NAWL Media Statement: Budget 2025 Investments in Gender Equality Support Women’s Inclusion, Justice and Security

Anishinaabe Territory/OTTAWA, October 30th, 2025:  

The National Association of Women and the Law welcomes the Government of Canada’s pre-budget commitment to provide sustained funding for the Department of Women and Gender Equality (WAGE).

This commitment recognizes that women’s rights and gender justice are key to building a stronger, safer Canada, especially as those rights face growing threats from regressive movements.

However, NAWL notes that the promised spending for WAGE overall represents a significant drop in annual spending from the current fiscal year. NAWL is calling on the Carney government to maximize the impact of this limited new funding by providing leading national women’s rights organizations – who work to create systemic change toward achieving substantive gender equality in Canada – with multi-year capacity-building or operational funding. 

WAGE’s current project-based funding model does not fully account for the fact that achieving lasting progress on critical public policy goals such as ending gender-based violence and strengthening women’s participation in the economy – requires long-term, sustained efforts by organizations like NAWL. NAWL’s current work in this regard includes:

• Ensuring new measures to address intimate partner gun violence, which NAWL’s feminist law reform expertise secured in former Bill C-21 (gun control) in 2023, are brought into force via strong regulations, early in 2026.
• Supporting MP Lisa Hepfner’s Private Member’s Bill 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.
• Advocating for the removal of discrimination against new moms in the Employment Insurance Act.

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

For more information, contact media@nawl.ca