Justin Trudeau had a very hard road ahead of him when he famously dubbed himself a feminist while running for Prime Minister in the October 2015 election. To quote a Globe and Mail article, Who’s Minding the Gap, “At the current rate of change, the global economic gender gap won't end for another 170 years.” The World Economic Forum states Canada has also fallen in the forum's global rankings, to 35th place, due to factors such as wage equality, earned income and the share of women in Parliament.
In his first year in government, Trudeau sent a powerful message when he appointed the first ever gender-balanced cabinet and named women to prominently male dominated roles such as Foreign Affairs Minister and the Minister of Justice and Labour. The Liberal Government also restored funding for woman’s rights advocacy, launched a national inquiry on the violence against indigenous women, and invested in child care and women’s shelters. Where they are falling short however is in the promise of inclusive growth, as no steps have been taken to close the wage gap or ensure living wages for the working poor, the majority of which is women.…show more content… Women are now fundamentally protected against discrimination under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the 2017 budget included gender recognition. Yet as of 2016 women were still only earning .74 cents to every $1 earned by men, which raises the question as to just how far have we really come in gender equality in
