Jon Arnold

I’ve been watching the recent CRTC hearings on Canadian content in radio, and honestly…it feels like déjà vu. The same points get rolled out every time: ● CanCon quotas are too high. ● It makes us less competitive. ● The playing field isn’t fair anymore. ● Canadians already have unlimited choice. ● The radio industry is struggling. It’s the same song broadcasters have been singing for decades — and it’s not wrong. But here’s what I can’t shake: when I hear the questions from the Commission, I wonder if they’re actually listening to radio the way Canadians do. ● Do they spend eight hours in a truck with the radio on? ● Are they plumbers working a new site with rock blasting in the background? ● Parents driving kids from rink to rink, groceries in between? ● Cubicle warriors with a station on all day long? I doubt it. And that’s the problem. We just launched a Classic Rock station in Southwestern Ontario. First 100 days? The response has been unreal. But the biggest complaint/request we hear? "Don't play the Tragically Hip". Think about that. One of Canada’s most beloved bands — and listeners are turning on them. Not because they don’t love the Hip, but because they’re oversaturated. Why? Because quotas force stations to lean too heavily on a narrow catalogue. The result? The audience gets tired, the station gets punished, and even the band gets hurt. Everyone loses. It’s like trying to feed someone their favourite meal every night. Eventually, they don’t want it anymore. Not because the meal got worse — but because you stopped giving them a choice. That’s what outdated regulation does. And I’ll say this as someone who’s been in this business 30 years, who has built a radio group from scratch and spent two decades researching audiences: it's time for the commission to LISTEN to radio leaders for a change. BTW the one thing no one says but is also obvious - if they increase Canadian Content in any way - Canadian radio will die. Not because of the music - but because men and women like me - will leave. We'll go somewhere else to invest our dollars, time and creativity without ridiculous rules. Period. End of discussion.

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One of the world’s biggest AI companies wants a deal with Canada. Is sovereignty the trade-off? I wrote about OpenAI’s interest in Canada’s data centre capacity and whether partnering with big U.S. tech conflicts with the government’s “digital sovereignty” strategy. Smart insights from Jennifer Pybus, Guillaume Beaumier and Benjamin Bergen: https://lnkd.in/gNifTTym

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It’s official! Today, TELUS opens Canada’s first sovereign AI factory in Rimouski, Quebec. For the very first time, Canadian organizations can tap into world-class AI compute power without leaving the country. Built, owned and operated in Canada – with data staying under Canadian control – THIS is sovereignty in action. Our factory runs on 99% renewable energy, powered by our PureFibre network, and accelerated by NVIDIA’s most advanced GPUs. It’s one of the most sustainable, secure AI facilities in the world – and it’s here to help Canadians innovate faster, smarter, and on our own terms. This is about more than technology. It’s about sovereignty, economic growth, and giving Canada a stronger role in the global digital economy. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gTaRM86u #AlwaysBuildingCanada #AI #SovereignAI https://lnkd.in/gvQTQHDG

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Ontario Cancels $100M Starlink Rural Internet Project Ontario just terminated its contract with Starlink, which was set to provide high-speed satellite internet to rural and remote communities starting June 2025. This decision, sparked by recent trade tensions, raises important questions about the future of rural connectivity in Canada and more made-in-Canada solutions to bridge the digital divide. The plot is certainly thickening. What alternatives exist to bridge our rural digital divide? https://lnkd.in/eUSGb3KW

