Disruptors

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's 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:
 

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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.

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Across Nunavut’s Kivalliq region, communities and mine sites still rely on imported diesel for electricity and satellite links for basic connectivity. It’s expensive, carbon-intensive, and leaves a strategically vital part of Canada dependent on infrastructure we don’t fully control.

In this episode of Disruptors: The Canada Project with John Stackhouse, we travel to Nunavut to explore the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link (KHFL) — a 1,200-kilometre, Inuit-led project that would connect Manitoba’s renewable grid and Canada-based broadband backbone to five Kivalliq communities and future mining projects. Led by Nukik Corporation under 100% Inuit ownership, KHFL is designed to deliver clean power, high-speed terrestrial connectivity, and Nunavut’s first physical infrastructure link to southern Canada.

Joining us are Premier P.J. Akeeagok and Anne-Raphaëlle Audouin, who unpack how this corridor could cut diesel use, reduce dependence on satellite networks, strengthen Arctic sovereignty, and create a new model for community-driven infrastructure in the North.

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Saskatchewan, long known for feeding the world, is now leading a revolution in ag-tech. With automation, machine learning, and AI-powered quality control, the province is redefining how food moves from field to port. Agriculture is more than Canada’s heritage -
it’s our future advantage. 

In this episode of Disruptors: The Canada Project, John Stackhouse speaks with Kyle Folk, founder and CEO of Ground Truth Ag, whose technology automates grain grading — a process that once took hours, now done in minutes. He’s joined by Murad Al-Katib, CEO of AGT Food and Ingredients.  It’s a story about turning information into prosperity, and about how Saskatchewan’s innovators are helping Canada feed a growing world while building a more resilient, sovereign economy. 

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At the edge of Hudson Bay, the Port of Churchill is being revitalized — reconnecting the Prairies to global markets and strengthening Canada’s northern gateway to the world.

In this episode of Disruptors: The Canada Project, John Stackhouse speaks with Premier Wab Kinew, Chris Avery of Arctic Gateway Group, and Grant Barkman of Decision Works about how Indigenous ownership, modern rail infrastructure, and drone-powered innovation are reconnecting the Prairies to global markets.

As climate shifts open new Arctic passages and global trade routes are redefined, Manitoba is positioning itself as a northern link between the Prairies and the world — redefining how Canada moves goods, builds partnerships, and prepares for the future.

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Canada’s prosperity depends on how efficiently it can move goods to market — yet its largest ports have fallen behind the world’s best. With global trade accelerating and supply chains
under pressure, Roberts Bank Terminal 2 represents a generational investment in Canada’s competitiveness. 

In this episode, Peter Xotta, CEO of the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, Devan Fitch, the project’s Program Director, and Tamara Vrooman, CEO of Vancouver International Airport, join John Stackhouse to discuss how this long-planned expansion will bring new automation, capacity, and environmental innovation to Canada’s Pacific Gateway. Together, they explore how smart infrastructure and strong partnerships can secure Canada’s trade
future — sustainably and sovereignty.

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For over two centuries, Atlantic Canada has been the launch point for Canada’s ventures into the unknown — from the Grand Banks to global trade routes. Today, that pioneering spirit is looking skyward.

In this episode, Stephen Matier of Maritime Launch Services and Rahul Goel of NordSpace join host John Stackhouse to explore how Canada is closing that gap. Together with Chris Hadfield, they unpack what sovereign access to space means for national security, climate resilience, and technological leadership — and how Nova Scotia and Newfoundland’s emerging space sectors are helping bring Canada into the new space age.

Because if Canada can’t launch its own ideas, it can’t lead its own future.

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Canada’s future security doesn’t just lie in the skies or across its borders — it lies beneath the waves. Newfoundland and Labrador, long defined by its connection to the North Atlantic, is emerging as the front line in Canada’s underwater defence and surveillance revolution.

In this episode, Kraken Robotics’ David Shea reveals how cutting-edge sonar and subsea intelligence are giving Canada new eyes and ears in the ocean depths — technology once reserved for superpowers, now developed and deployed from St. John’s. And General Rick Hillier, former Chief of Defence Staff, joins host John Stackhouse to explore why control of our underwater domain is critical to national sovereignty, Arctic readiness, and alliance security in an age of rising global tension.

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Canada stands at a crossroads. Become a leader or continue to ride shotgun. The choice is obvious. But global political and economic uncertainty demands we act decisively. We need to close the productivity gap with our peer nations and build bigger, better and bolder. Visionary leaders across the country are seizing this moment, harnessing technology to take on Canada's most-urgent challenges.

For this season of Disruptors, we're crisscrossing the country to showcase their groundbreaking work. From robotics that safeguard Arctic sovereignty and AI that rewrites how we grow food to critical minerals powering the clean transition and housing innovations reshaping our cities. In every sector we explore, technical ingenuity meets national purpose. These are not just stories of invention-they provide a blueprint for a stronger, more competitive Canada.

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AI is moving beyond passive outputs toward autonomous action. In this episode, John Stackhouse and Sonia Sennik explore Agentic AI, a new class of AI systems that can reason, plan, and take initiative with limited human oversight. These systems represent a major evolution beyond traditional and generative AI, capable of real-time adaptation and complex decision-making.

They’re joined by Adel El Hallak, Senior Director of Product Management at NVIDIA AI Enterprise, and Jacomo Corbo, CEO and Co-Founder of PhysicsX. Adel shares insights from his work delivering secure, scalable AI platforms for enterprise, while Jacomo draws on deep experience deploying AI in high-performance engineering contexts, including Formula 1 and advanced manufacturing.

Together, they unpack how agentic AI is already being deployed, the economic opportunities at stake, and the roadmaps and ethical considerations businesses need to navigate as AI agents become a force in real-world operations.

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