Drumbeats - Canadian Indigenous Investment Podcast · Canadian Indigenous Investment Summit

Jon Davey: Why Canada's Biggest Projects Can't Get Built Without Indigenous Capital

March 12, 2026·38 min·2 clips

Section 89 of the Indian Act: you cannot use reserve-based assets as collateral—fundamentally limiting Indigenous capital access.

The starting point is practical. Mark McNack asks what institutional investors need to know before they size up opportunities in Canada. Jonathan Davey comes in through his Scotiabank work, where Indigenous and government advisory had to be built from scratch, and the conversation quickly lands on Section 89. Davey treats that part of the Indian Act as the major capital problem for Indigenous communities: if investors do not understand it, they are reading the opportunity wrong. The policy picture then gets bigger, but it stays usable. Canada's $10 billion Indigenous Loan Guarantee Corporation changes how some deals can be viewed, and the episode also brings in forthcoming First Nations Fiscal Management Act amendments and the Build Canada Act. Davey keeps tying the finance back to history. Rights, responsibilities, access, and control are not abstract terms here; they come from fights with the federal government. The Crown gets translated for anyone outside Canada: in this conversation, it means the federal government. Constitutional status matters too. First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples are constitutionally protected groups in Canada, so project finance cannot treat them like any other stakeholder. The 1980s sit in the background as a hinge, with Mark noting how Canada's acquisition of its constitution changed what had previously sat under the Privy Council. Davey does not oversell progress. He sees more effort, awareness, and desire for better relations, but keeps the tone measured. For him, honoring earlier generations means using won battles to build new opportunities. The investor takeaway is wider than the Crown relationship: Indigenous partnership is now part of how the economy has to work.

As heard by us

A clear, policy-heavy look at Indigenous partnerships and project finance in Canada.

Jonathan Davey makes a dense subject easy to follow: why Indigenous partnerships matter to natural resource and infrastructure investment in Canada.

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Why you'd press play

You want the investor-side map of Indigenous capital and Canada's project timelines.

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