Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I thank the committee for inviting Boys and Girls Clubs here today to present our recommendations for the 2017 budget. Our recommendations are outlined in our brief that was submitted to the committee.
My name is Glenn Harkness. I'm the executive director of the Boys and Girls Clubs in Hamilton and I'm here today representing Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada and every club across our great country.
I think most of you are aware that Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada is a national children's charity serving over 200,000 children and youth in more than 625 communities and neighbourhoods. Boys and Girls Clubs provide relevant programs and initiatives that inspire, teach, challenge, and, more importantly, respond to children's and youths' needs.
We help young people realize their best potential. We work with families who are working very hard to join the middle class; sometimes that means working two or three jobs to do so. Unfortunately, we work with many families that, from week to week, are barely making ends meet. It is an unfortunate fact that 60% of the children and youth we serve live below the poverty line.
What are we trying to do? Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada wants to ensure that every child and youth, regardless of their financial background.... We don't market this, but we work closely with families who are financially at a disadvantage. We want to make sure that every young person has the proper supports and tools to make a meaningful contribution to Canada's growing economy.
Young people who attend Boys and Girls Clubs sometimes don't realize that they have networks and supports, because of the environment they are growing up in. You know, most of them do not even realize that they're financially at a disadvantage. Those comments remind me of a story about a young boy at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hamilton. This story, if you look at our brief, touches on all three of our recommendations.
Lukin came to the Boys and Girls Clubs at age eight, and he continued to come year after year. I think he was involved in every single program we had to offer. At ages 10, 11, and 12, Lukin was a youth leader and actually spearheaded a fundraiser in which he swam 42.2 kilometres in our swimming pool and individually raised $5,000 to help children and youth eat a healthy meal after school.
He was participating in every single after-school program that we had to offer. Lukin was like any other 8-, 9-, 10-, or 11-year-old child who came to the Boys and Girls Club: he had no idea that his family was financially or socially at a disadvantage. As Lukin approached mid-high school and then the end of his high school career, he did recognize that his family was financially at a disadvantage. This led to Lukin falling into depression, isolation, and some mental health issues. His relationship with his peers was strained, but more importantly, his relationship with his mother was strained. Lukin moved out of the house, and a young person who did very well in school was at risk of dropping out.
Lukin came back to the Boys and Girls Club, a place where he felt safe, where he felt like he belonged, and he said to us that he needed to be mentored but he needed to mentor others. He was back in a leadership role at the Boys and Girls Club.
I remember being at a meeting at McMaster University, and I heard that our Boys and Girls Club staff in Hamilton were giving a group of young people a tour of the McMaster University campus. There were university staff and profs involved in that.
Since I was at Mac for a meeting, I thought I'd meet up with this group. I met them at part of the tour where they were actually in a classroom, in one of those great big lecture halls that seemed to go up and up and up forever. I noticed that Lukin was part of this group, and I overheard one of my staff say to Lukin, “This is not impossible.”
I remember the day clearly at the beginning of this year when Lukin needed to apply for university. He came into my office and used my computer, and he applied for his four top choices. As he was identifying his first top choice, we talked about that university, that city, and the course that he wanted to take at that university. He asked me about each of those choices and whether there was a Boys and Girls Club in that municipality.
I'm happy to report to all of you that Lukin is currently at the University of Ottawa studying political science. Watch out everybody, because his career goal is to be the prime minister of our country, and I truly believe that Lukin can do that.
We know that the government wants—