Riipen hosts Parliamentary Secretary to discuss Canada’s work-integrated learning future.

On July 28, Riipen welcomed Annie Koutrakis, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Jobs and Families (Patty Hajdu), for a roundtable with members of its learner, employer, and work-integrated learning community.

The meeting was built around a simple premise: the people closest to Canada’s education-to-employment system should help shape its future. Rather than centre the visit on a formal presentation, Riipen CEO Dana Stephenson invited learners and employers to speak directly about what meaningful work experience had changed for them.

“Hearing from the folks in the room is probably the most important piece,” Dana said as the conversation began.

With federal pre-budget consultations underway, the group examined what is working, where barriers remain, and what Canada needs to build a more connected system. The central takeaway was clear: preparing the future workforce and improving business productivity are not separate goals. They depend on one another.

Bringing the work-integrated learning ecosystem together.

Learners Mariia Semenova of Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Saba Kazemeini of Simon Fraser University (SFU), and Evan Peng of the University of British Columbia (UBC) joined employers Atika Juristia, Founder and CEO of The J Healthcare Initiative, and Prishita Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO of Mosa.

Mary Oyeneyin of VentureLabs contributed the perspective of a program operator. Dana was joined by Riipen Director of Research & Impact Reshma Gouravajhala, Employer Sales Manager Tom Elson, and Advisor to Parliamentary Secretary Koutrakis, Michael Danzer. Riipen Vice President of Canadian Ecosystems Caroline Konrad helped bring the meeting together.

The purpose was not only to describe programs, but to understand how they work in practice. Parliamentary Secretary Koutrakis emphasized the importance of hearing lived experience before policy decisions are finalized.

“The work that you’re doing through Riipen is real,” she said. “It’s actually something that is tangible.”

Youth employment and productivity are one connected challenge.

Riipen began with a problem familiar to many students: how can someone get a job without experience when they cannot gain experience without first being given an opportunity?

Traditional internships and co-op placements remain valuable, but there are not enough of them to serve every learner. Geography, finances, personal responsibilities, and access to professional networks can all determine who participates.

Smaller businesses and nonprofits face barriers of their own. Many need talent but lack the resources to recruit a student, administer payroll, navigate subsidy applications and complete government reporting.

Riipen’s project-based model was built to reduce that friction. Learners complete flexible, paid projects with real organizations, build portfolios of work and receive employer feedback. Employers gain access to talent while Riipen manages much of the infrastructure required to support the experience.

Dana argued that the challenges on both sides should not be addressed in isolation:

“We’ve got youth unemployment that’s reaching some of its highest levels. We’ve got a productivity crisis, and they are often treated as two separate problems, but really they’re one connected economic problem.”

Through its partnership with Employment and Social Development Canada, Riipen has supported more than 46,000 learner experiences since 2021 many reporting receiving one or more job offers after completing a project.

Shorter project-based experiences can also reach three to five times as many learners and employers as a traditional wage-supported internship, extending the impact of public investment. Why? Because in the same amount of time, more work can get done.

What learners and employers shared.

Learners are building confidence, clarity, and proof of work.

Mariia completed three Level UP experiences over two years alongside her studies at Emily Carr. Projects across education, healthcare, web design, and community building helped her test different applications of her skills before graduating.

“There are so many different companies to work with, even within one specific specialty,” she explained.

That variety helped her understand the pathways available through her degree. Since graduating, Mariia said the experience has also contributed to her success in reaching employers and finding opportunities.

Saba’s first project introduced her to product marketing, followed by work in social media and content creation. Those experiences expanded her view of the field and gave her evidence she could bring into conversations with employers while completing her degree at SFU.

“I feel like I’m more prepared and more confident for the job market,” she said.

UBC’s Evan, a business and computer science student, was considering both software engineering and product management while watching artificial intelligence reshape the technology sector. Working directly with startups allowed him to explore both paths through practice and identify product management as a potential long-term direction.

Together, their stories showed that experience does more than strengthen a résumé. It creates career clarity, confidence, professional connections, and proof of ability while learners can still use those insights to shape their education.

Employers are gaining capacity while reducing barriers.

