The Government of Canada is committed to listening to the issues that matter most to young people. That is why the Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, in his role as Minister of Youth, committed in Budget 2016 to create a Prime Minister’s Youth Council. Canadians, aged 16 to 24, will provide the Prime Minister with non-partisan advice on national issues such as employment, access to education, building stronger communities as well as climate change and clean growth, among others.

About the Prime Minister’s Youth Council

Up to 30 Council members will be selected. These members will come from diverse communities from all regions of Canada, in order to bring a range of knowledge and experience to the table. They will sit on the Council for a mandate of up to two years, and will be compensated for their time while conducting Youth Council business.

Council members will meet both online and offline several times a year to discuss the issues that matter to them, their community, and their country. They will interact with each other outside of meetings to discuss ideas and upcoming activities, and will engage with their communities. They will meet with the Prime Minister up to four times a year.

Applying to Become a Council Member

Applicants will be asked to fill out an online form in which they must provide background information on themselves, their community involvement, and ideas for Canadian youth.

Selections for the Youth Council will be made in two intervals. The first wave of Youth Council members will meet with the Prime Minister in the fall, while members selected during the second wave will join the second meeting in 2017.

The selection process will be conducted in two stages. In the first phase, a pool of approximately 300 youth will be chosen from the entire pool of applicants. In this phase, we will create three pools of approximately 100 candidates each who will be invited to the second stage of the selection process. The first pool will include the top 100 candidates who have the highest scores in community engagement in each region of Canada. This will ensure that there are candidates who have a strong context of the issues and activities of their communities, so are best to represent their constituents. The second pool will consist of 100 randomly selected candidates. This will allow for a fair and broad representation of all youth applicants. The final pool of 100 candidates will be formed based on diversity indicators, to allow the large pool of 300 to be fully representative of the diversity of Canada.

The second stage of the selection process will invite the top 300 applicants to conduct a video interview and submit their resumes to a secure online platform and give their ideas for Canadian youth. This additional information will be used to select the top candidates for the Youth Council.

Youth Engagement

The application will have an option for youth to not apply for the Youth Council, but have their information submitted to a database for further youth engagement opportunities. This database will be shared with other federal departments who wish to offer youth engagement opportunities. 

Unsuccessful applicants of the Youth Council will also have their information submitted to this database. All applicants must click ‘agree’ to the sharing of their information on the application, prior to submitting.

We are thrilled to be partnering with you in this work and look forward to finding innovative ways to spread the word. The call has been launched at www.canada.ca/youth