Status of Women committee  Concerning the budget, there was a $5 million cut from Status of Women, which went primarily to the reduction of regional offices, the research fund, and some specific areas of administration. The new money that was added was $10 million, focused on the women's program, and there were administrative dollars included in that for the administration of the women's program and the supporting services that are needed to do it.

Status of Women committee  Thank you. Madam Mathyssen, I'm not aware of what you're raising, so I will go back and look at the material we've prepared to ensure it was the right material. If it wasn't, then I will want to know why that was the case. So I'll go back and check on that and get back to you.

Status of Women committee  We will continue to provide training to the departments.

Status of Women committee  I will see if we can find that information for you.

Status of Women committee  In addition to hiring an additional resource, we have hired a consultant who is a specialist in the area to help us catch up, because there was a backlog. As we explained earlier, there has been a huge increase in demand over the last couple of years. We are in a position now to start catching up and getting on top of this.

Status of Women committee  I wouldn't want to give you an exact date, but I'm hoping that within the next three to six months we'll have all the backlog cleared.

Status of Women committee  There are a number that have status for these meetings and they will be attending, yes.

Status of Women committee  I will be the head of the Canadian delegation for the meetings in New York. We definitely will be working with NGO groups throughout the meetings.

Status of Women committee  In recent months, we have reorganized our policy group in order to better integrate international and domestic activities.

Status of Women committee  I would say we just want to emphasize again that it's not just the finance department; in our view, it is all of the line departments. That is why we have been working so closely with Treasury Board and the central agencies around accountabilities and reporting, because we think that's essential to overcoming some of the challenges that were mentioned earlier about the mainstreaming of gender analysis within departments.

Status of Women committee  Hélène will answer that one.

Status of Women committee  I am not from the finance department, so I can't talk about the internal mechanisms of the finance department; you will have to ask them those kinds of questions. But I think some of the work we're doing with Treasury Board around reporting and ensuring that the mechanisms for reporting contain the accountability--and the same could be said around the budgeting process--is to ensure there are some kinds of mechanisms for accountability in those reporting mechanisms.

Status of Women committee  I would have to share what Nancy said about the need to have leadership. You need to have the training, you need to have the understanding within the bureaucracy, but you also need to have leadership at all levels to ensure that this happens.

Status of Women committee  It's important that all departments are also doing gender-based analysis on their policies and that there is accountability around that. Those are the kinds of mechanisms we've been working on with the Treasury Board to ensure it's in the reporting mechanisms. Of course, some of that is used in the creation of the budget as well.

Status of Women committee  I would probably use the word “influence” rather than “lobby” in the context of working inside the government. Of course one of the things we are doing is working with a number of the key departments, and we work with the central agencies on ensuring that people are getting training in gender-based analysis.