Status of Women Committee on May 10th, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you. That's your time.

All right, we'll go over to Mr. MacLeod for 10 minutes.

[Alfred MacLeod, Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy, Planning and Communications Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today.

As the Public Services and Procurement Canada's co-champion on gender-based analysis, and the assistant deputy minister with the responsibility for the gender-based analysis function within the department, it's an honour to be here today.

PSPC's mandate is to be a common service agency to the Government of Canada and various departments, agencies, and boards. We have a strong focus on service and identifying the various needs of our client group. Most of our clients are internal to government, but because of some of our functions, we do reach out and touch Canadians beyond our department. We try to ensure optimum value by enabling other government departments and agencies to provide their programs and services to Canadians.

Some of our main business lines would include, starting geographically, a responsibility for the parliamentary precinct; procurement, in the order of $16 billion to $18 billion a year in purchasing on behalf of the Government of Canada such things as office accommodations and linguistic services; as well as the Receiver General, the treasury of Canada, and accounts administration; industrial security and screening; and specialized programs related to back office services provided to government departments. It's a diverse set of services offered.

Further to a 2008 audit, PSPC was one of the first departments to start implementing GBA as part of a federal action plan. In our department, we've named a champion. We have a bit of a tag team effort now. This position has been bolstered by a co-champion. The GBA function has been enveloped within the larger diversity champion, but it has a specific focus as well in our department. We've implemented a GBA statement of intent. We've created a responsibility centre, which exists within the policy, planning, and communications branch. We've developed a one-day, PSPC-adapted GBA course. We've reported annually to Status of Women on the departmental GBA practices. We've created a GBA network in the spirit of trying to disperse ownership for this function and not have it invested in just one person or one group. We have a network of individuals across the branches of the department and across the regions of the country. This network focuses on increasing awareness, increasing capacity, and increasing engagement in our work on GBA.

As an operational department, what we do has practical impacts. I'd like to share with the committee four examples of recent gender-based analysis projects we've done. One had to do with the major implementation of a direct deposit initiative, transferring payments from paper to direct deposit, which had service benefits, security benefits, and some efficiency benefits for the government. Our group that was responsible for this realized that this might have differential and unintended impacts, so it undertook a formal GBA study and found, as you might imagine, that access was linked to gender, and in many cases to income. An adjustment was made in how we rolled that service out to Canadians. The responsible group offered a series of exceptions, so that individuals who were at a high risk of not having access to traditional or Internet banking services could continue to receive their payments by cheque.

A second example, and it's sort of an inside baseball term, is the workplace 2.0 initiative. That's the Government of Canada's major modernization of the space in which we work. It involves the footprint of the government, technology, collaboration, and a response to new work patterns. We undertook a major GBA on that, and the one finding we came away with was that, for women, one element of the strategy that was particularly helpful was the additional technology and capacities for telework. Given the statistics, which point out that in the area of care, either for young children or for parents, women tend to shoulder most of the burden, the flexibility of being able to work from home, or have that additional assist, was useful.

Even here, in the long-term vision and plan for the parliamentary precinct, we've done a gender-based analysis to look at this facility and how, when this facility gets renovated, the facilities that will be available for members and staff and visitors will be informed by an understanding of how different people, different genders, have different requirements to modify facilities and open up accessibility to the Hill.

Finally, the build in Canada innovation program is a program that we administer to promote innovation. It sets up the Government of Canada as the first buyer for entrepreneurs who have a product that they want to get into the market, but they face that hurdle. After the Government of Canada has sponsored this project, they're in a better place to market it into the open marketplace.

It's not a particular secret, but women have less access to grants or programs like this. The statistic is that 15.6% of small businesses are owned and operated by women. We anticipated that there might be differential access to people who have the benefit from this program, so we undertook a GBA and in fact found that there was not equity in how the funding was being distributed.

We are not permitted to direct procurement on a basis of gender, but we enhanced our outreach to women's organizations and to business organizations that had direct contact and reach to women. To give you a sense of the metrics, in 2015-16, our office of small and medium size enterprises held 38 sessions. They reached out to almost 3,000 female business owners and entrepreneurs to raise awareness of how they could buy from government and how they could gain access to the build in Canada innovation program.

Those are some of the examples. We are in the midst of finalizing the survey for Status of Women.

During the last presentation, there were some questions asked about barriers. My colleague mentioned some of the barriers, so in questioning, I'd be more than happy to share what we in our department see as some of the barriers for advancing gender-based analysis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent.

Mr. Nault, you have 10 minutes.

[François Nault, Director, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada]

Good afternoon.

Thank you for inviting us today. Today is a special day for StatsCan. It's the official 2016 census day, so I'm very happy to be here.

