Status of Women Committee on April 8th, 2008

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for coming today.

We've heard a great deal about the successes of Citizenship and Immigration. I know CIDA does a great deal of this as well.

My first question--and I have a series of questions I can ask. Mr. Oberle, you've said that while the legislation was not the catalyst, it helped to get it going, but it was not necessary. Can you tell me when the legislation first included gender?

[Peter Oberle]

Madam Chair, I'll ask Allison Little Fortin to respond to that.

[Allison Little Fortin, Director, Corporate Planning and Reporting, Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada]

The original impetus for looking at GBA as part of the development of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act went as far back as the 1995 government commitment to gender equality and gender-based analysis as a key motivator for that. As we went forward in developing the department, we took that commitment very seriously.

At the time, a gender-based unit was hired and put in place to review the act. Some of the work in terms of training of policy analysts to assist in building that capacity within the department was put in place at that time. As some of you may remember, we published a GBA of the act and of the regulations in the Canada Gazette as we went through the process.

The actual reporting requirement came out of a motion at the committee stage of the act, and it was agreed to by our department, but to be honest, it wasn't part of the original thought-through process.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm sorry, when was that? I'm trying to recall the timelines.

[Allison Little Fortin]

It was in 2001, at the committee stage of the approval of IRPA.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's when we were going through the major...because I was part of the process at the time. I was parliamentary secretary to the minister, I think, and we were going through the new immigration act. It was part of that process, was it?

[Allison Little Fortin]

Yes.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I just wanted to get a timeframe as to how long you've been doing this kind of work.

To go back to you, Mr. Oberle, my next question has to do with the fact that you said the legislation is not necessary, that it could have been done in other ways. I think you did also say that the legislative requirement was a catalyst to actually getting this done and spreading it across the department.

You've given me a couple of examples with respect to child-minding and ESL, but if you could, explain to us exactly what impact getting the legislation going has had on the overall planning of immigration, as you plan not just recommend categories but priorities, criteria, that kind of thing. How has the legislation impacted on that kind of thing?

[Peter Oberle]

The first point I want to make is that we were doing gender-based analysis before the legislation came along. In fact, we'd done a gender-based analysis of the proposed legislation, and then it got fed into legislation to do that.

When the legislation was set, it brought an increased focus to gender-based analysis for CIC. Fundamentally, it got us to develop a framework for the department, the kind of framework that said we need to build capacity to do gender-based analysis across the department, so we're going to need to build our knowledge, build our training. Secondly, it said we need to turn that capacity into action, so we're going to need branch plans and a template and process to manage and get those branch plans done, signed off by directors general. It brought that focus, that structure, to CIC. I think that was the fundamental impact.

Again, I would underline that I think it also brought sustainability to CIC. That annual reporting is a sharp focus for us.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That legislation in fact did bring focus and sustainability and, to some degree, I guess, accountability.

I do recall your department doing some GBA, or at least we didn't call it that, because I was a volunteer with an organization called COSTI, and I do remember the child-minding program, but back in the 1970s—late 1970s, early 1980s, anyway. So you have been—I know that—and that's encouraging.

As a department, are you aware of any other department at the moment in the government that is doing this? There's no other legislation. Yours is the only one. I know you said that, but is there any other department in the government right now, apart from CIDA, actually doing that kind of work? Are you working with any departments to share your experience to help build the framework and the capacity, the branch plan, the training, all of the good things you've done? Is that expertise being shared anywhere? Are you involved with any other department?

[Peter Oberle]

If I may, I'll ask Julie to pipe in on that one. I know we participate in an interdepartmental committee, led by Status of Women, where some of the sharing is done.

Julie, if you'd like, jump in on that.

[Julie Fontaine, Senior Analyst, Gender-Based Analysis, Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada]

Sure. There actually is an interdepartmental committee that is led by Status of Women. I think approximately 13 departments are part of that committee, that are all involved in doing gender-based analysis. You named one earlier: CIDA. Also, Indian and Northern Affairs is part of that committee, and quite a few other ones, such as Justice--

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

What about Finance, which is the core of the departments? Is your experience being used by Finance at all?

[Julie Fontaine]

The central agencies actually have been approached lately to be part of the interdepartmental committee, and I believe Treasury Board and PCO are. I'm not sure that Finance is at this stage, but maybe that would be a question for Status of Women.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Can you give us a couple more examples, apart from the one you did with respect to child-minding? How has that changed certain policy? You might have gone down one track, but then it's really changed it. How does it affect the actual outcome of some of that?

