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, I will have to check in with the department that actually owns those reports. It is not ECE that owns those reports at the end of the day. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm always happy to respond to the board anytime they reach out to me. It would certainly depend on whether or not the board was welcoming of that but I will support the board any way that I can and any way that, you know, works well for us. But I certainly can't dictate to the board how they choose to do their operations. 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.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ultimately the decision of where the North Slave campus will go rests with the board of governors, so I would need to make sure that I'm getting direction from the board of governors as to whether or not they would like to hold on to that site or see that MOU go. But for right now, I don't have that information because that's not a decision that rests with the GNWT; it's a decision that ultimately rests with the board. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Member continuing to bring up the concerns of her residents around Tin Can Hill for much of the last ten months. The Tin Can Hill site was originally identified for the proposed Yellowknife North Slave Campus for Aurora College. The site is currently owned by the city of Yellowknife, so some work needed to be done to assess whether or not it was an appropriate location to consider. So prior to any potential land transfer, an environmental site assessment was required to be done. There was a phase one that was done. At the...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with all of our mining projects -- well, our diamond mining projects, we do have socio-economic agreements which in them do contain northern employment goals in them. So that is baked in to a lot of what we do in the territory. And it is always our goal to ensure that our industry in the Northwest Territories is serving and benefitting Northerners. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I feel like by the question, the Member already knows the answer. Absolutely, our education outcomes are linked to employment a hundred percent. And this is why within the Northwest Territories we're doing things like looking at the ELCC program in conjunction with the Government of Canada and making sure that our ELCC service providers have education and certification that they need in order to provide support at the zero to age 4 level. Then we're looking at our curriculum renewal. We're switching to the BC curriculum which is also going to help...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know that some form of report from the environmental site assessments will be made public, and I look forward to ensuring that I share that with the Member once it is out there.
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...
