Methodology and limitations
How the study was built, what it does not claim, and — carried in full — the known gaps: the eight things Toronto does not publish about its young people.
Methods and sources
I built this study from published sources only. Every figure in it was checked in the original published document, and each one is printed with the age band, the place, and the year its source used. Where sources disagree, I show the disagreement instead of quietly picking one. Where a publisher changed what it counts — a survey table replaced, a call count widened — the break is marked on the series, never smoothed over. Where nothing is published to that standard, the study says so, and treats the gap itself as a finding. Figures counted in different units, for different ages, or on different year bases are never added together. The study makes no recommendations; the Toronto Youth Alignment Plan, a separate document in this set, is the one that proposes.
Principal sources, as they appear in the paper's own apparatus:
- Statistics Canada — 2021 Census of Population; Labour Force Survey, Tables 14-10-0385-01 and 14-10-0461-01
- Census Family Low Income Measure, After Tax (taxfiler data), 2020–2022
- City of Toronto — Street Needs Assessment 2021, 2024 and 2025; published budgets, the Youth Program Inventory (2021) and the Youth Jobs Inventory (2025), and program reporting as cited in the study
- Toronto Public Health — student survey, 2019 and 2023
- Public Health Ontario — Canadian Income Survey, pooled two-year estimates
- Toronto District School Board and Toronto Catholic District School Board — Student Achievement Plans
- Toronto Police Service — shootings, firearm discharges and homicides counts, 2026
- Published departmental and function budgets for the cities in Figure 9 — full table, funding-source mix and caveats: Technical Appendix, Chapter 20
Full citations, tables and methods are in the study and its Technical Appendix, downloadable below.
The known gaps — what is not published
The eight items below are the study’s accountability gap, carried from The Gap page, where each is stated in full.
The accountability gap#
What the record does not contain.
Victims by age
Toronto police publish no count of shooting victims by age, and no count of homicide victims by age. Their homicide data has no field for age at all. So no one can say how much of the recent fall in shootings and homicides reached young people.
Young people in the justice system
Nothing is published for Toronto itself — not charges, not diversion programs, not custody — at any stage of the youth justice system. Ontario and Canada publish their own series. Toronto has none, so the city cannot see how its own young people move through the system.
A Toronto food-insecurity rate for children, every year
No one publishes a Toronto rate every year for how many children live in homes that struggle to afford food. It was published once: 18.5% of children and youth aged 1 to 17, in 2019. Public Health Ontario now publishes Toronto figures for children under 18 only by combining two years at a time — 32.0% for 2023–2024 combined — so there is no single-year number to follow.
A child poverty rate on Canada's official poverty line
Canada's official poverty line is the Market Basket Measure. No rate on that measure is published for Toronto children — not for the city, and not for the wider metropolitan area. No rate for young people in core housing need is published either; the one published figure covers all households: 19%, in 2021.
Young people not in work, school, or training
Ontario and Canada each publish a yearly count of young people who are in none of work, school, or training. Toronto has no count of its own — not for the city, and not for the wider metropolitan area — and no split of its young workforce into ages 15 to 19 and 20 to 24. No Toronto total is published for the federal Canada Summer Jobs program either.
The 15,000 youth jobs promise
The Mayor's promise of 15,000 new youth jobs dates from October 2026, made during her re-election campaign. It exists only there: no City release, budget document, or costing publishes it. No budget has passed since the promise was made, so nothing could be published yet — this one is too new to judge, not missing. What to watch: whether a costing, and a way of counting the jobs, appears in the 2027 budget.
The City's own published commitment is smaller and older: 10,000 additional summer jobs by 2026.
What the response does not break down by age
The City's main community grants program — the Community Partnership and Investment Program, $33.4M in 2026 — publishes no share for young people. The Toronto Community Crisis Service, the City's non-police crisis response, has no budget of its own published. Ontario does not publish Toronto's share of its after-school program funding, or a Toronto total for its Youth Opportunities Fund. And for before- and after-school programs, Ontario publishes how many spaces are licensed to exist — 40,943 spaces in December 2025 — but not how many children are enrolled.
Road deaths and serious injuries under 20
The City's Vision Zero road-safety reporting publishes no count of people killed or seriously injured for any age group under 20. So there is no published answer to the simplest question: are Toronto's roads getting safer for its youngest residents?
What the data doesn't tell us
Absence of public reporting is not absence of service or impact. These tiles record what is not published — they say nothing about whether the work is happening. A program can be running, and helping, and still leave no public record a reader can check.
How this study was compiled. This study is compiled from published sources only. Every figure in it was verified in a primary published document, opened during compilation, and is printed with the age band, geography, and year its source used. Where sources disagree, the disagreement is shown rather than resolved silently. Where a publisher changed what it counts — a survey table replaced, a call-count universe widened — the break is marked on the series, never smoothed. Where no figure is published at that standard, the study says so, and treats the absence as a finding. Figures in different units, age bands, or year bases are never added together. The study makes no recommendations.
The first solution — an open record
This set is the first solution: the record itself, published openly — every figure with its basis and its source — and kept current, so the question this page asks can be answered again next year, and the year after.
A published youth total
One figure, published each year, for what Toronto spends on young people — so the response can be weighed against the conditions it is meant to change. Today the published totals stop one level above youth, and no total exists.
Victim-age fields for shootings and homicides
Toronto Police Service counts improved sharply in 2025 — 263 shootings and firearm discharges, down from 462 in 2024; 45 homicides, down from 85 — but neither dataset publishes victims' ages, so the city cannot say whether young people shared in the improvement.
A Toronto NEET series
A NEET series is a yearly count, published for one place, of the share of young people in none of employment, education or training — the group that work and school statistics each miss. Ontario publishes one: 13% for ages 15 to 29 in 2025. No Toronto series exists at city or CMA (census metropolitan area) level, so the city cannot count its own.
One shared outcome measure across programs
Programs now report in their own units — visits, spaces licensed, calls, dollars allocated — and no row publishes whether a young person's life improved. One shared outcome measure, reported by every funded program, would let results be compared and added up.
None of the four requires a new program. Each is a field, a series, or a total that an existing publisher could add to what it already releases — and each would be published on the same terms as the rest of the record: with its age band, geography, and year printed beside it.
Four published measures would let Toronto answer, each year, whether its young people are better off.