Curve Lake’s newest COO discusses economic successes and initiatives on her First Nation

By Sam Laskaris

CURVE LAKE FIRST NATION – Katie Young-Haddlesey has had plenty of economic development successes in her more than 20-plus years in the industry.
Young-Haddlesey, the former economic development lead for Curve Lake First Nation, who was  promoted to become the First Nation’s chief operating officer this past November, doesn’t mind sharing her success stories.

She hopped on a virtual seminar in late December with a pair of other Indigenous economic development officials to discuss their roles and community initiatives.

The webinar was hosted by Cando, the national organization that promotes Indigenous economic development across Canada.

The other panelists who joined Young-Haddlesey were Katrina Shade and Brad Mercer.

Shade is the manager of the Piikani Resource Development Ltd., which has both corporate and economic interests responsible for benefiting Piikani Nation in Alberta.

And Mercer is the economic development officer and senior project manager for Nisga’a Ts’amiks Vancouver Society, a non-profit community organization representing Nisga’a citizens in British Columbia.

Cando board member Shawna Morningbull hosted the webinar.

Young-Haddlesey offered her thoughts of what economic development and prosperity means to her.

“It’s self-sufficiency and the ability to make our own decisions about how we spend dollars without having to be responsible to governments and funding organizations to explain our funding,” she said.

Young-Haddlesey added an example she often uses is funding requests for mental health and addiction health.

“We are unable to fund a lot of programming in order to send people to addiction centres when they are ready to go,” she said. “And something like economic development creates the funds that can provide for something like that when the government won’t step in.”

Young-Haddlesey also said the location of Curve Lake First Nation provides some benefits. The First Nation is situated about a 30-minute drive north of Peterborough.

“We are rural, very much so, we’re in the heart of agricultural land and forestry and mining community,” she said. “But we are fairly close and fairly connected to some pretty major centres and the major centre in Ontario [of Toronto].”

Young-Haddlesey said her First Nation’s location does allow it to do things somewhat differently than others located in remote communities.

For example, it currently manages some cottages, which are frequently booked by those in Toronto and surrounding area. Promoting various tourism ventures to those in Canada’s most populous city is also a plus.

Curve Lake First Nation is also currently working on a new aquaculture facility. Again, First Nation officials believe they will benefit hugely from their proximity to Toronto.

“There is a huge market right now for live fish,” Young-Haddlesey said. “And we can get them from our front door into a refrigerator truck and into Toronto in less than two hours, right to where they need to go. So, we’ve got a different market segment that we can build based on the fact we’re so close to that major market.”

Young-Haddlesey, who was named Cando’s economic development officer of the year at its national conference in 2019, also shared a Curve Lake First Nation success story.

The First Nation partnered with Peterborough to bring its city buses to the First Nation.

“It’s being used quite a bit,” Young-Haddlesey said. “It’s really upped our ability to get people to their doctor’s appointments, to their clinics, to shopping, to schooling and so on.”

She added those buses have opened up a whole new world to Curve Lake members. Once in Peterborough, they can hop on a bus or train and travel to cities where they can board airplanes to anywhere in the world.