[Jeff Daly, Manager, Program Development and Analysis Unit, Resettlement Division, Refugees Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada]

I can't speak directly to the child-minding piece, but I work in the resettlement division of the refugees branch, and one of the pieces we've been trying to develop over the course of time, within policy specifically, is large-scale resettlement of our most vulnerable refugees. Refugees are the most vulnerable people we bring into this country.

One of the projects we've undertaken, where we did do a gender-based analysis on the pre-selection and post-selection, was on a group of Karen refugees, and I'm not sure if this committee is familiar with that, but it's a group of refugees out of Thailand. In 2005 and 2006 we started to bring in about 810, and we've been doing that every year now. The GBA for the Karen refugee group processing initiative identified factors of potential mitigating strategies in refugee pre-selection and post-selection, so it gave us an idea as to what we should be looking at and what we could build upon for when the refugees actually arrive in relation to their integration into Canada.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm sorry, in the selection...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Madam Minna, I'm sorry, your time is up.

I'm sorry, go ahead. Complete your sentence.

[Jeff Daly]

I would just say that the factors we actually looked at specifically were women at risk, female heads of households, risk of permanent separation of family members, issues linked to age--because we're looking at gender-based analysis from an age perspective as well--implications of large numbers of de facto dependants, and possible consequences of admissibility screening. We were trying to build this into our own analysis so that we would have a good sense of who would be arriving in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Deschamps, you have seven minutes.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I will be sharing my time with my colleague, if I may, since we have had quite a thorough overview of gender-based analysis.

What I find interesting about Citizenship and Immigration Canada is that you have been very proactive. You have been trying to implement this kind of analysis in your department since 1995. Can you tell me why you decided to include gender-based analysis when the new legislation was implemented? What did it provide that was new? Did it enable your department to gather data?

[Allison Little Fortin]

We took...

If you don't mind, I'll do this in English, because it's going to go faster and time is of the essence.

At the time when the act was coming forward, we took a commitment to gender-based analysis and to gender equality seriously, and we did a lot of work to ensure that the new provisions--the selection criteria, other parts of the act--would not negatively impact men or women. As we were doing that and trying to build that capacity in our department, I think the discussion at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration was around, how will we know this is working if we don't have a review of it after the fact? So a motion was put forward, and the decision at the time was to include it into our ongoing reporting against the act, so to look at what the gender-based impacts of the act and the implementation of the act were over time. That was the original thought behind that, and it was welcomed and included in the act as the government went forward with the bill.

As for what it has done, as Peter said, it has been a catalyst for us to make sure we think through what we need to do: how do we make sure this continues, where do we look at and prioritize where we do our analysis, and where do we focus as we move to implement this requirement?

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Good morning. Thank you for being here.

Mr. Oberle, you talked about your analysis of the various categories of refugee claimants in Canada. In the documents provided to us by our researchers, I see that the largest group, after skilled workers, is live-in caregivers; the largest number of women coming to work in Canada fall into that category. You told us that your analysis placed particular focus on that aspect. I imagine that you made recommendations to the department on the basis of your analyses.

Have all of those recommendations been implemented? Was the work that you do taken into account? If not, this work does not lead to significant change.

I would also like to know how the inter-departmental committee that you created identifies its priorities. You told us that the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs was represented on the committee. And yet, shelters for aboriginal women are having a great deal of difficulty.

I would also like to know, Mr. Oberle, how your employees benefit from what you are defending. Do you have pay equity?

[Peter Oberle]

There are a few questions there. Let's try to take them one by one.

What Julie was describing was our participation in an interdepartmental committee with Indian Affairs and other departments. Correct me if I'm wrong, Julie, but one of the primary objectives of that committee is to be a forum for sharing knowledge and lessons as departments proceed to develop tools and build knowledge. Within CIC, we have a few tools and pieces of knowledge to share.

But that takes me to your second point, which I think was directed at the commitment we're seeing across the department. I think we are expressing a commitment today and you're asking if that's alive and well across the department. I'm pretty new to CIC, and from what I've seen of gender-based analysis over the last few months, I'm really excited to be a part of it. I'm not just saying that; I've been in government for 23 years--I've seen a lot of programs developed--and I've got to take my hat off to my predecessors for what they've developed and what this framework looks like.

I can tell you that the progress that CIC has made, and the quality of that framework, is really a testament to the commitment of folks across CIC. If I speak to an ADM or somebody in this branch, at a minimum they are aware of it, but there's more typically a passion around the issue. As I was saying earlier, it's something that really comes naturally to the department, and I do see the take-up across the department. The evidence for that is that we're seeing branches that want to be trained. We've trained 200 people. We're seeing branch plans becoming increasingly rich and more numerous.

I think that would be my best answer to that.