Madam Speaker, more than ever before, the Government of Canada is stepping up our efforts to help young people in Canada find employment and it is working. We offer a wide range of programs and initiatives. The first one that comes to mind is, without a doubt, Canada summer jobs. Every year, thanks to Canada summer jobs, thousands of young people gain meaningful work experience that helps prepare them for their future careers.
The Canada summer jobs program helps employers in the not-for-profit, public and private sectors create quality summer jobs for young people aged 15 to 30. It supports private sector companies with 50 or fewer full-time employees. It takes into account local and national priorities as well as labour market needs. Through wage subsidies, quality employment opportunities and mentorships, Canada summer jobs, CSJ, helps employers fill job vacancies and young people gain experience that will inform their career choices. For some, it provides their first work experience. Everybody wins, and it works. Let us look at the latest numbers. Since 2019, Canada summer jobs has generated over 530,000 job opportunities. This year, for summer 2025, we have created up to 6,000 additional opportunities. That is on top of the already 70,000 jobs announced, for a total of 76,000 jobs for young people across the country.
In 2024, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada conducted an independent audit of the program. It found that youth participating in CSJ have better long-term earnings than those who do not. This program works and it is an integral part of a larger whole. It is important to understand that this program is part of a much wider suite of programs that the government offers through the year to help young people find work. It is part of the youth employment and skills strategy, a horizontal Government of Canada initiative led by Employment and Social Development Canada with strategies delivered in partnership with 11 other departments, agencies and Crown corporations. For example, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation delivers a housing internship for indigenous youth program, Environment and Climate Change Canada delivers the science horizons youth internship program, Canadian Heritage delivers Young Canada Works, in both official languages, and ESDC delivers Canada summer jobs, as previously mentioned.
ESDC's youth employment and skills strategy program provides funding to organizations to help them deliver a range of activities to help youth overcome barriers to employment. It is a very flexible program that supports services tailored to the needs of each individual. Services include mentorship, skills development opportunities, training and wraparound supports such as dependant care support and mental health counselling. There are also job opportunities in various sectors such as IT, transportation, hospitality and social services. This program also works. Seventy-three per cent of its participants were either employed or returned to school.
Through the programs under the broader youth employment and skills strategy, not including Canada summer jobs, we are helping more than 20,000 youth in 2025-26 with employment supports tailored to their needs. This includes internships and skills development opportunities, which help the next generation shape Canada's future. Like Canada summer jobs, the youth employment and skills strategy program complements the wide range of government programs under the youth employment and skills strategy.
Let us not forget the student work placement program, which accomplishes two things. On the one hand it helps post-secondary students develop professional skills. On the the other hand, it helps employers recruit and develop talent. It does this through paid work-integrated learning opportunities. Last year, the program enabled more than 51,000 post-secondary students to obtain paid work experience with employers. Since 2017, more than 300,000 internships have been created, thanks to an investment of $207 million. More than 34,000 employers and 420 post-secondary institutions participate in the program and three out of four employers have indicated that they would be likely to hire students after their internship.
This year, the Government of Canada is supporting approximately 159,000 employment opportunities for young people and students through the youth employment and skills strategy, Canada summer jobs and all of these other programs I have mentioned. Our actions are getting results, but our efforts to help young people in Canada find jobs do not stop there. There is more.
There is the Canadian apprenticeship strategy, which provides programs, services and financial support for apprentices to help them train and obtain certification in the skilled trades. Apprentices can access EI benefits during their technical training and obtain up to $4,000 in interest-free Canada apprentice loans for each period of technical training, up to a maximum of $20,000. To round out these supports, the Canada Revenue Agency provides tax credits and deductions. On top of all of this, apprentices may be eligible for additional supports offered by their province or territory.
As if that was not enough, we have extended temporary increases to student grants and loans through the Canada student financial assistance program. We are making post-secondary education more affordable. This includes maintaining the 40% increase to grants for full-time students, part-time students, students with disabilities and students with dependants. It also includes an increase in the Canada student loan limit from $210 to $300 per week of study. Nearly 600,000 Canadian students are expected to benefit from the 40% increase in the amount of non-repayable grants, and 367,000 students could benefit from the increase in the weekly loan limit. All of these enable us to provide additional funding in the form of interest-free loans to students with unmet financial needs who need it the most.
I could go on and on, but I will put my notes aside for a moment and go back to what brought us to this very important conversation we are having this afternoon. We agreed at committee to study youth unemployment. We approached this in good faith because we know this is an important issue affecting our youth. We invited witnesses and we had genuine questions for them about all of these programs that I have mentioned. We tried to understand what works well, what we could do better, where we could do more and how we could do things differently. Those were the lines of questioning we brought to committee.
In contrast, we saw the opposition at committee constantly blaming temporary residents for youth unemployment. All of the meetings were in public. I invite everyone to watch those committee hearings. The opposition completely dismissed all of the programs that are providing youth with what they need in order to enter the job market, like re-skilling, training and the innovative work-integrated learning program. Everything we have put in place to help young people gain their first job, keep it and learn on the job is being dismissed in the name of making a point about the work of the Liberal government.
We heard across the board at committee about the mismatch between the skills young people graduate with and what the market needs. We heard that from everyone. This needs to be addressed, and we were hoping that through the work of that committee, we could get to some real, concrete solutions, not just slogans and pandering and all of that. This is a real issue. Why are young people not studying the things that society needs them to?
We also asked a witness whether the government is currently sending the right signals to youth across Canada about standing up the office for major projects, signalling that we will build infrastructure all across the country, launching Build Canada Homes and committing to building up to 500,000 homes across the country. Those are the signals we are sending when we put together tools and programs for re-skilling, to invest in our trades and to tell young people that we will need more tradespeople in order to build Canada strong. They are the right signals. We asked the witnesses who came to the committee if they thought these measures would help shift the market and what young people decide to do, and they were hopeful.
The truth is that the Conservatives across the aisle are not really there for youth and affordability. They claim to care about them, but every time we put a measure forward to support affordability and youth, they vote it down. They voted against the national housing strategy, the first home savings account and expanding mortgage criteria. They will not commit to cutting the GST for first-time homebuyers, cutting taxes for 22 million Canadians or implementing the national school food program, which has been discussed at length today.
When we say we are there for young people and want an affordable life for young people, we have to put our actions where our mouth is. The issue is too serious to not have a real conversation about it. The kind of work happening today and at the committee that is supposed to be studying this does not do the importance of this issue justice. It is very disheartening.
In conclusion, we have demonstrated that we are willing to sit down and look at what is and is not working with the program. We are willing to change things and take ideas on board, but we are not seeing authentic and genuine engagement from the other side.