A Yellowknife MLA says the city’s Literacy Outreach Centre, which won an award from Canada’s premiers in 2023, is in danger of closure.
In the legislature on Wednesday, Yellowknife North’s Shauna Morgan said Aurora College was pulling out of its partnership with Inclusion NWT, the charity with which the college jointly runs the centre.
The centre, open since 1997, offers community-based literacy programming. For example, its programs can help people learn the basic skills they need to find work or figure out how to use computers.
In 2023, Canada’s premiers said the centre “offers a gateway to lifelong learning that is open to everyone” as they gave it a literacy award.
When Aurora College announced in January that it would close 19 Community Learning Centres across the territory, Morgan said, it wasn’t immediately clear that the Literacy Outreach Centre would be affected.
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“The staff hadn’t even been informed and enrolment had been high, with 39 students in the current winter semester. The program was working. It was award-winning, so surely it wouldn’t be shut down too,” she said.
“But staff found out later that indeed, Aurora College was pulling out. Apparently, it no longer fit with the college’s priorities.”
Morgan said about half of the 40 people who attend each semester are successful in finding jobs once they finish classes, and many move on to college programs related to early childhood education or personal support work.
“The closure of this centre is a huge step backwards away from meeting many of this assembly’s priorities,” she said.
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Education minister Caitlin Cleveland told Morgan “conversations have begun” about how to keep the centre alive but “they are certainly not finalized and there is still more work to be done.”
Cleveland said Aurora College receives $350,000 annually for literacy outreach programs and Inclusion NWT has a further annual budget of $85,000.
Her department, she said, is “figuring out what to do next” with Aurora College deciding to end its involvement.
She noted that even with that decision being made, the centre is expected to operate until at least the end of June.
Below, read a transcript of the minister’s exchange with Morgan.
Aurora College senior staff are expected to appear before a committee of MLAs on Thursday morning to discuss their plan to replace community learning centres.
This exchange took place in the House on March 5, 2025.
Shauna Morgan: The Literacy Outreach Centre is in danger of shutting down if it can’t find classroom space to operate, new funding and new partners. Has the minister or ECE staff had a chance to meet yet with the staff who have been running the Literacy Outreach Centre – either Inclusion NWT staff or Aurora College staff – as well as with any other interested partners to help find a path forward for the centre?
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Caitlin Cleveland: I can confirm that conversations have begun, but they are certainly not finalized, and there is still more work to be done.
Shauna Morgan: Will the minister commit that by the end of this fiscal year, she will not only figure out how much money ECE has been allocating to Aurora College for the Literacy Outreach Centre, but reallocate that funding to other partners who may want to carry on with the program?
Caitlin Cleveland: I can do better than the end of the fiscal. Aurora College annually operates the literacy outreach programs with $350,000 in funding. In addition to that, Inclusion NWT receives $85,000 annually in funding. So I can confirm the first part of that. The second part of that, which is figuring out what to do next, is what is currently under way with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, but that program will still operate until the end of June.
Shauna Morgan: I appreciate that the minister has managed to do the work to find the amount that we’re talking about here, Will the minister commit – if there is another partner that steps up to continue the program – to reallocating those funds away from Aurora College to that partner? That $350,000 that’s currently going to Aurora College.
Caitlin Cleveland: There’s a few things that need to be ironed out first, and that is what the future looks like before we can start allocating funding to different entities.
