Podcasts about Dalhousie University

Canada's dairy industry is one of the most protected sectors of the Canadian economy. But is that protection holding the industry back?While Canada's dairy sector has long benefited from policies designed to protect farmers and maintain stable prices, critics argue that these measures are limiting competition, innovation, and opportunities for growth. As dairy industries in other countries become more competitive, Canada's risks falling further behind.What is holding Canada's dairy industry back? And can Canada find a better balance between protecting producers and encouraging a more competitive, dynamic sector?This week, Sylvain Charlebois, professor and researcher of food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University and former dean of its Faculty of Management, joins MLI's Peter Copeland on Inside Policy Talks to discuss the challenges facing Canada's dairy industry, the weaknesses of the current system, and how protectionist measures like fair pricing may be limiting its potential.

If you’ve ever looked at a flock of seagulls at the beach, or a group of penguins huddled on the ice, you’ve probably wondered how they tell each other apart? To the human eye, they look completely identical. But in the animal kingdom, mistaking a stranger for your mate, your chick, or a rival can have disastrous consequences. Dr. Leslie Phillmore, a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Dalhousie University, spoke to Andrew Carter.

Scott Cook Music Professor at Vanier College & Founder of Montreal Jams, Trudie’s Takeaways with CJAD Newscaster Trudie Mason, Patrick Guay of Evenko, Entertainment with John Moore, Leslie Phillmore of Dalhousie University, Emergency Room Physician Dr. Mitch Shulman, Rachel Dara Montreal singer-songwriter, Chris Bumbray from JoBlo.com

Recorded live on the show floor at SIAL Canada in Montreal, this Summer Bonus episode of The Food Professor podcast marks a first: an ingredient company winning the show's startup pitch competition. Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois sit down with Asha Wheeldon, Founder and CEO of Kula Foods and a member of the Maia Farms team, and Jason Mackay, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer at Maia Farms, just hours after the Vancouver company added more hardware to its trophy shelf. Maia Farms makes functional mushroom food ingredients. The company combines oyster mushroom powder with Canadian yellow pea protein and extrudes it into grounds, shreds, chunks and strips that mimic ground beef, pulled meat and chicken. The result is 66 per cent protein per 100 grams, a heavy dose of fibre and iron, a two-year shelf life and no cold storage required. Crucially for manufacturers, the extrudates survive the retort process where soy and pea proteins break down, which is why 100-year-old Pembroke, Ontario soup canner Sprague Foods signed on as a partner. Asha explains how a two-and-a-half-minute pitch built on storytelling rather than numbers won over the judges, and why trust and partnership are Maia's real proof points, including work with the Greater Vancouver Food Bank that has helped feed hundreds of thousands of families. Jason unpacks the technology behind the ingredient and what comes next: cracking mushroom mycelium at commercial scale through liquid fermentation, moving from 3,000-litre proof-of-concept batches to 20,000 litres, with global ingredient players like ADM and Cargill circling mycelium as a clean-label fat mimic and binder. The conversation turns to a bigger question Michael and Sylvain saw play out across the show: is Canada on the cusp of an ingredient renaissance? Pitch competitions usually reward consumer-ready products, from popsicles to upcycled coffee grounds. This year, the fundamentals of food won. The panel connects that shift to front-of-pack labelling, the clean-label push, manufacturers hunting for protein, fibre and iron without wrecking taste and texture, and the trust that Brand Canada's food safety reputation carries into export markets. They also tackle affordability. With beef and chicken prices climbing, Sylvain's "protein orphans" are being left behind, and GLP-1 users are pushing protein demand higher still. A shelf-stable, high-protein ingredient that disappears into a lasagna or pasta sauce when seasoned properly is a genuinely different answer to food insecurity. Plus: what winning an award actually does for a young company, why Maia was the only mushroom ingredient supplier on the SIAL floor, and the company's plan to bring business home to Canada after building traction in the US, Mexico, Singapore and Japan. A smart, optimistic listen on where Canadian food innovation goes next. About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability with over 775 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Charlebois is also an editor for the prestigious Trends in Food Science Technology journal. He co-hosts The Food Professor podcast, discussing issues in the food, foodservice, grocery and restaurant industries and which is the most listened Canadian management podcast in Canada. Every year since 2012, he has published the now highly anticipated Canadian Food Price Report, which provides an overview of food price trends for the coming year. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, nationally as well as internationally. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces and other countries.With extensive experience collaborating with businesses, governments, and NGOs, Dr. Charlebois combines academic rigor with practical expertise, making him one of the most influential voices in the global agri-food landscape. His work continues to advance the understanding of food systems, fostering innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving industry. In 2025, he received the prestigious Charles III medal recognizing his tremendous work in informing Canadians about food issues. Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the National Retail Federation (NRF) as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025, and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

Why do smart strategies fail so often? According to Kevin Ertell, the problem isn't a lack of ideas—it's execution. In this Encore episode of The Voice of Retail, Michael LeBlanc sits down live in person at the NRF Big Show in New York in The Remarkable Retail Narvar podcasting studio with Kevin Ertell, founder of Mistere Advisory, veteran retail operator, and former Vice President of Global Retail at Nike. Kevin is also the author of the new book The Strategy Trap: Why Companies Fail at Execution and How to Get It Right, which draws on more than two decades of hands-on leadership experience across iconic retail brands including Tower Records, Borders, Sur La Table, and Nike. Kevin explains how organizations fall into the “strategy trap”—a tendency to over-invest in ideas, decks, and executive alignment while underestimating the human and organizational work required to execute effectively. He argues that strategy should be treated as the first step of execution, not as a theoretical exercise completed before real work begins. Using well-known retail case studies, including the failed transformation of JCPenney, Kevin illustrates how untested assumptions, poor internal alignment, and misunderstanding customer behavior can derail even bold strategies. Leaders often assume that communication equals understanding, when in reality teams fill in the gaps with their own interpretations—creating misalignment that only becomes visible once execution is underway. The conversation introduces Kevin's practical “Six Cs of Execution” framework. The first phase—co-creation, clarity, and capacity—focuses on setting the stage by involving the right people, defining priorities, and making space for execution. The second phase—communication, coordination, and coaching—highlights the role of active leadership in sustaining momentum and course-correcting as conditions change. Kevin also shares actionable tools leaders can use immediately, including structured problem-definition sessions, force-ranking priorities, and creating safe environments where teams can challenge assumptions. He emphasizes that focus is a leadership discipline—and that trying to pursue too many initiatives at once almost guarantees failure. For retail leaders navigating AI disruption, economic volatility, and shifting consumer expectations, this episode offers a clear, operator-led blueprint for escaping the strategy trap and turning strategy into results. Presented by Kokek, Canada's Way to Pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more. Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael's cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.

In this special summer bonus episode of The Food Professor podcast, co-hosts Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois sit down live at the SIAL food innovation show in Montreal with Victoire Guglieri, Founder of Nasdrow, fresh off her win at the startup pitch competition. Energetic, candid, and armed with samples, Victoire takes Michael and Sylvain on a guided tasting tour of her premium non-alcoholic, ready-to-drink cocktail brand and makes a compelling case for why alcohol-free drinks should never be boring. Victoire shares the origin story behind Nasdrow, a brand born from a personal frustration. After a month without alcohol, she discovered that the non-alcoholic beverage options on the market were too sweet, too fizzy, too artificial, or too bitter, and none delivered the complexity and sophistication of a real cocktail. Raised in Bordeaux, France, surrounded by grandparents who taught her the language of wine, and having spent part of her childhood in Poland, she named her company after the festive Polish toast "Na zdrowie," reimagined in English as a non-alcoholic super drink mixed with low alcohol. The result is a line of all-natural, preservative-free, less-sweet ready-to-drink mocktails engineered to deliver the full cocktail experience: the nose, the texture, the taste, and the finish. The tasting begins with Scarlet & Co, Nasdrow's bestseller and a gold medal winner at the World Alcohol-Free Awards in London, a slightly fizzy blend of strawberry, basil, ginger, and lemon. Michael and Sylvain then sample the Mojito Fusion, praising its fresh, fragrant aroma and depth of flavour, before Victoire walks through the rest of the range, including the bone-dry, bubble-free Margarita Salsa and an Espresso Martini that produces a thick foam when shaken in a cocktail shaker. The conversation digs into the forces reshaping the beverage industry: why younger consumers are drinking less alcohol, the influence of health and wellness trends on social media, the lingering effects of COVID on social drinking, and the mounting science around alcohol and health. Victoire notes that roughly one in two consumers is now drinking less, and that 80 percent of Nasdrow's customers also drink alcohol, positioning the brand not as anti-alcohol but as a sophisticated option for moderation, designated drivers, and anyone finishing the night with something lighter. The episode wraps with a look at retail momentum. Nasdrow is already listed in Quebec at Metro, with more listings on the way and national distribution ambitions before year-end, as Victoire works to build an entirely new premium mocktail category alongside retailers and buyers. It is a fun, flavour-forward conversation about entrepreneurship, food innovation, and the fast-growing non-alcoholic beverage market, recorded live on the SIAL show floor, that every retailer, grocer, beverage buyer, and sober-curious listener should hear. About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability with over 775 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Charlebois is also an editor for the prestigious Trends in Food Science Technology journal. He co-hosts The Food Professor podcast, discussing issues in the food, foodservice, grocery and restaurant industries and which is the most listened Canadian management podcast in Canada. Every year since 2012, he has published the now highly anticipated Canadian Food Price Report, which provides an overview of food price trends for the coming year. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, nationally as well as internationally. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces and other countries.With extensive experience collaborating with businesses, governments, and NGOs, Dr. Charlebois combines academic rigor with practical expertise, making him one of the most influential voices in the global agri-food landscape. His work continues to advance the understanding of food systems, fostering innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving industry. In 2025, he received the prestigious Charles III medal recognizing his tremendous work in informing Canadians about food issues. Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the National Retail Federation (NRF) as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025, and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

This episode on Out Loud Queer Creatives Podcast, we're joined by Dr. Austin Oswald from the Queer Gerontology Lab at Dalhousie University for a thoughtful conversation about the intersections of aging, identity, and community.In this episode, Dr. Oswald helps us unpack what gerontology is and why it matters, especially in relation to the queer community. We discuss the unique experiences, challenges, and opportunities that come with aging as a queer person, as well as the importance of research that centers queer lives across the lifespan.We also talk about the community survey currently underway as part of the lab's project, how listeners can get involved, and why this kind of work is so valuable in building a more inclusive future for queer people of all ages.It's an insightful and meaningful conversation about visibility, care, and the importance of understanding queer aging through a community-centered lens. Tune in and get Out Loud with Dr. Austin Oswald.PLUS! We have so much new music from:ANRY, Bitch Stick, FREiBERD, Homofonik, I Fiorucci, Jared Gamber, Lady Machete, Leonardo Amor, Shaun and the Stotty Cakes, and Tullara.⚡️CONNECT WITH THE Q⚡️ Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.curatedbyq.com ⚡️⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: TheQ@CuratedByQ.com ⚡️FB/Instagram/TikTok @theqreviews ⚡️YouTube.com/@QCreativeNetwork⚡️Apparel Shop ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://qreview.threadless.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⚡️Theme Music provided and performed by UK DJ and producer Hectic @hectictracks on Instagram⚡️ 

