Backgrounder - Government of Canada provides support for Toronto youth 

Youth Employment Strategy 

The Youth Employment Strategy (YES) is the Government of Canada’s commitment to help youth make a successful transition to the workplace. YES helps youth between the ages of 15 and 30 get the information and gain the skills, job experience and abilities they need to make a successful transition to the workforce. YES includes Skills Link, Career Focus and Summer Work Experience, and is delivered by 11 federal departments.

• Summer Work Experience provides wage subsidies to employers to create summer employment for secondary and post-secondary students. The Summer Work Experience program includes Canada Summer Jobs.

• Skills Link helps youth facing barriers to employment—including single parents, youth with disabilities, Indigenous youth, young newcomers and youth in rural and remote areas—to develop employability skills and gain the experience they need to find a job or return to school.
• Career Focus helps post-secondary graduates transition to the labour market through paid internships. It helps provide youth with the information and experience they need to make informed career decisions, find a job or pursue advanced studies.

Each year, the Government invests more than $330 million through YES to help young people gain the skills and experience they need to find and keep good jobs.

Budget 2016 provided $165.4 million in 2016–17 for YES to create new green jobs for youth, increase the number of youth who access the Skills Link program, and support employment opportunities in the heritage sector. In 2016, Employment and Social Development received an additional $339 million to create up to 35,000 additional jobs under the Canada Summer Jobs program each year for three years.

To further expand employment opportunities for young Canadians, Budget 2017 proposes to provide an additional $395.5 million over three years for YES, starting in 2017–18.

The 2016 and 2017 investments will help more than 33,000 vulnerable youth develop the skills they need to find work or go back to school; create 15,000 new green jobs for young Canadians; and provide over 1,600 new employment opportunities for youth in the heritage sector.

Skills Link program 

The Skills Link program is a component of the Government of Canada's Youth Employment Strategy. It promotes education and skills as being key to labour market participation. Through funding for organizations, the Skills Link program helps youth develop a broad range of skills and knowledge in order to participate in the current and future labour market and to overcome barriers to employment. These barriers include, but are not limited to, challenges faced by recent immigrant youth, youth with disabilities, single parent youth, youth who have not completed high school, Indigenous youth, and youth living in rural or remote areas.

Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities

Each year, ESDC invests approximately $40 million in the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities. The program offers a wide range of tools, including pre-employability services, job placements, hands-on work experience, access to assistive devices and wrap-around services to help people with disabilities prepare for, obtain and maintain employment, thereby increasing their labour market participation and independence.

The Opportunities Fund is delivered nationally and regionally across the country by Service Canada Centres, in partnership with organizations in local communities. 

In 2015–2016, the Fund served 4,509 Canadians with disabilities; helped 1,950 find work; supported 289 to return to school; and, helped 3,133 enhance their employability.