I’d like to share my heartfelt congratulations with women’s organizations from across Canada on yesterday’s funding announcement for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE), a victory which belongs entirely to the frontline advocates who refused to stay silent.
This funding only happened because frontline organizations fought for it. For months, it looked like the Liberals were ready to gut WAGE and wipe out essential programs protecting women and gender-diverse people. I’m relieved their voices were finally heard, but this fight isn’t over.
If this government truly believes in gender equality, it needs to prove it in the budget next week. You can’t claim to stand with women and gender diverse people one day and slash childcare, pharmacare, or reproductive health the next.
Right now Canada continues to face an epidemic of intimate partner violence, a national emergency of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two spirit people, ongoing gender-based economic disparities and rising anti-2SLGBTQQIA hate. More than ever we need stable, long term investment in programs, services and infrastructure promoting gender equality and in women’s and 2SLGBTQQIA+ organizations.
This announcement is a win for advocates. But equality can’t depend on who shouts the loudest. It must be guaranteed.