Status of Women Committee on May 17th, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

I'd like to call the meeting to order.

Please take your seats.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome.

We have lovely guests with us today. We have from Belgium today, Carine Joly, a consultant at the Institute for the equality for women and men. We have Nicolas Bailly with her as well.

Welcome to you.

From New Zealand, we have Dr. Jo Cribb and Helen Potiki from the Ministry for Women.

Welcome to you as well.

We're going to begin with our friends from Belgium. They'll have ten minutes to speak, and then we'll go to our friends from New Zealand. Let's begin with Carine.

You may start.

[Carine Joly, Advisor, Institute for the Equality of Women and Men]

I am Carine Joly, an advisor at the Institute for the Equality of Women and Men. I am responsible for what we call the gender mainstreaming unit, that is to say, the mainstreaming of gender equality. The Institute is particularly responsible for overseeing the strategy.

My colleague Nicolas Bailly, who is also a member of the unit, and I will give you an overview of the implementation of gender mainstreaming at the Belgian federal level. After a brief introduction, I will present the key provisions of our 2007 act and its concrete implementation as part of the federal plan for gender mainstreaming. Before wrapping up, my colleague Nicolas will then introduce the gender test, which is an impact analysis instrument based on the use of gender statistics.

As an introduction, I will provide some background.

Following the Beijing world conference, a pilot project on integrating gender mainstreaming in federal policies was launched in January 2001. The assessment of this project supervised by an academic team led to various recommendations in 2003, which emphasized the need to institutionalize this process or strategy. The act of January 12, 2007, is the legal expression of the political will to entrench gender mainstreaming in the Belgian federal institution environment.

I will list the key provisions of this act.

This legislation sets out a series of obligations, both at the political and administration levels.

It sets out that each member of government will integrate the gender dimension in policies under his or her responsibility, meaning that the government member will analyze and determine the differences between the respective situations of men and women and take that into account when establishing policies.

The act also provides for the creation of an interdepartmental coordination group consisting of government officials and political representatives. I will come back to this.

This legislation also provides for the creation of a gender test, namely an analysis of the impact of bills and draft regulations on the respective situations of women and men.

The act sets out that federal administrations will produce gender statistics and gender indicators.

My colleague will elaborate on these two last points, namely the gender test and gender statistics.

The legislation also requires that the government submit to Parliament reports on the implementation of the act.

Lastly, the act provides that the Institute for the Equality of Women and Men will be responsible for supervising and supporting the gender mainstreaming process in federal policies.

Note that the implementation of the act was slowed by a political crisis that disrupted Belgium between 2007 and 2011. As a result, the first federal plan could not be adopted until 2012, once there was a government in office following the elections of June 2010.

In practical terms how do we organize the implementation of this legislation?

Overall, gender mainstreaming is intended for people generally involved in policy development. Therefore, our main objective is to ensure that members of strategic units, that is, the advisors to ministers and their ministerial cabinets and officials responsible for policy in the administrations, agree to reflect and get in the habit of reflecting on the impact of proposed policies on the respective situations of women and men.

To this end, two instruments were established specifically to implement the act.

First, there is the interdepartmental coordination group, which also provides for the adoption of a federal plan. This group was mandated by a decree to implement the law enacted in 2010.

The interdepartmental coordination group consists of members of strategic units, who are advisors to ministers and officials from the various administrations. The group is chaired by management of the Institute, which also acts as its secretariat. By virtue of its composition, the group requires the direct involvement of political actors and creates a dynamic between the political and administrative levels. I think this is an important point.

In particular, our mission is to prepare a draft federal plan, prepare and coordinate mid-session and end-of-session reports that are submitted to Parliament, and produce a semi-annual progress report following up on the implementation of the plan.

In addition, the decree provides that all members of this group will receive training on gender mainstreaming. The Institute organizes such training through an external expert company to ensure that the approach becomes truly operational. These courses are very practical. They are based on concrete examples and include practical exercises for members of the group.

In terms of the interdepartmental coordination group, the second largest support is obviously political commitment, the federal government's adoption of a plan. Although, theoretically, gender mainstreaming is intended to include all federal policies, it is important to set goals early in the session. At the Belgian federal level, these goals are reflected in a plan that was approved in July 2015, or a little less than a year ago.

