Spring Economic Update fails on climate corps while Canada faces record unemployment and the ‘worst evisceration of environmental law in Canadian history’
Youth Climate Corps response to the Spring Economic Statement and resignation of former Environmental Minister Steven Guilbeault,
“ Young people are still asking: Where is the Youth Climate Corps pilot that was promised?”
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Backgrounder
Toronto, ON – Youth are facing a crisis of unemployment while the government considers regulatory rollbacks on climate that would exacerbate the problem.
“Young people are watching jobs disappear to AI while governments dismantle some of the only meaningful climate progress we’ve seen in our lifetimes,” said Bushra Asghar, Director of the national campaign for a Youth Climate Corps.
Young people fought to have the Youth Climate Corps included in the 2025 federal budget and won. Yet, we are still asking: Where is the Youth Climate Corps pilot that was promised?
“Our government continues to prioritize fossil fuel expansion, deregulation and austerity while leaving behind the young people demanding good jobs, climate action and a livable future,” said Asghar.
While the federal government stalls, thousands of young people are entering another summer of unemployment when we could already be building renewable energy projects, supporting communities through extreme weather and climate emergencies, retrofitting homes, and strengthening our communities through the Youth Climate Corps.
The Youth Climate Corps pilot is sitting on the sidelines as the government instead cuts public services, subsidizes carbon capture, builds pipelines, signs MOUs with Alberta for LNG projects and clears the way for unregulated AI data centres; all of which will accelerate job losses, abuse Indigenous rights, and deepen environmental harm.
Though the Spring Economic Statement’s “Team Canada Strong” is a small step in the right direction, aiming to recruit 100,000 skilled trades workers and invest $6 billion in Red Seal Trades training, it fails to adequately address Canada’s most urgent needs: youth unemployment, climate breakdown, and the need to slash greenhouse gas emissions. Canada does need major public investment in the skilled trades — but not primarily to serve militarization, fossil fuel expansion, and extractive industries. Young people need pathways into nation-building climate work that strengthens communities, lowers emissions, and builds sovereign and resource-resilient local economies capable of withstanding climate shocks, supply-chain disruptions and economic instability.
The government continues to prioritize fossil fuel projects, LNG pipelines, and military spending, missing a critical opportunity to expand the Youth Climate Corps. The Youth Climate Corps should already be scaling beyond its initial 350-job pilot toward 20,000 unionized, living-wage jobs that equip young workers with skills our economy actually needs. If done right, this program would strengthen climate resilience while connecting young people to a sector projected to generate up to 700,000 new energy jobs in Canada — and potentially 2.7 million across the broader clean economy by 2050.
And yet, Prime Minister Carney and the Liberal government are systematically dismantling climate commitments and environmental protections, threatening to push Canada backwards beyond Stephen Harper’s era of climate inaction.
This backsliding is further demonstrated by the resignation of former Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, who could no longer support the government’s direction on climate and environmental policy. Guilbeault wrote, “several elements of the climate action plan I worked on as minister of the environment have been, or are about to be, dismantled,” including the oil and gas emissions cap, clean electricity regulations, electric vehicles standards, and the fossil fuel subsidy frameworks.
At a moment when young people are demanding bold climate leadership, the federal government continues to expand support for fossil fuel infrastructure and deregulation while delaying one of the few programs designed to address the scale of the climate and employment crises together.
The continued delay of the Youth Climate Corps pilot represents a failure to invest in an intergenerational solution that would create good jobs today while strengthening communities against future climate and economic shocks.
Canada has the opportunity to build a nation-building program that creates good union jobs, strengthens communities against climate disasters, expands pathways into the skilled trades, and supports Indigenous-led climate solutions.
The government already made the promise. Young people organized and won that commitment. Now it must deliver.
As the Canadian Labour Congress noted in response to the Spring Economic Statement, public investment and job creation are urgently needed at a time of growing economic insecurity and job losses.
Canada needs a bold, public, nation-building program that puts people before corporate profit. Delivering and expanding the Youth Climate Corps is exactly the kind of ambitious investment this moment demands.
For more information or to arrange an interview, contact:
Bushra Asghar, Director of the Youth Climate Corps Campaign
Backgrounder
Prepared by Youth Climate Corps, a project of the Small Change Fund.
Since 2022, a broad coalition of youth, labour, climate and community organizations has been campaigning for the creation of a national Youth Climate Corps (YCC): a public jobs and training program that would employ young people in work that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, strengthens climate resilience, and responds to climate disasters.
After years of advocacy from young people across the country, the federal government committed in Budget 2025 to launch a Youth Climate Corps pilot program. However, the government has yet to provide details on the pilot’s implementation or timeline.
The campaign is calling for an investment of $1 billion to create 20 000 unionized, living-wage jobs for people aged 18-35. YCC jobs would include: emergency response during extreme weather events; building community and ecological resilience in the face of climate disruptions; and building the climate infrastructure needed to drive down greenhouse gas emissions (renewable energy, home retrofits, and public transit, etc.)
The Youth Climate Corps campaign is guided by six core principles: Good, Green Jobs for All; Build the Fossil Fuel-Free Future; Centre Indigenous Knowledge and Sovereignty; Empower Local Needs and Priorities; Rooted in Justice; and Make it Big.
The campaign for a Youth Climate Corps grew out of the Climate Emergency Unit, a time-limited initiative dedicated to mobilizing the Canadian government and public leaders to implement climate emergency legislation and policies aligned with the realities identified by climate science worldwide. The campaign continues as a project of the Small Change Fund.
Learn more at: https://www.goodgreenjobsforall.ca/
