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.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Is it monetary performance? Is it actual specific outcomes, whereas the other is sort of cultural outcomes?
Executive Director, Strategic Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
No. MRRS is about programs, right? So you have a given grants and contributions program, or whatever it might be that your particular business line is. You're undertaking an activity, and that activity has to generate a result of some kind. The idea behind MRRS, with a couple of other tools, is to ensure that your program is actually aligned with the objective you're seeking to achieve. MRRS gives you a means to measure that performance. So you're required to decide how you're going to measure program performance to assess whether it's actually working, whether it's a success. Is it generating the results you intended?
MAF is about management. MAF if a tool very much about the secretariat assessing whether there are management weaknesses in the capacities of departments so that we better understand where we need to spend time and energy to help departments build up their management capacity. And I'm talking specifically about management of the organization, not the programs.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
How do you measure that in MAF? How are you measuring management capacity?
Executive Director, Strategic Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
Well, it's a fairly interesting, lengthy process, and I don't think I can cover it all in the time we have.
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Perhaps we could talk about it more on Thursday. I'd appreciate that.
Executive Director, Strategic Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
Okay, but in 30 seconds, what MAF is doing is that it has a set of indicators, which are basically behaviours we look to see modelled within departments. Under those are a whole host of measures. So there are specific pieces of evidence that would support whether that behaviour is real or not.
We basically go to departments and ask them to provide us with the information on those pieces of evidence we're looking for. Then we assess whether the department is doing well, has room for improvement, and is a leader. We basically have a maturity model we map that against to see where the department sits in each of the 21 areas of management.
Conservative
Conservative
Bruce Stanton Conservative Simcoe North, ON
I just wanted to find out when MAF started. I asked earlier about MRRS. How far back did this start?
Executive Director, Strategic Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
MAF started in 2003, and we're currently doing our fifth round.
Conservative
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Thank you.
I have six or eight questions, but I'll ask two and come back to you on Thursday. Both of them are for the PCO.
The PCO plays primarily a sort of gatekeeper role as MCs come through for cabinet. At present, what documents must be submitted by the departments to support the claim that a GBA has been done?
Second, in 2005 this committee's report on gender-based analysis recommended that the government initiate consultations aimed at the development of legislation. This legislation would ensure the systemic application of gender-based analysis to all federal policy and program activities. The committee also recommended that the PCO establish a secretariat with responsibility to ensure the development and eventual implementation of effective gender equality legislation.
Are you aware of discussions since the committee's report about this development, and have you provided any information? I know that Minister Frulla wanted to establish legislation and was getting close to that.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson
You have a minute and a half left for a response, please.
Assistant Secretary to Cabinet, Operations Secretariat, Privy Council Office
The PCO has a policy challenge function role, so as part of the MC process the PCO would ask departments to provide information that would demonstrate the gender-based analysis. It would also, as appropriate, ask them to include a reference or something in the memorandum to cabinet to explain the implications of gender-based analysis.
The PCO has followed up on the 2005 report by appointing a GBA champion and embedding training. I'm not familiar with more recent discussions that have taken place on the issue of legislation. Because the PCO is a central agency, we wouldn't normally have a secretariat created within it to deliver something. Normally that would be the responsibility of a lead minister, a lead department. So any of the follow-up looking at the options for moving forward with legislation would probably be the responsibility of the minister responsible for the status of women.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
When I say “specific documents”, we were told by government representatives that the segregated data was difficult to get, but everybody outside of government has told us that not only is it available but it's easy to get. Stats Canada has all the information, and so on.
What specific documentation or information is required by the PCO when a document comes forward, when a potential MC is looked at, to make sure that the information is quality information?
Assistant Secretary to Cabinet, Operations Secretariat, Privy Council Office
I think we do the best we can in asking departments to provide analysis, data, and information, and incorporate that in the MC, to the extent they have access to it in the department and can include it in the analysis of the proposal being put forward.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson
Thank you.
A couple of things have been mentioned here this morning. One is the flow chart of responsibility that we would like you to bring to our next meeting on Thursday that the chair talked about.
Mr. Wild, you talked about the strategic review. Could you provide us with information on Thursday about how that relates to a new budget, or is it done on old budgets? There's some clarity needed. So if you could bring that on Thursday that would be good.
Executive Director, Strategic Policy, Treasury Board Secretariat
Sure. We undertook strategic reviews this fiscal year. They fed into budget 2008. There are specific references in the budget to how the strategic review was used to reallocate funding from low-priority programming in the departments that were reviewed to other priority areas of spending. It's all set out in the budget 2008 document. I'd be more than happy to provide that.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson
That would be great.
I believe Madame Demers had requested something for Thursday as well, another chart.
Assistant Secretary to Cabinet, Operations Secretariat, Privy Council Office
We'll have to clarify that the tool we use on gender-based analysis is a manual that's been put together for us by Status of Women Canada. We'll just have to make sure that Status of Women Canada are all right in terms of our being able to share that information.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
You said yourself that in your department, you had developed the tool and strategic questions to be asked to determine whether GBA was indeed part of the different MCs that are submitted to you.
That's what I would like to see, the questions that you ask and the questions you ask yourselves. I don't want to see only the traditional tools used by Status of Women Canada, but also the tools that you have developed within PCO in order to—
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Patricia Davidson
Okay, so that's understood. We do need to have the documents in both official languages, as well, otherwise we can't circulate them to the committee.
Again, I would like to thank you very much for appearing here this morning and answering the many questions that we have, and probably tweaking some more questions that we will have for Thursday.
Before the committee leaves, I want to remind you of the invitation that we're to meet with the delegation of women parliamentarians from Afghanistan. It is in Room 214 Wellington, and it is at three o'clock this afternoon, right after question period. It's for all members of this committee.
We'll declare this meeting adjourned.