s part of our annual Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) process, we have put together a series of mandate letters outlining some of the priorities we would like to see the new federal minority government address throughout its term.

Now in its 25th year, the AFB is a collaborative effort bringing together leading Canadian economists and sectoral experts to present progressive policy solutions with the means to pay for them. Read more about the AFB here.

Minister of Finance

Dear Minister Morneau;

We are honoured that you have agreed to serve Canadians as Minister of Finance.

As Minister of Finance, your overarching goal will be to build a better economy—one that is inclusive, fair and sustainable. You will do this by making Canada’s tax system more progressive. This, in turn, will provide the necessary revenues to deliver on our government’s other priorities, including a national pharmacare program and accessible child care.

A fair tax system asks the most privileged among us to contribute their share toward ensuring every Canadian, including the most vulnerable, can participate meaningfully in the economy. For too long the system has done the opposite, overwhelmingly benefiting corporations and the very rich at the expense of others. Our tax system should be modernized so that income from capital and investment is generally taxed at similar rates to income from labour. 

Progressive reforms will not only make it harder for corporations and the wealthy to avoid taxes, but easier for average Canadians to navigate the tax system and receive the full benefits they’re entitled to. A new dignity dividend modelled on the GST credit will lift people earning low incomes well above the poverty wage. 

It’s time to stop providing subsidies and tax write-offs to corporations in GHG-intensive sectors. Polluters, including the largest industry emitters, will have to pay their share under our strengthened carbon tax. We will gradually increase the carbon tax rate while continuing to provide progressive rebates for households. These revenues will be invested in infrastructure, job retraining and other measures that will help Canada make the just transition to a sustainable economy.

In particular, we expect you to work with your colleagues, through established legislative, regulatory and cabinet processes, to deliver on the following priorities:

  • Close regressive, billion-dollar loopholes that allow wealthy individuals to avoid paying taxes, such as the stock option deduction and the exemption on capital gains. 
  • Conduct a public review of the tax system with broad public involvement to identify and eliminate other regressive and ineffective taxes.
  • Raise the corporate and small business tax rate and invest these revenues in improving the quality of life for all Canadians by creating good jobs at home.
  • Limit the amount that corporations can deduct for executive compensation to any single executive or employee. 
  • End the unfair tax advantages for foreign e-commerce companies and ensure they are taxed on their services, profits and revenues in Canada. 
  • Take immediate steps to ensure that all multinational enterprises pay sales, income and other taxes required in Canada based on their real economic activity here. 
  • Take a leadership role internationally in advocating for international corporate tax reform, including unitary taxation of multinational enterprises and a minimum global corporate tax rate.
  • Introduce a new top marginal income tax rate on high incomes and an annual net wealth tax on high-wealth estates and consider reintroducing an inheritance tax on wealthy estates.
  • Prevent wealthy Canadians from using tax havens to avoid taxes by cancelling tax treaties that allow them to do so and introducing harsher penalties on those who evade taxes.
  • Work closely with the ministers of national revenue and justice to ensure their departments have the funding and enforcement tools to investigate and prosecute tax avoidance and evasion. 
  • Establish a public registry of beneficial ownership that identifies the true owners of corporate entities. We will learn from other jurisdictions that have already implemented a registry and develop a pan-Canadian registry to tackle money laundering and tax evasion. 

We are deeply grateful to have this opportunity to serve with you as we work to improve lives and address the most urgent issues facing the country from coast-to-coast. Together, we will work tirelessly to honour the trust Canadians have given us.

Yours sincerely,

Authors of the Alternative Federal Budget

Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Dear Minister Wilkinson;

We are honoured that you have agreed to serve Canadians as Minister of Environment and Climate Change in this time of environmental emergency.

As Minister of Environment and Climate Change, your overarching goal will be to protect Canada’s natural environment now and for future generations. Your highest priority will be to address the climate change crisis that threatens critical ecosystems and the health and wellbeing of Canadians across the country. Without ambitious and comprehensive actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change, we risk catastrophic environmental, social and economic consequences by the end of the century.

