The Current - Should Canada pay youth for a year of national service?

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

With youth unemployment on the rise in Canada, is a national service year the answer to get young people working? A growing number of Canadians say yes, but what does that look like in practice and who will pay for it?

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A message from QP8125. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Now, if you're a young person looking for work right now, chances are it has not been an easy road. I've had a hard time searching and finding a job in the summer, actually. It's been very different from the past two years. I remember finding a job easily in the past, but it's been a really tough journey, actually, finding a job in the summer. I have been searching for a summer job, and I have not been successful yet.

at all. It's been really tough. I'm mainly in hospitality. The job market is really competitive. There's a lot of university students who are trying to get hostess and server jobs and things like that. And it's really, really competitive and people just are so backlogged with applications. In my area, I've heard like no one's getting any jobs unless they had it before they left for university. I think I definitely would have struggled. Finding the specific job I have right now wasn't that difficult, but I did apply to like maybe 40 plus jobs before I got that one. So it's not like search was just like very easy. Some Canadian leaders say there's something we can do to make that process a little easier.

A voluntary national service year, giving young people between 18 and 30 the chance to work for a year, earn a living wage, and also gain work experience. For years, politicians and economists have debated the benefits of a national service year, but renewed calls for a program like this are gaining traction. Advocates from former BC Premier Christy Clark to former Quebec Premier Jean Chiray say this could bolster Canadian identity and contribute to the economy. And as youth unemployment in this country remains high, my next guest says there's no better time to revisit the idea.

Farah Muhammad is a Canadian senator representing Ontario. Senator Muhammad, good morning. Good morning, Rebecca. So what exactly is a voluntary national service year? How would it work? So first of all, I just want to talk a little bit about the perfect storm we have. You're right. We have a current context.

We've got large unemployment. We've got young people who are desperate and they feel isolated. And what we also have is this idea of being ambitious. A year of service looks like this. One month of onboarding, learning some essential things that employers want to see. The next 11 months, you're in a situation where you're actually in an employment. It can be an entry-level role. It can be with the private sector, with government, with charitable entities.

and can actually be in areas where Canada is looking for increased labor, skills, trade, energy, health care, logistics, emergency management, agriculture, and manufacturing, I could go on. There's no area in this country where we're not looking for new, interesting, motivated young people. You know, a year of service is essentially a young person giving up a year and saying, I want to learn skills I don't have that employers are looking for. I want to give back to my community. and I want to have meaningful employment. On the other side, you've got employers saying,

we need to have a pipeline of people who want to work in our industries. And what I think is examples of other countries where they have been successful, United States, Finland, others who've said, look, we've tried this and it's working. And what percentage of the young population is signing up for this kind of thing in those countries? Well, I don't have the exact data of how many people. Well, what we've seen is when you look at the countries that have done this, they've said, they've had more people say, look, we now have the skills to go to another place. What we have in Canada is a very fragmented system.

We've got programs that were invented created for very different times. And because of that fragmentation, we're seeing varying levels of success. So Canada, you know, while you can look at Finland and the U.S. and others, Canada, I think, is in a very interesting position in that we, like many other, other countries have a population that is going to be retiring, and we have a population that is eager, really eager to get started. I was listening to your speakers beforehand, and you can hear in their voice, they want to work. How much would this cost? And would you need the provincial and territorial governments to sign on as well? Yeah, actually, it's a system where you'd have a lot of

people sign on. So currently, we spend between two and three billion dollars a year, and we I think we help about 100 to 120,000 young people. This system would be set up so that in its steady state, it would have between 50 and 60,000 young people in actual jobs. So not pathways to a paycheck, but pathways to employment. It could cost somewhere around $2.2 billion. And the way that I've looked at it is there is a role for the federal government to put money in, the private sector to put money in.

You can do things like tax credits. So there's a role for provincial, federal, private sector, charities creating employment opportunities, private sector creating opportunities, and the government funding it. And I can tell you that it'll come in under our current spending. And it will be a national program that can work in rural, in urban. There's an element there that is bilingual, and it evolves indigenous youth and indigenous communities. You know, when we think of national service, we often associate that with military service, and some of the proposed national service programs have recommended that basic military training is required as part of this. What do you make of that?

