The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Can Indigenous Voices Reshape Canada's Next Big Projects?

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

Canada is preparing for major nation-building projects while entering trade talks with the United States and Mexico, promising partnership with Indigenous peoples but leaving questions about what that means in practice. How will those commitments be carried out, and whose voices will shape the outcome? At the same time, Indigenous humour offers insight into culture, identity, and connection, reflecting shared experience while challenging assumptions. What makes it distinct, and can it help build understanding across communities? Anishinaabe journalist Tanya Talaga and playwright and author Drew Hayden Taylor join the conversation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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His government is backing major projects like ports, mines, and pipelines to make Canada more economically self-sufficient. Now, many of these projects will affect indigenous communities. and this government says it plans to do things differently. This time we are building with indigenous peoples as full partners, ensuring ensuring meaningful indigenous ownership and major economic benefits. Okay, but what does that actually mean? Well, we dig into this government's track record on reconciliation and what full economic

partnership would look like. Then, what makes indigenous humor unique? We talk comedy, culture, and whether anything's off limits with journalists, author, and playwright, Drew Hayden Taylor. This is the rundown. If you've been following the news, you know Canada is preparing for a new wave of nation-building projects while also gearing up for trade talks with the United States and Mexico. And it promises it will do all of this working side by side with indigenous peoples. So we ask the question, what does that actually mean in practice?

Tanya Talaiga is an Nishinaabe journalist and speaker, and she joins us in her studios. How are you doing? I'm well. Thank you. We are here because one of our producers saw you at a event a few months back, and it was a comment that you made that left an impression on them. It was Canada has forgotten reconciliation. What did you mean by that? Well, we were at the North York Public Library having a debate, and we were talking about elbows up in this era.

of, you know, everyone coming to the table and doing all they can to help shore up Canada economically and in every way shape possible against the United States. And one of the things we talked about was, well, what's happened to reconciliation? And we can't also forget truth and reconciliation, the word beforehand as well. It seems as though that's kind of gone out the window at the moment as everyone concentrates on major projects, legislation and concentrates on what economic zones can we get up and running in order to combat a declining economy. I'm assuming you're talking from the Ontario standpoint, we're talking Bill 5, when we're talking from the federal, talking to Bill C5. Are there particular issues

with those particular bills in terms of how they're set up? Oh, absolutely. You know, when it comes to Ontario's Bill 5, and I call the federal bill, the big brother, C5. C5. And I call the federal bill, the big brother, C, But if you look at what's happening in Ontario, one of the very first things that happened when Bill 5 was passed was the Endangered Species Act was completely killed, like disgutted. That was something that was really truly horrible and it should be horrible for everybody in this province and everybody in this country. We're talking about protections for animals, four-legged, fish, birds, you name it, migratory birds. birds, everything has been shelved in order to make way for economic growth. So special economic zones are being created throughout Ontario to bypass rules, to bypass any environmental protections and to sort of leave that in the hands of certain government ministers to decide, oh, okay, we'll save

those turtles, you know, over here, but not the rest. And that is, to me, very short-sighted. And it seems like we've just gone 10 steps backwards. I'm curious if that has to do with a change in leadership. How does Mark Carney compare to Justin Trudeau when it comes to relations with Indigenous peoples? Right. You know, to me, Mark Carney seems as if he is more concentrated on the finances. He's more concentrated on the business.

You know what? Everything else, boom, off to the side. He's got a focus. And his focus is making sure that Canadian economy. is on track. And so to me, it seems like he doesn't really have time for First Nations issues or reconciliation in the same way, shape, or form. He's very laser focused. He seems very much a central banker. And that is who First Nations now find themselves dealing with. What's the message to a minister, or the Prime Minister, rather, when that isn't the focus?

