Youth Climate Corps campaign’s statement on the creation of the “Ontario Corps”
On Friday, December 13, Doug Ford and the Ontario Conservatives announced the creation of the "Ontario Corps"—a volunteer-based program to respond to disasters and emergency situations in Ontario.
Until now, the responsibility for responding to disasters has primarily fallen on the Canadian Armed Forces (an approach that raises concerns, from increased greenhouse gas emissions to perpetuating the military industrial complex). The Ontario Conservatives' solution is even more problematic: to replace professional responders with unpaid labor. This move represents a deeply cynical and exploitative approach to addressing societal challenges.
In contrast, the national Youth Climate Corps campaign has been advocating for a federally-funded Youth Climate Corps that would offer paid opportunities for young people to be trained and employed in essential, in-demand jobs, including emergency response.
We express our grave disappointment with the Ontario government's establishment of a volunteer Ontario Corps program, which follows op-eds released earlier this year in a similar vein that advocated for volunteer conscription of youth. Young people are already facing multiple crises that profoundly impact the health, wellbeing, and economic stability of Canadians. Young people are wrestling with an unemployment rate at a 10-year high. Our governments have a fundamental responsibility to ensure public safety during disasters—a responsibility that cannot be met by normalizing unpaid labour. The solution is not to demand free labour from vulnerable youth or others. Instead, we must create accessible, barrier-free opportunities that allow young people to enter the workforce with living wages and union representation, enabling them to contribute meaningfully and be fairly compensated.
The Ford government's co-opting of the Youth Climate Corps campaign concept demonstrates its strength. Young people deserve genuine opportunities to contribute their skills and knowledge to society, and emergency response is an essential service that should never be treated as an afterthought.
The true solution is a federally-funded, public, and unionized Youth Climate Corps grounded in a human rights framework and centering Indigenous knowledge and leadership. Such a program would offer meaningful, green jobs to individuals under 35, empowering an entire generation to build our nation, enhance our collective resilience, and combat the greenhouse gas emissions from the fossil fuel industry that are devastating our planet and unleashing biodiversity collapse in every region.
Learn more about our campaign for a Youth Climate Corps: www.goodgreenjobsforall.ca
Media: to request an interview, please email info@climateemergencyunit.ca
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A Youth Climate Corps program must uphold these principles developed in partnership with youth across Canada:
Good Green Jobs for All: Uphold workers’ rights and provide a pathway to long-term, dignified careers in the post-fossil fuel, carbon-zero economy of the future. Ensure the Youth Climate Corps is a public, accessible, and well-paying program that turns no young person away.
Build the Fossil Fuel-Free Future: Develop evidence-based programming in collaboration with Indigenous nations, industry, labour, youth, post-secondary, and climate experts so that youth are safely deployed on projects that maximize greenhouse gas reductions and pay thriving wages.
Centre Indigenous Knowledge and Sovereignty: Respect the inherent title and rights of Indigenous nations and centre the needs, knowledge and leadership of communities; nations must be able to give free, prior and informed consent to all projects on their territories.
Empower Local Needs and Priorities: Allocate ample resources with consideration to the needs of all of Canada’s regions, in alignment with regional and local climate action priorities.
Rooted in Justice: Build equity for systematically marginalized populations and under-served communities. Acknowledge, prioritize and tell the truth about historic and ongoing environmental racism that gravely impacts Indigenous communities and impoverished populations.
Make it Big: Create a brash and transformative new public program, not a non-profit organization or wage top-up program. The Youth Climate Corps must be government-funded and community-led at a massive scale to confront the needs of the climate emergency.
