Status of Women Committee on June 2nd, 2009

[Clare Beckton]

Thank you for your question, Ms. Neville.

Obviously Status of Women will be working with Treasury Board and PCO to look at each of the steps required for implementation. One of the factors is looking at the specific needs of the individual departments and what will be required in terms of clarification, for example, of which departments do not yet have a full framework for implementing gender-based analysis. We will have to look together with the central agencies to determine the specific actions required with each particular department, and I have a commitment from my colleagues at Treasury Board and at PCO to work together on this.

I would have to ask Hélène if we have a particular time, but it certainly will not be before sometime in the late fall that we would be able to do this.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Do you require any additional resources?

[Clare Beckton]

We will be working within the resources we currently have and we will do this in the most effective way. As was said by the central agencies, the accountability at the end of the day for doing gender-based analysis rests with the individual departments, and not with Status of Women Canada or central agencies. We play a role, obviously, in assisting them, by being a centre of expertise and helping them to build that capacity.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Ms. O'Neill-Gordon, please, for five minutes.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome to the witnesses. Thank you for taking time to be with us today.

On the weekend I had the opportunity to sit in on a panel for women and on another day I listened to another panel. I must let you know that we will be a little bit happier with the fact that their idea and their results were that they really and truly felt that we had been making progress. That made me feel good, and I'm sure it will make all of our committee feel good. There is no doubt that we still have a long way to go, but we are making progress, and that is good to know. Sometimes we just keep thinking that we are not, and we get down on ourselves, but we are making progress.

I was glad to hear you say that progress is being made. Our committee and our government are working hard, as we all know, to make a difference and to see that it does happen.

My question today is for Clare Beckton. You spoke of the results at INAC and of how well they are progressing. You spoke about INAC and how effective it has been. You noted, too, that Status of Women Canada played a role in helping them reach that.

INAC also recently introduced Bill C-8, which supports matrimonial property rights on reserves, and since INAC has been so successful and has incorporated GBA into its policy-making structure, would it be reasonable to assume that GBA was used in developing this bill? Wouldn't the use of GBA have helped ensure this bill would be as responsive to, and representative of, aboriginal women's needs as possible?

[Clare Beckton]

I would like, obviously, INAC to be here to answer the questions, but yes, we understand that they did a gender-based analysis for the bill, and that indeed would be reflected in the way the provisions of the bill appeared before the House when it was introduced. We have worked closely with INAC in terms of building their capacity, and of course, as you know we do have an interdepartmental committee that meets on a regular basis to share learning and to continue to build the capacity of all of the departments that are working on gender-based analysis.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Can you tell the committee how INAC would serve as a model for all departments, since they've done so well?

[Clare Beckton]

I think it's very important to have models and departments that have already advanced significantly with integrating the work of gender-based analysis into all of their policy and program development. I know that INAC is quite prepared to share their learning with other departments and to act as a source of advice with respect to other departments, how they did it and what's required, and how they can support other departments in doing that.

So yes, it's very good to have a role model of a department that has moved forward.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

So their model could be an example to all of us, and maybe something that we should be looking into.

I imagine I have time left, and I was going to go to Candice to ask the last question, if she wouldn't mind.

Do you have a question you wanted to ask?

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

I do. You took me by surprise.

I guess I would like to go back to you, Ms. Beckton. Could you comment on the issue that I raised about women's issues being much more broad-based than just their gender? I think it's important, if we're going to be going ahead with policy, to make it as relevant and as current as possible.

Is that something that your department has been looking at? How can we encompass all the issues surrounding women, and not just narrow, gender-based issues?

[Clare Beckton]

I think we do look much more broadly than just the gender-based analysis. This is one of the tools that is used, but Status of Women works to identify gaps in policy. We have received a great deal of feedback. You know that we have programs, such as the women's program that has a community fund and a partnership fund, that also work to support women and provide direct benefit to women and encompass the broad range of activities of women, where their needs are, in communities across the country.

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

Taking that into account, I guess what I'm trying to get at is that if I were to explain to my constituent how gender-based analysis is determined and whether it actually occurred, I'd find it difficult.

How do I explain it? Are we looking for certain terms and documentation?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Your time is up, but you are on the list a couple of more times. Do you want to continue then?

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

Okay, great. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

All right.

We'll now move to Madam Demers, please, for five minutes.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I somewhat agree with Ms. Neville. I have trouble understanding this. When you appeared before us, Ms. Beckton, you gave us an update on various files and you described how it would go from one department to another for final approval. The gender-based analysis should have been completed. At that time, you were convinced that the work was being done in the departments because, according to you, they were supposed to do it under the program and with the tools you provided to them. You even provided boot camps to department staff every year, despite the fact that it is a bit late to prepare the budget for the year in January or February. In any case, you provided them with boot camps in which they could participate and obtain even more gender-based analysis information. So I have trouble understanding how it is that so few analyses were done.

We had expressed concern over the number of champions appointed, and you said that it was not a big deal, because champions did not have to be appointed in order to ensure that the gender-based analysis was done. You said that department staff was aware of what needed to be done and had all the tools necessary to do it. However, the analysis that the Auditor General undertook shows that the only departments that analyzed programs were those that had champions. That is pretty significant.

