while still maintaining a rigorous environmental and regulatory regime.      

This episode features a really interesting conversation with Regis Duffy, the founder of Chemical Diagnostics Limited in Prince Edward Island. The business was partly sold to Sekisui Chemical, a Japanese chemical company in 2007, while the remainder of the company turned into Biovectra, a company with 700 employees and a new mRna vaccine manufacturing facility that opened in 2023. The company also has operations in Nova Scotia. Sekisui Diagnostics has nearly 200 employees on the Island. Regis has been called the Godfather of Biosciences in PEI and was instrumental in the establishment of the PEI BioAlliance, serving as its first Chair of the Board. This sector now accounts for over $600 million of mostly export revenue for PEI and over 2,200 jobs.  It is likely that there would not be a biotech cluster on the Island without Regis Duffy. Regis is likely not that well known outside of PEI, but it is yet another example of the amazing entrepreneurs in the region. He continues to be involved in start-ups and mentorship with the PEI BioAlliance and is an active philanthropist on the Island. This is an inspiring podcast.

This episode of the Insights Podcast offers something a little different as we take a look at the world of a political cartoonist and the related challenges of the print media. Our conversation with award winning Michael De Adder is wide ranging and looks at the challenges of getting political cartoons approval in this era of political correctness. De Adder currently works for the Toronto Star, the Hill Times and the Chronicle-Herald. He also worked for a time as a cartoonist for the Washington Post and talks about the differences of doing political satire in the US versus Canada. He is well known for his cartoons about Trump and talks about the amount of criticism associated with doing these cartoons. He is currently exploring a new channel for his cartoons using Substack, partly in response to the challenges and the uncertain future faced by the print media and offers his opinions about the future for political cartoonists. 

Damon Goodwin and Jeff White are tired of New Brunswick being the least research-intensive province in Canada. Damon, the CEO of Research NB, and Jeff, the CEO of the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, join Don and David on this week’s Insights podcast to talk about recent changes to the innovation ecosystem in the province and how the new model should accelerate research investment and innovation.  The Conference Board of Canada gave New Brunswick a D- on its provincial innovation report card.  Damon and Jeff have ideas on how we can start bringing home better report cards in the future.

This week we present a special edition of the Insights podcast. Don and David recorded a conversation with Michelle Robichaud, President, Atlantica Centre for Energy live at the Canada's Ocean Supercluster event in Saint John. Held on May 14th, the Supercluster folks are pitching Ambition2035, a plan to grow the output associated with Canada's ocean economy from $40 billion in 2019 to $220 billion by 2035. Almost half this growth is expected to come from the energy sector. Robichaud walks us through the various opportunities from oil and gas and offshore wind to tidal energy and green hydrogen.  Want a primer on ocean-related energy opportunities in Atlantic Canada?  This is well worth an hour of your time.