I drive between two and three hours a week between our spaces. Put together, those hours are the only block in my week nobody can take from me: no email, no meeting, no phone. For years I listened to the radio. For the past two years I have been listening to business podcasts, and almost exclusively Quebec ones, because the programs, the numbers and the market realities they discuss are the ones that apply here.
Here are the seven I actually listen to, not the ones sitting in a list waiting for me to get around to them. On September 28, 2026 I checked that each one was still publishing. That is the first thing I look at before recommending a podcast: half the lists going around point to shows that stopped two or three years ago, and you lose an hour finding that out.
1. Un café avec Judith Fetzer
Un café avec Judith Fetzer is the one I save for long drives. Judith Fetzer, who ran Cook it before moving behind the microphone, interviews Quebec entrepreneurs and executives in conversations that often run past ninety minutes. It is produced by Matière Media and comes out twice a week, which makes it the most prolific show on my list, with more than a hundred episodes.
What keeps me there is that the guests talk about the lean years as much as the good ones. You hear people describe a major revenue loss, a forced pivot, a business sale that did not go as planned. When you run eight addresses, hearing someone walk through a hard decision in detail is worth more than a ten-minute summary.
Note for English-speaking readers: this show, and every other one on this list, is in French. That is the point. There is no English-language equivalent covering the Quebec market this closely.
2. InfoBref actualité et affaires
InfoBref actualité et affaires is the only one I listen to every morning. Patrick Pierra, the publisher of InfoBref, summarizes economic, financial and technology news in about five minutes, Monday to Friday. He adds longer "Éclairage" episodes of a dozen minutes when a subject deserves it.
Five minutes is how long it takes me to get out of the parking lot. I know of nothing else in French that covers the economy here with that regularity and that brevity. If you only listen to one business podcast a week, start with this one: the cost of entry is close to zero.
3. Dans la jungle des affaires
Dans la jungle des affaires, hosted by Réjean Gauthier, is the oldest and the most regular show on my list: a weekly program that has passed the 860-episode mark. Réjean interviews entrepreneurs and managers from here, and his angle never moves: the human behind the business, ahead of the business model.
The volume has a downside, not every episode speaks to me. But it has an advantage the others do not: at that pace you end up hearing from just about every trade and every region in Quebec. It is the show that best conveys how small the business community here really is, and that the person being interviewed is someone you will run into at a networking event sooner or later.
4. Les Dérangeants
Les Dérangeants is in its eighth season. Six entrepreneurs take turns hosting, among them Dominic Gagnon, Marie-Josée Richer and Étienne Crevier. The show is presented by the Fonds de solidarité FTQ and carried on QUB radio, one episode a week on Mondays, running forty minutes to an hour.
The format is simple and that is its strength: one business question per episode, one guest who knows it. Cybersecurity in a small business, shop-floor automation, attracting talent, financing. More than once I have found there the answer to a question I was about to pay a consultant to settle.
5. Histoires d'hypercroissance
Histoires d'hypercroissance, hosted by Cléo Maheux, publishes an hour-long episode every two weeks and is closing in on a hundred and forty episodes across six seasons. The guests are Quebec entrepreneurs and specialists walking through one specific stage of their growth.
This is the one that sounds most like a conversation between two people who manage teams. Company culture, artificial intelligence applied to real operations, running a business alongside a family. Less theory than most management content, more "here is what I tried and here is what it did."
6. B2B et Go
B2B et Go, hosted by Simon Deschênes of the AUX B2B agency, has been running since October 2021 and releases one episode a month, around half an hour. The subject is narrow and unapologetic: business-to-business sales and marketing.
I listen because it is the only one on my list that talks about prospecting without dressing it up. How to follow up without pestering, where growth hides inside an existing client list, what artificial intelligence actually changes in a long sales cycle. For a company that sells to other companies, half an hour a month is easy to justify.
7. 180 degrés
180 degrés, from Mélanie Halley, speaks to solo operators and small teams. The catalogue holds more than a hundred and ninety episodes of about forty minutes, on marketing and strategy seen from the point of view of someone doing everything themselves. The publishing pace slowed over the summer, but the existing catalogue stands on its own and that is where I go digging.
The episodes on mental load and on the difference between being visible and being findable changed two or three things in how we communicate. It is the podcast I recommend most often to the freelancers I run into in our kitchens.
What listening to all seven taught me
Three things, after two years. First: a five-minute daily show changes my week more than a two-hour show I get to once a month. Regularity beats depth, at least for an operator who is already behind on reading.
Second: local is not a compromise. I tried the big American shows in this category. They are well made, but the amounts, the programs and the markets they discuss are not mine. An hour with an entrepreneur from the Montérégie explaining how he financed an expansion is more useful to me.
Third: check whether a show is still alive before getting attached to it. A podcast that has released nothing in eight months is probably finished, even if nobody announced it. That check kept me from recommending three dead shows while writing this.
Try this week
Take the drive you already make, the one you cannot avoid, and replace the radio with a single episode. Not seven podcasts, one episode. If you come out of it with one idea you can apply before Friday, you will know the slot works. If not, try a different show next week: it costs nothing but time you were already spending in the car.
And you, which one do you listen to that I have not named? It is the question I ask most often in our spaces, and it is how I found four of the seven on this list.
Frédéric Deshaies
President and Founder, Hedhofis
