When the Trudeau government launched its Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) in 2017, Canada became just the second country to bring a feminist lens to any part of its foreign policy, built on decades of domestic commitment to gender-based analysis and shaped by civil society pressure on development assistance. 

Internationally, Canada staked out leadership on gender and migration by pushing for a gender-responsiveness guiding principle at the Global Compact for Migration (GCM) negotiations and actively engaging at the Global Forum on Migration and Development. It funded the Gender Migration Hub to help countries develop gender-responsive migration governance. 

By all appearances, Canada is a leader on gender and migration. Yet migration barely appears in the FIAP itself. A content analysis of the policy document turned up just five instances of “migration,” “migrants,” or “refugee” across the entire text. In three cases, migrant or refugee status appears as one vulnerability factor in a list that also includes race, religion, and disability. The other two refer to multilateral partnerships for humanitarian assistance. Migration as a complex, gendered phenomenon with deep connections to development does not figure in the FIAP in any substantive way.

The Gap Between Rhetoric and Policy

The entanglement of gender, migration, and development has been mapped by feminist scholars and civil society for decades. Gender inequality and violence against women rank among the structural forces that generate displacement. Restricted pathways for regular migration heighten women and gender-diverse people’s vulnerability to exploitation along the way. Bilateral........

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