Thank you very much.
A key part of my role as champion is to promote and communicate the importance of GBA within the department. It's not enough to have departmental policy if nobody knows about it or is reminded of it. IRCC's departmental policy on GBA+ states that IRCC will ensure that the needs of diverse groups of women and men, girls and boys are considered in the development and implementation of policies and programs across IRCC's business lines with the intention of better reflecting Canadian values and government commitments on progress toward gender equality.
Part of promoting GBA can be about highlighting instances where the analysis has been done well and has made a difference. I'd like to highlight a couple of examples here.
In 2014, a gender-based analysis was conducted for the live-in caregiver program. The main findings indicated that while it was a helpful route to permanent resident status for many women, the program's design was also one that may place this population in potential situations of vulnerability due to the live-in requirement.
On November 30, 2014, the Government of Canada introduced reforms to the caregiver program, including two new caregiver pathways that do not require the caregiver to live with their employer.
Another example of a current initiative the department is developing is a proposal to allow the minister to meet a mandate letter commitment to raise the maximum age of a dependent child to 22 from 19. This change would require an amendment to the immigration and refugee protection regulations.
We will be using our new assessment tool on GBA+ to both pilot the tool and to assist officials in developing our understanding of the potential impacts of this possible regulatory amendment on diverse groups of people. For this assessment, we will use diverse data on past cohorts of immigrants in terms of their gender, age, country of origin, immigration category, and other variables that will help us assess which groups may be most affected.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. We look forward to the findings of this committee.