When people think about the Atlantic Lottery Corporation (ALC) they usually focus on lottery tickets and big prizes, but its impact is much greater than that. It's an important contributor to the economy through its role as an employer and the indirect jobs created in the region which support the lottery.

ALC has contributed $10-billion since its inception in the 1970s to provincial governments in support of public services like health and education. In the latest Huddle "Insights" podcast, Don Mills and David Campbell chat with ALC CEO Patrick Daigle about the economic impact of the region's lottery corporation.

The Century Initiative is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that is advocating an audacious long-term population strategy for Canada to achieve a goal of 100 million Canadians by the end of this century. In conversation with co-host Don Mill, CEO Lisa Lalande outlines the reasoning behind this ambitious goal and what it would mean for Atlantic Canada.

On this week’s podcast, entrepreneur Blair Hyslop, Kathryn Lockhart, CEO of Propel and Jeff Larsen, head of the Creative Destruction Lab in Atlantic Canada, discuss a new proposal for a new regional equity tax credit to help grow investments in the region's companies.

Under the proposal, qualified businesses could receive angel investment from across Atlantic Canada and the investors would receive a tax credit no matter where the company is located within the four provinces. 

The three make a strong case that the time is now for such a program as a vital tool to expand the pool of risk capital available to early-stage companies across the region. All three believe Atlantic Canada is well-positioned to benefit from innovation-led growth in the coming years.

Francis McGuire has a very interesting background, having been both a Deputy Minister during the Frank McKenna era and the CEO that built Moncton-based Major Drilling into the second biggest company in its sector in the world.

In this edition of the Huddle "Insights" podcast, McGuire talks with co-hosts David Campbell and Don Mills about the strategies he used to grow Major Drilling and the current ones he is employing to take Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) in a new direction.

Convinced by others, including Frank McKenna, to take on his current role as the CEO of ACOA, McGuire has taken the organization in a new direction. The organization has placed a greater emphasis on immigration to help address the growing labour market needs within the region, as well as preparing organizations for automation and the digitalization of the economy in Atlantic Canada.

This week's Huddle "Insights" podcast features a conversation with arguably the most influential IT leader in Atlantic Canada: Gerry Pond.

Pond chats with co-host David Campbell about his career starting out in the mid-1960s at NBTel dealing with "party line" complaints in rural New Brunswick rising to CEO of Aliant and then nearly two decades of founding and investing in IT startups across Atlantic Canada, including Radian6 and Q1 Labs.

He weighs in on everything from the pipeline for tech entrepreneurs in the region; the role of government to help encourage tech startups; and why he is bullish on the ocean technology cluster.

In part two of their conversation with longtime CTV Atlantic broadcaster Steve Murphy, Don and David chat with Steve about his favourite interview in 45 years of broadcasting. Steve also shares his thoughts on the most significant Atlantic Canadian premiers in the last four decades.

In the first of a two-part interview, longtime CTV broadcaster Steve Murphy relinquishes his role as an interviewer and becomes the interviewee, as co-hosts Don Mills and David Campbell quiz him about his 45-year career, including the most significant events he has covered, his assessment of the most consequential premiers, most interesting interviews and how Atlantic Canada has changed over his the course of four decades in the business.

BioVectra plans to build a facility on Prince Edward Island that will eventually manufacture enough doses of mRNA vaccines to supply all of Canada, which is big news for Canadians as well as Atlantic Canadians. The recent announcement shines a light on a 50-year old company that employs more than 550 people in P.E.I. and Nova Scotia.

"There are 35 million-plus Canadians. We could probably within a year single-handedly make sure the demand for Canada has been taken care of if we were the ones to produce the vaccine in the future," says company CEO Oliver Technow.

On this episode of the "Insights" podcast, Technow speaks with co-host Don Mills about the origins of the company and the original vision of its founder Regis Duffy, and how the company has grown over the decades to its present capabilities.

Envision, the new economic development agency for the Great Saint John Region, has just released its five strategic plan that calls for growing the population by 25,000 and the regional economy by 30-35 percent over the next 10 years.

 On this week's podcast, Don Mills talks with Envision CEO Paulette Hicks about the organization's aggressive growth plans and the development of a new brand for the region that will be introduced early in 2022.