QUESTION PERIOD — Employment and Social Development
Youth Employment
November 6, 2025
My question is for the government leader. Senator Moreau, I was pleased to see the government is providing funds to invest in youth employment in the Canada Strong budget. However, given the enormity of the crisis where youth unemployment is double that of adult unemployment, this can only be considered a downpayment.
The government has chosen the Canada Summer Jobs program as one way to help youth develop skills and to create jobs for youth. Having used the program, I can see merit to it. The program, however, has been found by the Auditor General to lack basic data on how many jobs it creates or whether these jobs lead to careers, which is really what young people have said they wanted. Will the government take steps to fix these deficiencies so that the program results in pathways to meaningful employment instead of pathways to short-term paycheques?
Canadian youth are facing challenges in the labour market. We all acknowledge that, with the youth unemployment rate sitting at 14.7% in September 2025. In the 2025 Budget, the government expects the Canada Summer Jobs program to support 100,000 summer jobs as it is investing $594 million in the program.
Although the government is also committed to helping youth find gainful employment, it takes this issue very seriously, so it is also investing more than $300 million in the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy to provide training for 20,000 young Canadians facing employment barriers and $635 million for the Student Work Placement Program to support 55,000 work-integrated learning opportunities for post-secondary students.
Leader, the Auditor General also raised concerns that the Canada Summer Jobs program does not require employers to show that the positions funded would not otherwise exist, nor does it track the quality or outcomes of those jobs. Without the data, there is no way to know whether public funds are creating new opportunities for youth or simply subsidizing wages for employers who would have hired anyway.
How will the government use better data and program design to ensure that taxpayer dollars genuinely build youth skills and career pathways, and not just offset existing temporary job payroll costs for employers?
In 30 seconds, I understand that in the government’s response to the Auditor General, they did agree with her recommendation and are working on developing options and recommendations to collect this data more effectively. To be clear, there is evidence that the Canada Summer Jobs program supports the creation of jobs for youth. I think the government is committed to that.
