Don Mills and David Campbell want you to embrace bold ambition for Atlantic Canada.

What if Atlantic Canada could harness wind resources equivalent to Alberta's oil wealth or Quebec's hydroelectric power? Don Mills a career entrepreneur and social engineer and David Campbell,  seasoned economic development expert with decades of regional insights, join us to challenge our thinking about Atlantic Canada's economic future.

The duo's new book "Towards Prosperity" couldn't arrive at a more critical moment. With the Trump presidency threatening Canadian trade and requiring a rethink of our economic positioning, Mills and Campbell offer a practical roadmap focused on resource development, immigration, and entrepreneurship that crosses political divides.

"We've (Atlantic Canadians) have developed a philosophy that we don't have to do anything because somebody else is going to pay for our lifestyle," Mills observes, confronting the uncomfortable reality that equalization payments from resource-rich western provinces have created complacency. The statistics are striking: Atlantic Canada has one public sector worker for every four employees versus one in five nationally – essentially "playing a man short" in wealth creation.

Are you ready to think bigger about our economic future? This conversation and their book will help change how you view Atlantic Canada's potential. Your can find Toward Prosperity: The Transformation of Atlantic Canada's Economy on Amazon and local bookstores. 

Send us a text

Kimia Nejat of Kimia Nejat Realty
 

Marc Zirka - Strategy Up 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cheers.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Cheers.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Afternoon Plankton.
I'm Mike Tobin, I am MattConrad, and who do we have with
us today?
Don Mills and David Campbell.
All right, I believe you guyshave a podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Yeah, we do Podcast collaboration.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
That's it.
Yeah, we've been doing ours formore than four years now.
We've got last count 215.
Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Okay, 215.
That's impressive.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
Well, you know how much work it is right.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Did you ever think it would getthat far?

Speaker 4 (00:35):
No, honestly.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
No, like when you first started.
What was the idea?
What did you want to do in thefirst place?

Speaker 4 (00:41):
Well, I needed a channel to pursue some of my
things that I've advocated forfor a long time.
David had already been doing apodcast for about a year before
we collaborated, and he wasdoing kind of the same thing
around the economy.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
And so when we teamed up, it was natural for us to
team up and do a podcasttogether.
I started a blog in 2004.
Yeah, okay, that content isstill there at david w
campbellcom.
Most of it is absolute garbagefrom the early days.
A lot of politics, a lot ofcrapping on bernard lord, but
yeah, so I've been trying to dothis sort of communication and
communicating ideas for many,many years and this was a good

(01:26):
extension of that, back in 2010,I did a video for a while a
local videographer in Moncton.
I did a weekly news show.
It died out.
So yeah, I've been doing stufffor years.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
And I'm subscribed to your Substack.
So you're still writing, yeah,so I evolved.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
The blog used to be in WordPress and then I moved to
Substack.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, and how's that working for you?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
It's good.
1,500 users right.
Wow, weekly downloads, that'sgreat.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah that's good and I mean, I think so, don.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
You've been on our show before and if you should go
back and listen to that episodeI was probably a little rustier
then too.
But you know, we kind of got alot of your back story.
But I'd love to know a littlebit more about you, Like, what's
your back story in economics?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
So the back story is I got a master's in business and
I came back to New Brunswick inthe mid-'90s early mid-'90s and
there was no work to be had.
But I eventually got ashort-term job with the
government of New Brunswick insomething called economic

(02:31):
development.
So there was actually a groupof people and their whole
mandate was to go out andconvince companies, mostly in
Toronto, to set up operations inNew Brunswick.
I thought that was the craziestthing why would anybody ever
want to move an operation fromToronto to Moncton?
But we had tremendous success.
My job was to write thebusiness case.
So we would write businesscases with an economic model
that showed it was 19% cheaperto do business in Moncton than

(02:54):
Toronto.
And, sure enough, we attractedUPS and Air Canada and Federal
Express and a whole bunch ofthese companies.
Exxonmobil All of those bigname companies came in the late
90s as a part of that initiative.
So then that started my 30 yearinterest in how you foster

(03:14):
regional economic development inplaces like Atlantic Canada,
and most of my career has beensomehow related to that.
2015 to 2017, I was chiefeconomist with the government of
New Brunswick and the thing I'mmost proud about that 2015 to
2017, I was chief economist withthe government of New Brunswick
and the thing I'm most proudabout that was in 2017, we
released the population growthplan.
It got booted out of office in2018.
But the plan we saw a greatpopulation growth in New

(03:37):
Brunswick not necessarily as aresult of that plan, but we
identified the issues and, yeah,we've seen record population
growth since then.
So that's the story 30 yearsFollowed this guy.
For 20 of those years he has.
I like to say that I know allthe Stats, canada data back and
forth like nobody's business,but he knows what's in your soul

(04:00):
because he's been pollingAtlantic Canadians for 40 years.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Isn't that the truth, very?

Speaker 2 (04:03):
true yeah, he probably knows more about us
than we do.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
I don't know if it's just because my mother worked
for Don back in the 90s, butI've always found statistics and
polling and that stuff reallyinteresting.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
I was the kind of guy yeah, me too.
Well, I imagine you would.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
I was the kind of guy that would sit there, even
sometimes even just sitting on apublic transit bus.
I'd if I had the you know, Iguess, the guts and whatever to
go up.
I would like to ask some.
I remember doing this whenriding the bus as a teenager,
asking someone why did youchoose to sit in that seat?

Speaker 4 (04:39):
like it always, it always like you should have been
a researcher yeah, you should.
Maybe I should have been right.
You should have been aresearcher.
Yeah, you should have.
Maybe I should have been right.
Maybe I should have been.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
I remember, like when I got out of like school and I
wasn't much of a reader and Iremember the first book that
made me realize, like becauseyou know, in high school they
make you read like fiction booksand I don't care about that.
But I, when I get out and I wassitting there like all right,
I'm not much of a reader, but Iremember the first book that I
actually like read.
That was a nonfiction book andI was like, oh, you know what I

(05:07):
hate reading, I just don't likereading fiction.
But it was a book called weKnow what You're Thinking.
I don't know if you rememberthat or know that book.
It had the picture of a donuton the front of it and it was a
stats book and everyone made funof me because they were like
that seems really boring.
But no, I really, reallyenjoyed it because it's

(05:27):
sociology, right.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
Yeah well, you're going to really enjoy a book
then, because it's got lots ofstats in it so it's a little
late into that the reason youguys are back.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
You're back to on and you're here.
I mean you guys put a booktogether and I mean it sounded
like it took a few years tocompile.
This came out pro-Trump beforeTrump, but it seems like it
might be exactly what's in theAtlantic Canada's toolbox right
now for what we need to fightthis guy going forward, not
fight but you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
He's not mentioned in the book at all but, I, think a
lot of the recommendations,such as free trade and within
the provinces, are veryappropriate in the Trump world
and I've noticed Tim Houston.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
I mean it's almost like you know.
This book seems to really becoming out at the right time,
because just in the last fewweeks I've seen Houston really
preaching.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
He's leading the way.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
Leading the way to take the.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
NOAA to Nova Scotia and all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
I'm leading the country.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
I mean, let's ask you about this.
I'd just kind of love to hearyour insights on this.
What did this?
I've just kind of love to hearyour, your insights on this.
Like, what did you think aboutthis uranium thing?
Like so we had to kind of comeand then it kind of it.
It it came in prettyaggressively and suddenly
without much like oh, uranium.
Like well, we, I think a lot ofpeople surprised by that and
then it seemed to well, nointerest, and then it just went
away in our book we uh spend alot of time talking about uh

(06:41):
natural resources and the factthat we have not taken advantage
of our natural resources and,you know, uranium is one of
those minerals that the worldneeds.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
The last, you know, cop conference.
They said that the agreementwas to triple the amount of
nuclear energy.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Right.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
Seeing that it was clean.
And what does that mean?
It means that there's going tobe a great need for uranium.
Well, nova Scotia has uranium,yeah.
So can we not figure out how touse uranium?
And Saskatchewan has?
They've been mining it for 60years without any issue with