This plan represents a commitment of the whole of government, as well as each individual minister, and involves the relevant administrations that are responsible for the practical implementation of the plan. The first part includes a series of commitments related to the act, and the second part, which we think is the most important, deals with the various government policies that will be prioritized for gender mainstreaming over the course of the parliamentary session.

To make things a little more concrete, consider the minister of justice's objective of integrating the gender dimension in the reform of matrimonial property regimes and inheritance rights. This is one of the goals for this session. For his part, the minister of security and the interior seeks to integrate the gender dimension in the prevention and fight against radicalization, a very important theme right now. The goal is to get the most concrete results possible by the end of the session in order to entrench the gender mainstreaming process in policy-making and to establish the maximum number of best practices that will serve to demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of the approach.

I will now give the floor to my colleague Nicolas Bailly, who will present the gender test, namely a regulatory impact analysis.

[Nicolas Bailly, Attaché, Institute for the Equality of Women and Men]

Good afternoon.

As Carine has just mentioned, the act provided for the creation of a gender test, that is to say, an assessment of the impact of bills and draft regulations on the respective situations of women and men. At the federal level, other ex ante tests already exist and others were being prepared. Negotiations ensued and resulted in the establishment of a regulatory impact analysis. This analysis includes several components, including one that focuses on the equality of women and men.

This instrument is called RIA, or regulatory impact analysis. It is mandatory for all files submitted to the council of ministers. That said, the executive branch remains entirely free to accept or ignore the findings of the analysis. The purpose of this impact analysis, which is conducted by the regulators themselves, is to stimulate reflection. The goal is actually to get them to internalize the habit of reflecting on the impact of the regulatory proposals they put forward with respect to the situations of women and men.

Specifically, there are a series of open questions on the person in question and on the differences between men and women. The objective is ensuring that regulators have a clear idea of the respective situations of men and women in the area covered by the draft regulations, so they can then evaluate the impact of their proposal on the situations of women and men.

The law under which this impact assessment was created also mandated the establishment of a committee. The committee is composed of representatives of the five administrations touched by the various aspects of the impact analysis. This committee can offer advice if regulators wish to be advised on the quality of the analyses they performed. It also prepares a report analyzing in some way the quality of responses to questions posed as part of the analysis.

The findings of the first report prepared on the RIA as a whole are not very positive. Indeed, the RIA has not yet been truly integrated in the Belgian federal decision making process. The finding was that people spend relatively little time on it and tend to conduct the analysis at the end of the process. Ideally, the impact analysis should be performed as early as possible as part of the reflection leading to the adoption of draft legislation.

Therefore, the regulators and political and administrative officials have not yet—

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you.

That's your time, I'm sorry. We'll get the rest in the question period if that's okay.

Now, we're going to turn to our guests from the Ministry of Women in New Zealand and, Helen, I believe you're going to begin.

[Helen Potiki, Principal Policy Analyst, Ministry for Women of New Zealand]

[Witness speaks in a foreign language]

I greeted you in one of New Zealand's two official languages, te reo Maori, which is the language of the island indigenous people, the Maori in New Zealand.

It's a great privilege to be able to be here with you this morning, and now I'll hand over to our chief executive officer, Jo Cribb, to begin our statement.

[Dr. Jo Cribb, Chief Executive Officer, Ministry for Women of New Zealand]

Hello.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today.

You've asked us two questions about what New Zealand does to monitor the use of gender-based analysis in government processes, and also our view on what works to measure the impacts of government policies and programs in creating more equitable results.

I'll start by making the connection with our colleagues in Belgium. All government departments, every time a piece of policy is lodged with a cabinet committee that considers social policy advice, they have been required for nearly a decade to undertake gender analysis and reflect this in a gender implication statement. It's a ministry. The ministry for women used to provide gender analysis training.

I'd like to be honest with you, often the gender implication statement is done right at the end before the paper is submitted. With the gender analysis training we did, we had upwards of 500 policy analysts working on a range of issues across government. That evidence shows that the one-day training, or even the two-day training, was not being effective. While we think it's important to keep the gender implication statement, because it sends a powerful signal, it means somewhere in the process there is a benchmark with women when gender issues are considered. We've taken a different approach evolving to it as well.

