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, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, two years ago when I first asked about longterm lease agreements and the policies that went with them, I also asked about policies that lead the way for partnership agreements between the NWT Housing Corporation and Indigenous governments and NGOs. There's a lot of different ways that this can happen. It doesn't have to simply be between lease agreements. It can be where Indigenous governments or NGOs actually are able to easier get the government or sorry, money through the federal government, build a building, and then the NWT Housing...
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Yesterday as my child got dressed for hockey, children in the Ukraine braced for war. As Russia makes the worst kind of history, we must grapple with the best way to be activists for humanity. Again, we face the interconnectedness of the world.
Two years ago, I stood in this House and spoke about the rising cost of construction and healthcare and the vulnerability of the North to surprise events ranging from faulty sterilization machines at the new hospital to climate change, the global pandemic, and now a war that will continue to escalate costs and uncertainty...
Yes, thank you very much, Madam Speaker. And no, I thank the Minister for the willingness to have the offline conversation. And I think it'll be interesting as well to see that in the year or, the fiscal year we're going into now, now that public servants are back to their workplaces and we're coming to the potential end of the public health emergency, it'll be interesting to see how that has an impact on sick days going forward, and really if people being able to have the opportunity to work remotely has an impact on sick days that are being logged.
Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Finance. I think it's important that we use the data that we have and that we understand the data we have and that we can use it to make change.
My questions for the Minister of Finance today are in regards to how the COVID19 is impacting public servants in the territory. Does the Minister know what percentage of GNWT employees are currently on stress leave? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. That kind of changes, I guess, some of my questions. And I understand that this is a privacy concern between employees and supervisors. But is there a mechanism for, then, the Department of Finance to be able to blindly sort that information from NWT service providers or through, because I'm assuming that this is getting logged under shortterm disability instead or longterm disability, is there a mechanism from either insurance providers or healthcare providers where this can be blindly provided to the GNWT? Thank you.
Madam Speaker, mental health has become a buzz word during the pandemic but it isn't all for naught. Talking about mental health is half the battle. The other half is finding the right support. Since March 2020, more than a third of young adult Canadians accessed mental health supports, and half of Canadians indicated their mental health declined compared to before the pandemic. Of Canadians 15 or older who reported having a mental health care need in the last year, one third state their needs were simply just not met.
But I question if our system is set up to figure out what these needs are...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my second set of questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Mr. Speaker, schools have struggled with staggered and delayed enrolment for the 2020 and 2021 school year as well as the 2021 and 2022 school years. A lot of parents didn't send their kids back to school right away. They held the kids at home if they were able to, just to see what the pandemic was going to do and to reevaluate how families wanted to reintegrate their kids back to school. Schools, unfortunately, have a cutoff for funding enrolment for September...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my first set of questions, if I can get in a second set, is for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I'd like to start off by thanking the Minister, staff, Stanton, and especially OBS staff for working hard to get labour and delivery open and running again at full service. So thank you for that.
My first question, though, is some people are already in Edmonton waiting to deliver, and they'd like the opportunity to come home and deliver in their home territory of the Northwest Territories. So how can people, or can they come home from...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister's comments, and I think it's important that on this side of the House, we continue to talk about the things we would like to see more money go into because those are the things that are important to the people we serve.
That being said, I know that education is top of mind for many Northerners, if not most Northerners. And I'm wondering if the Minister would be willing to revisit the education funding formula in advance of the modernization of the Education Act in order to address things like inflation and increased needs for...
