Question Period Note: Gender Equality Accomplishments

What has the Government of Canada done to advance gender equality

• The Government of Canada continues to build on the significant progress it has made toward gender equality with respect to sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression, as well as its historic achievements and initiatives.
• Key achievements and investments include:
o Entrenching gender budgeting practices into law;
o Establishing a dedicated Department for Women and Gender Equality;
o Increasing legal protections for Canadians of all genders by amending the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to add protections based on gender identity and expression;
o Passing historic legislation to introduce proactive pay equity for the federal jurisdiction; and
o Making a historic investment of $160M over 5 years, starting in 2019-20, to help build the capacity of women’s organizations across the country.

Key Government Achievements
• In the last few years, the Government of Canada provided structural and legal backing for gender equality in a number of areas, including:
o The first ever federal minister fully dedicated to gender issues;
o Bill C-66 received Royal Assent, putting into place a process to permanently destroy the records of convictions for offences involving consensual sexual activity between people of the same-sex that would be lawful today;
o Bill C-16 received Royal Assent, prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of gender identity and gender expression under the Canadian Human Rights Act, as well as hate crimes motivated by gender identity under the Criminal Code;
o The Canadian Gender Budgeting Act came into force, enshrining gender budgeting in the government’s budgetary and financial management processes, guided by the Gender Results Framework.

Key Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) Investments
• Through Budget 2019, $20M is being invested over three years to help address the unique needs and persisting disparities among LGBTQ2 Canadians by investing in capacity-building and community-level work among Canadian LGBTQ2 community organizations.
o As of June 2020, there are 7 funded agreements with organizations across Canada.
• A historic investment of $160M over five years in new funding, starting in 2019–20, will enable further community action to tackle systemic barriers impeding women’s progress, while recognizing and addressing the diverse experiences of gender and inequality across the country.
o To date, $30M has been allocated to strategic matched partnerships, resulting in $60M towards gender equality announced at the 2019 Women Deliver Conference.
• Over $200M over 5 years and $40M ongoing for Gender-Based Violence (GBV) initiatives. Key WAGE accomplishments to date under the Strategy include the following:
o 58 projects have been funded to develop and test promising practices to support survivors of Gender-Based Violence and their families.
o Since the launch of the GBV Knowledge Centre’s online platform in December 2018, the online platform was visited close to 28,100 times as of May 2020.

International
• At the Women Deliver 2019 Conference in Vancouver, the Prime Minister announced an increase in funding of up to $1.4B annually by 2023 to support women and girls’ health around the world.
• The Minister for Women and Gender Equality also announced a $300M commitment as part of Canada’s intention to work with the Equality Fund to mobilize resources for women’s rights organizations in developing countries.

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