Status of Women Committee on Nov. 30th, 2017

[Gina Wilson, Deputy Minister, Office of the Deputy Minister, Office of the Co-ordinator, Status of Women]

Thank you to the committee for having me. This is my first appearance as deputy minister of status of women, which is a new position, and it's a great honour to be here.

In response to that particular transfer, $50,000 being transferred to the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, it is intended to support networking opportunities for women entrepreneurs. In budget 2015, we announced support for an action plan for women entrepreneurs, and a key component of that included the development of an online platform to foster networking opportunities for women entrepreneurs. To deliver on this, actually this was part of a larger package that was in place, $200,000 in fact.

In budget 2017, we announced support for women entrepreneurs. To capitalize on that larger initiative, we took the opportunity to transfer $150,000 to ISED, the institution that would lead the initiative. That initiative was not in place in 2016-17, so we were not able to transfer the funds at that time. We have now transferred the remaining $50,000 planned for 2017-18 to the initiative.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Also, can you give us an update on the new gender-based violence knowledge centre, when it's going to start, when we can expect to see some movement with it, and the priorities for research in that centre?

[Gina Wilson]

From my perspective as deputy minister, I see the actual start when we actually begin to have people in place in the knowledge centre. We're at a point in time where we're staffing those opportunities and looking at various individuals.

Also, we're looking at finalizing a research plan for the department. Perhaps I could ask Justine if there's anything else, because this falls under the responsibility of her particular part of the department.

[Justine Akman, Director General, Policy and External Relations, Office of the Co-ordinator, Status of Women]

Sure.

We do have a team. About half of the people who are anticipated are staffed. Some of them already were in Status of Women and have many years of expertise in the area of gender-based violence across all the different tentacles and all the initiatives going on in different departments.

We are planning for some type of, at least, online presence, a light one, early in the new fiscal year. We are very actively working already with our key stakeholders, which are other federal departments, the provinces and territories, civil society organizations, and the minister's gender-based advisory committee to develop thorough action plans for each component of the gender-based violence strategy, with a focus, of course, on the ones under the responsibility of the Minister of Status of Women. That process is unfolding.

In terms of the research, as Deputy Minister Wilson said, we do have a strategy, and some of the products, which were part of the gender-based violence strategy, are quite deep into their development already, including a national gender-based violence survey for the first time in many years.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

With regard to the staffing and the research, we just heard from the minister that 40% of reported rapes are on campuses. Is there a designated research staff to deal with the problem we're having on university campuses right now?

[Justine Akman]

It is part of the gender-based violence strategy to fund a survey of post-secondary education. It's a population-based survey, so it is different from what's going on already in several provinces that do have jurisdiction over universities and campuses.

I'll just add that this is a sensitivity for the federal government. When we start actually taking action on campus, we have to be sensitive to jurisdictional issues, but, yes, we are just in the very early stages of designing a survey on violence on post-secondary campuses. As I said, it won't be done right on campus; it will be a population-based survey done by Statistics Canada.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Okay, thank you.

Sean, did you have some questions?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Yes, thanks very much, Bernadette.

Building on the jurisdictional issue, one of the things we heard the minister talk about was the provincial and territorial co-operation necessary to achieve some of the ends that she hopes to achieve. Being sensitive to the jurisdictional issues, are there different ways that the departments identify to actually get through this jurisdictional barrier? We heard at length during our studies that you have to get in schools, that you have to deal with early childhood education, and we've reduced some of our recommendations to observations because of this jurisdictional problem. Is the best way to deal with this maybe to deal with calls for proposals that community organizations can partner with school boards, universities, and the like, or is there another way to achieve this end?

[Gina Wilson]

What Justine was referring to is a Stats Canada population-based survey where there would be an identifier for students per se, post-secondary students. When it comes to calls for proposals, we're absolutely open to those kinds of initiatives.

Justine and Nancy, feel free to comment on that.

We're certainly willing to consider research opportunities that are part of project-based funding.

[Justine Akman]

I'll jump in there. I'm officially the old-timer at Status of Women Canada. I've been there for two and a half years. I have more corporate memory than some of my colleagues.

