Status of Women Committee on May 17th, 2016

[Dr. Jo Cribb]

Sure. I think our academic colleagues call it intersectionality, the idea that a woman isn't just one woman. In New Zealand, and I'm sure it's the same in your country, there's more diversity within women than there is between women and men. As a ministry, we absolutely ask the question constantly, “Which women? Who are we talking about?” We have quite a sophistication around our analysis, using age, ethnicity, and socio-economic status as well.

From our perspective, we take the stance that we recognize that men are very important, particularly in change, but our ministry's mandate is openly about gender equality and with a focus on women. If you think institutionally, though, about how we arrange ourselves as a public service, we have an agency and very strong colleagues who have a mandate to think through a Maori lens. We work very closely, obviously, because we have a mutual interest there. We also have another agency and a group of really close colleagues who look through a Pacific lens.

So we have institutionally, I guess, some mechanisms where we all work together so that we're ensuring that we are actually presenting the reality of New Zealand women through our policy processes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you.

Continuing with New Zealand, what are some of the best practices the Government of New Zealand has found in efforts to ensure that gender considerations are properly taken into account?

[Dr. Jo Cribb]

We have found that most effective is actually early engagement from somebody who brings a gender lens to a policy project. We would absolutely recommend it. For instance, we had large changes in and around some of our social policy settings. Structurally we had somebody from the Ministry of Women bring a gender perspective right at the beginning.

This means that the questions around who we're talking about when we're talking about women, and what the impacts will be, are absolutely asked right at the first principles. We would recommend that as a way to ensure that the quality of the thinking comes through to you in the decision-making process, because it's repeated right throughout the process.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

To the Belgian witnesses, to what level are Belgian federal departments engaged in evaluating initial gender considerations through the analysis of sex-disaggregated data? What are some of the best practices from the Belgium experience that might be helpful for us here in Canada?

[Carine Joly]

We think that collaboration between the political and administrative levels is essential. That is key for us. The fact that the process is made mandatory is critically valuable to us, because this is our main support at the beginning of the session. There is a law and the government must commit to implementing this strategy, to automatically adopt the plan. As I just said, this applies to all government ministers, including the finance and budget ministers. We are including two ministers who would be less likely to comply on their own. I would say it is a key element.

Another key element is adequately tailored awareness. We realized that rather general training did not work to make people buy in. We therefore set up specialized training tailored to different departments, with examples directly based on policies slated for integration of the gender dimension. In departments such as those dealing with employment, we work on employment topics, but for co-operation and development, we work on policy analysis and analytical grids. Talking to people who are generally responsible for policies about their own areas is fundamental.

The third key element is the development of work on gender statistics.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you. That's your time.

We will go to my NDP colleague Ms. Malcolmson for seven minutes.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you to the witnesses for bringing your experience to us.

I have a quick question for the New Zealand experts. Some of the materials we've read indicate that all papers to the cabinet social policy committee must include a gender implication statement. Is that still a requirement?

[Dr. Jo Cribb]

That's what I'm talking about. Individual pieces of policy that go through have to have a statement.

I guess I'm being very honest with you in saying that I would still recommend that, if you want the best quality advice coming to you, having a statement like this is very important. It sets a very important benchmark and a signal about the quality of the thinking that is coming through, so I would suggest that you think about putting these benchmarks in place but also think about how to get the quality of policy thinking right at the beginning to be as robust as it can be. This is a compliance exercise half an hour before the paper has to be submitted to the committee. That would be my strong recommendation.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

We heard some reports that the policy had been changed, that this requirement had been undermined, but that is not the case. You're carrying on. Excellent.

I have some questions for the Belgian witnesses as well. I'm interested in knowing more about the budget commitment that your government has given to the gender-based analysis process. Here in Canada, our Status of Women budget represents .01% of the overall budget, and it includes the requirement to carry out oversight of GBA.

I'm hoping you can give us a sense of how much of the overall government spending is committed to your department and committed to GBA, and if you don't have that at your fingertips, we can always get it as a follow-up.

[Carine Joly]

Okay.

I cannot tell you exactly what percentage of the entire federal budget is allocated to the equality issue. As for our department, part of our budget is dedicated to gender mainstreaming. We use that money especially to support the entire training process, since we work with external consultants. We also use it to conduct specific studies and analyses. In particular, we completed an inventory of gender-based statistics at the Belgian federal level, for example. We have a specific budget line item within the department.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thanks.

Are you able to follow up with us to get an indication of the percentage of your budget that's going to it? That would be helpful.

