Foreign Policy Review Submission: SRHR as a Foreign Policy Priority

Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) must remain a core pillar of Canada’s foreign policy and Official Development Assistance (ODA) investments. Canada’s foreign policy review comes at a moment of deepening conflict, democratic backsliding, economic uncertainty and coordinated attacks on gender equality and human rights. To be effective, Canada’s foreign policy must look beyond traditional security challenges and anticipate emerging threats to the global order. Today, escalating attacks on SRHR represent a significant and growing risk to geopolitical stability, demonstrating that Canada must respond by standing firm in its commitments and treating SRHR as essential to its foreign policy. These attacks are not isolated nor accidental, but rather they are mutually reinforcing elements of an organized, well-funded transnational anti-gender movement seeking to reverse hard-won rights, weaken democratic institutions and undermine multilateral cooperation.