Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent announcement of $40 million for a national Youth Climate Corps has caught the attention of Canadians curious and eager to see meaningful climate action. For many though, the idea of a ‘climate corps’ is new. What will it look like? Who will be involved? And how can we best involve young people in work that will shape their future?
At Wildsight, we know a thing or two about this already. We launched Canada’s very first Youth Climate Corps (YCC) back in 2020, with a simple but powerful vision: to empower young people to inspire and implement solutions to the climate crisis through meaningful employment.
Since then, we’ve run 12 successful crews, hiring 75 young adults to take hands-on climate action, gain tangible skills and help strengthen their climate resilience in the local community. Our partner, Youth Climate Corps BC, has now run crews in nine other locations in addition to helping us deliver this program here in the Kootenays.
As the federal government prepares to fund a larger-scale version of this plan, we’d like to share what we’ve learned about what a Youth Climate Corps can be, and why it matters.
Building tomorrow’s climate leaders
Our Youth Climate Corps, a partnership between Wildsight and Youth Climate Corps BC, hires young adults (under 30) who want to make a positive impact in local communities. Some are university students looking for summer jobs. Others are exploring potential career paths. Some have struggled to get hired in their chosen fields due to lack of real world experience. What unites them is not background or skill set but their passion for climate action.
Each crew, typically 4–6 members strong, spends several months focused on training, community engagement and hands-on field work. Projects include wildfire risk reduction, water stewardship, food security, ecological restoration and more.
Crew members have found the program helps them gain insight into their own futures.
“We met so many industry professionals. Having to engage with so many important people has made me more confident to ask questions when given the opportunity,” says 2025 crew member Brianna Houde. “I have gained more confidence to make moves in my career.”
And the program allows young adults to find kindred spirits for climate action, something that can be a powerful incentive for future climate-related work.
“My crew was the biggest highlight of my season,” says Bronte Elphick-Miner. “Finding like-minded young people who share my values has been challenging since graduating, but the YCC gave me that community again.”
Bronte shares that project highlights ranged from learning about organic farming to connecting with local botanists and native plant experts. But her favourite was the forest surveying training that even helped her secure a job following the YCC season.
The power of partnership
Wildsight’s success with YCC has been built through deep collaboration. Our model is to partner with local governments, businesses and community groups to design projects that fill real needs. These partnerships make the program mutually beneficial — communities get critical climate work done, while participants gain invaluable hands-on experience and training.
“The climate crisis is too big and too urgent to be solved just by volunteers or people working on it off the sides of their desks,” says Robyn Duncan, Wildsight Executive Director. “We need a labour force to expedite all the projects that aren’t getting done fast enough through status-quo systems.”
That’s where Youth Climate Corps comes in: connecting the energy and optimism of young people with the pressing work communities need to build climate resilience.
Building from our early work, Youth Climate Corps BC now partners with us here in the Columbia Basin and operates similar programs in multiple communities across the province. Meanwhile, the Climate Emergency Unit has been advocating to bring this model across the country. Remarkably, they commissioned nation-wide polling showing that 40% of people ages 18 to 35 would “definitely” or “probably” enrol
in a 2 year Youth Climate Corps program and a further 25% would consider it. Across the country, that suggests demand at the scale of millions of young Canadians. $20 million per year will be nowhere near enough to meet this demand but we are nonetheless encouraged to see the model scaling up.
We already know that when young people are given the tools and support to do climate work, the results are powerful. Funding a national Youth Climate Corps is a celebratory step forward, one we’re thrilled to see.
Learn more about Wildsight’s Youth Climate Corps work: wildsight.ca/ycc
Learn more about Youth Climate Corps BC: https://www.youthclimatecorps.com/