(07:28):
their population, without anyhealth problems.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, because you saw right away there was protests.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah, but this is the problem, Mike, that we have in
this region.
We've developed a philosophythat we don't have to do
anything because somebody elseis going to pay for our
lifestyle.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Is that the philosophy, or do people know
that they're doing that Like?
I mean?
You know, I mean, I know that'slike.
I mean maybe they're doing itignorantly and don't understand
that how it works.
No, but this is the issue.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
Like you know, we spent the last how many decades
you know not having to figure itout ourselves?
Yeah, because somebody else ispaying the bill.
Decades, you know not having tofigure it out ourselves you
know, because somebody else ispaying the bill.
You know, and how are theypaying that bill?
by the way, right, they'remining, they're you know
drilling oil and gas, andthey're using the proceeds from

(08:18):
that to keep us in the lifestyleto which we become comfortable.
So we don't need to do thatbecause somebody else is doing
it for us.
Now I don't think people thinkthat way, but that's actually
what's happening.
So let's just get back towhat's happened recently.
So I applaud our premier fortaking the moratorium off

(08:39):
uranium and he put it out therefor a bid and he didn't get any
bids and people said, oh see,nobody's interested in it.
No, that is not true.
I just told you that there'sgoing to be a big demand for
uranium.
So why didn't people bid?
Because in Nova Scotia we havethe reputation of being the
worst mining jurisdiction inNorth America and people don't

(09:03):
want to do any mining herebecause you know what?
On average, it takes 17 yearsfrom the time you discover a
mineral to the time you canproduce it.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Really.

Speaker 4 (09:13):
I don't know how many people are prepared to wait
that long to get theirinvestment back.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
No, that's true, right.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
And why does it take 17?

Speaker 4 (09:19):
years.
Good question?
Good question Because we've gotall this regulatory process in
place and, by the way, bothDavid and I completely support
protecting the environment.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah 100%.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
But how is it that other places can you know frack
for gas and David has a goodexample of BC or mine.
You know uranium, andapparently without any
difficulty.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
But we can't do that here.
Where does that fear come from?
Where are these people?
Because people claim to haveexamples of this person's faucet
catches on fire or somethinglike that.
Right, when does that fear comefrom and what can we do to
debunk the?

Speaker 2 (10:02):
claims.
Well, that example.
They must have watched thatmovie, gasland.
But what happens is you have alot of.
In certain parts of NorthAmerica the gas reserves are
right near the surface and theyactually get into the water
supply.
So that had nothing to do withfracking.
That was gas in the watersupply from a natural source.
Frack gas is a kilometer down.
It's nowhere near the source.
So there's just a whole lot ofmisunderstanding.

(10:25):
And it's nowhere near the source.
So there's just a whole lot ofmisunderstanding and I think
people are looking for an excuseto not like something like that
.
So we just need to do a betterjob.
How large is your family?
How many is you?

Speaker 3 (10:33):
your partner, my immediate family.
Oh, there's just three of us,three of you, right?

Speaker 2 (10:36):
So you guys, the government of Nova Scotia, gets
about $10,000 from Alberta andSaskatchewan to pay for your
public services.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, with equalization payments and all
that stuff.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
So what are they getting for that $10,000 that
you're getting in services?
This is an argument.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Let's make it personal, but this is exactly
what Alberta is using right nowto stomp their feed.
Exactly yeah, of course, why?

Speaker 4 (11:02):
aren't they?
Because they're using therevenues that they're getting
from their natural resources,sending that to our province to
equalize and give us a standardof living that is comparable to
elsewhere, and we're notprepared to use our natural
resources to help out.
Well guess what, guys?
When the renegotiation of thoseagreements come due, the

(11:26):
western provinces are not goingto agree to any transfer unless
the provinces that the money isbeing transferred to also take
and use their resources, and youcan't disagree with that.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
So I saw this really great video a two-minute video
that Tim Houston released thattalked about our offshore wind.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
And.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
I thought it was really interesting because he
was saying that Nova Scotia,like the what is it?
The kilowatts is that we usesomething like two and a half
kilowatts for the whole province.
Yeah, gigawatts, gigawatts.
Thank you, sorry, yeah, sogigawatts.
So it was something like twoand a half gigawatts is what we
use as a whole.
Sorry, yeah, so gigawatts.
So it was something like 2.5gigawatts is what we use as a
whole.
He was talking about NovaScotia could easily produce

(12:09):
double that.
But then he also said that ifwe actually go full in on this
thing, we could actually produceanywhere from 40 to 60
gigawatts, which is 25% of whatall Canadian energy would be.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
And we did a podcast with the author of Catching the
Wind, peter Nicholson.
You guys should read thatreport.
Everybody should read thatreport, peter Nicholson.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
And he was on your show, right?
He was yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or listen to the podcast.
I love him on this showactually too.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
If you don't want to read, it Because you know he got
me personally excited by theopportunity and he said
something that I will neverforget as long as I live.
He said the potential of windpower in Atlantic Canada and he
was talking about the wholeregion.
His report is focused on NovaScotia but it really implies the

(12:57):
whole region Is equivalent tothe impact of oil and gas for
Alberta or hydro for Quebec.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
So just think about that Okay.

Speaker 4 (13:06):
You know, so that's a big deal right it's a big deal
and we just happen to have thebest wind resources.
Apparently, in the world we'renumber one in wind.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
I mean, if we could somehow figure out our title,
then we'd be a juggernaut.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
Well, the title you know we've done title, you know
the problem with title isregulatory Title.
You know we've done title.
You know the problem with titleis regulatory Like you know
you've got to make it easier forcompanies to be able to do
business.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
I know it's been a little bit difficult.
I mean there's been a fewissues that we've had with the
title.
I know you know it was killingfish.
The tides are too strong,damaging equipment to make it
not really worthwhile, and I doknow you know one issue was
Trudeau dragged his feet on somefunding with a Scottish company
that was important in the Bayof Fundy and they actually
packed up and left.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
We interviewed them.
So yeah, the deep water stuffhad silt problems yeah silt
going through the turbines,broke the turbines and then the
surface stuff.
The company we interviewed yeah, the feds just kept dragging
their feet.
They ran out of money.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
They ran out of money because it took too long.

Speaker 4 (14:10):
And this is the problem that we have in Canada.
And, by the way, carney is onthis as well.
He's on the idea that we needto get things done quicker,
faster.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
Seems that way, yeah.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
And here's an example .

Speaker 3 (14:45):
He's promoting the idea that sometimes you need
both federal Seems that way.
Yeah, big advancement in termsof getting projects done.
I personally am very excitedabout having Carney as PM and
Houston as our Premier.
I feel like they actually havea lot of synergies and I think
we could, if done right the wayHouston's reacting, the way he's
really taking charge, I thinkwe could be in for some a bright
future.
But I don't know you guys.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
No, the only problem there is that rumours are
circulating that Houston has anational ambition, so he might
end up being current.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Not yet.
I don't buy that.
I don't buy that yet.
I don't buy that yet.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
I don't buy that.
For one reason he doesn't haveFrench, and nobody in Canada is
going to be prime ministerwithout some French.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
I agree with you there.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
And also I feel he really is Nova Scotia first
right now.
I think I believe thatpersonally myself, he's trying
to do the right thing and, bythe way, I don't agree with
everything he's done.
No, you can't For sure, buthe's making the right noises
right now.
And you know what?
here's the thing thattraditionally Atlantic Canadians
have gone to the federalgovernment with hat in hand

(15:48):
looking for money, right, notnecessarily having anything in
return for that money, exceptthat we need it, which is a
pretty good reason Houston hassaid is that with his Wind West,
idea which we just talked about, that we're not going hat in

(16:08):
hand.
We're going and saying we'regoing to be a really important
partner here for you to achieveyour national sort of legacy
projects that you talked about,which are really going to be
energy-driven, and we justhappen to have a big resource.
We're going to need help doingthat, including things like tax
credits and stuff like that,because it could cost a lot of

