Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for inviting Boys and Girls Club to present as part of this important study.
Although I'm the executive director in Ottawa, I'm actually here on behalf of Boys and Girls Clubs across the country. Normally, you would be hearing from my lovely director of public policy, Rachel Gouin, but she's not available, so I'm the pinch-hitter. I hope you'll bear with me.
We're here to share what the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada are doing in terms of supporting experiential learning and shining a light on the pathways to employment for youth. For those of you who aren't familiar with Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, we're a national charity. We serve about 210,000 members across the country in 625 locations. Here in Ottawa, we have about 4,500 youth who are members. We have seven locations, including a large summer camp just outside Ottawa.
Typically across the country you will find us located in vulnerable, at-risk neighbourhoods, so the kids we see are typically from low-income families. We see lots and lots of new Canadians, indigenous youth, and many others. We find that these kids have less social capital and they need extra help to finish high school, pursue post-secondary education, and make what is for many of them that difficult transition to employment. This is not because they are in any way less talented. Our kids live in impoverished conditions and they experience difficult social environments. They don't have access to the same networks and leadership and learning opportunities that their more privileged peers do. Our programs at the Boys and Girls Clubs remedy this disadvantage and ensure that youth reach their potential.
Today I'd like to draw your attention to two programs that help youth gain knowledge and experience that they need to make decisions about their future and successfully transition into and be able to keep a job. They are the Employment and Social Development skills link program and the Canada summer jobs program.
First, through the skills link program and in partnership with the private sector partner Kal Tire, 30 Boys and Girls Clubs across the country will introduce 600 youths to the skilled trades this year. Youths are able to learn about the different trades, actually meet tradespeople in their community, and then job shadow those same tradespeople.
Last year we leveraged this great partnership with the Canadian government to secure additional private sector funding from Cara Operations, so we just started a hospitality-focused Skilled4Success training program and job placement pilot in 10 communities across Ottawa. I have to say that in Ottawa, we are very lucky. We are one of the 10 pilot sites, and this program has already started. The youth are incredibly excited about it. They've already had significant numbers of job shadowing opportunities. Our private sector partner Cara Operations is also very happy with this program, because they believe that they will be able to place many of the youth who are in this program. This is just the kind of program that our youth need, and we are very grateful for the government's support.
The second program I'd like to highlight today, which is near and dear to my heart, is the Canada summer jobs program. This is the most significant federal program for Boys and Girls Clubs across the country. We are very pleased that the government saw fit to double this program recently. In 2017, the clubs across Canada hired 660 high school, college, and university students up from, in 2013, only 192 students, so that's a very significant improvement for us.
One thing we've noticed about this program, though, is that the number of weeks allocated doesn't often meet the needs of our youth. Eight weeks of employment works very well for high school students, but with students attending college and university, with the ever-increasing tuition costs, this is very difficult. They need to work for the 16 weeks that they are off in the summer. As well, I can speak from experience, having had many Canada summer jobs students, when I say that the eight weeks fly by very quickly, and students would gain a better employment experience and exposure to a lot more parts of work if there were a greater number of weeks. We would ask that the government take this into consideration as it reviews the program.
We also believe the Canada summer jobs program could be improved by opening it up to youth who are not full-time students. Preparing for this presentation made me think of a lovely young woman who's a staff person at one of our clubs in Ottawa. She was a Syrian refugee who came to Canada about six years ago, ahead of the most recent influx. She didn't speak any English. It was through sheer will and determination that she finished high school and has gone on just recently—I guess she's in her second year now—to Algonquin College. Her parents have been unable to learn enough English to be employed, and her younger brother is disabled. Therefore, this young woman is the primary breadwinner for her family. It's just not possible for her to work full time. Therefore she is not eligible for the Canada summer jobs program.
She's not alone. We see this with a lot of our kids, a lot of the low-income and newcomer youths are disqualified from the Canada summer jobs program because they're not full-time students. They just can't afford to go to school full time because they have to work as well.
We would like all youths to benefit regardless of their student status.
Again, thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in this study. I look forward to any questions you might have.