Caitlin Cleveland

Member Kam Lake

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.

Kam Lake Electoral District

Committees

Caitlin Cleveland
Kam Lake
Minister's Office

Yellowknife NT X1A 2L9
Canada

P.O. Box
1320
Extension
11124
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment Minister of Industry, Tourism, and Investment

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, companies like Dene Fur Cloud are a subsidiary of Prosper NWT so is not counted in that previous area that I identified. So there a number of subsidiaries that Prosper NWT does support, and they are certainly for-profit companies, and Prosper NWT is working with them to continue to develop their business practices. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, that initiative is focused on really investment attraction for critical minerals. This past week, on Sunday night at PDAC in Toronto, we were able to host an event in conjunction with Nunavut and the Yukon, and it was incredibly well attended by both politicians, investment individuals, and business owners. And so we hope to continue to build off that momentum. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, we had a number of communities evacuated and the -- our parks ended up being used as evacuation spots and ended up seeing a significant increase in incidents in our parks in the territory. Thank you.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's very difficult for me to base all of my answers on hypothetical. I think what the college is looking at doing is exploring how this works for Northerners, and I would expect that they would be consistently evaluating this shift and this change.

The other thing that was referenced today was different opportunities that communities are taking advantage of with additional partnerships both through Indigenous governments and through community governments. And I think that those will continue to flourish in the territory as well. We do have relationships through Dechinta...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, between April 2005 to March 2024, Prosper NWT has supported 741 businesses across the Northwest Territories. So I certainly couldn't list them all out here but -- and then through those 741 businesses, they have disbursed approximately $128 million. But it might be of interest to Members -- and mind you these are regional areas, not political areas -- but:

162 businesses from the South Slave, that was 40 percent of the funds disbursed, $52 million;

386 businesses in the North Slave, that was $30 million, or 24 percent of funds disbursed;

60...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through yourself, I'd like to pass to assistant deputy minister Cyr.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, we've got the SEED funding program, which is a grant program and affords grants to people who are looking to invest in business ventures through ITI. We also have community futures. Now, community futures is a loan type program. And then in -- outside of ITI and Prosper NWT, which is now arm's length, we also have a loan type program there, and they also do have some grants. Like, for example, their digital investment piece is through grants. So there isn't an intent in this budget to increase the amount going to community futures, but all that to...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, we have career development officers that work for the department of education and their role is to connect, through our client navigators, income assistance clients with job opportunities for people who are able and are willing to take that route. So these career development officers have access to a suite of different workforce development programs that can be paired with an employer. So there is funding, and substantial funding out there, for example for training, for helping to pay a wage for somebody as they learn how to do a job, to...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So we are up to a total of 1400 businesses in the Northwest Territories.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 52)

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, I absolutely want the voices of committee to be involved in this work. And so between the months of April and July, there will be an engagement period that will include Indigenous governments, the public, stakeholders, and certainly committee and MLAs as well. There will be a draft discussion paper that will be produced from there and engagement -- sorry, engagement results collated and organized and then also facilitated visioning sessions that will be done through ITI themselves and then in the fall, so in November roughly, release of an NWT...