At CMC Congress 2026, Kelly Larocca shared the following remarks on cooperation, Indigenous economic development and the role Indigenous communities can play in building Canada\u2019s next generation of energy infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read the full speech below: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for having me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I introduced myself in our language, Anishinaabemowin. As is customary for a special event, I want to acknowledge all of you today and say thanks for having me. Thank you to Michael for his allyship, his friendship, and his leadership in getting us all together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I prepared a few remarks. I know I\u2019m supposed to be quick, so I apologize. I\u2019m going to make your conference slightly longer, but it won\u2019t be all for naught. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I really wanted to share with you some thoughts around cooperation and Indigenous economic development, building the next generation of energy infrastructure, and powering the economy. I also want to share a little bit of the work that we\u2019re doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks again for your invitation and for having me here at the CMC conference, Powering the Economy. It\u2019s a pretty apt title for today. I\u2019m honoured to be part of your space, connecting with you, sharing ideas, and advancing sustainable economies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your conference themes of collective ownership, shared power, and strong community roots reflect my First Nation\u2019s realities, our experiences, and our direction. We\u2019re all facing the same challenges today. I hope we can find ways that allow us to jointly tackle them together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael mentioned a little bit about my community, the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. I\u2019ve had the privilege, honestly, the privilege, of serving my people since 2008. I\u2019ve been Chief since 2013, and I\u2019ll stay there as long as they\u2019ll have me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It has been the most wonderful job. It\u2019s hard, and some days are grueling, but I absolutely love it. What a blessing to have a position that I\u2019m passionate about and that is connected to my family and my ancestors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My theme for today is a little more particularized to cooperation and Indigenous economic development, but also from a Michi Saagiig, or Mississauga, perspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m from the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, so I\u2019m part of a larger Mississauga Nation. We were culturally connected and governance-connected prior to European contact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mississauga Nation was a proud collective. I always like to say we were a strategically sedentary people. We knew where to go based on land patterns, animal patterns, and watershed patterns. It wasn\u2019t nomadic. It wasn\u2019t without reason. It had reason, and it had a systemic import that has carried us through to today. I\u2019m always proud to mention that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Mississaugas, our experience, our history, and our present-day reality are rooted in the lands and waters that continue to sustain us. Our relationship with land is not simply economic. It is relational, it is intergenerational, and it carries responsibilities as much as it carries opportunity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That perspective shapes how we approach economic development. It shapes how we think about growth, about partnership, and ultimately about what success might look like for us, not only for today, but for the seven generations that follow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s fitting that we\u2019re gathered here to talk about cooperation, because in many ways this is a shared space of rediscovery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The principles that underpin cooperative economies, shared benefits, collective decision-making, and long-term sustainability, are not new concepts for Indigenous communities such as the Mississauga Nation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Cooperative principles reflect ways of organizing economic and social life that have been practised across Indigenous cultures for generations. These systems are grounded in reciprocity, in accountability to community, and in the understanding that prosperity must be shared for it to be meaningful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, those values are not just part of our history. They\u2019re active, they\u2019re operational, and they\u2019re shaping how Indigenous nations participate in the modern economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nowhere is that more evident than in the energy sector across Ontario and Canada. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Indigenous nations are increasingly moving into positions as equity partners, owners, and long-term infrastructure investors. We are participating at scale in power generation and transmission, energy storage, and the broader transition to a cleaner, more resilient energy system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I always like to say to my people: What brought us into this power-generation phase? What brings us into the energy-generation system? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ontario is in an energy crisis, and it\u2019s not one of our own making. It is one that we have to contend with and that we\u2019re going to meet with the rigour and problem-solving ability we have always had. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What distinguishes our participation is not just that Indigenous communities are involved, but how we are involved. We\u2019re building structures that allow us to engage at scale, manage risk, and ensure that the benefits of these projects flow back to our communities over the long term. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the Williams Treaties First Nations, this has taken shape through joint investment structuring and holding companies for hundreds of millions of dollars in shared equity positions in energy projects within the next decade. With our current project portfolios moving forward, we expect to hold energy equity in the billions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We have designed investment vehicles that aggregate capital, manage participation in major projects, and create a platform for sustained economic growth. These entities allow our nations to participate not just as stakeholders, but as rights holders and structured investors in large-scale infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our investments help major energy partners build more and, yes, build faster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t like the thought of having to build more homes faster. I don\u2019t like the thought of ministerial zoning orders and the gutting of conservation authorities. This is the way that we\u2019ve chosen to get involved, to protect the lands and waters that we hold dear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But yes, we\u2019re going to build more and build faster to keep up with the massively increasing energy demand that I mentioned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our investments help our partners reduce their debt loads, maintain their credit ratings, and maximize the use of their existing capital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In many ways, the multi-First Nation investment models we use closely resemble cooperative structures. Our investment models are grounded in collective ownership, where the benefits of investment flow back to the nation as a whole. