‘You’re losing this set of voices’: Liberals kill Trudeau-era youth climate council amid spending cuts

The Carney Liberals have dissolved a Trudeau-era youth climate council, citing spending cuts and “efficiencies” in existing advisory bodies, but former members say young Canadians now don’t have a seat at the federal table to advise on climate policy.

“You're losing this set of voices that are generally at a disadvantage for accessing any sort of sphere that's related to political power, to decision making,” Anastacia Raniuk, a former member of the Environment and Climate Change Youth Council, said in an interview with The Hill Times. 

The second cohort of the Environment and Climate Change Youth Council was announced on March 7, 2025, two days before Prime Minister Mark Carney (Nepean, Ont.) was voted to lead the Liberals following Justin Trudeau’s resignation. But those members never actually began any work before Environment and Climate Change Minister Julie Dabrusin (Toronto–Danforth, Ont.) notified them of the council’s dissolution a year later on March 2, say two former members. 

The council was first established in July 2021, when applications were launched for 10 members between the ages of 18 and 25, with members officially announced in August 2022. The second cohort—of which Raniuk, 21, was a member—consisted of Canadians aged 18 to 29.

The body was a voluntary council of young Canadians, selected though an application process, who engaged with the government on federal climate policy.  

In a letter to the members seen by The Hill Times, Dabrusin writes that the Liberals’ Comprehensive Expenditure Review, set to trim $60-billion from government spending over the next five years, “identified opportunities for efficiencies across various advisory bodies,” and the council was therefore being discontinued as they “move toward a streamlined model of engagement.” 

The 2025 budget commits to a plan for “reining in” spending, with each cabinet minister tasked with assessing their programs to ensure they were “meeting their objectives,” are “core to the federal mandate,” and “complement—rather than duplicate—services delivered by other federal departments or levels of government,” the budget says.

Raniuk said she first applied in April 2024, and was informed that she had been selected in December 2024 by then-environment minister Steven Guilbeault (Laurier–Sainte-Marie, Que.). What followed was a lot of back and forth about scheduling a first meeting and stretches of silence, Raniuk said, before the group received a formal welcome from Dabrusin after the April 2025 election.

“The only work that had ended up being done was the work that we had put into the application process,” Raniuk told The Hill Times. 

Gabrielle Moreau, also a member of the second cohort, said members began independently communicating with each other after they heard nothing about the status of the council following the election, despite requests for updates. When members collectively reached out in March this year, they were informed on the same day that the council was being dissolved, effective immediately.

Dabrusin’s office did not answer The Hill Times' question about why the council was dissolved. 

In a statement to The Hill Times, Dabrusin’s press secretary, Keean Nembhard, pointed to the feds’ Youth Climate Corps (YCC) program, introduced in the 2025 budget, which "aims to provide paid skills training for young Canadians to respond quickly to climate emergencies, support recovery, and strengthen community resilience across the country."

Nembhard added that the government continues to “rely on a variety of tools and tactics to engage young Canadians,” including public opinion research, public comment periods, roundtables, conferences, and directly soliciting advice.

Council meant youth could ‘speak out,’ challenge decisions, says former chair

Skw’akw’as (Sunshine) Dunstan-Moore was the chair of the first cohort of the council. She said the climate council is “completely different” to the YCC.

“It's a level of accountability on the government's part, whereas the YCC doesn't necessarily do that,” she said. “That is strictly skills building, and this is youth having a seat at the table.”

Dunstan-Moore, who was on the council from 2022 to 2024, explained that the group met monthly with different government departments. They provided advice on the feds’ National Adaptation Strategy, the Conference of the Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, net-zero, and more. 

The council also attended COP27 in Egypt; the UN Convention on Biodiversity COP15, held in Montreal; the UN Water Conference in New York City; and the Bonn Climate Change Conference in Germany.

Dunstan-Moore told The Hill Times that she “definitely” felt the council was actively contributing, though there were some decisions on which she felt the council was “more heard” than others. 

Dunstan-Moore also said she felt the independent volunteer advisory board was well-positioned to challenge the government on climate issues.

“We could speak out if we needed to,” Dunstan-Moore stressed. “We could challenge ideas, and so I think they're missing that component of being able to be challenged by the youth voice.”

Moreau, 21, noted the existing programs for youth engagement don’t have a political representation component, or give youth the opportunity to be involved in consultations. 

“Our role would be very much reactive, which was not something that we considered to be particularly productive,” she said. 

Raniuk, at 21, was among the youngest members of the group, with many others already working or studying in the climate field. 

"This is young professionals, this is entry-level professionals," she said. "You need those fresh perspectives. You need people who are not stuck in an ivory tower, or somewhere where they're safe from the impacts of small policy decisions, but the people who are actually impacted by this and who are working in the heart of these issues.”

The Environment and Climate Change Youth Council is not the first Trudeau-era advisory body to have dwindled under Carney’s Liberal government. 

The Net-Zero Advisory Body (NZAB)—a group of climate experts whose mandate is to advise the government on achieving the legally mandated target of net-zero emissions by 2050—asked to pause its activities in January after its ranks fell to only four members due to term expirations and a lack of new appointments.

Six months later, the NZAB is still at half-capacity, though it is currently engaged in negotiations with the government to get back on track. 

Carney has also come under fire for his climate policy rollbacks in recent months, which have significantly diverged from his predecessor. The prime minister has ditched the proposed oil and gas emissions cap, the consumer carbon tax, and has agreed to a new industrial pricing model—which climate experts say is weaker—as part of an energy deal with Alberta that paves the way for a new pipeline running from the province to British Columbia’s coast. 

The moves led to 14 unnamed Liberal MPs penning a letter to Carney in April over the policy direction, reported Radio-Canada, and even spurred the cabinet resignation of environmentalist Guilbeault. The MP is expected to give up his seat later this summer, as well. 

In a June 30 YouTube video, Carney called Trudeau’s climate plan “too expensive,” “too divisive,” and unsustainable in the long term, admitting that Canada’s emissions will be higher in the next few years than they were projected to be.  

Dunstan-Moore, from B.C., said she is "very concerned" and "very scared" over the climate policy direction.

"I find myself very much falling into the climate doomism of it all," she said.

"My province has gone through so much, and just to continually hear the rollback of policies and regulations, to hear the approval of pipelines ... it's something that I try not to like dwell on, because I do want to continue working in this sector."

Raniuk told The Hill Times that a summer internship at a municipality made her realize that "so much" progress can be hindered by decision-makers' vetoes, which is what made her want to join the feds’ council. 

"I figured this was the key leverage point that I wanted to work towards," she said, explaining she envisaged a career at Environment and Climate Change Canada.

"When I had this opportunity to be on the council, I was absolutely thrilled ... but honestly, in retrospect, after all of this has happened, I have never been more doubtful about how much change I could actually promote if I worked for the Environment Ministry."

ewand@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

Editor's Note: This story was updated on July 11 at 12:10 p.m. to correct a quote attribution.