History of the Haliburton County Development Corporation

The Haliburton County Development Corporation has been supporting community economic development, strategic planning, job creation and enhanced the local economy in Haliburton County since 1986. We have provided over 1100 loans to businesses in the community and have a loans portfolio of over $10 million. HCDC has the largest loan portfolio of any CFDC in Ontario. Since 1997 the HCDC has also contributed over $2 million to Community Economic Development initiatives in Haliburton County.

In the early 1980’s the Canadian government was looking at ways to make capital available to small businesses in rural areas of the country. The Haliburton Highlands Chamber of Commerce and the County of Haliburton sponsored an application to the federal government to capitalize a not-for-profit corporation to provide business loans to the residents of Haliburton County which resulted in the creation of the Haliburton County Development Corporation. The investment fund of HCDC was seeded with $2 million of start up funds from the federal government in 1986. Since then interest received from the loans has been returned to the investment fund and then re-invested in the community. By 1995 the HCDC was becoming very successful in building a loan client base and decided to expand its mandate to include Community Planning and Community Economic Development.

HCDC has also taken the lead to facilitate the development in a variety of economic sectors. Over the years HCDC has started initiatives in the areas of tourism, arts and culture, sustainable forestry, environment and the creative economy. In 1997 HCDC began to invest a portion of its operating funds into community economic development initiatives in Haliburton County. In 2005 these funds were increased significantly through the Eastern Ontario Development Program provided by Industry Canada.