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, ITI does maintain a number of territorial parks across the Northwest Territories which do have turnarounds for RVs. That being said, we also did just increase our fees within ITI in order to create space for privately-owned campgrounds as well. Historically our rates were quite low, and we needed to raise those to make sure that they were both competitive and doing a better job of keeping up what it actually cost us to operate our parks, which I will say are still subsidized within the territory.
For turnaround stations that are outside of our...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, the North is definitely spectacular, so thank you to the Member for that.
Ensuring the safety of tourists and residents during forest fire emergencies is certainly a top priority for the Government of the Northwest Territories. It's important, though, for tourism operators to have robust business continuity plans and also appropriate insurance coverage in place to manage such situations. As far as communication, we do have our public safety page on the GNWT website, we have things like Cabin Radio who has always been very active in making sure...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know I don't have to tell you this, but coaches play a vital role in our communities. Good coaching isn't only about enhanced sport performance, it's about something much more important.
Eighty percent of people who received coaching report increased self-confidence. They establish and take action towards achieving goals, become more self-reliant, gain more job and life satisfaction, contribute more effectively to their teams on and off the court, take greater responsibility and accountability for their actions and commitments, and work more easily and...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, from within the ITI umbrella, we do have a support for product development enhancement through the well established tourism product diversification and marketing program. This is specifically funding to reinvent, improve, and expand tourism products across the Northwest Territories. And we also have funding for business planning for product packages for marketing efforts. Within ECE, we have wage subsidies. And then if you head over to some of our other departments, there are opportunities to build business in the Northwest Territories for sure. I can say...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by thanking the Member for raising this. We have a very beautiful tourism industry to match our very beautiful landscape here in the Northwest Territories. We're certainly very aware of the challenges that the low water levels pose on our remote lodges across the territory, and ITI continues to work closely with NWT Chamber of Commerce and NWT Tourism as well to make sure that we're understanding the specific needs of lodges and who is in that situation, and until we know more information about what that looks like for...
Today, I am proud to share our progress in addressing these recommendations. To make the support assistant role more effective and supported, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment updated both job descriptions and the Inclusive Schooling Handbook. The Government of the Northwest Territories also forged a partnership with Douglas College to pilot an Education Assistance and Inclusion Certificate.
This virtually-delivered program was tailored to the needs of NWT support assistants in several ways. Participants followed a cohort-based model...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues for talking about our students, the importance of education, and also this Assembly's priority on building a strong economic foundation for our whole territory.
Mr. Speaker, changes were made to the Student Financial Assistance Program in 2023-2024, including increases to the benefit rates for remissible loans. ECE is analyzing the impacts of the changes, including impacts to the SFA loan limits, which is expected to be completed at the end of the 2024-2025 academic year.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the current school funding framework does distribute funding based on a base level of funding; enrolmentbased funding as well; a northern context index, which depends on the location of the school; consumer price increases, as well as targeted funding, for example for inclusive schooling. But I fully expect that the funding formula will also be a huge topic of conversation as we review the Education Act. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of my tasks, and very exciting and important tasks over the life of this term, is to begin work on the modernization of the Education Act, and that work will be done in collaboration with Indigenous governments and so I could very well see this being part of the conversation.
One of the cautions I would put out there is that the treaties currently under negotiation, that do not yet have boundaries established there's some of them so we wouldn't know what those would be, and then under, for example Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, the geographies are...