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Securing Canada’s Digital Future—From the North Outward KatloTech Communications is proud to be leading a groundbreaking Indigenous-led initiative to build Canada’s first sovereign, hydro-powered data center campus in the North—IceFox Data Center, alongside our 315 km fiber optic backbone connecting Alberta to the Northwest Territories. In partnership with Noramco, a critical investor and supplier of fiber optic infrastructure, this project is delivering more than connectivity—it’s delivering national security, network redundancy, and economic opportunity. Data Sovereignty on Indigenous Land Powered by the Taltson Hydro System and hosted on Katlodeeche First Nation lands, IceFox will grow to 80 modular data center units—providing secure, sovereign hosting for public safety, telecom, enterprise, and government clients. Fiber Redundancy That Canada Needs For too long, the North has depended on a fragile, single-provider system. Our route brings a redundant pathway that will protect against outages, strengthen defense and emergency systems, and finally establish competition. Local Economic Growth This project brings hundreds of jobs to the Katlodeeche First Nation and the Town of Hay River, NT, from fiber construction to data center operations. It’s not just about infrastructure—it’s about lasting prosperity for the region. With Jason Neepin joining our team as Business Strategist, we’re accelerating capital engagement and government dialogue to ensure Canada treats this as the nation-building effort it truly is. We're building the North's first digital shield—and doing it on Canadian terms. #KatloTech #IceFoxDataCenter #Noramco #CanadaFirst #NationalSecurity #FiberNorth #KatlodeecheFirstNation #HayRiverNT #IndigenousInfrastructure #DataSovereignty #BroadbandRedundancy #CleanEnergy #DigitalReconciliation

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Our team at Cyberimpact has recently released the 2025 State of Email Marketing. 10,000+ Canadian marketers contributed to this report. Here are a few takeaways that stood out: 1. Email remains a high-performing, low-noise channel With open rates holding steady at >40%, your customers value direct, relevant communication... when it’s done right. 2. Relevance is the real currency No matter your industry or niche, the key driver of performance isn’t volume... it’s context. Campaigns that resonate with timing, tone, and intent are the ones that convert. 3. Human vs. AI In an AI-saturated content landscape, the emails that stand out are the ones that feel personal and human. 👉 The full (and free) report link is in the thread! Geoffrey Blanc, PMP, Cloé Michalski Marie-Ève Robert Frédéric Senterre Michael James Bedford Bruna Miranda Khan C. Julien Trussart, CPA

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"Sometimes we deal with the acute crisis and we don't get to talk about the promise of the auto sector..." In this conversation on The Amber Mac Show, APMA's Flavio Volpe, C.M. shares more on how Canada's AI, mining, and other sectors can cluster around the second biggest expense that human beings have after shelter - automobiles. Listen to the full conversation Tues at 2pm on SiriusXM Ch 167 to learn more about why these U.S. auto tariffs are a terrible idea for everyone right now (except, as we shared in an earlier clip, Elon Musk).

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Partnerships are the heartbeat of innovation. In this short, I sit down with Mitel CTO Luiz Domingos to talk about why the company partnered with Canada’s leading B2B SaaS accelerator, L-SPARK. The mission? To accelerate game-changing startups into the unified communications space—delivering real impact where connectivity matters most. This is how industries evolve: collaboration, innovation, and a clear focus on solving customer challenges. #Mitel #LSpark #UnifiedCommunications #TechInnovation #Startups #Innovation

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We reproduced (and fixed!) Cursor’s rogue customer support AI. It’s been over a year since the well-publicized failures of Air Canada’s customer support bot and New York City’s MyCity bot. And these customer support AI’s are still failing spectacularly in production, with the most recent debacle being Cursor’s AI going rogue and triggering a wave of cancellations. Why do such failures occur? These next-token-prediction models are inherently nondeterministic and can be fragile. And they’re not necessarily getting consistently better over time—OpenAI’s latest models like o3 and o4-mini show higher hallucination rates compared to previous versions. What’s the solution? I believe that one ingredient will be intelligent systems that evaluate the output of these LLMs in real-time and keep them in check, building on and combining techniques like LLM-as-a-judge, using per-token logprobs, and statistical methods.

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Accessibility is more than a legal requirement. It’s a fundamental right. Yet, enforcement gaps and inconsistent compliance continue to leave many behind. Nicolas Steenhout, a digital accessibility professional, examines the shortcomings of Canada’s approach, from the Accessible Canada Act to AODA. Are businesses and government agencies truly prioritizing accessibility, or is it just another checkbox? He also talks about alt text for images. Dive into the discussion and explore what needs to change: https://buff.ly/rzwMenw #Podcast #Accessibility Image: Dark-eyed junco in flight. It jumped off a small branch and its wings are tightly on its body. Its tail is spread out. It looks to be about business.

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