Status of Women Committee on April 10th, 2008

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Fraser and Ms. Smith, for being with us today. We were all looking forward to you coming with great hope because we have tremendous respect for you. We know the work you have done in the past and we hope that your office will help us decide how we can be sure that gender-based analysis is done at all stages of the department budget process.

I know that talking about the policies and measures that are implemented is not, as such, your bailiwick, but I would still like to know whether you think there have been changes or improvements in recent years in terms of measures that could advance the status of women. For example, we know that there is a law requiring the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to apply gender-based analysis. I assume that when your group analyzes that Department's budgets, it can see whether those rules are applied.

Is that how it works?

[Sheila Fraser]

That law is sufficiently specific that we do not need to do any evaluation ourselves. We can ask the departments whether they have done it and what the results were. In cases where they have an obligation, under the legislation, to produce a result, or to do the analyses, we ask them whether they have obtained specific results, performance indicators, and whether they have done evaluations to determine whether their programs are meeting those objectives. I have to say that when we ask those questions, in some of the departments where we do audits, we are told that the evaluations that are required have not been done.

Our Act states very specifically that we do not do evaluations. Doing evaluations to determine whether changes or improvements have to be made to programs and policies is considered to be the responsibility of managers. However, we can certainly tell a department, for example the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, that it has this obligation, under the legislation that governs it, to determine how it is meeting that obligation and whether it is achieving the objectives set.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

The subject of my question may not come within your authority, but I would like to know whether you think that the best way to ensure the success of gender-based analysis would be to have a commissioner or whether other tools might be used. For example, would your office be equipped to do those analyses? Would you have everything you need if you were working in collaboration with Status of Women Canada?

[Sheila Fraser]

We can't do those analyses. That really is not our role. On the other hand, we can ascertain whether they have been done. I believe that Status of Women Canada has sent the Minister a code of best practices or procedures for determining whether they are using those tools and taking them into account in developing policies or programs. We could audit that aspect, but it would be impossible for us to do the analyses ourselves.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

We have talked about appointing a commissioner who would be responsible specifically for gender-based budgets. In the case of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, some 40 people are involved. Do you think that 40 people would be needed to handle this work?

[Sheila Fraser]

I might want to have a clearer idea of what kind of workload you would want to assign to that commissioner. Obviously, I think it would be hard for a commissioner to take on the analysis of all programs, given that program managers are required to do that themselves. If the intention is to assign the commissioner a role as auditor, and ask him or her to ensure that the analyses are done, I don't think that could be within the authority of the Commissioner of the Environment. That Commissioner has a statutory duty to audit all departments' sustainable development strategies and manage the petitions process. As well, he does about six or seven audits every year, on a variety of subjects. In any event, it depends on the size of the job you want to assign to the commissioner.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Are there other methods or tools we could use to achieve our objective — that the analyses be done and budgets be prepared from a gender-based perspective?

[Sheila Fraser]

I don't think it is obvious that the government has to do that under any clear obligation or policy. Is this simply a desire, or is it a policy? You may know. if it is a policy that requires that departments do it, that would be a first step.

What we could do is check from time to time to see whether the analyses are being done. If there was an obligation or a policy, you could approach the Department of Finance, which develops the budget and is responsible for this. That Department could report to Parliament every year, for example, on the fact that the analyses were or were not done and taken into account. This might be a lot less elaborate or complex than deciding what duties to assign to a commissioner.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you very much, Ms. Fraser.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Davidson, for seven minutes.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for appearing before us this morning. It's certainly always a treat to hear from you and to have you here with your expertise.

I think you can get a sense of the confusion and the problems we're facing on this committee in trying to ensure that GBA is being done. We've heard from a tremendous number of witnesses. We've been doing this for quite some time. We're hearing varying degrees of what is expected and what actually is being done and who actually is being responsible for it.

We're now down to the stage where we really need to know how we can determine whether or not it is being done. We're considering, do we need a commissioner? Do we need legislation? Is your office able to perform these tasks? That's really what we're looking for this morning.

