Public Accounts Committee on April 19th, 2016

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Unfortunately, one gets the impression that all of the departments reacted to pressure from the Office of the Auditor General audit and that they then accelerated the process. My colleague across the way spoke about making this obligatory. Currently, however, the only penalty comes from the court of public opinion. If the departments do not reach their objective, there are no consequences.

Mr. Linklater, you said that making this mandatory would improve the quality of programs and policies. For my part, I don't want quality so much as effectiveness.

If this is made obligatory, will it be effective?

[Les Linklater]

It will depend on the circumstances. As Mr. Domingue said, the departments may have had little opportunity to deliver the merchandise, if I may put it that way. If there are time constraints when you have to present the analysis or the draft policy, it may be that there is not enough time to do all of the necessary analyses. That said, we can go back to the policy and ensure that the comparative analysis was done.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you. I understand that making this mandatory will not guarantee success.

From a more positive viewpoint, could you tell us how Canada compares to other countries on this? Are we at the top or at the bottom of the list?

[Meena Ballantyne]

I think we are in the middle. The other countries

look to us for examples of GBA. We've been sharing our GBA work with other countries as well as with the provinces. For example, Alberta has just established a new department of status of women. They have adopted our GBA course and are making the course mandatory for all their civil servants and their ministers. There are examples of that, of where we're looked to for our GBA by other countries.

As I said, GBA is just a tool in terms of achieving gender equality. In terms of Canada's ranking internationally on gender equality, it varies, but we're not in the top 10 countries in terms of having achieved gender equality. We're in the middle of the pack.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

If other countries consult us it would seem that we are not doing so badly.

[Meena Ballantyne]

Yes, in a way.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

It could be expressed that way.

[Meena Ballantyne]

Yes.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Could you tell us what tools the top 10 countries have which you do not? What are the tools that allow them to get a better ranking?

[Meena Ballantyne]

I would say it's the various levers these countries use to achieve gender equality. It's part of policies, programs, and legislation—for example, having child care; having parental leave that is for fathers only, daddy quotas as they call them; quotas for women on boards; women in senior executive positions in the private and public sector; or the wage gap. Those are the various factors that compose the index for gender equality. Then GBA is a tool.

We can look into what other kinds of tools they use. Do they use GBA or other ways of making sure their policies and programs take gender considerations into account?

We would be happy to provide that to the committee in terms of an international scan of where GBA is used by the top 10 countries. We can get back to you on that.

As I said, it's a tool to make sure you look at the impact on men and women, and make sure there are not barriers to full participation or they're left out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move back to the government side to Mr. Arya and to Ms. Shanahan for five minutes.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Sorry, I have to go back to the mandate requirements.

Ms. Ballantyne, you mentioned that all federal government departments and agencies are expected to incorporate gender-based analysis into their decision-making processes. The PCO, in their action plan, said they will implement a policy consideration checklist as a mandatory component, and it goes on to talk about GBA+.

I'd also like to hear from the Treasury Board if now it's mandatory, will be made mandatory, or should it be made mandatory?

[Les Linklater]

I mentioned in my opening remarks, Mr. Chair, that the audit provided an opportunity for us to look at what we could do better. One of the tools that we are developing is this mandatory checklist. As the Auditor General stated, there is, in the memorandum to cabinet template, a requirement for departments to state whether or not a GBA has been done on a specific policy proposal. Depending on the quality of the work that's behind that, it may be more developed in the actual memorandum to cabinet or not.

One of the issues that we had, and I think the Auditor General discovered as well, is that, in performing our challenge function, PCO was not documenting our interaction with individual departments on the GBA aspect of the policy in a very systematic or helpful way. What we are thinking is that, now with the checklist, we'll be able to ask departments to put in writing whether or not they've conducted a gender-based analysis and if not, why not, at a very high level, to inform us as to why they believe there are no gender implications with the policy. If there are, they will actually attach the GBA work that they've done or make reference to what they would have in their records.

