Status of Women committee  I'm not sure I can give you light at the end of the tunnel, only to say that we've been working with the recognition that our indicators are not perfect. One of the reasons we have the indicator project is so we can better measure the results. We're also trying to work with our central agencies to integrate it into the management accountability framework and program activity architecture, which is the way outcomes of departmental work are now measured.

Status of Women committee  Yes, there would be discussion about all of the work that's been done internationally. I know that Suzanne Cooper--who appeared before you--has done a literature review and looked at the work that's being done, for example, in the World Economic Forum. We know that sometimes each country needs to have ones that work best for them, given their culture and their legislative and social frameworks.

Status of Women committee  I don't have any opening remarks per se, but perhaps it would be helpful to have Cindy Paquette, who is our director general of corporate affairs, explain the budget for the last years, which would indicate that the budget has not in fact gone down, but we are now at $29 million ongoing, with the exception of this year because of some funds that were re-profiled from last year.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. It's a continual feedback. We are always trying to ensure that we provide the most effective service.

Status of Women committee  I would simply say that the work with central agencies is focused also on accountability. Using the accountability mechanisms, we are working with them on how to ensure that through the management accountability frameworks and the program activity architectures, we can determine if gender has been considered in their work.

Status of Women committee  We have our regional offices. They are responsible for all the different regions in Canada. But every certain number of years we also do a summative evaluation that enables us to see which impacts are successful. Also, our regions listen to what the groups are saying, and we try to adapt how we deliver the service to the needs of the various regions.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely, we are working with and have regular meetings with federal, provincial, and territorial officials, and then annually there's a meeting of the ministers. We are working on some initiatives together. We also work very closely with civil society. I have regular meetings with and have met with many groups across the country over this past year to hear their concerns and to talk about how we can work together on specific issues.

Status of Women committee  I think you had Suzanne Cooper here last week or the week before explaining to you the detailed work on the indicators. We are looking at indicators such as health. For example, how are women being treated, how are men being treated, and how are we progressing with respect to health indicators?

Status of Women committee  What we've been doing over the last few years is refining our approaches of how we look at the best ways of influencing policy. One of the things that happened was a reorganization of Status of Women to bring together the elements of GBA, strategic policy, and our international work, so that we could better look at where we needed to influence or work with other government departments and also to try to be much more strategic in our approach.

Status of Women committee  I think it was just to better reflect what we actually do and how we're trying to influence policy development. We do that through working in partnership with other departments, rather than the approaches we've sometimes used in the past. It has also allowed us or enabled us to focus on indicators—how we measure the success of public policy as it's being developed through the use of gender-based analysis, and then how we're measuring the success by working on indicators.

Status of Women committee  I would say, generally, there are years when ministers attend these meetings and other years there are events that ministers don't generally attend. In terms of the APEC meetings, I will be heading up the Canadian delegation for the Women Leaders' Network, and we will have representation at the gender focal point.

Status of Women committee  Yes. The decline is because we have re-profiled some money from last year to this year, so it looks higher this year.

Status of Women committee  Perhaps I can explain that. Not all of the money is reflected in the main estimates. Some of our money was received through supplementary estimates (B) last year, and this has to be resupplied through supplementary estimates (A) this year before it will be reflected in our budget.

Status of Women committee  The overall budget from year to year will be approximately $29 million. There will be a bit of an aberration this year because we did re-profile some funds from this year to next year because of the late supply last year.

Status of Women committee  It means that because our supply for the women's program, the second $5 million, came in only in March approximately, we asked the Treasury Board to actually give us the extra money for this year instead of giving us all of the money last year. So it means we actually have more money for the women's program to ensure that we could spend the money.