In the ministry for women, we have what's called “a second opinion policy advice role,” which means we have the ability to comment on policy initiatives as they develop. We think we can be most effective by being quite targeted about where we would put our time and energy, so we can involve ourselves in policy processes right at the beginning, when we think we have the most gender impact. This seems to work for us well, so by the time the paper comes to SOC, a gender analysis is completely embedded in a policy process.

We've also found there are areas across government where we can make more of a difference and more impact, and perhaps that's more important to do. We work alongside our colleagues in a partnered process, and we're very technical, I guess, in where we put our resources. It's a macro-level in terms of monitoring the impact of government policies. We at the ministry have a statement of intent, which is a public accountability document that monitors how well we are doing and the how the government is doing across a series of indicators.

We also are about to produce an indicators report about the status of women in New Zealand that is overt across the priorities, and across what is happening, so each year we can be open about what is happening, and of course all of us are considering how we report at the SDG 5. As a country, we're taking it very seriously, as well.

In terms of our whole government, and in terms of how we are arranged and operating, we have some hard targets. The government has a 45% target for the number of women on state sector boards. We can happily report that we've just made 33.7%, which is the highest number ever, and there's a huge energy around this target.

For our other policy areas, we have a series of what are called better public services targets—we can provide more information around this—which guide our social and economic policy. In each of those, there is a gender component. For example, there are a series that are about the education levels young people achieve. We have worked hard to make sure there is a gender analysis that's at a very macro and strategic level within government. The ministry can be true to these with some specific projects that are completely focused on women.

If I would leave you a few key messages, it would be we think it's important to have the benchmarks or the rigour around a gender implication statement, but our experiences are that we have to move further than this. We find that, particularly as a ministry, we get results by working with and alongside our colleagues in the policy area right at the beginning. We are focused and targeted on what will yield the most results or the best progress for a women in gender issues in New Zealand. This model very much aligns with our indigenous peoples' philosophies about what it is to be a leader, to walk alongside others, and to advance as we go.

Would you like to comment some more on this?

[Helen Potiki]

As a government agency, we are committed to meeting the needs of the diverse range of women in New Zealand. Our philosophies around leadership, particularly in leading the government's work on gender equality, very much align with Maori philosophies of inclusive leadership. Those are things like, not just recognizing that certain agencies and parts of government have mandate and power to do things, but also that leadership comes from humility and authenticity, as well as facilitation in connecting people to others who can also contribute to the work.

An example is that our department holds in international caucus meeting twice or three times a year, and that is about our department bringing together like-minded groups of providers, international and domestic, to talk about issues of mutual interest. One of those issues will be the sustainable development goals, and New Zealand's commitment to achieving the sustainable development goals.

We see our role in leadership as not just being a contributor to research and policy, but also being able to connect people who can do the work better, alongside others, just as we do.

Thank you.

[Dr. Jo Cribb]

We are very much looking forward to your discussion, your questions, and a good dialogue.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent.

I would like to thank all of you for your comments, and especially for your Maori greeting. I was a little concerned that perhaps our translator wouldn't be able to translate.

We are going to begin with our first round of questioning.

I will start with my Liberal colleague, Ms. Damoff.

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

Thank you very much to all of you for joining us today. We are very grateful for the expertise you bring from other countries. It is very helpful to what we are doing here.

To the ladies from New Zealand, you mentioned that this has been required for over a decade. Is it actually mandated or legislated that it be performed? You said you are selective in where you put your resources. I had the impression that even though it is required, it is not being done.

Could you clarify that a little for us?

[Dr. Jo Cribb]

I can do that.

When a policy paper goes through the cabinet process—we call them cabinet papers—it goes through a cabinet committee first, and then it goes through the full cabinet. I think you probably have a similar process. A social policy paper [Inaudible—Editor] is in a template that has absolutely mandated that there be a gender statement around it. As my Belgian colleague said, is that a really effective way of encouraging agencies to think right at the beginning of the policy development process about how this will play out for women? In some ways, potentially but not necessarily. It can be a compliance exercise, rather than a full and integrated part of the policy process.