On this episode, my guest is Lewis Winks, a researcher, writer and campaigner who specialises in nature connection, cultural and behavioural change, and has a background working in the environmental and outdoor education sector. He joins us on behalf of the Right to Roam campaign as well as the Stars Are For Everyone campaign, the latter which he helped spearhed to defend wild camping rights on Dartmoor.Since 2021, Right to Roam has been organising peaceful trespasses into some of the vast areas of countryside from which the public are currently excluded. They follow the tried and tested access code which governs Scotland's right of responsible access, respecting privacy, crops and nature – all while seeking to leave a positive trace and practising deep care for the natural world: a concept they call Wild Service. Their vision is of a future countryside in which people not only enjoy the physical, mental and spiritual benefits of nature but serve as its guardians too.Show Notes* Right to Roam's origins (Guy Shrubsole & Nick Hayes)* The Stars Are For Everyone (Dartmoor National Park)* The right to wild camp in England* The commons and the enclosures* Taking back trespass* The shadow places of fortress conservation* Wild service* Levellers and landlordism* Deifying dispossession* The community right to buy* International solidarityHomework* Right to Roam UK - Website - Instagram - Twitter - BlueSky* Wild Service (Book)* The Book of Trespass* Who Owns England?* Val Plumwood* Survival International* S3 #2 | Decolonizing Conservation in Africa & Beyond | Fiore Longo (Survival International)* S5 #5 | Fortress Conservation in the Congo w/ Martin Lena & Linda Poppe (Survival International)* International Land CoalitionTranscriptChris: [00:00:00] Welcome, Lewis, to the End of Tourism Podcast.Lewis: Good to be here. Hello, Chris.Chris: Yeah. I'd like to thank you for your willingness to join me today on behalf of your comrades and colleagues at Right to Roam, as well as those of The Stars Are For Everyone. And I'd like to begin by asking you where you're tuning in from today and what the world looks like there for you.Lewis: Well, I'm currently in South Devon, where I live in the southwest of England. And I live in a town called Totnes, which is just on the edge of Dartmoor National Park. But the town that I live in has grown up around a river - the River Dart. And so that's a short walk from where I live.And, yeah, obviously, the river's shaped this place, from its headwaters up on Dartmoor, all the way down to the kind of rugged coast. So, I feel very lucky that, not far from where I live, there's a whole range of [00:01:00] landscapes, but not without their challenges.Chris: Yeah, certainly. I remember, not just a few years ago, I was there in Totnes, visiting for the first time, and I had the great honour of getting to explore Dartmoor as well, in a place not too far from where some of my old ones are from, in Devon, in Exeter.Lewis: It's a great place. I mean, Dartmoor is, on global standards, a very tiny national park, really, but I think for people like myself that live near it, to have this kind of expansive space to be able to walk for days sometimes in this sort of landscape, seemingly without boundaries, without walls, without fences, is amazing, in what feels like quite a contained landscape, a kind of patchwork of fields and enclosures. And so, a lot of people are drawn to Dartmoor because of its openness. But that also is an issue, I think. A lot of us here that live in this area are very much working on ecological [00:02:00] issues and challenges, and lots of those are found up in the national park.Chris: Well, would we all be so lucky to have such spaces to walk and roam. On that point, I'd like to ask you if you'd be willing to offer our listeners a little bit about what your organisation, The Right to Roam (in the UK), does there and your role in the organisation.Lewis: Sure, yeah. Well, the Right to Roam campaign, I mean, we've been established only for a few years in our current format, really. We were born out of the pandemic. We were formed principally by two of the co-founders of the campaign, Guy Shrubsole and Nick Hayes, who had both written books at the time and sat together around a kitchen table in 2020.Nick had written a book called The Book of Trespass, which kind of brought into public conversation this kind [00:03:00] of idea that there are places we are not supposed to be and not allowed to go, and challenging the kind of “why,” asking that question of, “Why is this? What's the historical context for our exclusion from landscapes? And through a series of adventures and walks into landscapes, he challenged that in his book. And it's an amazing primer, really, I think, for something that a lot of us take as a given, which is that we live in the corridors, really, between these vast estates here in England and in Wales, and we're excluded from much of the land. And so, it was quite a game-changing book, really, to sort of start to question that kind of assumption, that if you step off those narrow corridors, you are trespassing.And then in the meantime, Guy had written a book called Who Owns England?, asking questions of, “ Who does the land belong to? Who owns the title deeds? And really, most of us don't know. I mean, the government doesn't even really know who owns lots of land. And so, Guy embarks on this project, which he's been working on now [00:04:00] for the last decade or so, to try to find out and try to get more transparency, and really to bring about more democracy in how land is managed and how decisions are made, and really who has a stake in the land in England.And so these were kind of natural collaborators, really. And they sat around this table, and they formed this campaign called Right to Roam, which was really just to ask a simple question, which is, “Why do we not have a right of access to land in England?” And to call for new legislation for greater rights of access so that people can feel they have a greater stake in the landscapes around us.So we're a small team. We're a very much a grassroots campaign. We're not backed by big funders. We don't have any office space. We're just distributed across England, Wales and Scotland. And then, there are just six of us in the kind of core team. But we also have a network of almost [00:05:00] 20 local groups of people who are doing just amazing active work on the ground within communities to push for access reform.And we're funded by about 650 of those supporters who just give a small amount every month. So we're really just beholden to the people that are pushing for these kinds of changes. And we think we're getting somewhere. The conversation is shifting, socially and politically. We've still got somewhere to go, but we're hoping to bring about that change in law before too long.Chris: Hmm. Thank you, Lewis. And what drew you personally to the organisation?Lewis: Well, I live, as I said, down in Devon, and one of the things that happened back in 2022, was that one of the larger landowners in Dartmore National Park decided that he was gonna challenge this historic right that we have here, which is very unusual in England - the right to sleep out under the [00:06:00] stars, the right to wild camp, out in this kind of amazing landscape of Dartmoor.So, this landowner, Alexander Darwall, took the national park to court, and I was one of a few people who got together in the early days of that court case and said, “Right, we need to campaign on this. We need to stand up for these historic customary rights that have existed here and that have given so many people, these beautiful life-shaping experiences over generations.” And he was trying to snub them out. And so we thought, “let's campaign on this.”We set up a campaign called “The Stars Are for Everyone,” to protect those rights, but also to kind of say, “ Well, isn't it just mad that these rights only exist in this tiny corner of England? Shouldn't they exist also elsewhere?”Our intention right from the beginning of that campaign was to transform a court case that was about defending a set of rights into something which was really about taking a giant leap forward and putting in place something much [00:07:00] better for people in the future. And over the course of three years, that campaign was really dynamic, creative, and brought together loads of people.We actually lost the right to wild camp in early 2023. The landowner was successful in overturning that right in the High Court. And just one week after that court decision, we got together with three and a half thousand people up on quite a remote part of Dartmoor, probably one of the biggest land rights protests that we've seen since the 1930s in England. And, the voices of those people were really just... I mean, the ripples went out far and wide. I mean, we were sort of met with international support and interest. And, politically, overnight, it changed the conversation on access in England.And, really to fast forward to the present day after two more court cases, including it being escalated to the Supreme [00:08:00] Court, unanimously in the Supreme Court, the judges agreed that the case should never have been brought. And actually, then, we were able to reassert those rights as they had already existed.And so, not only have we got those rights back, we are now in a much better position, we think, to call for those rights elsewhere. And so my campaigning with the Right to Roam campaign really was kind of came out of this campaign for wild camping, to sleep under the stars.Chris: Mm-hmm. Wow. Wow, I remember, I think that was probably the thing that really drew me, for the first time, to the organisation and the work that you and your team are doing there in England, was through the social media awareness that the storyteller Martin Shaw was bringing to that campaign. Really amazing. And so, I wish nothing but blessings upon your feet and your work. It's incredibly important, and perhaps, a kind of [00:09:00] pioneering way of bringing this kind of organising and this kind of awareness to other places in the world where such access is also needed.But before we dig deeply into that work, I'd like to perhaps offer a little bit of context for our listeners in terms of the history of access in the UK to what is often referred to as “the commons.” And so, I'm wondering if you would be willing to offer a bit of historical background about what we mean when we talk about “the commons” in the English language and the history of the enclosures of the commons, that, for English people, is a kind of history that is all too well known, but for the rest of the world might be obscure.Lewis: Hmm. Well, sure. I mean, the commons, I think it's fair to say that a lot of people in England, really, this is not part of our lexicon, and our understanding [00:10:00] of the land.And, I think that demonstrates really just how effective the loss of commons has been here, is that there's not a broad understanding of what they were or what they are. But the commons really are... I mean, we're talking about a form of governance, a form of collective stewardship and governance for a place that transcends ownership. Commons are about how we relate to a place, and the rights that go with that place. And so, if we look at kind of property rights today, often those property rights exclude anybody who doesn't have their name on the title deed of the property.But yet, that's not always been the case. And certainly, we can still see today in England, and elsewhere globally, systems that acknowledge rights of others, and not just humans, but also kind of more-than-human rights. So in England, if you've gone back to the 1500s, [00:11:00] half of England or thereabouts, (it's difficult to be precise with this) would've had some form of common property understanding, or a kind of tapestry of rights that went with it. And that might have been rights to take firewood and fuel from land to dig peat, to graze animals, to put your pigs out to pannage for acorns. And these rites would've been particular to the landscapes that they were in. So, commoning rights were not the same everywhere. They were responsive to the wider kind of contexts, and today that figure is more like 3% of England. So, a diminishment of the commons in England has been part of our history here, and also part of the history which has affected almost the entire globe as well through colonial activities. But in England, really, this kind of experiment in sort of uprooting and unearthing cultures [00:12:00] that are deeply tied to the land was almost entirely effective at removing people's stake in land and in shoring up the rights of property owners.So, our commons, as they did exist, were fundamental to communities, were fundamental to how people sought to make a living, but also there were other things within that because commoning was about being on land that you didn't own. So with that came other things, which perhaps were taken for granted, which today we might call “recreation,” “being idle under a tree, watching the sunset”, and having those kinds of experiences. Now, we've kind of partitioned them off and put them into national parks and kind of put them in our holiday time, and things we might do when we're on vacation as tourists. But actually, for commoners, presumably, people were spending their time with the pigs out to pannage, thinking about other things, in conversation, meeting their neighbours under trees, doing things which were convivial.And so, [00:13:00] the erasure of the commons in England, and the enclosure acts, which sort of set about to diminish the commons and put them more firmly into private ownership, was also about a loss of community and people's stake in landscapes and also their ability to kind of relate to one another.But I should say as well that this obviously was very intentional. This was about looking at landscape through a kind of lens, a particular form of extraction, to take money from the land. It was also about control. It was about taking people, who, through that particular lens of industrialisation, seemed to be kind of labourers, their worth was kind of in the factories, it was not out on the land. And through mechanisation, as well, obviously, this was accelerated.In the early days of the enclosures, there were anti-enclosure acts in England that sought to try to prevent some of the steamrolling over of what felt like a kind of a deep-rooted culture. But by the [00:14:00] 1600s, those anti-enclosure acts were pretty much repealed, and with them, any kind of opportunity to get back those commons was lost.Loads and loads of rebellions took place to try to prevent that. And it's really interesting to look back in English history at the richness of rebellion and how it was kind of linked to how people relate to land. Looking at this today, it's sort of fairly plain to see that there's a disconnection between people and place. And I think that that kind of keenness to reconnect is a really vital ingredient for how we can kind of push back against some of the more damaging systems that we see around us.But people were rioting against the loss of rights to be able to put pigs out amongst woods that were being enclosed for the private laws, hunting rights. And there were many, many rebellions which took place by poachers, by people that were kind of deemed to be [00:15:00] poachers, who were kind of subject to some of the most harsh laws against them. And actually, a lot of the way in which criminality is portrayed now in England comes directly from the fact that they were trying to clamp down on how property was being challenged by people that have been dispossessed from something that was seen as a common good.Chris: Wow. There's so much there in the way that traditional peoples in England previously would've stewarded the lands that they lived on, even though they didn't own them, per se, and how the enclosure of those lands also led to this degree of, I would say anyways, historically, tourism wherein, the longing to gather as a community or as a group of people, in a place in order to, as you said, even just sit idle under a tree, to learn about the place that one lives in, or other places. That tourism largely took up that mantle [00:16:00] as an industry, as a way of commodifying that human longing toward being together in a place, largely outside of strict work hours. But even during them as well. And of course, the history of tourism is such that, through the enclosures, there was a schism, as you said, that brought people into the towns and cities to work as workers, essentially, rather than stewards of land.And then their “leisure time” was also separated in order to find ways in which that longing could be fulfilled, but through the industrial means of bringing people in mass to the beach or to forests, to other lands.And we'll get to that in a moment, that notion of the kind of colonial and neo-colonial enclosures that today show up as national parks or reserves. But you did mention this rich [00:17:00] history of trespass in England. And on The Right to Roam website, it says that, “it's fair to say that none of the limited access rights established in recent generations has been won without the willingness of ordinary people to cross the lines of property.”And so, it seems to me that the work that Right to Roam is doing is picking up those anti-enclosure movements of previous centuries and bringing them into the contemporary milieu. And so, I'm curious how you imagine or how you think notions of trespass might be understood and utilised as forms of resistance to the enclosures or privatisation of common lands.Lewis: Well, trespass in England is part of civil law, so if you trespass, it's not criminal. It's not a criminal act. So the police can't be called, as long as you're not causing damage. So, in fact, it's just between you and the landowner.And I think one of the first things that we try [00:18:00] to do as a campaign when we're speaking to whether it's new groups, or people that are kind of joining us, is to say, well, actually in custom and in history, we have this right. We have this right to be on land, and that it's only really through a kind of spell that we've been put under this kind of narrative that we've been told that we don't have a right to land. That we don't go there. And so, one of the main forms of action that we take as a campaign is to trespass, is to cross those lines which feel like they're kind of physical lines when you look at a map or where you see a barbed wire fence. But actually, as soon as you cross them, they become quite arbitrary, but also political.And we try to politicise it as much as we can, because if we take it for a given that we're excluded, then we will just remain excluded. So, it's both empowering and also quite an undertaking really to trespass and to do that together is one of the most empowering things you can do as a group or as a community, to go to the places that we're told we don't [00:19:00] have a right to be, but yet when you go there, it suddenly doesn't really make sense that you are excluded.And actually, quite often, as a campaign, we're able to go to places and to learn more about them and to learn more about our landscapes just outside of the towns and cities that we live in, to feel more connected to them. And, in a lot of cases actually do work for the betterment of places as well.I mean, often we're kind of reporting illegal rubbish dumps or seeing where damaging, invasive ecological species have taken hold and or reporting pollution in rivers. And I think it is part of the work of our campaign to help people feel that they can be a part of these places.And as you've mentioned, this idea that tourism is this kind of leisure time activity that we do that feels quite extractive, actually. There's something that we can do, which is about giving back as well, and giving back to our communities. And, [00:20:00] so yeah, it's about crossing lines, and it's about kind of challenging the politics that play there, but it's also just simply about reclaiming something that has historically been a cement that's held communities together.And what we find, I think, is that across the political spectrum, in various sectors and quarters, people just see that as common sense. I mean, it's interesting being part of a campaign that is at once radical as well as being, actually, just people get it, and they want to support it. And that has really helped us, I think, make headway and make progress, because we think we make quite a good argument for why we need better access to land and why we need laws to support that. And we are receiving a good amount of support from many quarters.Chris: Thank you for illustrating that. I remember as a child in Toronto going into the valleys there and the [00:21:00] creeks, and there's, thankfully, a large system of public lands, but of course, there was some areas where you would see signs, and it says “no trespassing,” and you would see this quite a bit, more so as you left the city. And there was this kind of subtle, imposed, instilled sense in me as a child that, like, “okay, obviously I can't go here. But secondly, if I do, then I am not just a guest or a visitor, I'm a trespasser, I'm a criminal. Right?And so to return to this question of the way that governments in the last centuries have taken common lands from people and kind of converted them into what we imagined to be better, pristine environments by virtue of there being no humans.I'd like to broach this question with you because in our correspondence, you referred to, “the hidden damage done to landscapes, the displacement of damage [00:22:00] elsewhere in the name of conservation, creating pristine landscapes and how this plays out as a way to restrict land access as a rationale for exclusion, while we turn a blind eye to damage and exploitation.”You write, “we can see this on a smaller scale with regard to estate and large farms or intensive agriculture in the UK, as well as on a global scale through supply chains and trace both back to a colonial mindset.”And so, previously on the podcast, I've spoken with authors and activists in regard to conservation as a kind of neocolonization of land, both in Africa and in Asia, and we also see it in Scotland.And so, I'm curious how this shows up in the UK and in the Right to Roam's work. This notion that no humans means that somehow the ecologies of place are better off and that there seems to be hiding in these considerations, in these concepts, a kind of misanthropy, a kind of hatred [00:23:00] toward humans.Lewis: Yeah, I mean, conservation I think has been doing amazing work, has also been doing some quite troubling work, I think, over the years. There's no simple kind of response to this. Conservation by its very nature is about working in relationship with place, with people, and with the more-than-human world.And I think like any relationships, those can be difficult and also fulfilling and beneficial and sometimes both. I think conservation as a movement, if you take a historical lens on this and obviously know, looking at it through a cultural perspective, taking in place, people, and history, and thinking about it as well, not just as a kind of a single place-based concern, but also kind of more broadly on a global scale, how conservation has evolved.And it's both evolved out of a kind of a controlling mindset, but also out of a kind of almost a palliative desire to sort of ease [00:24:00] the suffering of the natural world. And I think that that, when we look at it like that, there's a kind of a deep trauma which conservation has been born from, which is that we've done such huge amounts of damage to other places, to other peoples, to our own homes, and our own landscapes here in England that our kind of desire to kind of remedy that is kind of caught up in a kind of traumatic relationship with place. And I think we've learned a lot and obviously come a long way from a kind of fortress conservation mindset, but I think that the kind of misanthropy, which has been present in conservation, still comes through sometimes.I mean, we work as a campaign with so many amazing people working on the forefront of conservation, who are working very hard to try to transform and challenge the sector that they are working within. [00:25:00] But it's kind of understandable that this history of exploitation and damage is kind of wrapped up with a desire to press the emergency button and say, “actually, we need to kind of take drastic measures here.” And for some people, that's led them down the path of wanting a very exclusionary take on how we manage these places and these landscapes.And I think that the other thing is that, what I was talking about in the correspondence that I sent to you, really, particularly inspired by the work of Val Plumwood, the amazing philosopher who took this kind of incredible view of conservation, linked it to what she called “shadow places.” The idea that actually, for every time that we create one of these kinds of islands of pristine habitat, whether it's through exclusion or whether it's through management, planning and whatever else, actually, there's a whole world of things that we displace, and we neglect to see.And we see that with our national [00:26:00] parks here in England. I think it's interesting that Dartmoor, my nearest national park, is actually, historically, it is a very managed and very industrial landscape, yet it's kind of like held up and revered as a place of ecological tranquillity.I mean, it's actually in quite a damaged state. But we see it more broadly, as well. We can see it through our supply chains in England and through food security, or what we might call food security, by basically exploiting other places, the minerals we use, the resources that we use.So many of them come from landscapes that don't have the same protections that we're sort of overlaying onto landscapes here in England. So I think that it is a complex question. I think the fact that we are dealing with the kind of fallout of empire and the colonialization of other places and our exploitation of them leads us back to this sort of issue of actually “ how do we repair our relationship with land, with people? [00:27:00] How do we come to this through a lens of collaboration between people and place that's not about, ‘this is for nature, this is for people'?”And I think, one of the most concerning things I've seen happening in recent years, is this sort of resurgence of a neocapitalist economy in the countryside that's sort of operating under the guise of wanting to protect, but actually is about excluding communities and excluding people. And some of the most amazing work that's happening in England and Wales on Rewilding is about including people and ensuring that there is a joined-up approach between people, place, and ecology.Chris: Thank you, Louis. Your professional background prior to working with Right to Roam was in outdoor and environmental education. And so I imagine that such work kind of flows fairly easily into raising awareness for public access to the commons. But it also seems to me that the [00:28:00] contemporary and commonplace relationships between people in the commons run through the government in the form of laws and regulations. And you write, “there are things you can do on public lands, and there are things you will get fined or arrested for.”And so, a system based on allowances and punishment, a system of rights. But rights do not necessarily breed responsibility. And it can be argued that rights can undermine responsibility both on personal and collective levels. A central question that arises in the debate as to whether to repeal these prohibitions on access is that a people growing up in a culture of enclosure and hypermobility, such as most urban people do these days, tend to have no personal or peripheral example of what worthy stewardship looks like.And so I'm curious, how does the Right to Roam team and perhaps other authors and activists you've come across contend with this notion? There's a mention [00:29:00] on your website of the ability of people to offer “wild service,” and I'm curious what this means in the context of rights and responsibilities.Lewis: Well, I don't think that rights necessarily undermine responsibilities. I think badly designed rights can, but I think that, in a meaningful way, rights can give people a stake. They can really say to people, actually, “ this is something which belongs to you, and that's worth defending.”If people are only experiencing the countryside through prohibition, then clearly that's gonna lead to a form of feelings of unwelcome. And I think that that kind of relationship with the countryside is damaging, and particularly, I think it damages the ideas of trust and our sense that we can actually learn to care for these places. And that's deep set [00:30:00] within the culture, I think, that we're part of. And one of the things, as you've highlighted, this challenge, which is also an opportunity, is for education. And not only do we have these very exclusionary laws, which prohibit us from accessing so much land. I mean, we're talking about we only have access to 8% of England, and about 3% of our rivers. These places also only exist in particular parts of England and Wales. So there are vast parts of the country where the countryside might as well just be wallpaper.And so, for so many people, access is a kind of an academic exercise. It's this idea that you might be able to access it, or if you have a car, you can drive to a place. So I think there's a lot of work to be done to give people the experiences that really build up that kind of culture of care, which I think... or “stewardship” is the word that you used.Getting those laws in place, getting the right to roam legislation that we're after, is the first step on the ladder. [00:31:00] And then the next step is maybe something like, “how do we put in place those systems of infrastructure and support, which we need to actually see more people in the countryside?” And some of those things might be about, “how do we get more school kids out?” I mean, even here near Dartmoor, the only place in England where you can sleep out under the stars, most of the kids in this area won't have had that experience and probably will never have that experience. So how do we remedy things like that? How do we support schools to do more of that? How do we get more of our education systems, both formal and informal education systems, to embrace a culture of access?In England, we can look north of the border to Scotland to see where such a system's been in place since 2003, where the Scottish Land Reform Act was put in place, which gave people a default right of access to land and water in the country, which [with] sensible exceptions for things like privacy, wildlife, land with crops growing on it [00:32:00] and public safety, backed up by a code of responsibility. But that in itself is only just over 20 years old, as an act. So, culturally it's still quite young, but it's been a real success.And then, we can look elsewhere. We can maybe look elsewhere in Europe, to Norway and to Sweden, for examples where, culturally, this is sort of something which is more deeply accepted. And there are many other examples, obviously from across Europe and globally, where there are different sets of rights that give people different sets of access and mobility within landscapes.So I think all we're trying to do really here in England is point to a way of being, which is about the structures of how we do that, but it's also about our kind of mindset and how we relate to places.And we can see that it's entirely possible and preferable to the system that we have here today. So I think [00:33:00] that yes, rights in themselves are not the answer, but they are the kind of the bedrock on which we could build a whole world of possibility.Chris: Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Thank you, Lewis. I guess the question that I was trying to drive towards is this notion that's come up quite a bit in the podcast, which is that tourism doesn't necessarily begin once you get off a plane or a boat or a train. That tourism is a kind of lifestyle that seems to exist in the bedrock of the modern condition. And so how do we bring people into the possibility of something like “wild service” or stewardship when the vast kind of understanding of how we proceed towards quote “nature” or other communities is touristic in nature.And so I'm curious, in the organising that you've done, when people have the opportunity to dig deeper into the histories of their lands, and the access to lands, and the [00:34:00] enclosure that access and the enclosure of the common lands in the UK, and when they start to see perhaps what's possible by virtue of other people showing up, interested in the same research, in the possibility, the real possibility of things being otherwise, once people gathered together toward these possibilities, I'm curious what shows up for you among people who perhaps come from this more touristic sensibility.Lewis: Yeah. Well, a couple of years ago, the campaign wrote a book, a collection of essays called “Wild Service,” which is sort of acts as a bit of a compass towards this kind of new narrative of beyond extractive tourism, beyond recreation even, towards something which we sort of playfully called “re-creation” sometimes, this sort of sense that, actually, there's another way of doing this stuff. There's another way of [00:35:00] being in new places and of experiencing nature places near to and beyond our home. And Wild Service really is about... the kind of the subtitle of the book is “Why Nature Needs You.” So it's really kind of flipping this thing we were talking about earlier, which is that kind of a lot of conservation tends to focus in on, “ we desperately need nature, so we need to protect nature, and the way we do that is by excluding people.” And that's not all of conservation, but that is a kind of prevailing mindset which has existed and is entrenched now.So, wild service is trying to chart a different way, which is that we need to find this kind of peace, really. We are feeling that we can be active agents of benefit for the world around us. And there are some great examples. I mean, Paul Powlesland's an amazing barrister activist, who lives in northeast London and is [00:36:00] guardian of the River Roding up there who kind of lives on the river in his boat, and is out on the river every day, normally waist-deep in the river, acting in service to clean that river up.And it is in a mess. This river's been a historic dumping ground for industry, and neglected by government and local authority over the years, and just trashed. And Paul is with a team of volunteers, working so hard to shine a light on that, but also just basically to clean it up, and to demonstrate how illegal rubbish dumps and illegal sewers are overflowing into it. And it's become this flashpoint really for a wider conversation of concern.And there are many other examples where, you know, on the River Wye, for example, on the border between Wales and England, which is one of the first rivers really to have its kind of legal rights asserted in England through the action of communities.And we're talking about wild swimmers and anglers and [00:37:00] kayakers and people who are kind of out on the river. And I think it's no coincidence that the River Wye is also one of the only rivers in England where there is a legal right of access to swim and to connect with the river. And that people have seen it as a gift really, to then act on behalf of the river. And of course, then that's playing out now.The rights of nature are playing out globally. I mean Ecuador, being one of the kind of trailblazing, the constitution, embedding this. And I think acting as an inspiration for so many more communities to really take on board the rights of nature. And to see a kind of community activists stepping forward in wild service to do some of this work. And in cases like Paul, they often trespass whilst they're doing it.Chris: Yeah, I think there's definitely this question of animism that comes into play, perhaps peripherally as well in these conversations, which is that, so many of our ancestors, at least at some point, [00:38:00] understood the more-than-human beings and worlds within their places as just as alive and deserving of a good life and dignity as humans are.And that over the course of the last 500 years, at least, a degree of deanimation has occurred as a result of the enclosures. Certainly, you could get into the Cartesian philosophical questions, regarding who has a soul and who doesn't. But I think there's something deeply embedded there as well about the questions of, when we find ways to ensure that rivers, for example, or other aspects of the more-than-human world have rights, that we are trying to find a way back towards respecting the dignity that exists, and is [00:39:00] more or less, demanded, if not, seen or experienced a priori, within an animistic perspective.Lewis: Yeah, I mean, absolutely the same logic that tore people from the Commons was also at play, of course, in the kind of instrumentalising and essentializing nature, and creating this sort of division between people and the rest of nature. And it is certainly there in the history of the British Isles.You just don't have to look even back that far to see that people had a much kind of closer relationship. And I think this isn't about going back to anything. This is about finding a new path where, actually, this kind of experiment in driving a wedge between humans and the rest of nature has been wildly unsuccessful, and has caused great harm, and has precipitated, also, the harms done to people elsewhere.And, part of our kind of job now, I think, is to look to other [00:40:00] ways of doing things. And I see really in the kind of richness of the work being done by communities and individuals, and increasingly, with work being done within governance, that actually rights of nature is not a panacea, but it does give us this sort of direction towards something, which is perhaps more unifying, and can be part of that future.Chris: Hmm. Yeah. I'm reminded of a fairly famous quote, at least within the psychedelic culture, of a man named Terrence McKenna, who said that this work is not a return to the archaic. It's a return of the archaic.Lewis: Hmm.Chris: And so perhaps there's something in there that can give us pause to consider and reconsider how we are with more-than-human worlds.Well, I'd like to take a, just a slight detour if we can, because there's this question of [00:41:00] what the enclosures of the commons did, to people both in England and then abroad, later. And a lot of it has to do with the human relationship to nature, to more-than-human worlds. But I'm also curious about this relationship to home, and to housing even, and to what the enclosures kind of precipitated in the behaviour of human beings, what displacement and expulsion and enclosure do to human beings.And so, I have a little quote here from a great book, called The War Against the Commons. And in that book, the author writes,“The largest number of migrants left England entirely, mostly for North America or the Caribbean. [This is as a result of the enclosures.] Net emigration in the century before 1640 was close to [00:42:00] 600,000, and another 400,000 left by the end of that century, extraordinarily large numbers from a country whose mid-1600s population was barely 5 million people.What's more, those are net figures. More people left, but their numbers were partially offset by immigrants arriving in England from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and continental Europe. Most of the emigrants were young men, and about half paid for the dangerous ocean crossing by agreeing to be indentured servants for four or more years there, in the ‘New World.' That was a high price, but hundreds of thousands of landless peasants were willing to pay it.For some, it was not a choice. English courts frequently sentenced vagrants and other criminals to indentured servitude in the New World.”And so, I don't think it's such a huge [00:43:00] stretch of the imagination to say that the chain reaction that began with the enclosures in England and later spread to most parts of the world had direct consequences for how the Americas, among other places, were colonised. I think it's quite curious and telling that the sometimes brutal dispossession and dislocation that was unleashed on commoners in the UK was then later unleashed by those same commoners turned migrants or their descendants on the other side of the Atlantic. And so, given that one of the major issues of our time revolves around migration and borders, I'm curious if this history or this unauthorised history has come up at all in the conversations around migration in your part of the world.Lewis: Yeah. Well, I think the harm that has been done to the landscapes here, clearly, the mindset and the exploitative mindset have been at play [00:44:00] elsewhere as we've discussed. You talked about how vagrants were treated. People are told they have no place on land that they don't own. And then when they find themselves, suddenly without work and dispossessed and subject to new laws that were criminalising that kind of vagrancy, I think that's such a strong kind of signal within a society that there's this kind of way of being successful or a way of undertaking a life, and of doing business, whatever you wanna call it. And so as soon as people are given an opportunity to go off and set off for new shores... we were effectively training a whole population on how to other, and how to exploit. I mean, this was the kind of place in which that mindset was cultivated.Chris: Mm-hmm.Lewis: And people, I think what I always come [00:45:00] back to in, whenever I'm reading about the enclosures and the commons, is that people were resisting, as well. And I think, the Levellers, the amazing campaigning done by the Levellers who took up arms and really knew resisted the kind of modern enclosures and the idea of landlordism, that only land landowners should have a broad set of rights, including the right to vote. The people were resisting this at every step of the way.And I think that we see that obviously internationally, as well. Colonisation by Britain and by other colonising powers has always been resisted, and there are movements globally that are working to protect the rights of people and land against these kinds of damaging and exploitative practises.But I think it comes back really, as somebody who lives here in England, that it might feel small to be a part of a campaign, which is about “I want [00:46:00] rights to be able to walk outta my door and walk into the nearby countryside, whilst there are these sort of incredibly awful, colonial practises going on in the name of progress, globally, in my name.”This is also about how we cultivate that kind of awareness and resistance. Because what I see and what I've learned through being part of this campaign is that, something which is kind of meaningful for us here today, by learning our histories and how this has kind of evolved, really, and grown out of the land where I live, part of that journey is also about educating ourselves and taking action on things which are an injustice for us in our lives, and joining those injustices to others, which are taking place in the name of the same systems that exploited the world, the more direct world around us.So, these are joined up. And, I think the other thing I wanna say is that like so many times in our campaigning we've come across the role of power and privilege and money in the countryside, [00:47:00] and how the larger states and the names that go with them that persist in the countryside today...I mean, about a third of England is still in aristocratic hands. We're unsure of the exact figure because so much of the land in England is not registered, but around about a third of England is still in the hands of... many of those people can trace their lineage right back to the Norman Conquest, to 1066, when William the Conqueror came over and handed out the land of his newly acquired domain to all of his mates. We're still living with that legacy today.And so, we see those power structures in the countryside. We see the money that's behind them. And all of the new money, the corporate money as well, that's being poured into the countryside around us. And there's a direct link there to democracy, as well, to what we're told about who belongs and who gets a say and who actually should feel welcome here. And when we look at the rise of the far-right here [00:48:00] in England, and I think, elsewhere, globally, the perpetuation of the narratives that go behind the rise of the far-right comes from that kind of land-owning, embedded power structure, the same power which has actually disconnected and dispossessed the majority of the population, the 99% of us, who don't own half of England.And that's really shocking. And I think, when we see figures like Nigel Farage here in England, pointing to migrants as the problem, it doesn't take much delving back into our history to see that this is a defence strategy, a way of deflecting blame from those who have acquired through exploitation, through murder and destruction, massive amounts of wealth and privilege and power.And so, this is the latest iteration of blaming people. We blamed the vagabonds and the [00:49:00] poor for causing problems in the countryside by criminalising activities, and exporting them off. And today we're blaming migrants, and I think, to be able to know our history and to look at how the enclosure acts and the loss of a sense of common belonging is connected to how we are having our dispossession thrown back at us through a sense of blame for others who have absolutely no stake in the uprooting of our connection.Chris: Hmm. Brilliant. Yeah. Thank you so much, Louis, for bringing this up. I mean, I've had my friend and mentor Steven Jenkinson on the pod a few times. And one of the things that he's written that describes the dynamics in a lot of the modern condition. But I think in this question, particularly around migration and colonial history,[00:50:00] he writes that, “ they deify what dispossessed their ancestors.” They turn into a God, the trauma that dispossessed their ancestors. And then, of course, in this particular context, they project it onto the people who are now being dispossessed.Lewis: Hmm.I mean, we see this logic also play out in other, smaller ways, I think, in the countryside in England. Like, for example, massive running battles and riots to protect Fenland, the fenlands of the east of England, from being drained and improved. Massive protests to prevent woodlands from being enclosed. But today, we'll see the everyday public who don't have any ownership of those lands, protecting this kind of sense of industrial improvement. And I think that there's a lot of unpicking to be done, to look back [00:51:00] and to say, actually, this is something that was done to us. And with that, we lost our rights, and also now, one of the biggest kinds of parlour tricks really of that whole system has been for us to blame each other.Chris: Yeah. I mean, I see it on a smaller scale as well in terms of landlordism and rent. I mean, we, I had an interview a few months ago, and we brought up the question of rent, which surely existed before the enclosure of the commons, but has become a staple, a normalised aspect of modern life. And it's become that rent has become so normalised that no one questions the kind of wage and rent slavery that we're born into in this late capitalist context. And therefore there's no need to imagine our relationships with home or [00:52:00] house or housing or land being any different.And as you mentioned, how the enclosures created this kind of notion perhaps among people in England in the previous hundred years, and then of course exported elsewhere, that the roots of enclosures and the different forms that they take or can take in the world, are the recipe for a ‘better life', right?And so I see that as well as a kind of historical extension of the enclosures, this notion that, like, “well, it's just the way it is and you just have to pay your rent, and there's no questioning the dynamics of private property. And if you don't like it, just submit or become a landlord yourself.Lewis: Hmm. Well, one of the interesting things I think that happened again in Scotland was that in 2003, the Land Reform Act, which came in and which [00:53:00] I've mentioned as being the acts which brought about the Scottish right to roam as we know it today, actually, that was almost a kind of footnote to the wider act. And one of the main things that it brought about was for people to have a right to buy, for communities to have a right to buy. And one of the big transformations in Scotland in recent years has been communities being able to buy up parts of whole estates and even sometimes whole islands.And so, the Isle of Eigg was one of the first examples, but now there are many, many more across Scotland where communities are starting to take literal ownership of places, and with that obviously comes things like rent controls and responsibility and accountability, between each other, within communities.And so, looking at it through that lens, where people have a greater stake in landscapes that they literally own or have a stake in, there are many, many outcomes in terms of nature conservation and public [00:54:00] access, and a wider sense of responsibility, which can kind of spill over. And it is not without problems. I mean, of course, there are still issues in Scotland with estates, and large, faceless landlords extracting massive amounts of extortionate rent from people. That's, of course, still happening.One of the things that we see in England, and I think is maybe a bit of a kind of telling contrast to that, is that in the last year we've seen two large estates, and there's probably been many more, but two that have come up on our radar, really, that have held-in properties.So one of them down in Dorset, a kind of neighbouring county to where I live, had 32 houses, ostensibly, affordable dwellings for people to live in the countryside, which is hard to come by, actually. In some parts of rural England, it's really hard to live affordably in the countryside. So, people who have been there for generations saw an estate that had been held by the same family for seven generations, suddenly bought by a [00:55:00] faceless corporation on behalf of an anonymous absentee landowner.And suddenly, overnight, the community was hit with kind of massive amounts of uncertainty. People worried about evictions or rents going up. And the same things happened just down the road from us, with an estate owned by the royal family suddenly put up for sale, and suddenly, tenant farmers, people who had had this kind of certainty that actually this has been owned by the royal family since the 1300s, are now being put up for sale.And from that point of view, the person selling it just looks at it like a set of assets that could be sold off. And I think what I would love is for, in England, for us to have a community right to buy. So when things like that happen, then actually communities get this kind of first refusal.So, landlordism and ownership patterns that are linked to the extortions going on are deeply connected to rights of access, because the golden thread that links all of those is a right to belong. And without that kind of certainty that you can call a place home [00:56:00] without being evicted, or without being told that you can get to your kind of favourite river swimming spot, for me, those two things are deeply related, and they point to the need for something much more robust for people who so desperately need it, who don't have the means to buy land themselves.Chris: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you, Lewis. I'm grateful for this work that you do with the right to roam, and hopefully, as the movement grows, there'll be an opportunity for, perhaps, seemingly disparate movements or campaigns to join in this way and to recognise their mutual goals.And so I'm curious, I'd love to ask you about how this shows up on a broader spectrum, in a global spectrum, in terms of the Right To Roam, in terms of access to land and the campaigns and movements that are happening, not just in England, but elsewhere, beyond the Isles and perhaps beyond [00:57:00] Europe.And so I'm curious what kind of similar movements or campaigns might be happening in other countries or continents, for which there might be solidarity between the fight for the commons in the UK and the fight for the commons elsewhere?Lewis: Hmm. Well, land. It literally underpins everything, really.I mean, we see so many campaigns and injustices, which obviously are linked to land and the right to belong and the right to be. And land justice, globally, there's so much international solidarity. Our work today is very much about drawing those threads and remaining kind of focused on what we need to do, but we can see sort of the parallels elsewhere.And, people that we campaign with are also involved in international campaigning with Survival International, for example, doing amazing work to support the rights of indigenous peoples and rights to land globally. And the International Land Coalition, the work that they're [00:58:00] doing, a lot of which is in South America.We talked already about the rights of nature movement, and seeing lots of that kind of showing up and the rights of nature in the constitution of Ecuador, has, as I've already said, been a massive inspiration for that movement now in the UK.And, obviously, in the majority of Latin American countries, this is a real present challenge, and it's highly contested. I was speaking with a group from Dalhousie University in Canada as well recently about the kind of the rights to the coastline up there, and how, even in North American countries, there are like these challenges because of the development of coastlines, and not just coastlines, but also, the private property rights which excludes people to perhaps a more extreme extent than we have here in England.I was always struck by how, in the United States, the [00:59:00] right to roam campaign is sort of... I think people are just bewildered by it. Like, “What is this kind of campaign?” Because the rights of property are so sacrosanct, and the rights of property and the right to exclude, with the exception of the national park.So, we see these interesting challenges coming up, and international solidarity with people, in all sorts of different contexts.I was really interested in the conversation that you were having with Devon Taylor on this podcast about the rights to the coast, for example, in Jamaica, as well, and how that is absolutely linked to the exploitation of Jamaica and of people, and that land is still subject to the same kind of sets of exclusions there. And I was really interested to hear about the campaigning that's being done to just give people a simple right to get to the beach, which just seems so [01:00:00] basic and simple, but actually is fundamental. And so, I'm really gladdened and also shocked by what's happening there. And particularly if you contrast it with a place like Barbados, where there's a right to the coast, to see just what's possible with campaigning. And with political will, actually, you can see that these things are winnable and that they're winnable because of people like Devon doing that kind of work.So yeah, our work's very much focused on England, and what we can achieve within this parliament. We basically want to finish what we're doing, and then carry on with the wider work that we're all also interested in doing, and getting this law changed is our kind of like tiny puzzle piece in the wider tapestry of land justice, globally.Chris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. May it be that the people who listen to this and who find their way towards the Right to Roam's work, join up and remember the [01:01:00] histories that have led us to this point and to people like yourself who are working to reconcile, as you said, what's been done historically in your name, or in your names.And, it's been a blessing to have you on the pod Lewis, to be able to both historically and contemporaneously, bring together a lot of the threads that a lot of other podcast guests in the past have spoken to, threads that bring us to a degree of source or historical origin in terms of how these enclosures came to be and of course, how people like yourself in the place that they began are working for their proper subversion.And so, on behalf of our listeners, Lewis, I'd like to thank you for joining me today for being willing to speak to these issues, these very complex issues. And I'm of course grateful that you're digging into the complexities in the way that you do.It's a great honour. And finally, [01:02:00] I'd like to ask you, how might our listeners find out more about the Right to Roam and its campaigns? How might they get involved and support, or begin this good work, in the places that they live?Lewis: Thanks, Chris. It is great to be on here and speaking with you, as well.And yeah, I mean, we're a small campaign. We do what we can with the small amount of resources that we have available. But I think, if people want to support our work, you can head over to our website. We've got our website at righttorome.org.uk. So check that out. We've got a mailing list, as well, and we try to send out fairly infrequent, but we hope, worthwhile emails, which give you a bit of insight.They tend to be focused on the work we are doing here for England and Wales. But I think for international listeners, this is potentially of interest as well, because, obviously, this speaks to the wider context. We've got social media as well, so you can see us on Instagram and on Blue Sky. And we're just in the process of setting [01:03:00] up a blog, as well. So, stay tuned for that. But get in touch and listen out for any updates.Chris: Thank you, Lewis. I'll make sure that those links are on the End of Tourism website in the homework section. And, for those who are outside of England who are wondering about this, perhaps the Right to Roam and their work is something not only of an inspiration, but a foundation for the ways in which you and your people might come to gather together and organise for access to land in your places.Thank you so much, Louis.Lewis: Thanks, Chris. Get full access to Chris Christou at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe

