Bonjour. [English translation not provided.] Hello, and good morning. My name is Caitlin Cleveland, and I am here proudly as MLA-elect for Kam Lake. I am honoured and thankful to have been entrusted this role by my family, friends, and neighbours.
I start today by congratulating every single one of you because, man or woman, as we sit here today, together we have made history. In one election, we have gone from the lowest gender-balanced House in Canada to the highest. Together, we have an opportunity to do things differently. This is not only a turning point for the history of the NWT, but also the world. People are moving beyond borders. The climate is changing. Our expectations are evolving, and the world is watching.
What does it look like, when we work together? How can we shape the 19th Legislative Assembly to reflect the values and strengths of every single one of us, and how can we do things differently?
Throughout my campaign, I used the tagline "I believe in our North, " and it resonated with many of the people of Kam Lake. I truly believe that the only way forward is together, and that, to truly succeed, we must work collaboratively with the success of the entire NWT at heart.
We need to be able to trust not only in our own resolve to do good work for our constituents, but also trust that our colleagues recognize the importance of supporting the success of every Northerner, regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identification, race, culture, religion, place of birth, or home community. We need to move forward together by empowering our North to overcome challenges that are pushing at us from our past and see the opportunities pulling us into our future.
My platform was divided into three key areas; people, land, and prosperity. It was important to me to identify what links each of these three elements and how I saw them working together. I reflected on how our territory operates, our strengths, and what I want to see evolve. For me, it all came back to connection.
People are truly our greatest resource in the Northwest Territories. People make our houses into homes and our lands into communities. People also make up 75 percent of our territorial income through federal transfer payments. We need people. We need to support and grow the people who do live here. We need to work with our public servants to promote and market the NWT as a great place to live and work, and we need to ensure that we have the appropriate supports for people who choose to make the North home. We need to connect people to the North and then connect them to the right supports when they arrive.
As much as we prefer people to come and stay, sometimes they came for a short visit to see the aurora, catch some fish, visit some friends and family. Last year, British Columbia welcomed over $700 million in cultural-experience tourism. This is a great opportunity for our North, and we need to capture it. However, for our people who already live here and for people who choose to make the North home, we need to focus on growing our infrastructure to better support the ability of Northerners to thrive. I want to take you through the top concerns I heard at the doors of Kam Lake constituents.
Affordable, healthy housing was the number one discussion at doors in Kam Lake. Our housing infrastructure, not only in Kam Lake but across the North, needs to be assessed. Housing has an incredible ability to build communities, and we need to keep this in mind, along with affordability, multi-generational, and accessible housing. Housing should connect and build people, not isolate them.
The second-most discussed topic at doors was our energy infrastructure and the fact that not one solution will work for every single community. We need to expand our energy infrastructure to smaller-scale mixed-energy systems to reduce our dependency on imported fuels across the Northwest Territories. These smaller systems pay back faster, are more resilient, and therefore reduce the cost of living for all Northerners.
Both the first and second primary concerns of residents can be linked to the cost of living. People are finding it harder to thrive in the North, but I was inspired by how many people discussed solutions by focusing on increasing the resiliency of our northern communities. In addition to housing and energy infrastructure, we discussed food infrastructure and the need to focus on locally grown and locally harvested food sources. The success of the Inuvik community greenhouse was celebrated more than once, along with our ability going forward to socially and environmentally sustainably harvest from our lands and waters.
Our communications infrastructure was highlighted. Many residents questioned the cost of creating broadband redundancy versus the lost revenue for the NWT when our communication systems are compromised. Transportation infrastructure and, more specifically, the road to resource was a polarizing topic with my constituents, who questioned the value of mining royalties, lost labour dollars through non-northern workers, and the environmental impacts of development versus the cost of the road.
Finally, education infrastructure. Environmental capital is where, the more you use, the less you have. With social and intellectual capital, the more you use, the more you have. It multiplies into beautiful communities. This means that social and intellectual capital is most sustainable for us.
The polytechnic was of huge interest, not just to the people within the area of Kam Lake, but throughout Yellowknife. The polytechnic and the innovation it brings increases our resilience to change by creating a research and training base for our future. In addition to the polytechnic, we know that job projections show trades as an area of opportunity for graduates. We need to align industry leaders for direction, skilled tradespeople for mentorship, foster partnership between Skills Canada and local businesses, and support schools and apprenticeships to expand trades opportunities.
