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, I'd say the MLA for Monfwi said it best in her statement today when she said that income assistance is really supposed to be a temporary solution. And so income assistance is there as a month to month solution for northern NWT residents who are having economic shortfalls, who are their needs outweigh their income on a month to month basis. And so, really, the program is there to be able to catch people. And with the changes that are happening to income assistance that we've been talking about here today, what we're really intending to see is more...
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And, Mr. Chair, I appreciate the comments of the Member. And I'd say one of the crucial things or comment that the Member made that really struck me was his comments around know what we are doing and commit to doing it better and know what we're doing with our dollars. And one of the things that we really focused on when we were going through and looking at ways that we could get creative with our budgeting was looking at the dollars that we were not spending, and so that gave us the opportunity to actually kind of trim the fat off the top, if you will, to make...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I heard the Member's statement today, and I absolutely agree with the importance of having the opportunity to be out on the land. And so I wanted to assure the Member that an applicant can access income assistance benefits if they are temporary outside of their home community. And this definitely applies to residents that are participating in traditional activities as well. It would be very important, though, that the applicant who intends to go out on the land apply for income assistance before they go away and to notify their client navigator...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, part of the new program is to do a performance management plan that would report on some of the findings and some of the review that takes place of the program changes and not only of the program itself but also to the communities as well where clients live so that we are looking at it very holistically.
In addition to that we do have an idea, for example, of how many people participate in programs when we take a look at the mains every year and so there is information available on an annual basis, and I would be more than happy to learn from the...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am most definitely willing to look further into any part of any regulation. I think it's really important that we ensure that we're supporting our most vulnerable residents while still ensuring that we're also maintaining fiscal responsibility. I think it's also prudent for me to also say that income assistance is intended to be a program of last resort and is intended to pick people up when they need to be picked up in order to get to the next month and hopefully be able to access programs that lift them out of that program as well. And so yes...
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in addition to, you know, the accountabilities that we've described, this person also is accountable to a team of people below them that support the work that they're doing. And so it's not just one or two people that they're supporting in this work. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the benefit rates are based on the region in that it uses the northern market basket measure to determine the basic funding that an income assistance client receives. So it is based regionally considering that. While ECE understands that one size fits all might not work for everyone, it works very hard to ensure that programs like income assistance are delivered as fairly and as consistently as possible across the Northwest Territories while still taking into account that there are differences in cost of living for residents from one end of the...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: NWT Office of the Regulator of Oil and Gas Operations Annual Report 20232024. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
