But social in-activists would rather see basketball courts and programs that they put foward so they can feed at the public trough.
Commit to 'full employment' for youth
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Jordan Manners' mother yesterday called for the province to appoint a youth commissioner in the wake of her son's murder.
Someone like Ken Dryden, now a Liberal MP, who was the last occupant of that job from 1984 to 1986.
What Laureen Small is advocating makes sense. But we don't need another commissioner.
We should just implement the one recommendation Dryden made in his final report as Ontario's youth commissioner 21 years ago.
Back then, Dryden called on the Ontario government to implement a policy of full employment for every young person coming out of high school.
He wanted to ensure every graduate went on to college or university, entered an apprenticeship program or obtained a job in the private or public sector -- from joining the army to planting trees -- as long as it was real work with real pay.
"I cannot accept the view that the unemployed are residual, a symptom to be dealt with symptomatically," Dryden wrote. "It is not enough to sit back and wait for time and unemployment-related policies to heal. Too many people are paying too big a price. Unemployment should be addressed directly." Exactly.
Dryden wasn't advocating the usual mish-mash of social programs. He said they'd been tried and had failed. He was advocating work.
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