At the ministry, our role is obviously to ensure that the policy is as good quality as it could be. We tend to work out where the most important policies are. We actually put a person in the process, so we would be engaged right at the beginning of the policy design process, right at the commissioning, because that will mean the thinking happens all along the process.

As I said, I think it is really important and crucial to have those kinds of stakes in the ground, and we think about it around gender implication statements. It would not mean that every piece of policy has absolutely embraced gender equality thinking, and you may have to do some other things as well. That has been our experience.

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

Did you find that you had to get additional resources in order to be able to follow the various departments, or did you have to make do with what you already had in the ministry?

[Dr. Jo Cribb]

We make do with what we have in the ministry. We have a mandate. I think this is absolutely what happens with every government agency. We are the same as in your country.

My view, as chief executive, is that our role is to put ourselves where we can be most effective, and we absolutely do this.

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

One of the things that we had come forward to us is the need for champions within the various departments. Do you actively promote champions within the departments, or does it happen organically?

Is there a program where departments appoint a champion on gender mainstreaming, or whatever you may call it?

[Dr. Jo Cribb]

At the moment there is a formal program. In terms of the way we operate as a ministry through an influence model, we absolutely have champions in our organizations who we work with.

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

Thank you.

I have some questions for the Belgian witnesses as well.

How was it introduced in Belgium to make gender-based analysis mandatory? Or is it mandatory, and if so, how was that done?

[Carine Joly]

The analysis is mandatory by law. The act institutionalizes the process and makes mandatory this gender analysis, which we call gender mainstreaming. This the the term used to describe the integration of the gender dimension, or the comparative analysis. It is therefore mandatory. That is what I was saying when I outlined the series of obligations imposed on the government and the ministers as well as on the administrations involved.

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

When that was made mandatory, how well was it implemented within the departments? It sounds like you're still facing challenges in making it part of everyday decision-making for people if it's only being done at the end. So what can we do differently to ensure that it's just part of the process when everyone is looking to develop policy?

[Carine Joly]

This is part of the upstream process for a series of policies that are set out in the federal plan, as I said. In any case, the act makes it possible to apply this approach to all ministers involved, including—and this is for us one of the important points of this law —in matters where usually we do not talk about the different situations of men and women. For us at the federal level, that would be mobility or that kind of issue. We talk about that in employment much more easily than in other areas. Here, that applies to all federal ministers, whether in defence, mobility or other matters. This is a very important point. It is really a cross-cutting approach. This affects all ministers.

The entrenchment and the work done in all departments are relatively new, since the act, as I said at the beginning of my presentation, started being truly implemented in 2012, more or less. It is still relatively early in the process of a real implementation, but we have seen great progress with the establishment of a coordination group.

In all departments, certain individuals are appointed to take charge of gender mainstreaming. These people set up coordination groups made up of members responsible for statistics, research and everything else in each of the departments in question. I was not able to elaborate on this aspect, but it is already in place. We have made considerable progress, especially in collecting statistics, a point that Nicolas was not able to discuss. However, the transformative aspect is not yet there in all areas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's your time.

We'll go to my Conservative colleague Ms. Vecchio for seven minutes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much.

I just want to start first by differentiating because here in Canada we've been studying GBA+, and that plus that includes age, education, language, geography, culture, and income.

From listening to both sets of witnesses, I recognize that in New Zealand it seems to be completely focused on women, and in Belgium it was between men and women. Do you have those extra plus things that we have in here in Canada as well, and are you using that with any of your analysis when you're working with your government policies?

[Carine Joly]

I am not sure I quite understand the question. Are you asking whether we take into account other factors, not just gender? Did I understand correctly that the question is about intersectionality?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Exactly. What they've done here is they've generalized it not to be the sex but to be the gender that's in the whole of education, income, and a variety of different things. I'm wondering if we're using the same definition of “gender”.

[Carine Joly]

I will probably not provide a definition of the word “gender”. For us, the focus is on the comparison of the respective situations of women and men. When analyzing specific policies, such as social integration, we will consider whether we are dealing with a disadvantaged target group, the poorest women, and we will cross-tabulate the data. When we ask for data, it is by gender, not for the general population. We will consider where men and women respectively lie with respect to income. The age groups are also important. We will take into account a series of factors, according to the policy being analyzed.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Awesome. Thank you.

New Zealand?