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...
Jun 27, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 222
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 ...
Jun 19, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 221
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 ...
Jun 12, 2025•55 min•Ep. 220
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 t...
Jun 05, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 219
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 Vyt...
May 30, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 218
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...
May 22, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 217
On this week’s Insights podcast, Don and David speak with Sébastien Dupuis, President & CEO of Assumption Life. The Moncton-based insurance provider has been around for over 100 years, and recently decided to become a national company. From its roots providing insurance services to Acadian households and businesses, Assumption Life is now a rapidly expanding national firm with considerably more clients outside New Brunswick. Sébastien talks about the company’s journey expanding across the co...
May 15, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 216
By his own admission, Ron Lovett was a juvenile delinquent and a troublemaker on the wrong track in his early life but also a born entrepreneur. His first business was selling weed. He also has had to learn to deal with both ADHD and dyslexia. In his first book "Outrageous Empowerment", he outlines his management philosophy that is based on employee empowerment, a philosophy that helped him grow Source Security to one of Canada's largest security firms from Halifax with more than 1,500 full-time...
May 08, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 215
On this week’s Insights podcast, Don and David speak with Sara Napier, the CEO of United Way Maritimes. United Way has been supporting the social sector in the Maritime Provinces for more than 100 years. Recently, seven local United Ways combined to create one larger organization that covers most of the Maritime Provinces (except southeastern New Brunswick and Cape Breton). Sara discusses the motivations for this amalgamation as well as some of the big issues and challenges facing the social sec...
May 01, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 214
On this week’s Insights podcast, Don and David speak with the Honourable John Herron, Minister of Natural Resources with the Government of New Brunswick. No other province in Canada has seen a larger decrease in economic activity associated with mining in the past 30 years. The GDP from mining has declined by more than 85 percent. Minister Herron is on a mission to change this. He would like to see New Brunswick become an important producer of critical minerals creating high paying jobs as well ...
Apr 24, 2025•53 min•Ep. 213
It might be surprising to many that Atlantic Canada has two of only four ambulance manufacturers in Canada. One is Dieppe based Malley Industries led by Terry Malley, the company's CEO and the other is Yarmouth based Tri-Star Industries, founded by Keith Condon, previous guest on the Insights Podcast. Malley operates a 92,000 square foot facility with 80 employees in Dieppe near the airport and produces 200 ambulances annually with 35 percent exported to the US, the Caribbean and Bermuda. The av...
Apr 17, 2025•48 min•Ep. 212
The QEII Foundation is in the midst of a major $100 million capital campaign under the theme of "We Are". The campaign is being led by Sherry Porter, our guest on this episode of the Insights Podcast, is a long-time board member of the Foundation and an accomplished business leader. She continues to be active as a board member, including serving on the board of Organigram, Canada's largest cannabis company and a previous guest on the Insights Podcast. Porter has been active as a community builde...
Apr 10, 2025•49 min•Ep. 211
Many people would be familiar with the ChatGPT app as a tool for research purposes and composition. But the use of artificial intelligence is much more complicated and sophisticated than that. For example, do you know the difference between predictive AI and generative AI? On this week's Insights Podcast, our guest, Jennifer LaPlante who is the Chief Growth and Innovation Officer for Canada's Ocean Supercluster provides a useful tutorial into understanding what AI all about and how it is current...
Apr 03, 2025•58 min•Ep. 210
If Nova Scotia wasn't already considered one of the most difficult jurisdictions to conduct business in the mining sector, the province's reputation will not be improved by Australian based mining company, St. Barbara Limited's recent decision to liquidate its holdings in Nova Scotia. The company has planned projects at Fifteen Mile Stream, Cochrane Hill and Beaver Dam. In this week's Insights Podcast with Andrew Strelein, the company's Managing Director & CEO, he clearly points a finger at ...
Mar 27, 2025•59 min•Ep. 209
It may surprise many that Tri-Star Industries, founded by Keith Condon in 1973, in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia have sold their customized ambulances to 46 foreign companies. Tri-Star has also supplied all the ambulances in Nova Scotia under a lease arrangement. The company has also sold ambulances to seven other provinces, just recently signing an agreement with Newfoundland & Labrador. Keith sold his interest in his company ten years ago to his senior management team, but remains active in the co...
Mar 20, 2025•44 min•Ep. 208
On this week’s Insights podcast, Don and David are talking trade and tariffs with Dr. Herb Emery from the University of New Brunswick. What will be the impacts specifically in our region? How many jobs are at risk? What industries? We spent a lot of time talking about solutions ranging from developing new foreign export markets to strengthening interprovincial trade and developing our natural resources. Emery points to lessons from the past and highlights the fact that many of our economic chall...
Mar 13, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 207
At the recent 2025 Seafarmers Conference sponsored by the Aquaculture Association of Nova Scotia, Don Mills and Bill Lahey, the President of King's College were the kick-off panel keynote speakers focused on the challenges and opportunities facing the sector. Jeff Bishop, the Executive Director for AANS was the guest host for this live recorded podcast. Bill was one of the co-authors "A New Regulatory Framework for Low Impact/High Value Aquaculture in Nova Scotia Report" which tackled one of the...
Mar 06, 2025•40 min•Ep. 206
Our guest on this episode of the Insights Podcast is Patrick Sullivan, the CEO of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce. The Halifax Chamber has nearly 2,000 members who employ 90,000 workers in the Greater Halifax Area. The Chamber is focussed on advocacy for its members with the three levels of government, providing a strong and independent voice for the business community. Its current key priorities are affordability (including tax reform), labour and infrastructure. Last year, the Chamber conducte...
