Here’s how Canada changed under Justin Trudeau

OTTAWA – After campaigning and coming to power on a promise of change, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party will be heading to your doorsteps this summer seeking a second term.
After nearly four years of Trudeau government, here’s how the country looks different today than it did in 2015.
New focus on gender representation
The world took note in 2015 when Trudeau strode up the driveway at Rideau Hall with 15 men and 15 women who would form the country’s first-ever gender-balanced federal cabinet. Since taking that first step, the Liberals under Trudeau have: moved to legislate pay equity in the federal sector, made the national anthem gender-neutral, enshrined in law protections for transgender people, and required gender-based analysis to be conducted on major policies. The Liberal government also has pledged to increase international aid spending for women’s health and promoted the status of women portfolio to a full department for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE).
These are all changes that may be hard for future governments to walk back without considerable criticism and explanation.
Longtime Liberal and principal at Bluesky Strategy Group, Susan Smith, said the tone set by the first cabinet roster “had huge reverb in corporate Canada, in Canada writ-large.”“It forced the rest of the country to take a little bit harder look at what they were doing , and force the rest of the country, not by diktat but by emulation, like if the prime minister can do it, why can’t we?… It’s helped the country progress,” she said.
Though, room for improvements remains.
Trudeau’s self-imposed title as a feminist has come into question over the course of his mandate, including over the acrimonious ouster of two top female MPs from the Liberal caucus: Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould amid the SNC-Lavalin affair.
And, if Canada wants to see gender parity reached in the House of Commons, that could take another 89 years at the current rate that female MPs are elected.“The progress that we’ve seen in terms of women’s representation in the political realm, whether that be federal, or provincial, it’s incremental, and it’s slower than many would like to see. We’re not there yet,” Equal Voice spokesperson Nasha Brownridge told CTVNews.ca.