Prishita began using Riipen while building Mosa, a sustainable promotional products company founded at the University of British Columbia. With a small team and limited capital, Mosa needed additional capacity but could not hire across every area of the business.

The company has since worked with learners on marketing, sales, grant applications and other projects. Compared with programs requiring extensive documentation or upfront spending, Prishita described Riipen as “easier and quicker” to access. The impact extended beyond Mosa’s immediate needs. Prishita shared that several learners who worked with the company later began building ventures of their own, creating an additional entrepreneurship effect.

Atika described how The J Healthcare Initiative has used learner talent to strengthen its operations while advancing its mission to address the overdose crisis. The nonprofit has sponsored more than 140 projects representing approximately 20,000 hours of learner work.

Students have contributed new ideas, improved internal systems, and applied their academic skills to an urgent social issue. Some developed an interest in medicine or social work after participating. Others gained the confidence to take on leadership roles within the organization.

Mary added the perspective of someone responsible for coordinating employer-connected experiences. Recruiting participants, vetting opportunities and manually matching learner skills with employer needs can consume significant administrative time.

“You’re spending so much time on the administrative task when you could actually focus on finding better opportunities for students,” she said.

Her comments reinforced the role shared technology can play: reducing administration without lowering the quality of the experience or the safeguards available to learners.

At least two critical opportunities to strengthen work-integrated learning in Canada.

The discussion moved from individual outcomes to the systems required to make them available to more people. Riipen highlighted a few opportunities including:

1. Invest in shared workforce infrastructure through SWIF.

Canada’s work-integrated learning landscape includes numerous delivery partners, post-secondary institutions, workforce organizations, and government programs. Many separately recruit learners and employers, manage compliance, track outcomes and report impact.

That fragmentation creates duplicated effort and a disconnected experience for participants.

Riipen recommended investment through the Sectoral Workforce Innovation Fund (SWIF) in infrastructure that connects education, workforce programs, employers, government, and employment platforms.

The goal is not another standalone job board. It is a system in which verified skills, completed projects, and real proof of work can connect directly with a learner’s next experience or job. Shared infrastructure would reduce duplication, improve reporting and impact analysis, and direct more public funding toward learner and employer outcomes.

2. Make initiatives permanent and predictable.

Riipen also called for the federal Innovative Work-Integrated Learning (I-WIL) Initiative and Student Work Placement Program (SWPP) to become permanent programs supported through predictable five-year funding cycles.

Moving from annual funding to a three-year commitment has given delivery partners room to innovate, introduce new experience models, and build longer-term relationships.

Demand consistently exceeds available capacity, with some learner opportunities filled within minutes, and a recent employer cohort reached capacity within just 48 hours.

Permanent funding would allow successful programs to improve over time and continue reaching smaller employers and learners most likely to face barriers. It would also reduce the risk of a two-speed system in which people and organizations with the greatest resources continue to move ahead while those facing barriers fall further behind.

Investing in the workforce Canada needs tomorrow.

Canada is investing in physical infrastructure, digital capacity, and artificial intelligence. Those investments will only deliver their full value if people have the skills and practical experience required to put them to work.

“Now we need to invest in the human infrastructure to be able to leverage those technologies and tools,” Dana told the group.

That human infrastructure includes learners who can apply emerging skills, employers equipped to engage new talent, institutions that connect education with real work, and public programs designed to operate as a cohesive system.

It also requires young people to have a voice in the decisions affecting them. Parliamentary Secretary Koutrakis shared a message she had recently heard from youth leaders: do not ask for their feedback only after programs have been designed. Include them while decisions are being made.

At the close of the roundtable, she committed to bringing the issues raised back to Employment and Social Development Canada and Minister Hajdu.

“Please consider the Federal Government and ESDC as your partner in this,” she said. “Let’s continue the dialogue.”

The workforce Canada needs tomorrow is already in its classrooms and communities. Supporting it today will require long-term investment, connected infrastructure, and a shared commitment to making meaningful experiences accessible to more people.

As Parliamentary Secretary Koutrakis reminded the group: “Whatever we do today is going to affect everybody tomorrow.”