This Gender Equality Week, Canada Remains at a Crossroads
Gender inequality isn’t history; it’s still shaping our lives today. According to Statistics Canada (2024), Canadian women continue to bear the heavier burden of unpaid caregiving, are more likely to live in unaffordable or substandard housing and often rely on subsidized homes.
These disparities affect us all in Canada. They mean a parent stretching paycheques, a newcomer unable to work in their trained profession, a gender-diverse youth feeling unseen or a woman walking through unsafe public spaces and infrastructure that was never designed with her safety or experiences in mind. These are not abstract statistics, they are daily realities for many.
The State of Gender Equity in Canada in 2025
Canada is at a crossroads. It has been thirty years since the federal government introduced Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) to guide how we design policies and programs, but inequities remain, and in some areas, they are getting worse.
Rates of gender-based violence and femicides remain high and have recently increased, with women—particularly Indigenous, racialized, immigrant and gender-diverse women— facing the highest risks (Statistics Canada, 2024). In 2023, 78% of police-reported intimate-partner violence victims were women and girls; in 2024, 187 women and girls were killed in Canada (Canada Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability). At the same time, women-dominated care sectors continue to face low pay. Early childhood educators, for example, earn a median wage of about $21 per hour, with real wages stagnant in recent years (CSLS, 2024). The gender pay gap persists across the economy, with women still earning only 87 cents for every dollar earned by a man. The gap is even wider for Black, Indigenous and racialized women (Government of Canada, 2025).
Compounding these inequities, the federal government plans to cut 80% of the budget for Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) over the next three years, from about $407 million in 2025-2026 to just $76 million by 2027-2028. This sharp reduction signals that despite increasing needs, gender equality is losing priority in government agendas, leaving progress fragile and at risk of eroding.
Equality is not guaranteed, and without vigilance, the gains we have made can be rolled back.
Who Is Affected by Gender Inequality?
Gender inequality touches lives everywhere. Women and gender-diverse people bear the heaviest costs through lower wages, limited career opportunities, unsafe housing and disproportionate caregiving responsibilities.
But it does not stop there. Families lose income stability when women are underpaid. Communities lose potential when immigrant women cannot work in their professions. Canada’s economy loses billions each year because of barriers that keep women from fully participating in the job market. Youth grow up in systems that limit what they believe is possible for them.
Youth and the Future
For young people the stakes are especially high. They are navigating a world shaped by digital change, precarious work and growing inequalities. Yet they are also a generation that is outspoken, diverse and unwilling to accept outdated systems.
The choices we make today about wages, housing, caregiving, education and safety will determine whether youth inherit a society that expands their opportunities or one that limits them.
Gender Equality Week reminds us that progress is not inevitable, it is a choice we make together. Communities can no longer afford to slide backward. We need bold policies, inclusive leadership and collective commitment to dismantle the systems that hold inequality in place.
This week, let’s recommit to demanding safer communities and building futures where equity is the rule, not the exception.
