Evidence of meeting #20 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 policy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson
Okay.
We will try one more round, but we're going to try to keep your remarks to three or three and a half minutes so everybody will get a turn.
The next person is Madame Boucher, please.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
If I understand correctly, you conduct a horizontal analysis. Regardless of which party is in power, there are ministers and an apparatus that is in place. However, the question is: have they been educated?
Have all the ministers been educated? Have they been told how important it is that GBA be included in certain policies? More and more, GBA must be included in as many programs as possible, so that no one is harmed.
Is there someone at Privy Council Office or at Treasury Board who is responsible for explaining to the ministers how it works and how important it is to perform gender-specific analysis of certain programs?
I realize that this is largely the minister's responsibility, but the department also has a role to play. Depending on which party is in power, the departments do not always follow the same guidelines—
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
10:30 a.m.
Assistant Secretary to Cabinet, Operations Secretariat, Privy Council Office
I can quickly comment that ministers are certainly supported by departmental officials. Normally, they would be briefed on any item that would come forward to a policy committee and provided with advice from their officials, and their officials would normally brief them on implications.
You also have Status of Women Canada through that process that would highlight any kinds of issues or problems that would have been identified in a policy initiative. You have a minister responsible for the status of women, who also has an opportunity.
As I said, that interdepartmental process at the officials' level tries to make sure the dots are connected and the issues are raised. I think it's through cabinet as well, because cabinet is also a collective body. There is every opportunity to ensure that those kinds of issues are identified through that process.
10:30 a.m.
Executive Director, Strategic Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
With respect to Treasury Board, after the policy has been developed it's much the same thing. There are various checkpoints. There's certainly the department. Our Treasury Board analysts work with the department to ensure their submission is as robust as possible. Ultimately, the department decides what to put forward in its submission through its minister.
Again, it's a challenge process throughout, as the submission makes its way to ministers. Certainly ministers may raise questions around whether or not a sufficient gender-based analysis has been completed. Our senior managers who present these submissions to ministers have to be in a position to be able to respond to those questions. Again, it's embedded throughout the process.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson
Thank you.
We will now go to Madame Deschamps, three minutes.
Again, I would remind you to keep your questions as succinct as possible.
10:30 a.m.
Bloc
Johanne Deschamps Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Mr. Wild, I would like to come back to what you said earlier about strategic review. I am wondering about this, because I know that tools are being implemented for GBA. It is easier for me to understand what has been done and what already exists, because we can determine whether programs work in light of this GBA evaluation criterion.
You state that currently, and I don't know whether you mean as of 2007, you evaluate 25% of existing programs per year. I would like to know how that works. When you conduct this evaluation, you can determine whether or not GBA has been taken into account in the implementation of these programs. If there is a problem, and it can be shown that what happens is discriminatory against women, what happens then? I realize that promises to embed GBA in the programs are merely lip service, because at the end of the day, it is the government that decides whether it is one of its priorities.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
10:35 a.m.
Bloc
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Strategic Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
Again, as part of the strategic review process, the organizations that have been picked to participate in a given year are expected to assess the performance of all of their programs and spending to ensure that they're achieving the purpose for which they were created. Whatever the particular objective is for that program, if the program has as part of its objective a gender-related issue, then it's going to be integrated into the assessment whether or not that program's performance is actually achieving whatever gender outcome that program was looking to achieve.
In turn, if the program is having unintended consequences, again, you would expect that to be picked up in the strategic review process. Ultimately what the strategic review process is doing is requiring organizations to then develop proposals for how they would reallocate and reinvest based on the performance of their programs and spending.
Again, it's very much up to the departments to go through this process. Treasury Board Secretariat performs a challenge function as they work through their strategic review. The department comes forward then with their proposal, which, as I mentioned before, takes into account a whole host of issues. Ultimately that's brought before Treasury Board ministers, who make some decisions. Ultimately it goes to cabinet to be rolled into the budget process.
We're there to provide advice, to give our best advice on whether or not we think a given program has an issue or not. Ultimately it's for ministers to decide.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
10:35 a.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I was quite taken by what you said, Ms. Biguzs, in regard to the need to have voices outside of government. Yes, we need those internally working, but there remains that all-important external voice. By that voice challenging, I assume what's meant is those people with the ability to do the research, to do the advocacy, to do the lobbying. Of course we've lost that with the disappearance or at least the underfunding of NAWL and the loss of CRIAW. I guess only FAFIA remains in terms of that external voice with the strength to influence government.
With that in mind, I was wondering if PCO and Treasury have any further plans to implement the recommendations from the committee's 2005 “Gender-Based Analysis: Building Blocks for Success”. Maybe that is another kind of kick in the pants to government to stay the course and make sure that we do have the GBA we need.
10:35 a.m.
Assistant Secretary to Cabinet, Operations Secretariat, Privy Council Office
Certainly at PCO I think we've taken very seriously the recommendations from that report. In fact we've acted on them in terms of the role of the champion and embedding training. We're trying to improve the training all the time. Each and every year, I think, we learn a little bit more in terms of how to try to tailor the training a little bit better to PCO. We hope this year's training will be that much better than next year's.
So as I say, we feel it's a building process that we are working incrementally toward, and we'll continue to do so.
10:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Strategic Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
I echo the comments on the training. In addition, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we're very much looking at continuing with our action plan to address the recommendations that were specific to TBS. And we're continuing to work with our tools, MRRS and MAF, to ensure that we are contributing to departmental awareness of the importance of GBA.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson
Okay, you have 30 seconds, if you want to use them, for question and answer. So they'll need to be quick.
10:35 a.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Oh, my goodness.
We have an official definition of GBA from Status of Women Canada. Is that the same definition you use in PCO and Treasury Board?
10:40 a.m.
Assistant Secretary to Cabinet, Operations Secretariat, Privy Council Office
Yes.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson
All right, we'll move, then, to Mr. Stanton for three minutes, please.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Wild, just following along, we got started with the MRRS program, and the second part you talked about was the management accountability framework. In your summary remarks you talk about the two being, essentially, tools that are going to be used for ensuring that GBA considerations have been taken.
Could you tell me the essential differences between those two tools? Both seem to be dealing with the measurement of whether resources have been applied properly. What's the principal difference between those two systems?
10:40 a.m.
Executive Director, Strategic Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
They're actually doing two different but complementary things.
MRRS is about the actual results, about program performance and the results of spending. It's about ensuring that your program is actually achieving the outcome you intended, and it's doing so in a way that is effective and efficient.
MAF is actually about management capacity. It's a tool for assessing whether a department, in certain key indicator areas--and we have 21 of those, so in 21 areas of management--exhibits behaviours that are exemplary in terms of those particular management areas, like values and ethics, stewardship, and that sort of thing.
They come together to form a whole. They give you an entire picture of a department at the end of the day. But MRRS is specifically about program performance and the results the spending is generating.