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. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't have the historical information on that project, but I'd be very happy to get that for the Member and bring it back.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is certainly a cornerstone of the new federal agreement that is really focusing on ensuring that we're offering, in the Northwest Territories, quality child care that involves best practices and also includes professional development for the people providing those programs so that they have that toolbox behind them. So right now, ECE has developed the fundamentals of early learning and child care workshops. These will be available online starting in 2025, and they include early brain development and language learning as well as the best practices for...
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So the estimated completion is for that portion that has been funded which is the planning -- the preliminary planning portion and so not the entire school build. So I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page there.
So when we recently went to Ottawa, I had the opportunity to join the Tlicho government with meeting with federal representatives and federal minister in order to sit down and discuss what it is that the Tlicho government are asking for. As the GNWT, we are certainly in support of the efforts of the Tlicho government to relocate Chief...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for their statement on the good work of the NWT Literacy Council.
The Department of Education, Culture and Employment really works closely and relies on the good work of NGOs and community organizations to do a lot of this work. And so approximately $900,000 in funding is provided to the NWT Literacy Council to support adult, youth, and family literacy initiatives, and a lot of these programs include capacity building and developing family centered community-based programs. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, there's also the Community...
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there is a -- so this bleeds into Infrastructure as well. So the assets are actually owned and maintained by the Department of Infrastructure and then we work together on ensuring that they are cared for and the communication between education bodies and infrastructure and ECE is all a bit of a team approach to it. So we do have a list of schools across the territory and we do have -- and I know -- what does FCI stand for, sorry? Thank you. Facility condition index. This is the problem when you speak in acronyms all the time. Sometimes you forget what...
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Chair, I've had the opportunity to go back and forth with the parent advisory committee on this one, and we did advise that we have located a couple of pots within the federal government that we're currently trying to follow up on to see if they're ones that we can tap into outside of this traditional capital funding process, to see if we can push this project along. And we'll be sure to continue to see what we can find and report back to the parent advisory committee. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, items within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment for the education stream are certainly prioritized based on safety and accessibility. And when we live in a place with typically quite harsh winters, heat is of the essence and doesn't only keep the school warm and kids able to sit and learn, it also keeps water flowing. So definitely is an important one. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'm very thankful for this question. I had the opportunity in June to travel with a number of deputy ministers down to the Pine Point mine site where we had an incredible tour of what was there before, what they envision being there tomorrow and years down the road. The good news here is that we've got a few years to put together the trades people that they need. One of the things that I asked them for on that tour was their workforce planning document of exactly what trades people that they will need so that we can make sure that we're supporting that in the...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd say one of the strongest workforce planning documents and tools that we use within the Government of the Northwest Territories is our Skills 4 Success document. And that document has a -- it acts as kind of a Bible, if you will, of what jobs are and will be in demand over the course of the next 20 years in the Northwest Territories. So that document works by looking at, you know, what are the expected capital infrastructure happenings in the Northwest Territories and what skill sets are we going to need. So that talks about positions of...