To do Canada’s part in the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, our government is committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. To that end, you will implement policies to rapidly transition our economy away from the consumption and production of fossil fuels, toward a cleaner and more efficient energy system.

In particular, we expect you to work with your colleagues and through established legislative, regulatory, and cabinet processes to deliver on these top priorities.

  • Establish a timeline and develop a plan for the phase-out of oil and gas production. The accelerated phase-out of coal-fired power plants currently underway offers a model for how this kind of regulatory program can be designed.
  • Phase out all direct and indirect government subsidies to the fossil fuel industry as soon as possible, including both tax and non-tax supports.
  • Introduce a Just Transition Act that ensures the workers and communities most affected by the transition to a zero-carbon economy are not left behind. The Act will also make forward-looking investments in skills training for the coming boom in green jobs.
  • Make ambitious new investments in green infrastructure, including but not limited to: renewable energy generation, smart energy transmission networks, public transit systems and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
  • Defend the federal carbon pricing system from legal and political challenges and commit to indefinitely increasing the price on pollution. The price is currently slated to freeze at $50 per tonne of carbon dioxide in 2022, but it must rise by at least $20 per tonne each year thereafter to significantly alter consumer and business behaviour.
  • Improve the energy efficiency of Canada’s building stock, including through investments and incentives in residential and commercial retrofitting. Special attention should be paid to those communities with the least capacity to adapt, including Indigenous communities, northern and remote communities, and lower-income residents of multi-unit buildings.
  • Increase Canada’s contribution to global climate financing and take a more active role in supporting the developing countries at greatest risk of climate-related threats.
  • Invest in nature conservation initiatives designed to protect critical ecosystems and biodiversity while reducing land sector emissions.
  • Ensure all Canadian environmental and climate policy is consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and that Indigenous nations are fully respected, consulted and empowered in Canada’s transition to a zero-carbon economy. 

We are deeply grateful to have this opportunity to serve with you as we work to improve lives and address the most urgent issues facing the country from coast-to-coast. Together, we will work tirelessly to honour the trust Canadians have given us.

Yours sincerely,

Authors of the Alternative Federal Budget

Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

Dear Minister Bibeau;

We are honoured that you have agreed to serve Canadians as Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food.

As Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food, your overarching goal will be to ensure that farm incomes and farm-created wealth benefits Canadians and their communities. This will require the government to take meaningful and concrete steps to transition the Canadian agriculture sector toward climate-friendly production methods, reorienting our food system for the domestic market and increasing farmer numbers.

Canada’s farmers, ranchers, farm workers and small- and medium-sized enterprises involved in food processing are the foundation of our food sector. Government must use its policy and financial tools to support them and to ensure that their voices and interests take precedence over those of profit-seeking multinational corporations. As Minister, you will lead meaningful consultations on agricultural policy reform that focuses on producing food for people, values food providers, localises food systems, builds knowledge and skills, and works within nature’s ecological limits.

In particular, we expect you to work with your colleagues, through established legislative, regulatory and cabinet processes, to deliver on the following priorities:

  • Enhance the Canadian Grain Commission’s capacity and authority to carry out its mandate, which is to, “in the interests of the grain producers, establish and maintain standards of quality for Canadian grain and regulate grain handling in Canada, to ensure a dependable commodity for domestic and export markets.”
  • Protect the integrity of Canada’s supply management system, preventing further erosion of its scope and market share, and ensuring compensation for the impacts of the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the “Comprehensive and Progressive” Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and, potentially, NAFTA’s replacement agreement, CUSMA. Compensation should be aimed at preventing reduction of the number of farms in supply-managed sectors by promoting their stability and continuity.
  • Restore funding and enhance the capacity of Canada’s public plant breeding institutions to ensure public and farmer-led plant breeding work will continue to serve the interests of Canadian farmers.
  • Support the expansion of domestic food market opportunities by closing infrastructure gaps between farmers who produce and consumers who demand local and regional food. Such support would help ensure that abattoirs, packaging, processing, on-farm value-added processing, storage and/or distribution businesses are able to serve local and regional food economies.
  • Reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and support farmers transitioning to low-carbon-emission and high-carbon-sequestration farming practices. Assist farmers in protecting lands that provide carbon sinks, wildlife habitat, biodiversity and other ecological services by providing incentives to retain wetlands, forested areas, native prairie and permanent cover.
  • Examine barriers to young and new farmers and implement strategy to increase farmer numbers through family and non-family farm succession.  

