Disruptors

At SpaceBound in Gatineau, Quebec, across the river from Parliament Hill, John Stackhouse sat down with three people at the centre of Canada's push to reach orbit on its own terms.

Dan Goldberg, President and CEO of Telesat, is building Telesat Lightspeed, a global low-Earth orbit broadband constellation conceived, built and operated in Canada, with MDA as prime contractor. Its satellites will reach orbit on American rockets. Goldberg explains why defence and sovereignty have moved from a niche to a central source of demand for satellite services since the war in Ukraine, and why Canada's head start matters to allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

He supports a domestic launch capability but is clear-eyed about the bar. An operator competing with SpaceX, Amazon and state-owned Chinese operators needs launch that is reliable, affordable and frequent.

Hugh Kolias, co-founder and CEO of Canada Rocket Company, and Bachar Elzein, founder and CEO of Reaction Dynamics, are trying to meet that bar from different directions. Kolias is building a larger vehicle with proven technology and engineers who have built rockets before. Elzein is building containerized rockets that can be stored and launched from remote sites, with simpler propulsion to drive down cost.

The conversation builds on RBC Thought Leadership's Mission Critical report on why Canada's race to space is a matter of national urgency.

0:00 Live from SpaceBound 
0:56 Telesat Lightspeed and Canada's place in low-Earth orbit 
3:06 Defence, sovereignty and where demand is coming from 
4:54 Why launch is a sovereign capability 
9:28 Canada Rocket Company: speed, capital and talent 
12:57 What a satellite operator needs from launch 
15:22 Reaction Dynamics: cutting complexity to cut cost 
19:16 Looking ahead to SpaceBound next year

Relevant Reports and Podcasts:

From Ottawa to Orbit: Two Views on Canada's Big Day. Colonel Jeremy Hansen, whose name is on Canada Rocket Company's new engine test facility. (PODCAST)

Atlantic Canada: Launching Sovereignty (The Canada Project). Stephen Matier of Maritime Launch Services and Rahul Goel of NordSpace, on the Canso spaceport Goldberg mentions. (PODCAST)

Space: The Low Earth Orbit Movement. Dan Goldberg's earlier Disruptors appearance, with Mike Greenley of MDA Space and Dr. Margarita Marinova. (PODCAST)

Mission Critical: Why Canada's race to space is of national urgency. The report Stackhouse references on air.

A Higher Orbit: How Canada can build and finance a bolder space strategy.

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In the latest episode of Disruptors, host John Stackhouse travels to Innisfail, Alta., a little more than an hour north of Calgary. There he joins Alex Petre, the CEO of Deep Sky, a direct air capture company that finds itself in the middle of a geo-tech race. 

The two discuss whether direct air capture technology can scale, how to test competing systems side-by-side, and how Canada’s geology, labor force, fiscal regime and reputation as a trusted partner can turn carbon removal into a competitive advantage.

0:00 Inside Deep Sky Alpha 
0:48 Why carbon removal, and how direct air capture works 
4:32 Multiple technologies on one site 
7:26 Can direct air capture scale? 
9:22 Building the first commercial facilities 
11:49 The global race for carbon removal 
15:01 What Canada needs to do next 

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Spin Master co-founder Ronnen Harary believes Canada needs more entrepreneurs—especially young ones. In this episode of Disruptors, he joins host John Stackhouse to explain why your 20s offer the perfect window to start a business: you’re close to emerging trends, you have permission to fail, and you possess the “power of not knowing” that lets you take risks mature companies won’t.

Ronnen shares the story of building Spin Master from Earth Buddies to global brands like Air Hogs, Hatchimals, and Paw Patrol. He introduces the concept of “inverse risk”—the idea that not pursuing your entrepreneurial vision may be riskier than trying and failing. And he makes the case that despite economic uncertainty, AI disruption is creating unprecedented opportunities for young founders willing to move fast.