Do you intend to make sure that all of the recommendations that were made are implemented? Do you also intend to appoint other champions in other departments? We see that it makes a big difference. For the four measures or programs that were analyzed, the Department of Finance and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, both of which had champions, completed the analysis. That definitely says something. I think a lot can be gained from having people who are knowledgeable about all aspects of the problem in departments to ensure that staff properly debate the policies and programs under development. Otherwise, if they have only a vague idea about what to do, the matter cannot be given proper consideration. We need strong people. That is also part of leadership.

What do you intend to do, Ms. Beckton?

[Clare Beckton]

It is the departments that appoint the champions, not Status of Women Canada. We can encourage departments to appoint champions. We can also encourage them to have those with the proper expertise assist their various units. We'll also be working on the response to help the various departments clarify expectations on when it is appropriate to perform gender-based analysis and how to report the findings. For example, we could help them to ensure that they are assessing the differential impacts on men and women in their policies, programs, and legislation.

We will be working with them to ensure that they have a department-wide framework, as well as sufficient capacity, for the implementation of gender-based analysis. We feel it's important to have the support of our colleagues from Treasury Board and the Privy Council Office as we work with departments to ensure that this is developed.

We're also going to be asking each department to do a self-assessment on the effectiveness of gender-based analysis and to report to Status of Women on an annual basis so that we can get a better idea of how they're doing and where they may need further work as time goes on. For this they will use the performance measurement template that we have developed.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

We asked the Auditor General to do an analysis because success appeared to be limited. Before we made the request, everything seemed to be going fine in terms of implementing the gender-based analysis. Now, two years later—because it has already been a year since we asked the Auditor General to do the....

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Madam Demers, your time is up. We'll have time for another quick round, so we'll come back to you.

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

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to get back to something that Ms. Gordon was saying, and I'm not sure if you can answer this or not. It's in reference to INAC and the fact that it was the only department to have performed an evaluation of its GBA practices, informally and formally; formally in 2008. There's been a lot of praise for INAC, and yet, when it comes to the current matrimonial real property rights legislation, the Chiefs of Ontario, the AFN, Native Women's Association of Canada, all want that to be withdrawn. As Mr. Bouwer indicated, it would seem that governments don't always take the advice of their departments.

I'm also concerned, I guess, that there's no possible way to find out what advice was given by the department to the government in regard to this particular piece of legislation, since it has caused such fury. But perhaps I should ask a question that you possibly could answer.

Mr. Bouwer, you were talking about statistics and data and the need for data. We had Stats Canada here, a number of times actually, and they indicated they were restricted in terms of budget and ability. What statistics, what data, would be helpful in terms of you doing your job? What would you need?

[Neil Bouwer]

Madam Chair, I would say that departments that put an emphasis on policy research, and put an emphasis on data development, tend to have more robust policy analyses that come forward. We put a lot of emphasis on evidence-based policy, so it's highly variable. I would say in general we are well served in the Government of Canada by the statistical capacity that we have, and we are well served by the policy capacity that we have that is evidence-based. So where we see good practices, we encourage it.

I would note that in the case of INAC, which is praiseworthy for many of the reasons that have been cited, they have some difficult challenges with a very heterogeneous population putting together statistics, yet they do a very remarkably good job in this area. So it isn't necessarily a one-to-one correlation. I would say that the policy-making process requires attention to policy research and statistics. It also requires, as I said, great attention and analytical detail, so all of those pieces need to fit together.

As I said, in general I think we can be very happy with the degree of statistical depth we can get. We could parse different departments and talk about them, but I think those questions would be better placed for those departments.

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

Thank you.

One of the other disconnects that we hear about in this committee is between Finance and what they say in regard to the considerations they give when they come up with a policy as it pertains to women. Yet CEDAW as a committee has been very critical of the impacts of fiscal policy on women. I'm thinking specifically of pay equity, employment insurance, tax cuts. Tax cuts, for example, don't benefit women because they're in a lower income bracket and they don't see the benefits of that.

Your job is to look ahead. You're the forecasters. You look at policy and you analyze it. Is there any plan to do sort of a retrospective? We have these policies. We have these budgets, particularly budget 2008-09. I'm wondering if there are any plans to look at these and say, okay, this perhaps may not have met the needs of women; whatever GBA went on, it didn't fulfill the needs of women according to the evidence we've heard in this committee, so let's go from there; let's recommend, and let's see what we can do for the next budget.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

If we could have a quick answer to that, please, we'll fall within our timeframe.

[Neil Bouwer]

With your indulgence, Madam Chair, I would say that's a question best put to the Department of Finance in terms of budgeting.

I would only say that every time we go through a budget season, through consultations and so forth, we bring the analytical capacity to bear to make sure that those proposals are well thought through. If we think, at that time, that, depending on the nature of the proposals, we need to look back to an analysis based on evaluation and so forth, we will undertake to do that.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Patricia Davidson]

Thank you.

Now we will move to Ms. Hoeppner, for five minutes, please.