We are deeply grateful to have this opportunity to serve with you as we work to improve lives and address the most urgent issues facing the country from coast-to-coast. Together, we will work tirelessly to honour the trust Canadians have given us.

Yours sincerely,

Authors of the Alternative Federal Budget

Minister of Canadian Heritage

Dear Minister Guilbeault;

We are honoured that you have agreed to serve Canadians as Minister responsible for Anti-racism.

As Minister of Canadian Heritage, your overarching goal will be to put racial equity and racial justice at the forefront of this government’s agenda. The creation of this new portfolio will signal to all Canadians—more than a quarter of whom are Indigenous people and/or people of colour—that the government is serious about combating racism. 

Indigenous communities, communities of African descent and other communities of colour have historically been deprived of the full economic, social and cultural rights afforded to other residents of Canada. Structural racism is deeply rooted in Canada’s ongoing settler-colonialism and the history of enslavement of African peoples. The longtime and ongoing effects and impacts are demonstrated in colour-coded income inequality, the overpolicing of Indigenous peoples and Black communities, and more generally in the profound inequalities in education, health and other life outcomes and life chances that are experienced by both Indigenous peoples and peoples of colour in Canada.

In July 2019, the government released “Building a Foundation for Change: Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy 2019–2022.” The strategy established an Anti-racism Secretariat and committed to a whole-of-government approach to addressing racism, including by increasing and strengthening data collection and evidence gathering to effectively inform all of the government’s anti-racism and anti-discrimination efforts. While these are promising initiatives, the Anti-racism Secretariat must be guided by a clear strategy with measurable goals, which in turn must be supported by a strong legislative framework with public accountability mechanisms.

In particular, we expect you to work with your colleagues, through established legislative, regulatory and cabinet processes, to deliver on the following priorities.

Create an Anti-racism Act for Canada that secures a legislative foundation and sufficient, ongoing resources for the Anti-racism Secretariat. The secretariat’s priorities must include:

  • collection and use of disaggregated data by all relevant demographic identifiers;
  • supporting, through an Indigenous-led process, the full implementation of the 94 calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the 231 calls for justice of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls;
  • development of racial impact analyses for all government policies, laws, programs and investments, including all budget-related processes;
  • dedicated and ongoing funding for both community-based initiatives and programming, as well as within government departments to combat racism;
  • restoring, expanding (with respect to LGBTQI2S communities), enforcing and otherwise strengthening federal employment equity legislation, with specific attention to dismantling racial discrimination and encouraging provinces and territories to adopt similar and consistent sister legislation;
  • implementing the recommendations for Canada of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, as well as all of those that are related to racial justice coming from other UN bodies, across all orders of government;
  • creation of clear and robust accountability measures and indicators within each federal government department and division, including at the ministerial level; and
  • collaboration with provincial and territorial governments to adopt a comprehensive, consistent and coherent anti-racism strategy and action plan for systemic change.

Provide a clear and transparent monitoring and evaluation framework for the Anti-racism Strategy that integrates community priorities, concerns, input and feedback. The secretariat should be mandated to uncover and correct the structural underpinnings of racial inequality in Canada and anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism and other longstanding and emerging forms of racism, including parallel and overlapping forms of exclusion such as that driven by Islamophobia and other expressions of faithism.

