Dear Prime Minister: Gender Equality is Not Optional

Ottawa, ON – Globally, women’s rights and gender equality are under attack from regressive movements and governments alike. Here in Canada, for the first time since the Harper era, we are facing an unprecedented and catastrophic rollback of support for these hard-won and fundamental freedoms.

As organizations dedicated to advancing gender equality in Canada, we are alarmed that the Department for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) is facing budget cuts of 80% in their recently released departmental plan. This massive budget reduction would effectively gut the entire department responsible for women’s rights and gender equality in this country. It will be impossible for WAGE to fulfill its mandate under these circumstances. And while these are devastating cuts to WAGE, the funds freed up to invest elsewhere are a mere drop in the bucket of the overall federal budget.

We celebrated when the WAGE Minister position was reinstated to cabinet, yet once again, federal government action is raising serious concerns about whether they value equality, human rights, and the significant contributions of women, trans, Two-Spirit, non-binary people to the economy and the country. The government appears comfortable abandoning equality and marginalized people. With these cuts, women and gender-diverse people are taking a disproportionate hit of the austerity measures and the fiscal tightening. The Prime Minister has asked departments to find 15% in cuts by 2028-29, yet 80% of WAGE’s budget is on the chopping block. Where is the gender-based analysis?

An 80% budget reduction is not routine budget tightening. This is a decimation of life-saving and life-changing programs, advancing gender-based analysis, and promoting systemic change for women’s rights and gender equality. With these drastic cuts, the department will, in effect, only exist as a shell. Impacts will be felt far beyond the department. The proposed cuts will severely undermine national and local feminist organizations, shelters, sexual assault services, and victim services.

This effectively dismantles the 2SLGBTQI+ Secretariat, eliminates access to government programs, and strips back decades of GBA Plus work, gender budgeting be damned. It creates enormous uncertainty about the funding of the National Action Plan on Gender-based Violence and the Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan. This could potentially result in massive unemployment in the sector. These are not abstract numbers, they are lives and futures being placed in peril.

The cuts show a lack of vision and understanding of the importance of an inclusive and fair economy that can stand the test of time. Investing in physical infrastructure, at the expense of social infrastructure, ignores that our current economy hinges on the high participation of women in the workforce, including many women in caregiving — labour we are all dependent on. If the government’s aim is truly nation-building — defending our communities, growing our economy, and strengthening Canadian unity — then cutting the backbone for women’s rights and gender justice is not just risky, it is counterproductive.

Fiscal responsibility and nation-building are not opposites. We fully understand fiscal responsibility and recognize its importance. Our sector is well-versed in doing a lot with a little — often because we do the work that no one else will, and increasingly, because we have no choice. Chronic underfunding has left us with little support, forcing us to creatively stretch every resource to its limit just to meet the bare minimum of what our communities need and deserve.

WAGE-supported organizations do the painstaking work of advancing intersectional women’s rights and gender equality, reconciliation, anti-racism, disability justice, youth development, and anti-violence with limited resources — stepping up where government and others cannot, finding innovative solutions and effective ways to move forward. These proposed cuts to WAGE, one of the government’s smallest departments, demonstrate a lack of investment in programs that yield enormous returns. These are not “nice to have” — they prevent larger downstream costs to all taxpayers.

These proposed cuts must be walked back. The fall budget and beyond should include a continued commitment in line with the election promises that brought this government into power and at the scale that this historic moment requires.

We call for an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Carney and his office to hear from us why meeting today’s momentous challenges requires including women and gender-diverse people, and expanding — not abandoning — gender equality.

Gender equality isn’t optional for Canada to meet current challenges — it’s key.

Click here to view the full statement with list of signatories.

Click here to tell your elected representatives that now is the time to invest in, not cut, funding for gender equity.