Here comes an election. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau officially called a federal election over the weekend after months of speculation — a move that could see his party return to majority status or leave government. 

Since his first term in 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has made some major domestic policy shifts, from passing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) legislation to decriminalizing cannabis possession. Over the next few weeks, Trudeau is expected to campaign on his government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing economic recovery efforts. 

Here’s a quick breakdown of some of his government’s biggest social policy achievements — and failures — over the past six years:

The Canada Emergency Recovery Benefit

• In March 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the creation of CERB, a program that gave up to $2,000 per month to Canadians who lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The program ended the following September. 
• EI programs often left out gig workers, Canadians on parental leave, and solo entrepreneurs. Millions of workers saw CERB as a lifeline during a widespread economic crash that the traditional EI system simply wasn’t designed to handle. 
• CERB was wound down in September 2020 and replaced with the Canada Recovery Benefit, a decision NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh opposed. He also challenged the Liberal government’s decision to cut CRB payments by 40 percent starting in July 2021. 

Cannabis legalization

• Canada legalized cannabis for recreational use on October 17, 2018, making it just one of two countries in the world to do so at the time (the other was Uruguay). Trudeau promised legalization would not only end the criminalization of cannabis users for a drug with few major societal consequences, but also break the financial backbone of organized crime syndicates. 
• Black, Indigenous, and racialized Canadians are arrested for drug possession at disproportionately high rates — and cannabis was, before its legalization, one of the most widely available illicit substances in the country. Ending prohibition meant removing one avenue of criminalization against cannabis users. 
• The Liberals received a lot of praise for legalization across the political spectrum, but the NDP and cannabis user advocates complained that the criminalization of BIPOC Canadians for unrelated cannabis sales or possession is ongoing. They also said the Liberals hadn’t created an adequate system for expunging the criminal records of Canadians convicted of cannabis possession offenses before legalization. 

Gender Based Analysis Plus(GBA+) in Minister mandate letters

• Trudeau’s government did not develop the idea of using GBA+ to ensure government programs were equitable — Status of Women Canada came up with the term in 2011 under previous Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and the original concept of GBA goes all the way back to Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s government in the 1990s. However, he did apply the concept to the mandate letters of his Cabinet, something that hadn’t ever been done before. He also appointed the first Minister of Status of Women to Cabinet in November 2015. 
• For the first time, GBA+ was no longer a term confined to the Canadian bureaucracy: it was codified in mandate letters, public documents that lay out a minister’s responsibilities and expectations during their time in Cabinet. Trudeau’s ministers were expected to apply GBA+ to every aspect of their work regardless of their portfolio. 
• Trudeau did draw some criticism from the Conservatives in 2018 when explaining the use of GBA+ at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. He said it could show, for example, the social impacts of having male construction workers present in rural areas — a phenomenon that researchers have found leads to higher rates of sexual assault among local women and girls. 

Legalization of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD)

• In 2016, the Liberal government approved the first (MAiD) law for Canadians suffering from incurable and debilitating medical conditions. It authorizes physicians to give patients who are suffering greatly a peaceful death. The law, while revolutionary in Canada, is perhaps the most polarizing medical policy enacted by Trudeau’s government. 
• For some Canadians living with tremendous pain, the law represented a major step forward in the recognition of their bodily autonomy. However, disability justice advocates have criticised MAiD as a legal way for families and caregivers to kill patients seen as too much of a burden on the medical system. 
• The Conservative Party is opposed to a decision to remove a mandatory waiting period for patients accessing MAiD, while the NDP support the idea of MAiD, but criticized the Liberal government’s legislation on it. 

Negotiations for a national child care plan

• In the 2021 federal budget, the Liberal government announced up to $30 billion over the next five years to establish a publicly funded early learning and child care program for Canadians. It promises to offer regulated, high quality spaces for an average of $10 per child, per day by 2026. Negotiations to hammer out agreements with Canada’s provinces and territories are ongoing. 
• Women across Canada who have families are often forced to choose between their children and their career. Too often, women are choosing to quit their jobs altogether and care for their children because, in some cases, it’s cheaper than working full-time while paying for child care. 
• The national child care plan drew praise from feminist advocates across the country, but conservative provincial governments in Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario took issue with its emphasis on not-for-profit childcare programs. Alberta’s finance minister told reporters the new plan wouldn’t offer a lot of parental choice. 

The Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change

• Shortly after taking office, the Liberal government met with Canada’s provinces and territories to discuss how the country could both meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and grow the economy. The result was the Pan-Canadian Framework: a plan that includes a carbon tax, building climate resilience, and encouraging early stage innovation in clean technology. 
• Climate change affects absolutely everyone in Canada — the extensive wildfires in B.C. and northwestern Ontario and recent heat waves across Western Canada all testify to that. But it also particularly impacts marginalized communities, especially Indigenous peoples, whose traditional way of life is being upended by the rapidly changing climate. 
• The Liberal plan has faced criticism from all sides of the political spectrum. While the Conservatives have accused it of unfairly taxing Canadians, especially those in Western Canada, the NDP and Green Party consistently attack it for being lackluster — and hypocritical given the federal government’s decision to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project. 

Little concrete action on addressing the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis

• Shortly after taking office, Trudeau announced the National Inquiry — a way to investigate the systemic causes of violence against Indigenous women and girls. The inquiry not only investigated common patterns in these cases, but also looked at the failures of Canada’s police forces to address violence. 
• Indigenous women and girls have been disproportionately more likely to face sexual assault, domestic violence, and murder for decades. Investigating the reasons behind these trends could offer the government clear ways to improve the lives of Indigenous women and girls across the country. 
• The lack of a follow-up implementation plan from the Liberal government after the Inquiry’s final report in 2019 has been criticized heavily by Indigenous advocates. They say a 30-page “federal pathway” document released in June 2021 that was supposed to address the 231 calls to justice from the Inquiry’s report simply doesn’t offer clear guidelines for the government. 

Ongoing (but incomplete) work on Canada’s feminist foreign policy

• Following the lead of Sweden in 2014, the Liberal government announced it was working on a feminist foreign policy — an approach that takes an explicitly feminist lens to trade and national security policies. Earlier in his term, Trudeau launched several sector-specific initiatives such as the Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), its “Strong, Secure, Engaged” defence policy, and its Women, Peace and Security Agenda”. 
• Incorporating feminist principles into foreign policy adds funding to issues affecting women and girls such as abortion access and equal pay initiatives — major issues that, if addressed, can dramatically correct inequities between men and women. 
• Except Canada’s feminist foreign policy is still in the works — its last estimated completion date was fall 2021. In the past, the NDP have said Canada isn’t spending enough to make its feminist foreign policy promises a reality and accused Trudeau’s government of refusing to increase Canada’s international development budget. 

Missed deadline to end boil water advisories on all First Nations communities

• Back in 2015, Trudeau promised to end all long-term drinking water advisories on First Nations by this year. Some communities have been without clean or safe drinking water for decades due to aging water pipes and sanitation equipment. 
• Water is the most basic resource humans need to survive. First Nations have been forced to ship in water to drink and live with intolerable skin conditions caused by bathing in bad water. 
• Trudeau has faced heated criticism from Indigenous leaders, activists, and opposition parties for not solving the issue. As of last April, there were still 52 long-term advisories in 33 First Nations communities across the country — and an Indigenous Services Canada action plan earlier in 2021 estimated the problem wouldn’t be solved until 2023 at the earliest. 

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