Mandate the collection of disaggregated data on the basis of race and other socio-demographic identities in order to better measure and understand the impact of government policies, programs and practices on Indigenous peoples, people of African descent and other peoples of colour. Disaggregated data is especially important in the following areas:

  • the labour market, including employment equity;
  • fair and equitable employment opportunities for internationally trained immigrants and refugees;
  • economic inequality, wealth disparities and poverty;
  • the criminal justice system and access to justice;
  • child welfare;
  • environmental racism;
  • health and mental health;
  • housing;
  • social and cultural benefits;
  • education;
  • refugee protection, interdiction and immigration (including recruitment of migrant workers), citizenship legislation and policy;
  • media, social media and mass communications.  

We are deeply grateful to have this opportunity to serve with you as we work to improve lives and address the most urgent issues facing the country from coast-to-coast. Together, we will work tirelessly to honour the trust Canadians have given us.

Yours sincerely,

Authors of the Alternative Federal Budget

Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion

Dear Minister Qualtrough;

We are honoured that you have agreed to serve Canadians as Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion.

As Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, your overarching goal will be to modernize our system of income support for unemployed workers, which currently leaves too many workers with no real safety net when they lose their jobs. The employment insurance (EI) system needs to be improved so that it aligns with the realities of today’s labour market and serves workers and employers better.

Next year marks the 80th anniversary of the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1940. Employment insurance, as it is called now, is one of our largest social insurance programs and serves as our most powerful automatic economic stabilizer during economic downturns. But the program’s ability to reduce the shock of job and GDP losses has been weakened in recent decades. Today fewer than half of unemployed workers in Canada receive EI at any given time, in large part because too many workers don’t qualify for the program and benefit weeks are reduced. We need to address these shortcomings.

As Minister, you are being charged with overseeing major changes to EI, akin to those taken in 1971 as the country came to terms with the dramatic labour market changes of the 1960s. Now, as then, our objective must be to extend access and provide reasonable income maintenance for all persons experiencing temporary earnings interruptions. Although the federal government ended its contributions to EI in 1990, it is still responsible for administering the program, which is funded exclusively from premiums paid by workers and their employers. In 2020, the EI program is anticipated to collect $25 billion in such workplace premiums.

In particular, we expect you to work with your colleagues, through established legislative, regulatory and cabinet processes, to deliver on the following priorities.

  • Make the transition to a low-carbon economy and green jobs.
  • Adjust to technological changes and the growing role of the service sector.
  • Challenge precarious employment and recognize that people employed in these temporary, seasonal, temp agency and migrant worker jobs have rights and are not second class EI claimants.
  • Significantly increasing access to EI, beginning with a new qualifying employment time of the lesser of 360 hours or 13 weeks of work, applicable to all regions and both regular and special EI benefits, and the elimination of “quit or fire” penalties.
  • Improving EI by: increasing benefits to at least 60% of previous earnings and adding a new supplement for low income earners; extending EI sick benefits to cover no less than 30 weeks; and establishing a new EI Training Benefit that provides income maintenance for people in approved retraining programs, as EI does now for those in apprentice training.

We also ask that you immediately convene a meeting of labour and employers, the two EI funding partners, to find an alternative premium-setting mechanism. We must restore countercyclical funding so that EI is sustainable over the long haul and can resource the need for improvements. 

We are deeply grateful to have this opportunity to serve with you as we work to improve lives and address the most urgent issues facing the country from coast-to-coast. Together, we will work tirelessly to honour the trust Canadians have given us.

Yours sincerely,

Authors of the Alternative Federal Budget

Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion

(Part II)

Dear Minister Qualtrough;

We are honoured that you have agreed to serve Canadians as Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion.

As Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, your overarching goal will be to ensure that Canadians have equitable access to high quality post-secondary education and training. In our era of climate change, rapid technological development, and rising populism and anti-democratic sentiment, this goal has never been more important.

High quality, publicly funded post-secondary education and training are essential to fostering engaged, well-informed citizens with the skills needed to participate in a changing economy. But for too long, the federal government has failed to be a real partner in post-secondary education, and it has failed to break down barriers to training.

