Status of Women Committee on May 3rd, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I call the meeting to order.

Seeing it is 3:30 p.m., I would like to welcome everybody and get this committee meeting started.

I want to welcome Mr. Sarai, who is on our Liberal friends' side today, and our witnesses from Status of Women Canada. We have Justine Akman and Vaughn Charlton to help us today.

Before we begin, we have a brief bit of committee business to take care of. You will recall that at the last meeting we had some changes made to the brief we're going to send out to invite public input to our process, so the changes that were requested have been made and sent to you. I am therefore looking for a motion to send the briefing out post-haste, immediately.

Ms. Malcolmson.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Is the submission date still May 12? If so, is it not impossible for our constituents to read about it in the newspaper and think about the topic and then write their letter and give us meaningful input?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Yes, the date is still intended to be May 12. Yes, it is difficult but not impossible, and the reason for the May 12 date is that in order to release a report by the deadline we've planned, we need to have the input by then.

Ms. Malcolmson.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

The last draft we saw was April 15, I think, so I wonder why.... It feels cumbersome to approve a press release by committee, and I'm hoping we can set up a different process or just say, “Here's the draft; does anybody have terrible objections to it?” Look, we're sitting for more than two weeks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

For the future, I would agree. It was the NDP replacement who made the recommendation to amend, so certainly in the future—

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Touché.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

—we shall be more expedient, but that's what was decided at the last meeting.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you. Understood. We'll try to be more flexible so we can give people more time.

Thank you for filling me in on the background.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Do we have a motion to approve?

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I so move.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Ms. Vandenbeld—

All in favour?

(Motion agreed to)

It is carried.

Very good. I believe Ms. Vandenbeld has a motion.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Yes, thank you. I have a motion:

That in relation to Orders of Reference from the House respecting bills:

(a) the Clerk of the Committee shall, upon the Committee receiving such an Order of Reference, write to each Member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the Committee to invite those Members to file with the Clerk of the Committee, in both official languages, any amendments to the Bill, which is the subject of the said Order, which they would suggest that the Committee consider;

(b) ) suggested amendments filed, pursuant to paragraph (a), at least 48 hours prior to the start of clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill to which the amendments relate shall be deemed to be proposed during the said consideration, provided that the Committee may, by motion, vary this deadline in respect of a given Bill; and

(c) during the clause-by-clause consideration of a Bill, the Chair shall allow a Member who filed suggested amendments, pursuant to paragraph (a), an opportunity to make brief representations in support of them

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent. Now to discussion of the motion.

(Motion agreed to)

Excellent. That is carried.

We shall begin then with Justine Akman, who is here from Status of Women Canada. She is going to bring some introductory remarks.

Go ahead. You have 10 minutes.

[Justine Akman, Director General, Policy and External Relations, Policy and External Relations Directorate, Status of Women Canada]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the committee for inviting Status of Women Canada back on an issue so near and dear to our hearts.

So I will discuss Status of Women's role in promoting gender-based analysis, or GBA.

Gender-based analysis has been a Government of Canada commitment since 1995, but as the committee knows, through its own previous study of the issue and through two Auditor General reports, it has been unevenly applied.

As an agency, Status of Women has a central role in supporting the use of GBA across federal organizations. As a centre of excellence on GBA, this includes providing departments and agencies with the tools, training, and guidance they need to effectively incorporate GBA in the development of policies, programs, and legislation.

In recent years we've made important progress in promoting GBA as a competency for all federal officials. For example, we've done this through developing and launching the introduction to GBA online course on the Status of Women website and making basic GBA training available to all federal officials. Since 2012, over 6,000 federal employees from over 50 departments and agencies have completed the course.

We know, however, that there's much more to be done. The recommendations provided by the Auditor General and the government's recent commitments on gender equality present us with an important opportunity.

This government's support for GBA as a priority is reflected in our minister's mandate letter, which asks her to ensure that gender considerations are incorporated into cabinet decision-making. The commitment was further underscored by budget 2016, which provided increased investments in Status of Women Canada over the next five years, including for GBA.

These new resources will increase the agency's capacity to support departments in carrying out the government's GBA commitment. We've provided the committee with copies of the action plan that has been developed by Status of Women Canada, the Privy Council Office, and the Treasury Board Secretariat in response to the Auditor General's report. It covers the next four years, from 2016 to 2020, and sets out enhanced actions in key areas to ensure deeper integration of GBA in government work.

I'd like to briefly highlight the action plan's components for you.

The first is barriers. The Auditor General's first recommendation asked that we identify barriers to GBA implementation and develop concrete measures to address them. This first step is critical. While some of the barriers are known and have been highlighted by the AG, we have not systematically reached out to departments directly on the internal barriers they face.

Since the release of the AG's report, Status of Women has worked with PCO and Treasury Board Secretariat to refine a detailed GBA survey that has been sent to all deputies. It's meant to capture not only their internal resources and capacities for GBA but also, importantly, to identify barriers preventing the consistent use of GBA in the development of government initiatives. This information will be critical to determining how we can focus additional supports.

With that said, we are currently able to identify some of the broad areas for enhanced action.

The first is enhanced tools and training. Although basic training, as I mentioned before, is available online, through all of the work that we have done with 30 departments over the last five years, we've also learned that GBA training is most effective when tailored to specific audiences and when developed and delivered in partnership with experts from the sector that is receiving the training.

Under the action plan, we'll work with partners to enhance and expand the available GBA training suite. This will include developing new in-depth training for different sectors—for example, in science and technology or in the security sector. We'll also be doing it for special functional communities, such as in the areas of research or evaluation. This will also include updating and modernizing our online tools and resources, including our GBA training course, to leverage new learning technologies.

