Status of Women committee  At ESDC we do reflect on it from the service side through to the policy side because our programs really very much touch people. We deliver programs to individuals. It's pretty hard to come to the conclusion that these don't have a gender dimension, an age dimension, etc., even o

Status of Women committee  That's a big question—

Status of Women committee  —considering that ESDC delivers programs from the start of life to the very end. We have a vigorous assessment and evaluation program where we take a hard look at our programs with a view to assessing where we're falling down and the types of interventions that are needed to imp

Status of Women committee  Well, there are other measures. There's the guaranteed income supplement, as well, that is targeted specifically to low-income seniors. I'm not sure if your parents are already seniors and already collecting or if they're anticipating that in the future, but there are measures.

Status of Women committee  Yes, we do have GBA champions in the department. I did not attend that meeting, but I had a full debrief on the discussion at the meeting.

Status of Women committee  We have a network of people across the department. Every initiative certainly benefits from people who can promote it and talk about it. Frankly, I think it is about the organization as a whole being comfortable talking about it. I think a champion is a focal point. In my view, i

Status of Women committee  It doesn't hurt to have a profile on things. That's for sure, and we are moving forward with putting that kind of focus on it at ESDC.

Status of Women committee  In the context of a particular policy or program, let's take the example of old age security. That's a universally applied program essentially to alleviate poverty in senior populations. When we're looking at how effective that program is, we pull apart the data to understand how

Status of Women committee  If our objective is alleviating poverty—let's stick with that for a moment—and the other objective is that the programs apply in a universal way, and they apply equally to Canadians who fit the eligibility requirements, if you have that kind of a spread, and it's linked to gender

Status of Women committee  Well, where is it we want to be as a society in terms of women participating in certain trades? We will all have views on that. I think from a more modest perspective, we would pursue increasing the number of women who participate in these trades. Let's use high-skilled trades

Status of Women committee  Absolutely.

Status of Women committee  Again, we work closely with the provinces on training. Those are all programs that provinces typically pursue and manage. Again, it is about the labour market and about supporting improved outcomes. Yes, we do support across a vast range, and we fund provinces to provide training

Status of Women committee  In ESDC we have a network. We have a centre of expertise, which includes a range of tools and supports. We also have a person half time who plays an important role in pulling things together. We will be putting a champion in place for support, and some of these things we've picke

Status of Women committee  At ESDC, it's at the analyst level. We're in a constant process of seeing how we can improve, and we're looking at whether we should broaden that out to a wider audience, but at the analyst level, it's part of the suite of mandatory training.

Status of Women committee  Certainly from ESDC's perspective, we focus a lot on vulnerable populations. Many of our program interventions are specifically targeted to vulnerable populations—new Canadians, women, etc.—so GBA+ has just been part of how we frame.