We're happy to have the opportunity to discuss Statistics Canada's approach to gender statistics.

I will do my presentation in English.

However, you have the text and the presentation in French, and of course I will be pleased to answer questions in French.

I'd like to start by discussing how StatsCan fits into the Government of Canada's commitments to GBA+. Statistics Canada is mandated to provide information and analysis about Canada's social and economic structure so that federal departments can develop and evaluate public policies and programs. While our agency is unique in that we do not develop public policies and programs ourselves, we do play an important supporting role.

Since 1995 federal departments have been required to incorporate GBA+ into their legislation, policies, and programs, and in 2015 the federal government committed to strengthening the implementation of GBA+ across departments. These requirements have ensured continuing demand for gender statistics at Statistics Canada, as well as statistics involving a variety of intersecting identity factors, such as economic situations and diversity characteristics. Together these data paint a picture of the social and economic situations of women, men, girls, and boys and facilitate gender-based analysis.

For many years our agency has systematically considered gender and diversity when developing data and analytical products. Today I would like to share some of the ways that we support GBA+ through the development and the accessibility of these products.

As Canada's national statistical office, Statistics Canada is responsible for the systematic and coordinated collection of data related to women and girls. Information on sex is routinely collected through the census of population program and is contained in a substantial portion of the over 300 surveys and statistical programs managed by Statistics Canada.

I've placed a few examples of these surveys on slide 3, for those who have the presentation. There's the labour force survey, and then the general social survey, so on time use, on victimization, on social identity. There's also the Canadian community health survey and the uniform crime reporting survey. These are all surveys that operate through base funding, but Statistics Canada also responds to the data needs of federal departments by conducting cost-recovery research. For example, this year Statistics Canada was commissioned to conduct a survey on sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, with an expected release in the fall of this year.

As slide 4 shows, the data that we collect at Statistics Canada covers a wide spectrum of socio-economic conditions affecting women, such as representation of women in the labour force, enrollment of women in post-secondary education, women's time spent on unpaid work, women's health and well-being, and women as victims and offenders.

Importantly, many of our surveys are collected over time, allowing for measurements of gains and the persistence of challenges in the social and economic conditions of diverse groups of women, men, girls, and boys.

How we do make this data available?

I have two slides on this, slide 5 and slide 6. Ensuring that the data we collect are accessible is critical to our role as information providers. We understand that this data is used to assess the differential impact of policies, programs, and legislation on women and men, and we have taken steps to improve accessibility to the data in recent years. A broad range of gender statistics are readily available on the Statistics Canada website. The landing page to our website is organized by subject area, and under the subject “Society and Community” you will find women and gender, where there are links to the latest daily release bulletins, data tables, publications, and analytical studies.

Sex-disaggregated data tables are one of our most important sources of gender statistics. These tables include both statistics and indicators and can be found through the links on The Daily on the Statistics Canada website under “Summary Tables” or in Statistics Canada's socio-economic database, called CANSIM. After each census sex-disaggregated tables series are produced based on the analytic themes for census releases including labour, families, income, aboriginal peoples, and so on.

All these tables are prepared with policy-makers and the general research community in mind, so the tabular information is ready to use, usually broken down not only by sex, but by geography and by age. As such, they are the basis for much of the gender-based analysis being done across the Canadian federal and provincial governments.

I have so much material; you will have to stop me at one point, but we have a lot of things to say.

Sometimes government departments and researchers have specific needs not addressed in any of the available tables. In this case custom tables can also be purchased directly from Statistics Canada.

As slide 6 indicates, there are new initiatives to make things even more accessible. As of February 2012, StatsCan's key socio-economic database, CANSIM, became available free of charge. This is in addition to the increasing accessibility of a range of public-use microdata files through the data liberation initiative, along with the more detailed micro files available to researchers, including from the Statistics Canada Federal Research Data Centre, open to federal employees, and in research data centres located in universities across Canada.

So far I've mainly spoken about the data products we make available to our users, but StatsCan also provides a wide range of analytical products, mindful of the federal government's need for analysis that is relevant to policy, program, and legislative development. Doing a quick search on The Daily, I found a number of recent articles taking a gender-based approach to analysis, covering topics such as gender differences in financial literacy, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, in health and in employment, among others. Several studies on diverse groups of women also came up, including articles on senior women, aboriginal women, and women belonging to a visible minority group.

On slide 8 you will see a number of titles pulled from this search. Notably in 2015-16 we released seven chapters of the 7th Edition of “Women in Canada”. This statistical compendium is a collaboration with Status of Women Canada that has been produced roughly every five years since 1985. The information presented in this publication helps fulfill the Government of Canada's commitment to encourage GBA+ by painting a comprehensive gender-based portrait of the Canadian population, including sections on family and living arrangements, health, education, paid and unpaid work, and crime.

