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.
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment Minister of Industry, Tourism, and Investment
Statements in Debates
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 65)
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am here to present Bill 28, An Act to Amend the Student Financial Assistance Act, No. 2. This bill seeks to amend the Student Financial Assistance Act to increase the student loan fund, also called the revolving loan limit in the schedule of the Act from $45 million to $55 million.
Enhancements to the student financial assistance program made in 2023-2024, along with more recent changes made to the act by Bill 8, increase the maximum amount that may be loaned to an individual student. Bill 28 will increase the student loan fund by $10 million to ensure students who are...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I heard the Member's comment in his Member's statement. And currently, there is no intent to update the literacy strategy in the Northwest Territories that expired in 2018. We do have, however, have our 2030 early learning and childcare strategy as well as our early learning framework which emphasizes literacy within both of those documents. Thank you.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 65)
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just had a meeting with a very passionate 10-year-old student advocate, Ms. Sadie Begg, who is in the gallery today, from Ecole St. Joseph School. I just wanted to thank her for her time and her passion.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, within our shift to an NWT-adapted BC curriculum, the broader curriculum does have an assessment framework, an early literacy assessment tool, that teachers can use that's built into it. So assessments will be happening and will be -- the tools will be afforded to teachers to do some of those assessments in classrooms to be able to catch some of these challenges and concerns earlier on. It's important to note this is not a diagnostic assessment, and it's also important to note that there are the well child clinics that parents do have...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The quick answer is yes. And the added information to that is that we have until the end of the year to use those spaces, and so this is something that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is going to have to work on in very short order.
I'd also just like to reflect on the work that staff have done in order to support this program for the year. They've been working, you know, on their heels all year and being very responsive and as responsive as possible with the amount of requests that have come in. So I just want to thank them for their incredible work...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if a person is doing a training program that is less than 12 continuous weeks or is kind of more in tune with workforce development training, there are programs that are available through the labour side through workforce development. And so depending on what the program might be, there is that side of things. And there also is the student financial assistance that's really focused on certificates, diplomas, and the degree funding area. So we do have a whole breadth of programs that students can access. But the really key part about this is we...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Education, culture and employment's currently working on the What We Heard report in order to gather all that information and be able to publish it for everybody to be able to see what feedback we were receiving. I can say or share with the Member that just in emails that I've received from people across the territory who are living here and wanting to participate in the nominee program that responses really vary. People's circumstances are so unique, and, really, people are looking for that certainty and they want to call the North home. And so I expect that...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day the transformation really is about offering programs that Northerners want to see and that we as a territory need for people to have access to. So those are things like continuing with nursing, reinstating the education program, and beyond that especially within the trades. And so absolutely we're committed to the education of northern students. Thank you.
