Question Period Note: Government of Canada’s Gender Equality Accomplishments

What has the Government of Canada done to advance gender equality?

• The Government continues to build on progress made towards gender equality with historic achievements and initiatives.
• Key achievements and investments include:
o Entrenching gender budgeting 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 establish a proactive pay equity regime within the federal public and private sectors;
o Making a historic investment of $160M over 5 years to support community action to advance women’s equality, including through the $100M Feminist Response and Recovery Fund;
o Creating the first-ever federal program specifically dedicated to advancing LGBTQ2 equality; and
o Advancing the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence with an investment of $601.3M over 5 years announced in Budget 2021.

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 Creating the first-ever federal ministerial position fully dedicated to gender issues;
o Legally implementing a process to destroy the records of convictions for offences involving consensual sexual activity between people of the same sex;
o Prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of gender identity under the Canadian Human Rights Act, as well as hate crimes motivated by gender identity under the Criminal Code;
o The coming into force of the Canadian Gender Budgeting Act, enshrining gender budgeting in the government’s budgetary and financial management processes, guided by the Gender Results Framework; and
o Following through on commitments to gender budgeting, and transparency and accountability of Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus), most recently in Budget 2021, which contained GBA Plus summaries of over 300 budget measures.

Key Women and Gender Equality Investments
• Budget 2019 invested $20M over three years to build the capacity of 77 Canadian LGBTQ2 organizations to address the unique needs and persisting disparities among LGBTQ2 Canadians.
o Budget 2021 further commits $15 million over three years for a new LGBTQ2 Projects Fund dedicated to supporting community-informed initiatives to overcome key issues facing LGBTQ2 communities.
o Budget 2021 also provides $7.1 million over three years to continue to support the work of the LGBTQ2 Secretariat and to enable the continued development of an LGBTQ2 Action Plan.
• $160M over five years, starting in 2019 20 is being invested to enable community action supporting projects to advance equality for women.
o The $100M Feminist Response and Recovery Fund was launched in February 2021, to support an inclusive response and recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 29, 2021, funding for 237 projects was announced under the call.
o $30M has been allocated to strategic matched partnerships, with the potential to result in $60M towards gender equality.
• It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence, launched in 2017, committed over $200M over 5 years and $40M per year ongoing to form a whole-of-government approach to prevent gender-based violence (GBV), support survivors and their families, and promote responsive legal and justice systems. Key WAGE accomplishments to date include:
o Funding to approximately 60 projects to develop and test promising practices to support victims and survivors of GBV and their families;
o As of August 2021, the GBV Knowledge Centre’s online platform has been visited more than 125,000 times since its launch in 2018; and
o Three national surveys were conducted to establish baselines on the prevalence of forms of GBV among different populations, providing a deeper understanding of GBV in Canada and the ability to measure progress.
• The Government provided approximately $100M in emergency funding to over 1,200 organizations across Canada providing critical supports and services to those experiencing GBV and to ensure continuity of services.
o Since April 2020, more than 1.3 million women and children experiencing GBV had a place to turn because of this funding.
• Budget 2021 announced $601.3M over five years to advance towards a National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, of which WAGE will receive $415M.
o On August 6, 2021, $27.3M was announced to support 72 projects to address gender-based violence across Canada. To support continued collaboration with provinces and territories, joint projects to address gender-based violence in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Yukon were also announced.
Almost $200M over two years, starting in 2021-22, is being committed to enhance the capacity and responsiveness of GBV organizations that provide services and supports for women, girls, LGBTQ2, and gender non-binary people experiencing violence.

International
• At the Women Deliver 2019 Conference, the Prime Minister announced up to $1.4B in new annual funding by 2023 to support women’s and girls’ health around the world.
• As part of its role in the Generation Equality Forum, on July 1, 2020, Canada was named co-lead for the Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership, along with the Netherlands and Malawi.

Work still remains to achieve gender equality
• Women, particularly young women, those who are Indigenous, visible minorities and immigrants, have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 since women are concentrated in jobs in services, retail, care, and hospitality sectors, which have been more severely affected.
• Additional work remains to increase the proportion of women, particularly diverse women, in leadership positions in public and private spheres, to address barriers for women business owners and to address barriers to the economic security of diverse groups of women and LGBTQ2 individuals (e.g., food insecurity, housing).

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