Caitlin Cleveland

Mr. Speaker, our children have such a small amount of time to be children. As a parent, politician, and community member, I have found it difficult at times to balance childhood and public health measures, especially with teenagers.

Worldwide, more than 1.6 billion students missed school during lockdowns. Some countries have found that over 70 percent of 10yearolds are unable to read or understand simple text. Education is a worldwide concern in Yellowknife and Yellowknife school representatives share concerns about the impact of COVID19 on the social and educational developments of our...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I'm going to have to have a conversation, I guess, with the Minister offline to compare information from school boards to ECE as well just to make sure that schools are supported.

I'm wondering if so teachers have long indicated that students to teacher ratio includes teachers who are also not present in the classrooms and therefore it does not allow for the number of teachers needed to meet the students where they are at. Students have a lot greater needs in the territory and around the world with COVID. Students are at much different places from missing...

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. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a few more questions of the Minister of Health and Social Services, please.

In my Member's statement today, I did speak about the burnout and the exodus of healthcare workers. And we're not only seeing that in the territory, but you're seeing it nationwide and you're seeing it globally as well. People are tired. And I think people's expectations are also changing as well for what they want out of life. The good news is that the Northwest Territories has great things to offer, including some good work life balance and some great...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. One question that has come up quite a bit actually as MLA for Kam Lake are questions regarding the backlog of surgeries, specifically elective surgeries that aren't considered urgent but do add to the quality of life and the ability of different residents to be able to go grocery shopping, leave their homes, return to work. And so I'm wondering how Health and Social Services intends to address the backlog of elective surgeries in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I'm wondering if the Minister can speak to what work is being done to evaluate the demands on the NWT healthcare system to manage healthcare expectation and catch up required due to COVID19. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Another thing that the Minister alluded to were funds for education. And one of the things that I'm finding with different constituents that I serve is that funds for education aren't clearly accessible depending on what department that you work in. Some people work in departments where it is part of their mandate to provide that training because it helps with the job that they're currently in, whereas other GNWT employees may have found themselves in a position where they want to go into nursing; they want to be part of the solution and they want to serve the...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate that, and I look forward to seeing that plan when it's shared with Regular Members. I think it's one that not only Members but a lot of people from one end of the territory to the other are looking forward to seeing.

Currently, Stanton is very reliant on agency nurses, and I know that this is common right across Canada, and I'm wondering if the Minister can speak to whether or not this plan incorporates agency nurses as a key component and longterm plan for continuing to maintaining staffing levels at Stanton or what the future of agency...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for that. I think that there are residents who will be very happy to hear that.

My last question for the Minister is in regards to cost. Cost of COVID has been quite extreme everywhere, not just in the Northwest Territories. And I think when we first began this, we were counting down the days until we could wipe COVID costs clear off the books, but the reality of it is that there still will be a cost to managing and dealing with COVID because people are still expected to do the work that goes with that. And so I'm wondering if the...