Is Budget 2025 the generational budget that keeps our communities healthy and safe?
Ottawa, November 5, 2025 – The federal government released Budget 2025 yesterday laying out its vision for Canada. It is the government’s blueprint of the kind of country it aims to build.
The budget titled “Canada Strong” comes at a time of rising precarity in Canada with families struggling to make ends meet as costs for basics like food and housing keep rising, with more mothers out of jobs because they can’t find child care, with women and gender-diverse people not able to find safe shelters to escape violence, with young people having to choose between rent or contraception, and with parents not able to access gender affirming care for their children. Communities around the country are wondering if Canada’s social protection system will have their back if they will be hit next with job losses due to AI advancements, the trade war or climate change.
The government called this budget a “generational budget,” but its true test of success is whether it is providing the safety, dignity and stability that people in Canada are yearning for. A generational budget strengthens the foundations that hold our communities together: the infrastructure that provides health and safety and gives everyone a fair chance to thrive.
A generational budget starts from a simple truth: people are the foundation of every strong economy. Roads, hospitals and transit lines matter, but it’s care, safety and equality that make those investments work. When people are healthy, when they have stable housing, when they can afford to care for their families and participate in community life, when they are safe and free of violence, every other part of society functions better.
The budget includes important investments in physical infrastructure like hospitals, clinics and housing, but does it measure up in providing the social infrastructure that ensures people can truly reap the benefits of those investments? Canada’s feminist leaders provide their take on Budget 2025.
“Through solid investments in the urgent priorities of housing and gender-based violence (GBV) prevention, Budget 2025 takes positive steps toward addressing the needs of women and gender-diverse people in Canada amid rising levels of violence and insecurity. However, it falls short in the areas of investing in accountability measures, such as establishing a GBV Commissioner to monitor and report on the implementation of the National Action Plan to End GBV and the Federal GBV Strategy.” – Anuradha Dugal, Executive Director, Women’s Shelters Canada
“This budget takes encouraging steps on gender equality, particularly through stable funding for Women and Gender Equality Canada and investments in housing and safety. At the same time, more work is needed to ensure affordable childcare and gender-responsive housing are prioritized as essential infrastructure. We remain hopeful and ready to work with the federal government to close these gaps.” – Aline Nizigama, National CEO of YWCA Canada
“The new time limit on immigrant settlement services will disproportionately block access for women, who often delay accessing services due to family, work duties or experience of power and control. This restriction directly undermines the government’s commitment to Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+), harming the very people it is meant to protect, and will delay their economic integration as well.” – Debbie Douglas, Executive Director, OCASI – Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants
“A ‘next-generation’ plan that truly invests in our future must address the unique housing needs of women, Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse people—including Indigenous and racialized communities, newcomers and refugees, people with disabilities, and our seniors. We welcome the capital commitments through Build Canada Homes, but if those dollars are not guided by gender, accessibility, and Indigenous rights, Budget 2025 risks spending billions on building units that still won’t reach those with the least access today.” – Stefania Seccia, Executive Director of Advocacy & Public Affairs, Women’s National Housing & Homelessness Network.
“The federal budget recognizes that women and seniors are more likely to rent. We are hopeful that despite the lack of mention of renter protections in Budget 2025, the federal government remains committed to the implementation of past commitments to the human right to housing under the National Housing Strategy Act, as well as the Renter Bill of Rights. Building more affordable housing through Build Canada Homes is like pouring water into a bathtub, but without adequate measures to protect renters and existing affordable rental stock, we are leaving the plug open.” – Michèle Biss, Executive Director, National Right to Housing Network
“Budget 2025’s commitment to improving access to justice and supporting victims is a step in the right direction. To make this vision real, we need to ensure trauma-informed legal supports like Independent Legal Advice and Representation are sustained and expanded. A justice system that centers survivors is not just aspirational; it’s essential for equity and safety.” – Deepa Mattoo, Executive Director, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
“Canada’s rich have never been richer, while millions of families now struggle to put food on the table. They were looking for relief in this budget—and they were disappointed. Several modest measures were confirmed, such as tweaks to EI for workers hard hit by U.S. tariffs, the rollout of auto tax filing for low-income residents, expanding Canada Summer Jobs placements, but the current cost-of-living crisis demands much more. This budget was a chance to strengthen and update Canada’s poverty reduction strategy to meet the moment. Instead, the path of prosperity outlined in Budget 2025 leaves millions behind.” – Katherine Scott, Senior Researcher, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA)
“The ongoing funding to WAGE announced in Budget 2025 reflects the impact of sustained, collective advocacy across Canada’s sexual and gender-based violence sector and marks an important step toward safeguarding critical GBV initiatives. However, the absence of any mention of sexual violence—particularly given its disproportionate impacts on Indigenous and racialized communities, newcomers and refugees, and people with disabilities—alongside any clear indication of renewed funding for the National Action Plan to End GBV beyond March 2027, is concerning. Though framed as a generational budget, true safety and prosperity are built through sustained investments in prevention, survivor supports, and the social infrastructure that enables communities to thrive and live free from violence.” – Candice Shaw, Executive Director, Ending Sexual Violence Association of Canada (ESVA Canada)
