Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has a crossdepartmental working group because we acknowledge that the impacts of the diamond mine closure date will have an impact on multiple departments. In addition, ITI has regular meetings and meets with Diavik, as have I. I've had four meetings now with Diavik in order to discuss multiple things, closure being one of them. And in the meetings with ITI, they discuss how Diavik is supporting its workers to ensure that we have an understanding of how many people we're talking about at the end of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ECE allots funding to each education body using the school funding framework. This framework allocates funding equitably and, outside of prescribed funds, allows flexibility to accommodate local decisionmaking. I will say, Mr. Speaker, there is absolutely more and more demand for dollars within our education system and one of the tasks that's been afforded to me this term is to work on the Education Act, along with our partners, and the school funding formula will be a part of that work. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in March of 2022 I delivered a similar Member's statement on the sorry, reading being a privilege, and or sorry, not being a privilege and being a human right. Jeez, I need to focus here, sorry. And so yes, Mr. Speaker, I've considered the importance of literacy, and I share the Member's concerns.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's been routine reviews of this program over the years, and it's one that the department keeps a close eye on knowing how important it is to seniors across the territory. In addition, in the last two years there have been one time topups acknowledging the additional cost of fuel across the territory and how that has an impact to seniors. And so ECE's been able to by kind of taking dollars from other programs, put them into this program to be able to serve seniors as best as possible. That being said, Mr. Speaker, I will also continue to work to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this question because I think it's important for everybody to hear. If something goes to an MLA and comes to me and then from me, it goes to a deputy minister and down the chain and then makes its way to the school board and then to the school, I really encourage people to start by having these conversations with the school about what their child needs. If they're not getting a response from the school, all of our schools have education bodies with elected officials that are there to serve our residents as well. If an education body is...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my answers on this one might be a little bit long, but I'm going to try and keep them short.

So there was a review done, and it was found that not all schools have the same amount of access. Because it was really hard to fill these positions across the territory. It was also found that some community schools were looking for something different than a clinician, a clinically trained master’s degree counsellor. Some communities wanted to have Indigenous counsellors in their school. So a program was devised that allowed people to have a lot more...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the question. We definitely see the importance of having places for Northerners to go and recreate and the direct linkages of that to mental health and being out on the land.

Yellowknife has access to Fred Henne Park. That is maintained by ITI. There's also a host of parks and wayside parks, campgrounds, along the Ingraham Trail that all Northerners also have access to. I think it's important that, you know, ITI or to state sorry, that ITI provides funding programs for the City of Yellowknife to expand its current visitor services that are described...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know the House doesn't want me to speak forever so I'm going to keep this short. So how are we supporting mines? We are maintaining relationships with them. We have Pathfinders who support them in order to form relationships and understand our operating system. I have the opportunity to sit down with any industry partner that comes to the territory. I also report on those on our website that hosts all of our meetings so that we are transparent in those. I am from those conferences, sorry, I am meeting with mining companies, I am meeting with industry...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Not everybody living with a disability in the territory would need income support. But those who apply and those who meet the criteria, absolutely would receive income support. And so I encourage anybody who is in a situation where they need some additional supports, to contact their client navigator or work with their MLA as well in order to receive that contact information. Because, absolutely, we want to make sure that we're supporting residents to the best of our ability. Thank you.

Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely, the client navigators will work in order to access that information through the CRA. Unfortunately, that information's not available until after June in that existing year and so there might be some information that the client navigators want to source for the existing month that they're in, so they might need to work with the resident in order to get that existing information. But absolutely, they can work with the resident in order to access that information through Canada Revenue Agency as well. Thank you.