MPs swipe at Carney’s claim that Canada has no feminist foreign policy

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Mark Carney’s claim that Canada does not have a “feminist foreign policy” spilled into the political arena Monday, drawing both criticism and praise.

“Prime Minister Carney is making it very clear he is no friend to women and he is no friend to gender equality in this country,” NDP MP Leah Gazan told reporters Monday.

Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet asked in Monday’s question period whether Carney’s comments mean the federal government will continue to promote gender equality, which he described as a “Quebec value.”

“I learned with shock that during his trip to the United Arab Emirates, the prime minister of Canada gave up on the idea that Canadian diplomacy and international relations are feminist,” Blanchet said in French.

Liberal MP Mona Fortier, parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs, replied that Canada’s commitment to gender equality and combating sexual violence is “unshakable” and feminism is a “key portion of our foreign policy.”

Carney had said that while Canada no longer has an explicitly feminist foreign policy, it still wants to uphold values on the world stage that include defending LGBTQ+ rights and combating violence against women — things he called aspects of Canada’s foreign policy.

“Yes, we have that aspect to our foreign policy, but I wouldn’t describe our foreign policy as feminist foreign policy,” Carney told reporters on Sunday at a closing news conference at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Carney’s comment marks a break from the foreign policy branding of former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government.

House of Commons finance committee chair Karina Gould, who served in several cabinet posts under Trudeau and ran against Carney for the Liberal leadership, said Carney’s words “certainly” mark a departure from the previous government. But she insisted the policy the prime minister described remains feminist.

“The ideals that he was talking about continue to be feminist, and I think that what it means is that as Canadians, we expect that we’re going to stand up for gender equality around the world and here in Canada,” she told The Canadian Press.

“There are a lot of people who worked on this policy who care very deeply about it, and I hope that he sees that what he talks about actually is feminist, and that is something that we should all be very proud of.”

Former Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole praised Carney’s comments in a social media post, saying that the “virtue-signalling era in Canadian foreign policy is finally over.”

“We must continue to stand for gender equality and human rights, but the Trudeau (government) often used policy announcements for PR purposes and Canada became viewed as unserious by our allies,” he wrote.

Trudeau’s government published a feminist foreign aid policy, and declared it also had a feminist foreign policy, however it never published a document outlining how that policy would work in practice.

Asked to react to the apparent shift in messaging, Liberal MP Marc Miller invited journalists to put themselves in Carney’s “shoes.”

“The plan in question was only put in his hands half-baked,” said Miller, who also served in Trudeau’s cabinet.

“The ministers that were in charge of making the plan in the first place never delivered a plan to the previous prime minister but to Mr. Carney. So, a difficult position for him to be in.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 24, 2025.

— With files from Dylan Robertson, Kyle Duggan, Craig Lord and Nick Murray