(16:30):
money, but that's a betterreason to go and ask for support
than say, oh, we need money.
No, I agree, we're going to makea big contribution.
Think about it we could have25% of the energy in Canada
being produced in AtlanticCanada.
Yeah, imagine.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
That would be amazing .
Quebec is a great example.
So in the 1950s and 60s, aspart of the Quiet Revolution, as
a part of Quebec trying to takecontrol of itself and its
economy, it overbuilt itselectricity system, mostly hydro
, but it said we're going to usethe surplus for economic
development.
So they attracted aluminumsmelters and large industries
and then they ended up sellingsurplus power into New England

(17:06):
and making a huge amount ofmoney for the province, by the
way, which gets all tied up inthe equalization.
We should have that discussionsomeday.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yes, but Quebec has.
Their rate is 45% of what wepay for power, that's right 45%,
they pay 45% less, no, no, theypay 45% of.
We pay for power.
That's right, 45%.
They pay 45% less, no, no, theypay 45%, of so 65% less, oh my
God.
Or 55%, 55%, wow, 55% less thanwhat we pay.
Think about what.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
But that's where we should be leading then to Nova
Scotians.
It's like you know I mean, youknow, I understand what you're
saying Nova Scotians are goingtime and time again.
What's in it for me, right?
Maybe that's how we changeopinions on some of this Do you
think that would help.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
I think what really helps is having an ambitious
premier trying to outline adifferent future for the
province.
In my business I tracked everygovernment in the land of Canada
for nearly 40 years and one ofthe observations I have over
that work is that when you lookback on the political leadership

(18:13):
that we've had in this region,it hasn't actually been very
good.
It's actually been, on average,poor.
If you think about the premiersthat have made a
transformational change to theirprovince, who comes up?
The guy that you work for,mckenna In Nova Scotia McNeil,
by the way I think actuallymight be in that category.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
And what were some of the great things McNeil did.
Just kind of talk about thatfor a moment.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
Well, you know.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
The better things yeah.

Speaker 4 (18:41):
First of all he took on the unions and got that kind
of straightened out, becausethat was a problem.
But he also helped with thetransformation of our health
care system and I think thatthat was probably something that
we won't see the outcome for awhile, but that was really big.
And then Danny Williams inNewfoundland made a big

(19:02):
difference.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
He stomped his feet too, and then Danny Williams in
Newfoundland.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
It made a big difference.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
He stomped his feet too.

Speaker 4 (19:06):
I like Danny Williams , but you know what All those
people had kind of one thing incommon you had a clear vision of
what they were trying to do.
Like, if you have a premier andyou don't really know where
they're taking you, which hasbeen the norm that tells you
everything you need to know.
And in that book that tells youeverything you need to know.
And in that book, one of thethings that we talk about is the

(19:28):
need for bold ambition.
Yes, bold ambition and, as PeterNicholson said, we need to be
audacious in our goals.
Stop thinking so frigging small, and if you look at the
offshore wind, that's an example.
It's going to take a lot ofmoney, a lot of capital, to do
that.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
But we already have the resource needed to get it
done.
Yeah, and, and I think this islike this is a long-term green
investment, right.
100, which is what I thinkeverybody wants, like everyone
wants.
I think everyone wants energy,obviously.
Uh, but the one thing thatpeople are saying that are on
both the left and the right sideof things are the right saying
well, we want good paying jobs,right, that you know won't cause
our economy to collapse, andblah, blah, blah.
Right, and we want to be ableto keep our lifestyle, as is.

(20:11):
Meanwhile the left is sayingbut the environment and like all
this stuff that we need to do,and maybe drilling is not
sustainable long term, and blah,blah, blah.
Well, we have something thatsatisfies both.
100 right, like, yeah, just,can we just get together and do
this?

Speaker 4 (20:25):
Yeah, the big issue, and I'm happy with the premier
because he's trying to get fivegigabytes or gigawatts of power
built, and so he's alreadyidentified what he wants to do
early and, as you said, we onlyuse half of that, which means
the other half can be what?

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Sold.
Sold to somebody else.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
Bring in revenue into our province.
That will help pay for otherstuff.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
And realistically for Nova Scotians.
Can that bring power down forus, Get us down to the levels of
where Quebec is?

Speaker 4 (20:55):
It might not bring our power down, but it might
stop it from going up.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
Because once it's built, you know that stuff is
stable.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
To maintain.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
You're not subject to oil prices or anything like
that.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
The infrastructure is put in place, it you know it's
amortized and then, and thenmaybe over time it actually
comes down after you pay off theequipment I don't know where
this lands on the politicalscale of me, but in an ideal
world I would love to get tothat point where we're producing
the 40 gigawatts and we turnaround and say Nova Scotians
don't pay any power and we'reselling the rest off for a

(21:27):
profit.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
We literally get a $0 bill.
I don't know if that's a leftor right idea.
You could sell it.
Then Imagine that If you wantto sell it to Nova Scotians, you
could sell it.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Then I'm slightly stealing that idea from Saudi
Arabia, because the fact is thatthey sell off their resources
and their citizens don't pay anytaxes that they sell off their
resources and their citizensdon't pay any taxes.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
There you go, but then there's no control on how
much power you use.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
So you'll keep the door open in the winter.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Get that third hot tub.
That's a good idea.
Third hot tub.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
I have no power bill Time for three hot tubs.
But, making sure that peoplebenefit from resources.
That's a valid point.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
The most important thing is this, guys, is that if
we become a full partner inCanada, I'm not just talking
about Nova Scotia here, becausewe have a pan-Atlantic point of
view here and that's what thebook is about.
We can be a net contributor tothe Federation.
I've done research in the pastwhere we asked the average

(22:27):
Atlantic Canadian if they'd liketo become a half-province.
Yeah, they get that part.
What they're prepared to do toget there is a different matter.
I get that, but philosophicallywe don't like being tagged as a
have-not region.
Right, we don't.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
No, and I mean Nova Scotia.
Historically, when there wasfour provinces, we were the
juggernaut, like Nova Scotia.
Some could argue thatConfederation hurt Nova Scotia
more than it helped, in a way,because we were the number one
right, but the only one at thistable that remembers that is Don
.
Oh Shots.
I have a question for both ofyou, though, Because you guys

(23:08):
have an Atlantic vision in mind,that you're not just talking
Nova Scotia.
Throw it out to you here.
Should we be four provinces orone?

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Whoa Whoa.
I didn't see that questioncoming.

Speaker 4 (23:20):
Well, I've actually studied this question.
I bet you have yeah, and youknow there's no appetite in any
of the provinces for bringingthem together.
I bet you have, yeah, and youknow there's no appetite in any
of the provinces for bringingthem together.
I think that will never happenand I actually think there's a
benefit of being separate for abunch of reasons.
There is an argument foreconomic union, not politically

(23:41):
union.
And you know, can you imaginehaving one Department of Health
for the?

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Maritimes.

Speaker 4 (23:46):
Newfoundland.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
It's hard to bring Newfoundland in to anything,
because it's that far away,physically far away.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
They're half an hour ahead of us anyway.

