QUESTION PERIOD — Women and Gender Equality
Gender Equality
April 28, 2026
I have a question for you, Senator Moreau, if I may, please.
I want to give thanks to the Indigenous women leaders for sounding the alarm that I am going to raise in this question and to Dr. Lorraine Greaves and Dr. Lindsay Tedds for crunching the numbers.
The Carney government is dismantling Canada’s women’s civil society, not through high-profile cuts but through the expiry of time-limited funding, a trajectory that, by 2027-28, according to the WAGE website, will put WAGE funding for women and gender equality below where the Harper government left it.
This week, the Minister of Women and Gender Equality announced funding for 394 organizations. What her press release said was, “. . . the largest Women and Gender Equality Canada announcement in history by number of organizations . . . .”
What is the strategy? How is this reconciliation? Why is the government —
Thank you, senator.
I’ve reiterated many times in this chamber that the government is committed not only to Indigenous women but to Indigenous reconciliation and to working together with Indigenous communities.
It’s true all across issues that concern Indigenous communities. We are working on housing specifically for Indigenous communities. We are working on Jordan’s Principle, where massive investments have been made by the government, as well as on other issues concerning drinking water and food security. We are trying to develop all of these measures in conjunction with the Indigenous communities themselves.
Thank you, Senator Moreau, but the point here is that the timing out of money is actually going to cause organizations to shut down or greatly reduce operations.
Many of us here are members of the Canadian Association of Parliamentarians on Population and Development, and we know that Action Canada, which gets funding to support the work we do as parliamentarians, has lost staff because of these time-expired grants.
This is a hidden strategy, and I would like you to please speak to it more openly.
I will speak to it as often as you ask the question or as often as I am dealing with those very important issues, but I remind you that the government has made very concrete actions to support the Indigenous communities. We know there is still a lot of work to do, but we’re committed to doing it.