I think that the Prime Minister should really take the time to get to, know our communities a lot more, to be honest with you. He needs to travel to Northern Ontario. He needs to go to Muscree, First Nation. He needs to go to Petabic, Fort Albany. He needs to see Nascandiga, the longest boil water advisory in Canada, a quarter century long. And he needs to see the ring of fire for himself. Meet the people. See the land. See the animals. And then think about what's happening with the economy and how quick we really do need to mine this area and how we should really think about

is this the right thing to do? Now, as you mentioned, the things that the Prime Minister has to deal with, one of them, and probably the loudest one, is what's coming from south of the border. Donald Trump has talked about Canada becoming the 51st state. Now, I don't expect you to speak

on behalf of indigenous people, But do those threats to Canadian sovereignty ring differently to you? You know, you could sort of see all this coming, right? When the United States shifted its political focus and the government changed, you could see all across Canada really something of it changing. It's almost as if there was permissions were granted. It's like, oh, you know, we could sort of lift the veil off of our belief in reconciliation. Maybe we can go harder on denialism.

We see such a growth of denialism across Canada right now as well. Things seem to be changing. The mood seems to be changing. You're talking about residential school denialism. Residential school denialism, right? And just the whole political mood of the country too. Like, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion seems to be going out the window in a lot of spots as well. And so this is a chance, I think, for Canada to be different, to remind ourselves what our values are and how we have been working in this country towards reconciliation, towards recognizing that we need distinct languages in this country, our languages and our protections, and that we as First Nations people can bring so much more to the table and help even the economy and even with what Mark Carney is trying to do.

but we need to be partners sitting at the table, not tokenized with like one board member that's head of, I don't know, a mining company or a mining initiative or having just hiring just one or two indigenous people as part of a business venture. Those days are gone and we need to make sure that we are at the table in order to prop up our sovereignty and Canada's. You mentioned mining.

So I want to talk about the first thing, major projects coalition conference. You were there about a month ago, where the economic power of First Nations was essentially on full display there. Tell us a little bit of what it was like to be in that space. It was just wild, you know. There was about 1,800 people there, and it was so nice to see so many First Nations people powerhouses, you know, economic powerhouses there and present and trying to do business, trying to meet with, you know, the head of the R.B. B.C. trying to meet with federal ministers. And there was even a Maori queen that came to address the crowd on the very first day and open everything up. It was, you know, a moment. And it really

gave me pause. And I thought to myself, wow, we don't seem to get recognized in a way that we should be as we are major land rights holders. We are treaty holders in this country. And Canada can't move ahead without us. That needs to be shouted from the tops of buildings. You know, you need First Nations participation. And just being in that room and seeing all of our communities there and willing to go forward, that was really wonderful to see. What does Canada lose if it doesn't treat First Nations as equal partners?

You lose environmental stewards. You lose land guardians, people that are actually knowledgeable about what the land is trying to tell you what the waters and the rivers are trying to tell you what the animals are going through and what they're trying to tell you. Our people have been living in this land and this territory for tens of thousands of years. This is where we're from. We can be helpful. We can be helpful when it comes to knowing where the waters. should be going and what should be protected. When you look at Winnebago and Kichi Winnebago,

for example, Hudson Bay and James Bay, there's such beautiful marine areas, and there's talk about putting a deep, you know, water port up there. A lot of our communities will tell you, okay, well, good luck with that because it's so incredibly shallow in Hudson Bay and James Bay Bay for a really long period of time, but yet, you know, you also hear Doug Ford talking about making these ports.

I'm like, well, does he really know, what the land is like there and can that really happen. We need to be partners with government, like true partners, not fake partners. And that is what we get a lot, right? We get a lot of lip service. We get a lot of, of course, you can come and help and do these things with us. But then you see things happen like we get one week to comment on major projects legislation federally. That's not enough time. Or a consultation after the bill is passed C5, which is what

happened in July of last year. That is clearly doesn't show that the federal government thinks of us as equal partners. Looking across this country, is there a provincial government that is doing this right, that you think others can take a piece of the playbook from? You know, I have spent a lot of time recently in Manitoba, and I have to have to to say I am just so really heartened by Premier Wob Canoe and seeing what his government is doing, seeing what they're doing to help the houseless people, seeing what they are doing to build up the Churchill development and do it in a good way with First Nations participation. There is a lot there that is being done.

