Status of Women Committee on Feb. 25th, 2016

[Richard Domingue]

There is a cabinet directive for departments to perform strategic environmental assessments, so whenever there is a proposal they have to do an environmental assessment. This is done through a cabinet directive. This is one avenue that could be taken to force GBA to be performed, through a cabinet directive.

There are many means by which you could do that. It seems to work for the environmental assessment. It might work for gender-based analysis, but it's up to the government to decide how they would approach this: through a cabinet directive, a formal policy, or individual departments selecting their own means to perform GBA.

[Nancy Cheng]

I'll just add a little bit to that, if I may.

When you actually have a requirement like that, all submissions of Treasury Board and MCs are challenged by the central agencies. If there is an explicit policy requirement on that, you may see a stronger challenge function, and that should not be understated in terms of its merit as well. If you have a Treasury Board submission that Treasury Board Secretariat does not support, you're going to have a hard time going to the Treasury Board ministers.

That will be helpful as well when you look at stepping back to look at the types of instruments you can use to encourage or require the government to do certain things.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Going back to what you mentioned about the environmental assessments, could you elaborate a little bit more about exactly how that procedure worked and what the steps are? That may help guide us a little bit as to recommendations we can make as a committee to the Status of Women on the things we need to look at and compare to the Department of the Environment, and how, in your opinion, they have achieved success on putting more teeth into the recommendation.

[Nancy Cheng]

Richard, maybe you can continue to explain that.

[Richard Domingue]

The process, put simply, is that whenever there is a policy proposal being analyzed, they have to put the environmental lens on it and try to assess what the environmental impact of this policy initiative will be. This information is then relayed to the policy-makers through the documents to cabinet or through a TB submission, and this feeds into the system.

At the end it's a question of compromise. A policy initiative might have a different impact. It might have a regional impact, it might have an economic impact, or it might have an ethnicity impact. The environment is one factor that you will consider in the end to make a decision. At least on the environmental side, it looks as if the process in place seems to be better informing policy-makers on the environmental impact of those policy initiatives.

[Nancy Cheng]

In other words, there is a template to be completed when you file these Treasury Board submissions and MCs. In there, there is a box that you need to complete, so to speak, on these environmental assessments and also on GBA. The Treasury Board analysts or the PCO analysts look at these documents and they understand that there is a requirement to actually be asking whether you've done an environmental assessment in one of the boxes. With the GBA one, if they just say N/A or don't fill it in, it may not get the same level of challenge because there is no underlying mandate to compel the department to do that. It's kind of expected. You've committed to do so, so if you put something there, the rigour might differ somewhat when you are in the shoes of the analyst looking at these submissions.

[Richard Domingue]

If I may add, it doesn't mean that because there's a requirement to perform an environmental assessment, they're well done. They might be taking shortcuts and writing that there's no environmental impact, whereas in reality there is an environmental impact.

[Nancy Cheng]

We're not making that observation.

[Richard Domingue]

We've seen TB submissions with GBA that said that there was no gender impact, but there was no evidence that we could see from which they concluded that there was no gender impact.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right.

We're back over to Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming today and for all the information that you've been able to provide us. You're certainly doing a very good job answering our questions.

I have a few questions. I'm wondering if you can help me understand some of the problems that we see in the departments that don't use the GBA versus the departments that do use the GBA. Can you help me understand if we have an understanding of the contrast in terms of pros versus cons or the benefit of the GBA? Do we have a comparison analysis?

[Nancy Cheng]

The best thing is really to look at the four departments that we looked at in a more in-depth way because our look at the other 19 was kind of like a snapshot in terms of what's happening with the group of 25 that have made that formal commitment.

When you look at the four—we have an exhibit on page 9, exhibit 1.2—it kind of lays out where they're at with respect to their ability and their efforts in terms of doing the GBA analysis. We highlighted earlier that Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, for example, have certain processes that they've adopted to help support this. You see that they seem to have a stronger track. Industry Canada was one that seems to be weaker because they haven't got certain elements of the GBA and they also haven't implemented many of the elements of the GBA framework that was discussed earlier in the hearing.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

Can you help me understand a specific example of where there was a change that was made based on results from a GBA and it benefited the department? Can you actually give me a case study?

[Nancy Cheng]

If we turn to page 10, exhibit 1.3 was one of those examples. In part, we're also trying to help readers understand what this is all about.

In this particular case, when you look at what departments are supposed to do, they're supposed to gather data sources and base it on empirical data. They're supposed to consult stakeholder groups and then analyze that vis-à-vis the policy proposition that they have and ask, “Does this policy initiative have a different impact on the different genders?

First off, if it doesn't, fine, you can stop there. If it does not, are there additional measures or additional policy elements that should be considered?

In this particular case, it's one that refers to a family violence and prevention program. It was when they were re-evaluating an existing program to see if changes had to be made. In the second last paragraph it says that when they are updating the analysis, the department performed a program evaluation and during that program evaluation they were able to consult with women's groups. They were able to get feedback from women to see the impact.

Essentially, this program tends to affect women and children who might be victims of family violence. There is an impact on men and boys as well. The study shows that men and boys who have been exposed to these cases later on in life might actually become victims or perpetrators themselves. From the understanding of the program and how it'll affect the differ genders, they put on a program for men and boys who might have suffered from cases like that. They could actually make the program more effective in the prevention.

By looking at what they're faced with, what the data shows, and stepping back to think about how the program affects this and if they need to add on different things, then there are results.

That's what we were referring to, and Status of Women Canada will probably be a better organization to give you more specific examples, but we certainly see some impact when GBA is properly done.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Am I correct in understanding that the results of the GBA are really up to the cabinet minister then to take those results and implement them in order to change the department?

[Nancy Cheng]

I don't know if I have a good answer for that. It's an international commitment that the government has made. How the government chooses to implement some of these international commitments is sometimes a weak spot in terms of how we further whatever policy objectives we have. It's not necessarily restricted to the gender issue either.

The point is that if you have a government representative going to a UN forum, we sign up and we sign up as a government. When they come back, what happens? We need to make that link in terms of ensuring there is that implementation aspect of it, so we can respect our commitment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Ms. Ludwig.

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

Thank you for your excellent presentation and the questions around the room were fantastic too.

One of the things struck me when you were speaking. I was just reflecting on our responsibilities and roles in standing committees. How would it be if every committee—there are 24 standing committees—incorporated a gender-based analysis into the types of questions that people ask, the witnesses that are invited, the reporting that is done, as well as the recommendations?

How do you think that might change some of the outcomes of standing committees if a gender-based analysis was used by all members of standing committees?

[Nancy Cheng]

Again, I don't think I have a wise answer to that. Certainly, with a new Parliament, with new committee structures, it is important that the various committees interact with one another, so that you're working in synergy. If you have a subject that's being studied by one, but there is interest from the other ones, then hopefully there could be a consolidated view as to what might be the committee's report and recommendations, so that the government can take that on and respond to it.

I think coordination is a good part of it. What you don't want is multiple committees studying exactly the same questions. It's not a good use of your time. Then, if you have varying recommendations out of that, that would make it very difficult for the government to respond and implement. Working with the chairs of the various committees might be a way forward to minimize those kinds of situations.

It's good if multiple committees have an interest in a certain subject. It means that a subject is really important to Parliament and probably to the citizenry. The challenge is how we best move forward to help improve that aspect of public administration.

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

Thank you.

You mentioned that some departments' reporting has been poor regarding GBA. Has any department successfully reported on it?

There are a couple of parts to this question. If so, which ones and what did the reports show? The third part of the question is about the costing of GBA. I'm interested to know how much it actually costs to implement and execute.

[Nancy Cheng]

I highlighted earlier that reporting is indeed a weak spot. There is no external reporting by any of the departments.

In terms of cost, do we have any information? I'll ask Richard.

[Richard Domingue]

No.

[Nancy Cheng]

No. There is no costing information.

Again, though, Status of Women Canada might be in a position to help you gather such information. It is a centre of excellence to promote GBA. I think they would welcome any interest from parliamentary committees and the government to try to move this forward. I think they're quite keen to see changes and see better GBA being done moving forward.

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

Looking at specific sectors, are there any particular sectors that are better or worse with GBA?

[Nancy Cheng]

I don't believe our audit tried to look sector by sector. What we did was select several portfolios, so four departments out of the 25 were selected so that we could look at some of their initiatives.