Women and Gender Equality Canada's 2025-26 Departmental Plan: At a glance

A departmental plan describes a department’s priorities, plans, and associated costs for the upcoming three fiscal years.

• Vision, mission, raison d’être and operating context

Key priorities

Women and Gender Equality Canada’s (WAGE) key commitments for 2025-26 are as follows:

• Promote and advance women and gender equality.
• Lead the systematic application of Gender-based Analysis Plus throughout the Government of Canada.
• Prevent and address gender-based violence.
• Promote and advance 2SLGBTQI+ equality.
• Strengthen organizational well-being and enhance WAGE capacities.

Highlights

In 2025-26, total planned spending (including internal services) for WAGE is $407,142,146 and total planned full-time equivalent staff (including internal services) is 444. For complete information on WAGE’s total planned spending and human resources, read the Planned spending and human resources section of the full plan.

The following provides a summary of the department’s planned achievements for 2025-26 according to its approved Departmental Results Framework. A Departmental Results Framework consists of a department’s core responsibilities, the results it plans to achieve, and the performance indicators that measure progress toward these results.

Core responsibility 1: Advancing gender equality

Planned spending: $383,042,861

Planned human resources: 290

Departmental results:

• The Department’s interventions facilitate the advancement of gender equality
• The federal government systematically considers gender equality

In 2025-26, WAGE will advance gender equality through leadership, focusing on its core mandate and key commitments. It will do this as part of delivering on its roles as convener, knowledge broker and capacity builder. WAGE will advance its mandate on equality for women, girls, and 2SLGBTQI+ people and ensure their inclusion in every aspect of Canada’s social, economic, and political life. WAGE will support the government-wide commitment to refocus spending and invest in areas that matter most to Canadians. WAGE will strengthen organizational well-being and enhance capacity. To do this, it will seek ways to reduce administrative burden across business processes, financial management, human resources, information technology, and information management. The Department also plans to leverage the mandate, strengths, and expertise of partners and stakeholders who understand the lived experiences of the diverse communities they serve and are well placed to drive change. Working in partnership with Indigenous Peoples; federal, provincial, and territorial governments; international counterparts; and civil society with resourcefulness and determination is key to making progress on equality through collaboration and shared impact.

More information about advancing gender equality can be found in the full plan.