The youth movement · Ward 11
Young people in Ward 11 are not short on ambition. They are short on opportunity. The next generation should be leading now, not waiting its turn.
The stakes
Youth unemployment is high. Young professionals move out to start their careers in other cities. And the small businesses that could hire them here are stuck waiting on City Hall's slow permitting. That is a choice the city keeps making. It can make a different one. Dev's commitment is to build the pathways, connections and opportunities that let young people lead now, not someday.
They leave
Young professionals grow up in Ward 11, then start their careers somewhere else.
They wait
The small businesses that would hire them are stuck in City Hall's permitting backlog.
$0
in new taxpayer cost to put students into paid city work. It is about how the city already spends.
The Mississauga Works Plan
Not a youth engagement program. Real jobs, built out of decisions the city already controls, so Ward 11 trains, hires and keeps its next generation.
Hire local
Turn the city's purchasing power into local jobs: a mandatory quota of local co-op students and apprentices on city contracts. If the city is already paying for the work, the next generation should be on the crew.
Get in the door
Project-based internships across city departments, structured at zero new cost to taxpayers, so students get real experience and the city gets real work done.
Programs that pay
Self-sustaining youth and senior recreation programs in schools and civic spaces at zero capital rent, funded by enrolment and staffed by paid sports-rec, education and kinesiology students.
Cut the red tape
A fast track through city permitting so the small businesses that hire young people aren't strangled by months of waiting before they can grow.
In his words
A short message from Dev to the young people of Ward 11: why this matters now, and what changes the day he takes office.
Pending: video, Dev speaking to youth
The next generation
Why Dev
Dev is not asking young people to do something he hasn't. He founded a province-wide student group at McMaster and has worked in policy and government.
He has seen what the next generation can do when someone finally gives them the room. This whole movement is about handing over that room.
He draws on young leaders like Greta Thunberg and the work of the Gates Foundation, people who refuse to wait for permission to make change. Young people deserve a seat at the table, not someday but now.
Join the movement
No quiz, no forms that mine your data. Two ways in: lend a hand, or just stay in the loop.