Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first federal budget, passed last Monday, included a $40-million investment in the creation of a Youth Climate Corps, a federally funded job training and placement program in green jobs for young people.
Despite excitement around the youth-focused investment, some environmental advocates across the country say they are concerned about budget cuts to other environmental departments.
Laurel Collins, a former NDP critic for the environment and climate change between 2019 and 2025, initially tabled Motion M-105 in 2023, which laid out a blueprint for what a Youth Climate Corps could accomplish.
“I worked closely with youth organizers, labour representatives and climate experts who were envisioning a national mobilization,” Collins told the Charlatan. “Seeing elements of that work reflected in the federal budget is genuinely encouraging.”
But the Youth Climate Corps proposal sits amidst major cuts to other environment-focused sectors, such as $1.3 billion in cuts to projected spendings at Environment and Climate Change Canada and $2.6 billion in cuts to projected spending at Natural Resources Canada.
“When it comes to climate action, the rest of the budget was deeply disappointing,” Collins said.
Malaika Collette of the Climate Action Network, comprised of more than 200 groups across Canada working on environmental and energy issues, said the Youth Climate Corps announcement is exciting.
“This win happened as a result of the youth and climate movements pushing for this program,” Collette said. It was a long time coming, and an especially significant win within the current context.”
A municipal climate advocacy group, CAFES Ottawa, added they are looking forward to seeing what the Youth Climate Corps program will entail.
“The voice of youth is often underrepresented, even though the climate is a subject that’s really relevant to youth who are going to be the ones living with the consequences of what we do today,” said Emma Bainbridge, the communications and community engagement coordinator at CAFES Ottawa.
“We really hope that this program can help to involve youth more in decision making on climate and equip youth with skills in this area and advocate for a safe and healthy future,” she said.
Bainbridge added that CAFES Ottawa envisions many ways the Youth Climate Corps could benefit the city, including invasive species management.
“We’ve been asking the City of Ottawa to hire more staff specifically to deal with invasive species, so training youth with those kinds of skills is an important way they can get involved.”
The Carney government wrote in the budget that its strategy aims to drive “investment, not prohibitions,” and “results, not objectives.”
Collins charged that despite the Youth Climate Corps announcement, the budget falls short of an adequate response to the climate crisis.
“Communities across the country are facing escalating wildfire seasons, heat emergencies and floods. The budget does not deliver the level of prevention and preparedness needed to keep people safe,” Collins said.
“So while the Youth Climate Corps is a bright spot, the broader picture of this budget when it comes to climate reflects a retreat from the scale and urgency that science and communities are calling for.”
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Featured graphic by Alisha Velji/the Charlatan.
