Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So we are up to a total of 1400 businesses in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, I absolutely want the voices of committee to be involved in this work. And so between the months of April and July, there will be an engagement period that will include Indigenous governments, the public, stakeholders, and certainly committee and MLAs as well. There will be a draft discussion paper that will be produced from there and engagement -- sorry, engagement results collated and organized and then also facilitated visioning sessions that will be done through ITI themselves and then in the fall, so in November roughly, release of an NWT...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, we're working closely with Diavik. Diavik has their My Path program where they identify, you know, who the worker is, what their skill set is, and what their intentions post closure are. So some people intend to retire. Some people intend to start their own business. I had the opportunity to sit with a Member from the South Slave -- sorry, with a resident from the South Slave who currently works at Diavik and is in the process of putting their ducks in a row to get their own business started. And some of them intend to stay with Rio Tinto proper...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regards to any proposals, if that is referring to future reviews, if there are some kind of scheduled right now, there aren't right now. What we're doing is we're looking at how the program is being implemented throughout the Northwest Territories, the new income assistance programming, and we're very much monitoring how that is flowing out the door given that it is a new program and want to ensure that we're well informed and up to date with how it's working for Northerners. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, yes, it has come into force but it's being implemented in a phased approach. So for contracts over $250,000, it has been implemented and enforced. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, the economic vision exercise that's being done is being worked on with multiple stakeholders across the territory. We have presented to Council of Leaders, and Council of Leaders has formed a working group with officials that Indigenous governments have selected. Following that, this year we will also be working with additional stakeholders across the territory outside of government so that we are creating an economic vision which is largely a statement with principles and values associated with it, and our goal is for every Northerner to be able...

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, certainly last year we had some unexpected things happen. First of all, we had an evacuation at the end of the summer where 70 percent of the territory was evacuated and right around Great Slave Lake. The other part of that is we had significantly low water and so the fishers had a really hard time getting their boats into the water and waited them out for a bit and then ended up actually bringing their boats, some of them, over to Yellowknife to get them into the water or to other launch points because Hay River was just too low for them to get...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely want to acknowledge that ultimately the Department of Education, Culture and Employment has a responsibility to ensure that accessible education is being afforded to communities. Currently, now following the presentation this morning, the committee knows what I know which is that the college intends to switch to online learning and deliver programming like that. They have some data about some great successes in online learning with students across the territory from one end of the territory to the other. And, really, the opportunity here is for me...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, myself and department staff have a very good working relationship with CanNor, and we are always looking for ways to identify new funds and use ITI funds in a stackable way. We're always looking to maximize our investment in anything that we do, and we'll certainly continue to do that. Thank you.

Yes, please.