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

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 hospitals, schools, government buildings and other big commercial organizations heat with gas.  A considerable amount of electricity is already produced using natural gas and NB Power is building a new gas-fired generation facility in the Moncton region. Where does the gas come from?  Unfortunately, mostly from Alberta and the southern United States. In many cases it costs more to transport the gas thousands of kilometres than the cost of the gas itself.  We talk about the potential to green the gas system in the years ahead through renewable sources and other topics.

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 Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) portion of their contract and is readying to begin to build the combatant "River Class" ships. They have developed a skilled and capable workforce and provided Canada with a sovereign ability to build its own military ships. The company has already spent more than $500 million in the region since the beginning of the AOPS program and contracts with more than 130 companies across the region. In our conversation with their CEO, Dirk Lesko, a veteran shipbuilder, he talks about the further investments needed to prepare for the combatant program, his pride in his leadership group and labour force and how the current shipbuilding facilities compare globally. It is a big deal for our region and well worth a listen.

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 government and its potential vision for tourism.  Drawing from his nearly 40 years' experience working with tourism clients, Don weighs in with his thoughts on how to strengthen the tourism sector and its impact across Atlantic Canada. 

 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 office jobs. In a rare and exclusive interview with the Insights Podcast, he talks about the companies under his direction, the continued growth of the companies and some major recent capital investments and even succession. It is a surprisingly candid conversation with one of the region's most important yet reticent business leaders, who shares a lot of facts not previously known publicly.