A few years ago, there was an initiative to fund civil society organizations looking at the issue of campus-based violence. That was through our grants and contributions program, which my colleague Nancy Gardiner has recently become responsible for. The results of those projects were rolled up, and one of the things we do in our grants and contributions program is make sure we invest in knowledge transfer. That means rolling up the results at a national level and using various fora, including online platforms, to share that information across the country so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel, including for guidelines on campus violence.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Karen Vecchio]

We're now going to Martin Shields for seven minutes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Help me out here. We have some great people on the panel who know a lot of stuff, but I don't know what you do. What I'm looking for—you probably listened to my previous line of questioning—is who advises the minister when we talk about a whole-of-government approach in terms of what legislation is, and in policy, what is being developed. Who works on advising the minister on those pieces of legislation? Who's keeping track of it so that you have a whole-of-government approach to looking at status of women?

[Gina Wilson]

I would suggest that we do that as a team of senior managers responsible for the agency. As deputy minister, I'm a senior adviser to the minister when it comes to all policy, program, operational, and corporate issues. However, we are divided into different branches in the organization.

Anik is our chief financial officer and is responsible for corporate services. Nancy Gardiner, as mentioned, is responsible for our women's program, our grants and contributions, and our regional operations. Justine Akman is responsible for policy development and coordination and for strategic advice as well.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

As you describe that, you're talking about a lot of the internal things that you're doing. Whose responsibility is it to watch what other departments are doing in the development of their policies?

[Gina Wilson]

I would say again that we work as a team. We're all responsible for elements of that. Certainly, when it comes to policy initiatives of other government departments, we generally can sit on interdepartmental committees or in different fora. We can comment on issues. We can work proactively or reactively with our colleagues in other departments. It really depends on the issue.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

As this is growing in the sense of its priority and importance, in the role that you then provide to other departments, has the awareness, the idea that you're there and you're watching, begun to knock down the silos? Is there a communication that's going both ways, or is it basically one way?

[Gina Wilson]

If I can clarify, Madam Chair, “this” being women's issues, gender issues, sir?

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Yes.

[Gina Wilson]

Okay.

I would say that definitely I've seen a change. I've been in government for almost 20 years now in various departments, and for six months here at Status of Women. I can say that there has been a shift in culture and thinking, certainly at my senior management tables, around many of these issues. There's certainly been more emphasis on gender-based analysis. There's certainly been more consideration of all of those elements over the last number of years, yes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

With your 20 years of experience, you have extreme knowledge of the silos that you have to deal with. Can you give me an example of how you're dealing with those silos?

[Gina Wilson]

Silos and the horizontality is a very pervasive challenge across government, I would say, on many issues, gender issues certainly being one of them. I'm not going to say that it's an easy endeavour to undertake. However, it's one that we're consistently working at.

An example would be gender-based analysis. I think the minister very effectively responded to some of those questions in talking about GBA+ and our efforts to create a new culture in government, for instance, with the 80,000 public servants who have taken the online course around GBA+, that being a good example. That begins to shift the conversation around policies, programs, and operations.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

As you look at this committee, what do you think we as a committee could do that would facilitate what you've just described as a process?

[Gina Wilson]

Being new to this role and being new to your committee, I'm not exactly certain as to what you have undertaken so far—and probably my colleagues are—but I know that from my own perspective, certainly, learning for me in this area has probably been most effective in terms of some of the encounters and visits I've had with some of the regions and some of the service-based and non-governmental organizations. I've certainly learned a lot.

My advice to this committee would be to get out and visit some of these entities, institutions, and organizations and interact. I'm sure that the committee and many of you have already.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

You talked about going out there. I'm a sort of grassroots guy who believes the carrot will do a lot more than the stick. If you can get out to the communities, to the grassroots, if you can find mechanisms to take that to the grassroots and incentivize it, you absolutely get more change, but you also get more creative change.

You've said that you go out and learn. Can you describe that? What did you find when you went out there and learned so that you said because you went out there and saw...? Can you give me an example of where you said, “Hey, I saw something because I went out there”? You're saying that we should do that, so can you give me an example?