And even Wob Canoe, I mean, recently he's stuck up for Canada and told, Premier Daniel Smith at a press conference, you should really think about treaty rights when you're talking about separation. And that was really nice to see too. So you're seeing him definitely on the federal stage trying to tell Alberta, you know what? This really isn't yours to decide if you're going to leave. Is that because he is an indigenous leader? A hundred percent. He's Anishinaabe, right? And you see him as an Anishnabe leader. He's a strong Anishnabe man. And he's, he knows the land. He knows treaty rights. and he knows the laws of this country.

Daniel Smith doesn't. That brings up a question, and this has been tried before, but would First Nations benefit from having a political party in the House of Commons? You know, it's something that I think about sometimes. I'm like, ah, you just get so frustrated when you look at the parties

and even just the whole structures of the parties, the party politics is really not who we are. And I think that absolutely. What do you mean by that? Well, you know, there's this whole structure of you have to toe the line, you have to do this. I mean, look what happened to Jody Wilson-Raibold when she tried to enter into federal politics. It was a disaster. And that was part and parcel as the reason why was because of what she experienced within the party itself.

She was not free to do as she saw fit and progressive ideas that she had when it came to First Nations people. So I think that if we had the chance to do our own political party, it'd be pretty great. And when you look at it, there's 633 First Nations from coast to coast to coast. That's already a really huge voting block. And it's just sort of out there right now sitting there waiting for a party to happen. An opportunity there. Mark Carney and Doug Ford have made getting these infrastructure projects, like we mentioned, a priority for those levels of government.

Given that there are 600 plus First Nations Canada, is there a consensus that some of these projects do need to happen? Yeah, I don't think there's consensus. You know, every single First Nation has their own idea and has their own. Look at the Ring of Fire, for example. Exactly. There's no consensus in the Ring of Fire, right? I mean, there's some communities that are absolutely wanting a road built. They want development to happen.

And then others are saying, well, hold on a second there. You know, you haven't consulted us. Everything is so interconnected. All the ecosystems, the watersheds, the land in the ring of fire, it's all connected. And you can't really just go in and talk to one First Nation and expect all of the others to fall behind and say, okay, we're all going to be in agreement. Everybody is so different. They all have different community needs. Some don't have clean, potable drinking water, right?

Doctors, hospital care. high schools, everything, every community is so different and the needs are so deep. Every community has their own interest at heart. And so when you look at it across the country, too, it's the same thing. You know, some countries, sorry, some nations in BC are four pipelines, for example, and are absolutely right behind it and they're actually buying into pipelines and others disagree. Others are worried about what the effects are going to be on the mammals, the animals, the killer whales, for instance. Others not so much.

Tanya, I want to thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate your insights on this one. Linguich, thanks for having me. Jokes are about more than punchlines. They're often based in shared culture and community. So what sets indigenous comedy apart? and can humor build connection? Drew Hayden Taylor is a playwright, author, and journalist,

and he joins us in her studios. How are you doing, sir? I haven't decided yet. Well, tell me after the interview. I'll get back to that. All right. Well, we invited you because you had an op-ed in the Globe and Mail. Recently, that caught her interest.

A theater critic took issue with your play, the undeniable accusations of red cadmium light. Let's take a step back. What's the play about? Well, that actually is more complicated than you would think. The overall premise is an exploration of the forgeries of Norville Morso. The title, Red Cadmium Light, is how a lot of people can tell if some of the plays. Some of the paintings are fake because he developed a fondness for red cadmium light to use in skin tones.

But it wasn't created until 1982. So when Forger's attribute a painting to 1976 and it has red cadmium light in it, they know it's a fake. So that's the premise. But from that's just a springboard to the second storyline, which is about this woman who's an expert on the works of Norville Morso and is often brought in to consult on what's real, what's not. It turns out she's not native. She's been advertising herself as a native expert. She has an art gallery on a reserve, etc. But it turns out she's not native.

