Tanya Tourangeau is a Dene First Nation Matriarch, Reconciliation Strategist and founder of Tanya T Consulting. Her work is rooted in the belief that healing becomes possible when we have the courage to understand our shared history. Tanya invites people to move beyond awareness and embrace hope, relationships and meaningful action.
Tanya was homeless at 11 years old, navigating bars at 12 and 13, and pregnant at 14. She promised herself and her son that there would be better tomorrows. Today, Tanya’s dream of better tomorrows extends to everyone, in her dreams of shared prosperity through Business Reconciliation.
Tanya was named RBC’s Icon Entrepreneur for 2025 and has guided meaningful partnerships with corporations, governments and communities. We asked her about her work, what meaningful support looks like, and what our community can do. Her answers are shared below, lightly edited for length.
What part of your work would you like more people to understand?
The part of my work I want more people to understand is Business Reconciliation. To me, Reconciliation cannot live only in statements, land acknowledgements or annual reports. It has to show up in how we make decisions, how we build partnerships, how we invest, how we procure, how we hire, and how we share opportunities.
Business Reconciliation is about finding real win-wins so Indigenous Peoples and Canada can thrive together.
I do not believe Indigenous economic participation requires anyone to lose. In fact, some of the strongest opportunities in this country will come from learning how to work together differently. Indigenous Peoples bring Rights, Land knowledge, relationships, governance, workforce, businesses, regional intelligence, and a long-term responsibility to place. Industry and governments bring capital, infrastructure, technical expertise, policy tools and access to markets.
The opportunity is in connecting those strengths.
That is what excites me. Not inclusion for the sake of optics, but partnerships that leave everyone stronger.
I want Indigenous businesses to grow. I want all communities to build wealth. I want corporations to have better partners. I want projects to move with greater certainty and intelligence.
That is the future I see. Reconciliation should create better tomorrows for all of us.
What does meaningful support for Indigenous women look like in professional spaces?
Meaningful support starts with recognizing that Indigenous women do not leave our culture, history, Spirit or lived experiences at the office door. Professional inclusion cannot simply mean inviting us into spaces that were designed without us and expecting us to adapt.
I think about how workplaces make room for the religious practices of others, including time and private space for prayer. I need a safe space to pray too. I need room for culture, Ceremony, reflection and connection to Spirit without feeling like those things make me less professional.
Recently, I attended meetings about Business Reconciliation while a liquor bar was being stocked nearby for a 4pm networking break. That may seem ordinary in a corporate setting, but for me it carried a very different meaning. Alcohol has a complicated and harmful history in the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and colonial systems. It has been used to exploit and swindle our Ancestors.
I am sober, and many Indigenous Peoples are. I do not feel safe discussing investment, power or serious business with someone who is drinking. Culture and Ceremony also do not belong beside alcohol.
So when people ask me what meaningful inclusion looks like, sometimes my answer is very simple:
Give me a talking circle, bannock and jam. That can create more trust than another cocktail reception ever will.
What action would you like our community to take?
I would ask the Lean In community, and the professional community more broadly, to look at your workplaces through the eyes of an Indigenous Matriarch.
Ask yourself:
- Would she feel welcomed here?
- Would she feel safe here?
- Would she see her culture respected, or only referenced when it is convenient?
- Would she feel like her leadership is valued, or like she has to translate herself into someone else’s definition of professionalism?
- And most importantly, would she stay?
We often talk about recruitment, but recruitment is only the front door. Retention tells you whether people actually feel they belong once they come inside.
Look at your leadership tables, policies, professional development, procurement, workplace celebrations, meeting culture, alcohol-centred networking, mentorship, succession planning, and how Indigenous knowledge is treated.
Where is the evidence of allyship? Not the statement. Not the poster. The evidence.
Who gets sponsored for leadership? Who gets heard? Who gets trusted? Who is carrying the invisible work of educating everyone else? Who is being asked to represent all Indigenous Peoples while still trying to do their actual job?
Meaningful allyship should be visible in the systems.
My challenge is simple:
Do not only ask Indigenous women to enter your spaces. Ask what your spaces need to change so Indigenous women can thrive once we are there.
That is where real Reconciliation begins.