An Update on the YCC Campaign for 2025
tl;dr - the proroguing of parliament has slowed the progress we were making in winning a Youth Climate Corps this year, but that hasn’t stopped our drive to win a YCC. This year, we’ll be fighting to make a Youth Climate Corps key elections policy and to elect YCC champions. Are you in? Sign up for our newsletter.
What a whirlwind of a year it’s shaking up to be. January is not even over and already we are facing a complete change of the Canadian political landscape. Like us, you might be wondering what this means for the Youth Climate Corps campaign. Here is a short update on what we achieved last year and where it brings us now.
Last March, we launched a year of campaigning by hosting an online town hall, with participation from 16 in-person watch parties, over 100 people online, and MPs from different parties. We really pulled that off!
Since then, we’ve built a collective vision for a Youth Climate Corps by reaching out to community leaders, individuals, and by growing a stronger online presence. We talked to hundreds of people, painted nearly a dozen street murals, engaged over 200 institutions (both big and small)…and oh yeah, we managed to get a Youth Climate Corps to be considered as a genuine policy solution across all levels of government.
Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation and prorogued Parliament earlier this month, a lot of our progress to win a Youth Climate Corps feels stymied. In other words, our runway to victory has all but evaporated. While Parliament is currently on pause, we are still pushing hard to get a YCC in any version of a 2025 Spring Budget. Most of all, we are reflecting on what we need to do in order to make a Youth Climate Corps front and center in any conversation on youth, employment, climate, or [insert any crisis here].
With an election this year, it’s difficult not to plan with that mountaintop in mind. Therefore, building a winning election campaign with successful YCC champions that embody our campaign principles will be top of mind. Want to learn more as we develop our goals or even be part of that development? Sign up for our newsletter.
This work is hard. Collectively, we are in the business of building hope and the belief that our world can get better, when the ultra-wealthy pour billions of dollars into forcing us to believe the opposite. Not only that, we work together to show people in our communities that we can first-hand build the world we dream of, whether it’s with a shovel or a clipboard in hand.