So that becomes plot number two. But for me, it's actually about a relationship between a mother and a daughter. Because the daughter finds us out, the stepdaughter, the woman had married her father, who was a native artist. Daughter finds out that her mother has been lying to her for 30 years. And to me, that's the play. Now, obviously, some serious tones there, but there was a lot of humor as well, which will tell them for a little bit. Everything I do has a lot of humor. And so I want to pick up on the review itself.

What irked you about the review? I don't have the exact terminology, but the reviewer basically commented that there was a lot of laughter in the room for a lot of humor that she didn't quite understand. And then she just sort of threw in a line basically saying something like, oh, maybe it has something to do with that First Nation's sense of humor. and then left it at that. And that sort of had me puzzled because I've spent 35 years celebrating, exploring, and deconstructing indigenous humor and regular humor.

And I have to say that I actually find whether there are more similarities than differences. Well, your headline of your op-ed was, don't get indigenous humor. The joke's on you. And we should, you know, preface that writers typically don't get to write the headlines, but what helps, what interests you

about the way that mainstream audiences sort of respond to indigenous humor? Well, as I said, 90% of the time they get it. I have had about 120 productions of my work across Canada. And I think there's only like two indigenous theater companies in Canada. So 99% of my plays are produced by mainstream theater companies that are very successful. People do get the humor. One of my plays, cottagers and Indians, has been produced about a dozen times in the last

10 years and there's a lot of humor in it and it poking at white people for a large part. But I go to a play and the audience is 90, 95% non-native and they're enjoying the humor. As I said, there's more similarities than differences. Do you prefer if we talk about sort of the landscape in the theater business, but if the critic themselves is indigenous? That's one of the issues for discussion. There's a wonderful woman named Yolanda Bonnell who basically wrote an article asking older white theater critics not to come to, or not to review her plays because she says

it's not for you. And I'm not quite that severe about it because my mortgage knows no skin color. And I think anybody can't get indigenous humor. I'm not reinventing the wheel here. I think it's just people who don't get a joke just want to blame something or someone. So they blamed the indigenous playwright and the indigenous sense of humor. Now, you also write about comedy that didn't appeal to you like the Three Stooges or a play like Moliere, two very different types of comedy. Is comedy from dominant cultures not funny to you?

Oh, no. I have a broad spectrum of humor. I remember I like everything from talking about contemporary sitcoms, everything from, married with children to Frazier. Okay. I love a good, cheap joke. I also like a sophisticated joke. And I try and find my way in between and do the same.

Some of my humor is primarily for the indigenous audience, and some of my humor is for a mainstream audience that some indigenous people wouldn't get. So I play to all crowds. With that, you know, this country over the decades has to, has to rack in with sort of its past. And I am curious, how is colonialism affected the humor and the stories that you're able to tell?

I once did a conference on multicultural humor in Kerala, India. Hmm. And I was there, and it was just a series of people doing presentations on various kinds of humor. And I followed a woman from the University of Tel Aviv who did a presentation on humor and the Holocaust. So basically, what I've sort of,

found, not found, but as I've observed that a lot of indigenous humor, like a lot of Jewish humor, is survival humor. Colonization has had effect on a lot of, on most indigenous people in some way, and that is reflected in our humor because frequently our humor is a comment on or a reaction to the world around us. So frequently, a lot of our humor is generated by the side effects of colonialism. Have you ever felt like you needed to water down some of your scripts, some of your plays, to make it more palatable. Not afterwards, no.

Like, I'm not a, I don't, I like to poke the bear, but I don't like to stab the bear. Okay. Right. So I'm, what's the difference? The difference is, I want to make people laugh and go, oh, you got me as opposed to, I find that insulting. I'm not trying to insult people, because once you insult people, the door comes. closes, but I don't think there's anything wrong with showing flaws or things like that in the play that maybe people can acknowledge and laugh at, you know?