Our government will reinvest in post-secondary education to make it more affordable, to improve wages and working conditions for workers in the sector, to limit corporate influence, and to increase sustainability in post-secondary education while making post-secondary education and training part of the solution to climate change.

In particular, we expect you to work with your colleagues, through established legislative, regulatory and cabinet processes, to deliver on the following priorities:

  • Pass legislation—the Canada Post-Secondary Education Act—setting out a clear, progressive vision of post-secondary education in Canada that includes a strong, positive leadership role for the federal government.
  • Create a dedicated post-secondary transfer payment for the provinces and territories that is separate from the existing Canada Social Transfer, and restore per-student funding to where it was in 1993, before the dramatic cuts to PSE funding took place.
  • Work with the provinces and territories to eliminate tuition fees for all students.
  • Address the crisis of student debt by expanding Canada Student Grants, eliminating interest on loans received through the Canada Student Loan Program and improving repayment assistance for borrowers.
  • Create a Green Post-secondary Education Strategy under which post-secondary institutions must develop comprehensive sustainability policies. The strategy will provide funding for climate change and sustainability-oriented research and for retraining workers impacted by the transition to a renewable energy economy.

As our government will be dedicated to equity in all areas of policy, we particularly encourage you to think about who is traditionally underrepresented and underserved by post-secondary education and training programs in Canada, and to implement policies that will break down barriers for students and workers alike. These policies should include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Extending free tuition to First Nations, Inuit and Métis students while continuing to provide the resources that are needed to allow Indigenous students to thrive in school or in training programs.
  • Providing support for the development of Indigenous language courses and materials at the post-secondary level and ensuring the process is led by Indigenous peoples.
  • Providing increased funding to Statistics Canada for improved data collection on post-secondary institutions, including a comprehensive survey of faculty and staff, a survey on linguistic minorities, and a survey on mental health, well-being, and sexual violence and harassment that includes both students and workers.
  • Increasing funding for English and French language instruction for newcomers to Canada.

We also expect you to break down barriers to training and to focus publicly funded training programs on those who need them most: the unemployed, the precariously employed, low-income workers, Canadians with low levels of literacy and essential skills, newcomers, older workers, and workers living with disabilities. This will begin by merging existing federal training transfers into a single fund called the Workers Development and Opportunities Fund.

Our government will also lead by example by implementing a mandatory apprenticeship ratio for all federal infrastructure projects and maintenance contracts. 

We are deeply grateful to have this opportunity to serve with you as we work to improve lives and address the most urgent issues facing the country from coast-to-coast. Together, we will work tirelessly to honour the trust Canadians have given us.

Yours sincerely,

Authors of the Alternative Federal Budget

Minister of Women and Gender Equality

Dear Minister Monsef;

We are honoured that you have agreed to serve Canadians as Minister for Women and Gender Equality. This government has made a commitment to advancing gender equality in Canada and we look forward to working together toward this goal.

The federal government has started to build a foundation for a more equal and inclusive society after years of backsliding and measurable losses. It now needs to cement this legacy by sharpening its focus on intersectionality and committing the necessary resources to turn “feminist progress into lasting change.”

We expect you to work with your colleagues, through established legislative, regulatory, and cabinet processes, to deliver on the following priorities.

Take action on the calls for justice put forward by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, including by:

  • developing a comprehensive, adequately funded national action plan to prevent and address all forms of violence against Indigenous women and girls;
  • redesigning the child welfare system to support Indigenous women’s ability to care for their children and protect Indigenous girls from dislocation, sexual abuse and exploitation, disappearances and death; and
  • bringing into force the remaining provisions of Bill S-3 to eliminate sex-based discrimination in the Indian Act and provide adequate resources to address applications for Indian status from all those newly entitled.

