Nipissing First Nation has received $1 million from the provincial government for an office complex that will house a business incubator for new businesses plus the Kinoomaadziwin Education Body (KEB).
The building is the 10,000 square foot facility people have seen being built west of North Bay just by Eagle’s Nest.
The total project cost $3.3 million and Nipissing First Nation Chief Scott McLeod says the provincial contribution “really helps us get this up and running”.
KEB will serve as the head office for the education system which currently involves 24 First Nations.
On the incubation side, McLeod says there are a lot of potential businesses that want to house their business at the site.
“It’s very high profile and a very professional building,” said the Chief.
“I think it will serve to enhance the existing businesses on our Nation.”
The area where the building is located is known as the Bineshii Business Park, an area that McLeod says is quite large.
“There are future plans to expand on that, perhaps another building,” McLeod said.
“We definitely want to grow that industrial area and create more opportunities for our community members especially our young people.”
McLeod says what happens most often now is NFN’s young people get an education off the reserve but don’t come back because of the lack of jobs.
“We want to shift that around so they can be at home and still have good-paying jobs in the community,” he said.
McLeod says the creation of the incubator represents a shift in job creation at Nipissing.
He says it used to be that the administration office was NFN’s biggest employer.
However, he says government jobs are not the key to a good economy.
“You need to have a private workforce and that’s been our shift the last couple of decades where small businesses are taking over the number of employed people at Nipissing,” McLeod said.
“This doesn’t mean our administration is shrinking. We employ more than 150 people and have an operating budget of $25-million.
As for the type of businesses the incubator will house, McLeod says it will vary.
Although the education component is already in operation, the business incubator will open next March.
Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli announced the $1 million funding and said in the process the complex will create 10 jobs.
“But I suspect it will create far more than that and I think they’re being very modest in that,” Fedeli said.
Fedeli says the funding announcement is the province’s way of saying Ontario is open for business and that includes NFN.
“They’ve got some phenomenal companies that work from the Nipissing First Nation area,” he said.
“They need to grow that. As Chief McLeod says this is all about creating good-paying jobs. They know that a business incubator and education component are going to be very important pieces.”
