NEW YORK—Justin Trudeau told a United Nations conference that he looks forward to someday being able to call himself a feminist without having it wind up in news headlines.

The prime minister told a packed convention hall that he foresees a generational shift, as more parents raise their kids to embrace the term as an endorsement of basic equality.

“I’m going to keep saying, loud and clearly, that I am a feminist. Until it is met with a shrug,” he told the UN women’s conference Wednesday, in an auditorium filled with a near-total female audience.

“It shouldn’t be something that creates a reaction. It’s simply saying that I believe in the equality of men and women and that we still have an awful lot of work to do to get there. That’s like saying the sky is blue and the grass is green.”

The high-profile event was one of several on a day where Trudeau announced to a photo-snapping crowd in the UN lobby that Canada was pursuing a seat on the security council in 2020; met with business leaders; and was to be honoured later in the day by a women’s group for having formed a gender-parity cabinet.

“With all the nods and all the clapping, I think you’re well-liked in this room, prime minister,” said the moderator at the UN event, New York’s ABC news anchor Sade Baderinwa.

Trudeau explained that in the years before he’d uttered the now-famous phrase, “Because it’s 2015,” his team worked in 2014, 2013 and 2012 to recruit talented female candidates.

He said that process was complicated by the fact women were more likely to refuse career opportunities, because they were busy caring for children and elderly parents.

Trudeau suggested policies that encourage a work-life balance. He offered one potential example of parental leave that would only be available to men.

A PMO official later explained the government isn’t actually considering this, but is looking at family-friendly policies such as changes in the House of Commons rules for federal employees.

He also suggested that companies might be moved to better gender balance just by making them address how many women are in their workforce and their board of directors.

“One of the things that has shown effectiveness is just making people report explicitly on the gender balance within their organization, within their boards at the highest levels,” he said. “That incentivizes positive behaviour in meaningful ways.”

The Conservative government’s last budget in 2015 included a proposal to require companies to either put a gender-equality policy in place or explain publicly why they don’t have one.

Trudeau stressed that Canada still has a long way to go. He cited the male-female earnings gap as one example and violence against women — especially aboriginal women — as a particularly egregious problem.

He described feminism as a generational trend.

Asked by the moderator how he started using the term, Trudeau referred to his parents. He said his mom was a feminist, but the term didn’t apply to his dad, despite having been a human-rights advocate who introduced the modern Canadian Constitution.

“He was a great guy — but I don’t think he’d ever be able to be qualified as a feminist,” he said.

He stressed he and his wife are teaching their kids — two boys and a girl — to embrace feminism. And he predicted that more and more people would do so over time, with young people leading the way.

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“It’s just really, really obvious,” he said, drawing applause. “We should be standing up for women’s rights and trying to create more equal societies? Like, duh.”

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‘It’s time for Canada to step up again’ at United Nations, Justin Trudeau says

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