Status of Women Committee on April 10th, 2008

[Sheila Fraser]

At times in our audits we do benchmarking with other countries, and we could certainly point to best practices or other practices. It's not very often that we recommend that government apply it, but we certainly do comparisons. We're cautious in how we phrase these things, but that is the kind of work we could do.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Yes, I understand the need for delicate, persuasive, and dulcet tones.

What is your understanding of Canada's accountability obligations in regard to the federal plan for gender equality and the Beijing platform on which it's based?

[Sheila Fraser]

I'm sorry, I really haven't gone into this. We would have to do an audit and do work on that area, and we haven't done anything on that. So I'm really not familiar with that.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

But you would be prepared to take a look at it, so that—

[Sheila Fraser]

When committees have a motion—and I know the chair is quite familiar with this from previous experience on another committee—asking us to do audits in certain areas, we certainly try to accede to those requests.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Based on your previous experience, how important is transparency in assessing the efficacy of cross-departmental policy initiatives?

[Sheila Fraser]

Clear objectives, clear definitions of roles and responsibilities, and clear holding to account, that somebody be held to account at the end of the day for a success or not, is vital to the success of any of these large cross-governmental programs.

So transparency is very important, but underlying that is the implementation and how it's actually working on the ground, and obviously the allocation of resources is also important.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you for that.

I think we've heard in a number of instances that there is a concern about the accountability. The department says something is done, but how do we know? We've actually received a GBA analysis from the finance department on 2006 and 2007, and 2008 as well, I think. We've had some concern about where is that watchdog that's going to say no, you need to go back and you need to do better? So I appreciate that very much.

You mentioned funding attached to this work. Is it reasonable, then, to expect that a broad-based initiative such as GBA would succeed better if there were specific dollars attached to it?

[Sheila Fraser]

Possibly, though the reality in government departments is that even if specific funding is given, there is often no accountability that the funding has actually been used for that project. It can be transferred to other projects.

It's the realization that if there is an expectation that something be done, you have to provide the resources to have it done well. That is really a commitment from the senior management across government that these things will be done.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

When you conduct audits, do you take women's equality into account? Is that something you habitually have as part of your consideration?

[Sheila Fraser]

To be quite honest, no. It depends on the issues.

For example, a few years ago we did audits of the Correctional Service of Canada. We looked at the programs in the prisons and specifically at programs for women, knowing they had to be distinct from the programs for the men. When there's a clear division like that, we will look at it, but if we're doing a program such as old age security, we will not specifically look at whether that analysis been done on this program or if there are any unintended effects. We will simply be taking the policy decision and the program and auditing to see if they're being implemented as they should be in the program.

If there is a clear women-related to or gender-specific outcome, we will then look at it, but I don't recall having seen that in very many programs.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Would your mandate have to be amended in order for you to do a gender-based analysis across the board as a general practice?

[Sheila Fraser]

No, it would not have to be amended. I think we'd have to think about how we would actually do that if there's no specific requirement in a program, because we often go back to see if they are managing as expected and if they are managing for the outcomes they set for themselves, if they are not considering that.

I suppose we could ask in our audits if they are considering this. We could indicate if they are or not, but in many of the programs I don't think we could go much further than that at this point.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Yes, I see the sticky ground that you'd get into.

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, but it's something we can do. We don't need to have legislation to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Madam Fraser, I'd like to exercise the chair's prerogative on something. I've listened to everybody's questions; I have sat on public accounts and heard you express a lot of frustration about things in aboriginal communities and areas of value for money.

If you're doing value-for-money audit, and the government spends $200 billion on programs or tax cuts or whatever it does and still we do not have social justice--we still have poverty, we still have drinking water issues, we still have housing issues, etc.--would a gender-based analysis, if it were given a framework that asked all departments to look at eight components to help them in GBA, be a starting point and be a tool if the auditor ever were to do a value-for-money audit on how government effectively spends its money?

We've heard from Status of Women; they do the training. We have heard from central agencies, and they that feel they're doing it, but when we do third-party verification, there is a huge variance of what GBA is and what GBA should be--you know, gender budgets--and its impact.

If you were to do value-for-money accounting or value-for-money audits, and you found a framework, would that help?

[Sheila Fraser]

Let me just go back.

As I mentioned earlier, we cannot do evaluations of programs; we can only look to see if government is applying the management principles that they are expected to apply. If there is an expectation--and it could be simply a policy or even a broad commitment by government--that they are doing gender-based analysis in programs and policies, we can audit to see if that is actually happening. We can also ask them if they are doing the evaluations necessary to know if they are meeting the objectives that are set out.

You mentioned aboriginal. Aboriginal is different because the federal government has a clear responsibility. An example is education: they have a clear responsibility to provide education, so we ask them if they are providing it, how they are providing it, and how they know what's happening. We don't actually go in ourselves to assess the educational outcomes; we ask the departments if they know, and how they are producing it.

We could do the same sort of thing on gender-based issues, but we can't ourselves do the evaluation of programs, and I suspect that is where much of the frustration in the third-party groups is coming from; the outcomes are not what they would hope they would be, but to be a little blunt, that's the case with many programs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Mr. Pearson is next, for five minutes.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. You took my question on the framework.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I'm sorry.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Welcome; it's nice to have you with us.

Do a little Politics 101 with me, if you don't mind; I'm a fairly new parliamentarian here. The frustration I think many of us feel around the table is that when we hear from some departments around this issue of gender budgeting, they say they're doing all the things they're supposed to be doing; then, of course, we get witnesses coming in who say the outcomes aren't meeting that.

I'm trying to figure out the parameters you have within your department. If your department did an analysis of GBA and you delivered your findings, is the government bound to follow them?

[Sheila Fraser]

No, we have only the power of recommendation.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

It is just recommendation; okay.

You talked about parameters. You talked about the Commissioner of Official Languages having broader parameters than, say, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Who establishes those parameters?

[Sheila Fraser]

Those were established by Parliament in the legislation given to each commissioner. It's a little different, I think, for official languages, because the commissioner has a specific act on one issue, whereas the Office of the Auditor General deals with a multitude of acts, and the Commissioner of the Environment does as well. We are really more in an audit role, and when you're in the role of audit, you have to remain objective about, and independent from, the actual policy itself.

We deal with the implementation of policy, the management side. As was mentioned, obviously we can bring in benchmarking to see the best practices elsewhere and those kinds of things, but we can't comment directly on policy.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

In this recent budget, budget 2008, an action plan was announced and put in place by the government to further the equality of women across Canada. With that in place, would you be able to evaluate the progress made towards that plan?