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. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ECE has approximately three staff members who deal with immigration for the Northwest Territories Nominee Program. They do their best to work with employers in order to let them know what the process looks like but it is very much and largely a process that is directed by the federal government under IRCC. And so here in the territory, we definitely do our best and it's a program that I would like to see grow here in the territory so that we can continue as a government to support labour development and workforce development and especially...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 5)
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to acknowledge and welcome and thank for his very hard work this week, page Maddox Hutchinson who's joined us here for the week and helped us pass notes and fill our water. It's very much appreciated. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can answer that by saying absolutely yes, because the funding didn't exist before for schools to be able to hire the personal support workers unless they were getting funding through Jordan's Principle. And so just that alone means that schools who are having those recruitment and retention issues for our clinical counsellors can now turn around and go get personal support workers, wellness counsellors and Indigenous counsellors that are more responsive to the cultural needs of the school as well. Some schools have even been able to hire elders...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a review of this program was launched in the last Assembly, and this review was jumpstarted based on feedback that was received by education bodies along with the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association. And what it was responding to ultimately was the need for the unique instances in each of our communities to be acknowledged and, really, for us to be able to acknowledge, along with education bodies, that the needs of our communities are different from Yellowknife to regional centres to small communities and the ability of education bodies to...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I listened to the Member's statement today, and I absolutely agree with the Member that all of our residents have great potential and that it is our job as their family, friends, and neighbours to ensure that they have the support to reach that potential if they want it and if they need it. Within the department of education, there are career counsellors, there are employability assessments and resume and cover letter development help if people want it. There's interview skill development, career action planning. There's job search help as...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can say that the previous Minister of Education, Culture and Employment was very open to looking at new ways to see this project go forward and really wanted to work with the community to see it to its fruition. The community initially presented several alternative options for this project, including a public/private partnership, build/lease, third party funding contributions, and also potentially negotiated contracts. At the time, the department indicated that they needed more information in order to consider moving away from kind of the...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in terms of the progress of this project, so education, culture and employment has a contribution agreement with the Behdzi Ahda' First Nation, and this contribution agreement agreed to fund the completion and submission of a schematic design and a class C construction estimate for the new school. And this also includes a geotechnical investigation of the proposed site for the project. The First Nation contracted an engineering and architectural consultant directly themselves to complete the work. And unfortunately, while the contribution...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, certainly, as Members of the Legislative Assembly, we spend a tremendous amount of time supporting residents learn about different programs across the GNWT, and I know that this is work that is also part of the homelessness strategy that lives right now within EIA with the Premier's office. And I absolutely can commit to providing information and also seeing what I can do from my part to make sure that information is accessible. For sure, I'm absolutely open to working with Members and welcome any ideas they have any time to make sure that people...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And my colleague to the right just reminded me to slow down as well, so thank you for that. I am always happy to speak with social development. Social development will always have a warm place in my heart, and I'm always happy to be invited. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Member for bringing that up. Those sticky dollars are so important to the Northwest Territories and to our economy. And that is exactly the purpose of conversations like we had at Roundup, to be able to find out from industry that is the up and coming mines, the mines that are about to open, the mines that are in the process of opening, what they need from us, how we can connect them with Indigenous governments to ensure that right from the getgo they're doing their projects properly and they're having the right conversations. So ITI is absolutely...