Status of Women Committee on June 2nd, 2009

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Do I have more time?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

You have about five seconds.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Can you comment briefly on how we can address the needs and the interests of a wide variety of women, not just sort of that narrow--

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

That was five seconds. I'm sorry, but your time's up.

We'll now move to Monsieur Desnoyers, please, for five minutes.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Fraser, I read part of your report when you tabled it to the Public Accounts committee. Everyone was a little taken aback at the time by the state of this file. The situation seemed rather dire. According to the report, in only one of seven departments, in only 4 of 68 initiatives and in only thirty cases have gender impacts been considered.

While I assume that all of these analyses were done by expert GBA persons, I am somewhat concerned that TBS does not consider GBA, even though women may be adversely impacted. Did you come to this realization as you did your analysis? How could you disregard this?

[Sheila Fraser]

All I can tell you is that there is nothing in the way of a policy or requirement that says the government must implement the practice of gender-based analysis. Therefore, until such time as this expectation is clarified, I would have to say that not doing a gender-based analysis has no impact. Some departments do not do gender-based analyses and that fact seems to be widely accepted.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

So then, analysts like yourself disregard the negative impacts?

[Neil Bouwer]

I have to say that at PCO, we are very proud of the quality of our analyses.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

You haven't answered my question. I was asking if you would disregard any potential negative impacts on women.

[Neil Bouwer]

There are many cases where we turn over our analysis to the minister, for example, our briefing to the chair of the Cabinet committee...

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

And the Minister of State for the Status of Women disregards these negative impacts?

[Neil Bouwer]

Status of Women Canada analysts take part in interdepartmental meetings at which topics related to women's equality, how men are impacted, and so forth, are discussed. We take everything into account.

We always ensure that the information is brought to the attention of ministers where appropriate. I have been in discussions at cabinet committees where—

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

In only 4 of the 68 initiatives reviewed was there evidence of a fully integrated GBA analysis. The same cannot necessarily be said for the remaining 64 initiatives. Therefore, there could possibly be some negative impacts.

Ms. Fraser, you spoke of documents to which you did not have access. Can you tell me more about that?

[Sheila Fraser]

It is more that the role of PCO and, to a lesser extent, that of TBS, is not documented. The stipulation is that it is done verbally and an indication that a challenge activity has been carried out can be found in a recommendation to a minister or in another document which we cannot, and have no desire to access. We expect this analysis to be documented at PCO, to be reported on in the documents to which we do have access.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Basically, you cannot say whether or not there is any record of these analyses.

[Sheila Fraser]

We're informed of them but of course, we haven't seen the documents.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Chair, would it be possible for the committee to consult the documents to which the Auditor General did not have access?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

We'll have to find out from the clerk where we can get those documents.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

At the very least, it would be interesting to read about the discussions that took place and to get some idea of the government's response.

[Sheila Fraser]

My feeling is that you will not be able to see these documents, since they consist of recommendations to a minister.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Chair, I would still like you to inquire if it's possible to obtain some information about this. Consider this a formal request.

The government made a serious commitment in 1995, but I have the impression that we have advanced no further than 1997 on this matter. It makes no sense. If we cannot get our hands on information that Ms. Fraser claims was not disclosed to her office, then I think the committee is poorly informed on this subject and not equipped to make fair and equitable recommendations.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Desnoyers.

Just so committee members are aware, lunch is there because we work through the lunch hour and go directly on to other meetings. Lunch is for the committee members and also for our guests, because they are going directly to question period. So it is for the Serbian delegation also.

We will now go to Ms. Mathyssen for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, thank you for being here.

Item 1.69 in the recommendations in the report indicates that Treasury Board Secretariat, Privy Council, and Finance should document the challenge function they exercise when they review the spending initiatives and policy proposals submitted by departments and agencies for consideration by cabinet. The response from the agency was that they disagreed, and that it's the primary responsibility of sponsoring departments to conduct the appropriate analysis in respect to new policies and programs. It seemed to me that this was rather a circuitous kind of response.

Is this acceptable? And secondly, what kind of response to this entire report would you like to see from government? How would you like to see this government react and deal with this report?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Obviously we disagree with the government. If we made a recommendation, it's because we think that the challenge function should be documented. Government does not agree with this. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. All we can do is have a discussion before a parliamentary committee. I mean, if government says, no, they're not going to do it, we can only recommend.

I would say, though, aside from that, on the other recommendations, the agencies--I'd say in particular Status of Women Canada--have certainly agreed with all of the recommendations and have actually laid out in their response some pretty concrete actions that they plan to take. So we are pleased with the responses there. We always ask or encourage that there be more detailed action plans that give clearer indication of who's responsible, and by what timelines things will be done.

Generally, for committees--we would do this with the public accounts committee, but this committee may want to as well--we ask for kind of regular follow-ups to monitor the progress, because many of these initiatives are not going to happen in a question of weeks or even months. Some of these can take quite a long time to do, and we just want to ensure that there is that sustained attention by management to the commitments that have been made.

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

Thank you.

I'm really pleased to see that we have two champions here. I have great faith in your commitment to doing your job and fulfilling your obligations.

From this report, it seems there are still things falling through the cracks. What do you need in order to do the job you would like to do, to really make gender budget analysis an integral and reliable part of policy-making?