Fatigue. Brain fog. Cravings that never quit no matter how "good" you're eating. In this episode of Food Junkies, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Dr. Carolyn Dean — MD, naturopath, and author of more than 50 books including The Magnesium Miracle — to unpack a piece of the addiction and recovery puzzle that rarely gets airtime: magnesium deficiency and its tangled relationship with yeast overgrowth, sugar metabolism, and chronic cravings. Dr. Dean has spent over five decades in integrative and functional medicine, and in this conversation she lays out her theory that a huge share of chronic symptoms — anxiety, insomnia, heart palpitations, muscle tension, even conditions mistaken for neurological disease — trace back to a mineral most conventional labs never test properly. She also digs into candida overgrowth, why restrictive diets like keto and carnivore may be working for reasons people don't realize, and why sugar cravings might be your gut asking for something other than sugar. This episode isn't a replacement for individualized medical or clinical treatment, and it isn't an endorsement of any product mentioned. As always, we encourage listeners to bring these questions to their own care team. In this episode, you'll learn: Why magnesium is required to produce ATP — the energy currency of every cell — and what happens when your body can't get enough The difference between a magnesium compound and a bioavailable magnesium ion, and why so many supplements underdeliver How soil depletion and modern agriculture have quietly lowered magnesium in the food supply over the past century The link Dr. Dean draws between candida/yeast overgrowth, leaky gut, and persistent sugar cravings Why she believes some people on restrictive diets (keto, carnivore, paleo) may be managing yeast overgrowth without realizing it The connection between sugar metabolism, vitamin C, and cardiovascular health Her recommended starting point for anyone wanting to address deficiency: diet, timing, and sequencing of supplementation About Our Guest Dr. Carolyn Dean, MD, ND is a physician and naturopath with over 50 years of experience in integrative and functional medicine. A graduate of Dalhousie University's medical school, she is the author of more than 50 books, including The Magnesium Miracle, Detox Your Body, and multiple works on sugar toxicity and mineral deficiency. Her clinical focus centers on magnesium, mineral absorption, and yeast overgrowth as root contributors to chronic fatigue, cravings, and metabolic dysfunction. Learn more: drcarolyndean.com Her product site: rnareset.com About Vanessa Kredler's Upcoming IFS Workshop:

