WINNIPEG, MB, Oct. 15, 2026 /CNW/ -- Today, the Honourable Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety, announced $1.6 million in federal funding to the Joy Smith Foundation through the Youth Gang Prevention Fund (YGPF) to support a project that will help prevent violence, gang involvement and criminal activity among at-risk and incarcerated youth aged 12 to 30 in Manitoba and Alberta.
The project, Limitless Futures: Empowering Youth Against Crime, will help youth overcome challenges that can lead to crime and gang involvement while strengthening positive supports in their lives. Through workshops and other activities, participants will learn about the consequences of violence and gang involvement, build skills to make positive choices, and receive support to leave gangs or avoid them in the first place.
The project will deliver weekly trauma-informed workshops in youth detention centres, group homes, alternative schools and other community settings. Community partners will help recruit participants, support program delivery and ensure the workshops complement services already available to youth.
The YGPF supports initiatives that prevent youth from joining gangs, help those leaving gangs, and contribute to safer communities across Canada through Public Safety Canada's National Crime Prevention Strategy. By investing in young people and addressing the factors that can lead to gang involvement and crime, projects like this help build safer communities and stronger futures for Canadians.
Quotes
"Every young person deserves the chance to build a positive future. Through this investment, we are helping at-risk and incarcerated youth access the support, skills and guidance they need to make healthy choices and avoid violence and gang involvement. This project will help create safer communities and brighter futures across Manitoba and Alberta."
- The Honourable Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety
"Young people need to know there are people who believe in them and opportunities ahead of them. With support from Public Safety Canada, Limitless Futures will bring trauma-informed workshops to youth across Manitoba and Alberta who are at risk of gang involvement or already involved in the justice system, helping them build the skills, confidence and hope to choose a different path. Too often, the youth we serve have been targeted and exploited by others. This project helps them recognize their own worth. We are grateful for this investment in young people and the safer communities they can help build."
-- Janet Campbell, President and CEO, The Joy Smith Foundation
Quick Facts
- In 2024, Public Safety Canada launched a Call for Applications under the National Crime Prevention Strategy, with $123.5 million available over five years.
- The Government of Canada takes a comprehensive approach to public safety through investments to combat crime and increase community safety:
- Investing $1.5 billion over the past 10 years to strengthen law enforcement and gang prevention programs, most notably the Initiative to Take Action Against Gun and Gang Violence and the renewal of the Building Safer Communities Fund, for up to $157.5 million over the next three years, to help stop gun crime and gang violence before it starts.
- Strengthening Canada's legislative framework to combat transnational organized crime, enhance border security, and provide law enforcement with modern tools to address serious criminal threats, including illegal drug trafficking, extortion, and illicit financing.
- Investing $1.7 billion (Budget 2025) to strengthen the RCMP's response to transnational organized crime, financial crime, and money laundering, while enhancing intelligence and national security capacity.
- Hiring 1,000 additional Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) personnel to strengthen border management and enforcement capacity, and 1,000 new RCMP personnel to increase federal policing capacity across Canada to combat crime, including online fraud, money laundering, online child sexual exploitation, and organized criminal networks that threaten Canada's economic and national security.
- Combatting firearms-related crime and violence including through the implementation of the Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program (ASFCP) which will remove dangerous, assault-style firearms from Canadian communities, implementing mandatory licence refusal for those suspected of domestic violence or stalking, restricting access to handguns, and launching a comprehensive review of Canada's firearms classification regime.
- To help address the high rate of hate-related crimes, the Spring Economic Update 2026 provided $75 million over five years, starting in 2026-27, to Public Safety Canada for the Canada Community Security Program (CCSP). The CCSP has been helping Canadians feel safer by providing funding for communities at risk of hate-motivated incidents to enhance their security measures in places of worship, schools, community centres, and other community gathering spaces.
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Contacts: Simon Lafortune, Deputy Director of Communications and Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety, [email protected]; Media Relations, Public Safety Canada, 613-991-0657, [email protected]
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