Chapters:
00:00 Why Canada needs more young entrepreneurs
01:39 Why your 20s are the best decade to start a business
03:49 The power of not knowing: the Air Hogs story
05:28 Immigrant roots, dysgraphia and an early entrepreneur
08:42 Earth Buddy and the birth of Spin Master
10:30 Tracking down the Kmart buyer
13:32 Inverse risk: from Earth Buddy to PAW Patrol
16:30 Why doesn't Canada have more entrepreneurs?
17:34 Futurpreneur and collateral-free loans
18:27 AI, Stickerbox and the most exciting time to start
21:23 Advice to his 23-year-old self

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Alberta wants $100 billion of AI data centre investment within five years, without subsidies. Recorded live at Energy Disruptors: UNITE in Calgary, Alberta's Minister of Technology and Innovation, Nate Glubish, tells John Stackhouse why he sees data centres as "digital refineries" that turn natural gas into intelligence. He explains how bring-your-own-power rules protect the grid and ratepayers, why projects proposed for Sturgeon County and Olds ended so differently, and what a proposed second round of grid power could look like. A conversation about energy, AI and where Canada's computing power gets built.

 Chapters

0:00 Live from Energy Disruptors: UNITE

0:42 The mood shift on data centres

4:42 Value-added economics

8:33 The Alberta model: water, setbacks, Meta vs. Olds

16:05 Exporting the intelligence

17:55 The power queue and Phase 2

21:27 Sizing the opportunity

22:36 Public opinion and responsible AI

Guest: Nate Glubish, Minister of Technology and Innovation, Government of Alberta

Host: John Stackhouse, Senior Vice-President, Office of the CEO, RBC

Recent RBC Thought Leadership Reports:
License to build: Unlocking Canada's data centre potential

 

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Canada has world-class biotech science. Too often, the companies built on it grow up somewhere else. Clarissa Desjardins, co-founder and CEO of Montreal’s Congruence Therapeutics, joins John Stackhouse on the state of biotech and what Canada must do to keep more of what it builds. 

In this episode: 
• How AI is changing the way new drugs are discovered 
• Why China’s rise is reshaping the global industry 
• Why biotech stays invisible in Canada, even to investors 
• What it would take to grow Canadian companies to global scale at home 

Chapters:
0:00 Will Canada's medicines come from China? 
0:28 Biotech's missing place in Canada's agenda 
1:32 From scientist to entrepreneur 
3:47 Great science, too little commercialization 
6:03 How AI is changing drug discovery 
9:54 Why biotech is invisible, and underfunded 
13:15 Health sovereignty and the anchor-company gap 
18:33 China's rise in drug discovery 
21:31 What Canada needs to do next 
24:17 Closing thoughts 

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Live from ALL IN 2026 in Montreal, John Stackhouse and Nora Bieberstein sit down with three German business leaders — Yvonne Denz of the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Robert Jozic of Schwarz Digits, and Dr. Ralf Wintergerst of Giesecke+Devrient — as Germany serves as ALL IN's Country of Honour. Recorded the same week Canada and Germany backed Yoshua Bengio's AI safety lab LawZero and built on last year's Digital Alliance, they discuss why Schwarz backed the Cohere-Aleph Alpha merger and what a deeper Canada-Germany tech partnership could mean for both economies.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro — live from ALL IN Montreal

0:41 Co-host Nora Bieberstein joins

1:20 Yvonne Denz on Germany's delegation to Canada

2:02 Inside the industrial AI panel with BSF

3:29 Making the case for Canada-Germany business

5:36 Robert Jozic on scaling sovereign AI at Schwarz Digits

6:19 Middle powers vs. the tech hegemons

8:54 The Cohere-Aleph Alpha deal, on the record

10:12 What Germany offers Canada

11:45 Dr. Ralf Wintergerst on Germany's AI ambitions

13:19 Combining Canada's AI research with Germany's industrial base

14:27 The "third moment" in global AI

15:32 What Canada offers Germany

16:38 Building the digital euro

18:34 Reflections: the globalization of AI

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At the Milken Institute's Global Dialogues Toronto, held alongside Prime Minister Mark
Carney's Canada Investment Summit, three Canadian leaders took up both questions on one
stage. Aidan Gomez co-founded Cohere and was a co-author of the 2017 paper that introduced
the transformer architecture underpinning today's large language models. Dave McKay leads
RBC. Evan Solomon is Canada's first Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital
Innovation. Susan Li of Fox Business Network moderated.