In this summer bonus episode of The Food Professor podcast, Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois broadcast live from the SIAL Food Innovation Show in Montreal for a conversation with Naïla Bassin, Marketing Leader Canada, and Carlo Stocco, Managing Director, North America, both of Andriani S.p.A., the Italian company behind Felicia, Italy's fastest-growing pasta brand. Felicia means "happy" in Italian, and the brand's Canadian arrival is built on a simple but stubborn problem: Canadians want healthier pasta, but the better-for-you category has long asked shoppers to compromise on taste and texture. Carlo traces the company's roots to Gravina in Puglia in southern Italy, its rapid European growth, and the decision to build a North American manufacturing facility in London, Ontario rather than simply import from Europe. That plant now anchors a national launch, with organic ingredients increasingly sourced in Canada and an ambition to bring the entire supply chain onshore. Naïla unpacks what makes the product different. Felicia owns its technology and mills its own raw materials, which matters enormously when there's no gluten to bind the pasta. The result is a seven-SKU lineup built on single ingredients and vegetables rather than blends and fillers: buckwheat, brown rice and spirulina, chickpea, red lentil, oat and green cauliflower. One organic red lentil serving delivers 23 grams of protein and 14 grams of fibre, plus iron and potassium. The oat pasta recently took home a NEXTY award for best gluten-free product at Expo West in Los Angeles, chosen from more than 1,000 submissions. The conversation turns to the retail strategy every emerging food brand wrestles with. Felicia has launched in specialty and health stores across Ontario and Quebec, landed at Loblaw in the natural health aisle, secured Costco with red lentil penne plus a limited mid-May drop of organic oat and green cauliflower cavatappi, is rolling into Save-On-Foods, and is in discussions with Sobeys. But where should it live on shelf? Carlo makes the case for the main pasta aisle using Italy's Esselunga, where 14 Felicia items sit alongside conventional pasta and grow the total category, much as cereal and bakery have already been transformed. A sharp listen for anyone tracking Canadian grocery innovation, better-for-you food trends and brand building in a crowded category. About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability with over 775 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Charlebois is also an editor for the prestigious Trends in Food Science Technology journal. He co-hosts The Food Professor podcast, discussing issues in the food, foodservice, grocery and restaurant industries and which is the most listened Canadian management podcast in Canada. Every year since 2012, he has published the now highly anticipated Canadian Food Price Report, which provides an overview of food price trends for the coming year. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, nationally as well as internationally. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces and other countries.With extensive experience collaborating with businesses, governments, and NGOs, Dr. Charlebois combines academic rigor with practical expertise, making him one of the most influential voices in the global agri-food landscape. His work continues to advance the understanding of food systems, fostering innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving industry. In 2025, he received the prestigious Charles III medal recognizing his tremendous work in informing Canadians about food issues. Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the National Retail Federation (NRF) as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025, and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

Is Canada losing the trade war with the United States?  As trade tensions continue, many Canadians are asking whether this has become less about protecting Canadian interests and more about politics. Meanwhile, businesses are losing confidence, investment is leaving, and some business leaders warn that 4 in 10 Canadian companies are considering moving operations elsewhere.  So where does Canada go from here? What should our trade strategy be? Can we repair our relationship with our largest trading partner, or will the economic damage continue?  Join David Leis live with Dan McTeague, President of Canadians for Affordable Energy, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, Senior Director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, and Marco Navarro-Genie, Vice President of Research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, as they discuss what's really at stake—and the policy changes needed to get Canada back on track. 

In this episode Ed interviews Dr Sylvain Charlebois who studies food distribution at Dalhousie University. They discuss economics, logistics, the power of the consumer and more. Additional Resources   Time Stamps 00:00 – Introduction: Why Food Distribution Matters 03:45 – How the Modern Food Supply Chain Works 10:30 – What Drives the Price of Food? 17:20 – Plant Diseases Through the Eyes of a Food Economist 24:15 – Bananas, Cavendish, and the Perfect Supply Chain 34:30 – Grocery Stores: The Hidden Science of Selling Food 43:15 – Why Farmers Grow What They Grow 51:00 – When Plant Diseases Disrupt the Food System 59:15 – The Future of Food Distribution 1:07:00 – Final Thoughts: Feeding the Future   Zaworski, E. (Host) and Charlebois, S. (Interviewee). S5:E15 (Podcast). Aisles Under Attack: Food Distribution and Plant Pests. 7/29/2026. In I See Dead Plants. Crop Protection Network.   Transcript

Why do most new products fail — even when they solve a real problem? In this episode of The Voice of Retail, presented by Konek – Canada's way to pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more., host Michael LeBlanc sits down with Rob Snyder, founder and author of the new book The Power of Pull, to unpack why understanding customer demand is fundamentally different from pitching supply — and what that means for retailers, vendors, and startups trying to win business today. Snyder's path here started at McKinsey & Company, where he grew frustrated with consulting from the outside and moved into the startup world to learn how companies actually work. After Harvard Business School, he built his first startup selling into retail and restaurants — and spent two brutal years hitting a wall before finally cracking the code and scaling to $4 million in annual recurring revenue in under two years. That hard-won experience became the foundation for his PULL framework, and for a career spent studying, through Harvard Innovation Labs, startup advising, and angel investing, why some new ideas take off while most don't. The conversation digs into the core distinction at the heart of Snyder's book: demand is not the same thing as wanting a product. Demand is a person trying to accomplish something in their life; supply is simply the tool they pull in to get it done. Snyder revisits the famous (and possibly apocryphal) Henry Ford "faster horses" quote to explain why asking customers what they want often produces the wrong answer — and why the real skill is identifying what people are stuck trying to do with the options already in front of them. For retailers fielding constant vendor pitches, Snyder offers a practical filter: can this startup speak your language, cite specific relevant case studies, and explain exactly how they've unstuck a comparable business — or are they hiding behind buzzwords like "agentic AI"? He also tackles how AI is reshaping the competitive landscape for B2B startups, arguing that as AI closes gaps in the "limitations" side of the PULL framework, vendors need to find pull in places AI hasn't reached yet. The episode closes with Snyder's advice for retail leaders trying to uncover genuine, unfiltered demand: skip the customer interviews, and instead watch shoppers struggle in real time — in-store and online — to find the moments where existing options fall short. Rob Snyder's new book, The Power of Pull, is available now wherever books are sold. Connect with him on LinkedIn or at robsnyder.org.  This episode presented by Konek – Canada's way to pay. Visit Konek.ca to learn more. Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael's cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.

Editorial note: This conversation was recorded live at SIAL Canada in late April — well before the July CUSMA review deadline and the most recent U.S. tariff actions targeting Canada. Some of the optimism expressed here about a smooth CUSMA outcome should be heard in that context. It's become a Food Professor tradition: every year at SIAL Canada, hosts Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois sit down with Martin Lavoie, President and CEO of Groupe Export Agroalimentaire Québec-Canada, for a state-of-the-nation check-in on Canadian agri-food trade. This bonus episode, recorded live on the SIAL Canada show floor in Montreal, picks up exactly one year after their last conversation — and at the time, a lot had already changed. Lavoie opens by reflecting on the whiplash of the prior twelve months. Since "Liberation Day" tariffs rattled Canadian exporters the previous spring, Quebec's agri-food sector had kept growing despite the uncertainty, but the volatility had taken a toll: lost U.S. customers, disrupted contracts, and a level of unpredictability Lavoie says he'd never seen in his career. He walks through how Groupe Export helped member companies navigate the chaos — from renegotiating who absorbs tariff costs to bracing for policy shifts announced, at times, over social media. The conversation turns to CUSMA (USMCA), then under review, with Lavoie offering a cautiously optimistic read at the time: dismantling the agreement would be so disruptive to deeply integrated U.S. industries that he believed cooler heads would prevail on both sides of the border. Listeners should weigh that optimism against what's actually unfolded since the July deadline and the latest U.S. tariff moves against Canada. A major theme is diversification. Lavoie argues Mexico represents Quebec's single biggest near-term opportunity — logistically easier than overseas markets and increasingly motivated to reduce its own reliance on U.S. imports. He also flags growing momentum in Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Europe, while acknowledging the real barriers: time zones, market development costs, and a Canadian logistics network still built for trucking to the U.S. rather than shipping by ocean freight. Comparing Canada to the Netherlands' export powerhouse model, he makes the case for urgent investment in port infrastructure, warehousing, and resolving ongoing labour disruptions at Canadian ports. Domestically, Lavoie and Charlebois dig into interprovincial trade — noting it's often cheaper and easier for a Quebec exporter to ship to New York than to Calgary — and discuss data from an MNP survey showing Canada ranks as a top-tier nation for agri-food reputation among G20 countries, trailing only the Netherlands. The episode closes with a practical overview of how Groupe Export supports Quebec exporters: 30-40 trade missions and shows per year, shipping and regulatory support, market intelligence, and export-readiness evaluations for companies just getting started. A time-capsule look at where Quebec's agri-food exporters stood mid-storm — worth hearing alongside what's happened since. About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability with over 775 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Charlebois is also an editor for the prestigious Trends in Food Science Technology journal. He co-hosts The Food Professor podcast, discussing issues in the food, foodservice, grocery and restaurant industries and which is the most listened Canadian management podcast in Canada. Every year since 2012, he has published the now highly anticipated Canadian Food Price Report, which provides an overview of food price trends for the coming year. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, nationally as well as internationally. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces and other countries.With extensive experience collaborating with businesses, governments, and NGOs, Dr. Charlebois combines academic rigor with practical expertise, making him one of the most influential voices in the global agri-food landscape. His work continues to advance the understanding of food systems, fostering innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving industry. In 2025, he received the prestigious Charles III medal recognizing his tremendous work in informing Canadians about food issues. Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the National Retail Federation (NRF) as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025, and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

Greg Brady talked to Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, Head of the Agri-Foods Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, AKA The Food Professor, about how surveillance pricing works, why critics are worried, and what consumers need to know Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greg Brady talked to Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, Head of the Agri-Foods Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, AKA The Food Professor, about how surveillance pricing works, why critics are worried, and what consumers need to know Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

