Status of Women committee  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 empi

Status of Women committee  On the last point of whether it requires a legislative fix, it's not necessarily through legislation. If you have a government directive or a policy requirement out of the Treasury Board Secretariat, it serves the same purpose in terms of actually having a mandate—people need to

Status of Women committee  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

Status of Women committee  We highlighted that in paragraph 1.58, where we have identified a few issues. I think the area about awareness and training cannot be overstated. People have to understand it, rather than just feel that it is yet another thing they need to do when their window to prepare these

Status of Women committee  If I may, I would add another point. One of the things we observed when we looked at the 19 that did implement the GBA+ framework, which another member highlighted earlier, was that the weak area is the sixth element. There are six elements to the GBA framework in terms of practi

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, I hope I remember all the different elements of the questions. If I miss one, please do remind me. First and foremost in terms of looking at other elements, there is always room for that, and I think Status of Women should really keep the broad outlook in terms of s

Status of Women committee  Thank you for giving me an opportunity to better explain that yet again. The office does not propose a policy for the government to adopt. That's the government's prerogative, not the auditors'. The auditors talk about the consequences of policy. It would then be up to the gove

Status of Women committee  Madam Chair, I'll ask Richard to help me answer that question.

Status of Women committee  If I may, I would really encourage the committee to not be restricted to the wording in our recommendations. When you look at the various findings, you will have your own report, and have your own view. Your recommendations can go further or they can go less far. They do not have

Status of Women committee  We highlighted a few potential barriers in paragraph 1.58, on page 16. There we indicated that it is a commitment, but it is just a commitment. There is no government directive or policy that requires it to be done. In other words, when we go to a department and do an audit, if t

Status of Women committee  It is good to clarify what we do and what we don't do. Auditors bring observations to the table. We do not propose government policy or negate government policy. It is very important that we keep that independence and objectivity from the government machinery. However, that be

Status of Women committee  From our perspective, it's just one of many elements that need to be considered. Part of it might be that departments and agencies want to do the right thing, but they just don't know how to broach it as well. Just basically laying down a law to say you have to do it would not t

Status of Women committee  It certainly can be one of the elements that should be identified that needs to be overcome. We were struggling with the same result statement as well for part of the audit, Madam Chair. We did an audit in 2009, and when you look at the UN commitment that was made way back, there

Status of Women committee  We selected four departments. They would be listed under the focus of the audit and that would be on page 2. We indicated that the first two departments were selected because they were originally looked at when we did our 2009 report, so it's a revisit to see whether things have

Status of Women committee  We suggest that the committee consider some of our recommendations. We often encourage departments to provide a management action plan resulting from our recommendations. In other words, the auditors saw that certain things might be an issue and identified a way forward through a