When a wildfire broke out near Squamish, BC, last summer, residents of the small community of Brackendale were put on evacuation alert. It was a chaotic scene as residents scrambled to prepare their properties, pack up pets and collect precious belongings. To bolster emergency services and personnel already helping residents in the community, the District of Squamish asked local members of Youth Climate Corps BC (YCCBC) for extra support.

The five-member team led by Nicole Kilistoff was given a quick tutorial on what to do by Firesmart members and then, went door to door, offering support to frightened residents and helping them prepare their homes if they were evacuated.

“Many homeowners were thankful for the extra support, and it was amazing to have the chance to contribute — even in a small way — during such uncertain times,” Kilistoff says.

As Canadian youth face high unemployment rates and polling suggests56 per cent of those aged 16 to 25 feel powerless to do anything about the climate emergency, YCCBC is offering a path forward.

The non-profit training and employment program provides youth aged 17 to 30 with hands-on experience in projects specifically geared to build climate resilience across the province. YCCBC teams can also serve in an emergency response as communities across BC cope with intensifying fallout from the climate crisis, including wildfires.

It all began in 2020 as a pilot project of Wildsight, a non-profit dedicated to protecting biodiversity and fostering sustainable communities in BC’s Columbia and Rocky Mountain regions. That first year, 14 youth spent four months on projects ranging from wildfire mitigation and local food initiatives to energy efficiency upgrades. The program quickly grew, and by its second year, YCCBC became its own entity.

The program is so successful that graduates often go on to pursue careers related to climate resilience. According to Eymie Labbé, communications marketing director for YCCBC, a recent partnership with the BC Insulators Union, for example, saw 88 per cent of participants in the pre-apprenticeship program go on to pursue Red Seal certification. A common theme among YCCBC participants is the challenges they have encountered in finding employment within the environmental sector — a barrier that often deepens frustration about their ability to make a meaningful impact on the climate crisis.

As youth unemployment soars and climate anxiety deepens, a youth training and employment program focused on climate resiliency offers hope.

“Working for YCCBC is the first time that I’ve had fully-valued, aligned work, which is huge for me,” Kilistoff said. Paid a living wage, she has been able to use her passion for conservation and sustainability to help organize community events, such as Squamish’s annual Re-Use It Fair, which promotes a circular economy by giving unwanted goods a second life. She has also taken part in recycling audits, combing through residential recycling bins to identify common mistakes and share guidance. Both projects reduce landfill waste and greenhouse gases.

According to Labbé, the organization stands out from other youth employment and training programs because of the relationship it develops with the communities where it works. “Instead of us coming with our ideas,” she says, “we go to communities and ask — what do you need to be more resilient, what are your community needs right now?”

While other youth training and employment programs, such asKatimavik, offer youth new experiences outside their home communities, YCCBC invites youth to work close to home.Research shows that people who live in the community are better able to respond collectively during crises, whether that means checking in on vulnerable residents during a heat wave or lending support in the aftermath of a flood. These community ties also make it easier to identify local needs and fill the gaps critical to building climate resilience.

Kilistoff and the YCCBC worked with the District of Squamish to come up with ideas that aligned with the region’s climate action plan. “We had some ideas and they had some,” she says. Among them: residential air sealing and retrofits. Sealing cracks in foundations and walls not only improves energy efficiency, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but it also addresses energy poverty, an issue affecting up to one in five Canadian households, where energy costs exceed 10 per cent of household income. A recentresolution at the 2025Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) Convention has asked the provincial government to build upon its 2024 three-year funding package of $3 million to YCCBC to scale up these retrofits across the province.

Other projects of note involved working with Metro Vancouver Regional Parks to remove lodgepole pines fromBurns Bog, a 3,000-hectare, raised peat bog south of Vancouver. In 2016, a fire swept through 38 hectares of the bog, triggering the release of seeds from pine cones and sparking mass germination. Bogs are nutrient-poor environments, but as the young pines took hold, they began to add nutrients to the peat, disrupting its structure, which caused carbon to be slowly released back into the atmosphere. Because bogs are among the world’s most effective carbon stores, protecting Burns Bog is vital for climate change mitigation. YCCBC participants cut saplings at the root crown and hauled them out to help restore the bog’s ecosystem.

On northern Vancouver Island, YCCBC partnered with the Indigenous-led Kwakwaka’wakw Revitalization Project. Here, local youth received leadership training, contributed to forest research and helped establish a community garden to strengthen food security and land rights.

Having proved that their model works, Labbé says they are ready for more. “It was always the vision of our two founders, Richard Klein and John Cathro, that they wanted to expand across the country,“ says Labbé. “The idea was to create something here that worked and then copy, paste and support the rest of the country.”

In 2023, when Abacus Data asked if there was support for a national Youth Climate Corps,65 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 35 said yes. This support is echoed by theClimate Action Network (CAN), a consortium of 150 groups, including non-profit and environmental organizations, which, along with the YCCBC, is calling on the federal government to create a federally funded, climate-oriented training and employment program.

“It wouldn’t just be getting a four-month summer job,” says Malaika Collette, youth policy assistant for CAN, “but would be a two-year program where young people are getting trained, they’re being paid by the government, they’re doing work directly in their communities and ideally coming out of it with some kind of certification.”

CAN is calling for a $1-billion annual start-up budget, with more funding as demand increases. For its part, theLiberal caucus has endorsed the concept, and Collette and Labbé hope it translates into dollars when the federal budget is presented this fall.

“I know we make a difference by really working with like-minded people and being present and together. And then by taking action, we find a sense of hope together,” Labbé says.