Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue No. 9 - Evidence - September 28, 2016
OTTAWA, Wednesday, September 28, 2016
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 11:30 a.m. to examine Canada's international and national human rights obligations.
Senator Jim Munson (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Good morning, senators and witnesses. I'd like to welcome everyone back after the summer recess. I know many senators were working hard all summer as well.
Just before I get into this, I'm really proud of the work we've done on the Syrian refugee issue. We've certainly gotten a great deal of coverage, and we have more things to do now as a result of our work. I'm very pleased with what we've done in a timely fashion.
[Translation]
Before we begin, I would like to ask all the senators to introduce themselves.
[English]
Then I will introduce our witnesses.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan, Toronto, Ontario.
The Chair: And the deputy chair.
Senator Andreychuk: Raynell Andreychuk from Saskatchewan.
[Translation]
Senator Gagné: Good morning. I am Raymonde Gagné, from Manitoba.
[English]
Senator Nancy Ruth: Nancy Ruth, Ontario.
Senator Martin: Yonah Martin, British Columbia.
Senator Hubley: Elizabeth Hubley, P.E.I.
The Chair: My name is Jim Munson. I always tell people, "Do you know who I think I was?''
For our first panel this morning, this is a very serious issue and we want to thank Senator Nancy Ruth for giving us all the ideas on what's an extremely important issue before our country and this committee. We have representatives from the government with us. From the Status of Women Canada: Justine Akman, Director General, Policy and External Relations; and Vaughn Charlton, Manager, Gender-Based Analysis. From the Privy Council Office, we have François Daigle, Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy. From the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Renée LaFontaine, Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services Sector.
Please proceed with your opening statements, and then we will have questions from the senators.
Justine Akman, Director General, Policy and External Relations, Status of Women Canada: Thank you for inviting us. We are very pleased to have this opportunity to discuss gender-based analysis in the federal public service.
I'd like to begin by recognizing the Algonquin nation, on whose traditional territory we are gathering.
[Translation]
The Government of Canada has a longstanding commitment to implementing gender-based analysis, or GBA, throughout federal departments and agencies.
GBA is important because it helps us advance gender equality by ensuring that the federal government considers women's and men's different experiences when we create new policies, programs and legislation.
[English]
As an agency, Status of Women Canada has a central role in supporting the use of GBA across federal organizations. As the centre of excellence on GBA within the federal government, this includes providing departments and agencies with the training, tools and guidance they need to effectively incorporate GBA in the development of policies, programs and legislation.
As you're aware, the federal government's commitment to GBA flows from Canada's ratification of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted by UN member states in 1995 at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China. It identifies 12 priority areas for action aimed at removing all the obstacles to women's active participation in all aspects of society, including economic, social, cultural and political decision-making spheres.
The government's support for GBA as a priority is reflected in our minister's mandate letter and was underscored by Budget 2016, which provided increased investments for Status of Women Canada. These new resources are enhancing the agency's capacity to implement our GBA mandate by extending our support to departments and allowing us to play a more direct role in providing gender advice on key government initiatives. It will also help in our ability to monitor action and progress across federal departments and agencies over the long run.
In recent years, we have made important progress in promoting GBA as a competency for all officials. For example, in 2012 we developed and launched an introduction to GBA online course on the Status of Women website, making GBA basic training available to all federal officials. Since its launch, over 18,000 federal employees from over 60 departments and agencies have successfully completed the course, and this number continues to grow.
In April, Status of Women Canada, Treasury Board and the PCO tabled the Action Plan on Gender-based Analysis (2016-2020) in response to an Auditor General's report that made three recommendations for action to more fully implement GBA as a rigorous practice across government. The action plan lays out a strategic set of directions and actions to ensure GBA is applied more systematically and that we can report on progress to Canadians.
We are also working to respond to the reports tabled in June this year by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, which collectively made 23 recommendations to strengthen GBA implementation and accountability. We have closely examined the recommendations to determine how we can use them to enhance our approach to GBA implementation. Our responses to the committee reports will be tabled in October.
I would like to briefly highlight some of the GBA action plan's components.
The Auditor General's first recommendation asked that we identify barriers to GBA implementation and develop concrete actions to address them. This first step, that of identifying barriers, is critical. While some of the barriers are known, we had not systematically reached out to departments in the past to ask about the internal barriers they face.
Therefore, earlier this year, Status of Women worked with PCO and Treasury Board to collect information through a comprehensive GBA survey that was sent to all deputy ministers. Its intent was to capture not only information about their internal resources and capacities for GBA but to identify the potential barriers for the consistent use of GBA in the development of new government initiatives.
We're currently reviewing these responses, but this information will be critical in determining how we can focus additional supports as we go forward. For example, we know that many departments have identified the availability of gender-desegregated data as a key challenge.
As part of our role as a centre of excellence, one of the primary supports we provide is GBA training. Basic training is now widely available online, as I mentioned, which means we can focus on developing tools to promote deeper competencies. Through our work with over 30 departments over the last five years, we've learned that GBA training is most effective when tailored to specific audiences and developed and delivered in partnership with experts from the sector being trained.
