Status of Women Committee on May 10th, 2016

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Awesome.

Mr. MacLeod, do you enjoy doing GBA?

[Alfred MacLeod]

It's an element of my job that brings me great pleasure and joy. Yes.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Good for you!

I'm out of time, for all intents and purposes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Okay, very good.

Ms. Malcolmson.

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

Thanks to my colleague for that great question: do you like your job?

This year's budget bundles together both budget requests and some legislative changes. We're calling it an omnibus bill—not everybody does. What is the Department of Finance's obligation to conduct GBA? How do you do that when there is a mix of policy and financial commitments? Does that get fanned out to different agencies, or does it all remain on your plate?

[Richard Botham]

In terms of the advice the department provides to the minister to budget for the budget, there really are two types of proposals, as I outlined. One would be where a proposal is advanced by another minister or another department. In those cases, it's the responsibility of that minister or department to undertake the gender-based analysis and provide our department with their analysis. The second category pertains to tax policy issues. Our department is the source of the development of that policy. In that case, it is our department that performs the gender-based analysis.

There isn't a distinction between policy and financing, or the financial aspect, because we provide advice at the same time on both those elements of a proposal.

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

In the former example, your responsibility is to ensure that the work is done without duplicating what's done by other departments.

[Richard Botham]

We tend not to duplicate it, but if we see something that has been missed, we would go back to the department and ask them for any further analysis we think we need to have for a full proposal to our minister.

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

Mr. MacLeod, you made reference to the number of women who are heads of small businesses—I think you said 16%. You said that the GBA test you had done—maybe this is in a previous year—had shown there was unequal access to capital.

I'm curious about other GBA work that's been done on women's sustainability in the small business area. We just got some news that the PBO has identified costs to small business as a result of a change in policy on taxation—both loss of jobs and costs to the economy. Do you know whether a GBA analysis was done on that decision?

[Alfred MacLeod]

No, I don't know whether a GBA was done on that.

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

Might it have gone through Finance, as an example, as a budget decision?

[Richard Botham]

I'm sorry. Are you asking me?

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

I'm curious as to whether the decision around the change in the small business tax was subject to a GBA assessment in the budget, if it wasn't through Public Works.

[Richard Botham]

Any decisions that were included in the budget had gender-based analysis performed on those proposals. All tax policy proposals had gender-based analysis performed. Tax policy is the responsibility of the Department of Finance, so we do gender-based analysis on all tax policy proposals.

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

Is it fair that even if there is a disproportionate impact on one gender versus another, at least the information is known? It ends up being a balancing act or a political decision, but the information is in the hands of the decision-makers. I guess another way to put it is that it doesn't mean that all the decisions are gender-neutral decisions or are going to benefit men and women equally, but at least there's transparency for the cabinet around the implications of what they're deciding.

[Richard Botham]

It is part of a full briefing to the minister to include gender-based analysis, and that's why we perform gender-based analysis on all proposals.

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

It doesn't necessarily screen out the bad decisions, but at least the decisions are fully informed.

[Richard Botham]

We strive to fully inform the minister for the purpose of making decisions for the budget.

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

Can I come back to a question that I think one of my colleagues—I can't remember from which side—asked?

On Finance Canada's description of doing GBA “where appropriate, and where data exists”, I think you described there being a light “scan”, or an initial touch. Can you give more specific examples of when you would identify that GBA is not appropriate and not necessary to do at all?

[Richard Botham]

Well, an example would be potentially an issue touching on species at risk. It may be that there is not a strong human dimension to the resolution of a decision on that issue. There are issues around wrecked vessels that exist in Canada, so we would seek to decide whether there is relevant gender-based information that should be provided to the minister on issues like that, and we would decide whether more fulsome analysis is required. Those may be issues where we would determine that there is not a strong analysis on a gender basis that is required.

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

That's a good example. Thanks. Both are important issues.

To go to Stats Canada, how often are you disaggregating data by gender?

[François Nault]

As often as we can: I think sex is probably one of the key characteristics that's given in all our statistics.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You're out of time, Ms. Malcolmson.

I'll return to my Liberal colleagues and Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I want to start by talking about monitoring and measuring. Do any of your departments actively monitor the implementation or effectiveness of your existing GBA practices?

[Richard Botham]

I think we actively monitor it from a quality perspective. Alfred mentioned that one of the barriers is whether or not gender-based analysis is an ongoing and regular practice. I think one of the things we benefit from is that the budget is an ongoing, annual, and regular activity that engages the majority of economists, analysts, and executives in our department. We have an opportunity to, every year, look at the quality of the analysis done. I think there is that active element.

I think we are probably in a bit of a transition phase in terms of how we look at gender-based analysis. Historically, I think there has been more of a focus on an activity basis: do we have a process in place and are people respecting the process? One of the issues that we're working on going forward is that quality element and tracking and assessment to better understand just what kind of impact that analysis is having on decisions. That's something we're looking at for the future period.