Drumbeats - Canadian Indigenous Investment Podcast · Canadian Indigenous Investment Summit

Catherine Pennington on Driving Indigenous Partnerships and Unlocking Investment Through KPMG’s Truth and Reconciliation Plan

·36 min·2 clips

Catherine Pennington says Bill C-5 needs “really skilled Indigenous relations professionals” on the front line.

1. Drumbeats - Canadian Indigenous Investment Podcast centers this episode on Catherine Pennington, Director of Indigenous Advisory Services at KPMG Canada, and the role of Indigenous partnerships in Canadian investment. 2. Mark McNacca and Robert Brandt host Pennington, whose background in social work, child protection, and the energy sector shapes her approach to Indigenous advisory work. 3. The episode asks how KPMG’s Truth and Reconciliation Action Plan, Bill C-5, and Indigenous equity can help unlock infrastructure and energy projects in Canada. 4. Pennington says she was born and raised in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, on Treaty 6 territory in the Métis homeland, and now lives in Prince George, B.C. on the traditional territory of the Klele-Tenay people. 5. She describes a career path that moved from family services and child welfare into an Aboriginal relations team in the Northwest Territories border region. 6. Pennington says she chose industry because she believed she could do better social work “inside an organization” and affect Indigenous jobs, opportunities, and economic development. 7. She frames her work as upstream social work, contrasting it with crisis response “on the doorstep with the RCMP” and saying skills like listening, summarizing, peace building, and conflict resolution transfer across sectors. 8. Mark McNacca links her perspective to seven-generation thinking, ESG, and climate change, arguing that corporations are moving toward more holistic decision-making. 9. Pennington says Bill C-5 has two parts: labor mobility and project expediting, and she says both will require stronger Indigenous relations capacity. 10. She argues that past mistakes came from underinvesting in Indigenous relations teams and from trying to increase supply-chain participation without systems that could maximize participation. 11. Pennington says the field has evolved from supply-chain participation toward Indigenous communities as equity investors and toward Indigenous-led projects and partnerships. 12. She says Indigenous relations professionals now sit between corporate and investment communities and Indigenous communities, which makes their role central to project success. 13. Pennington explains that KPMG’s Indigenous Advisory Services Group works with Indigenous communities, government, and industry, and also covers health and child welfare alongside capital projects. 14. She says KPMG’s Truth and Reconciliation Action Plan is detailed, was first among the big four firms, and focuses on education, youth, employment and training, retention, and client service. 15. Pennington says the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report followed interviews with residential school survivors, day school survivors, and health institution survivors, and she says the legacy remains recent in families and communities. 16. She says corporate Canada’s reconciliation plans address systemic racism and the limited ability of Indigenous communities and institutions to borrow for economic development. 17. The conversation stays interview-driven and practical, with McNacca and Brandt asking direct questions about policy, financing, and KPMG’s work. 18. Pennington’s tone is reflective and specific, and she uses examples from social work, energy, and corporate advisory rather than abstract theory. 19. Best for listeners focused on Indigenous investment, project finance, and corporate reconciliation. 20. Skip if you want light entertainment rather than policy and financing detail.

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