Disruptors

Updated: 30 Dec 2025 • 216 episodes
thoughtleadership.rbc.com/rbc-disruptors

The Canada Project: Taking the Country’s Most Urgent Challenges Head-On A Special Season of Disruptors, Hosted by John Stackhouse Canada stands at a crossroads: lead boldly or fall behind. Global uncertainty and a widening productivity gap demand decisive action. For this special season of Disruptors, John Stackhouse travels the country to meet the visionaries using technology to tackle Canada’s most urgent challenges — and to build a stronger, more competitive nation. From robotics defending Arctic sovereignty and AI transforming agriculture, to critical minerals powering the clean transition and housing innovations reshaping our cities — each episode reveals how technical ingenuity meets national purpose. These aren’t just stories of invention — they’re a blueprint for Canada’s future.

Show episodes

With industrial power demand rising, can small modular reactors help anchor a cleaner, always‑on system that will support the incoming AI Data Centre boom?  In this bonus episode of Disruptors, recorded live in Edmonton, host John Stackhouse speaks with Premier Danielle Smith about a practical path: SMRs alongside abat

24 min
00:00
24:12
No file found

Canada’s future won’t be decided in PDF strategies — it will be decided by what we actually build: trade corridors, clean power, AI datacentres, agtech and northern connectivity that can stand up in a more volatile world. In this episode of Disruptors: The Canada Project, John Stackhouse speaks with Daniel Debow, Chair

28 min
00:00
28:51
No file found

Energy planners used to talk about a “trilemma”: reliability, affordability and sustainability. As AI reshapes the global economy and data centres demand thousands of megawatts of new load, Alberta is adding a fourth leg to the stool — velocity — turning it into an energy quadlema. At the edge of Wabamun Lake west of E

26 min
00:00
26:51
No file found

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

36 min
00:00
36:07
No file found

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

29 min
00:00
29:19
No file found

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