Opinion
Toronto’s Youth Are Not a Pilot Project
One in six young people can’t find work
In April 2026, Toronto’s youth unemployment rate stood at 16.8 per cent, according to the City’s own staff. That is down only slightly from 19.7 per cent in October 2025, and still far above the rate for the city as a whole.
Behind that number are young people who did everything they were told. They studied, applied, and waited. A Toronto Youth Cabinet survey found that 74 per cent of youth face logistical or systemic barriers to getting work. Nationally, unemployment among Black youth was 22 per cent and among Indigenous youth 18 per cent.
The City’s response has been real but temporary. The 2026 Summer Safety Plan put more than $5 million into youth programs, and much youth programming runs on three-year grants. When the summer ends or the grant runs out, the program closes and the trusted adults leave. Young people learn that the city shows up for a season, then disappears.
A city that builds with its youth, all year
I am an engineer and an educator. I taught construction project management in Ontario’s colleges, and I watched talented students graduate into a city that had no place for them. As an engineer, I know you don’t fix a structure with a patch that expires every summer. You build it to last.
That is my promise to Toronto’s young people. Youth programs will be permanent, not pilots. Safe spaces will be open all year, not only in July. And young people will be paid to help rebuild their own city: its pipes, its buildings, its parks and its transit.
Toronto will no longer throw its people away. That starts with the youngest of them.
The policy: eight commitments to Toronto’s youth
Each commitment is marked Deliver (a mayor can do it) or Advocate (it needs the province or Ottawa, and I will press for it).
| # | Commitment | What it means | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Permanent funding, not pilots | Move proven youth programs into the City’s base budget so they no longer end with a three-year grant | Deliver |
| 2 | Year-round safe spaces | Turn vacant City buildings and empty storefronts into youth hubs open evenings and weekends, in every district including Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York | Deliver |
| 3 | Paid apprenticeships with City crews | Youth learn trades on real work: infrastructure repair, building retrofits, flood protection and tree planting, by strengthening the City’s own crews | Deliver |
| 4 | Free transit | Fare-free TTC for everyone means no young person misses school, work or a job interview over a fare | Deliver (phased) |
| 5 | A first job and a first business | Local-hiring priority for youth on City projects, plus seats in neighbourhood incubators with mentors from colleges and local businesses | Deliver |
| 6 | A real seat at the table | A formal role for the Toronto Youth Cabinet: youth consulted before decisions that affect them, with a public report on what changed | Deliver |
| 7 | Prevention first | As mayor I will take my own seat on the Police Service Board and push resources toward violence interruption and mentorship | Deliver |
| 8 | Homes and learning | Tenant protections for young renters, longer library hours and digital access, and pressure on Queen’s Park to restore cut OSAP grants | Deliver / Advocate |
Dr. Bahira Abdulsalam, PhD, P.Eng.
Candidate for Mayor of Toronto, bahira.ca
Toronto needs an engineer
Sources
- City of Toronto, Update on Reducing Barriers to Youth Employment (presentation to Economic and Community Development Committee, June 9, 2026)
- City of Toronto, Reducing Barriers to Youth Employment (staff report, November 2025)
- Toronto Youth Cabinet and The Neighbourhood Group, Toronto Youth Employment Postcard Survey
- City of Toronto, 2026 Summer Safety Plan with a more than $5-million investment in youth safety and well-being
- City of Toronto, Youth Violence Prevention Grant (funding for up to three years)
- Mayor Olivia Chow, letter on the Toronto Police Service Board seat under section 31(5) of the Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019
- Maclean’s, Ford government eliminates free tuition for low-income students (2019)
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