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. Chair. Mr. Chair, like I've said before, in my time here today, there would definitely be I could find many ways to spend money, and my husband always says I'm definitely very skilled at it. But I would need to evaluate that to make sure that at the end of the day we, as a department, are getting the biggest return on our investment and ensuring that we are spending money as responsibly as possible in tune with the priorities of this Assembly. Thank you.
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 21)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, definitely in our February sitting, we spoke a lot about wage grids and about funding to the sector. It was repeated quite a bit that in order to be able to increase the wage grid to be more on par, for example, with education assistants in our education system, that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment would need additional funding to be able to do that. That I have not been shy about repeating and, to be honest, I was surprised not to see an ask for additional ELCC funding come out of the report that was tabled by Regular Members...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 21)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I absolutely agree with the Member that child care is very important. You know, having been a selfemployed individual when I had my three children at home, if I did not go to work there was there was no sick days. There's no sick days when you're selfemployed so I absolutely understand that.
As far as what is going on in the territory right now in order to create spaces, when we talk about policy change and policy evolution, one of the things that happened in the territory for the first time ever is if you live in public housing and you want to open a...
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, absolutely I hear the Member that, you know, understanding where your children are when you're at work and that they're cared for and managing that is incredibly important. You know, we just talked about child care for sure, and so I hear the Member on that one.
Mr. Chair, right now well sorry, in the previous Assembly, it was expected that there would be a statutory review of the STIP days. That evaluation was deferred indefinitely at that time. It was originally deferred because of COVID. There just wasn't the amount of hours required in order to...
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, before I was even elected in the 19th Assembly, I had the opportunity to sit in on some of the engagements that were done for the NWT Art Strategy. It was pretty nostalgic because I can remember sitting in on them in the '80s with my mother. And so, yes, the changes were informed by the sector. There was extensive engagement done prior to the 19th Assembly. During the 19th Assembly, then Minister Simpson had the opportunity to release an art strategy in junction with ITI and Minister Wawzonek at that time. And so these changes were driven by...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by just first thanking Members for continuing this conversation on the floor of the House and out in public as well because I do think this is a very important project, and having their voices lent to it is very important.
Mr. Speaker, while I am not responsible or accountable to the operations within Aurora College, I am accountable to the dollars that we as an Assembly approve for Aurora College for their running of their programs. When transformation was underway in the previous Assembly, it was agreed by senior management of...
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in reflection of the fact that a lot of students use northern distance learning and its importance to their education, it was ensured that any reductions to this program would not prevent students from accessing the program. And so the cuts are primarily to use more virtual meetings, so instructors and such that at one point would travel or students who would travel, that has been turned into more virtual settings. And then there's also some changes to technology uses on the back end. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'd like to start, and then I'd like to pass it to the assistant deputy minister, Mr. Saturnino. But, for starters, absolutely there's more that can be done as far as employers learning about the wage subsidies. And I think that especially when it comes to achieving our goal of increasing SNAP apprentices across the territory especially outside of Yellowknife, the more work that can be done in order to find those employers and make sure that they know that they are eligible for wage subsidies, I am a firm believer that us as MLAs have a role to...
Debates of
, 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 21)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the perspective of the system would be in order to ensure the safety of children in care. One of the things I know, just having spoken to people about this especially in the last term, was in regards to, you know, why can we have a certain number of kids in a classroom and then it shifts to after school care, and we have less kids that are allowed to be less in the adult to child ratio that we're allowed that we are allowing in after school care programs. And one of the things that is communicated to me is because during the day when you have school...
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I absolutely agree with the Member. I know that we are both products of being able to be in French language schools in this territory and are able now to pass that on to our own children, which is definitely a privilege and one that I would like for Northerners to be able to continue.
So within that funding, the Member is right. There's a sunset of funding related to the CanadaNWT Cooperation Agreement on minority language education and second official language instruction, and the Member was totally in tune with his math as well. $1.453 million is...