Even providing a two-day program or even a two-hour program, so that they can ask the questions of their deputies when these things are coming forward.... If you look at what the Auditor General said with regard to barriers: “limited senior management review of the completeness of gender-based analysis, and limited capacity in departments and agencies for conducting gender-based analysis”.
If a minister were to ask the question before an MC was formed or before something was going to Treasury Board, he or she would be able to say to the deputy, “Have you made sure this is part of the MC?” To me, that is just a natural step.
I'm going to move to capacity building and the challenge function. I've always considered Status of Women to have a little bit of both. It seems to be that the role of Status of Women seems to be more effective on capacity building. I don't know if it's because you're an outside agency, unless it's in someone's mandate letter, or they've been told that they have to co-operate, it doesn't seem to be very effective as far as a challenge function because you're not a natural player the same way that PCO or Treasury Board would be.
As far as capacity building, and Mr. Davies actually mentioned this, has there been any discussion about having a Status of Women go-to source at Statistics Canada where you can actually start to pull some of the data and then disperse it to different agencies?
I would hate to see every department go through that process. Having someone at Statistics Canada who's aware of those issues and makes that information available would be helpful.