Justin Trudeau’s Big Youth Initiative Is a Throwback to the Past

As we all know, youth are the future. Unfortunately, there is a very good chance that their future could be garbage. But a new Liberal initiative is aiming to change that—or at least prepare them for a life of doing lots of socially-approved work for modest sums of money.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the “design phase” of a new youth initiative called the Canada Service Corps on Tuesday. (Youth, for the purposes of the program, are defined as those aged 15 to 30.) Its proposed goal is to establish a national program that would recruit young people in community service projects around the country.

The government has committed $105 million over the next three years to build the program. This is being done in conjunction with a number of other national, regional, and local partners, including 4-H Canada, Apathy is Boring, Katimavik, and the YMCA. Overall, the Liberals hope the Canada Service Corps will create up to 12,350 youth service positions when it is launched in 2019.

Overall this is a positive development. There is a ton of (non-profitable) work to be done around the country. Given the dim economic prospects faced by most Millennials and post-Millennials, federal money that gets young people involved in community service work is fundamentally a good idea.

This being the design phase, it’s not clear what the final Canada Service Corps program will actually look like when it launches in 2019. This initiative was also supposed to launch by late 2017, so don’t hold your breath to find out—and maybe expect the promise of federal funding for volunteering to figure prominently in the next election as the Liberals and NDP square off for the youth vote when they aren’t trying to out-Instagram each other.

It’s also unclear at this time whether the Canada Service Corps will be a centralized and overarching national program, or whether it will work by dispersing money through local partners. Small grants are already available for young people looking to get paid for being socially-conscious, and the government has issued a helpful guide to developing a plan and applying for one of three funding streams ($250, $750, and $1,500).

There are some stipulations. In order to be funded, projects and organizations have to fall within the Liberals’ interpretation of social justice and the Charter. This means, for example, that no one is going to get any money for anti-abortion work, which has already proved to be a controversial feature of the Summer Jobs Program. Meanwhile, projects that encourage reconciliation—especially if they bring Indigenous peoples and settlers together—are highly prized by the powers that be.

Getting youth engaged in community activism and leadership positions has long been a personal hobby-horse for the prime minister, who is also the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Youth. Prior to entering politics in 2008, Trudeau spent four years as the chair of Katimavik, a youth service program established by his father but starved of federal funding by the Harper government in 2012. As a rookie MP in 2009, he also proposed creating a youth service corps similar to what was announced this week, but the motion was defeated.

In 2016, Trudeau established the Prime Minister’s Youth Council. This is an advisory board made up of youth from around the country that provide the prime minister with counsel on political issues like climate change, education, and the economy from the perspective of young Canadians—many of whom voted Liberal in the 2015 election. Say what you will about the Trudeau government, but on the youth file at least the prime minister’s personal political convictions are displayed most clearly.

So fill your boots, kids. Go on the government website and give them your opinions and take a gap year from uni by doing your civic duty. The Canada Service Corps will transform you from a normal person into a super citizen. You will be a maple-blooded patriot who will see the national interest buried in every rural ditch you dig. You will build a national network with everyone else in Canada who is as passionate as solving poverty through startups and tolerance as you are. It will root a “culture of service” deep within your heart and guarantee you a place on a “Top 30 under 30” list, or at least a profile in your local paper. You will be the very model of a future Liberal candidate.

Most importantly of all, it will also teach you the secret art of successfully applying for government grants, an invaluable skill across every sector of the Canadian economy. Master this, and the sky’s the limit.

Trust me; I live in Atlantic Canada.