Budget 2025: Multi-year and ongoing funding for WAGE, but a significant drop in annual spending

Anishinaabe Territory/OTTAWA, November 4, 2025 – The National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) is pleased to see multi-year and ongoing funding in Budget 2025 for the Department for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE). This predictable and stable funding is vital for national women’s rights organizations to continue the necessary work toward substantive equality and safety for women, especially at a time of economic transformation and the rise of regressive movements in Canada. 

Budget 2025 proposes annual funding of $132.1 million per year for WAGE, which includes $76.5 million per year to advance women’s equality in Canada, and $44.7 million per year to strengthen federal action on gender-based violence. 

However, NAWL is concerned that this funding for WAGE overall represents a significant drop in annual spending from the current fiscal year. The annual funding of $76.5 million for the Women’s Program will be half the $150 million annual allocation that NAWL recommended.

NAWL now calls on WAGE to maximize efficiencies and increase the impact of this new stable funding by signing five-year memorandum of agreements with leading national women’s rights organizations engaged in systemic change work, which can take many years to achieve.

NAWL is disappointed the government did not take the opportunity in Budget 2025 to commit to relatively low-cost but important policy changes for women’s safety, economic security, and prosperity. 

Going forward, we urge the government to undertake the following critical legislative and regulatory actions:

• Support MP Lisa Hepfner’s Private Member’s Bill (C-223, the Keeping Children Safe Act) to amend the Divorce Act to protect vulnerable children and women in family court. This proposed legislation was tabled in the House of Commons following two years of advocacy work by NAWL on the issue, and reflects the calls of nearly 300 organizations across Canada advocating for these reforms.
• Amend the Employment Insurance Act to remove the discrimination against new mothers and ensure they remain eligible for regular benefits if they lose their jobs while on parental leave, or soon after returning to work.
• Raise the amount and income thresholds of the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) and restructure eligibility to be based on individual, rather than family income, to help lift disabled women out of poverty.

NAWL also highlights the absence of a commitment in the budget to finally bring into force measures aimed at removing firearms from domestic abusers in former Bill C-21, which received Royal Assent in December 2023. In the meantime, women and children have been shot and killed in family settings. It is appalling the regulations needed to enforce these new measures are not yet implemented, almost two years after they became law.

The work to create systemic change – toward achieving substantive gender equality, ending gender-based violence and strengthening women’s participation in the economy – requires long-term, sustained efforts by national women’s rights organizations. This work is integral to the government’s mission to build a stronger economy where everyone has a chance to get ahead, and recognizing there is no prosperity without security. 

NAWL looks forward to strengthening its partnership with Women and Gender Equality Canada and other federal departments to deliver concrete results that advance gender equality and improve the safety and economic security of all women in Canada.