Evidence of meeting #18 for Status of Women in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was departments.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Director, Gender-Based Analysis and Accountability Directorate, Status of Women Canada
I think that was the material sent to you in response to the questions from last week.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Okay. With that, I'd like to start off with a round of questions.
Madam Minna, go ahead, please, for seven minutes.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Thank you very much, and thank you for coming back. It's good to have both of you back.
I have a few things going back to the last meeting. On February 14, when you were here with us, you mentioned that there were 15 people at Status of Women Canada who were responsible for providing support to the federal government on the GBA initiative. You also mentioned several areas of the GBA-related work, including a comparative GBA research project that was going on. I just wondered if these 15 full-time employees are assigned primarily to support the departments and agencies in implementing GBA specifically. Can you explain to us in greater detail the specific roles and responsibilities of these 15 individuals?
I have just four things around this particular group. Can you tell us how many dollars are allocated to the GBA support activity specifically as well, to see the strength of it? What other resources does Status of Women Canada need in order to fulfill all of its GBA functions, responsibilities, and research?
In other words, I'm just trying to get a handle on the people, the money, the responsibilities, and those things.
Director, Gender-Based Analysis and Accountability Directorate, Status of Women Canada
I think I'm going to answer parts of that--
Liberal
Director, Gender-Based Analysis and Accountability Directorate, Status of Women Canada
I will answer part of that question. In terms of resources, I would recommend that you ask our coordinator, Clare Beckton, when you have the next chance to meet her.
I certainly can talk to you about the roles and responsibilities. It's not 15 people. The whole directorate is 15 people. That includes support staff. We are looking at 10 analysts as the core group of people who are working.
Really, the roles and responsibilities are now being defined for that directorate. It's a new directorate. As you know, it combined three former directorates from Status of Women Canada. We are endeavouring to do exactly what your question is going towards. It is to give the kind of support to the departments so that each analyst can be sort of like a chaperone or someone to help out the capacity level of different departments. There are about two or three departments, depending on the size of departments. When you're chaperoning HRSDC, it's a little bit bigger than chaperoning a smaller one such as DFAIT, as an example, in terms of size. Their role and responsibility is support. It's support in terms of capacity building. It's providing gender analysis on the different initiatives the departments choose to work on from a gender-based analysis perspective.
Some are already doing a lot of capacity building--not only the analysts but the departments--and don't need as much hand holding as other departments do.
As I mentioned last time, the Treasury Board submission requirement is creating, if you like, a demand for the services of Status of Women Canada.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
So the whole group is 15 and you're going to 10. Are 10 analysts enough to chaperone all of the different departments? When you said, in terms of the resources we need to ask the coordinator...when I asked you how many dollars are allocated and whether they support activities, do you know that? Do you know how many dollars are allocated specifically?
Director, Gender-Based Analysis and Accountability Directorate, Status of Women Canada
Those resource questions--
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Again, they have to go.... Okay, so I'll go back to my question. On the 10 analysts, given the size of our government, do you think that is sufficient to really give the kind of push and clout that your group would need in all of the different departments? It's a fairly broad government.
Director, Gender-Based Analysis and Accountability Directorate, Status of Women Canada
Again, there's a need to clearly understand the role. The role is one of support on capacity-building in the departments. I'll have to say that I'll give you feedback in a year, because we're just starting that right now.
Director, Gender-Based Analysis and Accountability Directorate, Status of Women Canada
We're still staffing.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Okay. That was an important part.
Do I have any time left?
Liberal
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
It's not usually my case. Usually I'm cut off very quickly.
I'm just trying to pick up on some of the things we discussed at the last meeting.
Also, in your presentation on February 14, you mentioned that the Status of Women Canada assists central agencies and departments with applying a gender perspective to policy and program development in general.
Where does the financing of the GBA training and implementation come from for this particular role?
Director, Gender-Based Analysis and Accountability Directorate, Status of Women Canada
The department itself.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
So they have to have a separate budget that deals specifically with this kind of thing? Well, that's good.
In your comparative research project, will you also be including funding and resource commitments to GBA as part of your examination of the European approach to GBA? You're doing a comparative project, right?
Director, Gender-Based Analysis and Accountability Directorate, Status of Women Canada
Right. We are.
The question is not asked directly because the comparative analysis is basically going across the board in all the different departments to find out what they have in terms of resources and structure. The question is not necessarily directly asked, but it will come out, no doubt, in terms of some of the reaction. We're asking people basically about the kinds of challenges they're facing in integrating GBA inside a department. I haven't seen many of the answers yet. I can only assume that some of the departments...especially because they are interviewing where there are gender equality focal points. Perhaps the focal points will raise that as an issue in terms of resources.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Thank you.
We'll have the next round.
Madame Deschamps, sept minutes, s'il vous plaît.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Good day, ladies.
I'm not sure if the week off is to blame for my muddled brain, but I find that we have a considerable amount of material to pour over this morning.
Could you talk a little about this document? Is this something new? Did Status of Women Canada take the initiative of developing these indicators? How will these indicators be measured? I see that there is a working group on indicators and that you are part of this process. Will Status of Women Canada ensure that these indicators are adopted by the different departments? For now, this is a project, but I would imagine that one day, this will become a concrete initiative. How will accountability be assured? This project has been in the discussion stage for some time now. I believe the Government of Canada committed in 1995 to conducting a comparative gender-based analysis.
Basically, my question is as follows: Will you continue to play the lead role on this issue? You spoke about training. Are you also counting on that aspect?
Director, Gender-Based Analysis and Accountability Directorate, Status of Women Canada
No. However, on the question of leadership, the answer is yes. Status of Women Canada is the lead on this project. This past week, I read an article on developing indicators which was written in 2006. At present, very few governments use a set of indicators of this nature. Everyone has been working on comparative gender-based analyses projects since the eighties and nineties. Canada is truly the leader in this area, at least right now. Developing indicators doesn't happen overnight. It is a long, drawn-out process.
As far as this project is concerned, you will have noted that we are taking on a leadership role and that an interdepartmental committee has been struck. The government has a considerable amount of data. The most thankless job that remains to be done is compiling all of this data and ensuring that no duplication occurs. We need to find out how departments use these databases. Then, we need to develop a set of indicators, which will help us set priorities. We will not be using this for accountability purposes. Perhaps that will be the case later.
There is a very strategic aspect to these indicators. The difficult thing is that even if a department undertakes a specific initiative, it may not necessarily have an impact on the indicator in that area, whether economic or social. This is truly an approach that must be learned. We are on track with this project that was launched a year ago. It is an exciting initiative, one that has captured the attention of departments. They are very open to the idea of working with us. In any event, I really cannot tell you any more than what you can read in the presentation.
Bloc
Director, Gender-Based Analysis and Accountability Directorate, Status of Women Canada
Interestingly, there is a worldwide trend emerging. We're seeing it right now at the United Nations. Commonwealth nations are getting together to develop a set of indicators that all Commonwealth member governments can use and adopt. Globally, there seems to be an awareness of this phenomenon which again is tied to the notion of accountability.
The question is whether all of this training and these initiatives really bring about change. In the absence of data, indicators and information based on real numbers, it is really impossible to say if the lives of women have improved around the world. This approach is truly innovative and it is getting a lot of attention. People tend to embrace this concept more readily than if they were motivated by a sense of social injustice or something else. They want to be able to observe how women's lives will change over time.
