The Liberal Party’s election win caps a remarkable reversal in its fortunes over a few short months, with Canadians placing their bet on leader Mark Carney to confront and contain American threats to our economic and political sovereignty.
There will be much to parse over the next months for progressive movements. The historic vote saw the emergence of a two-horse race between the Liberals and Conservatives and the collapse of NDP and Bloc Quebecois support.
The trade war with the U.S. consumed much—if not all—of our collective political attention during the election campaign. Women’s voices and issues of gender equality failed to achieve any kind of traction and were largely sidelined in the public debate, as were other progressive voices.
The decline in the number of female candidates running was one of the most visible signs of the change in the political landscape. Women made up just 36 per cent of the Liberal roster, down from 43 per cent in 2021, and even less (23 per cent) among Conservatives.
At the time of writing, 102 women are on their way to Ottawa pending the outcome of the recounts, one short of the 2021 total. Women will make up a smaller share of MPs than in the last parliament—29.7 per cent vs 30.5 per cent—the first decline since 2004.
This places Canada even further down the league table for representation of women in parliaments worldwide—in 73rd place—behind eight of 10 provincial legislatures. More than half (52.7 per cent) of the legislators in British Columbia are women, just to drive this point home.
The lack of focus on key issues affecting gender equality and impacting women—such as child care, precarious housing, fair wages, and gender-based violence—did not reflect a lack of concern among voters. The very high cost of living, astronomical rents, the state of Canada’s care economy all figured at the top of public opinion polls throughout the election.
Rather, the anti-feminist backlash changed the political calculus in an election that zeroed in almost immediately on the two main parties.
For the Liberals, there was nothing to be gained in focusing on gender equality in their push to make a decisive break from the Trudeau years. The Conservative Party, for its part, ran on a platform to excise feminism and “woke ideology” from government. The substantive needs, concerns and aspirations of women and marginalized communities didn’t factor into the electoral equation at all.
The Liberals pivot from “identity politics”
Back in 2015, Justin Trudeau’s feminist politics were integral to his promise to bring “sunny ways” to the task of governing, a return to “positive politics” after 10 years of Conservative government. In the 2025 campaign, the same Liberal party under a new leader made an explicit choice to jettison the feminist cause so closely associated with the former prime minister.
The Trudeau government recorded many important achievements over its tenure, including the introduction of a national child care program, proactive pay equity, gender budgeting legislation and free birth control.
At the same time, the government’s equity agenda came under sustained attack from the Conservatives and other far right groups, who characterized these same accomplishments as “woke”—a term used to malign a broad range of issues from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to the price on carbon and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, all targeted as exemplars of government overreach and the excesses of identity politics.
The new Liberal team were determined to signal change and to sideline—rather than confront—these damaging culture wars narratives. The economic war launched by the U.S. provided the opportunity to do just that. The campaign was able to establish a singular frame around Trump and threat to Canada’s sovereignty, and to position calm, experienced Mr. Carney as the best response.
The Liberal platform reiterated the party’s support for women’s rights and pledged to “strengthen” child care, invest in gendered health disparities, work to end gender-based violence, and make permanent the Sexual and Reproductive Health Fund and the 2SLGBTQI+ Community Capacity Fund. No further details were provided.
We had an early sign of how the Liberal campaign would unfold in March when the newly elected Liberal leader removed the Minister for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) from Cabinet. In announcing this new “leaner, focused cabinet”, the Prime Minister’s Office stated it’s focusing on “the things that matter most to Canadians, such as strengthening Canada’s economy and security.”
As if issues of social justice are separate from the economy and geopolitics. As if combatting the systemic barriers that women face isn’t essential to navigating the current economic crisis and creating a more resilient and prosperous future for all.
Thus, we had the Liberal Party’s studied neglect of gender equality on the one hand, and the Conservative Party’s hyperbolic campaign against “woke ideology” on the other.
Conservatives campaign to end “woke ideology” in government
Feminism does feature in the Conservative election strategy—as a straw man for its narrative that governments have gone too far, constraining free speech, imposing unjust taxes, destabilizing “the traditional family,” and letting crime spiral out of control. It’s a plank straight out of the culture war playbook designed to tap into social and economic grievances, especially among men.
Since taking leadership of the party in 2022, Pierre Poilievre has trained his sights on so-called “woke” policies. He’s called on Canadians to “put aside race, this obsession with race that wokeism has inserted.” He’s spoken of replacing the military’s “woke culture” with a “warrior culture” and repealing the Liberals’ “woke criminal justice agenda” and “woke agenda on spending.”
The 2025 election platform promised an “end to the imposition of the woke ideology in the federal public service and in the allocation of federal funds for university research,” by eliminating DEI initiatives and wasteful government spending.
What does this promise actually mean? Eliminating pay equity and retracting the Employment Equity Act, firing employees in Crown Indigenous Relations, disbanding research into health disparities, cancelling employment programs for people with disabilities?
The Conservative Party is pretty vague on the details. We have only to look at what’s happening in the United States as Elon Musk and his team at DOGE wield their chainsaws to get some idea. Republican governments’ attacks on reproductive health services are already having a devastating impact on the lives of women.
But then again, women were not the Conservative Party’s target market. Their crusade against “woke ideology” and “woke culture” is designed to consolidate their base of social conservatives and to expand their appeal to young men and blue-collar workers. The party’s “More Boots, Less Suits” plan was all about a single group of working-class men in male-dominated trades, and not the many more working-class women in low-paying services.
Women got the message. Going into the final vote, over half of women signaled that they would be voting Liberal compared to just 30 per cent for the Conservatives, widening the already significant gender divide in Canadian electoral politics.
It’s time for a feminist reset
Six months ago, the ballot box question was about “continuity versus change”. The question wasn’t if the Liberals were going to lose, but by what margin. In a few short weeks, Donald Trump disrupted the political landscape and rewrote the script. As David Coletto from Abacus Data writes: “The ballot box psychology flipped from scarcity-driven anger to precarity-tinged caution”. “Continuity versus change” became “stability versus disruption”.
The Conservatives’ 25-point lead evaporated. Older voters and a majority of women chose the candidate they considered best able to navigate the uncertainty ahead, skeptical of the MAGA-adjacent Conservatives and their leader. Many younger voters, on the other hand, figured that they had nothing to lose and threw their support behind the Conservatives in pursuit of a different future.
The challenge now for the Carney government is to deal with Trump’s disruptive presidency while building out a more prosperous and inclusive economy at a time of profound precarity and division. This country is increasingly a house divided: not just by regional differences, but by age and gender and culture.
As we contemplate the different future in a new global order, it would be a mistake to cleave to narrow neoliberal policy prescriptions that have fuelled the rise in inequality and economic precarity around the world. The private market won’t save Canada—or create a country where all can thrive.
It would also be a mistake to proceed as if fundamental issues of gender equality are divorced from the health of the economy. We will see how Mr. Carney proceeds with the selection of his new cabinet—will he stay the course or bring the WAGE minister back to the table? Will he deliver for those who turned his electoral fortunes around?
This election has shown us that we can’t be complacent about progress on gender equality. The right has weaponized women’s rights and gender equality, and their attack on “woke ideology” is a Trojan horse for regressive policies of all kinds. Our response cannot be silence.
It’s time for a reset. It’s time to re-centre the pursuit of gender equality in the effort to confront American threats and chart an alternative course. It’s a moment to stand together to protect our collective future.