The conversation runs across three arguments. Gomez makes the case that regulation should be
shaped by an independent third party rather than by the largest labs, and warns about
incumbents using rules as a competitive moat. McKay describes a practical sovereignty
problem: the most advanced security tooling is released selectively outside the United
States, which he calls an unfair playing advantage with real cyber risk for institutions
operating elsewhere. Solomon frames the government's position as a build right or build wrong option,
and argues the test is whether society comes along.

Gomez closes on the case for a democratic second rail in AI, with Cohere in Canada and
Mistral in France as the two candidates. It is a compact view of where Canada's AI debate
actually sits.

0:00   Canada's claim on the technology it built
0:16   Two kinds of uncertainty, one week in Toronto
1:11   Who should write the rules for frontier AI
1:46   Uneven access to the most advanced tools
3:38   Canada's position on AI safety
4:47   Development cycles are compressing
6:52   Will AI change more jobs than it creates?
8:41   Build right or build wrong
9:41   How modern AI was invented in Canada
11:58  The case for a democratic second rail
12:39  Final thoughts from the panel
14:42  What's next: geotech

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As global power dynamics shift, the intersection of technology and national strategy is defining a new Cold War race. In this season opener of Disruptors, host John Stackhouse sits down with economist and Noahpinion author Noah Smith to map out the new geopolitics of tech.

Together, they unpack China’s dominance over the critical "electric tech stack" (batteries, magnets, and power electronics), why traditional military platforms are being upended by cheap drone warfare, and how middle powers like Canada, Japan, and Korea can build "Allied Scale" to compete. They also explore the true goal of modern industrial policy, the reality of AI labor disruption, and what a disabled rabbit named Giggles can teach us about resilience in a noisy world.

CHAPTERS & TIMESTAMPS: 

00:00 - Introduction: The Shift to Geo-Technology 
01:58 - Lessons in Resilience from a Disabled Rabbit 
03:07 - Great Power Competition & the New Global Tech Map 
07:15 - The "Electric Tech Stack": Batteries, Magnets, and Electronics 
10:03 - Rebuilding "Allied Scale" Without the U.S. 
13:32 - Modern Industrial Policy: Wealth vs. Strategic Preservation 
17:10 - AI, Labor Disruption, and Jevons Paradox 
21:30 - Canada’s Next Move in the Geo-Tech Race

RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED:

Substack Newsletter: Noahpinion by Noah Smith
Commentary & Analysis: Bloomberg Opinion archives by Noah Smith
Concepts Referenced: Rush Doshi’s "Allied Scale," Mark Carney’s commentary on global hegemons, and Jevons Paradox in economic theory.

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The world is investing billions in data centres and compute. Canada’s edge isn’t bigger boxes—it’s Trust: rules enforced at home, private information secured under Canadian jurisdiction, and a clear path for enterprise data handling in the age of AI.

That’s how “Canadian trust” becomes a competitive advantage.

This week on Disruptors: The Canada Project, John Stackhouse takes us to Waterloo to map how policy as code, Canadian residency, and lineage + audit turn trust into a speed advantage. Guests: Tom Jenkins & Shannon Bell (OpenText), with Janice Stein (Munk School).

Build it here—export it with confidence.

Takeaways:
OpenText new book
Enterprise Artificial Intelligence: Building Trusted AI with Secure Data

RBC Thought Leadership’s Bridging the Imagination Gap: How Canadian companies can become global leaders in AI adoption

RBC Thought Leadership

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As the world electrifies—from cars and buses to datacentres and defence—demand for battery materials is exploding. Today, China refines more than 90% of the world’s graphite into the material used in virtually all EV battery anodes—that level of concentration is a strategic vulnerability Canada, and its allies, can’t ignore.

But Canada is starting to respond. The federal Major Projects Office has just referred Nouveau Monde Graphite’s Phase-2 Matawinie Mine as a “Major Project of National Interest”—a move aimed at helping Quebec and Canada shift from exporting ore to building a full mine-to-refine graphite value chain at home, and with it, an entirely new strand of economic and industrial capacity.

In this episode of Disruptors: The Canada Project, host John Stackhouse takes listeners into that story. With former Quebec premier Jean Charest and Eric Desaulniers, founder & CEO of NMG, he lifts the hood on what it means for a critical-minerals project to be treated as a “major project” in Canada—and what this could mean for Canada’s role as a trusted critical-minerals supplier to its G7 allies.

RBC Thought Leadership

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