Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be starting and then passing it over to Isaac, who will give a bit of his personal experience.
Mr. Chair, honourable members and committee staff, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to you today and to contribute to this conversation about how we can support youth employment during this most challenging time in our country's history.
Community-based services, positive relationships and life-changing programs—as Canada's largest child- and youth-serving organization, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada provides vital programs and services to over 200,000 young people in 775 communities across Canada. During critical out-of-school hours, our clubs help young people develop into healthy, active and engaged adults. Our trained staff give children and youth the tools they need to realize positive outcomes in self-expression, academics, healthy living, physical activity and mental health.
Over the past 100 years, and during these last five difficult months, our clubs have been there for vulnerable children, youth and families. Today, clubs are actively providing food for families and partnering with their local food banks. We are providing child care and programs for children and youth of essential workers now and will for more families as our economy reopens. We are providing technology to support connectivity and running high-quality virtual programming to promote educational, physical and mental health outcomes when kids can't be in clubs. Also, we have continued to offer essential services such as transitional housing throughout these trying times.
Our clubs across the country support youth to obtain employment, and we are a direct employer of thousands of youth within our programs each year. Clubs implement programs that engage youth in developing employable skills and acquiring a job, such as resumé building and interview preparation.
Clubs also have direct links to employers that support vulnerable youth to get and keep that all-important first job, yet over the last five months we have witnessed young workers being disproportionately affected by the downturn in the Canadian economy due to COVID-19 closures and physical distancing. We've seen unprecedented layoffs in industries such as restaurants, hotels, child care services and retail, and in our own charitable sector. These industries are the sectors where young Canadians most often enter the workforce. We also know that across all sectors it is often the most junior employees who are laid off first.
Historically, the unemployment rate among young Canadians has been twice as high as that of all Canadians. National statistics also paper over deep inequities and barriers faced by youth in equity-seeking groups. Indigenous youth, newcomers, young people living in poverty, LGBTQ2+, young people with disabilities, racialized youth and youth in rural and remote communities face unique and elevated barriers to labour market participation. These are the youth our programs serve.
Given the unparalleled youth labour disruption, we need significant policy responses, and I want to take some time both to acknowledge the current response and to push us collectively to do more.
First, the Canada emergency student benefit has provided many of the youth we serve with much-needed financial support during a time when many are unable to find work due to COVID-19. It is important to note here that many youth receiving this benefit were previously contributing to their family's day-to-day expenses through employment. This program is supporting vulnerable families to stay afloat during this time.
In the early days of the pandemic, we and others called for a significant new investment in the youth employment and skills strategy; it is not built to tackle a youth employment crisis of this magnitude. In late April, we welcomed the new investment of $100 million-plus in the youth employment and skills strategy. We also want to recognize the $15 million for the supports for student learning program, which aims to ensure that vulnerable children and youth, many of whom our clubs serve, do not become further marginalized as a result of COVID-19.
Finally, the Canada summer jobs program changes announced on April 8 are important and are furthering the policy objective to support youth to enter and stay in the workforce. Temporarily allowing part-time positions and job placement end dates as late as February 2021 will support vulnerable youth—who often have other family obligations—in accessing this program and providing employers the flexibility they need in order to continue to move forward with the positions they previously applied for. We were surprised, however, that our clubs only saw a small number of additional grants when the Canada summer jobs program was expanded earlier this spring, and some positions didn't get grants.
On the whole, these are very positive developments, yet we know more is needed as businesses and non-profits scale back their employment plans given the economic conditions. In respect of this, we are making three recommendations for the Canada summer jobs program.
First, today we are repeating our call and the recommendation of the Canadian government's expert panel on youth employment to permanently evolve the Canada summer jobs program into a year-round Canada youth jobs programs. We know that the normal mode of Canada summer jobs doesn't reflect the reality of many youth and how they organize their time, work and education, and that many youth who are not in post-secondary studies would benefit from accessing these placements throughout the calendar year.
We also know first-hand that employers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises as well as non-profits and charities, would benefit from the flexibility to offer placements at different times during the year. Permanently modifying the Canada summer jobs program into a year-round youth jobs program will provide the flexible and holistic supports that are needed now for young Canadians to develop the skills and work experience they need as they enter and navigate a very challenging labour market.
Secondly, allowing for part-time jobs and instituting a trusted employer mechanism and corresponding multi-year funding as part of the Canada summer jobs or Canada youth jobs program will further enable employers to better plan for and meaningfully engage youth employees.
Thirdly, as the Canada summer jobs program transitions to the Canada youth jobs program, we recommend another round of CSJ-like grants to support employers in hiring young Canadians. This round should be launched in the late fall potentially, with employment to begin early in 2021. We've seen civil servants move mountains over the last five months, so we know this can be done.
These policy recommendations build off of the federal government's expert panel on youth employment's final report and are even more relevant now to support young Canadians during this unprecedented time.
I'd now like to take the opportunity for a member of our national youth council, Isaac, to speak about his personal experiences during COVID-19.
I'll turn to Isaac.
