Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment Minister of Education, Culture and Employment
The Honourable Caitlin Cleveland was first elected in the 19th Assembly as the MLA for Kam Lake in 2019, and has served as the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment since 2023 after being acclaimed to the 20th Assembly.
In addition to owning and operating a northern business for over 20 years, Minister Cleveland worked in a variety of communications and policy roles in both the public and private sectors before entering politics.
Between 2019 to 2023, she chaired the Standing Committee on Social Development, fulfilling a goal to be a part of the discussions and decisions affecting social programs in the Northwest Territories. Her noteworthy work on the Committee included guiding the considerable review and input into recommendations on housing in the NWT, suicide prevention, and improvements to caring for children in care and building supported families.
Within the scope of her portfolios, Minister Cleveland is focused on helping children grow into successful NWT residents that recognize opportunities and develop successful careers that contribute to a growing economy. She advocates for new approaches to sector diversification and innovation, and ensures the North is welcoming both skilled foreign workers and investment in the critical mineral resources across the territory. She persistently explores solutions for efficient and equitable access to programs and services, upholding a shared vision of an NWT where people are supported in the ways they wish to live, work, and grow.
Minister Cleveland is a lifelong resident of Yellowknife where she lives with her husband and their three children.
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...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 83)
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.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 83)
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...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 83)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, we certainly provide supports through the purchase of supporting the purchase of equipment, through training for people who are interested in becoming involved in commercial fishing. In the past, we've also done support for wages as well. And then we have our commercial fish program and also the northern food program that people can access for different buckets of funding depending on what type of infrastructure, whether that's hard infrastructure or soft infrastructure that they're looking to fill. And so the budget for that is roughly, I believe...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 83)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I would say that's not a new risk for the NWT at all. It's definitely a risk that this government and this territory has been addressing since -- you can go back and find documents from 2003 that say, hey, our entire GDP is now coming from pretty much diamond mines, and we need to plan for the next piece so we don't end up in a constant boom and bust cycle, which is what we went from gold. We had a massive bust, and then we went to diamonds, and we have still not diversified our GDP. So this is absolutely a risk that continues within the Northwest...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 83)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, absolutely have a meeting set up with the chair of the IRC and this is definitely, I can assure the Member, on our agenda for conversations. And then in addition to that, Mr. Chair, at the end of March, we also have the Arctic Energy Resource Symposium that we participate in as well, and at that meeting we are also meeting with interested people who want to talk about our energy opportunities in the Northwest Territories.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 83)
Yes, please.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 83)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I will start and then I'd like to turn over to the deputy minister as well. So in short, the answer is yes, there's more drilling happening in the Northwest Territories right now than there has been in the last 10 years. So right now, there are -- and multiple projects are in Tlicho region as well, and this is in addition to the work that Tlicho government is doing with Fortescue.
So right now, there are multiple gold projects that have drills turning in and around the Slave Geological Province area and including in Tlicho area. So in Tlicho area...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 83)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, the cost of doing business in the Northwest Territories certainly can be quite high, depending on what business somebody is starting up or opening. The cost of securing goods, we, you know, certainly are working on certain projects. For example, the Mackenzie Valley Highway in the Northwest Territories, acknowledging that air travel or traveling, you know, down through BC, up through the Yukon and up the Dempster to get back into the Northwest Territories, it certainly adds to the cost of doing business and the cost of living in the Northwest...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 83)
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is other exploration happening in the territory. There's other drill projects happening in the territory, other advanced projects happening in the NWT as well, but the only mines who report to us for these types of statistics at this point, because they have their IBAs, are the diamond mines.
And as far as the Member's first question, in regards to providing information on procurement, I'd be happy to provide the Member with the information that we do receive from the diamond mines and definitely happy to share that. Thank you.
