Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, some of the changes that were made in the last term, one of them was the removal of productive choices because it was found that people were often doing the same type of productive choice over and over again and wasn't necessarily leading to something that was helping people at the end of the day achieve their employment or education goals.

One of the changes, however, that was made was the ability of people to keep more earned income, encouraging people to go and pursue additional opportunities, but certainly prepared to have more conversations...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is a great question from the Member, and I want to warn you that the answer is not very straightforward. So I'm going to start there, sorry.

Mr. Speaker, Education, Culture and Employment, through income assistance, does have client navigators. Those client navigators hold the role not only of assessing the basic needs of a client, as the Member said, of a resident, but they also can refer people to things like income assistance, career development officers, business development officers, etcetera. And some of the programs that the career...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I see what's happening in the Yukon and Nunavut as a positive for us because it means that there is heightened awareness and increase looking at education in the Arctic and education in the North and, specifically, in the territories. I see this as plowing the way for us and see this as being a great opportunity for us to continue down the path that we are on and eventually get to that point. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely to the Member's question, the answer is yes. I also have to say I've been really excited about some of the creative solutions that people are coming forward with for community learning centres. And I think that's part of our success story here, at the end of the day, is really looking creatively and at communities independently because everybody's needs are going to be different at the end of the day here. I also want to reflect, Mr. Speaker, on what the Member said as far as education being a lifelong journey, and I -- I'm certainly committed to...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by recognizing that there is absolutely an impact to communities across the Northwest Territories and specifically the staff of the community learning centres across the Northwest Territories. However, under the Aurora College Act, Mr. Speaker, the board of governors is responsible for operations decisions of the college. I know that Aurora College is working closely with Department of Finance to support staff through the process and that elements of the staff retention process and policy have been communicated to potentially...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess there's two things at play here. The first is that Aurora College will have a responsibility for communicating their plan, but ultimately as Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, I think there is a responsibility to ensure that all residents of the Northwest Territories understand what the go-forward plan is and what parts of that plan will be administered by Aurora College and what parts might fall to either Education, Culture and Employment or another entity within the Northwest Territories. And so I think there is a...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. So in regards to the community learning centres, where we're at right now is working with Aurora College to gain clarity on what part of that space they continue to filling within communities and which part of that space they intend to pull back from so that we know as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment where we need to kind of react and be able to work with communities on ensuring access to adult education in small communities across the territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member. And I think it's fair to recognize that there have certainly -- I don't think it's a secret to anybody in this room, there's certainly been some growing pains as far as implementing our $10 dollar a day average childcare across the territory.

Our existing wage grid regulations have not fully come into force. So right now, ECE is working with operators to determine what that looks like, so with our centre-based operators. And that also means that not everyone has gone through the process of doing their certification and so not...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that we have a real focus from this Assembly on supporting healthy families, and I think that literacy is a huge component of family units and family structures. And so what I would say to that is that has everything to do with, you know, how we are growing babies on the inside and continuing to support children once they're on the outside and how we're supporting teens and adults and communities. I think literacy and the health of our family units and the health of our communities absolutely relates to literacy. And so I think that has to...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for coming back to this question.

Mr. Speaker, it certainly has not fallen off the table, and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment does afford some funding for family literacy and then also does afford funding, like, directly to communities, directly to NGOs, and then also enlists the NWT Literacy Council to afford some of that. So in 2024-2025, ECE provided the NWT Literacy Council with $420,000 in funding. And this funding is used to train, mentor, and support community members to design, develop, and deliver...