Strengthen Canada’s infrastructure of paid and unpaid care and support, improve conditions of work within the care economy, and address the unequal division of labour between women and men. Fulfilling this priority will entail:  

  • increasing Canada’s early childhood education and care budget by $1 billion each year over 10 years, allowing Canada to reach the goal of affordable, high-quality, inclusive child care for all;
  • offering greater flexibility for families using maternity/parental leave benefits, expanding eligibility for these programs, and raising benefit rates to at least 60% of previous earnings;
  • commissioning an independent review of the tax system to identify and propose alternatives to regressive measures that undermine women’s economic security and exploit the gendered division of labour; and
  • launching a federal task force to examine paid and unpaid care work and developing a federal strategy to improve the quality and impact of the care economy.

Level the economic playing field by:

  • effectively implementing the 2018 Pay Equity Act and pay transparency regulations, introducing workplace flexibility requirements, and updating protections for workers in non-standard, precarious employment;
  • adding sexual orientation, gender identity and expression to the Employment Equity Act to address disadvantages experienced by LGBTQI2S communities in the labour market;
  • providing pathways to permanent residence for all temporary foreign workers and making permanent the two-year pilot project to provide an open work permit for vulnerable workers; and
  • stimulating the growth of high-quality employment in sectors where women work.

Reform the income security and housing programs so that they work for women and their families. This will involve, for example:

  • bringing back the “drop out” provisions that allowed caregivers to exclude months of zero or low income in the calculation of their CPP benefits;
  • making the Disability Tax Credit refundable so that all low-income individuals with significant disabilities receive support;
  • making the Canada Child Benefit available to all children regardless of their parents’ immigration status;
  • developing a national strategy for the decarceration of women prisoners and strengthening the social safety net to stem the flow of marginalized and victimized women into prison;
  • expanding the Canada Student Grant Program and removing all interest on federal student loans, greatly reducing the debt owed by students; and
  • ensuring that the National Housing Strategy is implemented with a maximum of available resources dedicated to the advancement of the right to housing.

Develop and implement a National Action Plan to end violence against women and a separate plan to address violence against Indigenous women and girls (see above). As part of the National Action Plan, resources should be allocated to address the disproportionate experiences of violence in marginalized communities, including among LGBTQI2S people and women with disabilities.

Ensure access to good health and sexual and reproductive health rights by:

  • implementing a national pharmacare strategy that is universal, single-payer, portable, accessible and comprehensive, and facilitates, along with other essential drug therapies, universal cost coverage for contraceptives and gender-affirming care;
  • developing and launching a national strategy toward equalizing access to high quality sex-ed across provinces and territories, targeting the needs of key groups such as women and girls with disabilities; and
  • improving mental health services and access to comprehensive, gender-responsive addiction supports in all areas of Canada, targeting resources for those in greatest need.

Consistently apply a feminist intersectional lens across all areas of foreign policy. This will entail:

  • releasing a feminist foreign policy and associated action plan that is rights-based, inclusive and fully intersectional in its approach, and that orients all of Canada’s efforts across international assistance, foreign relations, diplomacy, trade and defence;
  • developing a 10-year plan to achieve the UN aid target of 0.7% of GNI; and
  • announcing dedicated and additional resources to ensure the impact and success of Canada’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security.

Work with the ministers of environment, climate change and natural resources to apply an intersectional feminist lens to efforts to combat global warming and protect our environment. Only in this way can the government effectively address the structural roots of inequalities, conduct meaningful community engagement and prioritize the well-being of Indigenous communities in policy development and climate adaptation planning at all levels, and in particular with respect to a just transition to a carbon-free future.

Continue to change the machinery of government to support gender equality. The government must move forward on funding reform and create mechanisms to provide ongoing support for the core operations of independent women’s rights and gender equality organizations. It must also continue to invest in the collection and tracking of gender and diversity data and identify areas in which further investments are needed (e.g., regular national monitoring of a robust set of disaggregated sexual health indicators), while providing training in intersectional gender-based analysis at all levels. 

We are deeply grateful to have this opportunity to serve with you as we work to improve lives and address the most urgent issues facing the country from coast-to-coast. Together, we will work tirelessly to honour the trust Canadians have given us.

