Status of Women committee  I would say that one of the initiatives we took from Canada to the world and developing countries was really looking at women, motherhood, safety, and welfare. But it was taken completely out of the context of all of the factors that really affect women, such as getting pregnant, going through pregnancy, prenatal care, aftercare, and the need for work.

Status of Women committee  I think you have to have several layers for compliance. Its never enough simply to have a legislative mechanism; that's ultimate, but you have to create incentives so that people want to comply. What I found to be quite useful when you're working on gender is to align it within a change management perspective and to see either the champion or a person who is one of the leaders as one of the people promoting various types of change management, and that gender takes a lead in it.

Status of Women committee  I still think it would be useful, because you would have to have someone who has competence in the area, which would help to guide quite a lot of what goes on. I would also have to be someone who would structure the way responses would be made, and who would have oversight, and who would be able to work in partnership with the committee.

Status of Women committee  It has to be an effort based....

Status of Women committee  I was saying it has to be an effort that's based on the different paths that orientation needs in each and every department, because those are the basic tools you need. It's not one-size-fits-all. I think that's important. You need the leadership, and you need training, but it's design training to be very specific.

Status of Women committee  I would agree with that also. I also think that there's a role for Treasury Board, because they are very powerful, and we need to be able to hold them accountable. It's very, very important. They influence a great deal, and we need to recognize that. I think that some of the things we need to look at when we're doing this phased-in approach is thinking about where we may need to start, who the leaders will be, and who will model change.

Status of Women committee  I'm sorry, I couldn't hear very well. I would agree with what both speakers have said. We have many policy institutes, large and small, across Canada that look at particular aspects of Canadian life, and they amass a great deal of data that can be accessed and can be used. Their expertise can be pulled into the mix.

Status of Women committee  There have been a number of studies about joined-up government and about how IT is being used in communities—I know that Bombay and Hyderabad in India are two such communities—to get the community to respond to what their policy issues are and to have some interchange with people who make policy.

Status of Women committee  I would like to see you revisit all of the recommendations and sit down to discuss which of them, in the current fiscal context and current culture of acceptance, you think would move things forward most. It's not really a judgment that I can make, because I'm very uncertain. We've come out of a time when there's been no interest really in equality, in visiting that sort of approach.

Status of Women committee  That is how I would work it. It would be more or less iterative.

Status of Women committee  I think there are existing tools, but we'll have to work on doing some more of them. You have the researchers who have already made a lot of headway. CRIAW is doing some work on that. There are a lot of tools. It's a question of bringing them together and harnessing them to the right audiences.

Status of Women committee  I think we've unfortunately fallen behind. I do want to say that when I say GBA, I really mean a great deal more—in fact, even more than what I see in GBA+—and I always have meant that.

Status of Women committee  I would just add, look at what the Commonwealth has been doing. Some of it's good and some of it's not enough. It covers a number of countries and a number of years. Sometimes what you really learn is what hasn't worked and why, and that in itself is very useful. The other problem I have is that once again, in the questions I hear people asking about gender training, including UN Women, one size fits all.

Status of Women committee  I might make some changes, but I think for the core of them, yes. We may have different names or slightly different structures because things change, but the intent would need to be the same. We have not done very well moving forward.

Status of Women committee  I can't give a dollar figure, but we might want to think about the levels of expertise that we need to pay for to get this done. That might be one way of going about it, because if you get people who don't have a lot of experience, it won't work.