Does Canada have a feminist foreign policy? Actually, we do. And we are proof it works

Jess Tomlin, CEO of the Equality Fund

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, since leading a new government formed earlier this year, has been focusing on investment, financial growth and diversifying trade pathways with new partners. He’s reimagining how Canada fits in a changing geopolitical landscape. That’s hard work – and we at the Equality Fund know this terrain because we’ve been working on the same diversification strategies for five years and we see plenty of parallels that we can share.

Since our launch in 2019, the Equality Fund has become one of the world’s largest feminist funds. We raise money in rich nations, invest it, convene new and creative partnerships and then – and this is the very reason why we exist – move that money to women, girls and trans people leading local solutions to complex, global challenges. In five years, slightly longer than an election cycle, we’ve hit our stride by using a gender-aligned and innovative investment strategy to grow our fund, leaving behind old foreign aid systems, and diversifying our partners to include global governments, foundations and philanthropists.

We’re reimagining how feminist funding can flow across the globe. In other words, we’ve built an investment model that works and it has feminist foreign policy in its DNA.

How can we measure our impact?

In five years, we have moved $100 million to 1,800 organizations in 100 countries, flowing resources to women working on a vast and urgent range of localized, community solutions. While their stories may not appear on the front pages, women are indeed first responders in a war, such as in Sudan, providing a layer of security, protection and basic needs in their communities. Women deal with our climate crisis every day. For example, in Guyana, where powerful knowledge keepers of farming practices are reducing emissions (did you know the majority of working women in the Global South work in agriculture?). And as we witness the rise of authoritarian regimes around the world, we know women disproportionately pay the price when there is a democratic decline in human rights.

Because our origin story includes the enormous responsibility of stewarding a $300 million investment from the Canadian government, the single largest contribution to feminist foreign aid in history, it feels important to challenge the current move away from “wokeness” as though it’s a weak policy posture that won’t serve our objectives of peace, democracy, economic stability. Whatever words you choose to discard – “woke,” “DEI,” “feminist,” take your pick – it’s the substance of policy that matters.

Which brings me to this week at the G20, where Carney was asked whether Canada still has a feminist foreign policy.

No, Carney replied. “I wouldn’t describe our foreign policy as feminist foreign policy.”

The comment landed with surprise, not only among observers, but within his own government. His statement also sits uneasily alongside Canada’s stated objectives in regions such as the Middle East and North Africa (https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/mena-moan/index.aspx?lang=eng), and Latin America and the Caribbean (https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/latin_america-amerique_latine/index.aspx?lang=eng), where our commitments are to protect civilian lives, expand opportunities for children and youth, advance women’s rights, support inclusive economic recovery, eradicate poverty, and strengthen human rights and democratic governance.

Our government pursues these interests because they reflect the values of Canadians. In a 2025 poll, 6 out of 10 Canadians said they support keeping the aid budget at its current level or increasing it. More than 7 out of 10 Canadians say helping people “in poor countries is the right thing to do.”

The Canadian government’s own priorities map squarely onto what the international policy community recognizes as the core pillars of feminist foreign policy: human security, resilience, equity, and rights-based governance. To disavow the label while pursuing the substance creates a strategic inconsistency — one that weakens Canada’s credibility with partners who are doubling down on feminist approaches, including the EU, Germany, and most Nordic states. The Equality Fund itself has partnerships with European governments, who, by partnering with us, followed in the footsteps of the Canadian government’s leadership when they seeded our launch.

During his Asian tour last month, Prime Minister Carney quoted an Indonesian leader to say, “Growth that excludes is growth that divides… Division causes instability, and instability is not conducive to peace and prosperity.” After which he added, “And we’re here, of course, for peace and prosperity.”

You can’t get to peace and prosperity without considering the lives and relevance of women. The Equality Fund’s model shows that when we invest accordingly — anchoring foreign policy in human security, resilience, and the leadership of those closest to the crisis — we strengthen global stability while advancing Canada’s strategic interests. Those are feminist values but let’s not quibble on terminology. The real issue is whether we are prepared to act from our values and with the integrity this moment demands.