Feb 27, 2025•56 min•Ep. 205
Our guest on this episode of the Insights Podcast is Carrie Cussons, the CEO of Events East, the special purpose government agency partnership between the Province of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Regional Municipality responsible for managing both the Halifax Convention Centre and Scotiabank Centre. There was considerable early criticism about the decision to build the new convention centre. The convention centre opened in December 2017 and, despite operating during a period that included Covid, ...
Feb 20, 2025•52 min•Ep. 204
On this episode of the Insights Podcast, our guest is Greg Simpson, the President & CEO of Liverpool, NS-based Mersey Seafoods, a company most would know very little about. Mersey Seafoods was founded in 1964 by a dentist, Dr. Bill Murphy and a group of like-minded businesspeople. It was started to replace a fish plant that had been destroyed by fire and has since become one of Atlantic Canada's largest privately owned seafood companies. The family continues to be privately held by the Murph...
Feb 13, 2025•58 min•Ep. 203
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt joined Don and David on the Insights podcast this week. She is the province’s 35th premier and, while only been on the job for three months, is already facing an unexpected challenge, the threat of a prolonged trade war with the United States. We talk about a wide range of issues from health care to immigration and long term economic development. One interesting topic discussed is her focus on empowering the Cabinet. Increasingly in New Brunswick and across Canad...
Feb 06, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 202
Vision 2025 was an event held last week at the Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub focussed on the growing opportunities for the life sciences and bio-science sector in Nova Scotia and featured presentations from four companies in this space including Oberland Agriscience and 3DBioFibR. The event was co-sponsored by GreenSpring BioInnovation Hub, IGNITE Atlantic and Life Sciences Nova Scotia. David and Don were the keynote speakers at the event and recorded a live podcast with Doug Jones, the Foun...
Jan 30, 2025•47 min•Ep. 201
There is a good chance that you have not heard about Don MacDougall, but he is the person most credited by many for Toronto's Major League Baseball's franchise while he was the President of Labatt's Breweries, where he led the company from third place in market share to first place. He was also closely involved with the establishment of the Montreal Grand Prix and the Labatt Brier. He has been a serial entrepreneur including being the owner of Novatronics, a company with some involvement in the ...
Jan 23, 2025•57 min•Ep. 200
The Bertossi Group of restaurants is the largest privately owned group of fine dining restaurants east of Montreal. Stephanie and Maurizio Bertossi opened their first restaurant , the Perla in the 1980s. Few who live in or have visited Halifax have not dined at one of their well-known restaurants that have been around for decades, including the Bicycle Thief, Ristorante a Mano, La Frasca and il Mercato Trattoria.The Group is owned by Hakan Uluer, a personable and ambitious immigrant originally f...
Jan 16, 2025•54 min•Ep. 199
On this week’s Insights, Don and David talk with Heidi Leslie, founder & CEO of Halifax-based Crux Energy Consulting to discuss the energy sector in Atlantic Canada. We talk about artificial intelligence and cloud computing and the demand for data centres and whether this is an opportunity for Atlantic Canada. We discuss the Newfoundland-Quebec electricity deal and other energy generation projects announced in 2024. Leslie also weighs in on natural gas and makes a strong case that the region...
Jan 09, 2025•56 min•Ep. 198
This week Gilles Volpé, President of NB Gas with Liberty Utilities joined Don and David on the Insights podcast. Liberty Utilities is the natural gas distribution company in New Brunswick. Gilles provides an important tutorial on the sources and uses of natural gas now and into the future. On an energy equivalent basis, New Brunswick currently uses as much natural gas as it does electricity. Most large industrial companies across the province use it. In southern New Brunswick, almost all hospita...
Jan 02, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 197
On boxing day of 2024, we share one of the most listened to podcasts of 2024. In this episode of the Insights Podcast, we focus on Canada's National Shipbuilding Strategy and the impact of that strategy on Atlantic Canada. Building ships for the navy is a complex and complicated endeavour and there is probably no other group than the Irvings that were capable of competing and winning a national bid to build those ships in Halifax. Irving Shipbuilding has 2,400 people working to complete the Arct...
Dec 26, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 196
The tourism industry across Atlantic Canada took a significant hit during the pandemic. On this week's Insights, Don and David check in with Joanne Bérubé-Gagné from the Tourism Industry Association of New Brunswick to discuss the rebound since. We cover a wide range of topics from the evolution of accommodations to 'backyard' tourism to new product development and encouraging the thousands of newcomers to explore their adopted province. We also discuss Joanne's thoughts about the new provincial...
Dec 20, 2024•59 min•Ep. 195
Although JD Irving may not be a household name that is familiar to many, it is the largest vertically integrated conglomerate in Atlantic Canada and one of the biggest in Canada with more than 20,000 employees. It is run by brothers Jim and Robert Irving as CO-CEOs. Robert has responsibility, among others, for Midland Trucking, Midland Courier, Irving Tissue and Cavendish Farms among from his head office in Dieppe and employs more than 2,000 people in the Moncton area alone, including 700 head o...
Dec 12, 2024•55 min•Ep. 194
Few people will be aware of Emmerson Packaging, an Amherst based manufacturing company that produces packaging for the paper goods, pet food and food markets. Nonetheless, most consumers would have their packaging in their homes with clients like McCain Foods, Cavendish and High Liner Foods, not to mention house branded products from Walmart, Costco, Sobeys and Loblaws. The company is nearly 70 years old and was founded in Saint John, New Brunswick. Its main production facility (300,000 sq ft) i...
Dec 05, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 193