Under the action plan, we are working with partners, including the departments themselves, to enhance and expand the GBA training suite. This includes developing in-depth training for specific sectors. For example, we're currently working with the security and defence departments, including Public Safety Canada; Canada Border Services Agency; Correctional Service Canada; the Canadian Armed Forces; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; and the RCMP to develop advanced GBA training that is tailored to their specific operational and policy environments.
We're also working on an ongoing basis to update and modernize online tools and resources, including updating them to reflect current discussions about non-binary gender and intersectional approaches.
Our new resources will also enable us to augment our internal expertise in more areas so that Status of Women Canada analysts can provide direct advice in relation to specific departments, portfolios or issues. We're working with senior officials and other government departments and agencies to determine priority areas for collaboration and support. For example, recent engagement on the federal social infrastructure strategy and our ability to provide information, including data from our stakeholders, resulted in the identification of the need for a greater investment in shelters and transition housing to better meet the needs of women and children.
We have also been engaged in work being undertaken by the Canadian Armed Forces related to integrating gender perspectives into military planning and operations, with the understanding that operational effectiveness is enhanced when diversity is considered.
Other areas we plan to collaborate on include supporting innovative use of clean technology in natural resource sectors and key mandate letter commitments such as the development of the Canadian Poverty Reduction Strategy and developing a new multi-year health accord.
These are few examples of the types of concrete collaborative work we hope to continue to engage in to impact program and policy development.
We can also do more to monitor GBA performance and to report out. As part of our action plan, we will work to design structures that will allow us, for the first time, to systematically monitor and reflect on our progress in implementing GBA. Actions to support this will include continued GBA annual surveys and engagement in senior level forums to monitor GBA implementation, developing gender equality indicators in key areas to track progress, establishing a more formal evaluation structure and identifying ways to periodically report on the implementation of GBA across government.
Improving our ability to report progress on the application of GBA will allow us to demonstrate to Canadians how it has enhanced the policies, programs and services that they receive. We also hope to share practical examples of GBA's impact with provinces, territories and international partners, many of whom already look to Canada for our leadership on GBA.
Through continued collaboration with our colleagues in the PCO, TBS and across federal departments and agencies using a whole-of-government approach, we know that GBA will support our ability to meet diverse Canadians' needs and to advance gender equality across the country in line with our international commitments to equality.
I will now pass the microphone to my colleague from PCO. I welcome any questions that you might have afterwards.
The Chair: Before we go on, I would like to introduce the two other senators who have arrived. Would you like to introduce yourselves?
Senator Omidvar: Senator Omidvar from Ontario.
Senator Ngo: Senator Ngo from Ontario.
[Translation]
François Daigle, Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Social Development Policy, Privy Council Office: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee, for this opportunity to speak with you about gender-based analysis, GBA, and how it can help the government develop new laws, legislative projects, policies and programs.
I am also glad to be here with my colleagues from Status of Women Canada and the Treasury Board. Justine has begun to outline the overarching government framework under which we work together, and with all federal departments and agencies, to improve the implementation of GBA across government.
It is important to understand that Status of Women Canada, the Treasury Board and the Privy Council Office are not the only ones working on this analysis. All government departments and agencies that have to develop policies and programs have the responsibility to conduct an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the impacts of their proposals on gender-based analysis.
As my colleagues noted, we are seeing a renewed commitment to GBA within the federal government, as evidenced by the Prime Minister's directive in his mandate letter to Minister Hajdu that her department and the Privy Council Office work together to ensure GBA is applied to proposals for cabinet decision-making. This commitment will help ensure that all departments make implementation of GBA a priority over the coming years. And I would be happy to discuss some of the changes that have been implemented by the Privy Council Office to ensure that support.
The fact that the mandate letter is public helps us a lot, in the Privy Council Office and in other central agencies, as it enables us to work with departments on carrying out the necessary analyses. That public document also helps all departments make this a priority, not only for Status of Women Canada and the Treasury Board.
[English]
The Privy Council Office supports cabinet decision making by providing coordination, leadership and advice to the Prime Minister and his office, and analysis on policies, programs and, obviously, legislative proposals. Put simply, what we do is we support the stage and the policy development and the program cycle that responds to the question of what to do on any given issue.
When we try to answer that question, it is vital that decision makers have all the necessary information to fully understand the impacts of their decisions on Canadians' and Canada's interests. That's why we at PCO play a critical challenge function with departments to ensure that the departments and agencies take into account all relevant factors, including gender, in the development of proposals to cabinet. This is done to ensure that the impacts on diverse groups of women and men in the country are given due consideration in decision making.
The recent audit that Justine talked about found that PCO and other central agencies have made efforts to promote and support gender-based analysis and to clarify guidance to departments and agencies, but they also found that implementation throughout the government was uneven and insufficient. This audit provides us with an opportunity to reflect on how we at PCO can do better to support departments and agencies.
In the action plan that was mentioned, PCO promised to update its guidance to departments on the development of memorandum to cabinet, MCs, as well as to develop and institute a policy considerations checklist, a tool for identifying and documenting the consideration of gender-based analysis impacts. I am happy to share today that we have delivered on both of those commitments since the action plan was tabled.