 Halifax Part 1 of 2  Dr. Mary Travelbest Guide podcast.  Find my book series on the website​​ at https://www.5stepstosolotravel.com/ or on Amazon. It's a several-part series. Today's destination is Halifax,  Nova Scotia, Canada. Part 1 of 2 Eastern Canada is understated. This episode is about what I actually did there in August 2025, as a solo woman traveler. Halifax surprised me. It is a harbor city, a university city, a military city, a cruise-ship city, and a place where history seems to rise from the water. One of the first things I noticed is that Halifax is surrounded by water. The harbor is not just scenery. It is part of the city's identity. Ships, ferries, kayaks, cruise passengers, navy vessels, and waterfront walkers all share the same sense of place. So I walked, I spent a lot of time along the waterfront. There was music, people eating outside, and a lively summer feeling. I was there around August 4, which was a holiday, and I ate poutine at the buskers' event. Poutine was new to me. It is French fries with cheese curds and gravy, topped with ketchup. It was a different flavor for me, and that is part of travel: trying something even when you are not sure it will become your favorite. Halifax has a strong maritime history, and I visited the Maritime Museum. That was one of the highlights. I learned more about the Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917, when two ships collided in the harbor. The explosion was enormous — often described as the world's largest pre-atomic explosion. I heard that the anchor landed miles away, the water was displaced, and a tsunami followed. The next day, there was a blizzard. That story stayed with me because it showed how much tragedy this city has survived. The Maritime Museum also connects you to other parts of Halifax history, including shipyards, dockyards, and the city's role as a port. If you are a first-time visitor, this is a good place to start because it helps you understand why Halifax matters. Immigration museum https://pier21.ca/ Look up your family history here, including whether you have US relatives. It had a 15-minute wait, but it was free. I also visited the Citadel, up on the hill. I spent about two hours there learning about the military and cultural changes in the area. It was informative, and I am glad I made the climb. Halifax has hills, so wear good walking shoes. You may think you are just going "up the hill to the museum," but your legs will know you are in a real city with elevation. Another special experience was my kayak tour around St. George's Island. It was a two-and-a-half-hour tour, and we learned about tunnels and armaments from the time when the British were responsible for the harbor's defense and security. It was expensive, but I was really glad I did it. Sometimes a higher-cost experience is worth it because it gives you a memory you would not get any other way. I also made time for beauty and quiet. I took bus number 1 to the Public Gardens, and they were beautiful. The main gate is near South Park Street and Spring Garden Road. That area is a good part of the city to explore. I wandered, took buses, and let myself explore different parts of Halifax rather than staying in just one tourist zone. One morning, I went swimming at the Centennial Pool at 8:30 AM. The water was chilly, but not freezing, and I swam for about 45 minutes. It felt fantastic. I love finding ordinary things in a new city — a public pool, a bus route, a grocery store, a coffee shop — because those places help me feel less like a tourist and more like a temporary resident. I noticed Tim Hortons everywhere. Strong coffee, bathrooms, and big business. For a traveler, especially one moving around by bus, knowing where you can get coffee and find a bathroom matters. I rode public buses and appreciated that they announced the next street before arriving. That was helpful when I was trying to figure out where I was going. At one point, I jumped on a 10C bus, not completely sure where it was going, but I was on South Park Street and Spring Garden Road and seeing more of Halifax. That is one of my travel styles: I like to wander, but I also pay attention. I passed St. Mary's University, Dalhousie University, Gorsebrook Park on Inglis Street, and other neighborhoods. Halifax has a strong student presence, which gives parts of the city energy. Quinpool Road felt like a main drag for shops. I also hopped at the Mic Mac Mall. I went to the Art Gallery, where Maud Lewis's paintings are an important draw. I saw Point Pleasant Park, one of my favorite parts of the city, especially around Young Avenue. Halifax has one gated street with six houses on the ocean, and that area felt peaceful and special. Point Pleasant Park also carries reminders of storms and resilience. I heard about a hurricane in 2010 that downed a huge number of trees. Nature is beautiful here, but also powerful. I also visited downtown Halifax, including St. Paul's Anglican Church, the city's oldest building, dating back to 1749. It is close to downtown and gives you a sense of how old Halifax is by North American standards. A few small details stayed with me. Some red traffic lights in Nova Scotia were square. The city has a Commons area for winter skating at the Emera Oval. There is an armory, the Scotiabank Center for events, cruise ships at the harbor, Irving gas stations, and a pretty waterfront at night. I even saw or heard about Theodore the Tugboat, which brought a lighter, cheerful side to the harbor. My food experiences included fish and chips, scallops, clams, poutine, and outdoor eating. I remember Olive and Rudy, scallops and clams, and the pleasure of eating outside when the weather is right. Halifax is a good place for seafood and simple travel meals. One day, I had a ham sandwich, an apple, a pear, an orange, and toast. That helped me manage costs while spending money on experiences. My caution for listeners: someone mentioned the "Dome" neighborhood as a place with many bars and a possible recipe for a bar fight. I would say this more gently: as a solo traveler, especially at night, be aware of nightlife districts. You do not have to avoid fun, but you do need to know your surroundings. The shownote includes a link to crime mapping in Halifax. https://www.halifax.ca/safety-security/police/crime-mapping   My mistake for this episode: assuming Halifax would be only a small waterfront stop. It was much more layered than that. My lesson: Halifax is not just a pretty Canadian harbor. It is a city of resilience, history, students, seafood, public spaces, and water views. Next up will be Part 2 of 2 on Halifax.    Travel Mistakes  My mistake for this episode: assuming Halifax would be only a small waterfront stop. It was much more layered than that. My travel tip: take the buses, walk the waterfront, and do at least one water-based experience — a ferry, harbor cruise, or kayak tour.     AI was used to select some of the suggestions for this episode.   Connect with Dr. Travelbest 5 Steps to Solo Travel website Dr. Mary Travelbest X Dr. Mary Travelbest Facebook Page Dr. Mary Travelbest Facebook Group Dr. Mary Travelbest Instagram Dr. Mary Travelbest Podcast Dr. Travelbest on TikTok Dr.Travelbest on YouTube In the news  

Guest host Rob Fai spoke to Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, Head of the Agri-Foods Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, AKA The Food Professor about Food safety needs an AI upgrade Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recorded live on the final day of SIAL Canada, this bonus episode of The Food Professor brings hosts Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois face to face with Jacques Duhaime, owner of Duhaime Gourmet — a Quebec fruit-spread and jam company that Sylvain has wanted on the show for years. The conversation traces four generations of agricultural evolution in Saint-Germain, near Drummondville, Quebec, and shows how a small dairy farm became one of Canada's most distinctive low-sugar jam and fruit-spread producers. Jacques walks listeners through the company's origin story: founded in 1945 as a dairy farm by his grandfather, expanded into orchards and vegetables by his father in 1948, and refocused entirely on produce after the dairy herd was sold in 1960. Jacques took over the farm from his parents in 1981, when the operation was running roughly 200 acres of vegetables. A tough vegetable market in 1995 pushed the family toward jam-making, and a pursuit of naturally low-sugar recipes led Jacques back to school at ITA to develop the reduced-sugar techniques that still define the brand today. A pivotal trip with Groupe Export in 2000 opened the door to Japan, where Duhaime Gourmet's low-sugar spreads found immediate demand — at a time when the company already supplied roughly 400 boutique stores across Quebec. The business went on to export to the United States for a decade, supplying jams, spreads, and fruit pairings for cheese, while also building a substantial private-label business across Quebec, Canada, and Japan. Jacques also opens up about the structure of the business today: the orchard remains family-owned and is now run by his son, marking a fifth generation on the land, while the processing side of Duhaime Gourmet was sold roughly a year ago to Bertrand Marquis, a fellow Saint-Germain entrepreneur who previously worked in the wood industry. Jacques reflects candidly on international trade shows — from an early appearance at a golf show in Dubai to lessons learned about race-to-the-bottom pricing in that market — and on how the company's trade show schedule has grown from roughly 10 shows a year before the pandemic to as many as 30–40 today. The episode closes on Duhaime Gourmet's newest product: a 90%-fruit spread sweetened with just 10% organic sugar, containing less than three grams of sugar and no pectin — a launch aimed at diabetics, families, and babies alike, debuting in strawberry rhubarb and headed for Metro shelves soon. A warm, detail-rich conversation for anyone interested in Quebec food manufacturing, family business succession, food innovation, and insights into global trade show strategy in the specialty food sector. https://www.duhaimegourmet.com/en/ About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability with over 775 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Charlebois is also an editor for the prestigious Trends in Food Science Technology journal. He co-hosts The Food Professor podcast, discussing issues in the food, foodservice, grocery and restaurant industries and which is the most listened Canadian management podcast in Canada. Every year since 2012, he has published the now highly anticipated Canadian Food Price Report, which provides an overview of food price trends for the coming year. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, nationally as well as internationally. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces and other countries.With extensive experience collaborating with businesses, governments, and NGOs, Dr. Charlebois combines academic rigor with practical expertise, making him one of the most influential voices in the global agri-food landscape. His work continues to advance the understanding of food systems, fostering innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving industry. In 2025, he received the prestigious Charles III medal recognizing his tremendous work in informing Canadians about food issues. Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the National Retail Federation (NRF) as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025, and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

In this episode of The Voice of Retail podcast, host Michael LeBlanc sits down with one of retail technology's most accomplished leaders: Julie Averill, former Chief Information Officer of Lululemon and REI, and author of the new book Chief Impact Officer: Real Transformation Comes from Human, Not Just Artificial Intelligence. Joining the conversation is Menachem Salinas, Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Nimble, the expert AI web search platform making live web data enterprise-grade. A self-described "serial retail technologist," Julie's career spans the defining chapters of modern retail technology. She spent a decade at Nordstrom leading pioneering omnichannel initiatives, drove a technology transformation as CIO of REI, and then took a leap to a then-$2 billion company called Lululemon — where, over eight years as CIO, she helped power the brand's growth to $10 billion. Today, she runs her own advisory business focused on enterprise AI adoption, and her new book makes the case that real transformation comes from people, not just technology. Drawing on years of parsing signal from noise in the CIO chair, Julie delivers a masterclass in AI reality-checking. Her verdict on where retail stands in the AI journey? "Maybe the first inning." She argues the technology itself is now the easy part — the real reasons so many AI pilots fail are data quality, governance, workflow readiness and organizational capability. Julie shares the exact questions she asks to separate a slick demo from a solution built to survive contact with a real omnichannel operation: Whose data does this run on? What workflow actually changes, and for whom? Who owns the errors? What does this cost at scale? And she tells a cautionary tale of a board-driven AI pitch that promised everything — and why "yes, we can do everything" is the surest sign of an immature vendor. Julie also maps the future of the CIO role itself: from technology gatekeeper to curious, strategic business enabler. With AI tools now arriving through the browser, control is gone — the new job is curation, education and helping executives tell what's real. The businesses that win, she argues, will be the ones that learn to evolve continuously and dream about what was previously impossible. Menachem Salinas adds the vendor-side perspective, explaining how Nimble delivers real-time competitive pricing, digital shelf monitoring and out-of-stock intelligence across thousands of retail sites — and why he believes agentic commerce will transform e-commerce within twelve months. His candid ShopTalk Barcelona assessment: even the world's biggest brands rate no better than five out of ten on AI data readiness. Julie's book Chief Impact Officer is available now everywhere books are sold. Learn more at julieaverill.com and nimbleway.com. Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael's cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.

Leave us a voicemail!Zazie and Kristi chat with scientist Dr. Catherine Reeve about her research to find out whether dogs change their behaviour when their owner is pregnant and if they can use their noses to detect when someone is stressed.We talked about:The survey that investigated whether women think their dog's behaviour changed when they were pregnantThe kinds of dogs that were most likely to show changesHow the scientists got scent samples from people who were stressedThe training to teach dogs to alert to the scentHow well the dogs did at the taskThe implications for ordinary dog guardiansThe papers we talked about are:Dog owners' perceptions of their dog's behaviour during pregnancy https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08927936.2025.2502241Dogs can discriminate between human baseline and psychological stress condition odours https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274143The books Catherine recommended are The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce Perry and The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica.Also mentioned: Earlier episodes on surveys and understanding research (Ep61), and on dogs and scent work (Ep56 with Melissa McCue-McGrath; Ep 46 with Bonnie Hartney; Ep35 with Kim Cooper and Cat Warren).Dr. Catherine Reeve is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Mount Saint Vincent University. She has a PhD in Experimental Psychology from Dalhousie University. She's interested in applied canine behaviour, canine cognition, especially olfaction, and human-animal interaction. And she's the head trainer at Epic Tails Canine Adventures in Halifax, Nova Scotia.University website: https://www.msvu.ca/academics/bachelor-of-science-bsc/psychology/faculty-and-staff/dr-catherine-reeve/Epic Tails Canine Adventures: https://epic-tails.ca/Support the showAbout the co-hosts:Kristi Benson is an honours graduate of, and now on staff with, the prestigious Academy for Dog Trainers and has her PCBC-A from the Pet Professional Accreditation Board. She lives in beautiful northern British Columbia, where she helps dog guardians through online classes. She is also a northern anthropologist.Kristi Benson's website  Facebook  Zazie Todd, PhD, is the award-winning author of Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog, Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy and Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. She is the creator of the popular blog, Companion Animal Psychology, and has a column at Psychology Today. She lives in Maple Ridge, BC, with her husband, a dog and a cat. Instagram  BlueSky 

In April 2026 the United Nations revised its worst-case climate scenarios downward and declared the most catastrophic projections highly implausible. Almost no one in Canada covered it. Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University and host of Canada's number one rated food podcast, has spent 25 years doing the work the room needs: holding science, policy, and politics to the same standard. In this conversation, he takes on three issues agriculture keeps being told what to think about, climate policy, gene editing, and the Canadian fear of failure, and gives the room the version it hasn't been getting.   Topics and Timestamps 0:00 -- Dan's opening question: think of one issue in agriculture you've changed your mind on in the last five years 1:30 -- "Don't Follow the Flock" -- live intro and platform housekeeping 3:00 -- Dr. Sylvain Charlebois: The Food Professor Podcast, Dalhousie, Canada's number one food podcast with zero budget 4:00 -- Ireland, Brexit, and the economic lesson Canada keeps missing about CUSMA 10:00 -- Audience poll: when you hear a strong opinion from a non-farmer, what's your first instinct? 11:00 -- Why civic engagement in food systems makes farming stronger, not weaker 13:00 -- Demand chain management: build from the consumer back, not the farm gate forward 15:00 -- How Canadian media coverage became one-sided and why it keeps getting harder to correct 22:00 -- The GTF promotion ad that was rejected -- and what that reveals 23:00 -- Topics Sylvain is asked not to raise on Ottawa stages 25:00 -- The "mini-me" problem in academia: conform, or get canceled 33:00 -- MYTH 1: Climate change -- the UN revised its worst-case scenarios downward; almost no Canadian outlet covered it 40:00 -- Carbon pricing at $110 a tonne with emissions still rising: what the data actually shows 44:00 -- MYTH 2: Gene editing -- why transparency and consumer buy-in are the one thing the industry keeps skipping 46:00 -- MYTH 3: Going broke is bad -- what a Purdue lunch table of ag entrepreneurs revealed about Canadian risk culture 49:00 -- Monette's bankruptcy, Robert Andjelic, and why Canada should treat risk-takers as a national asset 51:00 -- Ryan Bonnett's question: Sylvain's three priorities for Canadian agriculture 52:00 -- Where Canada leads the G20 in agricultural science, and where it falls short 53:00 -- CUSMA, July 1st, and what the non-renewal actually signals for investment in Canadian ag 54:00 -- Close and upcoming: Strathcona renewable diesel with Quick Dick McDick and Sean Wildman; right-to-repair tractors with Cory Doctorow   Resources Mentioned The Food Professor Podcast -- Dr. Sylvain Charlebois (available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms) Episode: Interview with US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra -- on The Food Professor Podcast Agri-Food Analytics Lab -- Dalhousie University (dal.ca/agri-food-analytics-lab) Postmedia op-eds -- Dr. Sylvain Charlebois writes every two to three days (available at major Postmedia outlets) MNP / Dalhousie G20 agricultural science comparison study -- referenced in conversation, available through Agri-Food Analytics Lab   Connect with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois The Food Professor Podcast: thefoodprofessor.ca Dalhousie University Agri-Food Analytics Lab: dal.ca/agri-food-analytics-lab X / Twitter: @FoodProfessor   Connect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast  LinkedIn: Growing the Future Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.

