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. So, Mr. Speaker, even though the NWT has the privilege of sitting as the chair, I have to say that Ministers from all jurisdictions showed up to the table in Toronto ready to do good work on behalf of Canadians, on behalf of the residents that we individually and then collectively serve. And so there wasn't a need to encourage one another to go farther. It was a very exciting table where people were literally stepping out of the meeting room in order to call their Premiers and get expansions to their negotiating mandates, and there were commitments made on the...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Certainly as previously committed to in this House, that is an aspect of the agreement that I'm currently looking into with the department. Thank you.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So that is certainly my hope for every single one of the subsidiaries, that they are supported to develop business plans and business practices that make them wholly independent from Prosper NWT. I have asked the Prosper NWT, along with their board, and their board has made the same request to Prosper, to look at plans to move out of having to support these subsidiaries. So there's just under nine full-time staff that work at them across the -- well, in the communities where they are present, and the cost to Prosper is over a $1 million. And so ensuring that...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, certainly we are working on everything to do with critical minerals on basically a daily basis within the department, especially this time of year. I've just come off of a bit of a whirlwind of critical mineral events, both in Vancouver and Toronto. We continue to advance critical mineral work on all fronts, including in our geoscience database building, in our investment attraction, in making sure that we're informing the world about all the projects that are on the go here in the Northwest Territories. And we also have our Northwest Territories...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So what was done was we worked with communities to hire security for the parks in order to further support park users that were there because of the evacuation. So we will continue working with MACA and with Indigenous governments should the need arise. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're certainly at an interesting juncture in the life-span and chapters of Aurora College. So Aurora College has a mandated responsibility for accessing -- or for community members to be able to access educational opportunities. So that still exists within their mandate agreement which is why they continue to find different ways to deliver that programming but because they have autonomy over operations and how they choose to deliver that, that is entirely up to them as a decision. And because of the noninterference clause, I don't have the...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the programs and services afforded by Prosper NWT are everything from debt financing, which is primarily in the form of loans, venture investments, digital support programs, and also business services. So for example in the form of accounting or human resources support as well. Thank you.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're working through MACA. Thank you.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So that's the -- that we call -- so the SCAP funding is agriculture funding. It was afforded to ITI by the federal government, and that funding is for different agriculture projects across the territory on an application base. It is very well tapped into. I believe by October, it was already 75, 76 percent allocated for the year, so it is a very popular program in the territory. And some people end up using it for equipment. Some people, I believe, use it for mentorship opportunity -- or training, rather. And so it has a fairly diverse range of what people can...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what I do support here is the college looking at different ways to access our learners across the territory in a more efficient way. What they've identified is that -- concerns over access to the programming that students want. With those additional positions that the Member referenced, there's also six adult learners that will also support that program in addition to tech support and online mentorship and wraparound services. These are the types of services that they could not afford to -- students across the territory before looking at a shift...
