Alternative federal budget 2026-27: Gender equality

This is from a larger publication, Alternative federal budget 2026-27: Bridge to independence

Introduction

Rising levels of economic insecurity and government neglect now threaten the advance of gender equality in Canada. The federal government’s narrow set of “nation-building” priorities are focused on re-creating a past Canadian economy by investing in male-dominated industries and the military.¹ The 2026 Spring Economic Update (SEU) doubled down on this framing by introducing a Canada Strong Fund and a Canada Strong Team strategy wholly focused on housing, physical infrastructure and defence.²

There’s no mention of the commensurate investments needed to sustain and enhance Canada’s care economy or the health and social services that we all rely on, sectors where women workers predominate. There’s no word about future investments in child care, pharmacare, gender-based violence, health care, education or labour—the things that make all other nation-building possible. There is no concern about the widening gap in wealth and income.

The government’s economic plan reinforces the myth that women’s labour is not essential to the economy, that the care economy itself is not the foundation of a strong and resilient country. It also ignores the reality that service industries account for 80 per cent of Canada’s GDP.

Recognizing that an economy is built not just on roads, ports and hydro dams, but also on paid and unpaid care for each other and our planet, the AFB will make the investments necessary to strengthen Canada’s essential physical and social infrastructure. This will create the conditions necessary for all to thrive, providing the foundation of a resilient, inclusive and gender-just future.

Overview

Federal budgets of the recent past delivered important gains for women and gender-diverse people, including historic investments in child care and pharmacare as well as the first-ever National Action Plan to End Gender-based Violence³ and Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan.⁴ Funds were set aside in the 2024 fall economic statement to support women’s sexual and reproductive health care, build capacity at national women’s organizations and create much-needed shelter spaces.⁵

The new Liberal government elected in April 2025 had promised to preserve these programs.⁶ Then it was revealed in July 2025 that Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) was facing an 80 per cent funding cut, with several time-limited funding programs set to expire.

Gender equality organizations rallied to save critical community services and supports along with the national infrastructure that has been key to advancing gender equality in Canada over the past decade. On October 29, 2025, six days before the budget, the government changed course. A total of $660.5 million was announced, to be spent over five years, with $132.1 million ongoing, for the three grants and contributions programs hosted by WAGE.⁷

November’s federal budget confirmed new funding for WAGE. It also introduced a refundable tax credit for personal support workers of up to $1,100 and promised to create a voluntary code of conduct for federally regulated banks aimed at preventing economic and financial abuse, particularly affecting women and Indigenous communities.⁸ A new Workforce Alliance on the Care Economy was announced,⁹ something of a surprise because a Sectoral Table on the Care Economy had been struck in 2024 and then quietly disbanded in 2025 without ever having met.

Not long after he became the new Liberal leader, Mark Carney dropped the Minister of Women and Gender Equality from his first cabinet and folded WAGE into Heritage Canada.¹⁰ Once elected, his new Liberal government walked back the WAGE demotion, but questions linger about the depth of its commitment to gender equality. What’s the status of the National Action Plan to End Gender-based Violence and Calls for Justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls? Where is the new Employment Equity Act? What’s holding up the implementation of pay equity in the federal public service?¹¹ What about the Federal 2SLBGTQI+ Action Plan? What about the plans for increasing and expanding the Canada Disability Benefit? Will Canada meet its 2023 poverty reduction targets?

We continue to wait for the answers.

Meanwhile, violent crime is rising. Violence committed by intimate partners against women was up by 6.8 per cent between 2019 and 2024. The rate of increase in violence committed by non-intimate partners was even higher: 11.4 per cent.¹² Rates of sexual assault, physical assault and criminal harassment targeting women and girls are all much higher than in 2019 and higher than a decade ago.¹³ These are symptoms of a growing national crisis that demands urgent, co-ordinated action from all levels of government.

