With The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada. As the Department of Finance Canada notes, the federal budget is “a blueprint for how the Government wants to set the annual economic agenda for Canada.”
As Canada’s public foundation for gender justice and equality, government spending decisions are always a key topic for the Canadian Women’s Foundation. The focus of government spending affects all our lives, every single day, in so many ways. Government investment decisions are powerful tools that can maintain things as they are or profoundly change them, for better or for worse.
The 2024 Federal Budget was recently released and we co-hosted an analysis of it with Oxfam Canada and other national feminist voices. We discussed how investments stack up for women and gender-diverse people and for moving the needle on gender equality.
In this bonus episode, we speak with the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau on this very topic.
Transcript
00:00:02 Justin
Every year, the federal government puts forward its priorities and its investments for that year and for the following five years, and they build on—because they’re five-year plans, they build on investments we made in the previous years that maybe enroll in year four or year three. We may be announcing that we’re continuing them, but really, it’s a question of what are the priorities?
00:00:26 Andrea
In this bonus episode, we discuss the new federal budget’s connection to gender equality with the Prime Minister of Canada, The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau.
I’m Andrea Gunraj from the Canadian Women’s Foundation.
Welcome to Alright, Now What? a podcast from the Canadian Women’s Foundation. We put an intersectional feminist lens on stories that make you wonder, “Why is this still happening?” We explore systemic routes and strategies for change that will move us closer to the goal of gender justice.
The work of the Canadian Women’s Foundation and our partners takes place on traditional First Nations, Métis, and Inuit territories. We are grateful for the opportunity to meet and work on this land, however, we recognize that land acknowledgements are not enough. We need to pursue truth, reconciliation, decolonization, and allyship in an ongoing effort to make right with all our relations.
00:01:24 Andrea
As the Department of Finance Canada notes, the federal budget is “a blueprint for how the Government wants to set the annual economic agenda for Canada.”
As Canada’s public foundation for gender justice and equality, government spending decisions are always a key topic for the Canadian Women’s Foundation. The focus of government spending affects all of our lives, every single day, in so many ways. Government investment decisions are powerful tools that can maintain things as they are or profoundly change them, for better or for worse.
You can’t talk about gender equality change without talking about government spending.
The 2024 Federal Budget was recently released, and the Canadian Women’s Foundation co-hosted an analysis of it with Oxfam Canada and other national feminist voices. We discussed how investments stack up for women and gender-diverse people and for moving the needle on gender equality.
I appreciated the opportunity to speak with the Prime Minister of Canada, The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, on this very topic. Here’s the discussion for you.
00:02:19 Andrea
Tell us what’s important to you now as a leader and a person.
00:02:33 Justin
Well, you know, our entire focus right now is a continuation of the things that we’ve been fighting for since 2015, but realization that the economy and the system and society we live in is not doing a very good job of becoming more fair. And so, the idea of fairness for every generation, fairness for all Canadians is really at the center of what we put forward in the budget.
It’s why we’re asking the wealthiest, you know, point one percent in many cases, to pay a little bit more so we can deliver on countering the housing crisis, make sure people can afford rental properties, and eventually hope to buy a home for young people or young families.
We’re investing in things like pharmacare, like dental care, like more in healthcare, lots more in the care economy, because it is the building block of success. And because if the government—since it does have one of the best fiscal positions of all our peer countries, the government is on strong fiscal footing—we should be investing in supports for Canadians to make sure that people can get through this tough time.
00:03:43 Andrea
I need to take a step back because some of us just don’t know the basics of how federal budget-making works. So, tell me a bit—high-level overview: how does it work, how are priorities for investment chosen and rolled out?
00:03:57 Justin
Well, you know, every year, the federal government puts forward its priorities and its investments for that year and for the following five years, and they build on—because they’re five-year plans, they build on investments we made in the previous years that maybe enroll in year four or year three. We may be announcing that we’re continuing them, but really, it’s a question of what are the priorities?
And right now, in our budget, we really put forward three priorities, to make that you know more fairness for every generation. One: addressing the housing crisis; two is on affordability and supporting families in this difficult time; and third is building a strong economy for all Canadians, for future generations—bringing in good jobs, creating good pathways, creating that stability so future generations will be fine.
