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, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, absolutely. So, first of all, I think this is a good place to remind the House that the bulk of the dollars received from the federal government for Indigenous languages flow through the Department of Education, Culture and Employment right to Indigenous governments for language programming. ECE is also actively partnering with four education bodies across the territory to pilot the Indigenous languages instructor employment program. And the aim of this program is to recruit and develop Indigenous language instructors for the JK to 12 age group, and this is...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's the programs that I've mentioned that are funded through the literacy council. There's also work that's done through Aurora College on the adult literacy and basic education skills program, and ECE also funds the college to make sure that they're maintaining that curriculum. There's also indirect funding through other departments. For example, health has funded family cooking activities and such, and those have an indirect literacy involvement as well. People are coming together, they're reading recipes together. And so there are also...
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So our capital standards were updated in 2020. A lot of our school buildings predate 2020. And our capital standards apply to new builds in the territory that will follow that standard but it doesn't mean that all of a sudden we -- we would never be able to, for example, tear down every school in the territory and start over. So we have to start from somewhere. So the schools that have been built post 2020 would follow those capital standards. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, for the operational details of how we collect information from education bodies and Aurora College and etcetera, I would like the opportunity to pass to the assistant deputy minister, please.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we have -- I don't think it's a secret to anybody in this room that we have quite a huge need when it comes to infrastructure across the Northwest Territories and across every single department. A lot of our infrastructure in the territory was built around the same timeframe, and so a lot of it ends up coming due around the same timeframe. And so the demands on our dollars for infrastructure are quite large and traditionally education facilities, be it our JK to 12 education facilities, are the responsibility of the provincial or territorial...
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I certainly do -- or am in support of this request and is one that I think is important. For this current year, our -- sorry, our capital projects had already been brought forward for this capital planning process and so we have earmarked this project for further years' consideration. And as people will note, for the projects we have brought forward within our small capital projects, they are largely based on safety and on accessibility across the board. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this project within Sir John Franklin High School is a boiler replacement. The current system within Sir John Franklin is a hybrid system that has both a biomass boiler and a conventional boiler, and this specific project replaces the conventional boiler. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess there's a couple different ways that I can answer this question. And I'm not trying to be evasive of the Member at all. I think there's a few different ways that we can kind of interpret these questions. But for within the example say of diamond mine, fly-in/fly-out work is not for everyone. I know over the course of the last two decades, a lot of people who started working in diamond mining aren't necessarily there. Some have chosen to return to employment in their communities or return to life at home. But certainly a fly-in/fly-out isn...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Finance has a number of procurement practices, and the strongest one being the Business Incentive Policy that is used for procurement practices with all GNWT procurement. Thank you.