The federal government has played an active role in combatting gender-based violence through its 2022 ten-year National Action Plan to End Gender-based Violence, initially flowing $525 million over five years to the provinces and territories via bilateral agreements to support GBV services.¹⁴ In July 2026, after considerable pressure from advocates and service providers, the bilateral agreements were renewed with an investment of $607.4 million over four years to start in 2027-28.¹⁵ These agreements provide crucial support, but concerns remain about what is being achieved in the absence of strong national standards and accountability.¹⁶ Evidence suggests that the plan is being implemented in a way that is replicating jurisdictional gaps and, in some cases, funding is not reaching core survivor-serving organizations like sexual assault centres. The federal government’s contribution to the National Action Plan is confined largely to support for research and training with, at this time, no independent oversight, specific action items or long-term planning.¹⁷

Last-minute bridge funding for the National Family and Survivors Circle was included in the SEU, but no word about the renewal of the Ending Violence Against Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ National Action Plan set to expire in 2028.¹⁸ Budget 2021 set aside $2.2 billion to “accelerate” work towards “a transformed Canada where Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQI+ people, wherever they are, live free from violence.”

19 Core Working Group, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People National Action Plan, June 3, 2021, https://mmiwg2splus-nationalactionplan.ca/eng/1670511213459/1670511226843. Several Indigenous organizations have prepared their own plans to combat violence among Indigenous women, posted on the NAP website. The federal government’s contribution is called the Federal Pathway; its 2026 progress report can be found here: 2025-26 Federal Pathway Annual Progress Report.[/efn_note] Five years later, many commitments have been made but Canada has failed to deliver the transformative change it promised.¹⁹

The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) writes in its 2024-25 scorecard that “the lack of transparency, inadequate funding, and absence of Indigenous-led accountability mechanisms have undermined trust and jeopardized progress.”^{21, 22} Indigenous groups are sounding the alarm about the potential expiry of many critical health and social services.²⁰

One of the key issues in fighting gender-based violence is difficulty in recruiting and retaining frontline staff,²¹ a common issue across all sectors in Canada’s care economy. People in these sectors have been working flat out since the pandemic, amid funding shortfalls, stagnant wages, workforce shortages, entrenched service silos and the steady creep of privatization. With a precarious workforce largely composed of women and racialized people, the state of our care economy needs much more attention. Public-sector job losses and provincial austerity programs are already hitting workers hard.²²

There have been several positive steps to strengthen women’s labour market position in recent years, but new federal initiatives have repeatedly lacked the vision and resourcing to generate real change. For example, proactive pay equity legislation has come into force for 5,000 federally regulated employers, but the deadline for submitting pay equity plans has been pushed years beyond the original 2024 cut-off.²³ There is still no government response to the Report of the Employment Equity Act Review Task Force, submitted in December 2023²⁴ regarding proposed reforms or recognizing Black people and 2SLGBTQI+ people as designated groups under the act.²⁵

It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trudeau-era policy initiatives are being sidelined—or addressed as afterthoughts, like the legislated requirement to do equity analyses of new budget measures, reduced to a list of bullet points in the 2026 SEU.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the resounding silence of the future of pharmacare. National pharmacare legislation and the initial investment of $1.5 billion to provide free coverage of diabetes medication and contraception through a single-payer system was a huge advance for all Canadians, especially women and low-income families.²⁶ Four agreements were quickly signed with British Columbia, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and Yukon before the federal election.²⁷ Early evidence from British Columbia shows that the program is already generating benefits for residents as access to birth control has expanded.²⁸

Now it appears that the government is backtracking, positioning the four existing programs as “pilots,” thus leaving those provinces potentially holding the bag when their funding agreements expire.²⁹ The federal government has moved to make the Sexual and Reproductive Health Fund permanent,³⁰ but these efforts can only be truly successful within the context of an inclusive, high-quality public health care system, which includes universal pharmacare.

Likewise, there are mounting concerns that the government is preparing to scale back support for its new child care program even as demand for service has exploded.

All of this is happening amidst far-right attacks and widespread disinformation campaigns on gender equality and 2SLGBTQI+ rights. This has become especially urgent as several provinces are introducing laws that target protections for queer and trans youth in schools and restricting access to public services. Alberta is the most recent example, introducing legislation and preventing courts (via the use of the notwithstanding clause) from reviewing three laws that restrict the rights of trans youth and adults in health care, education and sport.³¹

In the context of rising intolerance and hate, new funding for 2SLGBTQI+ groups and resourcing for projects that build and sustain 2SLGBTQI+ community resilience are crucial.³² 2SLGBTQI+ groups were looking for reassurance that the Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan will be renewed. They are still waiting; no word in the SEU.

