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Why this petition matters to me and how significant it is:

I am a 16 year old who is currently a student in Markham, and I feel like we need to do something about unemployment that is slowly but steadily growing in Canada. Currently, the unemployment rate in Canada is 6.4%. Among those are young people aged 15-24 with 13.5% being unemployed. This issue interests me personally because I know how people, mostly young Canadians who are either in school or are recent graduates, are unable to find employment. The reason why it’s such a significant issue is because everyone needs a job to survive, especially those who need a job to pay for their tuition fees, pay rent, food, water, and electricity. Not only does this scare me because I know in the future I need a job that can sustain me and pay for my education, but I know the costs of living and inflation are at an all time high. There are young people out there who have applied for countless jobs for weeks on end and still cannot get any jobs. This high unemployment rate harms Canada’s economy because unemployment leads to poverty and homelessness, which is not sustainable for an economy to prosper. 

More on the implications of unemployment:

It would be important to know about the other less obvious consequences of unemployment too. Unemployment affects pretty much everyone. It affects individuals, families, society, and the economy. The government is a huge stakeholder in this issue too because our government is responsible for the factors related to unemployment and is the one who makes the policies. Like mentioned before, we need a job to survive. Unemployment leads to financial instability because if they don’t have a job, they can’t pay for their stuff. If it helps, jobs are important to our society. If they can’t afford their needs, they can’t contribute to the economy. Additionally, unemployment causes stress and anxiety. Mental health is a serious issue in today’s world, and we cannot let unemployment cause even more problems for us.

What you can do + proposed solutions:

Now you may be wondering what we must do in order to combat this particular issue. We must urge our government to make more changes for Canada to reduce unemployment. We should tell our politicians to get our government to create more jobs. An example of what the government can do is to get the government to invest in specific sectors of industry, like transportation or green energy (solar panels, wind turbines, etc.). We should also invest more into workshops that focus on teaching skills to people so that they can get a job.

Education definitely should be something our government should invest in more. Unfortunately, our government doesn’t fund education as much as they should. In 2021/2022, according to Statistics Canada, funding for Canadian elementary and secondary schools decreased by 2.8%. In 2023, it was found that Doug Ford, the government of Ontario, decided to cut education funding by around 47 million dollars. Because of these changes, a lot of teachers had to be laid-off. If we fund education more, there will be more teachers. This will increase the quality of education, therefore, there will be more qualified people and they can get better jobs. Overall, this will decrease unemployment.

Of course, we can’t make this happen without YOUR help! Each signature goes a long way to make change, so make sure you don’t forget to sign this petition!