Going forward, the second thing that we'll be doing is giving greater focus to providing gender advice on some key government initiatives through what we're calling strategic interventions. This will include working with central agencies to identify areas in which the application of GBA is especially relevant. For example, this might take place where an initiative has a potentially significant impact on women and/or diverse groups, where it's related to our agency's priorities, or when it's a particularly high priority for the government.

We'll also work across government with senior officials to determine priority areas for collaboration and support.

We're planning on augmenting our ability within the agency to develop internal expertise in more areas so that our analysts can provide direct advice in relation to specific departments, portfolios, or issues. We're already playing this role, and I'd like to give you a couple of quick examples.

Our recent engagement on the federal social infrastructure strategy resulted in the identification of the need for greater investment in shelters and transition housing to better meet the needs of women and children. We were able to bring our Status of Women expertise to this file.

We've also been engaged in work being undertaken by the Canadian Armed Forces related to integrating gender perspectives into military planning and operations. These are early examples of the type of concrete, collaborative work we hope to continue to engage in.

The Auditor General has also highlighted the need to do more to monitor GBA performance and to report out. Under the action plan, we'll work to design structures, which for the first time will allow us to systematically monitor, report, and reflect on our progress, and to modify our course when necessary.

Actions to support this will include the surveying of deputies on an annual basis, as I mentioned earlier, to collect information on GBA implementation. We'll be working with other government departments and agencies to explore the development of gender equality indicators in key areas, so we can better track progress. We'll be establishing a more formal evaluation structure for the GBA function across government, and we'll also identify ways to periodically report out on the implementation across government, including lessons learned, sharing of best practices, and strategic directions moving forward.

Improving our ability to report progress on the application of GBA will allow us to demonstrate to Canadians how it has enhanced the policies, programs, and services they've received. Better monitoring and reporting will also provide us with practical examples of the impact of GBA that we can share with provinces, territories, and our international partners, many of whom look to Canada for leadership in this area.

We appreciate the work to be undertaken by the committee to inform a whole-of-government approach to GBA implementation.

I now welcome any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you very much for your excellent presentation.

We're going to begin our first round of questioning with Ms. Damoff, who is splitting her time with Ms. Ludwig.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I am. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentations, and thank you especially for all the work you have done on this for so many years. I think all of us share a frustration that it hasn't been implemented by all of government at this point.

One of the things I want to ask—and perhaps you could share any feedback you have on it—is whether you think people understand what the term “gender-based analysis plus” means. Is there a disconnect between what it is, what people think it is, and what it can deliver for them?

[Justine Akman]

We do get a lot of questions about the plus, which is to ensure people take into consideration full diversity. It becomes clear when people go through our training. The training is developed for adult education. It's extremely accessible. I'm hoping that most of your members have done it, and I would really encourage you to do so. Once people have taken the training, we have had feedback that it becomes much clearer.

Where our challenge has been in the past is being clear to Canadians, and even within the public service, about what difference GBA can make to a policy or program, and that's what we're intending on addressing.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

If it was clear what it was, everyone would be doing it. The only one that does it right now on a regular basis is immigration, where it's mandated. I have to worry that even though people understand.... Maybe people don't understand, within the government, why it's good for them to be developing policy through a gender lens.

Do you get any feedback on that? I'm not trying to be argumentative at all. I'm just saying if people truly understood it, they'd be doing it.

[Justine Akman]

It has to do with leadership and with time. There are a number of barriers that may have also got in the way of doing good GBA in the past. The 30 departments that were part of our action plan had gender focal points, and they've had gender champions in their departments who are there to explain and to help different analysts within departments understand how to conduct GBA and the kind of difference it can make.

It's not that it hasn't been done at all; it just hasn't been done to the extent that we would have liked it to have been done in the past.

My colleague would like to add something.

[Vaughn Charlton, Manager, Gender-Based Analysis, Status of Women Canada]

Thanks.

I wanted to add that I think the misconception about GBA is that it's an add-on, something you do after you've done all of your work.

I think people who do it understand it's part of good policy-making. I'm not sure it would be correct to say only CIC is doing it; it's more that only CIC is mandated to report it. There are a lot of analysts in government who know that doing gender analysis is simply part of doing a full analysis of any issue. Some are doing it intuitively without calling it GBA. Sometimes it's drawing people's attention to practices they're already engaged in, as opposed to having them feel this is some extra thing they need to do at the end, or that it's extra work.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Actually, I have done it, and so has all my staff.

I'll pass it over to you.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to go along the same lines as my colleague for questioning.

Do you know if there are any public policy programs that actually would integrate the concept of GBA or GBA+ into the curriculum?

[Vaughn Charlton]

We are working with the Canada School of Public Service to make our course a part of the core curriculum for policy analysts. That's an ongoing discussion, but the CSPS itself is reorganizing itself and taking advantage of many online resources that exist, including our course. That's the example I can think of.

I know that as part of foreign service development programs at Global Affairs Canada, for example, they have a mandatory gender-based analysis course. Those are ones off the top of my head, but we could certainly look into that further.

[Justine Akman]

I would just add that most or many universities offer very good women's studies programs. It's a very good foundational kind of training for gender-based analysis going forward, if you're asking about formal university and college settings.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

When you think of a women's studies program, it's something quite separate from public policy. My question was more about...That was one thing you had mentioned when you were responding to my colleague's question.

Certainly there's an identification of a gap. We have public policy graduate programs, but in order to understand the concept and the real integration of GBA, they would have to take maybe a women's studies program. It could be better implemented by putting it into the curriculum of all public policy programs.