Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, we have funding of roughly $30,000 annually that is dedicated to young professionals that are interested in becoming business owners or further developing their business within the tourism industry. So it pairs, you know, fresh or new entrants to the tourism industry with more experienced professionals who act as the mentor. And these are people who are willing to share their years of expertise and knowledge as well as their business acumen. So, so to speak, getting to be paired up with people who, you know, have tried it the hard way or tried it...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So some of these things would be, for example, predictable office days. So thank you to the Member for raising that in her statement. Also doing things like hosting mentorship and training opportunities directly within the community. And then continuing to support local business, because we know that when one business receives support and talks about it to their neighbours that that drives momentum and also drives buzz about starting business and kind of creating that snowball effect of driving new opportunities within the region. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, that will be available mid-summer. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, our economic vision at this point is in draft form. We are currently putting dedicated resources to helping us finalize this work in short order. And the draft that we do have is an overarching GNWT 50-year vision. It aligns with our governance vision of the NWT -- or the GNWT, which also aligns with our 20th Legislative Assembly mandate, so making sure at the end of the day that we're tying all these pieces together. And from there, we really need to make sure that -- you know, to the previous conversation I was having with the Member from Frame...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker -- or sorry. I keep doing that today. Mr. Chair. So ITI funds Tlicho government, for example, and other governments across the territory for -- through the community transfer initiatives, and that way Indigenous governments can hire their own economic development officers. In addition to that, there's also regional superintendents and economic development officers that work for ITI as well. And in addition to that, Mr. Chair, one of the policies that ITI uses and has even used for interns is the remote work policy. So there have been people who have applied on...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it is because a lot of that work happens over in ECE. So same Minister, different hat. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I just promised my colleagues I would be far more brief.

Mr. Chair, we are doing reviews. These are the hard questions we ultimately need to ask. You know, there's a lot of people across the territory who apply on these programs more than once. Sometimes it reflects kind of the economic landscape and goals of the territory. Sometimes it doesn't. And so, essentially, where we're at right now is at a point where we have to ask ourselves the hard questions of, are these programs designed to ensure that everybody gets a small piece of the pie, or do we want programs...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there's a slight delay on getting this work back. We had a couple of amendments that we wanted the evaluator to make in terms of essentially the fullness of the review that we wanted. So we've gone back to the reviewer and asked them to make some amendments, and then once we get that back, we'd be happy to share the findings with committee. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, so our economic diversification and business support branch of ITI, it works very closely together and are always looking for ways to kind of cross-pollinate. We see this even with both kind of the mineral side and the art side. And so, for example, when we travel to our mining shows, we're constantly making sure that we are also including our artists in those opportunities as well. We also have a new tiered funding model that enables more data-driven decision-making through a centralized intake within ITI, and there are performance measures that are...

Thank you very much Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I want to thank the Member for his comments and questions in there, and the Member is always a huge proponent for economic development across the territory and and also for the strategic infrastructure.

Mr. Chair, when we are talking to industry and their desire to really invest and to build capital for the projects that they're working to develop in the territory, they talk a lot about, you know, the need for energy and the need for roads. And I know that the Member is a huge for -- a huge supporter of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, and it's projects...