The Canadian Entertainment Industry Needs To Address Diversity – Huffington Post Canada

April 29, 2016

As a young theatre student, Lorne Cardinal dreamed of performing Shakespearean plays at Ontario’s internationally-renowned Stratford Festival. An older actor chuckled at his ambition. Didn’t Cardinal know indigenous actors like himself never got roles for non-aboriginal characters?

“He was right. For years I was only ever asked to do parts for Native people. I didn’t get to be King Lear,” says Cardinal.

Canadians know Cardinal as the amiable Sergeant Davis Quinton from the wildly popular TV comedy Corner Gas. The first aboriginal graduate of the University of Alberta’s theatre arts program, Cardinal has spent 25 years struggling with the lack of diversity in Canada’s entertainment industry. Working as both actor and director, he has strived to show indigenous faces on Canadian stages and screens.

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