So, those are really the defining ideas around it, and then within the budget, whether we’re talking about the disability benefit that goes, you know, hundreds of dollars a month to extremely vulnerable people, whether we’re talking about developing pharmacare that goes for insulin so people don’t get worse and worse outcomes from the diabetes or for prescription contraceptives, which we’re putting forward, that goes to affordability.
And on housing, which touches everything else because everyone is squeezed with the price of housing, whether it’s a mortgage, whether it’s your rent, or whether it’s not even being able to imagine buying a place of your own or getting out of a situation to get a place on your own, we need to create more supply. So, there’s massive supports that we are investing in with municipalities, with some provinces, to create more housing to solve this challenge that quite frankly, we’ve solved before.
In the years following World War II, when the baby boomers came of age, there was a need for massive amounts of new housing. We did it then, we’re doing it now, but it’s taking a federal government that is investing concretely and ambitiously in housing to try and turn that around. So, those are the big choices we made in this budget.
00:06:04 Andrea
So, let’s go to gender equality now. Tell us how you feel this 2024 budget addresses some of our most contemporary pressing gender equality concerns. I’m thinking things like gendered economic security and childcare, safety, rights, access, and more.
00:06:21 Justin
Well, first of all, I mean, housing is about gender opportunity and equality. We know far too many women will stay in an unsafe relationship because there is no other place to go. There’s no availability of affordable rentals, even as a transition. So, giving people options and giving women choices is something that really, really matters and that fits into it.
Many more investments in childcare in this budget, particularly on childcare infrastructure to build more spaces in childcare. We know there are some provinces that we sort of had to twist their arms with the money on the table in order to get them to even begin to move forward on childcare. We’re going to continue to have to push them to get those childcare dollars down to $10 a day for families and create more spaces at the same time. So, that’s where childcare infrastructure and loan programs and more training programs—these are the things that are going to boost that.
And we’ve seen childcare have a transformative impact already—the highest level of women’s participation in the workforce because they have choices. You know, you don’t have to choose between family and a career. You can make the choices that work for you and for your life. And that was really, really important for us.
I already mentioned Pharmacare—making the decision around prescription contraceptives. We know the contraceptive choices that women are in charge of are harder than just popping into the drug store for a condom. There’s an outlay of costs up front for IUDs, for various prescription contraceptives, or even the pill. That means making sure that no woman has to look at whether she can afford to take her birth control medication or get, you know, get control over her own reproductive rights, because she’s going through a tough time economically, that’s about fundamental fairness. That’s about equality.
And that’s, you know, one of the things that unfortunately is one of the reasons that Conservatives are so focused on voting against this budget. I mean we saw it again recently as continued anti-choice activism, anti-choice legislation in the House of Commons, anti-choice marches. Like these are things that are not to be taken for granted and that’s where we’re trying to push things forward in the right way.
Some of the other things we’re doing? Free dental care for seniors. We know that, you know, women are likely to live longer than men—lucky you—which means you know the women who can’t afford or don’t have dental care coverage simply have gone without. And we’ve already seen tens of thousands of people just over the past few weeks get—or past week—get access to dental care in a really meaningful way. So, there’s all sorts of things we’re doing.
Even school food programs. 400,000 kids will be helped through the school food program, which is estimated to take hundreds of dollars off of family grocery bills at a time where we know groceries are too expensive.
So, these are all things that do go at these challenges and on top of that, we’re continuing with our investments that you know total over $800 million since 2017 on combating gender-based violence, on a national gender-based violence action strategy.
00:09:58 Andrea
Now you may have heard some of the responses on this budget from feminist leaders in Canada, including the Canadian Women’s Foundation—both pros and cons. Tell us a bit about your thoughts on these identified gaps.
00:10:12 Justin
One of the concerns is that you know the national gender-based violence strategy requires a lot of investment and a lot of funding, and we did move forward on a couple of very specific ones this year that we hadn’t moved on before. The Buyback Program for assault style weapons, for example, to make sure that we’re keeping the community safer and continuing to move forward on gun control. That was part of our National Action Plan on gender-based violence.
Also supports on legal aid for people facing harassment in the workforce to make sure that there are resources for them. That’s another concrete example and initiative.
But over the past years, like I said, we have funded hundreds of millions of dollars towards the national gender-based violence strategy. This year we made marquee investments in things like housing because we know that that’s a piece of fighting gender-based violence, countering homelessness and supportive housing as well in general. Maybe not as specific as some people would have wanted for gender-based violence, but we know there’s a lot of people facing huge challenges out there, so more investments in supportive housing in emergency shelters across the board—these are things we’re doing.