Here are a couple of highlights from recent chapters showing how this publication not only looks at gender differences in the population, but also intersecting factors, like education and diversity characteristics.

On slide 9, immigrant women of core working age are more likely to have university degrees than non-immigrant women, but they are also more likely to be unemployed than non-immigrant women and take longer to integrate into the labour force than immigrant men. On slide 10, aboriginal women are less likely than the non-aboriginal population to have obtained a university degree and less likely to be employed, but among degree holders, aboriginal women are slightly more likely than non-aboriginal women to be employed. In this type of analysis we're looking at gender, but also multiple intersecting factors that we think provide key information to our stakeholders in other departments.

As slide 11 shows, we know that our data and analytical products are reaching federal departments. Recently I attended a GBA+ champion event hosted by Status of Women and have put out a call for examples of how Statistics Canada data has helped the department to support GBA+. I have a number of examples. I'll skip through those, but my colleague from Finance has given a number of examples already.

We also play a role on the international scene. You can see that on slide 12.

I'll jump right to the concluding remarks.

Stats Canada is, first and foremost, a provider of information. Through our many statistical programs and surveys we are able to provide sex disaggregated data on a broad range of social and economic topics through data tables, microdata files, and analytical products. Our products are always developed keeping data users in mind, routinely considering gender and various intersecting identity factors. In recent years we have taken steps to make our data even more easily accessible to users and have contributed to a number of analytical products to help facilitate GBA+ in the development of policies and programs and legislation, and we will continue to engage with other departments.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That was excellent.

We have time for one round of questioning. We're going to begin with my Liberal colleague, Ms. Vandenbeld.

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

Thank you very much. There's a lot of information there. It's very useful.

I'd like to start with Mr. Botham. In the most recent pre-budget consultations, you indicated in your remarks that there was an effort to make sure that you were reaching out to women's groups and consulting on gender. Can you elaborate a little on that?

[Richard Botham]

It really starts with the list of stakeholder organizations, ensuring that it is a full and representative list. I think that comes from a commitment by our minister's office to do that. Because it is an annual event, there is a historical element, too. It is a list we can go back to and refresh. There was an open consultation as well. There was an opportunity for a wide, diverse group of Canadians to provide input. I think there are two elements. One is a conscious effort to reach out, and the second is an openness on the part of the hearing. It is those two factors that allow for that.

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

In 2009, this committee did a report on gender-responsive budgeting, and one of the things that was recommended was that there be a GBA of the budget and that it be published. Is that the case?

[Richard Botham]

I am sorry. I am having a problem with an echo.

The 2009 report commitment to...?

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

The report of this committee on gender-responsive budgeting recommended not only that there be a GBA of the budget, but also that it be published. Is that something that is happening? Is it being published?

[Richard Botham]

The department does not publish the gender-based analyses that are performed by the department, in the same way that we don't publish analysis more generally that is provided to the minister for decision-making. That is treated as part of the confidential material provided to the minister for the purpose of his or her decision.

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

On the challenge function, I noticed you said in your remarks that if it is seen, in the initial assessment, that there are no or few gender impacts, the GBA can be very brief. In some of our hearings, we found that sometimes it is not obvious. Sometimes it is very easy to look at something at the outset and say, “Nope, there are no gender impacts”, and that is how it often gets missed.

How often does it happen that you say, “No, there are very few impacts”?

[Richard Botham]

It is a two-phase process, as it is, say, for our strategic environmental assessment. I would go back to my remarks that there are two types of proposals we look at. One would be a proposal coming from another minister or department, where a GBA is performed by that responsible department. In the second case, where the proposal is developed within the department, we would do a preliminary scan, and then we would make the determination whether to move on to a full one. I don't know what the breakdown is, but I am fairly certain that the majority of cases fall into the category of a preliminary scan rather than a full GBA.

We deal with a very wide range of issues. Every year, we brief the minister on hundreds of issues. As you say, some of them may be less obvious and still have a gender consideration. From our perspective, it is fairly clear that there are pieces of information that the minister would require to make a decision. Gender would be one, in certain cases, but also education and income levels. Those are fairly obvious and probably more specific to, say, our tax policy area, where the implications in many cases are for particular individuals and groups of individuals. It would be more frequent that we have in-depth gender-based analysis for that.

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

Before you ran out of time, you were talking about the fact that you are getting uneven information from different departments. The styles and the depth of the information that you get are inconsistent. This is similar to what we have heard from others, including the Treasury Board Secretariat, which said that some departments, where it has a social implication or direct impact on Canadians, are doing much more of this, and others, like Fisheries, a little less.

Can you tell us how we can ensure more consistency in the kinds of information that you are getting?

