Status of Women Committee on April 15th, 2008

[Robert Wright, Deputy Minister, Department of Finance]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure for me to be here today.

It has been about a year since my last appearance before the committee. I remain proud of the progress we're making on gender-based analysis in the department. I know my colleagues, Louise Levonian and Mireille Éthier, were here for an extended discussion of our work.

I think we continue to make progress. We've established a very comprehensive training process for all new employees. We provide a comprehensive gender-based analysis for every issue in our budget, particularly for the tax-related initiatives. We've talked about that in this committee. This is a very comprehensive approach, which I think went beyond what the government committed to do in 2005 and 2006. We feel it was the right thing to do and that it does enrich the advice we provide to our minister.

The department's role, as you know, is to support the Minister of Finance, who is responsible for managing the preparation of the government's budget. We work closely with all the other departments in government to assess progress and take annual actions in that regard. Our preoccupation as well is with the overall economic health of the country.

We're anxious to see that our gender-based analysis.... We don't analyze the macroeconomic aspects, but I'd be happy to take questions on that. It is a key driver for all Canadians, and therefore we do assess outcomes in that regard as well.

In conclusion, I would say that we're proud of the progress we've made. We think we've gone beyond what the government committed to do. We feel it's the right thing to do. We provide a broader base of advice to our ministers and to the government in that regard. And we will continue to build on this progress.

Again, I'm happy to be here and take your questions.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

For your information, the German delegation has just arrived. They are from the status of women.... We've had an interesting meeting with them. I will let them settle before I start the first round of questions.

Ms. Minna, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have several questions.

My first one has to do with departmental staffing with respect to gender analysis. I'll give you a few under this particular topic. Does the department have an autonomous and trained gender analysis unit? When was this unit established? How is it staffed in terms of the staffing ability? What disciplines are involved in this unit--for example accounting, tax policy, economic statistics, women's poverty? What specific training in carrying out gender analysis of tax spending and budgetary materials have staff in this unit received? Who does the head of the unit report to? These are all questions related to that specific area.

[Robert Wright]

We don't have a separate gender-based analysis unit; we have a champion, a senior executive, Louise Levonian. We've instituted a process to train all new staff in gender-based analysis. We've worked with Canadian Status of Women in terms of outlining the program for that analysis. Everyone who is hired in the government gets a brief in terms of our approach to gender-based analysis for budget initiatives.

I guess the centre of expertise in our department for the last couple of years has been the tax policy branch. We're able to ensure that there are case studies from the work we do, which people review. And as I say, the training process for all employees has been worked out with Status of Women. I think they find our work helpful.

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

So with the exception of the champion, who is one individual trying to get it through, there isn't an actual focused unit that is able to look at all government policy--it all comes through Finance in any case--and tax policy, and also from an economics point of view.

[Robert Wright]

No, there's not. In fact, there's a deliberate choice made there. Perhaps you could do that, but we would rather have all our analysts familiar with the analytical approach to that. So it's not one unit; it's all units.

Although we started in tax policy, we've now broadened that analysis to the entire department, and I think it's something that will work more effectively than having one unit apply a test to everybody's ideas. People have to infiltrate that notion into all of their analysis.

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

My other question then would be with respect to the departmental implementation of the federal action plan for gender equality. Does the department have a formal gender analysis policy? If you do, when was the start date, and could we have a copy?

[Robert Wright]

I don't believe we do have a formal policy. I know we report on progress through our annual report on plans and priorities to Treasury Board, and we could certainly look at our assessment of that. That's a benchmark for progress we make on all the government's policies, and we'd be happy to share that with you.

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

I'd appreciate that very much.

[Robert Wright]

Not at all.

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

So there's no formal policy. What training materials, specifically gender analysis of taxation and spending items, has the gender analysis unit developed?

[Robert Wright]

I could have Louise go through the details of it, but it would apply to the eight-step approach to analysis that we've worked out with the Status of Women, plus case studies of how we approach specific analyses or specific issues within the department.

Perhaps, Louise, you could comment on that.

[Louise Levonian, General Director, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister's Office, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance]

That's exactly it. We work with the Status of Women. The courses we've provided at the department we have developed with the Status of Women. We did a pilot project in 2005 for training, and then we undertook training in January, two separate courses for 30 analysts. We have the Status of Women as expertise when we need them, when we have questions, and I'm a resource in the department as well when it comes to our analysts doing gender-based analysis.

We feel that having the analysts do the gender-based analysis is better, for our particular purposes. The measures we implement are technical in nature. We feel if the analysts themselves are closer to the measures, there's a better capacity to do good gender-based analysis having received the training.

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

Do I still have time, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Yes, you do. You have three minutes.

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

Thank you.

I want to go now to a different area, the relationship of 2006 and 2007 gender analysis documents to the budget process we received. Were these gender analyses prepared before the budget was finalized, or afterwards?

[Robert Wright]

It would be after. They are a compilation of the individual items that were sent, as part of the budget process itself, and I don't think we rolled it up until after the budget.

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

There was...?

[Robert Wright]

I'm sorry. Let me be clear.

For the budget process, every initiative that goes up to the budget, whether it is in the budget or not, has had a gender-based analysis, and in these reports we've rolled up all the decisions from the budget and put them into one package after the budget is out. So it's not released with the budget. It's not part of the public document.

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

But the work is done before?

[Robert Wright]

The work is done before.

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

And I presume you have data that you worked up on these issues.

Do we have that, Madam Chair? The actual data that was used?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

No, we don't have that.

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

I'm asking if we could obtain that.

[Robert Wright]

First of all, we've provided a template of the analysis we do on each budget initiative, which shows you the situates, the gender-based analysis to the overall analysis, and I think we've also committed to the Status of Women and others to put one of our analyses on the website as a case study, and we're going to put on the working income tax benefit as a case study.

When is that going on? Is that today?