Speaker 4 (23:57):
And not only that, but from what I know of them
they're island thinkers and theytend to look inward rather than
outward.
That's what happens right.
Island thinkers and they tendto look inward rather than
outward, that's what happensright.
But I think in Atlantic Canadawe could have sort of key like
education, health care,transportation.
They could be one single entityserving three provinces in the

(24:22):
population and you know youwould have to decide where the
head office was.
But but you know you wouldreduce the cost for sure and
probably have better service sodavid over to you, and then I
got a follow-up question forthat too so well.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Even when I was in government, we were looking at
ways to to share in themaritimes right government.
So one purchaser for medicalsupplies and pharmaceuticals.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
That's an example.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
But the problem is if one jurisdiction gets slightly
ahead of the other.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
So I was talking about what I call the quid pro
quo.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
So we'll give PEI the I don't know medical imaging
work and we'll give Nova Scotiathe I don't know the medical
buying work and we'll give NewBrunswick the telecare because
they're so good at call centers.
So if you found some way ofdivvying up the work so that
everybody felt they were gettingtheir own little piece of the
pie.
It might make sense becausethis is still a region where

(25:17):
there's the beggar thy neighborthing, right?
Nobody wants, like every time wetalk about PEIs you know,
literally I've had ministers inNew Brunswick tell me stop
talking about PEI.
Okay, because we keep talkingabout how good PEI is doing
Right.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
They don't like to be reminded, okay.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
But yeah, you could do it if you had some sort of
quid pro quo where everybody youknow piece of the pie.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
Yeah, I do want to talk about PEI though, because
you know we use it as a model inthe book and it will surprise a
lot of people.
People don't follow PEI veryoften, right?
Right, yeah, but you knowthey've had the best economic
performance in the region andactually in the country over the
last number of years.
You know it's driven bypopulation growth, which they

(26:01):
got to earlier.
They got to immigration earlier.
Wade McLaughlin was reallyimportant in terms of the
Atlantic pilot program, whichhas turned out to be really
important and successful becauseit matches people coming in
with jobs and that keeps themhere longer as a result as well.
So you know they've been reallysuccessful.
They've developed one of themost successful clusters in

(26:22):
Atlantic Canada, the PEI BioAlliance, and you know so a
little province has really shownus kind of the way.
Yeah in many respects and I knowpeople get you know people from
the other provinces like well,what?
What does pei have to teach us?
Well, a lot, apparently yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
So my follow-up question is if we're not one
province, we're four provinces,but does it make sense to have
like a maritime block, almostlike the block quebécois type of
thing, it's like a politicalparty that represents us, like
the maritime countries, themaritime nations.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Well, yeah, you mean in parliaments.

Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yeah.
So I have to tell you a funnystory on that.
You might remember when theliberals basically swept
Atlantic Canada.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
Well, 2015,.
Like with Justin Trudeau, thatone, no, no.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
It might have been that they had 30 of 32 seats.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
In 2015, they had 33 of 33 or something.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
So I went up and I talked to the Atlantic caucus on
my own guy and I said to them Isaid this is what I said.
I looked around and I said youhold the balance of power in
Parliament, you can get a bunchof stuff done right now because
this may be a unique moment, andat that time I think three of

(27:43):
the four provinces were liberalas well I said go for it, right,
get a bunch of stuff done.
You have the power to controlParliament, because they did.
If they voted on block as ablock, they could get a bunch of
stuff done that we've beentrying to get done for a long,

(28:03):
long time.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
They didn't do it, of course.

Speaker 4 (28:06):
That was the one time where they could have actually
acted as a part.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
They didn't do it, but it almost feels like they
somewhat did it a little bitwhen it came to the recent
leadership shift.

Speaker 4 (28:16):
Well yes and no yeah, maybe it's tricky Because New.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Brunswick went the other way, right yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:22):
New Brunswick is always odd man.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
They're very conservative, but I just mean in
terms of like.
There seemed to be these rumorsof like caucus kind of saying
like Trudeau, you should stepdown and give us a shot.
And it seemed like that wasbeing led by the maritime MPs,
certainly, wayne.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
St.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
John.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
Wayne Long.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
Some of them wouldn't be, you know, outspoken, but
there were some rumors.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
That worked out for him.
He's now a cabinet ministerthere you go Exactly yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:02):
So one of the things that we're trying to do with the
book is to we're doing thesepodcasts and we're talking to
these people that like tellingthese amazing successful stories
and like I've always been apretty informed person about
this region, but I was hearingthings I'd never heard before
and some of the successes are sophenomenal that it makes you

(29:26):
I'd love to hear, like anexample of a left field success,
that you know that, that youmean that you didn't see coming
like out of the land of Canada,just any parking meters.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Parking meters okay, that's great, let's hear it.
How's that for being out of?

Speaker 4 (29:39):
yeah, yeah, sure so the only Canadian manufacturer
of parking meters and meters isin New Glasgow, mckay Meters.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Okay, Did you know that?
No, I didn't know that.
I had no idea.

Speaker 4 (29:50):
Yeah, yeah, and they're actually a very
interesting company.
They've developed.
Not only do they manufacturethe equipment, but they're
really a software company.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Well, that's the way it's going.

Speaker 4 (30:06):
now they're managing systems for communities.
They just completed the largesttransformation of parking
meters in the world.
They converted 13,000 smartmeters and 3,000 pay stations in
San Francisco from New Glasgow.
Now they're managing thosemeters from New Glasgow Wow.

(30:27):
And now they're managing thosemeters from.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
New Glasgow no way.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
So they can change the rates.
Time of day.
They can see where themaintenance is needed.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Somebody's got to work the early shift, I guess.
Well, no, that's not an issue,but think about it.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Amazing who would have thought that, yeah, that's
an example.
How about bug farming?

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Oh, I know a lot more about bug.
I know about the bug farm, buttell us you know about the bug
farm.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
So they take all the food waste in Halifax, they put
it in the front end of a factory.
They have the flies thatconsume this and grow like a
thousand times their weight in10 days.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
And he was describing to us in the podcast the sort
of love shack where theyactually procreate the flies and
getting the temperature right.
Maybe I heard this on your show, actually on the light right,
and then he's talking abouttalking about playing barry
manilow and but anyway.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
So then, and then out comes this very nutrient-rich
protein that they use in animalfeed, aquaculture feed and
chicken feed and your pets.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
your pets can have it too.
Pet food too, that's right,they're actually.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
yeah, you said they're branding it on the bag
because it's known to behigh-quality protein yeah so
100,.
What was it 100?

Speaker 4 (31:36):
100 tons of organic a day, a day.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
And every day he produces 20 tons of fertilizer
and 20 tons of protein a day.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
So what's he doing with that?
Is he shipping that outside ofNova Scotia to other countries
or other places?

Speaker 2 (31:55):
I don't know where, but outside of the region.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Outside of the region ?

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, there are some Like there's aquaculture firms
that use it here.
You talked about that one Blue.

Speaker 4 (32:03):
A sustainable blue Sustainable blue.
It's a partner with them.
Yeah, so you, sustainable Blueis a partner with them.
So you know that's a story likewho would?

Speaker 1 (32:10):
have thought bugs were in business.
Yeah, and he was a Harvard guythat came here, wasn't he?

Speaker 4 (32:15):
I mean, tell me he worked at NASA he went from
rocket science to bug farmerthat's amazing, yeah, cool so
there's stories like that, right, and that really uh shows us, I
think, what the possibility isand and and for us.
We have we have a lot of thingsaligned at the right time right

(32:35):
now.
Uh, one of the things that'sreally important that we want to
mention to you is that theentrepreneurial uh sort of uh
community has gotten strongerover the last number of years,
and one of the reasons it'sgotten stronger because we've
done podcasts with all theaccelerators and incubators
across the line of canada is wehave immigrants in this region

(32:58):
who tend to be moreentrepreneurial yeah than
native-born canadians, and about30% of the people in the
startup community right now arenewcomers from other countries.
We never had that in this regionever before, and so that's
expanded the entrepreneurialgroup by at least 30% 30%

(33:19):
Overnight.

