Conservatives pitch training reform to address high youth unemployment
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OTTAWA – The federal Conservative party is proposing changes to student financial assistance and a measure to boost housing production to improve job prospects for young people.
Unemployment rose to 14.7 per cent for youth aged 15 to 24 in September, hitting a 15-year high outside the pandemic years.
Conservative MP Garnett Genuis warned Wednesday that the “deepening youth unemployment crisis” will affect young workers’ career trajectories for the rest of their lives.
He laid out a plan that would see government student assistance programs offer more support to students seeking work in high-demand fields.
Genuis said there’s been a “misalignment” between education and the jobs market.
He cited Statistics Canada data released Friday that showed 18.2 per cent of young people with a post-secondary degree, diploma or certificate were working in a field other than the one they had studied — up 1.6 percentage points from a year earlier.
Genuis suggested tailoring the Canada Student Financial Assistance Program — which offers financial assistance to low-income and other in-need students — to offer more or less funding based on whether an applicant’s field of study has better employment outcomes than others.
Genuis did not offer examples of in-demand sectors but said that “objective” criteria should be used to determine which fields lead to better career outcomes.
The Conservatives are also proposing to allow businesses in regions facing labour shortages to write off the cost of building homes for employees. Genuis said this would make it easier for companies to convince youth who can’t find work in their home province to move across the country.
“Secure and comfortable housing available on site or close by makes relocation for Canadians so much easier,” he said.
Genuis said these businesses can’t rely solely on foreign labour to fund their operations. The Official Opposition has called on Ottawa to scrap the temporary foreign workers program, with carve-outs for the agricultural sector.
The Conservatives pin much of the blame for high youth unemployment on what they call Canada’s broken immigration system, which they say flooded the job market and made it harder for young people to break in.
Genuis said improving international credential recognition could help Canada integrate skilled workers faster, sparing them from being forced into entry-level positions where they would compete with younger people.
He added that current Conservative proposals to reduce red tape in homebuilding and resource extraction would have knock-on benefits for youth looking for work.
Genuis said the Conservatives want the Liberal government to adopt its jobs plan and include it in the fall budget, set to be released Nov. 4.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 15, 2025.