Our podcast this week features an educational conversation with Dr. Moez Rajwani, the Executive Officer for the Aga Khan Council in Canada representing the interests of the Ismalili community across the country. There are between 100 and 125,000 Ismailis living in Canada. They are part of the Shia Muslim community that follow the Aga Khan as their Iman, the hereditary leader of the Ismailis,and their spiritual leader. There are between 12-15 million Ismailis in the world. The Ismaili community has had a focus on Atlantic Canada in recent years and has held two Atlantic Canada Trade Mission Forums with their communities in Toronto and Vancouver in the last six months or so to highlight the investment opportunities in our region. These forums were well attended and generated significant interest in Atlantic Canada. The alignment of the values of Atlantic Canada to those of the Ismaili community is well recognized by the Aga Khan Council and one of the key reasons for interest in our region.. The Council is also focussed on developing a bigger community of Ismailis in the region and is currently working to bring refugee families to our region and has a well developed strategy to support those resettlement efforts by ensuring access to affordable housing, healthcare, language training as well as assisting in the integration into the local community. These efforts contribute to higher retention rates.

This episode of the Insights Podcast is another in our bioeconomy series, sponsored by the Greenspring Bioinnovation Hub and Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, and features a conversation with Andrew Parsons, the Project Director at Nova Sustainable Fuels, a company owned by UK-based Octopus Energy. His company has been quietly working in Nova Scotia since 2021 on a project to build a production facility in Guysborough County near Goldsboro that would convert biomass, such as wood chips and sawdust, into sustainable aviation fuel (saf). It is a big idea that would require 750,000 tons of biomass to produce 165,000 tons of aviation fuel and would be a major boost to the forestry industry, which has struggled for a market for biomass since the closure of Northern Pulp, which consumed 1.3 million tons of biomass annually until its closure.

The company has purchased 770 acres of land with tidal access and has already spent tens of millions of dollars developing the case for the project, and has received approval for its initial environmental review. The project will have its own renewable wind and solar energy that will be able to generate 1.1.GWs of power. The project is estimated to cost between $4 and $6 billion and will contribute $1 billion to provincial GDP annually when at full production. The European market is driving demand for sustainable aviation fuels, and it has legislation in place to ensure that 70% of aviation fuel will be from sustainable sources by 2050. This would be the first such plant in North America and one of the first in the world. The final decision is expected in 2028, with the plant completed by 2031.

Our guest on this week’s episode of the Insights Podcast is Nathan Ough, President and CEO of Texas-based VoltaGrid. Born and raised in Saint John, Ough is now looking to put a large-scale data centre in the port city, bringing several hundred high-paying jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue to the city and provincial government. A partnership with Beacon AI Centres, the $2+ billion project involves an innovative ‘behind the meter’ approach to meeting the large electricity needs of the data centre. Ough claims the project will have no negative impacts on the province’s electricity grid or the city’s water supply. Data centres are among the fastest-growing industries across North America, as they are necessary to provide the computing power and storage for the emerging artificial intelligence boom. Will Saint John be at the front end of this industry in Canada? Download and listen to our conversation with Nathan Ough to find out.