“Queer Momentum welcomes the federal government’s investment in the 2SLGBTQ+ Capacity Fund of $54.6 million over five years starting in 2026-27, with $10.9 million ongoing. We also welcome the investment of $7.5 million over five years, with $1.5 million ongoing, for security at Pride events. These are important investments towards the elimination of discrimination and advancement of equality. Nonetheless, we are concerned about an overall reduction in WAGE funding at a time of rising hate, gender-based violence and economic precarity for women and queer people. Amidst a global backlash to human rights, women and queer people are looking to our federal government for leadership. Queer Momentum will continue to advocate for a strengthened commitment and deeper investment, because Canada cannot work for everyone if it doesn’t work for women and queer people. Eliminating discrimination and advancing equality is critical to building a free, prosperous and just Canada – for every person and every family.” – Fae Johnstone, Executive Director, Queer Momentum
For the first time in Canadian history, economic abuse is explicitly mentioned seventeen times in a federal budget and financial abuse three times marking a historic policy milestone and a clear acknowledgment that economic abuse is not a private issue but a systemic barrier to gender equality and safety. This recognition is long overdue, but acknowledgment alone is not enough. We must now see this understanding translated into concrete policy implementation, survivor protections, and measurable outcomes that truly improve lives. While the budget references GBA+, it still lacks a strong intersectional lens, particularly for Black and racialized communities, a gap that underscores the urgent need for inclusive feminist economic policy. Just two weeks before the budget release, CCFWE joined the Ministers of Finance and National Revenue to announce the Voluntary Code of Conduct for the Prevention of Economic Abuse, a transformative step co-developed with financial institutions and global partners to guide Canada’s financial sector in recognizing, preventing, and responding to economic abuse.” Meseret Haileyesus, Executive Director, of the Canadian Center for Women’s Empowerment (CCFWE)
“At a time when tough-on-crime rhetoric is dominating headlines and conditions in jails and prisons have not been worse in several decades, this budget doubles down on policing and incarceration while sidelining the proven community solutions that actually keep people safe. Our networks see every day the devastating impacts of overcrowding, inadequate care, and systemic neglect in our prisons—especially for Indigenous women and gender-diverse people. With sustained attention to funding for Women and Gender Equality, we see some attention paid to prevention and support, which is welcomed. We also want to work with this government to ensure that public safety is achieved through investments in sector expertise,”– Emilie Coyle, Co-Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS)
“We appreciate the language of a ‘generational budget’, but are left wondering at whose expense? It seems that women, children, and gender-diverse people are expected, once again, to bear that cost. While Budget 2025 has in some ways attempted to address the issues we know will have meaningful impacts on the lives of women, girls, gender-diverse and trans communities, it has failed to address the many systemic areas that will continue to fail survivors. The balloon spending on the military takes attention away from real home-grown threats and violence that women and girls face daily, to potential external threats of war from other jurisdictions. The military is not going to be protecting us from violent ex-partners, traffickers, or other aggressors. Femicide rates are increasing year-by-year, and many communities have recognised intimate partner violence as an epidemic. We demand better from our government, and a truly generational budget would see spending on providing the elements that keeps survivors safe and prevents further violence from occurring, with accessible housing, comprehensive childcare, and alternative models of justice that are not solely reliant on police and the criminal legal response as the only pathway.” – Nneka MacGregor, co-founder and Executive Director, Women’s Centre for Social Justice (WomenatthecentrE)
“This budget and some of the commitments that have been highlighted, including housing, have tremendous potential to address some of the key issues facing women, girls and gender-diverse people with disabilities. According to the Government’s own data, we represent roughly one in six Canadians, at 30% of women in Canada. We are calling on Prime Minister Carney and his cabinet to make sure that the promise of generational change will not leave women with disabilities behind. This requires a whole of government approach, and we must see real objectives and accountability in the implementation of every commitment made in this budget.” – Bonnie Brayton CEO, DisAbled Women’s Network (DAWN) Canada
“Without strong federal leadership to sign and fund deals with the remaining provinces and territories, millions of Canadians will continue to face barriers when trying to access prescription contraception and diabetes medicine and supplies. The Liberals promised a national pharmacare program, but without a stronger funding commitment, that promise will remain unfulfilled for too many Canadians. It is unacceptable that this government can find money in the budget to end the luxury tax on private jets and yachts, but can’t commit to funding coverage for basic, life-saving medications. Your ability to access life-saving and life-changing medication should not depend on your income or your postal code. This government needs to commit the necessary funding to make national pharmacare a reality.” Teale Phelps Bondaroff, chair and co-founder of AccessBC, the campaign that successfully advocated for free prescription contraception in British Columbia.
