Ron McKinnon

Budget 2022 –Analysis by Ron McKinnon, MP – What is in Budget 2022 for Youth?

April 22, 2022

What is in Budget 2022 for Youth and Students?

Making Post Secondary More Affordable

Doubling the Canada Student Grants amount from 2020 until July 2023—meaning up to $6,000 per year in non-repayable aid for full-time students in need—and waiving interest on Canada Student Loans through to March 2023.

Help Students Commercialize Their Research

$47.8 million over five years, starting in 2023-24, and $20.1 million ongoing to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada to launch a new national lab-to-market platform to help graduate students and researchers take their work to market.

Expanding Access to Trades

The skilled trades are vital to the future of the Canadian economy and offer workers rewarding careers in fields ranging from carpentry to electricians and boilermakers. The federal government wants to provide more women, newcomers, persons with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, and racialized Canadians with the chance to have good-quality jobs in high-paying skilled trades, and unions play a critical role in training skilled trades workers.

Since 2017, the Union Training and Innovation Program has supported union-based apprenticeship training in the Red Seal trades, including through investments in training, equipment, and materials and support for innovative approaches to address barriers facing apprentices.

Budget 2022 proposes to provide $84.2 million over four years to double funding for the Union Training and Innovation Program. Each year, the new funding would help 3,500 apprentices from underrepresented groups begin and succeed in careers in the skilled trades through mentorship, career services, and job-matching.

Supporting Mental Well-Being With the Wellness Together Canada Portal

Since April 2020, more than two million people across Canada have accessed free information and support through the Wellness Together Canada portal. Children and young people make up almost 50 percent of users, and 42 percent of texting users have identified themselves as LGBTQ2.

Budget 2022 proposes to provide $140 million over two years, starting in 2022-23, for the Wellness Together Canada portal to continue providing Canadians with tools and services to support their mental health and well-being.

Tax-Free First Home Savings Account

As home prices climb, so does the cost of a down payment, which represents a major barrier for many looking to own a home—especially young people.

Budget 2022 proposes introducing the Tax-Free First Home Savings Account that would give prospective first-time home buyers the ability to save up to $40,000. Like an RRSP, contributions would be tax-deductible, and withdrawals to purchase a first home—including investment income—would be non-taxable, like a TFSA. Tax-free in, tax-free out.

Launching a New Housing Accelerator Fund

Building more housing will require investments, but it will also require changes to the systems preventing more housing from being built.

With the target of creating 100,000 net new housing units over five years, Budget 2022 proposes to provide $4 billion over five years to launch a new Housing Accelerator Fund that is flexible to the needs and realities of cities and communities while providing them support such as an annual per-door incentive or up-front funding for investments in municipal housing planning and delivery processes that will speed up housing development.

To read the Budget 2022 speech or to review the budget documents, please visit: https://budget.gc.ca/

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