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.
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment Minister of Industry, Tourism, and Investment
Statements in Debates
Debates of
, 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 137)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I wanted to start off just in regards to a question that the MLA for Yellowknife North asked. It was in regards to operations and maintenance concerns for LHOs being able to purchase their own essentially enter into their own mortgages and source their own funding agreements to be able to really contribute to improving and increasing the housing landscape or the number of houses in the Northwest Territories and the number of homes. And one of the things that they do in BC through Indigenous Housing BC is they actually have the O and M of all of...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, work on the SPAR framework has been significantly delayed. The RFP to develop a framework went out originally in August of 2018. A $60,000 contract was awarded in September 2018 but then, according to the business plan, in 2020 MACA became aware of concerns that the framework didn't adequately address recommendations 87 to 91 of the TRC's final report. Those calls to action include ensuring sports policies are linked to health and wellbeing, providing stable funding for and access to community support programs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, while many of our communities are underfunded, the GNWT is projecting an operating surplus for the next year of $178 million as we heard last week in the Budget Address from the Minister of Finance. So will the GNWT share some of its operating surplus for 20232024 to actually reduce the municipal funding gap in the life of this Assembly? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Mr. Speaker, while the GNWT has increased community funding in the 19th Assembly, the value of that increase has likely been eaten up by inflation. The funding gap is probably unchanged from where it was at the start of the 19th Assembly at $40 million. Mr. Speaker, we've heard that MACA is reviewing the community funding formula in collaboration with the NWTAC. So will MACA finalize the new and improved community funding formula in the life of the 19th Assembly and will the...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we heard in the Minister's statement today that the NWT Housing Corporation is currently completing construction renovation of more than 510 housing units in the Northwest Territories. But this does not adequately address our housing infrastructure deficit in the Northwest Territories. This is primarily required operations and maintenance on existing units and includes a hundred new units over these last four years. When some of this longstanding public housing has been devolved into homeownership already. So I'd like to, instead, talk about the...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that correction from the 50 to 60 percent as well.
School boards have indicated that COVIDrelated school closures and on the land absences can have an impact on school attendance as counted for student enrolment. So I'm wondering if the Minister can speak to kind of what provisions are in place to make sure that either COVID school closures that had students out of the classroom, or on the land experiences and absences, are somehow accounted for to make sure that school boards are not penalized for encouraging students to...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Mr. Speaker, school boards currently do a pointintime count on September 30th of every year for student enrolment. This pointintime count includes specifications for additional funding like special support needs of individual students. Unfortunately, this pointintime count is not reflected in the school board's funding until 13 months later in the following school year. This makes serving the needs of existing students quite difficult for school boards.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have to say thank you to the Minister and both his deputy minister, who were willing to have a meeting about this at 6:30 this morning, to try and so I could learn some more about it and so I can say that they are very receptive to talking about it.
But given that, and given the importance of making sure that our school operations are properly funded for the students that are currently in our schools, will the Minister commit to following up with school boards to have a conversation about this policy and how it can be further tweaked? Thank you...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it appears that this piece of kind of the GNWT funding or funding requirements are placing some unnecessary strain on the operational budget of some of our school boards, especially with changes that have happened in the last few years, or changes that can happen from year to year.
So while a pointintime count is done on September 30th, the policy that guides that states that children must be present for 50 percent or more of the month. In other jurisdictions, the pointintime count does not stipulate attendance and looks only at student enrolment on...
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's another reason why DIMS is really important, and it's for access to information and privacy protection as well. And the ATIPP Act is also rolled into kind of being able to use that system as well. And so especially given that, you know, digital technology changes so quickly and the need for us to keep up is so relevant in today's day and age. I'm wondering what is the actual timeline for all departments to be absolutely on DIMS, integrated into it, given that I believe it's coming up four or five years since I had the privilege of sitting...
