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, absolutely, there -- the way that we shifted the criteria, based on our reduction in allotments this year, was to really focus on those individuals who had expiring work permits in 2025. And I appreciate the Member bringing forward the concern around people who have work permits expiring at the beginning of 2026, especially given that it was February before we launched this program.
What we're doing with our stakeholder partners is spending time this year and really focusing on if we do have consolidated numbers going forward in 2026 -- we don...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day here, we're talking about people, and this is a very, very emotional subject for people who live in the territory. 99 percent of the people who are part of our nominee program are people who are already living in the Northwest Territories, and people who do apply to the nominee program as -- for those potential spots have to have worked in the territory with an employer already. So those are people that are already living in the NWT, they're contributing to our communities, they are friends, they are neighbours, they are...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, right now we're working with education bodies to completely understand, you know, exactly what this entails. So as the Member alluded to in their statement, classroom assistants are a huge component of this but there are other elements that education bodies are having funded through Jordan's Principle, and we don't vet these applications, we don't see them. Applications go from education bodies straight to the federal government.
The other crucial piece around this is the federal government does have guardrails within their policy. Their...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I share the Member's huge concerns on this. We ourselves put about $165 million from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment straight into education bodies. And over the course of the time that Jordan's Principle has been available, schools have been able to put in their own applications looking for support for other areas and have attracted a further $60 million into our education system, and so we heavily rely on Jordan's Principle within the territory. This week I do have meetings with our education Ministers from our sister...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So I have asked for those further clarifying details from the federal government myself and then have also had a sit-down meeting with MP McLeod to also indicate the additional information that I'm looking for, and he agreed to take that back to his -- to the federal Minister as well. So we're both working together to try and flesh out this information. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through my conversations with the federal government, the federal minister did offer to the Northwest Territories an opportunity to potentially increase our allotment for the Northwest Territories nominee program, and the conversation there revolves around the Northwest Territories welcoming asylum seekers to the territory. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is absolutely right. These are still assets of the GNWT, the ones that are owned by the GNWT. The Department of Infrastructure does have asset policies so that if there is a need to pass the facilities on to another owner, there is a policy for that. And infrastructure and ECE will be working together on this work, and we have had some phone calls already from Indigenous governments or NGOs that are wanting to have a role to play in the future of the CLCs and have identified that. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, so while we came together at the table in order to discuss the barriers of mutual concern across the country, certainly what exceptions each jurisdiction chooses to remove and how they choose to tackle those are going to be unique by each jurisdiction. There's been jurisdictions who have done reciprocal agreements, jurisdictions who have done, you know, a lot of work on their exceptions, and there was some who have even done a lot of work previous to this. So as it sits, Manitoba only has eight exceptions right now, and other jurisdictions are...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a collaborative table with all jurisdictions across Canada, and it's a collaborative table that I am very proud to be part of. As a group, the committee on internal trade has set four key recommendations across the country, and they include enhancing commitments under the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, and that includes conducting a rapid review of all party's specific exceptions, prioritizing mutual recognition on priority goods and sectors to reduce regulatory and administrative burdens, Mr. Speaker. It includes facilitating...