I think there's a really interesting onset there. For me, the service streams, as I said, of a private sector, the public sector, the not-for-profit and community stream, and then the national readiness stream, and that is an opportunity to work with Canadian Armed Forces. We have a prime minister that is bolstering our defense. We need to have people work in that area. And so I think there is something to be said about the discipline that comes from, the commitment that comes from being involved in those types of situations. It's not for everybody. But I think you can learn a lot from those types of organizations and those types of experiences. And there will be young people who want to do it. And why do you think this is something that would be supportive of national unity?

Well, look, I think we have, again, a prime minister that's talking a lot about Canada's strong and building Canada, but we can't just do that with infrastructure, with trade deals. We have to do with our people. And we've got young people who, as I say, they're ready to work and they don't have the opportunity. So I think this would work because it requires everyone to invest, right? It requires young people to give up a year of their life, employers to create opportunities, training, employment. It requires the government to be ambitious and creative. and to put forward meaningful, significant funding that is an investment in the same way we're making investments in all of the different areas we're seeing the Prime Minister talk about.

We've heard that other people have suggested this is a good idea as well, but it's not the first time Canada has tried to implement a youth employment program. Why do you think it would work this time when others have failed? I think because we have the perfect term. We do have massive unemployment. We have young people that are not getting entry-level jaws because of AI and automation. We have employers saying young people are lacking certain skills. Well, let's give them the skills. Let's give them the opportunity.

And we have this ambitious agenda for building Canada. I don't know how you build Canada without getting young people to be part of that build. And is there the political will? Well, that's a big question. So I hope there's a political will. You know, we have in Antigani and Patty Heidu in the prime minister himself. a lot of, I think, interest in young people, but we need to see the goods. And I think this is the opportunity.

There has to be at some point the willingness of government to say we have to do things differently. The programs we have in place now, they are a pathway to a paycheck, they are not a pathway to employment, we have to think differently. So I'm hoping that political will is there. There is not one person that I've heard say this is a bad idea. It's just what does the idea look like? How much is it going to cost?

How are the provinces and the federal government involved? How is private sector, the charitable sector, young people at the center of this, not a byproduct of it, but actually at the center of it. And so I think the political will needs to be there. Whether it is there, I guess we'll see. Farah Muhammad, thank you for this. Thank you very much. Farah Muhammad is a Canadian senator representing Ontario.

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Hear the very best in award-winning true crime. Listen to uncover wherever you get your podcasts. Now, in an Angus read poll published last year, seven in ten Canadians said they were in favor of a mandatory national service year. Though that number drops when you mention military service. For these students in Toronto who were looking for work, they say they'd be willing and in many cases eager to try a national service year. Just to have the experience and it would look great for future applications for a master's degree,

I think it's a smart move for the party and I think it would benefit the younger people who want to earn a living wage at somewhere that's kind of permanent. Even if it's only for a year, at least it's permanent and consistent versus trying to find a job now where we have literally 40, 50-year-olds in customer service and hospitality now because of the economy, right? I would probably be more interested in working in something that's related to what I wanted to do in the future, but I think it would be a good opportunity. help build job experience, make connections, stuff like that. I'd say it would be a good idea. Honestly, anything right now, it would be a viable option to be very honest with you. I'd want to ask what the catch is, but I would be interested because it would be a job. A job is a job. A job is a job.

Ilona Doherty studies youth unemployment. She's the managing director of the Youth and Innovation Project at the University of Waterloo. Good morning. Good morning, Rebecca. We'll get your thoughts on the National Service. program as an option in a moment, but I am curious, why is it so hard for young people to find jobs right now? Well, I think as Senator Mohamed mentioned, it is a perfect storm. You know, so we have, we've had an increase in population amongst younger age groups. We have older age groups who are

taking jobs at her entry level, because as one of the young people mentioned, you know, the economy is really tough. And certainly we're starting to also see the impact of technology and AI on entry level jobs. And so on the face of it, are you in support of this national service program as suggested by the senator? So I am absolutely in support of a national service program. So in addition to youth employment or other area of research is actually youth service. And so I'm a big fan of use service, but it really is a question of how it's implemented. It's a question of funding. It's a question of scale. We've been doing youth service programs in Canada for many, many years. So we have a lot of expertise, but we've never been able to scale them in a way that makes them truly meaningful.