Speaker 3 (33:20):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
Because of the fact that we have all these people
coming in who have a hightolerance for risk.
After all, they've moved fromtheir country to a new country
that's got to take a bit of risk.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
So taking over even a small store or whatever is not
such a big deal.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
No, and they work hard right.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:36):
They have a really strong work ethic, which is
something that we need torekindle here.
So that's really made adifference in the possible
outcome and the other thing thatwe're finding when we talk to
these people see what they'redoing.
They're not like me.
When I started my business, Iwas interested in Nova Scotia as
my world.
They're not interested in alocal market or a regional

(33:57):
market.
They're interested in anational or international market
, which is really good for ourprovince because it means what
they're going to build productsthat we sold somewhere else
exactly money back here.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
That's right, yeah, no, exactly.
Yeah, we need a lot of that andyou know, I love that because I
mean that that defeats a wholenarrative that people have that
are like, you know, immigrantscoming here taking my jobs and
all this other stuff, and thatthey're a burden to our society,
which really 30 entrepreneursmeans we just like that's a huge
growth and that's creating jobsand bringing money here that
would not normally be here, likethat's a good message that we

(34:30):
should really be shouting atevery chance we can.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
Well, you know, PEI has disproved this fallacy that
immigrants take jobs.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
And, in fact, the BioAlliance.
What percentage of theBioAlliance companies have
formed?

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Half, half, half of the CEOs of the startup
companies.
Companies have half of the CEOsof the startup companies have
at least one foreign bornfounder half so they've created
all kinds of jobs.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
Take an example of Tarika.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
He's been on our show and his story is amazing.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
He's got last time I saw 60 people working for him.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
He's an immigrant he's working from it.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
He's an immigrant.
He's created 60 Canadian jobs.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
Yeah exactly that's what happens.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Yeah, yeah, no, no, it's pretty amazing, right?
I think the I've always hadthat belief that if you're
willing to kind of pack up andgo, like that takes a really
kind of a special sum down right.
I often make my wife's fromQuebec Quebec.
So I make the joke that, likethe Quebec people were like you

(35:32):
know, they break the traditionallike French kind of stereotypes
because the Quebec people werethe ones that left France and
came over here.
So they're like the toughFrench ones and they left all
the not so tough French Frenchones back there.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
There was a researcher at UMB called Dr
Michael Hahn and he looked ateverybody that was born in New
Brunswick from like1950-something until the present
.
This was 20 years ago now, but15 years ago and he found that
New Brunswickers that were bornhere but living elsewhere in
Canada were earned, on average,twice as much and they were
three times more likely to own abusiness the ones that left

(36:09):
than the ones that stayed.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
So it's the same thing as immigrants, same idea,
it's just that you're like animmigrant from Moncton to
Alberta, right.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
So we're in an open place like Canada where the
labor mobility is incrediblyeasy.
People are going to leave andfor every one that goes out the
door, you bring in two.
You're all set right, but whatwe do is the one that leaves.
We moan and complain that theyleft, and why are we losing our
kids?
and yada, yada, yada from myperspective, it's good for
people to go and get a littlebit of perspective of another

(36:40):
jurisdiction yeah, yeah some ofthe most interesting people I
know spent some time outside ofnova scotia, outside of new
brunswick or outside of thisregion, so 100 I don't you know,
if our kids are leaving theregion because they can't, they
want to stay and they just don't, can't find opportunities here,
that's a problem, yeah, but ifthey want to go see the world
study elsewhere, do whatever Isay, let them go travel's the

(37:00):
best thing you can do, in myopinion right so, but like I
said for everyone you, you bringin 1.2, you're all set Same
with the dollars Most of themoney in your savings account
and your savings account andyour savings account is not
invested here.
Maybe Don's different, but formost people, your RRSPs and your
public pensions and all thatstuff.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
That's all invested elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
So if the money's flowing out, we need to flow
money in.
So we need to flow people in.
We need to flow money in.
We need to flow money in, so weneed to flow people in.
We need to flow money in.
We need to address the tradeissue and that's sort of the
economic rationale for being anopen economy.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
And I think we had Bradley, the Purple Cow CEO, on,
and that's a prime example of aguy who left, came back and was
like Internet sucks here andI'm going to do.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Internet.
He was mad about the price, hewas just mad about the price.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
Yeah, he was mostly mad about the price.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
That's the problem he solved, he solved.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
It's a good story.
Yeah, yeah, good story though,but yeah, it is a good story.
So, no, I think that's.
Yeah, that's like all very,very interesting stuff.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
So I mean Don's an import.
He's not from Nova Scotia,that's right.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
We got his origin story If you go back a few
episodes.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Yeah, His origin story.

Speaker 4 (38:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
But how does the story end?

Speaker 4 (38:18):
That's what I want to know.
Well, that's a good question.
The one thing that we also talkabout in the book is
rebalancing the workforce.
We're heavily dependent onpublic sector jobs in this
region.
In fact, there's been moregrowth in public sector jobs
than private sector jobs.
That's not a good recipe forthe future.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
You said that.
Yeah, I heard that.
I heard that today.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
And so you know, right now at least, one out of
four people working today inthis region work for the public
sector.
And in some provinces it's likein Newfoundland I think, it's
almost a third.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
I never knew that One in three Is that because of
like.
Are the numbers skewed becausewe have like the Navy here and
the military and stuff like that?
No, no, no.
Are the numbers skewed becausewe have the Navy here and the
military and stuff like that?
No, no.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
It just has to do with the fact that we've had
weak economic growth for 50years.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:14):
And I always like to believe that economic growth is
tied to the private sector, notthe public sector.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:19):
The private sector creates wealth.
In my view, the public sectorredistributes that wealth.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
That's fair, yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:25):
That's kind of the way it kind of works.
Redistributes that well, that'sfair.
Yeah, that's kind of the way itkind of works.
And so you know the argumentthat, oh, aren't we lucky to
have all these, you know,good-paying public sector jobs?
Yeah, only if it's supported bygood-paying private sector jobs
, you know.
And so we need to rebalance.
Right now, one in four work forthe government.
Here In Canada, the number'sone in five.

(39:46):
Okay work for the government.
Here In Canada, the number'sone in five.
It doesn't seem like a lot, butI always like to think that
we're playing a man short andtrying to keep up with the
national average when it comesto economic growth.
It's literally impossible to do.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
We're on the penalty kills, what you're telling me.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
Unless the guys that we have in the A's are four
Sidney Crosbys which meansbetter productivity and
efficiency.
We can compete, but we can'tcompete as it is right now,
without rebalancing theworkforce.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
We've talked about resources.
I was playing around withChatGPT on Sunday and I asked
what specifically would the bestoptions to drastically improve
the Nova Scotia economy withoutfail?
The goal would be to reducetaxes and have our province
bring in a surplus withoutsignificant damage to the
environment.
That was just the question Ithrew in there.
Now I got a very long answerout of chat GPT and it was a

(40:38):
great answer, I thought.
But this was their no-failcombo, okay.
So number one was blue economyexpansion, ocean Tech and you
guys recently did an Was it CookAquaculture you had on yeah, we
were listening to that actuallydriving up here.
That's fantastic.
The second one was remote workcapital strategy.
So that's kind of a cool one.
And the number three is onethat we've had on this show with

(41:02):
Tukandas tech and AI hubdevelopment in Halifax, right.
So AI is what everybody'sracing towards now.
It's like the web was maybe 20,25 or 30 years ago.
So you know we talked theresources talks.
What other do you think are themajor things that we could be
focused on here in AtlanticCanada?

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Well, obviously the blue economy is natural
resource-centric right and wesee tremendous opportunity there
, but there's a lot of barriers,a lot of government barriers,
and if you look at the majorocean economies, we have one of
the least from a GDP perspectivein the world.
That's crazy and it doesn'tmake sense.
We have the largest coastlinein the world and relatively

(41:41):
little GDP, so there's lots ofwork to be done there and
relatively little GDP.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
So there's lots of work to be done there, and
Canada's superclusters focus onthis.
Finally, and they're early inthe game, but they have a goal
of tripling the revenue from itover the next by 2035.
So they have an ambitious goal,which is a good starting point.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
In Halifax specifically.
I like post-secondary education, so it's already, according to
that one study we looked at,either the largest or the second
largest export industry forNova Scotia post-secondary
universities and colleges.
And when you walk around thiscity it is a young city and a
large share of that is thosestudents, right.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
There's just everyone .
You know that's students.
I hear, though, thatinternational students actually
is dropping, it's declining.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, that's right, because they've restricted work
permits and spousal work permitsand lots of issues.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
But I'm just saying, if you want, a high-value
economic industry.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
now it's highly subsidized, but remember
international students it's not.
They pay an additional tuitionto cover that.
So there's no economic downside.
But you've got to make sureyou've got good housing for them
and you know if they need touse a health clinic there's got
to be one for them.
But other than that, I lovebuilding the talent pipeline in
Atlantic Canada, and Halifax isthe epicenter of it.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Well, it keeps them here pipeline in Atlantic Canada
, and Halifax is the epicenterof it.
What keeps them here then, Iguess, is the next bit right.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Do you think Harvard cares how many people stay in
Cambridge?

Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, yeah, sure, you know, I don't want to be too
cavalier.
No, that was good, I don't wantto be too cavalier, but we and
Don's talked about this a lot wedo want to make sure that
universities are graduatingenough talent for the local
market.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
But do we really care if we graduate twice as many
engineers?
And then we go to the world andwe say hey, we're graduating
twice as many engineers, whydon't you come take advantage?
And the worst case scenariothey have to go back to their
home country or go to Ontario orwhatever.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
So I'm not as nervous Nurses or doctors, even though
in this you know even thatthat's valuable now more than
ever.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Doctors are too controlled.
If you could double the numberof doctors, you'd be gold.
But they dramatically restrictthat because they're trying to.
You know why they restrictdoctor output.

Speaker 4 (43:49):
But I would add one fact for your listeners that I
think is important.
I think that the post-secondarysector is really important for
talent attraction.
You know I've done research inthis sector and talked to
international students abouttheir plans after graduation and

(44:10):
the study that I was involvedin.
Nearly two-thirds wanted tostay in Canada after graduation
and stay in the communitieswhere they're educated.
So think about it.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
So you know, you've got places like Wolfville and
Anticonish and Sackville.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
You know, great talent probably the best channel
for international talent,because these normally come from
very good families with goodbackgrounds and money, Money

(44:47):
that can be attracted to ourcountry to invest.
And you know, Peter Halpin, theexecutive director of AAU, just
told me recently they did afollow-up study and 62%
currently are staying.
So you know, the whole questionabout what is the right number
of international students needsto be answered, but I think
we've cut back too much.
And they make a bigcontribution economically.
Most of them spend on average,thirty five thousand dollars a

(45:08):
year.
Well, and that's new moneycoming into the community.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
that's yeah, like they.
So my aunt we had actually hadher on the show here because we
talked she is one of the homestate coordinators for the high
school international studentprogram.
The great thing about that,though, is you're getting them
15, like 14, 15, 16, 17,.
Whatever they come over here,they end up really enjoying the
place, and then they end upgoing to university here,
whether it be Nova Scotia,sometimes it's somewhere else in

(45:32):
the country or whatever, butlots of them, like a good chunk
of them, actually do end up juststaying in Canada.
Some of them, especially ifthey're coming from China.
Some of them are like I neverwant to go back, it's so crowded
there.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
So a lot of people in the Caribbean, like in Bermuda
and these places, went toDalhousie, to Halifax
Universities, and so a few yearsago, when Stephen Lund was
trying to grow the financialservices sector, he went to
Bermuda and he saw all thesepeople that were Dalgrads and
all of a sudden they weresetting up hedge fund management
offices in Halifax.
I don't know what the downsideis.

(46:09):
You end up with a whole bunchof Nova Scotia graduates in
other parts of the world.
So what's the downside?
I don't see it.
As Don said, it's a greatconduit for population growth
because they come here, they getto see if they like our winters
.
They get to try on the labormarket.
They can work part-time.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
But while they're here, as a student, what I've
noticed is like, as you said,don, like a lot of them not all
of them, but a lot of them comefrom pretty rich families and
they're coming here and spendingmoney.
Yeah, just ask the car dealers.

Speaker 4 (46:41):
Yes, just ask the car dealers.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
you know when you, when you hire mandarin speaking
car sales people uh, it givesyou a hint about what the market
is doing like I've been in theinsurance industry for 13, 14
years and I couldn't.
I can tell you so many timeswhere people who are
international, internationalstudents have come in and I'm
like they're buying you know 115000 land rovers and I'm like,
would you like you knowcomprehensive and collision?
And they're buying $115,000Land Rovers and I'm like, would
you like comprehensive andcollision on that?

(47:08):
And they're like, no, I don'tneed that.
If anything happens, I'll buyanother one.
I'm like I wish I had yourmoney.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
Well that's a good example.
Imagine tapping into thosepeople who get to experience and
live in our communities forfour years and really understand
it, and going to them andsaying we're looking for
investment.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:28):
Right, and that would be.
I know it's been talked about.
I mean, stephen Lund used totalk about that all the time,
like you know.
We need to tap into thosepeople and find out if their
parents would like to invest,especially if they stay here.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
Yeah, especially if they stay here.
Yeah, especially if they stayhere.
That's the thing.
If we can have theseconversations with them and get
them to invest in whatever theywant to do.
It's like what do you want todo?
Don't race off to Toronto, doit here in Halifax, right, or
wherever they end up being, butdo it here in this part of the
country, kind of thing, right,yeah?

Speaker 4 (47:58):
You asked about what the opportunities are.
Obviously the blue economy isup there, and that includes wind
power by the way.
But we're seeing we've talkedat a number of conferences about
the bioeconomy and PEI is agood example where it's kind of
a bioeconomy cluster.

(48:20):
You know that cluster draws inabout $600 million of revenue to
PEI every year.
Wow, think about it.
That's a lot for.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
That's a small piece of land for $600 million coming
in.

Speaker 4 (48:32):
I think that sector is either third or fourth
biggest contributor to GB Heatand they only started 20 years
ago.
They went from zero to third orfourth in 20 years.
That's all kind of bioeconomystuff and there's pockets of it
all over the place and if we canleverage those groups, I think
there's a big upside on those.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
But I think Dow Housing could do more, because
medical schools tend to beincubators for startup companies
in the life sciences orbiosciences space right.
So the professors andresearchers come up with
innovative ideas for you knowhow to treat, you know whatever,
some disease or some muscleproblem or some medicine, and I

(49:13):
think we could see some of thatcoming out of Dalhousie if you
look at the IntraVestor report.
But I think there's more.
A medical school should be justa catalyst for startup
companies in life sciences,health sciences.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
Great yeah.
They're trying to do somethingwith a medical school in Cape
Breton.
Do I remember that correctly?

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, it's an offshoot yeah it's an adjunct of
Dalhousie.
But PEI has a small one too.
I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 4 (49:44):
There's a proliferation of yeah, I'm not
sure about that strategy.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
Med school light.

Speaker 4 (49:50):
Yeah, I'm not sure about that strategy.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
And I guess the third , the big one is tech, AI,
everything that's going on inthat field, right.
We have here, we have VoltaLabs, we have a lot going on.
It seems to be, I think it'skind of a field that everybody's
rushing into and interested in.
Yeah, I mean, I'm wondering howyou think that could, how, Nova
Scotia, how could we be a powerplayer in that field in
particular?

(50:13):
Do you think?

Speaker 4 (50:15):
Well, you know.
Again it comes to theincubation and accelerator
programs that you know providepeople with the right
environment to develop theirideas and get supported and
mentored and those sort ofthings.
I think what we have right nowis probably the best startup
environment ever in this region.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
So you're saying right now it's better than it's
ever been 100%.

Speaker 4 (50:36):
You have Volta.
You have the CreativeDestruction Lab at Dow.
You have the Idea thing thatthe engineering um, you know,
dal, there's lots of really goodwork being done the for sure,
and center up in cape red, andthat is uh helping to.

(50:58):
You know, do scaled, you knowexperiments of uh, of new
products and stuff like that.
There's a lot of infrastructurein place that can really
facilitate tech or bio orwhatever.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
But at the risk of getting your listeners pissed
off.
It's about intersectionality.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
So we have massive oceans.
We should be looking atAI-related oceans and I know
your daughter-in-law is lookingat that.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Wow, okay, we have massive forestry industries.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
We should be looking at the intersection of AI usage
in the forestry sector.
So I love this idea of ustrying to get good at AI, but in
those sectors that we're goodat already Right right.

