If I can just speak from the policy point of view, our role is to ensure that implications are assessed for any initiative coming forward, and that includes gender-based analysis. That includes asking the questions about the implications. If there is a differential impact, what is the impact? That's really our bread and butter at PCO in terms of asking those kinds of questions.
The interdepartmental meeting process for a policy initiative is very important. Concerning the issue of who decides what's appropriate, the department is ultimately the lead for doing the policy legwork. And it's incumbent on the central agencies--and that's PCO and I would include Status of Women Canada there--at an interdepartmental meeting process on a policy proposal to ask the tough questions, to ask what the implications are for women, what the implications are for men, and whether there is equality of outcomes in terms of what comes forward.
That's incumbent in our role as policy officers, as policy analysts, to ensure that the questions are asked and that they get asked and that the information is provided and is conveyed in the documents that are submitted to ministers.
At the end of the day, again, we are not the decision-makers, but our role is to ensure that ministers have the kind of information they need, that they understand the risks, that they understand the consequences, and that they understand the benefits. And at the end of the day, they have to make a decision based on their best judgment, looking at a number of factors.
In terms of the priorities, as I mentioned in my comments, the government's priorities are very much informed on the basis conveyed through the Speech from the Throne, of course, and through things like mandate letters to ministers. But through all of it, a gender-based lens--as it comes through a policy development process--would actually include questions around the gender-based analysis and the implications for men and for women.