In the Season 6 regular season finale of The Food Professor Podcast, hosts Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois welcome Pete Hoekstra, United States Ambassador to Canada, for an exclusive and wide-ranging conversation about the future of Canada-U.S. food trade, agriculture, supply chains and North American economic cooperation. While The Food Professor Podcast isn't a political show, few relationships matter more to Canada's food economy than its partnership with the United States. Ambassador Hoekstra offers a candid look at his role representing the Trump administration in Ottawa, explains the work of a modern ambassador, and shares his perspective on the ongoing CUSMA (USMCA) review, agricultural trade priorities, supply management, cross-border investment, and strengthening North American food supply chains. The discussion explores why resilient supply chains have become a strategic priority, the importance of Canadian agricultural exports to American consumers, opportunities for future collaboration in critical minerals, energy, manufacturing and food production, and how both countries can continue building one of the world's largest and most integrated trading relationships. The conversation also tackles the Gordie Howe International Bridge, provincial restrictions on U.S. alcohol sales, touches on Canada's supply management system, and the broader outlook for Canada-U.S. relations as negotiations continue. Whether you agree or disagree with the Ambassador's positions, this thoughtful interview provides listeners with valuable insight into how the United States views its relationship with Canada and why food, agriculture and trade remain central to that partnership. Before the interview, Michael and Sylvain break down another busy week in food and agriculture news. They examine how El Niño-driven heat and drought could affect crop production and food prices, discuss the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's latest report on their crackdown on food fraud and product authenticity, review the Grocery Code of Conduct's first public report, and explore the growing global demand for dairy protein as processors struggle with whey shortages amid Canada's supply management system. The episode also covers Rhode Island's new self-checkout legislation, the ongoing Metro labour dispute in Quebec, innovative flavour marketing from Miss Vickie's, and reflects on another remarkable season of conversations with leaders from across Canada's food, retail and agriculture sectors. Thank you for joining us throughout Season 6. While our regular season concludes here, we'll continue bringing you fresh episodes recorded live from SIAL Canada in Montreal throughout the summer before returning this fall for another exciting season of The Food Professor Podcast. About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability with over 775 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Charlebois is also an editor for the prestigious Trends in Food Science Technology journal. He co-hosts The Food Professor podcast, discussing issues in the food, foodservice, grocery and restaurant industries and which is the most listened Canadian management podcast in Canada. Every year since 2012, he has published the now highly anticipated Canadian Food Price Report, which provides an overview of food price trends for the coming year. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, nationally as well as internationally. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces and other countries.With extensive experience collaborating with businesses, governments, and NGOs, Dr. Charlebois combines academic rigor with practical expertise, making him one of the most influential voices in the global agri-food landscape. His work continues to advance the understanding of food systems, fostering innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving industry. In 2025, he received the prestigious Charles III medal recognizing his tremendous work in informing Canadians about food issues. Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the National Retail Federation (NRF) as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025, and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

In this Encore episode of The Voice of Retail, I'm joined by James B. Smith, Founder and CEO of Rare Placement, for a wide-ranging conversation on modern leadership, executive search, and the future of talent in the retail industry. James brings an exceptional career journey to the mic, beginning in advertising with agencies like Grey and Ogilvy, moving into marketing leadership at Citibank, in leadership roles at Esquire and then Conde Nast Traveller—where he helped it become the top-performing title, even outpacing Vogue. His passion for growth and transformation led him to become a CEO, owner-operator, and eventually launch Rare Placement, a boutique executive search firm focused on personalized, human-centric talent solutions. In our conversation, James emphasizes the power of storytelling—not just for brands, but for leaders. He reveals that every candidate he's placed has gone on to become a client, a testament to his laser focus on culture fit, agility, and soft skills over just resumes. We dive into how executive hiring has changed, why modern CEOs need courage, humility, and the ability to say “I don't know,” and how COVID permanently reshaped leadership styles and expectations around flexibility and culture. James shares practical advice for current and aspiring retail leaders—from building a strong, concise personal narrative to investing in ongoing networking, not just when you're in transition. He stresses that succession planning should be an ongoing, layered strategy, and reminds executives that “people buy leaders, not logos.” We also explore the increasing importance of board roles—both fiduciary and advisory—and how executives can position themselves for these opportunities by knowing what they uniquely bring to the table. Whether you're a retail executive planning your next move, a CEO rethinking your leadership team, or a rising leader wondering how to stand out, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael's cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.

Over the past school year, The Canadian Jewish News' Local Journalism Initiative reporter, Mitch Consky, who covers education, has introduced readers to some exceptional students through his "Chai Achievers" series. He has profiled young Jewish Canadians making a difference on their post-secondary campuses or high schools, with leadership and community service. As exams come to an end this week, Consky brought six such leaders together for a roundtable conversation about their actions and inspirations. They discuss how young Jews are responding to challenges on campus and at home, and why building connections, volunteering and creating opportunities for others is crucial to ensure a strong future for Jewish Canadians. On today's episode of The CJN's North Star podcast, reporter Mitch Consky takes over the hosting duties, to interview: Maya Fuerstenberg, a TanenbaumCHAT graduate, who founded the Dalhousie Jewish Society in Halifax Anastasia Zorchinsky, founder of the StartUp Nation club at Concordia, in Montreal Levi Moskovitz of Vancouver's King David High School, who recently completed his term as BBYO's international treasurer Toronto twins Ava and Ezra Freiheit, and their friend Emma Rovner, who also attend TanenbaumCHAT, who founded "Chains for Change" to raise funds for Special Olympics athletes in Ontario Related stories Read more about the students selected as The CJN Chai Achievers including: a trio who fundraises for Special Olympics ,  a CHAT graduate who built a Jewish club at Dalhousie University , a Vancouver leadership official with BBYO Internationa l, and the founder of the pro-Israel StartUp Nation club at Concordia University. Hear our interview with Levi Moskovitz on The CJN's “North Star” podcast from Dec. 2025 on how he raised nearly $1 million for BBYO. Meet Yair Shpiler, who built Jewnity Sports, a 2025 CJN Chai Achiever . Credits Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzie Helenchilde (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director) Music: Bret Higgins Support our show Subscribe to The CJN newsletter Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt) Subscribe to North Star (Not sure how? Click here ) Watch our podcasts on YouTube. Help others find this podcast by leaving us a review for “North Star” on Apple Podcasts via your iPhone or iPad device, or with your Android. (Spotify allows only starred ratings but you can do that, too!)

In this episode of Around the Rheum, hosts Dr. Daniel Ennis and Dr. Janet Pope sit down with Dr. Luke Chen for a deep dive into an approach to patients presenting with hypereosinophilia. Recorded at the Canadian Rheumatology Association (CRA)'s 2026 Annual Scientific Meeting in Halifax, the conversation explores how hematologists, rheumatologists, allergists, infectious disease specialists, and others work together to diagnose and manage these complex disorders.Dr. Chen discusses the broad differential diagnosis behind eosinophilia — from Eosinophilic Granulomatosus with Polyangiitis (EGPA) and IgG4-related disease to parasitic infections to rare hematologic disorders to 'Idiopathic' Hypereosinophilic Syndrome (I-HES) — and the uncertainty clinicians often face when distinguishing overlapping eosinophilic diseases. The discussion also highlights emerging therapies including IL-5 inhibitors, JAK inhibitors, interferon, and biologics, alongside the practical realities of access to treatment in rare disease care.Thoughtful, practical, and candid, this episode offers insight into multidisciplinary medicine, diagnostic humility, and caring for patients living with rare inflammatory diseases. It touches on the importance of being okay with uncertainty in the rare disease space.Dr. Luke Chen is a hematologist and Professor of Medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His clinical and research interests focus on rare inflammatory diseases and eosinophilic disorders. He is the founder of the Coastal Rare Inflammatory Diseases Program, supporting physicians caring for patients with rare diseases across Canada.Around The Rheum is produced by the CRA Communications Committee. A special thank you to the podcast team, Dr. Dax G. Rumsey (CRA Communications Committee Chair), Dr. Daniel Ennis (Host), Dr. Janet Pope (Host), David McGuffin of Explore Productions, and Erin Stewart (CRA) for leading production.Our theme music was composed by Aaron Fontwell.For more on the work of the Canadian Rheumatology Association, visit rheum.ca.

This week on The Food Professor Podcast, Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois sit down with Vincent Breton, President & CEO of duBreton, Canada's leading organic pork producer, for a fascinating live interview recorded at SIAL Canada in Montreal. Vincent shares the remarkable story behind duBreton's evolution from a traditional pork producer into one of the world's fastest-growing organic pork companies. He explains why the company made the bold decision to abandon conventional production in favour of organic and animal welfare-certified farming, why younger consumers are increasingly seeking ethically produced food, and how long-term thinking has become a competitive advantage. The conversation explores the realities of producing premium food in today's marketplace, including the economics of organic farming, the growing importance of transparency, and why Vincent believes consumers deserve clear labelling around gene editing and cloning technologies. He also discusses duBreton's expansion across North America and Europe, the opportunities presented by the U.S. market, the company's growing influence in Texas barbecue circles, and why social media, education and consumer trust are becoming essential tools for modern food brands. Perhaps most compelling is Vincent's candid discussion of Quebec's collective marketing system and why he continues to advocate for greater producer choice, innovation and entrepreneurial freedom within Canadian agriculture. It's an insightful conversation about leadership, values, food policy and building a purpose-driven business in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. First, Michael and Sylvain kick off the episode with their weekly review of the biggest food and agriculture stories making headlines. They examine Canada's latest food inflation numbers as grocery prices continue to outpace overall inflation, discuss why salmon prices have surged dramatically heading into summer, analyze new trade measures affecting canned food imports, and explore ongoing Competition Bureau investigations into grocery property controls. The hosts also dive into new research on costly regulatory delays affecting meat imports, rising regional ice cream prices, the challenges food manufacturers face replacing artificial colours, changes to the U.S. SNAP food assistance program, and the broader debate over balancing affordability, nutrition and agricultural policy. Along the way, they celebrate Canadian Grocer Golden Pencil Award winners and preview the season finale before a full summer of special interviews recorded at SIAL Canada. About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability with over 775 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Charlebois is also an editor for the prestigious Trends in Food Science Technology journal. He co-hosts The Food Professor podcast, discussing issues in the food, foodservice, grocery and restaurant industries and which is the most listened Canadian management podcast in Canada. Every year since 2012, he has published the now highly anticipated Canadian Food Price Report, which provides an overview of food price trends for the coming year. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, nationally as well as internationally. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces and other countries.With extensive experience collaborating with businesses, governments, and NGOs, Dr. Charlebois combines academic rigor with practical expertise, making him one of the most influential voices in the global agri-food landscape. His work continues to advance the understanding of food systems, fostering innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving industry. In 2025, he received the prestigious Charles III medal recognizing his tremendous work in informing Canadians about food issues. Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the National Retail Federation (NRF) as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025, and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

The practice of people self-identifying as Indigenous has come into sharp focus after a number of high-profile cases of “pretendians” claiming to be Indigenous without evidence. However, far less attention has been given to Indigenous people being wrongly labelled as pretendians. In a recent article for Policy Options, Debbie Martin argues that the rush for Indigenous identity policies at universities has led to people with legitimate claims to Indigeneity being swept up in policies that will cause lasting harm. Debbie Martin is Inuk and a member of Nunatukavut. She is a professor in the school of health and human performance at Dalhousie University and the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples' health and well-being. We spoke in November.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming retail, but are retailers giving away too much decision-making power to algorithms? On this episode of The Voice of Retail, host Michael LeBlanc welcomes back retail strategist, educator, speaker and author Carl Boutet to the podcast to discuss his latest book, The Flip. Drawing on more than three decades of retail experience and his work advising organizations around the world, Carl offers a thought-provoking perspective on how AI is reshaping retail strategy, customer engagement and business leadership. The conversation begins with Carl's unique vantage point as a global retail observer. Fresh off another teaching engagement at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Carl shares insights from Southeast Asia's rapidly evolving retail landscape. From super apps and mobile commerce to experiential shopping destinations and high-energy retail environments, he explains why emerging markets are often leapfrogging traditional retail models and creating new opportunities for customer engagement. Michael and Carl then explore one of the most important topics facing retailers today: the growing influence of artificial intelligence on decision-making. Carl argues that while AI can dramatically improve efficiency, it also poses the risk that businesses become increasingly dependent on algorithmic recommendations, potentially sacrificing the creativity, differentiation, and strategic judgment that make brands unique. At the center of the discussion is Carl's new framework outlined in The Flip. He introduces the four forces that he believes are fundamentally reshaping commerce: automation, optimization, contextualization and immersion. Together, these forces are changing how retailers attract customers, personalize experiences, manage operations and compete in increasingly digital environments. The discussion extends beyond technology into the future of retail itself. Carl shares observations from his travels across Asia, highlighting how retailers are creating energy-rich destinations that blend shopping, entertainment, food and community. These experiences offer important lessons for North American retailers seeking to remain relevant in a world where consumers increasingly have unlimited digital choices at their fingertips. Michael and Carl also examine the rise of AI-powered customer discovery, the future of search and marketing, the growing importance of trust, and why retailers must think carefully about where human value creation fits inside increasingly automated organizations. Carl explains why curiosity, organizational adaptability and a relentless focus on core business fundamentals remain essential leadership capabilities despite the rapid pace of technological change. Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael's cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.

This week on The Food Professor Podcast, Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois welcome Jean-François Archambault, Founder and General Manager of La Tablée des Chefs, for an inspiring conversation about food recovery, food security, and the power of community action. Recorded live at SIAL Montreal, this episode showcases one of Canada's most remarkable social entrepreneurs and the national movement he has built to reduce food waste while feeding those in need. Since founding La Tablée des Chefs in 2002, Jean-François has transformed a bold idea into one of Canada's most impactful food recovery organizations. What began as a mission to rescue surplus food from hotels, restaurants, sporting venues, and major events has grown into a nationwide network that has recovered enough food to create more than 26 million meals. From the Bell Centre and NHL arenas to Formula 1 events and major hospitality venues, La Tablée des Chefs now redirects millions of meals annually to frontline organizations serving vulnerable Canadians. The conversation explores the organization's two core pillars: feeding people facing food insecurity and educating young Canadians about food autonomy and cooking skills. Jean-François shares the remarkable growth of the Kitchen Brigades program, now operating in hundreds of schools across Canada, empowering nearly 100,000 young people with practical food knowledge while building confidence, self-esteem, and life skills. He also discusses innovative initiatives such as the Solidarity Soups program and the Grand Marmite fundraising events that are helping expand school food programs across the country. The discussion also examines the growing challenges of food insecurity in Canada, the importance of food literacy, the role chefs can play in social impact, and why Canada needs a more ambitious and coordinated national approach to food security. Jean-François offers a compelling vision for how governments, businesses, community organizations, and citizens can work together to create lasting change. Before the interview, Michael and Sylvain unpack a busy week in food and agriculture news. Topics include the Competition Bureau's new examination of Canada's food supply chain, the federal government's newly announced food strategy, food waste research revealing Generation X as Canada's most wasteful demographic, the future of salmon farming, Quebec's move to restrict energy drink sales to minors, the return of frozen juice concentrate, and Foodtastic's continued expansion. About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability with over 775 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Charlebois is also an editor for the prestigious Trends in Food Science Technology journal. He co-hosts The Food Professor podcast, discussing issues in the food, foodservice, grocery and restaurant industries and which is the most listened Canadian management podcast in Canada. Every year since 2012, he has published the now highly anticipated Canadian Food Price Report, which provides an overview of food price trends for the coming year. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, nationally as well as internationally. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces and other countries.With extensive experience collaborating with businesses, governments, and NGOs, Dr. Charlebois combines academic rigor with practical expertise, making him one of the most influential voices in the global agri-food landscape. His work continues to advance the understanding of food systems, fostering innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving industry. In 2025, he received the prestigious Charles III medal recognizing his tremendous work in informing Canadians about food issues. Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the National Retail Federation (NRF) as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025, and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

Today I'm joined with Liev Dalton to dive into Terrain Theory, Germ Theory, Natural Law, and honestly - the coming home to the remembrance of our own innate power to heal. Liev is an absolute wealth of knowledge and wisdom when it comes to terrain and understanding the deeper mechanics and biology of the human body. I was so excited to sit down with him and learn more about this field, as this is a more new field to me. I personally have studied health and wellness my whole life, and honestly, I learned SO much. This truly feels like the future of healing and medicine, and so I am so excited to share this episode with you all. He put words and science to back up the deeper energetic things I've been feeling for years.   Liev Dalton studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Dalhousie University and was on track to become a dental surgeon before shifting into counselling psychology. He went on to open and run a successful therapy practice, working with wilderness therapy, EMDR, somatics, and nervous system regulation. Over time, he realized the model often kept people stuck in cycles of healing. Beyond formal education, Liev explored natural law, philosophy, and countless healing modalities. That path led him to the Terrain. His work now focuses on unlearning modern misconceptions and returning to simplicity. In doing so, this creates the conditions for clarity, resilience, and a deeper sense of well-being.  You can connect with him at www.Beyondterrain.com or instagram  @BeyondTerrain      Let's go deeper ✨    Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCltzHzSg-W8Z2VxPNyyjX7Q/?sub_confirmation=1    Your Soul Blueprint: https://mailchi.mp/0fe31e348882/energy-blueprint-reading     Health Report: https://jasmineelise.gumroad.com/l/healthreport   Stay in the know & Receive updates & channeled messages: https://bit.ly/3rrzpyl   Let's Dive Deep

On the phone-in: Nathaniel Pearre, who's a research fellow at Dalhousie University studying electric vehicles in the renewable energy storage lab, answers questions about electric vehicles and hybrids. And off the top of the show, officials from Moncton discuss the continued challenge of drug overdoses in the city. And we also hear about the annual Mawi'omi at Abegweit First Nation on PEI.

