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

This week's Insights Podcast focuses on a recent report prepared by David Campbell for the Public Policy Forum called "Help Wanted: Solving Atlantic Canada’s Growing Labour Challenge". David is a Fellow with the Public Policy Forum as well as the co-host of the Insights Podcast.  In our conversation, he notes that Atlantic Canada will need more than 440,000 new workers by 2035 to replace those retiring and fill new jobs created by economic growth. He points out that 20% of today's workforce in the region are 55 years old or more and will most likely be out of the workforce by 2035. More critically, due to low birth rates and an older population, Atlantic Canada does not have the capacity to produce the workers needed for the future. In fact, the shortfall is nearly 270,000 workers that will have to be attracted to the region from elsewhere. It is a crisis that is already evident. We talk about what needs to happen to address this growing problem.

Our guest on this week’s Insights podcast is Lana Asaff, Senior Economist with the Atlantic Economic Council.  Lana stopped by to talk about a new report published by the Council entitled “Fixing the Leaks in Atlantic Canada’s Education-to-Employment Pipeline”.   This conversation was a little unusual for the pod as it got quite animated.  There wasn’t a lot of good news in this report. Lana reported on the many challenges in the K-12 system, from lowering test scores and rising absenteeism to the unpreparedness of many high school students to enter post-secondary education.  Some 40% of university students drop out before finishing their degree. Both Don and David feel very strongly about the need to address the growing challenges in the region’s K-12 education system. Lana also discussed the youth NEET population (not in employment, education or training).  More than 58,000 or 12% of Atlantic Canadians aged 15–29 were NEET during the 2024/2025 school year. Forgone income among NEET aged 20–29 exceeded $470 million regionally in 2024/2025.
This report is a sobering reminder of the challenges and should be a wake-up call for all Atlantic Canadians who care about the region’s future.
Read the full report here:
https://atlanticeconomiccouncil.ca/page/AGPEducationEmploymentPipelineJune2026

On this week’s Insights podcast, Don and David speak with Mary Butler, President and CEO of the New Brunswick Community College.  The NBCC has six campuses, 1,200 employees, 5,500 full-time students and 13,000 total learners each year.  Enrolment has been rising, and the college boasts a 90 percent graduation rate.  Butler and her team are rethinking the role of college education in New Brunswick, tackling issues such as international skills recognition, strengthening college entry pathways for high school students and embracing artificial intelligence (AI).  As the NEET rate among young New Brunswickers (those Not in Employment, Education and Training) is rising, she sees a golden opportunity for the NBCC.

On this week’s Insights podcast, Don and David speak with Bruce Fawcett, the outgoing President and Vice-Chancellor of Moncton-based Crandall University.  After 14 years at the helm, Fawcett is retiring in August.  During his tenure, Crandall University has increased enrolment from 750 to nearly 2,000 students, eliminated its debt and is building up the university’s endowment funds.  The university has expanded programs and now attracts hundreds of international students every year.
Fawcett reflects on his tenure at Crandall University, the importance of entrepreneurial thinking and the role that Crandall plays in turning out graduates that meet workforce demand across the province.  He estimates 85 percent of international graduates stay in the province.

This week's Insight Podcast features an in-depth and  revealing conversation with Lee Bragg, the Executive Vice Chair of Eastlink, one of the companies in the Bragg Group of Companies, one of Atlantic Canada's most successful family companies. The early history of the Bragg family was in forestry, but John Bragg's decision to build a manufacturing facility in Oxford in 1968 marked the beginning of the shift of the wild blueberry sector from a cottage industry to a scalable, large-scale business. In 1968, the total production of wild blueberries in North America was about 200,000 pounds. Now, production exceeds 140 million pounds annually. Today, Oxford Frozen Foods represents nearly half of all the blueberries produced in North America and has plants in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Maine with 220 million pounds of storage capacity. Along the way, the company has become the largest beekeeper in Canada, with nearly 40,000 hives to pollinate its 45,000 acres of blueberry fields under its management. Employment at the Bragg Group peaks at nearly 10,000 during the growing season. The Group of Companies includes airport services, renewable energy, forestry,  cable, hospitality (including the Rodd Hotel Chain and Cabot Cliffs and Links) and real estate development. The company recently purchased 435,000 acres of forest land, previously owned by Northern Pulp, from the Province of Nova Scotia, making Bragg's one of the largest landowners in the province. This podcast is a rare insider view of a spectacularly successful company.