As we move forward with the reporting under our action plan that my colleague was referring to, we will have, ourselves, this very rich inventory of information to be able to go back to for reference purposes to say, yes, in terms of x number of policy proposals, x per cent had a GBA completed, y per cent did not, and here's why. I think one of the key aspects of the audit is getting PCO and Treasury Board to that next question of why.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Ms. Shanahan.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Of course, this is very important. It's important that GBA gets done, but what I'm really excited about is that it makes better policy. I'm very excited about some of the examples that we see here in the Auditor General's report, one that worked very well and another that worked not so well. I'd like to hear from our witnesses on that. That would be Aboriginal Affairs, Ms. Kennedy, and then from Monsieur Paquette about the apprenticeship program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Very, very quickly. We have about two minutes.

[Nicole Kennedy, Director General, Strategic Policy, Cabinet and Parliamentary Affairs, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

I'd like to just speak to you quickly about the family violence prevention program. It was evaluated in 2012, and as part of the evaluation for the program renewal, it was actually discovered that there were elements of the program that needed a bit more nuancing. The prevention side of it wasn't really targeting any of the issues that men and boys face once they've been victims of violence. There was concerted effort to shift the program somewhat to make sure that we're addressing those needs as well as the other fundamental parts of the program, which are to fund the 41 shelters across the country.

I would just note in wrapping up that the GBA policy has been mandatory at Indigenous and Northern Affairs since 1999, so we do take it seriously.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Paquette.

[Jacques Paquette, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Service Policy Branch , Department of Employment and Social Development]

Yes, very quickly, the same. In our department, Employment and Social Development, you cannot develop policy without doing GBA. The example that was used in the report was a typical example where we were pressed for time, so we had to do this development fairly quickly, so there was some assessment that was done but not completed. We kept working on it afterwards to make sure that we would have a full picture.

We also used other tools to continue to work on increasing the participation of women in the apprenticeship sector. Part of the issue here is that it's a low participation to start with. Some of the programs that we are funding through the provinces and territories, for example, were used as well to promote trades among women. The same thing with a federal ad campaign that was targeted towards women to increase their participation.

Of course, when we look at participation in the trades, it's lower, particularly compared to college or university enrolment where women in fact are the majority there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

We'll now move to Mr. Christopherson.

We're in the next series for three minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Godin asked about where we were. The answer was, we're not in the top 10, which is not very good at all given that we're a G7 country. Belgium is an example where their gender mainstreaming act, which is another term for this, not only has the legal basis for compulsory identification of the analysis, they also do a follow-up and evaluation of the actions afterward. There's a real commitment, not the wishy-washy stuff we're talking about here.

I wanted to mention our friend from the Privy Council. Here's what he said this morning: “Strong and effective GBA practices have guided government over the years to ensure greater equality between women and men in all areas of government programming. We will both continue and strengthen our efforts to ensure that policy and program proposals are meeting the needs of all Canadians.”

You'd almost think he hadn't read the Auditor General's report to come out and say something that cheery. The Auditor General said 20 years had passed since the government committed to applying this type of analysis. In other words, gender considerations, including obstacles to the full participation of diverse groups of women and men, are not always considered in government decisions. This finding is similar to what we found in our 2009 audit. That's the world we're in, not that kind of fluffy nonsense.

There was a reference to one piece of federal legislation that has this as mandatory. I'm aware that another one is the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which has Canadian legislation that has a legislative requirement to provide GBA in terms of the impact, and they have to report on that impact. It's mandatory, and it's a piece of federal legislation that exists right now. My question is very specific. Has this been a problem because it's mandatory? We now have an example in the government where it's mandatory. Has that been a complete disaster? Is there a problem with this? Would you back away from the mandatory aspect in this act if you could?

[Les Linklater]

My experience with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is that the legislated GBA requirements have been helpful and have led us to look at IRC as a department that does GBA well.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I want to end on a positive note, because that's twice now you've given answers I really like, but not so much in what you wrote.

You were asked point blank, what would happen if mandatory was brought in? I'll review the Hansard, and we will do so when we do our report. I have to say, sir, I thought when you answered that you were answering straight up that it would do this. I understand the political dance of where you can go on the recommendations, and I'm beginning to maybe get a sense of where we are, but I like that answer. I'll give you a chance to correct the record if you want.

Your answer, when it was put to you directly... I have to say, and it seems to me, if a professional bureaucrat—take that as a positive compliment—is asked the direct question, does mandatory reporting on GBA give us better legislation, I'm hearing yes.

[Les Linklater]

That's my experience, yes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, sir.