In this very special live edition of The Voice of Retail podcast — the first live recording in nearly 550 episodes on the main-stage at Retaiul Council of Canada's STORE conference — host Michael LeBlanc takes the stage at Retail Council of Canada's STORE Conference in Toronto with three of Canadian retail's most compelling leaders: Julia Freeman, CEO of The Jilly Box, David Brownstein, President of Browns Shoes, and back on the podcast for his third visit Selwyn Crittendon, CEO of IKEA Canada and newly appointed Chair of the Retail Council of Canada Board of Directors. Julia Freeman shares the remarkable story of The Jilly Box, co-founded by content creator Jillian Harris — fresh off her Independent Retail Ambassador of the Year 2026 award — which sells 20,000 surprise subscription boxes in under 24 hours, 27 seasons in a row, while championing small Canadian, women-owned and equity-deserving brands. Julia offers a candid assessment of the state of Canadian e-commerce, the patriotic "shop Canadian" wave reshaping consumer behaviour post-tariffs, and how The Market by The Jilly Box marketplace is delivering industry-leading conversion with four units per basket. David Brownstein, fourth-generation leader of Montreal-based Browns Shoes, celebrates a banner week as his father, CEO Michael Brownstein, received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Excellence in Retailing Awards Gala. David reveals the store design philosophy behind Browns' 71 locations — wide entrances, best merchandise up front, AI-embedded traffic counting — plus why Browns has never hired a store leader from outside in 86 years, and why brand partners like On, Birkenstock and UGG are complements, not competitors. Selwyn Crittendon lays out IKEA Canada's grounded AI philosophy: better retailing, better operational efficiency, and better jobs — built on clean data, mandatory AI literacy training for 7,200 coworkers, and a firm commitment that AI augments rather than replaces people. He also unpacks IKEA's small-format expansion strategy, from plan and order points pioneered in Canada to the new London, Ontario store and IKEA's bold SoHo move in New York, and explains why sustainability paired with affordability is "the new superpower of retail." The conversation ranges from family business dynamics and talent retention to influencer marketing strategy — including Julia's advice that your associates and small business partners may be your most powerful untapped brand ambassadors — and wraps with David's three keys to retail success today: empower frontline employees to make customer-service decisions, break down organizational silos to stay agile in the AI era, and invest relentlessly in retaining great people. Recorded in front of a live studio audience — complete with a surprise Jilly Box giveaway featuring the sold-out first-ever men's box — this episode captures the energy, optimism and hard-won wisdom of Canadian retail's best, and Selwyn's reflections on why he stepped up to chair the RCC board during turbulent times. Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael's cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.

This week on The Food Professor Podcast, co-hosts Michael LeBlanc and Dr. Sylvain Charlebois welcome two special guests for a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred interview: Axel Schwan, President of Tim Hortons Canada & U.S., and Duncan Fulton, Chief Corporate Officer of Restaurant Brands International (RBI). With Dunkin' Donuts announcing its return to Canada and Canadians passionately debating the future of their most iconic coffee brand, Axel and Duncan showed up ready to answer the tough questions. In a candid 40-minute conversation, Schwan and Fulton open up about Tim Hortons' "Back to Basics" strategy — the largest consumer research project in the company's history — and the quality overhaul that followed: freshly cracked eggs replacing frozen patties in breakfast sandwiches, 40% more apple in the apple fritter, more Venetian cream in the Boston cream, and the removal of artificial colours, flavours and preservatives across the menu. They share how Tim Hortons serves four million guests a day across 4,000 restaurants owned by 1,500 Canadian franchisees, why traffic is the one metric Axel watches daily, and how the brand is winning younger consumers with its Quenchers platform — including the imminent launch of Popping Quenchers — plus celebrity partnerships with Justin Bieber and Ryan Reynolds. The duo also tackles the controversy head-on: Is the wave of announcements — 400 restaurant renovations, 80 new builds, a national hiring campaign — a reaction to Dunkin's arrival? Fulton sets the record straight on the temporary foreign worker debate, noting roughly 4,000 of 110,000 restaurant team members are part of the program, and explains how AI is being deployed to improve the team member experience, from labour scheduling to order accuracy. A rapid-fire round covers everything from the biggest public misconception about Tim Hortons to the products Canadians want back, while Michael shares his own fun factoid: he helped invent Roll Up the Rim during his Dixie Cup days. But first, we start with the food and agriculture news of the week. Sobeys gets served as the Competition Bureau flexes its new Competition Act powers to investigate property controls in Canadian grocery. We break down Ottawa's newly published AI strategy and what it means for agriculture and food, where Canada's persistent data deficit threatens to undermine even the best intentions. Then, the screwworm fly resurfaces in Texas, prompting the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to take targeted action — and sending cattle futures and already-high beef prices climbing. Sylvain also reports from Delaware, where he keynoted a healthcare conference on food as medicine and discovered a surprising threat to American farmland: hundreds of AI data centres being built on fertile soil. About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability with over 775 published peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Charlebois is also an editor for the prestigious Trends in Food Science Technology journal. He co-hosts The Food Professor podcast, discussing issues in the food, foodservice, grocery and restaurant industries and which is the most listened Canadian management podcast in Canada. Every year since 2012, he has published the now highly anticipated Canadian Food Price Report, which provides an overview of food price trends for the coming year. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, nationally as well as internationally. He has testified on several occasions before parliamentary committees on food policy-related issues as an expert witness. He has been asked to act as an advisor on food and agricultural policies in many Canadian provinces and other countries.With extensive experience collaborating with businesses, governments, and NGOs, Dr. Charlebois combines academic rigor with practical expertise, making him one of the most influential voices in the global agri-food landscape. His work continues to advance the understanding of food systems, fostering innovation and resilience in a rapidly evolving industry. In 2025, he received the prestigious Charles III medal recognizing his tremendous work in informing Canadians about food issues. Michael LeBlanc is a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and media entrepreneur. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions hosted senior retail executive on-stage in 1:1 interviews worldwide. Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including The Remarkable Retail Podcast, The Voice of Retail, The Food Professor, The FEED powered by Loblaw and the Global eCommerce Leaders podcast. He has been recognized by the National Retail Federation (NRF) as a global Top Retail Voice for 2025 and 2025, and continues to be a ReThink Retail Top Retail Expert for the fifth year in a row.

Elon Musk is on the verge of becoming a trillionaire. Right now Musk's wealth is currently around $825 billion US — more than double what it was a year earlier. Only 22 countries currently boast economies larger than Musk's net worth, but he's catching up. In the third episode of our series The Billionaire Age we investigate how Musk and his fellow billionaires are trying to take over the world. And if they succeed, what will this mean for the rest of us?Listen to more episodes in this series:Listen to Part One: How did we get here?Listen to Part Two: Disney heiress on the dangers of extreme wealthGuests in this episode:Ingrid Robeyns is a philosopher and economist. She is the chair in Ethics of Intuitions at Utrecht University, and the author of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth.Lucas Chancel is an economist and the co-director of The World Inequality Lab. He's also a professor at the Paris School of Economics.Gabriel Zucman is an economist and the co-director of The World Inequality Lab. He's also a professor at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley.Nitin Bharti is an economist and lecturer at the University of Western Australia. He is also the South and South-East Asia coordinator at the World Inequality Lab.Lars Osberg is an economics professor at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His latest book is The Scandalous Rise of Inequality in Canada.Abigail Disney is an American film producer, philanthropist and social activist. She is a member of Patriotic Millionaires which advocates for higher taxes on the wealthy.Paul Krugman is an economist and the winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.Tim Wu is a legal scholar and professor at Columbia Law School. He is also a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. His latest book is The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity.Nick Hanauer is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He co-authored the book, Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing The Lies and Half-Truths that Protect Profit, Power and Wealth in America, with Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen. He also hosts the podcast Pitchfork Economics.Guido Alfani is a professor of economic history at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. His latest book is As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West.

Sleep is one of the most important — and most misunderstood — aspects of our health, especially for people living with chronic pain. In this episode of Pain Talk, host Maureen Allen sits down with sleep researcher and Dalhousie University psychologist Dr. David Gardner to explore the powerful connection between sleep, pain, stress, and overall well-being. Together, they discuss why sleep matters, common myths about getting a “perfect” night's rest, the role of habits and life experiences in shaping sleep patterns, and the benefits and limitations of sleep medications. Dr. Gardner also shares practical, evidence-based strategies from cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and explains how small changes can lead to meaningful improvements in sleep health. Whether you're struggling with chronic pain, insomnia, or simply looking to improve your sleep, this conversation offers valuable insights and hope for better rest. The post Episode 82 : Dr. David Gardner – Sleep and Chronic pain – Why rest matters more than you think. first appeared on Pain Talk.

Renée Babin is a multidisciplinary professional who grounds her work in compassion, intentionality, and connection. With a focus on holistic approaches to law, community, and wellbeing, she is committed to empowering individuals and organisations to move with clarity and purpose. Her commitment to equity, advocacy, and community engagement shapes both her personal and professional approach. Renée has been teaching yoga since 2021. With ongoing learning, yoga lends her personal fortitude and teaches others the benefits of wellbeing as a community practice. Deeply committed to community-led change, Renée serves on advisory committees with Halifax Regional Municipality and Correctional Service Canada, contributing to initiatives that advance equity, inclusion, and civic engagement.She is concurrently completing a Master of Public Administration alongside her Juris Doctor at Dalhousie University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology from Saint Mary's University. Her experience includes serving as a program coordinator in women's health services, where she contributed to community-based resource development grounded in safety and accessibility. As a business advisor, she has supported organisations in policy development and risk mitigation, strengthening governance and operational effectiveness.Outside of her professional work, Renée enjoys hiking with her dog, developing new projects, and exploring new places through cultural immersion.More @renelaurenne

In this episode, I connect with Professor Sara FL Kirk, with Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for an in-depth discussion about her research centered on environments that promote healthy, active living, what prompted her to become a safer streets activist, hint: it's the story as we heard from Tom Flood with the Urban Truth Collective, and some of her favorite initiatives she's been involved with there in Halifax.Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):

As global trade faces unprecedented disruption, international eCommerce remains one of the most compelling growth opportunities for retailers and brands. On this episode of The Voice of Retail, host Michael LeBlanc welcomes Matthew Merrilees, CEO North America at Global-e, with special guest co-host Jim Okamura, co-founder of the Global eCommerce Leaders Forum, for a deep dive into the future of cross-border commerce and global retail expansion. Drawing on more than two decades of experience spanning international logistics, eCommerce, supply chain management, and global retail growth, Matthew provides a practical and insightful perspective on how brands can successfully navigate today's increasingly complex global marketplace. The conversation explores how supply chain disruption has evolved from a temporary challenge during the pandemic into a permanent strategic consideration for retailers. Matthew explains why agility, scenario planning, and operational flexibility have become essential capabilities for brands seeking sustainable growth in an environment shaped by tariffs, geopolitical uncertainty, changing regulations, and shifting consumer expectations. A central theme of the discussion is profitability. Matthew reveals why virtually every conversation with retailers today centres around profitable growth rather than simply pursuing top-line revenue. He discusses how brands are optimizing inventory allocation, managing duties and tariffs, leveraging duty drawback programs, simplifying technology stacks, and improving international fulfilment strategies to protect margins while expanding globally. Matthew shares why customers around the world continue to expect seamless, localized shopping experiences regardless of where a retailer is based. Whether shopping in Canada, Europe, the Middle East, or emerging markets, consumers increasingly demand domestic-like experiences that remove friction from cross-border transactions. Throughout the episode, Matthew outlines the characteristics that distinguish the most successful global brands. Digital-first thinking, calculated risk-taking, strong brand differentiation, and customer-centric innovation consistently separate market leaders from competitors. He argues that retailers who continue investing and expanding during periods of uncertainty are often best positioned to capture future growth. The episode concludes with a powerful call to action for retailers and brands considering international expansion: don't wait. As Matthew notes, consumers around the world are already discovering brands online. The question is no longer whether brands should go global—but how quickly they can do it profitably and effectively. Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael's cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.

