Youth are Assembling!

All too often, youth are assumed to be too inexperienced to participate in real-world decision-making. However, a growing number of civic Assemblies across Canada are challenging this myth by creating meaningful and accessible opportunities for youth to engage with complex public issues and shape decisions alongside their peers and across generations. 

Moving beyond traditional approaches to consultation, models of deliberative democracy such as Community Assemblies (also known as Citizens’ Assemblies) foster opportunities for learning, dialogue and collective decision-making. Deliberative processes help address persistent barriers to youth participation by:

• Using civic lotteries to ensure proportional representation of youth, as well as other historically under-heard populations

• Reducing financial and logistical barriers through honoraria and travel support 

• Creating structured opportunities to learn from experts and policymakers

• Facilitating small-group dialogues that encourage participation and consensus decision-making

The following initiatives highlight deliberative processes that are engaging youth on complex challenges including AI governance, urban planning, climate change, health crises and democratic renewal. Taken together, these projects signal a growing recognition that meaningful youth engagement requires more than high-level consultation. It requires investment in processes that treat young people as partners in shaping our collective future. 

New Westminster’s Community Advisory Assembly: Embedding Youth Voice in Local Governance

At the municipal level, the New Westminster Community Advisory Assembly represents a major milestone for participatory democracy in Canada. The Assembly is the first standing deliberative body embedded directly into municipal decision-making, reporting to staff and Council. The Assembly meets monthly throughout the year, developing recommendations on diverse City priorities. 

Equally significant is its intergenerational design. All city residents are invited to apply to the Assembly, regardless of their age. Assembly members are selected from the pool of candidates through a civic lottery that aims to mirror the demographic profile of the city. Youth participation is directly encouraged and facilitated by offering an honouraria to youth under 16. 

Just under 17% of the 2025-26 cohort of the Assembly are youth aged 19 and under, including participants as young as 13. By bringing youth into sustained policy conversations alongside adults, the Assembly recognizes young people not simply as future stakeholders but as current civic participants. This model reflects a growing understanding that long-term policy decisions benefit from perspectives that span generations. 

Gen(Z)AI: Shaping Canada’s AI Future

Another ambitious example is Gen(Z)AI, a national initiative bringing youth together to learn about the implications of AI systems for online harms, and to develop concrete policy recommendations aimed at shaping Canada’s legislative and regulatory approaches to AI.

What makes Gen(Z)AI innovative is its layered engagement approach. First, regional in-person forums bring together a diverse group of lottery-selected youth to learn and deliberate on specific topics including chatbots, data privacy, information integrity and age assurance. Recommendations emerging from these forums are then shared through a national digital platform, allowing youth across Canada to weigh in and refine ideas, broadening participation beyond those selected through the civic lottery. 

The project demonstrates how deliberation and digital engagement can work together to scale youth voice while preserving the depth and care of face-to-face dialogue.  

Canadian Youth Climate Assembly: From Dialogue to Parliament

The Canadian Youth Climate Assembly marked another historic moment for youth deliberation. As Canada’s first citizens’ assembly focused on climate solutions, it convened youth from across the country to learn, deliberate, and develop policy recommendations addressing one of the defining challenges of their generation.

In September, Assembly participants presented their recommendations to parliamentarians in the Canadian Senate Chamber, demonstrating the growing legitimacy and policy influence of youth deliberative processes. The Assembly model created space for young people to engage deeply with climate complexity while building civic skills and national connections.

University of Victoria: Deliberating Complex Campus Challenges 

Meanwhile, at the University of Victoria, deliberative processes are enabling the inclusion of diverse student voices in institutional decision-making. In 2020, the UVic and The Honourable Janet Austin, Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and Government House, partnered to engage students on how to encourage civility in public discourse and youth engagement in democracy. Following this successful pilot, in 2025 a three-day student Assembly provided recommendations on the university’s approach to reducing harms from toxic drugs. 

The use of a civic lottery ensured the equitable representation of students at different levels of degree progress, international students, and students living on and off campus, alongside other identities and lived experiences. These processes also highlight the adaptability of deliberative approaches to sensitive and contested issues, where traditional engagement methods often struggle to create constructive, inclusive conversations.

To learn more about how deliberative Assemblies can empower youth voice in your context, reach out to our consulting team.