Thank you very much, Minister.
Like Ms. Hoeppner, I'm very concerned about the voices of women being silenced. I think back to the National Association of Women and the Law, which lost its funding, and CRIAW, which lost its funding. Just yesterday we heard that Kairos, a group that has always been very helpful in terms of advocating for social justice, lost half of its funding, and they don't think they can continue to manage. In regard to those stilled voices who advocate for women, I think there is a vacuum.
I'd like to now ask a question in regard to the Auditor General, because fortunately her voice hasn't been silenced yet.
I saw her twice, once here and once at public accounts, and she summarized the gender-based analysis that was done by the federal departments as rather weak. She said that of the 68 cases assessed by the AG, only four had GBA incorporated in policy development, only 30 of the cases had some analysis done, 27 cases had not even considered GBA at all, there was no policy requiring departments to do GBA, and departments don't know when GBA should be performed. She was very clear in her criticism and came to the conclusion that the government hadn't done a good job, despite the fact that the UN convention, the CEDAW convention, recommended that GBA be mandatory for all government departments.
Do you think GBA should be mandatory, and how does Status of Women Canada respond to the Auditor General's criticism? When you saw that criticism, you must have had some concerns. What did your department do, then, in response to that very upsetting report?