Status of Women committee  We don't keep a specific list. The Treasury Board process is one whereby the department develops the submission. It's very much ultimately that minister's submission. It comes in to the Treasury Board program analysts, who review the submission. They have conversations with the officials in the department who are responsible for the submission concerning any deficiencies or issues that are viewed in the submission.

Status of Women committee  Perhaps this will help to clarify. We have a set of questions that have been provided to analysts to use in order to help them review the Treasury Board submission when it comes in. Along the line of those questions, there's a specific set of them that deals with GBA. So there's a set of questions around outcomes, goals, and objectives, questions such as these: Does the policy or program support the full participation and equality for women and men?

Status of Women committee  I can't give a specific case because then we're into cabinet confidences, we're into the specifics around a submission and the discussions around the submission, which pull me into cabinet confidences. What I can do, though--and perhaps this will assist, because this is the part we never really got to discuss--is explain how this fits together and where we play in the process.

Status of Women committee  In terms of the training, gender-based analysis training is incorporated into the orientation for new employees. There is more fulsome training available for analysts, and we do run special training sessions on occasion to give a more fulsome training around how to do GBA analysis, but it is a component of the orientation for all new analysts who are coming into the organization.

Status of Women committee  I'm not sure I fully understand the point that's being made. What the guide says is that departments are expected to include these considerations when they're performing their initial policy analysis, usually at the MC stage. We also expect them, when they're preparing their Treasury Board submission, to reflect on whether or not there are GBA considerations in the implementation of that policy decision that has been taken by cabinet.

Status of Women committee  I think that's very much along the point that I was going to make. There is an expectation that departments will do so on a regular basis, and the way we've set the cycle on strategic reviews, for example, is once every four years. We intend to have full coverage of the discretionary spend over a four-year cycle.

Status of Women committee  I would say there is a minister responsible for status of women in Canada. At the highest political level, there is clear leadership there. Within each organization--and there may be some variability in terms of the practice--but certainly within TBS the champion is an assistant secretary--so an assistant deputy minister--as are all of the champions for the various types of areas where we have a champion, like official languages, employment equity, and sustainable development.

Status of Women committee  The champions are named by the secretary. They have full support not just from the secretary as the deputy of the organization, but also from the entire senior management team. That's basically the structure of what the champion role is meant to do.

Status of Women committee  I have to unpack that question a little bit, but there is a process that was launched this year, and which Treasury Board Secretariat has been leading, called strategic reviews. This was our first year of doing strategic reviews to determine or look at, on a four-year cycle, all existing spending within departments.

Status of Women committee  There hasn't been any directive. The approach has been continuing to try to embed GBA as part of the policy reflex of the analysts at the Treasury Board Secretariat, which I think is pretty much indicative of what most departments are trying to do. Certainly I'm not aware of any evidence or measure that would demonstrate that the quality of GBA analysis today is somehow less than it was five years ago.

Status of Women committee  I certainly agree in that I don't look at this as an end state. I look at this as a kind of marathon journey that actually has no finish line. We are continuously seeking ways to improve our ability to operate horizontally, to coordinate between departments to find ways to ensure that the synergies you can achieve through bringing together different departments with different policy levers and different policy expertise are brought to bear on a given problem.

Status of Women committee  May I just add to that, Madam Chair?

Status of Women committee  I just wanted to add to that. I think your question really goes to the heart of what the Westminster system is about, and the purpose of a cabinet. For those who are fans of the Westminster system anyway, the real magic of the system is the idea that you do have robust discussion amongst the entirety of the cabinet--amongst the different ministers, who all have different perspectives, different experiences, different backgrounds.

Status of Women committee  Sure. I think the focus of the board really is twofold. It's ensuring that the spending planned in the budget is properly expressed within the estimates through, ultimately, the appropriation act, which then provides the actual legal spending authority for a department to spend funds in that particular area.

Status of Women committee  Sure. We undertook strategic reviews this fiscal year. They fed into budget 2008. There are specific references in the budget to how the strategic review was used to reallocate funding from low-priority programming in the departments that were reviewed to other priority areas of spending.