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. So, Mr. Speaker, it's thank you to Regular Members who negotiated the additional $3.5 million for the wage enhancement that was negotiated last year as part of our budget negotiations. And at that time, it was found that home-based early childhood educators currently had higher after tax net income compared to centre-based facility childhood educators, and so the $3.5 million for wage parity adjustment was used for the wage grid in order to bring up their annual net income so that it was more in line with our JK -- or sorry, junior kindergarten -- sorry...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, currently in the Northwest Territories -- and I believe I shared this statistic last night -- there's over 330 apprentices in the Northwest Territories; a number I think that we should all be very proud of and continuously working to see that grow. 47 percent of those apprentices are Indigenous NWT residents. And currently right now we're in the middle of a two-year extension to our apprenticeship trade and occupational certification strategy. And so surely at the end of that strategy, we'll be looking for a reset and this is a great time to...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're always working on trying to work with people who are interested in opening up spaces to try and encourage them and support them in that. We currently have five proponents right now that are working with the department to try and open up spaces that are both in and outside of Yellowknife, and I'm very hopeful that they will see great success.
In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, we also do have our infrastructure funding, and I'm also always looking for creative ways to work with my colleagues who are building things in communities and trying to...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, at my fingertips right here, I couldn't share with the Member the history on when that was increased. But I do believe that there was work done on this in the 19th Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I just had a meeting yesterday at an FTP table for the federal labour Ministers' meeting where we did talk about labour market agreements, and we continuously bring that up with the federal government. There's also discussions with Canada Council of Directors of Apprenticeship, Skills Canada, and other groups as well who are really strong advocates in their sector and ones that we try to work with to gain additional funding.
In addition to that, we've submitted two proposals to CanNor that were submitted for recent calls. One of them spoke...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So when we did receive that funding within education, culture and employment, it was indicated that it would need to be a go-forward funding, not just a one-off funding. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that when you're in these positions, regardless of what side of the House you sit on, you take these jobs very seriously. You've been given the trust of the people that you serve and also Northerners right across the territory. And so taking every opportunity to tell people about the Northwest Territories and explain to them what our context is is something that I do on a daily basis in this role.
Specifically with immigration, I started my day today by meeting with MP McLeod. We talked about the nominee program and talked about how we are...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member certainly has my commitment to treat this living document just as such, a living document that continues to grow and continues to get better every year. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, certainly the department is incredibly compassionate to where people are at right now. The department has been fielding a tremendous amount of phone calls and inquiries about this and has a tremendous amount of empathy for people. Certainly, the department is letting people know what the criteria is, why it has changed for the nominee program, and is also making sure that they're steering perspective applicants to federal sources of information on federal immigration programs trying to be as helpful as possible and also letting people know that...
Mr. Speaker, it's very hard for me not to speak for the next 12 and a half minutes about this question, but I won't. I won't.
So, Mr. Speaker, with this high level -- what is meant by this high-level statement, obviously we want to grow our workforce. We want more people involved in our workforce. We want to enhance our workforce. We -- I will slow down, my apologies.
We want the people who are involved in our workforce to have the opportunity to grow their skills and to take advantage of other opportunities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
