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. Mr. Speaker, the college identified a total of $8.29 million that they would, first of all, have for their staff retention policy; second, the delivery of their online programming; and then third, further work to be done on reinstating their bachelor of education and social work programming that we've heard a lot about in this House as well. And so I would have to assume that maintaining the CLCs would continue to cost upwards of the $7 million figure. Thank you.
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. 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's absolutely right. There's great things happening in this territory right now, and the more that we can talk about them the more and more people will know about them and can take advantage of them.
One of the other things that's also occurring at the same time is some of our development corporations for Indigenous governments are taking on some fairly robust workforce development plans and executing them through on-the-job training and by pairing their goals with programs that are offered through education, culture and employment. For...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, we have the vendor performance policy that was implemented. This is the first step through what the Member is referring to and having some teeth in that. That policy is held over in the Department of Finance, and we have been co-hosting online training sessions with staff to ensure that they understand it as well. And those training sessions, I should say, are both internal and external so it's not solely just for staff. It's also for business entities in the Northwest Territories. And this is a policy that we continue to implement in order to...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. To my left, I have assistant deputy minister Melissa Cyr. And to my right, I have director of corporate services Nina Salvador.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would love to pass to assistant deputy minister Cyr.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, in December I was presented by the president and the chairperson with an options paper so that I would know what they were looking at. That options paper had multiple different directions that the board might choose to go on it. Following that meeting, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment sat down with the board to let them know what each of the different options would mean as far as potential costs that would arise or how that would come out of their MOU so that they completely understood that it wasn't, you know, just a one...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And I love this question because I love the opportunity to talk about the fact that we have a diverse economy in the Northwest Territories and really what we're doing at this point is ensuring that we're supporting the diversity of our economy. And so we have programs that support agriculture, tourism. We have, you know, the -- sorry, the Member mentioned film. We have a film program that continues to grow because the multipliers for our film projects in the territory are incredible. It's got almost a 9 to 1 multiplier. And so investing there really is investing...