As part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s mandate of “spending less to invest more,” major cuts are coming to federal government spending, and cuts of as much as 80 percent of the budget are expected at Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE). This could not come at a worse time, given that our neighbours to the south are now a full-on authoritarian state, causing global economic chaos that is impacting us here in Canada. Because WAGE houses the 2SLGBTQI+ Secretariat, programs affecting queer and trans communities will be affected by these cuts.
The cuts at WAGE were listed in the 2025–26 departmental plan, stating that the department is going to let the bulk of their grants and contributions lapse and not renew their funding within the next two years. The departmental funding in the plan shows that not only is the statutory funding being cut (this being the operating funds for the department), but the “voted” funds, which are where the grants and contributions come from, are also being massively slashed. In the 2025–26 budget year, the statutory funding was $7.1 million, which is being reduced to $4.3 million by 2027–28. For voted funds, it’s even more dramatic, going from $400 million in 2025–26, down to $71 million by 2027–28.
A lot of the grants and contributions that are ending were related to WAGE’s Gender-Based Violence Program, and its supporting research and knowledge mobilization functions. Huge cuts are also coming for the Equality for Sex, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression Program (SSOGIE), which includes funding for queer and trans programming, including the Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan. The total grants and contributions are being slashed from nearly $208 million in 2025–26, to less than $1.9 million by 2027–28.
“The 2025–26 and 2026–27 planned spending variance is due to the time-limited funding from Budget 2021 ending,” the document reads. That time-limited funding included capacity funding for Indigenous women’s and LGBTQ2S+ organizations to provide gender-based violence programming, as well as the funding to renew the 2SLGBTQI+ Community Capacity Fund.
These cuts are going to be devastating to queer and trans organizations at a time when they are most needed. Trans rights are under attack, and queer rights are next, if they’re not targeted already. Some of this sentiment is coming from the U.S., but some of it is also coming from places like Hungary, where Conservatives in this country have a glowing admiration. The LGBTQ+ scapegoating that is part of their authoritarian playbook is being used here, particularly in provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan. Tough economic times generally breed even more scapegoating, and that is exactly what we are headed toward. Police-reported hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation in Canada have seen a dramatic increase between 2020 and 2024, according to StatCan data, and slurs like “groomer” have become commonplace (which courts have finally started ruling are indeed slurs and not protected speech).
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@xtramagazine U.S. president Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that there are only two genders is starting to impact Canadians’ personal ID documents. The Globe and Mail reported that Canadians are soon going to be forced to pick either an M or F on their Nexus card—even if they have an X gender marker on their Canadian passport. The Nexus program is co-managed by the Canada Border Services Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and is designed to make frequent travelling between Canada and the U.S. faster and easier. The CBSA said it will continue to recognize Nexus cards with X gender markers until they expire, but that trans and non-binary travellers will have to choose between M and F when renewing their membership or applying for a new card. Roughly 3,600 Canadians have added X to their passports since the third gender marker was recognized by the federal government in 2019. And between January 2022 and March 2025, the CBSA said that about 550 Nexus applications were sent with X as the chosen gender marker. We break down how the policy change highlights the confusion trans and non-binary Canadians continue to deal with when considering travelling to the U.S. 🇨🇦🏳️⚧️ #canada #unitedstates #trump #transgender #travel #border #lgbtqnews
As the Trump administration in the U.S. has targeted Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, some corporations that operate in Canada have followed suit and ended their own programs in this country (which has included ending sponsorships in major Pride festivals across the country). That would include any kind of data collection that goes along with these programs—the kind of data collection that WAGE should be doing as part of their commitment to Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus)—even if their implementation of that commitment has been found to be lacking by no less than the auditor general. The fact that WAGE is gutting its capacity to collect this data, to apply it to government programs, and the fact that they are completely eviscerating the grants and contributions to programs that nobody else will cover, means that there will be consequences not too far down the road.
This brings me to the broader point in all of this—there wasn’t a need for this austerity, because we are not in a debt or deficit crisis in this country. It’s not 1995. Our fiscal situation was very easily manageable by the federal government, even if the Conservatives will misleadingly cry that government deficits are driving inflation. But it also shows that Carney, or members of his government, haven’t learned the lessons that austerity creates problems that take decades to undo. We still haven’t undone the problems caused by the austerity of the early nineties. They also haven’t learned that austerity feeds populism, because both are inherently anti-government. Populism hurts marginalized communities, especially the queer and trans communities, who need government programs the most. There will be further repercussions from this austerity when it comes to gender-based violence, given that’s where a lot of the funding is lapsing.
It’s also a case where Carney, in full banker mode, is blinkered about the changed nature of the Canadian economy. The service economy far outpaces the resource economy these days, but that is where Carney is directing his economic plans, going so far as to employ a giant Henry VIII clause in his Building Canada Act that allows him to override other legislation, including Indigenous rights, for the sake of these resource projects. It’s the depreciation of human capital, which these programs at WAGE support, for the sake of these resource projects that overtly strip what economists term “the women’s state” for the sake of these male-dominated resource industries. Again, Carney has learned absolutely no lessons of the last three decades about how a more inclusive economy ends up being stronger and more resilient. Women, queer and trans people, people of colour, Indigenous people, all pay the price when the government ignores their needs in favour of the usual tropes that building more major infrastructure projects or digging another mine will solve our economic problems. These cuts to WAGE demonstrate that Carney doesn’t care enough about the actual people on the ground, and he’s asking for worse outcomes for marginalized communities and vulnerable people as a result.