Changes to federal funding put Toronto youth violence prevention programs at risk

As Toronto’s police chief says crime rates among young people continue to be a concern, changes to federal funding programs means some of the city’s programs meant to prevent youth violence are at risk in 2026. 

Since 2023, the city has received a total of $16.6 million from the federal Crime Prevention Action Fund and the Building Safer Communities Fund, but both are set to end on March 31.

The conclusion of the funding streams means the city’s social development department will see a $6.2-million reduction in its budget compared to last year, according to a briefing note prepared as part of the city’s ongoing 2026 budget process.

It’s a situation that Scott Mckean, the city’s director of community safety and well-being, describes as history repeating itself. He said in 2018, a gang violence intervention program run by the Agincourt Community Services Association similarly lost federal grant funding. 

“And then we saw an escalation of violence in Scarborough,” Mckean said in an interview with CBC Toronto.

“Our concern is like, here we are again, where we're actually making significant headway and the funding is going to end and we're really concerned about the impact on the community.”

The city made encouraging progress in 2025, the briefing note says, with a 35 per cent drop in youth shootings. But the loss of the federal funding could “limit” Toronto’s ability to sustain its progress, the note says. 

Mckean said the loss of funding doesn’t mean the city will be ceasing all of its violence prevention programs, but if a solution isn’t found it could have a significant impact on some of them. While advocating to higher levels of government, he said the department is looking internally to see what it can do to keep the programs afloat. 

“It would be such a huge void to lose these specific programs,” he said.

A spokesperson for Public Safety Canada didn’t directly respond to a question about if the federal government plans to support the programs at risk in any other ways.

However, Louis-Carl Brissette Lesage touted several other federal violence prevention funds in an emailed statement. Among them, a $390-million fund announced in 2023 for provinces and territories to combat gun and gang violence. 

The programs at risk this year include TO Wards Peace, an initiative in Scarborough where people with lived experience of violence, trauma and anti-Black racism identify and mediate potential conflicts before they become violent incidents.

The program worked with 43 young people and their families, and violence disruption workers responded to 52 incidents in Scarborough to prevent, on some occasions, potential homicides, the briefing note says. 

Last week, members of the program went to the Scarborough Civic Centre to speak to councillors as part of the budget consultation process.