The Canada service corps is a new program for the Government of Canada. Last week we held the first-ever youth summit to celebrate and recognize the work that young Canadians are doing all across this country as volunteers and as participants in their communities.
This event, just like the program, recognizes that young Canadians give so much and have the ability to give more back to their communities in a meaningful way, and that it also helps them to develop relationships, the skills that will help make them fabulous employees or employers or business owners in their future.
It actually is an idea that came out of our Prime Minister's passion for youth engagement and youth civic action. I think about my own time as a volunteer as a young person. It really is a time of exploration. You have an ability to learn about the kinds of things you're passionate about and how you can best make a difference. You also have an opportunity to participate in skill development in ways that you might never have in paid employment that early on in your life.
In January 2018, we launched the design phase of the Canada service corps with a commitment to establish the program in 2019. Through that design phase, we listened really carefully to young people. What we heard from them was that they need a variety of different service opportunities. There are some people who want those long-term immersive service opportunities, like the Katimavik programs, which is one of the partners that we're offering experiences with.
Also, we wanted to support youth who can maybe volunteer a couple of times a week for a particular organization in their community. We also wanted to support young people who have fabulous ideas but just need a little money or support to get those ideas off the ground. The $67.6 million reflected in the mains is part of the proposed $314.8 million dedicated to the Canada service corps in the 2019 budget.
This builds on budget 2016's commitment. It will allow us to scale up the program to 15,000 placements per year by 2023-24. This is really about making sure that, no matter where that young person is situated, or what kind of way they want to be involved, we have different pathways and opportunities for them to serve.