Public Accounts committee  There is no policy that requires GBA to be performed. That being said, it is true that when the departments prepare an MC or a TB submission, there is in the template a section that they have to fill out showing that they did perform a GBA. What we saw in the report, however, is

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, in regard to the barriers that explain the reason why GBA was not always performed.... Actually, I think I will answer your two questions in one answer. I think it is easier for some departments to do GBA than it is for others. It is easier if it has a social component

Public Accounts committee  We've introduced a new reporting format, I believe, the cycle before this one. The May 2015 report would have adopted that new reporting format.

Public Accounts committee  The Office of the Auditor General cannot and does not make recommendations regarding specific policies like these. We have noted that the lack of mandatory requirements could be a barrier. In her opening statement Ms. Ballantyne explained that the agency was going to survey the

Public Accounts committee  At this time, indeed, there are no penalties if the gender-based analysis is poor. There may be penalties later, if we see that GBA was not considered in developing policies. At that point, there could be poorly designed policies. That said, it comes after the fact. It is only ov

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I think you're right: mandatory requirement would not solve the GBA issue by itself. Training is key here. I've mentioned the word “reflex” a few times. When departmental officials design policies, what's important for them is not so much that there's a requirement, th

Public Accounts committee  Do you mean from our office, as opposed to an internal audit from Status of Women?

Public Accounts committee  Because we, as an office, decided that time was required for the 2009 action plan to mature.

Public Accounts committee  It was at the request, Mr. Chair, of Sheila Fraser, who at the time was the Auditor General. I was attending, I think, a hearing of the status of women committee, and the GBA file was discussed then. It was when she left that meeting that she tasked the office to perform a GBA au

Public Accounts committee  No. The 2009 report, Mr. Chair, is a snapshot of the situation as of that year. We don't see how the file evolved over those 14 years.

Public Accounts committee  This initiative was led by the Department of Finance, with the support of, at the time, Industry Canada and the BDC. BDC did some ex ante analysis before the initiative was announced. Mr. Ferguson referred to the analysis they did to identify the market gap. In regard to their p

Public Accounts committee  Sorry...?

Public Accounts committee  Exactly.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, this information was not released, so it's not publicly known. I think you'd have to ask the Department of Finance or the BDC.

Public Accounts committee  This is exactly the recommendation we made: that they should disclose more information about the performance of the venture capital action plan. They've agreed with our recommendation, so one would assume that eventually the investments and the performance of those investments wi