From Evidence to Action: Incorporating Disability Inclusion in Medical Training and Practice (ICAM 2026) Session Description The ICAM Series | Recorded Live at the International Congress on Academic Medicine (ICAM) What does it take to move disability inclusion from research and policy into everyday medical training and practice? Recorded live at the International Congress on Academic Medicine (ICAM) in Ottawa, Canada, this special episode of the Docs With Disabilities Podcast brings together an extraordinary panel of physician leaders, educators, and advocates working to transform disability inclusion across undergraduate medical education, residency training, and clinical practice. Together, the panel explores how institutions can move beyond awareness and compliance toward meaningful, sustainable change. Drawing from scholarship, systems leadership, and lived experience, they discuss the realities of accommodation implementation, the importance of centralized and trusted systems, faculty training, universal design, and the role of culture in shaping whether disability inclusion succeeds or stalls. This conversation asks difficult—but necessary—questions: How do we create systems that are consistent and humane? How do we support learners and physicians across transitions and career stages? And how do we build medical environments where disability is expected, planned for, and valued? Rich with practical insight and grounded in real-world experience, this live ICAM session highlights a field at an important turning point—one where we increasingly have the evidence, the tools, and the responsibility to act. Whether you are a learner, educator, physician, administrator, or institutional leader, this episode offers concrete ideas and inspiration for advancing disability inclusion within your own environment. Keywords: UGME, PGME, Disability, Learner, Trainee, Medical Education, Policies, Processes, Ableism, Culture, ICAM, AFMC, Docs With Disabilities. Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18hNrBcylnDfSuT6hJB-RwFMpIBVzEPY21Qf4y0mU0WY/edit?usp=sharing Co-Moderators Lisa Meeks, PhD, MA  Dr. Meeks is a Professor of Medical Education at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago, IL and holds an appt as an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan School of Medicine in Ann Arbor, MI. She is the founder of the Docs with Disabilities Initiative and host of the DWDI Podcast. Lynn Ashdown, MD, MMEd   Lynn Ashdown is a patient experience expert who advocates for patients to be included as stakeholders in all levels of healthcare. She has a medical degree, and was close to finishing her residency in family medicine when she began, and continues to navigate, a complex journey as a full-time patient. She has a masters degree in medical education, and presents, participates in research, and is a senior patient partner consulting with various organizations like the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada. She's involved in curriculum reform focusing on patient partnerships and is a disability educator within medicine. Lynn is a disability advocate, drawing from her experiences as a patient and person living with multiple disabilities. She's a board member of the Canadian Association of Physicians with Disabilities and is involved with policy and legislative changes to combat ableism and inequities for people living with disabilities. She co-authored Canada's first position statement on the importance of disability inclusion in medical education, and received the 2024 CMA Dr. Ashok Muzumdar Memorial Award for Physicians with Disabilities. Pam Liao, MD, MEd, FRCPC Dr. Liao is the Inaugural Interim Associate Dean Accessibility and Disability Health at the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Medicine. Here, she previously served as the Disability Health Lead and Special Advisor to the Dean at the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Medicine. In her work, she leads efforts to embed critical disability perspectives and anti-ableist practices into medical education. Drawing from her personal experience navigating medical training with a disability, she has dedicated her career to dismantling systemic barriers faced by individuals with disabilities in medicine. Her work includes groundbreaking research—such as the first analysis of accommodations policies in Canadian undergraduate medical programs—and advocacy efforts like the widely recognized "#docswithdisabilities" social media campaign, which brings attention to the underrepresentation of disabled individuals in healthcare and drives meaningful change. She advocated for the establishment of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) Disability Inclusion Network and currently serves as its inaugural Co-Chair. Her advocacy earned her a place on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of Physicians with Disabilities, where she continues to serve. Dr. Liao earned her medical degree from the University of British Columbia and completed her residency in Family and Community Medicine and a fellowship in Palliative Medicine at the University of Toronto. She is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto and practices clinically in long-term care and rehabilitation settings. Her contributions have been recognized with several honors, including the OMA Section of Palliative Medicine – Award of Excellence. Jill Rudkowski, MD, FRCPC  Dr. Jill Rudkowski is an Associate Professor of Medicine in Department of Medicine (Critical Care) at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.  She has practised as a critical care physician for over 20 years and is an educator, researcher, and educational leader.  She obtained her MD from the University of Calgary. She trained in Internal Medicine, Respirology, and Critical Care at McGill University after which she completed a Post-doctoral Fellowship with Dr. Barrett Rollins at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard University. She served as Head of Service for the Medical Stepdown Unit and then the Intensive Care Unit at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton for over 10 years.  Dr. Rudkowski has been involved as a co-investigator on numerous patient-focused clinical studies, and these collaborations focus on improving outcomes for survivors of critical illness and the impact on their caregivers. She has designed and delivered curriculum through sessions and workshops on the concept of team compassion in critical care and its role in effective communication.      Dr. Rudkowski has held several educational leadership roles within the McMaster University DeGroote School of Medicine including the Chair of Clerkship and the Director of Student Advising. She is currently the Postgraduate Medicine (PGME) Accommodation Advisor within Resident Affairs and the PGME Resident Assessment Faculty Lead. Dr. Rudkowski has been involved in writing and implementing policy and guidelines around accessing accommodations as well as designing and delivering curriculum aimed at faculty, learners, and administrators through virtual and in person sessions and workshops. Dr. Rudkowski has had the privilege of collaborating nationally and internationally around disability policy in medical education.  She was a member of the Disability Policy Toolkit Committee, Multimedia Resource Hub for Disability Inclusion in Graduate Medical Education on "Learn at ACGME" supported by the 2024 Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Catalyst Award for Transformation in Graduate Medical Education.  Dr. Rudkowski is currently a member of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada Disability Inclusion and Accessibility Network.  She lives with a chronic disability and is passionate about ensuring that all medical learners and practitioners with disability experience belonging and accessibility in the clinical learning and practice environments.   Camille Munro MD CCFP (PC) Dr. Camille Munro is a palliative medicine physician in the Department of Medicine at the Ottawa Hospital and an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa. Originally from Chester, Nova Scotia, she received her Doctor of Medicine from Dalhousie University in 1991 and completed her rotating internship at Royal Columbian Hospital, University of British Columbia. After practicing family medicine in Ottawa for 18 years while raising her children, she returned to the academic setting, driven by a longstanding commitment to compassionate, whole patient-centred care for those facing a serious illness.  In 2018, Dr. Munro was appointed Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for the Department of Medicine where she led initiatives to foster a more inclusive and equitable academic and clinical environment. Her work included the development and implementation of the first formal accommodations policy for physicians with disabilities at a Canadian academic hospital. She remains a strong advocate for physicians with disabilities and for creating environments free from discrimination and inequity. Here work is grounded in compassion, advocacy, and representation; values she brings to her clinical care, teaching, mentorship and leadership. In recognition of her contributions, she received the 2022 Faculty Member Award of Excellence for Leadership in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion from the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine.  Samantha Lavitt, MD Dr. Samantha Lavitt (she/her) is the first Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Curricular Lead in undergraduate medical education at the University of Ottawa, which sits on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin people. In this role, she designs educational content including topics such as gender equity, sexual orientation and gender diversity, language rights, and disability, integrating these topics throughout the clinical curriculum in a format that connects students with community teachers with lived experience. Trained as a family physician and dedicated to resilience through sustainable practice development, Dr. Lavitt also offers coaching and peer support to family physicians on advocacy, disability, and well-being through the Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP). She established the first peer support group for physicians with chronic illness and/or disabilities at the OCFP in 2024 and continues to co-lead this group monthly.  While she finds working with individual physicians and small groups deeply rewarding, this intervention is not enough to dismantle the system of barriers that disabled physicians face in our medical culture, so Dr. Lavitt brings her professional and lived experience as a disabled physician to advocacy initiatives at her academic institution, provincial, and national levels with involvement in peer support projects, webinars, and conference appearances. Produced by: Dr. Lisa Meeks.  Audio editor: Next Day Podcast Digital Media: Lisa Meeks Resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EXw4F1pt5J-O6Y0k-WksDC71RCA6aTFSCOkz-lqJiyc/edit?usp=sharing  

On this episode of The Voice of Retail, host Michael LeBlanc welcomes Jackie Swanson, Managing Partner at Gartner Consulting, for a wide-ranging and highly practical conversation about artificial intelligence, agentic commerce, and the rapidly changing future of retail. Swanson brings Gartner's global perspective to one of the most urgent strategic issues facing retailers today: how AI is fundamentally reshaping customer discovery, commerce channels, operating models, and competitive advantage. Drawing on Gartner's extensive AI research and consulting work with retailers and consumer brands in Canada and around the world, she explains why generative AI represents a structural shift unlike previous technology waves such as cloud computing or mobile commerce. At the centre of the discussion is the rise of “agentic commerce” — a world where AI agents like ChatGPT, Claude, and future large language model interfaces increasingly sit between retailers and consumers. Instead of browsing websites or apps, customers are beginning to shop conversationally through AI interfaces that recommend, filter, compare, and eventually complete purchases on their behalf. Swanson explains why this represents an entirely new commerce channel and why retailers must rethink their strategies before they lose control of customer discovery and loyalty. Michael and Jackie explore the major implications for SEO, branding, merchandising, customer relationships, and organizational design as AI-driven commerce accelerates. Swanson introduces the emerging concept of “AEO” — AI Engine Optimization — and discusses how retailers must rethink product data, customer signals, and digital infrastructure to ensure their brands surface inside AI-driven shopping experiences. The conversation also tackles one of the industry's biggest strategic questions: who inside a retail organization should own AI? Swanson argues that an AI strategy cannot be confined solely to IT or digital teams. Instead, it must become a CEO-level, cross-functional transformation involving merchandising, marketing, loyalty, operations, and technology leadership. Swanson outlines three critical priorities retailers must address over the next 12 to 18 months: establishing strong AI governance and ethical frameworks, cleaning and restructuring enterprise data for AI readiness, and creating clear organizational ownership for AI strategy and execution. The episode closes with a fascinating discussion about which retail categories may benefit most from AI-driven commerce, why smaller challenger brands could gain unexpected advantages, and why retailers that adopt a “wait and see” approach risk falling dangerously behind. Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael's cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.

Dr. Howard Schubiner is an internist and pediatrician, who attained the rank of full Professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1999. He is an internist and the director of the Mind Body Medicine Center at Ascension Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan. Dr. Schubiner is a Clinical Professor at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and is a fellow in the American College of Physicians, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. He has authored more than 100 publications in scientific journals and books, and lectures regionally, nationally, and internationally. Dr. Schubiner is the author of three books: Unlearn Your Pain, Unlearn Your Anxiety and Depression, and Hidden From View, written with Allan Abbass, MD, a Professor of Psychiatry at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Today, we have a fascinating conversation on Mind Body Syndrome a condition where the brain generates very real physical pain or symptoms in response to unresolved emotional stress, trauma, or repressed feelings like anger and anxiety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers and analysts are beginning to ask whether two powerful forces are quietly reshaping how and why people eat: the rise of GLP-1 medications and the constant churn of food trends. What happens when drugs like Ozempic don't just reduce appetite but change how the body processes food, forcing users to rethink nutrition to avoid side effects and maintain balance? Could that shift create new demands the food industry is already preparing to meet? And at the same time, why do consumers continue to chase new diets, ingredients, and health claims month after month? What is driving this persistent search for the next solution, even as advice keeps changing? We examine whether these developments are connected, how pharmaceutical intervention may be accelerating longer-term shifts in food culture, and what it reveals about the forces shaping modern eating habits. Sylvain Charlebois, professor at Dalhousie University and director of its Agri-Food Analytics Lab, and Samantha King, professor and director of the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen's University, discuss nutrition, behaviour, and the emerging questions at the intersection of medicine, markets, and consumer choice.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bigfoot could get official status if proposed legislation passes making it the state cryptid of California. If nothing else, the effort shows that fascination with cryptids has an outsized footprint on our culture. We look at why mythical creatures continue to capture imaginations - as well as passions - of die-hard believers, despite no evidence for their existence. An author uncovers the origin of a beloved hoax in the American West and its unexpected ties to a real animal and historical medical breakthrough. But are we looking for creature delights in all the wrong places? A tally of Earth's species reveals that far more remain unidentified than are currently known. Newly discovered critters such as the Yeti crab and an organism dubbed the Flying Spaghetti Monster are so strange, it challenges us to separate fauna fact from folktale. Guests: Chris Rogers – Assemblymember, California's 2nd Assembly District Benjamin Radford – Deputy Editor of Skeptical Inquirer Science Magazine, author, and co-host of Squaring the Strange podcast Michael Branch – Writer, humorist, and author of On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World's Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer Boris Worm – Marine ecologist, Professor of Biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia Originally released April 14, 2025 Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Award-winning PRS Journal Club Podcast, 2026 Resident Ambassadors to the PRS Editorial Board – Lucas Harrison, Christopher Kalmar, and Priyanka Naidu- and special guest, Andrea L. Pusic, MD, discuss the following articles from the May 2026 issue: "Cost of Care and Surgical Outcomes between Direct-to-Implant and Staged Tissue Expander Breast Reconstruction" by Chakraborty, Bouhadana, Bernstein et al. Read the article for FREE: https://bit.ly/DTI_TE_Comparison Dr. Andrea L. Pusic is our special guest. She serves as Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Director of Patient-Reported Outcomes, and the Joseph Murray Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Pusic also holds a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She completed her general surgery residency at Dalhousie University, followed by a plastic surgery residency at McGill University and a microsurgery fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Her clinical practice focuses on breast reconstruction and aesthetic breast surgery, including both autologous tissue reconstruction and implant-based techniques, with a strong emphasis on individualized, patient-centered care and quality-of-life outcomes. An internationally recognized leader in patient-reported outcomes research, Dr. Pusic has authored more than 200 publications. She developed the BREAST-Q, a widely used instrument for measuring patient satisfaction and quality of life after breast surgery. She also co-led the NCI-funded Mastectomy Reconstruction Outcomes Consortium, a multi-institutional collaboration across 11 centers studying patient perspectives on breast reconstruction. Dr. Pusic now leads the PROVE Center, where she advances the use of patient-reported outcomes to improve surgical quality, patient experience, and healthcare value. READ the articles discussed in this podcast as well as free related content: https://bit.ly/JCMay26Collection

In this episode of the Award-winning PRS Journal Club Podcast, 2026 Resident Ambassadors to the PRS Editorial Board – Lucas Harrison, Christopher Kalmar, and Priyanka Naidu- and special guest, Andrea L. Pusic, MD, discuss the following articles from the May 2026 issue: "Single versus Multiple Perforator Flaps in Autologous Breast Reconstruction: A Regression Analysis of Clinical Outcomes and Financial Metrics" by DeVito, Ke, Wen, et al. Read the article for FREE: https://bit.ly/MutliperfAutoBreast Dr. Andrea L. Pusic is our special guest. She serves as Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Director of Patient-Reported Outcomes, and the Joseph Murray Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Pusic also holds a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She completed her general surgery residency at Dalhousie University, followed by a plastic surgery residency at McGill University and a microsurgery fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Her clinical practice focuses on breast reconstruction and aesthetic breast surgery, including both autologous tissue reconstruction and implant-based techniques, with a strong emphasis on individualized, patient-centered care and quality-of-life outcomes. An internationally recognized leader in patient-reported outcomes research, Dr. Pusic has authored more than 200 publications. She developed the BREAST-Q, a widely used instrument for measuring patient satisfaction and quality of life after breast surgery. She also co-led the NCI-funded Mastectomy Reconstruction Outcomes Consortium, a multi-institutional collaboration across 11 centers studying patient perspectives on breast reconstruction. Dr. Pusic now leads the PROVE Center, where she advances the use of patient-reported outcomes to improve surgical quality, patient experience, and healthcare value. READ the articles discussed in this podcast as well as free related content: https://bit.ly/JCMay26Collection

In this episode, I discuss with Kelowna based urologist Dr. Chris Bitcon:What is erectile dysfunction (ED)? At what point does it move from a temporary issue to a condition requiring a doctor's visit?Primary causes (prostate treatment, vascular, hormonal, neurological, psychological)What can you do before you go see a urologist?Treatment optionsDr Chris Bitcon is a practicing Urologist in Kelowna. Dr. Bitcon grew up in Kelowna and is the epitome of a BC boy: involved in every sport under the sun and loves being outdoors.  He completed medical school at UBC's Island Medical Program in Victoria and urology residency at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He went on to complete a co-fellowship through the University of Toronto, specializing in both minimally invasive/robotic surgery as well as pediatric urology. Though he has two sub-specialties, he remains passionate about being a true general urologist and treats all urologic conditions.EPISODE 128 will be PART 2 of this episode with Justin Paulsen (Psychotherapist/Couples Counsellor/Clinical Sexologist)THANK YOU TO THIS EPISODE SPONSORSRC Health:  Use the link below for a discount at checkout!https://srchealth.com/?ref=PELVICFLOORPROJECTThanks for joining me! Here is where you can find out how to work with me:  www.pelvicfloorprojectspace.com/mel@pelvicfloorprojectspace.comSupport the show

Larry Ostola speaks with Sylvain Charlebois about his book, Poutine Nation. Poutine Nation traces the evolution of poutine from its origins in rural Quebec to its status as a global phenomenon. Though it was once dismissed as lowbrow junk food, poutine has now earned a place in fine dining, fast food chains, and global pop culture. Through a mix of history, cultural analysis, and personal anecdotes, Poutine Nation examines the social and economic forces behind food trends, exploring why some dishes fade into obscurity while others, like poutine, become beloved worldwide. With a keen eye for detail and a touch of humour, leading food scientist Dr. Sylvain Charlebois investigates poutine's role in Quebec's cultural identity, its place in Canada's culinary landscape, and the politics surrounding its success. He also explores the evolution of food trends, the psychology of taste, and the ways in which poutine's global popularity reflects broader changes in how we eat and connect through food. Sylvain Charlebois is a professor of management and the director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. He is a co-host of The Food Professor podcast. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society's mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada's past.

In this episode of the Award-winning PRS Journal Club Podcast, 2026 Resident Ambassadors to the PRS Editorial Board – Lucas Harrison, Christopher Kalmar, and Priyanka Naidu- and special guest, Andrea L. Pusic, MD, discuss the following articles from the May 2026 issue: "Prepectoral versus Subpectoral Implant-Based Breast Reconstruction: Evaluating the Shift" by Cordray, Khan, Voytik, et al. Read the article for FREE: https://bit.ly/PrePecVSSubPec Dr. Andrea L. Pusic is our special guest. She serves as Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Director of Patient-Reported Outcomes, and the Joseph Murray Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Pusic also holds a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She completed her general surgery residency at Dalhousie University, followed by a plastic surgery residency at McGill University and a microsurgery fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Her clinical practice focuses on breast reconstruction and aesthetic breast surgery, including both autologous tissue reconstruction and implant-based techniques, with a strong emphasis on individualized, patient-centered care and quality-of-life outcomes. An internationally recognized leader in patient-reported outcomes research, Dr. Pusic has authored more than 200 publications. She developed the BREAST-Q, a widely used instrument for measuring patient satisfaction and quality of life after breast surgery. She also co-led the NCI-funded Mastectomy Reconstruction Outcomes Consortium, a multi-institutional collaboration across 11 centers studying patient perspectives on breast reconstruction. Dr. Pusic now leads the PROVE Center, where she advances the use of patient-reported outcomes to improve surgical quality, patient experience, and healthcare value. READ the articles discussed in this podcast as well as free related content: https://bit.ly/JCMay26Collection

Your doctor tells you that, should you wish to have a child, that child is likely also to carry the disease. But a new gene-editing technology could ensure that your baby is -- and remains -- healthy. Should you do it? Critics say the technology will exacerbate inequality and meddle in the most basic aspect of our humanity. Now, we debate: Should We Use Gene Editing to Make Better Babies? This ethical conundrum is at the crux of this week's debate, originally broadcast in February 2022. Arguing Yes: Dr. George Church, Geneticist & Founder, Personal Genome Project; Professor, Genetics, Wyss Institute and Harvard Medical School Amy Webb, Chief Executive Officer, Future Today Strategy Group; Professor, NYU Stern School of Business  Arguing No: Marcy Darnovsky, Executive Director, Emerita, Center for Genetics and Society  Françoise Baylis, Distinguished Research Professor, Emerita, Dalhousie University; President, Royal Society of Canada  Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates  Join the conversation on Substack - share your perspective on this episode and subscribe to our weekly newsletter for curated insights from our debaters, moderators, and staff.  Follow us on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and TikTok to stay connected with our mission and ongoing debates.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices