Status of Women Committee on Feb. 25th, 2016

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

I also want to comment on a statement my colleague made about the need for understanding of gender-based analysis.

Just after it was announced that I was going to be on this committee, somebody posted a message on Facebook saying, “It's nothing personal, but why do we actually need a committee in 2016 on the status of women?”

I will say that there is a fair bit of misunderstanding of the role of Status of Women Canada, what it's expected to do, and what it needs to do. I hope that through this committee we also do a very thorough job in getting those recommendations not only reported, but understood as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right. We go back to my Conservative colleagues.

Mrs. Vecchio.

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

Thanks very much.

Once again, what kind of training is available for GBA? Is anything available for parliamentarians, so that they can learn more?

Carrying on with Karen's point, that GBA is a new term, as Karen and Pam said, what is it that we can do, and how can we train parliamentarians as well?

[Nancy Cheng]

I believe that Status of Women Canada would welcome the opportunity to provide orientation and training for members of this committee and parliamentarians. I don't think I would be speaking out of turn in saying that. I can't see their not welcoming that particular invitation. They can then tailor it to the level of understanding that you might need.

One thing to consider when we're talking about barriers and issues might be more general communication to the Canadian public. But that would be at a different level from what members of this committee need to know to help you study and challenge issues relating to GBA implementation.

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

I'm going to share my time with Ms. Harder.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did you have something to add, Richard?

[Richard Domingue]

I was going to say that Status of Women Canada put in place a website on which there's an e-learning module. I think it takes two or three hours to go through the GBA+ training. I understand that some departments are actively promoting the training right now.

It might be a resource that is useful to members of Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You can send the link to the clerk or the clerk will ask you for the link.

[Nancy Cheng]

We can certainly provide that information after the hearing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

That's good.

We'll go over to you, Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you. A bit of my background is in research, so I understand the work and the energy that go into doing research or analysis of some sort. I also understand that following analysis you have to do something with the information in order to create change.

We're doing GBA in a number of different departments. At the end of the day, what are we doing with this information to help create change? Is that process streamlined?

[Nancy Cheng]

Regarding the process, we look at data, we do consultation, and then we step back to see what that tells us. If it tells us that there are gender issues, then we would expect the public servants to consider how they would modify the program they are proposing or the changes they're going to make to a program, or would add other elements or do something else to mitigate unintended impacts.

The member's question is absolutely right. We don't just do the analysis for the sake of doing it. We do it and then say whether something needs to be done. When senior management reviews it, they should be asking whether there actually is an impact, and if there is an impact, what they are doing about it and whether they are doing enough. That would indeed be the expectation, if they were to carry out that GBA from beginning to end.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Ms. Nassif.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you for being with us, Ms. Cheng and Mr. Domingue.

The 2015 report noted that not all the recommendations of the 2009 Spring Report of the Auditor General of Canada have been implemented.

Could you share with the committee some of the recommendations that were not implemented and make suggestions as to how these recommendations could be implemented, please?

[Nancy Cheng]

Madam Chair, with respect to that particular question, we weren't trying to look at each recommendation and say what elements were recommended or not. We stepped back and asked, “Rolling forward into 2015, given that many more departments have committed to do GBA, what is the state of play?” Our recommendations now do not compare with those in the 2009 report.

The 2009 recommendations prompted a departmental action plan by the Government of Canada. Some of them could be superceded with respect to new events. The 2009 departmental action plan on gender-based analysis is the way the government tells Parliament, “This is how we're going to fix it.”

We're auditing against what they said they would do in 2009. The comment was made that not everything was taken care of. When you look at the results—20 years later if you go back to the UN commitment, six or seven years since we did the last audit—a good number of departments didn't accept the framework that Status of Women Canada provided. When we selected 16 initiatives, half of them were not complete or satisfactory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

We have time for one more round with Ms. Malcolmson.

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

Thank you.

I have two questions. First, is there any situation where a GB analysis shouldn't be done at all? Is there ever an excuse for saying it isn't necessary for a particular type of decision or action?

[Nancy Cheng]

When we looked at the 16, we were able to see that for a good number of them there were no gender issues. If there are none, then it doesn't beg for further work. That's when the public servants should stop and say, “We've looked at it. There are truly no gender issues.” That's what needs to be documented.

What they're sometimes weak on is when there's no gender impact and it's not obvious. In some cases when they say there's no gender impact, we could find evidence to show that perhaps there was. It underscores that the due diligence wasn't sufficient in some cases.

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

As I understand it, your finding is that the question always needs to be asked but the answer may come very quickly, and there may not be further work required.

[Nancy Cheng]

In some cases it may become clear fairly quickly that there are indeed no gender issues, and we're not trying to create gender issues when there are none.

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

Understood.

I'm trying to decide what decisions trigger. One concern I've heard is around infrastructure spending. While we already have a pay gap between men and women, infrastructure spending, as great as it is, might have the unintended consequence of increasing that gender gap if, for example, all of the money goes to water treatment pipes, sewers, and classic big heavy construction as opposed to investing in affordable housing, which might be found to have a broader benefit for both genders.

Could you help me understand how particular decisions on separate types of infrastructure spending might be of benefit and how GBA would fit into that decision-making?

[Nancy Cheng]

We don't profess to be experts in GBA . I think Status of Women Canada would be in a much better position to help you understand that.

You would look at the different trades. If you're talking about major construction projects, the likely employment opportunities tend to be with men. Is there a gender issue? Is there a women's issue whereby you need to consider how they could benefit women in some respect? In what way?

Sometimes some of these gender-based analyses impacts are not obvious. In some cases they may be. Other times, you actually have to sit back and think about whether there is really an impact on women and whether there are things we can do for women. It's gender neutral, by the way. It's not just for women. It's for men as well.

If decisions affect men and women differently, public servants have to think long and hard, and ask themselves whether they should be doing something additional or differently in terms of policy instruments to make sure that there is more of a balance.

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

That's helpful, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Excellent. Very good.

I just want to thank Richard and Nancy for coming. You were excellent with your answers. Obviously, you know very well the work that was done, and I see around the table an appetite to do some follow-up. I appreciate your input, and we know where you are if we need to call you back in the future. Thank you.

Now we're going to proceed to just a little bit of committee business that may help us with figuring out how to move forward with what we've just heard. I wanted to give you an update based on the steering committee. Remember after last week's, or was it Tuesday's meeting—it seems longer, doesn't it?—the steering committee met, and one of the decisions that was taken was that if reports or motions are to be sent out, we want to abide by the 48-hour rule in order for people to be able to have adequate time for review. Whenever there's a motion that's going to require a vote, we should make sure we send that out 48 hours in advance so that people can have time to think about it and come back. The only exception to that was the parliamentary library analyst reports, which go in 24 hours.

The clerk has a question. If witnesses send documents less than 48 hours before the meeting, is it okay for us to still have them on the agenda? That's okay? Okay, very good.

Then the second thing was we talked about whether or not to be in the—

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

Sorry, can I just get a clarification from the clerk?

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Sure.