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.
Madam Speaker, we live in a time where we have outpaced our demand for mental health professionals. I get calls from constituents unable to put their names on waitlists for youth psychologists and concerned by the demand on inschool ones. But if our youth aren't speaking with professionals, then who are they speaking with?
Suicide is a common conversation among our youth. In the NWT, roughly 160 to 180 people use hospital services every year following suicide attempts. Some of these people are youth and some were brought in to emergency by their peers. In North America, 19 out of 20 suicide...
Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.
The Government of the Northwest Territories provides services to treat underlying medical conditions that cause infertility.
What medical conditions are approved?
I have constituents who have underlying medical conditions requiring treatment before fertility treatment is available, and it is not supported by the GNWT. So Who decides what conditions are recognized and which ones are not?
If a fertility specialist identifies a condition that needs to be addressed before in vitro...
Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, there are 30 spots every year available at the Aurora College nursing program. Every year there are Indigenous students who partake in it, and there are northern students who partake in it. Right now there are also people who are NWT residents who are not considered an Indigenous student or a northern student. They're a southern student because they have not lived more than half their life in the Northwest Territories. If there are spots still remaining in the nursing program, as in we have not met our max of 30 students, I'm wondering if...
Environmental liabilities represent the costs required to remediate contaminated sites for which the GNWT is responsible.
The 20202021 public accounts reported 277 contaminated sites with a total liability of $68 million. This liability is further broken down according to seven types of sites, such as "abandoned mines" and "landfills."
For years, committee has advocated for more transparency on the GNWT's contaminated sites. In 2018, committee recommended14 that the GNWT develop an online inventory modeled on the federal government's Federal Contaminated Sites Inventory...
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, other the last few years, nurses have shared the impact of unsupported work environments and critical staffing shortages on their morale and incentive to continue working in the North. And when our healthcare workers suffer, our residents suffer. Residents experience decline in healthcare, long wait lists, and reduced program availability, which all have direct negative impacts on the health and wellbeing of residents. This is felt especially by those people who live in remote and small communities who already receive inequitable healthcare.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project is a mandate item of the GNWT. It is intended to provide clean energy to the mineral rich Slave Geological Province and eventually connect the NWT electrical grid to the south. On the department's website, the project is intended to both increase hydro generation capacity and to stabilize electricity rates for NWT residents and businesses.
A promising aspect of this mega project is that the federal government recognizes the need to update grid infrastructure across Canada. In May, the federal infrastructure minister said...
Debates of
, 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 127)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the other piece, then, that I'm going to inquire specifically about is internet redundancy within Yellowknife. This is something we've heard quite a bit about from the Chamber of Commerce here in Yellowknife throughout the length of our term, and I'm wondering if the Minister can speak to this project here as well. Thank you.
Debates of
, 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 127)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this item deals with the extension of the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link from the Inuvik to Tuk Highway. And given the conversations that we've had during the length of this Assembly in regards to broadband internet and its farreaching impact on Northerners from, you know, the border right up to the Arctic Ocean and back again, I'm wondering where there is no money showing under the P3s or additional projects mentioned here. And I mean, this has a huge impact on education when we're talking about northern distance learning or when we're talking about...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Monday, October 31st, 2022, I will move the following motion:
Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that Tabled Document 68119(2): Government of the Northwest Territories response to Committee Report 2619(2): Report on the Child and Family Services Act Lifting Children, Youth and Families: An All of Territory Approach to Keeping Families Together, be referred to Committee of the Whole for consideration. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what are the next steps for the Department of Justice to draft this legislation, and when does the GNWT expect to table a bill in the House? Thank you.