[Richard Botham]

I suspect that on a system-wide basis it is very similar to the kind of approach we had to take as a department, namely, that there has to be a commitment that it is important—and I believe I heard some of the remarks by my Treasury Board Secretariat colleague on this. There has to be training for people so that they know how to go about their job. It is very helpful to have a consistent framework that departments agree to and have bought into, so it is understood that this is part of the work that needs to be done.

The other thing I would point out is that, as another colleague mentioned, it really is time-dependent. There are some issues where there is sufficient time to do a broad range of analysis, and there are other issues that come up and are settled fairly quickly. In those cases, they are unlikely to have the same depth of treatment.

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

One of the biggest barriers you mentioned is the gender-disaggregated data, so I'd like to go on to Statistics Canada because it sounds like there's a lot. You have custom tables, you have disaggregated data, you have the “Women in Canada” report, you have research centres in universities, and the 300 surveys you talked about. This isn't the first department we've heard from that indicated that the lack of such data is a barrier. Where is that disconnect? How can we improve the data?

[François Nault]

If other departments have indicated there's a lack of data, I'm pretty sure they don't know how much data we have. As I mentioned in my presentation, I just did a call last week and had a fantastic response on how departments are using the data. A lot of departments are really using our data, but if there is a lack of data or perceived lack of data, I will be very happy to work with these departments. In fact, it's part of my role, as I see it, to provide as much data as possible to any department.

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

Excellent, more communication would be—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right, we're going over to our Conservative colleague, Ms. Harder, for seven minutes.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm going to start off with a question for Mr. MacLeod. I have a few questions for you.

I'm having a little bit of a hard time making the connection between what your department does and how that would relate to a gender-based analysis. I guess when I consider signing a contract for something or purchasing large equipment, for example, helicopters for the military, I'm not clear on why a gender-based analysis would be necessary for something like that. Could you please help clarify that for me?

[Alfred MacLeod]

In fact, one of the comments that we often get back from our employees when we are out doing training and engagement—and not just from people on the procurement side but from the real property people who are working in real estate—is how is this relevant, and how does it matter to us? There would be some areas of our business where, when we would look at the consequences and at the filters—policy or programming ones—that we would apply in terms of cost, gender, or whatever impacts there might be, we may move very quickly through a gender-based analysis.

The examples that I shared with the committee were meant to underscore a little of how the mandate of our department works, whether it be as the custodian of the parliamentary precinct or the people who work here on a daily basis. Gender differences may create different needs or demands on the facilities, such as the direct deposit initiative through our Receiver General function, where it is a direct delivery of service to Canadians. In fact, the research did show that there were gender implications there.

So, I understand your question, and it's true that it's not across the full range, but when we do look, when we scratch the surface and sometimes when we go a little bit deeper, we do find that areas of our programs have direct impacts and that there is also potential for unintended consequences, including unintended negative consequences for certain groups.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

At the end of the day, after you've done GBA then, does it affect the scoring of bids in determining a winning bid, let's say?

[Alfred MacLeod]

On the procurement side, as I mentioned, given the nature of procurement, the rules, the law, and the policy in which we work, we're not permitted to assign weights to procurement based on gender.

There is one demographic element to whom we can direct procurements, and that's indigenous people, but beyond that, procurement is based on objective assessment criteria, and GBA comes into the mix less from how the procurement is going to be awarded but more toward what some of the ancillary impacts might be. For example, on the Build Canada innovation program, with 15.6% ownership among women, we had reason to believe as we were distributing the grants that there wasn't going to be equity. We can't direct, but we can take steps to raise awareness and ensure that the competitive process is open to all and that men and women are aware of the opportunities to compete for government business or for government programs.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

During your presentation, one of the things you said was that there are many barriers to doing GBA well and that you'd be willing to comment on that. Perhaps you could outline some of the most significant barriers your department faces.

[Alfred MacLeod]

From a survey that we're currently filling out for Status of Women, our employees have identified several barriers.

One of the barriers is the sequencing of programs, because sometimes a program or a proposal moves ahead before a GBA is done, and so it's playing catch-up,

There are issues around data. It's often not the availability of data; it's the agility and the capacity to manipulate that data and apply it to relevant outcomes. The capacity to use data is not consistent across all program areas.

There's also culture. When I go out to do GBA training, the intuitive element is obvious. The second or third question I get is, “I'm not saying I don't get what you're trying to do, I just don't get what it means for me. I design office space. What does that have to do with gender-based analysis?”

Then there's frequency. Often there can be long periods of time between when an organization does a gender-based analysis and the next opportunity to do it. There's a certain loss of capacity.

Sequence, culture, frequency, and the reach of the training are the barriers that have been identified by our employees.