You know, one of the things the Senator talked about was that this service year could address a skill gap for young people entering the workforce. Why is there that skill gap, that skill gap, there. I mean, a lot of these young people have just come out of school and, and curious, if you think a program like this would actually address that gap. Yeah, so I don't actually think there is a skill gap. I think it's a really easy thing for us to say, and we tend to say it around young people, is they don't have the skills that employers need. Well, the research actually shows that employers don't actually know what skills they need. And young people, this generation of young people is actually one of the most highly educated generations of young people,

not only in Canada, but also globally. So young people have the skills they need. What we're really seeing in our research is that young people don't have opportunities to gain experience. So that three to five years experience that is on entry-level job postings, that's just impossible to get at the moment. So certainly a national service year, help fill that gap. But I don't think it's about more skills training. It's actually about

young people getting hands on experience. You talked about, you know, the difficulty and challenges and scaling it up. Talk to me a little bit more about that. Yeah. So, I mean, it's not only, so we have, so Senator Mohamed talked about, I think about 50,000 young people being part of this every year. So we have about 500,000 19-year-olds in Canada. And so I would say we need to be more ambitious than 50,000. You know, if we're going to do this, we need to be looking at, you know, 200,000 or 300,000 young people that would go through a program like this. That costs a lot of money. So what I think it's important to also mention is right now our youth service programs in Canada are not only voluntary in terms of it's voluntary to join, but you must be unpaid. They must be

unpaid positions to, so they're not actually weighed subsidies. what Senator Mohamed was talking about in terms of wage subsidies is a different program. So we would need to kind of totally rethink how we view service, how service programs are funded in this country. We would need to think about how youth employment programs are funded in this country, you know, if we were going to truly scale. But it's also not just about providing opportunities for young people. It's also providing the infrastructure, right? So it's making sure that businesses, that community organizations are able to take on this influx of young people. And so that also requires an investment in our small businesses and in our voluntary sector.

You need a lot of people on board by the sounds of it. You do. And you need, again, to not only fund the young people, but you need to be really making sure you're funding the community around them. otherwise we see with programs like the 40 hours of volunteer mandatory volunteer hours to graduate in Ontario, young people end up having a horrible experience and it defeats the purpose. So it's really, really about infrastructure as well as wages for young people. We heard the senator talk about other jurisdictions, other parts of the world where it's in effect right now. I don't know how well it's working, but can you give us an example where you do think it's working?

Certainly. So there are parts of the world. For example, so Nigeria has a mandatory youth service course. So that's interesting, about 300,000 young people per year. So that's at a scale that's really interesting. The U.S. has the most well-evaluated youth service court, almost globally, honestly. So I would say, yes, is it working different places? To some degree, yes. However, the research. is is not very clear and we don't have a lot of research about, you know, what is working and what is it. So again, as I mentioned, in addition to researching youth unemployment, that's what we are doing as well at the Youth and Innovation Project is really digging into, like, what do we know about the social and environmental impact young people have through youth service and what also, what leads to lifelong active citizenship when in the context of youth service. So we got a lot of lot of research to do. There are some good models out there. And certainly, again, I'm a big supporter of this initiative, but there's a lot of nuance to it. And we also need to be investing in

research. And what do you think we lose if we don't sort out the youth unemployment problem, especially as we see the rise of AI and there's lots of talk about how AI takes those entry-level jobs? Like, what do we lose as a society if young people aren't in our workforce? It is a crisis. I mean, we lose an entire generation. And I don't, again, it's not a question of whether AI is going to take their jobs, but there's also AI washing, which means that companies feel like they don't need to invest in young employees because they won't need them. There is long-term financial scarring for young people when they have a rough start to their early career. We see, you know, homeless rates, radicalization. I mean, a huge amount of social problems are amplified when young people are out of the labor market. and kind of out of the workforce. So we absolutely need to get this right. There is no negotiation.

This is a social and economic imperative. And we need to be, I think, really being bold. We need to be bold about this. The reality is, as Senator Mohabin mentioned, we've done this in a piecemeal way so far. So the question is, how do we actually take this seriously as a serious issue, rather than just as a nice to have in this new context.

And are Canadians willing to pay for it, you think? I mean, I have a 20-month-old son. I know he wouldn't quite be eligible for service yet. But certainly I'd do anything for my kid, right? And I think that's what we need to recognize is, you know, anybody with a 15 to 25-year-old at home is worried about them and worried about their prospects. Okay. Ilona Doherty, I appreciate this.

Thank you for making the time. for us. Thanks so much, Rebecca. Ilona Dordy is the managing director of the Youth and Innovation Project at the University of Waterloo. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC

podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca.