Status of Women committee  For the assessment of the applications, I would have to go back to our team to find out exactly how long it takes them. It depends on the call and on what we've requested of each applicant. I would say, overall, when you have that level of volume and demand—

Status of Women committee  I was looking for the chair, to answer the question, but perhaps I'll just start. I just want to make sure I know what you're looking at, which is the supplementary estimates for this year, and the columns you're looking at, which are “Operating expenditures”, “Grants and contributions”, and then “Statutory”.

Status of Women committee  Let me explain—

Status of Women committee  I’ll explain the conversations he had with Treasury Board. Essentially, the process is still underway. Yes, we’re going to participate in it, as we’ve been asked to do. However, the numbers—

Status of Women committee  The figures for the requested share will appear in the Estimates. What you probably saw, in Supplementary Estimates (B) 2023–2024, reflects cuts of roughly $579,000 in travel and professional services budgets. That’s what was in the documents tabled in Parliament, so far.

Status of Women committee  You have one minute left.

Status of Women committee  Thank you for the question. The funds to be expended under the program amount to $17.9 million as part of the agreement the Minister reached with the fund manager. According to our documents, the department’s internal operations will amount to $0.6 million. Those expenses are part of the total amount.

Status of Women committee  Allow me to explain what we’ve been up to since the approval of Supplementary Estimates (B) 2022–2023, which announced the launch of the program. Obviously, this was a project for which our department didn’t have much experience when it was announced last April. So we spent a lot of time in consultations with, among others, Minister Jenna Sudds, when she was Parliamentary Secretary, to ensure that the pilot project framework would truly work.

Status of Women committee  Those funds were granted to the department.

Status of Women committee  I’d like to add something. If you visit Food Banks Canada’s website, you’ll see that the organization has a proven track record and that it has the necessary distribution network. We chose this organization because it was ready.

Public Accounts committee  I'm really glad we're going back to the purpose of GBA+. GBA+ is a tool, as I said earlier, to improve our understanding and our ability to tailor programs and services to the needs of Canadians and the people we serve. With the diversity of this country changing all the time, and the needs changing all the time, we do have to continue to evolve our work.

Public Accounts committee  In terms of the application of GBA+, I think Graham talked about a couple of examples of when it is very important to have the experts within the policy area in government—those who are designing and developing the initiatives—get into the question of who they're designing for, as well as issues of access to various government programs, services and legislation that may apply to them.

Public Accounts committee  I can start with that, if you'd like. From the perspective of Women and Gender Equality Canada, we are on track with our actions with respect to the audit. We don't dispute that we have more work to do, and we certainly have undertaken new initiatives as a result of the audit that are outlined in our action plan.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. First of all, I would say that there are a number of things that need to be done. There is no single solution to this challenge. One of the things the Auditor General mentioned in her previous report was capacity, skills, intersectionality, and disaggregated data, which we've talked a lot about.

Public Accounts committee  We're learning a lot from the European Union. It certainly sets a very high standard. That said, as the OECD has stated, Canada continues to make progress in this area. We are indeed one of the leaders in the world.