One of the things I often talk about is my definition of settlers of white people. People of pallor, color challenged, pigment denied. I've read that, yes. And those aren't really vicious, but they do comment on, um, political correctness. Do white people take offense to that? Have you gone people who come? On occasion. Yes.

On occasion. Well, I did this one line. Somebody asked me to tell a joke about colonization, right? And one of them was, why do native people hate snow? Because it's white and all over our land. And somebody came, somebody who kind either emailed me or made a comment on something and basically said, with that single joke, I have set back reconciliation 10 years. Wow.

Right? So, yeah, some people don't get it. On the flip side, have, you know, indigenous people come at you and said, hey, I think you went too far on that? Is there anything that's technically off-limits? Not for you as well? Yeah, I mean, I don't want any enemies. One of my plays, actually one of my plays, Alternatives, which is a dinner party between three native people and three white people, and it gets very political. I got a bomb threat once

Somebody left a message saying At this theater Doesn't stop producing plays that are racist against white people Don't be surprised at what we do Wow So there are people out there who have issues And has there been a story or stories That you're like you know what

That's not for me I'm not going to do that story Oh yeah there's so many different Everybody says everything is fair game But I don't know. Child abuse is not funny, and I don't really know how you would make that funny. Spuzzle abuse, you know, there are things that just are generically not funny. Some people may argue that you can make anything funny. Maybe if that's the path you want to follow, it's not the direction I want to go.

Residential schools? It depends. You know, there are, at the time of contact when John Cabot landed, on the East Coast. It's estimated there were 50 to 60 separate languages and dialects spoken in Canada. And there are something like 634 First Nation communities in Canada. And I'd have to say almost every community has its own unique brand of humor. So you're asking me this, when I have no right to answer for all indigenous people.

There's still a few out there that don't want me to answer for them. Makes sense. I want to talk about some successes here when we talk about indigenous comedies. Reservation Dogs and North of North, which I loved. There's also another one. There was one called Rutherford Falls. Okay. That was a sitcom on NBC, I think, for two years.

And it was absolutely delightful. I will add it to the list. But help me understand why have those shows broken through? What is it about this moment that's happening? I think the dominant culture is willing to sit up and look at different ways of looking at Canada or looking at America or whatever. Years ago, when I did my very first comedy, it was called The Bootleger Blues. And it's a play about a 58-year-old good Christian Ojibwe woman who, through a series of circumstances, finds herself in possession of 143 cases of beer that she has to bootleg in order to buy an organ for the church.

And it's a loosely based on a true story. Okay. My mother was so mad when I wrote that play. But making a very long story short, first time it was produced in a... in a mainstream theater company, I was sitting there, 300 seats full of non-native people. How can I put this delicately

with a bluish tinge to their hair? Okay. Comedy starts up. Nobody's laughing. Absolute silence. And I'm suddenly thinking, oh, you know, there goes my career as a playwright.

And I'm trying to figure out what's going on, but there were eight native people in the audience because they were related to the actors. and they're in a balcony, they're up there, they started laughing almost immediately, but they were the only ones,

the native people started laughing. And the most interesting thing happened. After about five minutes, the people around the native people started laughing. Another five minutes, another circle of people started laughing. It was like throwing a rock in a pond and the circles getting bigger.

And I gave them permission to... They were waiting for permission to laugh. And as I said, nowadays, I have, this year alone, I'll have five productions of my plays, most of them comedically oriented, produced in mainstream theater companies. I had one in Vancouver, one in Thunder Bay, one in Winnipeg. I've got one opening tonight in Port Dover, one in about three weeks in Port Colburn,

and so on and so on. And the audience will be mostly non-native, and fingers crossed, they will find it, they'll, they find it hilarious they funny. Drew, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us in the studio for this conversation. As we say in my reserve, gratae. I'm Jan. Thanks for watching The Rundown. What do you like or not like about what we're doing so far? Let us know. Send your suggestions and feedback along to rundown at tbo.org or you can always leave us a comment on our YouTube page. Until then, I will see you next week.

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