Speaker 4 (51:41):
Does.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
AI scare either one of you in terms of job hindrance
or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Not really, but you know what this whole business of
synthetic data is driving me alittle weary.
Have you heard about thisSynthetic?
No, please share.
Okay, so what happens is thatthe AIs have run out of data, so
they read all the New YorkTimes articles, every article
they've ever done.
So now they have AI that'smaking up new content, synthetic
content, so it's supposed tolook and feel just like New York
Times articles.

(52:07):
Based on what?
Based on what they've read.
Okay, so it's called syntheticdata, so they're actually
creating fake data Fake news Toactually train the AI, so it's a
little bit creepy.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
Yeah, wow.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
But I do think it's going to disrupt.
I don't know that it's going totake 20% or 30% of the jobs
overnight, but I do think it'sgoing to be disruptive.
Programmers now are going to beable to tell the AI to do the
core programming.
Write me a script for this.
Write me a whatever.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
I took a web design course I don't know over a
decade ago, and then, yearslater, I built one with a coffee
in an afternoon on my computer.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
Just tell the AI what you want.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Yeah, no, it takes no effort now.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
It's crazy how much this has changed.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
So that's going to have hopefully productivity
gains.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Yes, that's the big thing Productivity gains.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
It has the possibility to eliminate a lot
of mundane jobs, a lot of thingsthat people don't want to do,
and make it more efficient.
I see a ton of benefits with AI.
Personally is with AIpersonally.

Speaker 4 (53:04):
I think it's going to take a bit of time.
I think so.
My daughter-in-law is an expertin AI.
We did a podcast with her thatkind of explained it.
What's that one.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
I'll look it up.
What's it called?
Which episode?

Speaker 2 (53:20):
It's just Jennifer LaPlante.
You just search for her,jennifer LaPlante.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Cool.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
My wife is someone who's worried about AI, not
necessarily for the job lossshe's a teacher, but she's just
someone who reads too much aboutit and she reads some of the
horror stories and some of thepeople sat on the alarms and I
said something to her actuallytoday that I just kind of
believe and then she was kind ofokay, I didn't think of it that
way, but I said the reason whyAI doesn't scare me is because

(53:47):
at least for a job loss-wise ispeople need someone to yell at
when things go wrong.
And yelling at a chatbot willnot satisfy your anger.
You can train it to yell back.
You can, but I still don't think.
You know what.
You stub your toe on somethingand in inanimate objects.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
You yell at it, but so you haven't seen the
AI-generated podcasters?
Oh, I've seen that.
Yeah, on social media they'reactually doing podcast shows
with this Gemini does it.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
yeah, you can just throw in a topic and put in a
few key ideas and it'll justplanificate on it for as long as
you want, they can write movies.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
they can write TV episodes.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
We did a Christmas special for fun on this show and
we wrote it with AI just forfun.
A couple very Christmas-ythemed stories we just had fun
with it.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
Yeah, but you still had to put in the ideas.
Oh well, yeah, I still had toput in the ideas, they just did
the details.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Yeah but it was way more advanced now than it was
even then when we did that justfor a fun experiment.
But I guess the other thingabout AI, though, that I think
some people are concerned aboutI mean, I'm raising a
13-year-old right now likecritical thinking, right,
because it's like whoops, sorry,it was like that calculator
back in the day, like you knowthe calculator, all of a sudden

(55:02):
you didn't have to do arithmetic.
Now, back in the day, like youknow the calculator, all of a
sudden you didn't have to doarithmetic Now it's like I don't
really have to think of myhomework.
I can just ask Chad GPT and itwill do absolutely everything
for me and you know I'll be.
Maybe I'm a bad parent, butthere was a moment where Tracy
had a geology thing due.
I don't know a lot about rocks.
We consult Chad GPT just tohelp us through it pretty quick,

(55:24):
like so we could get thathomework done on time, I mean.
But critical thinking now mightbe, I mean this this would make
it harder for your case to toget these, these, uh, of these
bold entrepreneurs, these boldminds out there to kind of go
out and innovate.
Do you think?

Speaker 2 (55:37):
gonna have to adapt my kids don't, don't, don't know
their times tables.
Isn't that weird, they don'tknow, 11 times 11.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
They're beating my head, man.
They don't know.
Well, we could spend the wholepodcast talking about education
and the lack of it.

Speaker 4 (55:52):
Let's be honest.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
That's fair.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
I don't want to keep you guys too long.
I know you guys have somewhereto be, so we really appreciate
this.
So Matt and I do this thing atthe end of our show where we
kind of do ten questions.
The thing is, is thesequestions, matt, we're really
like some, we ask some dumbquestions and we're actually we
take pride in our dumb questionsand we don't have really any
fun ones in here.
So I invent, you and myself,we're going to have to throw in

(56:20):
a dumb question or two just tokind of keep this on theme with
the show.
I can do that.
We asked uh, what didn't we asksteve mcneil?
Which which zoo animal he, whatanimal, he would like to be?
Yeah, which which animal hewould like to be in another life
if he was reincarnated?
Yeah, and what did he pick?

Speaker 3 (56:32):
remember giraffe I called it.
I called it on the drive.
Yeah, on the drive, yeah, soanyways these are dumb questions
.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
These are.
These are for just for fun.
All right, so you're gonna gofirst, I'll so you're going to
go first.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
I'll put you on the spot.
I'm going to go first, allright.
Okay, you pick a victim.
You know what?
Here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to do a hybridquestion.
So, okay, four Atlanticprovinces are your guys' focus.
If you had to assign eachprovince, who would be the best?
So you've got hockey, football,baseball and basketball who do

(57:05):
you think would be the leader?

Speaker 2 (57:07):
So Nova Scotia by far in hockey.
You've got Nathan McKinnon,you've got Sidney, there's no
issue there.
I think baseball would be NewBrunswick If you had Bill the
Spaceman or Lee and you had MattStairs and others.
So I'd say New Brunswick isbaseball.
Pei Curling, I'm not sure,don't they have Gooshu?

(57:28):
Where's Gooshu?

Speaker 4 (57:28):
from.
That's a good question.
I'd say curling, and then,Newfoundland music.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Rugby, oh cricket, okay, right on.
So, don, I'm going to make thesecond one for you.
This is going to get a littlemore philosophical.

Speaker 4 (57:45):
That's why I brought up my album.
Okay, cool.
What is the purpose ofsuffering?
The purpose of suffering,what's the purpose of it?
Or isn't there any purpose ofit Suffering?

Speaker 2 (58:05):
I guess probably I have an answer when he's done.

Speaker 4 (58:07):
Probably focuses you on what's important.
Great answer.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
You go ahead, dave.
It's the only thing thatdefines life, the only thing
that defines life Other thanthat you're a rock If there's no
suffering you're a rock Okay.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
See how philosophical we are.
Matt you can pick one of theten questions or you can pick up
another one if you want to havemore fun.
Whatever you want to do.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
Yeah.
So let's see, you know what.
I have a question that could goeither one.
I've been someone who's alwayssaid, because people think they
have this mentality of NovaScotia like the poor mentality
of what we can have here, thiswill be a true or false question
.
I think there's more money inNova Scotia than people really

(58:52):
realize.
True or false?

Speaker 4 (58:55):
True, true, there's a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Alright, if you had, say, five minutes with Premier
Houston tomorrow, what would yousay to him to kind of encourage
him, say whatever?

Speaker 2 (59:09):
you want.
So the interesting thing thereis we've actually, either
directly or back channel, havebeen providing him information.
So I would tell him to stay thecourse on natural resources
development.
Make sure you bring indigenousFirst Nations across, but stay
the course.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Steve Murphy's here.
Guys.
He's interviewing you guystonight, Is that?