Yours sincerely,

Authors of the Alternative Federal Budget

Minister of International Development

Dear Minister Gould;

We are honoured that you have agreed to serve Canadians as Minister of International Development.

As Minister of International Development, your overarching goal will be to continue advancing Canada’s global contributions to sustainable development and humanitarian assistance. Toward that goal, you will build on the leadership that this government showed in establishing a Feminist International Assistance Policy for Canada and supporting gender equality. You will also join a community of thousands of Canadians working in the international co-operation sector and the millions of Canadians who support them through donations and volunteering.

While you hold a standalone single-mandate portfolio, you will need to work closely with many of your cabinet colleagues to implement Canada’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development—your guiding framework.

During the government’s first mandate, Canada’s official development assistance represented on average 0.27% of gross national income—the lowest average of any Canadian government in 50 years. It is also below the average of comparable countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. More resources are needed to meet the government’s significant policy ambition. Addressing this shortfall will be your top objective.

Canada must do its fair share globally to mitigate and address the impacts of extreme climate change and growing global instability. You will lead a process to establish a timetable of real increases to Canada’s official development assistance in line with past recommendations of the House of Commons standing committees on finance and foreign affairs and international development, and in close co-ordination with stakeholders to ensure effective implementation.

In particular, we expect you to work with your colleagues, through established legislative, regulatory and cabinet processes, to deliver on the following priorities.

  • Mainstreaming the Sustainable Development Goals in budget and policy planning so Canada’s domestic and international policy is assessed in relation to relevant targets and indicators. This will include working with the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, among others, to develop and launch a comprehensive plan to align government policy with the Sustainable Development Goals and establish a coherent whole-of-government framework for meeting and measuring Canada’s priorities at home and abroad.
  • Ensuring close co-ordination between the ministers of international development, foreign affairs, international trade, and defence to establish whole-of-government recognition of international development and humanitarian assistance as a key contributor to and asset for foreign policy.
  • Setting a framework for comprehensive climate action in line with robust domestic targets for emissions reductions and substantially increased climate finance. At least half of climate finance should be directed to adaptation in poor countries that suffer the worst impacts of climate change.
  • Continuing to implement the Feminist International Assistance Policy by:

→ ensuring that Canada’s international assistance is inclusive and based on human rights;

→ establishing a policy on sexual and reproductive health and rights—to guide implementation of Canada’s 10-year funding commitment to women’s and children’s health—alongside a robust and transparent accountability framework and clear spending targets;

→ fulfilling Canada’s pledge to give 25% of humanitarian aid to local organizations, with a significant portion of this money channelled through women-led groups;

→ increasing support for sustainable agriculture, food security and nutrition, recognizing that agriculture is a key income source for poor women and that investment in these areas simultaneously supports gender equality, poverty reduction and climate resilience;

→ dedicating 50% of bilateral aid to least developed countries, low-income countries and fragile contexts; and

→ establishing a new international assistance effectiveness action plan with clear targets in line with Canada’s existing aid and development effectiveness commitments.

  • Supporting a strong system of international law based on respect for international human rights and humanitarian law; multinational corporate accountability (e.g., giving the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise full investigative authority); policy coherence between human rights standards and international trade; and the protection of free assembly and expression.
  • Engaging substantively in advancing global frameworks for displaced persons, such as the Global Compact for Refugees and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
  • Upholding the rights of children and youth living in difficult places, including by ensuring that girls and boys in fragile contexts can access the safe, quality education they need and deserve.

We are deeply grateful to have this opportunity to serve with you as we work to improve lives and address the most urgent issues facing the country from coast-to-coast. Together, we will work tirelessly to honour the trust Canadians have given us.

Yours sincerely,

Authors of the Alternative Federal Budget

Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship

Dear Minister Mendicino;

We are honoured that you have agreed to serve Canadians as Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

As Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, your overarching goal will be to ensure that all immigration laws, regulations and practices reflect a comprehensive anti-racism strategy and commitment to gender and racial equity.