Actions

1. The AFB will prioritize a new Employment Equity Act, committing $20 million over the next three years for the speedy development of a new employment equity regime (including the creation of two new equity groups: Black people and 2SLGBTQI+ people.³³ An additional $20 million over three years will be invested to expedite the work of the Office of the Pay Equity Commissioner and the Office of the Accessibility Commissioner. These offices will have the resourcing necessary to support and enforce compliance, including regular independent public reviews and sustained funding for the development of the disaggregated data needed to support these initiatives.

The AFB will also commit $7.5 million per year in additional funding above what is currently being allocated to support an expanded mandate for the Workforce Alliance for the Care Economy, pursuant to Canada’s obligations as a member of the Global Alliance for Care³⁴ and the requirements set out in the International Labour Organization’s 5R framework for decent care work.³⁵

The AFB will also modernize and strengthen social protections for workers, such as Employment Insurance, to reflect current and future labour realities such as ensuring migrant care workers have decent work and the opportunity to apply for permanent residency.³⁶ The AFB will allow new parents to stack regular EI benefits with special benefits for parental leave, extending parents’ reference and benefit period to 104 weeks, and it will boost benefit levels for new parents in line with Quebec’s program. The AFB will also prioritize opportunities for women, youth, people with disabilities and other underrepresented groups through new investments in decent jobs in strategic industries and infrastructure projects, including the care economy and climate action.

2. The AFB will invest $360 million over three years to stabilize the gender-based violence shelter and transition-house sector and address fundamental funding gaps in the National Action Plan to End Gender-based Violence, including support for sexual assault centres and legal aid services. The AFB will also support the creation of an independent mechanism to monitor and publicly report on progress and lessons learned from the Federal Gender-based Violence Strategy and the National Action Plan, setting the standards for systemic change.

These funds will also support the development of an independent mechanism to monitor and publicly report on progress and lessons learned from the Federal Gender-based Violence Strategy and the National Action Plan. The AFB will initiate negotiations to renew the National Action Plan by March 2027, with an investment of $200 million annually for five years.

The AFB will create an implementation plan to accelerate the fulfillment of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls for Justice, with a view to renewing the Ending Violence Against Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQI+ National Action Plan. It will also create independent accountability mechanisms under the oversight of Indigenous women’s organizations and grassroots groups to monitor current efforts to combat violence against First Nations, Inuit and Métis women, girls and Two Spirit people.

The AFB will support the development and implementation of ILO Convention C-190 on violence and harassment in the world of work with $20 million a year in funding, to include women who are federal workers and current and former members of the military and RCMP. The AFB will also expand access to domestic violence leave to a minimum of 10 paid days and 10 unpaid days in federally regulated sectors (at a cost of $5 million per year) and commit additional funds for measures to counter anti-2SLGBTQI+ hate and gendered digital hate, violence and harassment in all its forms.³⁷

3. The AFB will commit to creating a public, universal single-payer pharmacare plan with a national formulary that includes a full range of sexual and reproductive medicines and devices plus other essential medications and supports. It will also expand and make permanent the Canadian Sexual and Reproductive Health Survey. It will also enhance and make permanent the national sexual and reproductive health survey and the Sexual and Reproductive Health Fund.

The AFB will also set a March 31, 2031, target for the expansion of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program to ensure at least 65 per cent of children under the age of six in every province and territory have access to $10-a-day child care and to establish an Early Learning and Child Care Workforce fund to increase and regulate wages for workers in licensed child care settings and provide access to pension benefits.

4. The AFB will launch negotiations with the community and provide resources to review and update the Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan and to sustain core programs and bodies, such as the 2SLGBTQI+ Secretariat at Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE).

The AFB will increase base funding to WAGE’s Women’s Program to $150 million per year for multi-year funding for women’s rights and gender equality organizations working at the local, regional and national levels. This will include $10 million per year in operational funding for national women’s rights organizations working on systemic change.

The AFB will invest $5 million over three years to create a national gender equality plan and an independent and transparent monitoring mechanism to uphold obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, working in harmony with other human rights bodies and processes. One of the key tasks of this new mechanism will be to track, using an intersectional lens, the impacts of the ongoing economic crisis on women and gender-diverse people.

The Monitor

Our Schools/Our Selves

Alternative federal budget 2026-27: Gender equality

Introduction

Overview

Actions

About the author

Alternative Federal Budget Working Group

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Alternative federal budget 2026-27: First Nations

Alternative federal budget 2026: Gender equality

Budget fédéral alternatif 2026 : Égalité des genres

Alternative Federal Budget 2020

Budget fédéral alternatif 2020

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