The Canadian Council on Social Development is one of Canada's leading research organizations. It is an independent, national, non-profit organization focusing on issues of social and economic security. Major funding for this project was provided by the Laidlaw Foundation, with additional support from Health Canada, Canadian Heritage, and the National Crime Prevention Centre. In Toronto and Vancouver, more than one in four youth aged 15 to 24 was born outside Canada. Young people make up more than half of Canada's Aboriginal population.
Street youth form a small but troubling group of Canada's youth.
A Montreal study found that over 60 per cent had left abusive homes, and 40 per cent were intravenous drug users. There are no reliable estimates of the number of Canada's homeless youth. The number of children under 12 whose parents separate or divorce has tripled in the last 20 years. The majority of children under 12 remain with their mothers after separation. Children in lone-parent families are at greater risk of poor development than other children if their family is very poor or lives in an unsafe neighbourhood.