Programs will be hard to run with fewer summer students
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The administrators of two local charities were shocked when they learned the Canada Summer Jobs Program grants they had relied on had dwindled or disappeared completely.
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Children at Risk, a non-profit that assists families of youth on the autism spectrum, has received Canada Summer Jobs grants for its summer day camp program, Camp Kaleidoscope.
The amount of funding received has varied widely. The camp opened in 2011 and six years later first got Summer Jobs funding from the program that offers wage subsidies for not-for-profit organizations and the public sector as well as businesses with 50 or fewer full-time workers.
This year, Children at Risk executive director Brenda Reisch applied for more than 100 jobs, the same number approved in 2021 and 2022.
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In 2024, that number was reduced to 29 jobs, resulting in the smallest camp since it first opened in 2011. This year’s grant will cover the cost of hiring only seven counsellors and the camp is facing limiting families to one week each.
“We’re trying to move ahead,” Reisch said. “It was discouraging to be hobbled by the lack of funding.”
The news was even worse for the Parkdale Food Centre.
It runs a food bank, a community kitchen, a youth program and an advocacy program. Over the past 10 years, the centre had consistently received funding for eight student jobs aimed at covering the roles of staff and volunteers who were on vacation, executive director Beth Ciavaglia said.
“It wasn’t on the radar that they would say no,” she said. “They never said no before. We got nothing.”
In an email dated May 12, Service Canada said it was unable to offer funding at this time.
“Please note that, due to a high volume of applications and limited funding, not all projects could be funded. However, if funds become available, we will contact you to proceed with the next steps.”
It will make a for a difficult summer, Ciavaglia said.
“These students are crucial to us. We have a lot of volunteers, but only 12 staff. Volunteers take vacations, and the students allow us to run the programs and for staff to take vacation,” she said.
“The food bank system is already strained. Now we’re down by eight positions.”
If the picture is grim for charities, it’s just as grim for youth seeking summer employment, according to a report from the job search website Indeed.com.
As of early May, Canadian summer job postings were down 22 per cent from 2024, said the report by Brendon Bernard, a senior economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, which focuses on the Canadian labour market.
The report was based on job postings on Indeed containing the word “summer” or “été” in their titles, as of May 9. Postings were down 32 per cent for summer camp roles. Other jobs like painters, lifeguards and customer service representatives also fell compared to 2024.
“The dip in job postings comes at a time when growth in youth employment has fallen far short of rapid population growth over the past two years, suggesting 2025 could be another difficult summer for seasonal job seekers,” the report said.
Fading demand for summer camp counsellors is one driver of the fading summer job market. Camp-related postings are typically the largest single category of summer job ads. After holding steady at elevated levels between 2022 and 2024, postings for these roles were down 32 per cent in early May 2025 compared to 2024 — back to where they stood in 2019.
Camp Kaleidoscope — known as Camp K to campers and their families — is based for the summer at an Ottawa Catholic School Board school, although the location has bounced across the city, said Reisch, who believes that may be one of the problems since grants are tied to ridings.
In 2023, Camp K was held at St. Pius. In 2024, it was at St. Paul. It has been at Lester B. Pearson and other east-end locations. This year, it is to be held at St. Matthew in Orléans.
In the past, MPs have offered a few jobs from their Canada Summer Jobs allotments to Camp K because the program benefits the entire region. But Reisch said she has had no offers this year despite her entreaties to MPs.
In a statement, Employment and Social Development Canada spokesperson Maja Stefanovska said applications were assessed individually to ensure that employers, projects and job activities aligned with program objectives, eligibility criteria and represented quality work experiences for youth.
Once department officials assess and rank eligible applications, MPs are invited to review the list for their constituencies to apply local knowledge and to provide feedback.
The department then makes a final determination on the list of projects. In cases where MPs did not participate in the review process, final decisions were made by departmental officials.
In 2025, Canada Summer Jobs will aim to support 70,000 summer jobs, the same target reached and surpassed for 2024, Stefanovska said.
Funding among Canada’s 338 constituencies has remained stable compared to 2024, with a difference of approximately plus or minus one per cent for some constituencies this year, she said.
“These slight changes reflect recent labour market information at the local and provincial level. As a result, constituencies with higher levels of unemployed youth received a greater allocation than constituencies with lower levels of unemployment.”
Funding for CSJ 2026 will be allocated based on the 343 constituencies established for the 2025 federal general election.
Camp K runs for six weeks. With funding for 10 children each week, Camp K can now accommodate only 60 campers in the entire six-week run, Reisch said. Over the years, the median number has been about 40 campers a week.
There’s no lack of demand for spaces in the summer day camp, especially after two other programs for young people with autism closed their doors, she said. In April 2024, Ausome Ottawa announced its programs were folding after the program received half of the funding as the same period in 2023. Thinking in Pictures Educational Services, which offered Intensive Behavioural Intervention and an after-school program, also folded.
The summer job grants help cover Camp K’s costs, but families still pay about $900 a week. The camp policy is to have a one-to-one ratio of campers to councillors.
“We have a policy where no child is left alone. We’ve proving that these kids can have the experience of going to a day camp. These children are celebrated for their differences,” Reisch said.
Parents count on the camp for the respite it offers.
Marta Chartier, mother of Logan, 24, said Camp K was a mainstay for families of young people with autism.
“We had tried different camps, but it didn’t work out. We would get calls to pick him up,” Chartier said. “He had such a good time at Camp K. There was such a good trust factor.”
Other camps end after the age of 18. Not Camp K. In the past, Chartier has signed up Logan for as many weeks as possible, wherever it was located. Last year, that was reduced to two weeks. This year it might only be one.
“We live in Kanata, but, no matter where Camp K is, we’ll drive him there,” she said.
Meanwhile, charities say the clock is ticking towards summer and it may already be too late to post for jobs, do the interviews and hire, even if funding suddenly became available.
“There’s no way we could turn it around,” Ciavaglia said. “We just won’t have the stable back-up we did before.”
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“We have a policy where no child is left alone. We’ve proving that these kids can have the experience of going to a day camp. These children are celebrated for their differences,” Reisch said.
Parents count on the camp for the respite it offers.
Marta Chartier, mother of Logan, 24, said Camp K was a mainstay for families of young people with autism.
“We had tried different camps, but it didn’t work out. We would get calls to pick him up,” Chartier said. “He had such a good time at Camp K. There was such a good trust factor.”
Other camps end after the age of 18. Not Camp K. In the past, Chartier has signed up Logan for as many weeks as possible, wherever it was located. Last year, that was reduced to two weeks. This year it might only be one.
“We live in Kanata, but, no matter where Camp K is, we’ll drive him there,” she said.
Meanwhile, charities say the clock is ticking towards summer and it may already be too late to post for jobs, do the interviews and hire, even if funding suddenly became available.
“There’s no way we could turn it around,” Ciavaglia said. “We just won’t have the stable back-up we did before.”
Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.
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