[1] The national Community Futures Program is administered by four regional development agencies, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), Canadian Economic Development for Québec Regions (CED-Q), Western Economic Diversification Canada (WD), and the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario (FedNor) under Industry Canada (IC).
In 1983, the government created Local Employment Assistance and Development corporations in economically depressed regions across Canada.
These LEAD corporations were later rolled into the Community Futures Program, which was announced in 1986 as part of the federal government's Canadian Jobs Strategy.
The initial objective was to address areas "of chronic and acute unemployment which, given the economic development trends, gave the program a rural orientation"[2] The Community Futures program model originally consisted of two organizations, each with their own Board of Directors and a distinct mandate.
One was the Business Development Centre, which provided the business support and loan functions performed by the original LEAD corporations, the second was the Community Futures Committee which was intended to assess the community's economic potential and areas of opportunity for job creation and business development.