Past federal government measures significantly improved equity and access for many refugees, immigrants and migrant workers. These measures include restoring the Interim Federal Health Program for refugees, removing the conditional permanent residence rule for sponsored spouses (thus making women, in particular, less vulnerable to exploitation and abuse), removing certain systemic barriers to Canadian citizenship and introducing open work permits for vulnerable migrant workers.

However, much more remains to be done to improve opportunities and life chances for all refugees, immigrants and migrants. This is especially the case for racialized women,

LGBTQI2S refugees, migrant workers, and those who are living on low incomes.

As Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, we expect you to work with your colleagues, through established legislative, regulatory and cabinet processes, to deliver on the following top priorities.

Expand access to newcomer settlement services for all

  • Expand service eligibility to all those who need it, including international students, refugee claimants, migrant workers and those with precarious immigration status.
  • Reform the national settlement funding formula to ensure equitable funding for services in small, rural and northern communities, for francophone services outside Quebec, and for women and LGBTQI2S mandated and ethno-specific organizations.

Remove restrictions in Immigration and Refugee Protection Act regulations

  • Remove those parts of Section 91 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act which stop newcomer settlement workers at non-profit organizations from assisting clients with immigration- and refugee-related inquiries and forms.
  • Repeal Section 117(9) of the regulations, which imposes a lifetime ban on the sponsorship of undeclared family members.

Make family class sponsorship and permanent residency more equitable

  • Repeal the annual cap of 20,000 sponsorship applications per year, along with the minimum income requirement for sponsorship of parents and grandparents.
  • Stop targeting victims of abuse through immigration investigations based solely on a sponsor’s allegations.
  • End the double-punishment of non-citizens inherent in Canada’s current criminal inadmissibility rules.

End the detention and criminalization of immigration and refugee applicants

  • Immediately impose a 60-day time limit on immigration detention.
  • Stop detaining children or separating them from their families.
  • End the practice of housing immigration detainees in Canadian prisons and prohibit solitary confinement for immigration detainees.
  • Direct IRCC to collect and release disaggregated data on detentions.
  • Place a moratorium on all removals until reforms to the refugee determination system and the immigration system are in place.
  • End the security certificate regime and all deportation proceedings under it.
  • Create an independent oversight body for the Canada Border Services Agency.
  • Withdraw from the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States.
  • Eliminate the Designated Countries of Origin (DCO) scheme and reverse all changes to the refugee claim process made under Bill C-97.

End labour market discrimination against newcomers to Canada

  • Remove systemic barriers to foreign credentials recognition and invest in bridging programs and employment programs for all immigrants regardless of credentials.
  • Remove the systemic barriers to employment faced by racialized refugee and immigrant women by investing in targeted employment programs, among other measures.

Give migrant workers and international students a path to permanent residency

  • Remove systemic barriers and restrictions in the domestic worker and caregiver programs, such as their overly onerous language requirements (CLB 7) and the need to undergo a second medical exam after working long enough to qualify for permanent residence.
  • Provide a pathway to permanent residency for all temporary foreign workers and make permanent the two-year pilot project to provide an open work permit for vulnerable workers.
  • Expand pathways to permanent residency for international students and introduce a moratorium on removals until these reforms are in place.
  • Ensure that international study permits are issued only to reputable and registered educational institutions and that students are fully informed of immigration options before they register.
  • Provide better protection from unscrupulous student recruiters.
  • Require educational institutions to provide comprehensive support services for students at no additional charge.

Among your first duties as Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship will be to eliminate the citizenship fee, as promised in the Liberal Party platform, and provide all children living in Canada with the Canada Child Benefit—regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

We are deeply grateful to have this opportunity to serve with you as we work to improve lives and address the most urgent issues facing the country from coast-to-coast. Together, we will work tirelessly to honour the trust Canadians have given us.

Yours sincerely,

Authors of the Alternative Federal Budget