Speaker 3 (59:31):
right, he sure is.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
He was our guest of honor for season three.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
You guys are the warm-up act.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
Yeah, we're the exact .

Speaker 2 (59:40):
We get started with you and then we go to Steve.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
He was a great guest as well.
My gosh.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
So my next question is, as we all know, immigration
focus.
Hey Steve, there you go.
Immigration focus has been onbuilding and medical.
If we could open up the gatesfor immigration to a third, what
would it be?
So right now, Tim Houston'sfocused on immigration of
medical and the trades.

(01:00:09):
What's a third one that weshould be focused on?

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
I don't know, maybe tech workers Again.
If you lose some of them, it'sfine, but if they stay, that's
great.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Come on in Steve.
Come on in Steve.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Yeah, join Dave on the mic.
Yeah say hello, you guys knowwhere to drink yeah, is it one?

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
pint, don and Dave, is it only one?
These guys, these?

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
guys are a little sensible.
Yeah, they're only one pinttonight yeah see you in a few
minutes.
Thanks, alright, question overto you okay, yeah, so, um,
alright, sorry guys, all right,question over to you.
Okay, yeah, so all right, sorryguys.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
One sec If you don't.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
I got one.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Okay, no, I just got to keep going here.
I got you a quote right there.
Are you broke?
Okay, this is a good questionfor you.
What gives you the most hoperight now for the future of
Atlanta, Canada?
What gives you the most hope?
What makes you feel the bestfor the future of Atlanta,
Canada?
It gives you the most hope.

Speaker 4 (01:01:08):
What makes you feel the best Right now?
I guess the fact that we justgot our ass kicked by Trump and
it's going to force us to lookat things completely different
than we have in the past.
Then it was about time, becausewe are two lakhsaisical about
what was going on, and it's timethat we face reality in this

(01:01:30):
region.
I think it's going to be reallygood for us cool, great answer.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Yeah, thank you all right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
So the question I had is is shifting a little bit,
but in the economics of our uh,you know, of our region, where
do you think the arts and thattype of culture fit?

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Thank you for asking this question Because I was
thinking about this earlier andthen.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
I totally forgot about it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Thanks, man, no worries, dude, great question.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Well, of course, the arts and culture sector.
It provides texture, it tellsour stories, it creates creative
content, it drives a lot ofinnovation, and so there's a lot
to be said about culture,although it's not all good If
you think of some of the storiescoming up.
David Adams Richards in NewBrunswick, very well-known

(01:02:18):
writer, but his stories arepretty raw about Miramichi, for
example and if you think aboutsome of the stories out of
Newfoundland.
So sometimes culture canactually shine a negative light
on your region.
But in general I'm a big fan.
I do a lot of work, volunteerwork, with the arts and culture
sector and you know I meanthere's a lot of debate about
the economic contributionbecause it is quite subsidized

(01:02:40):
across the country.
Yes, it's one of the mostsubsidized sectors because we
see value in it across thecountry.
Yes, it's one of the mostsubsidized sectors because we
see value in it, but no, it'sgreat.
I think it helps people putdown roots right If they get to
know their artists and thestories that their artists are
telling.
So I have nothing bad to sayabout arts and culture.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
Could I just add really quickly If we want to
have a complete life, we needarts and culture.
I was asked to participate inthe art gallery campaign.
That kind of got derailed and Isaid to him.
I said I don't know anythingabout art, but I do know that if

(01:03:21):
we want to attract people tothis city, we have to have
everything to offer them, andthat includes art, even though
I'm not a connoisseur.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
I appreciate that Nailed it.
I love it because I'm also abig fan of like we want to
attract doctors here.
They need something to do whilethey're not doing doctor stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
Correct, he wants a stadium here really bad, he's
going to go.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Oh, that was leading up to my next question.
It's your turn, so get ready.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
You ask your question and then we're just going to do
the wrap-up.
Should we build a stadium InAtlanta, Canada, or in Halifax,
right here?
What do you think I?

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
mean we have an economist and we have the guy
who's literally asked everybodyA real stadium.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
Is this good or is this a bad?

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
idea private sector right.

Speaker 4 (01:04:01):
Almost all of them are subsidized, so what?

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
do you say Don?
Should we do it?
Government money.

Speaker 4 (01:04:06):
Big new stadium.
Halifax is the last major citythat doesn't have a stadium.
Every other city has got astadium, with federal money
basically, and then usuallyaround a big event like the
Olympics or the CommonwealthGames.
We had our chance with theCommonwealth Games and we failed
.
So the only way we're going toget a stadium is with federal

(01:04:29):
money.
It's not going to happenotherwise and people need to
realize that and we maybe need abig event to make it happen.
But I'm in favor of a stadium,by the way, but I'm not
realistic in terms of how that'sactually going to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
I love it.
I I think a stadium willattract more people to want to
be here.
There's no I also.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
I'm in favor of a cfl team, just so you know, oh yeah
, there you go as an economist,what do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
yeah, I think halifax is an interesting city.
It's, it's, it's, it's largeenough to be interesting, but
it's small compared to the bigcities.
So I I think it needs toposition itself as the main
urban hub in Atlantic Canada andit probably needs this kind of
infrastructure, and maybesomeday even a hockey team would
be great.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Two for stadium.
We could do better than Arizonadid.
I think we could actually.

Speaker 4 (01:05:20):
But the economics wouldn't work for an NHL team
until we got to two millionpeople Fair enough, fair enough.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
All right, you want to wrap it up with the last
question.

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
So this is the last question we had.
Every one of our guests has thesame last question and it's one
for both of you, so it's justwhat's one piece of advice that
you were handed down that you'dlike to share with our listeners
.
This could be from family, froma friend, recent or from far,
far past, but just a piece ofadvice that stuck with you all
these years and you want toshare with us today.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
Well, you know, a lot of the advice that I've got and
held in my life came from myparents and they stressed the
hard work ethic.
It served me well.
I'd like to stress that.
I stress that with my kids.
I think they have a good workethic and I think they're
building a good work ethic intotheir kids and it's something

(01:06:12):
that everybody needs to thinkabout because it's getting
weaker.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
So, for better or worse, mine's similar.
It's make yourselfirreplaceable in your company,
in your organization, in yourschool, and be deliberate about
it.
And I tell my kids this, andit's not necessarily easy with
this generation, but if you areirreplaceable, you're golden.
So look around your company,your organization.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
It's a less stressful life too.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Who in the corporation is doing very, very
well.
What are they doing?
Right and emulate them, butmake yourself irreplaceable in
your organization.
It's hard work.
Well, gentlemen, those aregreat answers.
You passed, cheers.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Thank you so much for joining us and please check out
the book Towards Prosperity.
It's unavailable on Amazon asof this day, because I tried to
buy it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
two days ago you sold out the book.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Is that true?

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
No, no, they buy in small batches.
Oh, okay, yes, technically, butBookmark just down the street
has it and so does Atlantic Newsand do you have it on Kindle
for the digital folks?

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
No, Okay, and I guess last question we're all doing
audio and I'm an audiobook nerd.
Are you going to do anaudiobook of this?

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
So Nimbus doesn't have audio recording studios?
Well, you guys got like astudio don't you, he's got the
voice.

Speaker 4 (01:07:34):
I was going to say you have the radio voice.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
I think you should.
Well, you should do it together, yeah yeah.
I mean it would be great.
It's worth thinking about.
How do you handle the charts,though?

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
There's a lot of charts.
How do you handle the charts?
A lot of data.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
Oh, charts, yeah, I mean, I'm listening to an audio
book right now, honestly, withcharts in it and he describes
them.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
He describes them, it gives me enough.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
I mean it gives me enough.
He talks through the charts andI mean I get the gist of it
right a lot of charts in yourbook though isn't there a lot?
Yeah, yeah, I heard that.
Yeah, yeah, we like data.
Yeah, yeah, but cool, but itguys awesome hanging out with
you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
Thank you so much, I appreciate having us on.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Thank you so much.