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They operate with strong governance and accountability to community leadership. They pool resources, bringing together community capital, institutional financing, and project partnerships. They focus on multigenerational, stable returns rather than short-term extraction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We are also seeing something that will be familiar to many in this room: a federation-style approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Multiple First Nations are coming together to share risk, build at scale, and access opportunities that would be difficult to achieve individually. In doing so, we are creating structures that mirror cooperative federations rooted in a shared purpose, aligned value systems, and collective strength. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Importantly, these are not theoretical models. They are investable, they are governed, and they are increasingly attracting significant institutional capital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We are already seeing strong participation from large institutional investors, including major traditional insurance companies and the big banks, which are active partners in power generation, transmission, and energy-storage projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This reflects a growing recognition that Indigenous-led investment structures are credible, scalable, and essential to the future of energy infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, we are seeing important progress on the policy side that supports this kind of participation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation has been actively and successfully involved in advocating for regulatory approaches that enable meaningful Indigenous investment in energy projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A recent example is the Ontario regulation supporting the Darlington New Nuclear Small Modular Reactor project. It incorporates a model for concurrent cost recovery, also known as CCR. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kind of like the famous band from the early \u201970s, CCR is pretty rocking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It allows project and interest costs to be recovered from Ontario\u2019s regulated electricity rates during construction, rather than only once the project is operational. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve been advocating for CCR in Ontario-regulated energy projects for three years, and we finally have a working model. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This may sound very technical and dry, but CCR has practical implications for us. It reduces financing risk, improves overall project bankability, and, critically, creates the conditions for earlier Indigenous equity participation at the start of energy-project construction rather than limiting participation to later, more de-risked stages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We believe this model has broader application across Ontario\u2019s energy system, particularly for large-scale generation, storage, and transmission projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once applied more widely, CCR will fundamentally expand the ability of Indigenous nations to invest meaningfully in projects from the ground up, at the very beginning, when key governance, design, and technical decisions are made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n From a cooperative perspective, this is particularly important. It creates new opportunities for inclusive capital participation, where Indigenous nations and aligned partners, including cooperative and mutual institutions, can come together to invest earlier and more meaningfully in infrastructure that serves the public good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That brings me to the opportunity in this room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Canada\u2019s cooperative, mutual, caisse<\/em>, and credit-union sector represents a significant and growing part of the economy. It is values-driven, it is relationship-based, and it is aligned in many ways with Indigenous approaches to economic development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, despite that alignment, there remains a significant gap. We have not yet fully realized the potential for collaboration between cooperative capital and Indigenous-led infrastructure development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a natural fit here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are opportunities for co-investment in energy infrastructure, financing partnerships with Indigenous investment vehicles, shared-governance approaches, and blended-capital models that reflect both financial discipline and social purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most importantly, there is an opportunity to build something together that reflects the shared values I know we can find and that we have. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, it\u2019s not just about capital. It\u2019s not just about infrastructure. It\u2019s all about relationships. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is renewed opportunity to strengthen relationships between the cooperative sector and Indigenous nations, draw upon the depth of experience that traditional Indigenous communities bring, and create economic-development pathways that are mutually beneficial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If we align cooperative capital with Indigenous-led development, and if we continue to advance policy frameworks that enable early and meaningful participation, we can fundamentally change who participates in building the next generation of energy infrastructure and who benefits from it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In doing so, we can build systems that are not only economically strong, but socially grounded, culturally respectful, and sustainable for the generations to come. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meegwetch. Thank you for listening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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