I think you said that legislation may not be necessary, that if it were a clear policy or a commitment from the government, or from the cabinet—I'm not sure where this will come from—we could accomplish the same thing without legislation. Did I understand you correctly?

[Sheila Fraser]

I was referring to the basis on which we could do an audit. For us it's usually important that there be some clear direction. Before we hold government departments to account and say they should be doing something, we like to have somebody somewhere telling them that they should do it, other than us. It's much easier to say “Here's what you're supposed to do”, and “Are you doing it or not?”

It does not require legislation to do that. I gave the example of strategic environmental assessments. There is no requirement in law. It was a cabinet directive that departments should do it, and as the Commissioner of the Environment just reported in February, departments aren't doing it, which is not a good thing.

So if there was a clear policy that said departments should be doing this analysis, and our role is really to provide parliamentarians with information, we could then say departments are supposed to be doing this, and they are or they aren't.

I know I have some people in the office who won't be happy with me, because we're probably going to change all our planning, but what we can do for this committee, if the committee wishes, is to say “What is the state of this? Is there a policy?” I've seen some testimony where people are saying yes, they do this. Well, on what basis...? Are they really doing it? Who's doing it and who isn't? And perhaps we can even look at some of the quality of the analysis, although that might be a little difficult for us to get into.

We can certainly give parliamentarians a perspective on what is actually happening with gender-based analysis. I would think we would obviously have to work with Status of Women Canada in that, because they have a very important role to play in this.

That will take a little while. As I said, our audits take anywhere from 12 to 18 months, but that is the kind of information we could provide for you.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

I will continue on, then. When we're talking about the environmental issues, and there was a commissioner for that specifically, was the policy established and then the commissioner appointed? Is that how that works? Further to that, if we did have a policy and a commitment from the government, without legislation, and you were to come in and give us some feedback and some information and so on, is that without having a commissioner, or is somebody in your department or office called the commissioner for this?

[Sheila Fraser]

Actually, the evolution of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development probably has an interesting parallel. The Office of the Auditor General started doing audits on environmental issues in the late eighties, early nineties, and it was really about environmental management. So there were a number of issues done, probably on the more obvious areas--fisheries, management of natural resources, things like that.

In the mid-nineties there was obviously a lot more attention being paid to environmental issues, and government, I presume, would have had some policies in place around environmental management going back into the eighties, at least. But in the mid-nineties there was a statement by government or a will by government to strengthen environmental management, and at that point there were modifications to the Auditor General Act, which required the departments to produce sustainable development strategies every three years, which instituted a petitions process, and which created a Commissioner of the Environment in the Office of the Auditor General.

Now, in the work that the commissioner does--the audits--there is no change. We didn't need to have a commissioner legislated in our act to do those audits because the office had been doing them already for several years. What it did change was the requirement to audit the sustainable development strategies, which were new, and to manage this petitions process.

So we don't need a commissioner per se in legislation to go into these areas.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Perhaps I could just cut in for a second. So the Commissioner of Official Languages, does that have anything to do with your department?

[Sheila Fraser]

The Commissioner of Official Languages is a separate officer of Parliament. There are six officers of Parliament: official languages, information, privacy, Chief Electoral Officer, me, and the Public Service Integrity Officer, and he has a specific act and specific responsibilities.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We have less than a minute, if you want to ask a short question.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

I know you said that through your office you can't comment on the merits of a policy, but would the Commissioner of Official Languages comment on the merits?

[Sheila Fraser]

The Commissioner of Official Languages has a broader role than we do, because there is a specific law he deals with, and he has the role of promotion of official languages. He would go further than we do. We are more into the management of programs. He would comment on legislation.

The Privacy Commissioner too would obviously comment on legislation, because she has a specific mandate that she has to carry out.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Mathyssen, for seven minutes.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It's very good to see you here. We are always delighted with the expertise you bring to our committee.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

In talking to some of the women's organizations, I was told that the United Kingdom has developed an implementation plan that has many more indicators than the plan that departments use here. If you were to conduct a performance audit, would you consider looking at some of those international comparisons and making the recommendation that the government comply to that higher standard, if you did see a higher standard internationally?