Schools need our support, but not only to grow these tradespeople or graduates ready for a polytechnic. They need our support to grow children and keep families connected. I believe we need to change the protocols within our government and address how we are allowed to work within schools, with the whole well-being of the child in mind. In addition to the new child and youth care coordinator positions, we need a program navigator who works with families in connection with this position to connect families to government programs with the purpose of keeping families connected, and parents need to be involved in and empowered through this process.
We need to be able to work together to lift families up, building resiliency in our communities rather than continuing to work in inefficient silos. We cannot expect teachers to address the educational needs of students when the fundamental survival needs of our children are not being met. We need to cut away the red tape that prevents us from having meaningful conversations that bring about meaningful change. The success of our children depends on our ability to come together with respect and integrity. The program Building Stronger Families is starting work similar to this, but we need to keep the momentum going.
Connected to education at both ends is affordable childcare and after-school care. Safe, affordable childcare supports a parent's ability to pursue further education and meaningful employment, as well as a child's ability to thrive within the school system. However, not every community will have the same exact childcare and after-school care needs, and this is fluid with all of our programs and supports. Every single one of our communities is unique, and what success looks like to each community may differ.
We need to work with each of our communities to establish unique wellness indicators and empower local governments to administer and choose programs that work for them. Empowered communities show increased participation in evidence-based, informed decision making, where communities can decide their future with the support of the GNWT. Maybe that future is improved graduation and employment rates, increased use of Indigenous languages, increased agriculture and local harvesting, or more on-the-land-based schooling.
Throughout the election month, many of us shared a vision of a government led by stronger meaningful relationships both in the walls of this House, with the community and Indigenous governments, the Government of Canada, and throughout our communities and territory.
We started our day yesterday eating and sharing with Dene Nation, our first meeting as MLAs-elect. There, we discussed the need to come to the table, to be present, to listen, and to understand. "Reconciliation" as a word means "to come together." Reconciliation is key to both people and land, and with land comes land claims. We need to prioritize finalizing land claims and fostering nation-to-nation relationships.
Reconciliation is also language. We are unique in the NWT, with 11 official languages. Language is a tool that helps us decide what to see and how to see it. It is a cultural memory as a way to see the world in a new light at a time when the status quo approach digs us deeper holes.
Reconciliation is also about healing. Our people are hurting, and we need to heal together. Healing does not only need to happen in cases where our people are at their lowest, but at every opportunity. We need to collectively understand the root cause of addictions and to develop a suite of solutions. School-based resiliency programs and services for children, listening opportunities for people to share and others to hear, medical detox opportunities here in the North, well-sourced and supported on-the-land treatment, and community-based transitional programming to help people recover are all elements of healing solutions that need to happen within our territory.
Prosperity is something that happens over time. It is not a lottery. As we enter into a government that everyone has said will be fiscally tight, we need to think beyond our four years and put a plan in motion for the fiscal success of future governments.
Throughout our campaigns, we were asked again and again what we would do to support economic diversification to build our economy. While there are many opportunities within the North, a lot of the tools to encourage development are similar and consistent: making strategic infrastructure investments that reduce the cost of energy; ensuring the GNWT policies and processes are modern, fair, transparent and accessible; settling land claims with respect and integrity; streamlining regulatory processes and clarifying measurable objectives to provide certainty for business and the environment; by supporting local and Indigenous business development that align with our vision of a healthy sustainable north; and by strengthening the NWT skilled labour pool, where the conversation shifts from not "if" but "how."
Great leaders inspire action by defining their "why." During my door-to-door visit in the Kam Lake riding, I visited an elder, or knowledge-keeper, and his granddaughter. My father-in-law and I tossed a ball back and forth with them while we spoke, and the knowledge-keeper asked me what an MLA was, where they worked, and what their role in the community was. As I explained, the knowledge-keeper shied away and replied, "I am just a nobody, and I don't vote." At this moment, I had a tag line and had discovered how my platform connected together, but I did not yet have my "why." This man in this moment became my "why."
Today, we share our "what," what we want to accomplish. Over the coming years, we will work collaboratively with northern public servants to determine our "how," but, to truly be effective leaders who inspire change, we need to work together to establish our collective "why." Thank you.