In 2022, youth unemployment rates hit a record low. By 2025, 437,000 people aged 15 to 24 were unemployed and looking for work, up 57 percent from 290,000 in 2022. Today, Canada's unemployment rate is at 6.5 percent, up 0.1 percent from Aug 2026. The Canadian economy lost 68,000 jobs in September, 48,000 of those lost among youth aged 15-24. Young people remained unemployed the longest, with teenagers hit hardest.

This wasn’t happening in the shadowed back alleys of the internet, but right under its streetlights, roots above ground and unmasked. All we had to do to find it was look. So why, as a society, weren’t we looking?

As I ran alongside the riverbank on a clear, crisp fall afternoon in my new city, following a dirt path through a canopy of trees just beginning to turn colour, I should have felt relaxed. Instead, the moment when I normally let go, letting the music from my headphones seep into my consciousness and my mind drift and clear, didn’t come.