“Victims and survivors of intimate partner violence don’t fail to leave, they are held in place by sixty distinct barriers that shape every system they touch including financial dependence, housing precarity, childcare gaps, coercive control, immigration and disability barriers, and institutional responses that come too late or not at all. Gender-based violence is not some private misfortune, it is a social and public systems failure. A truly generational budget will be measured not by the scale of its announcements, but by the extent to which those sixty barriers fall, and safety, freedom, and real choices rise for women and gender-diverse people. Until victims and survivors can leave violence safely, the promise of a generational budget remains a vision, not a victory.” – Angela Marie MacDougall, Executive Director, BWSS Battered Women’s Support Services Association
“The Canadian Women’s Foundation welcomes the Federal Budget’s $660 million investment in funding for women across Canada. Investing in the safety, financial security and well-being of women is investing in and for the whole community. Canadians face tough times ahead with many cuts in yesterday’s budget. Federal Budget 2025 acknowledges the crucial role women play in the workforce and increasing GDP. Women’s access to the workforce is critically dependent on affordable child care and essential to building a strong economy. When women thrive, Canada thrives.” – Mitzie Hunter, President & CEO, Canadian Women’s Foundation
“The generational budget Canada needs is one that invests in building and expanding infrastructure to provide economic and social security to all: infrastructure like the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program. Budget 2025’s failure on this count will harm children, families, and communities and will undermine all attempts to stabilize and strengthen the economy.” Morna Ballantyne, Executive Director, Child Care Now
“The federal budget’s investment of $660M in WAGE is a recognition of the important work gender justice organizations are doing to keep communities healthy and safe – the foundation of a strong economy. This work is more critical than ever as Canada spirals into a deeper inequality crisis where the richest 1 percent hold nearly $1.25 trillion in wealth, almost as much as the bottom 80 percent combined. Yet poverty keeps growing. Millions of Canadians have to make tough choices between paying for essentials like food and housing. More people than ever are feeling the pinch and report feeling anxious about their economic precarity. Yet Budget 2025 hardly comes as a relief to those people, while the rich got more tax cuts. A generational and transformative budget would address the inequality crisis and invest in the social infrastructure that people rely on to make it through these uncertain and difficult times. Canada needs a social protection system everyone can rely on. People need access to affordable housing and food. Parents need access to affordable child care, and everyone deserves quality healthcare. Now is the time to invest in the people who make our economy strong!” Lauren Ravon, Executive Director, Oxfam Canada
“The National Association of Women and the Law is pleased to see multi-year and ongoing funding in Budget 2025 for 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. However, NAWL is concerned that this funding for WAGE overall represents a significant drop in annual spending from the current fiscal year. We are also disappointed that the government did not take the opportunity in Budget 2025 to commit to important policy changes for women’s safety, economic security, and prosperity.” Thaïs Laborde, Executive Director, National Association of Women and the Law
“Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, Canada’s Planned Parenthood, welcomes this budget’s historic investment in gender equality, a meaningful recognition that care, safety, and equality are the foundation of a strong and thriving Canada. We also welcome the federal government’s continued commitment to pharmacare as a national priority, but words need funding to match so that everyone in Canada can access free contraception, one of the most effective and proven public-health interventions, with immediate benefits for health, equality, and economic security. Investments in health infrastructure are crucial for Canada’s strained health system. Yet, cuts to health spending and the absence of a workforce strategy risk undermining those gains. Rights like abortion mean little without a functioning public health system that makes care accessible in practice, not just on paper. At a global level, cuts to international assistance threaten Canada’s hard-won leadership on sexual and reproductive health and rights, a source of stability, safety, and progress around the world. Upholding those commitments, at home and abroad, is how Canada turns equality from principle into practice and ensures a fair, healthy, and secure future for all.” Frederique Chabot, Executive Director, Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights.
Contact Information
Laveza Khan | laveza.khan@oxfam.org | 613-240-4157