But, you know, as any good progressive knows, there’s always more to do and we’re happy to hear the constructive feedback and work with leading organizations to do more, you know, in the coming months and years.
00:11:46 Andrea
Now, speaking of gender-based violence, May is Sexual Violence Prevention Month and lots of people are talking about what it actually takes to end pervasive violence, like sexual assault and harassment. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the budget’s approach to gender-based violence?
00:12:03 Justin
Well, first of all, there’s specific money we’re going against sort of some of the systemic challenges of, you know, hatred and discrimination, which is—can be—gender, but also can be, you know, racialized minorities or what have you.
You know, we need to make sure that our institutions are updated and that they are changing. You know, I always remember someone who pointed out to me that the institution is not broken. The institutions are working exactly as they were designed to work for, you know, elderly white men and, you know, that’s the way so much of our system has been built.
So, changing the system in very real ways is something that we’re working on, both throughout the public service as an employer, but also in the programs we put forward, whether it’s the Women’s Entrepreneurship Strategy, which we’re continuing with, or many other programs of economic empowerment, which technically you could say that investments in childcare are very, very powerful for.
But then there’s also investments that we need to make in indirect and emergency supports, in gender-based violence education and supports for people fleeing, you know, unsafe domestic situations. Last year, we moved forward very strongly on strengthening the red flag and yellow flag laws on guns to make sure that intimate partner violence was a key flag, that whether it’s a doctor or a psychiatrist or a community worker could flag to the police their concerns here. This is all about some of the various empowerments.
And investing in the care economy in general, recognizing that the way we lean on each other and support each other, which is largely—whether it’s nursing or whether it’s social work or whether it’s childcare workers and early childhood educators, you know, these are all strongly women-led organizations and women-led professions. You know, making sure we are investing in better pay, better working conditions, better safety for people.
I’ve been speaking with nurses and others who are really worried for their own well-beings and their physical safety in so many situations because there’s such a prevalence of mental health challenges out there that need to be addressed. Our investments in mental health supports are historic in our last budget to make sure that the healthcare systems are better on that. So, there’s a huge range of things that we know we need to continue to do more on.
00:14:46 Andrea
And with the fires and floods and accelerated warming in the North, these gendered impacts of climate crisis are top of mind for us at the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Can you tell us about how you see these issues and how you see the budget investments addressing them?
00:15:04 Justin
Well, any crisis of any type, whether it’s a war, whether it’s a pandemic, whether it’s an extreme weather event or just climate change in general, always hits the most vulnerable in society most and first, and that always includes women, unfortunately.
It’s, you know, it’s why I have a T-shirt that says, “Poverty is sexist.” It’s why, you know, why we know that there are real extra impacts on women who are so often at the center of community, at the center of raising families, at the center of the front lines of any given crisis.
So, as we move forward with the strongest plan Canada has ever had on fighting climate change, where we’re actually hitting our targets and on track to hit our further targets for the first time in a way that not only fights climate change by putting a price on pollution and investing in the kinds of regulations and innovations that are necessary, but is also figuring out how to put more money back in families’ pockets and support through the affordability crisis, we know that when it comes to family budgeting, when it comes to groceries, when it comes to the daily cost of living, that always sits more on the shoulders of women in general, in any family.
And that’s where stepping up with also the—to counter the anxiety. People are worried about, you know, what kind of world our kids are going to grow up in, what kind of opportunities our grandkids will have to go play outside and, you know, take advantage of this extraordinary wilderness around us as a country. Like these are things that weigh heavily on people who are dealing with kids every day. So yeah, investing in fighting climate change and doing everything we can to do that and being thoughtful about the impact it’s having on people’s mental health and their physical health is core for this government.
00:17:02 Andrea
Well, Prime Minister, I want to thank you for joining us. Thank you for digging into the specifics of the budget and look forward to seeing what happens next.
00:17:11 Justin
I look forward to working with you and with people right across the country to make sure every day we’re making this country better and fairer in every way we can.
00:17:23 Andrea
Alright, Now What?
Check out the Feminist Federal Budget Response, co-hosted by the Canadian Women’s Foundation and Oxfam Canada and featuring other national gender equality leaders, on our YouTube channel.
As ever, visit canadianwomen.org for information on gender equality in Canada, a list of services you can get support from in your region, and more.
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