[Carine Joly]

Yes.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

We're trying to measure the benefit of doing this program well, which our country hasn't done yet, but we're optimistic.

Do you have a comparison between before your policy became mandatory and after? Has there been a measurement of the tangible benefits of doing this program well?

[Carine Joly]

Is the question for a witness from New Zealand or from Belgium?

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Yes, it's for Belgium. All of my other questions are for Belgium. Thanks.

[Nicolas Bailly]

As was mentioned before, this is a fairly recent strategy. The act dates from 2007 and the first federal plan was established in 2012. In addition, that was a very short session, given the political crisis that emerged.

We are now in the second gender mainstreaming plan, which started after the 2014 election. Therefore we do not have enough history to see whether that had any impact on the content of public policy. It is still too early. This is really a phase of implementation, awareness raising, training, and development of instruments. We try to ensure that politicians invest in and commit as much as possible to objectives associated with the integration of the gender dimension. We do not have enough experience to see whether there has been a qualitative effect on the content of public policy.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

In moving forward for Belgium, does your government have a commitment to do that measurement so that you can find out in the future if you've been successful?

Your nodding does not need to be translated. That is good.

[Carine Joly]

That may be because the analysis aspect is mandated by means of a report to Parliament. There is no commitment towards a concrete measure before and after. The obligation to report and the analysis are already provided for.

However, a budget measure or a measure to determine the actual impact on the situation are not mandated, strictly speaking.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

I understand that you have a requirement to submit annual reports to ensure that there is compliance with the policy. I'm hoping that you can tell us what kinds of gender indicators you are using to measure the achievement of the strategic objectives.

[Carine Joly]

Yes, this is done through an interim report required by law. The report outlines the achievement of the objectives as defined in the plan, as well as the implementation of the various processes that go along with this work, specifically regarding statistics.

The Institute is responsible for preparing the plan in collaboration with the members of the interdepartmental group. In some cases, with regard to certain departments, we are able to produce some pretty concrete results, depending on what was initially defined. Some objectives have rather narrow targets, while others are much broader.

Of course, as much as possible, the report will present some indicators of the content and the policies, and not just indicators of the process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's excellent. That's your time, Ms. Malcolmson.

We'll take the final seven-minute round with Ms. Sahota, who I believe is sharing her time with Ms. Nassif.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to thank all our witnesses.

Since my colleague addressed all her questions to the witnesses from Belgium, I will be addressing my questions to the witnesses from New Zealand.

You mentioned the public accountability document in your presentation and stated that there is a ranking based on a series of factors. What are those factors? Could you please elaborate on that document?

[Dr. Jo Cribb]

As a ministry, we report on achievement for women in New Zealand, and we do it across the government's priorities. The government's four priorities for gender equality in New Zealand are around reducing the levels of violence against women in New Zealand, ensuring that women and girls can access education, ensuring that women's skills are utilized in the economy as well as they can be, and ensuring that there are more women in leadership.

Under each of those four key things, there is a series of measurements for how we can actually monitor and track those using our gender database. I can go into those in some detail or we can make them available to you so you can see them. Obviously, it is all on our website about how we report against this. What it does is allow us to track the government's progress in these areas.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Could you give us a more detailed breakdown of how GBA training and implementation was crafted and used in the policy-making and administration processes of your government?

[Dr. Jo Cribb]

The policy analysis was before my time, but this is my understanding of what happened.

When the gender implication statement was introduced, the Ministry for Women created a gender analysis training program for policy analysts. We can share with you what that looked like. It was implemented through the government agencies, but we found, and we know from all the research about how learning happens, that a one- or two-day course really isn't effective to ensure that people have the tools, the ability, and the awareness to do good quality gender analysis.

To put it candidly, we know this isn't the way to learn. Probably for those who are already inclined to think through a gender lens, it advanced them. It also provided a framework for agencies grappling with these issues. But because we found that within the policy community there was a lot of turnover, a lot of this depends on the attitudes of the leaders and the policy managers, and again it is quite a lot of change.

We're not convinced it was a fully useful way of ensuring that gender analysis came through. We can share all our materials with you, and as I've said, we've taken the approach that our research should actually be selective around the policies that we engage with and engage with in some depth.

Rather than kind of taking what we would colloquially call a spray paint approach, i.e., to try to touch everybody lightly, we've gone for a process that's really deeply embedded in some of the key policy initiatives. It's a strategy, which from our perspective, has been more impactful for New Zealand women, because we actually have quality gender analysis coming through very key pieces of work.