Beginning this month, in September, we have required that all MCs coming to cabinet be accompanied with a due- diligence and evidence-based analysis tool.
Senator Munson: MCs?
Mr. Daigle: Memorandum to cabinet. The memorandum to cabinet now comes with this other document called a due-diligence and evidence-based analysis tool. In this tool, it requires that all departments and agencies document the gender and diversity impacts of their proposals, as well as other considerations such as economic impacts, official languages considerations or modern treaty implications, for example.
The tool is not only increasing the dialogue between departments and PCO with respect to gender-based analysis, but it is also serving to increase the accountability for the analysis. This additional document that we developed has to be signed off by the ADM responsible for strategic policy in every department, so that raises the level of accountability for this kind of analysis in departments to support proposals.
[Translation]
Second, based on the Prime Minister's directive, we have gone beyond our action plan commitments. The new memoranda to cabinet template, which was introduced this fall, requires that all memoranda to cabinet outlining new policy or program proposals include a mandatory annex that presents the findings of the GBA and other mandatory assessments, such as strategic environmental assessments and modern treaty implications.
While we are just at the beginning of our fall cabinet agenda, I have looked at a dozen new memoranda for cabinet committees and the cabinet. We can already note a more thorough and developed approach in terms of gender-based analysis.
[English]
Third, to support these two new tools, the mandatory annex to the MCs and the evidence-based tool, and in recognition of the need to build some internal capacity — capacity was one of those barriers identified by the Auditor General in the report — we've made gender-based analysis training mandatory for all Privy Council employees who are tasked with playing a challenge function on policy and program proposals, as well as for all of our executives at the Privy Council Office.
This, we hope, will ensure that PCO employees who play those functions can meaningfully engage with departments and agencies on gender-based analysis and can make sure that the gender and diversity impacts of proposals are clear, that these inform policy options and that any appropriate mitigation strategies are identified.
We made this mandatory in the spring. We've identified the population in PCO that would be subject to this mandatory training, and we are already up to about 50 per cent of that population. We hope to get to 100 per cent by the end of the session this year.
Finally, we're committed to continuing to work with our colleagues at Status of Women Canada to identify good practices in gender-based analysis, as well as to identify departments and agencies that are struggling to meet their GBA commitments. For these, we will continue to engage with them at all levels to link them with the support required to seek out the expertise in Status of Women, as well as to advocate for high-level attention and accountability for implementation of GBA commitments.
Often departments are struggling because the data they need to do the analysis isn't available in a segregated fashion, so there is also some work to do in building databases to help the analysis. Often Status of Women Canada can help us point to those databases so that departments can do the proper analysis.
Strong and effective GBA practices will guide government to ensure that there is greater quality between men and women in all areas of government programming. PCO, working with all departments and agencies, will continue in strengthening our efforts to ensure that government policies and programs are meeting the needs of all Canadians.
Those are my remarks. I will pass it over to my colleague from Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.
[Translation]
Renée Lafontaine, Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services Sector, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat: Thank you for the invitation to appear before your committee to discuss gender-based analysis, GBA. I am happy to talk to you today about the role the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat plays in promoting the use of GBA. I am also pleased to be here with my colleagues from Status of Women Canada and the Privy Council Office.
[English]
I know your focus is on machinery, so in terms of machinery, Treasury Board is the third step in the process that we're talking about in terms of cabinet. François talked about cabinet approvals of new proposals and new programs. Once the funding gets allocated in the budget, then departments come to Treasury Board to get their actual funding and all the authorities they need to implement the program.
I'm going to talk to you about the role of Treasury Board. Treasury Board oversees government expenditure plans and the stewardship of public funds as well as approves new money that has been set aside in the budget for major acquisitions, new programs, grants and contributions.
GBAs conducted on proposed new government programs and services prior to their implementation inform Treasury Board ministers, who are the decision makers here, on the impact that these programs can have on the diverse groups of men and women who make up Canada today. As you know,with our GBA, we're focusing not only on gender, but we also look at other dimensions of our citizens, including their ethnicity, age, education and income level. When François talked about disaggregated data, that gives you a sense of the complexity of the data that we need to make really good decisions.
As an analytical tool, GBA helps to understand why certain groups of Canadians are not able to access or benefit from the myriad of existing programs and services that Canadians are offered every day. So understanding why, for example, young indigenous males or low-income, single, working women are being left out of our programs enables us to make the adjustments necessary to make sure our services are accessible to all. That's the goal and that's the way Treasury Board looks at it.
Continued implementation in implementing gender-based analysis across the federal government supports Treasury Board in the exercise of their mandate to ensure affordable programs that achieve results for Canadians. We're doing this by giving decision makers, like the ministers at Treasury Board, more evidence-based, gender equitable policy and program options. That's our goal.
With respect to our progress to date, as François mentioned, the Auditor General has observed that TBS has been supporting federal organizations to implement GBA since 2009. Our TBS program analysts are trained to challenge departments. Just like the PCO analysts challenge at the memorandum to cabinet level, we challenge at the Treasury Board submission stage level and before those Treasury Board submissions are submitted to Treasury Board for decision-making.
To prepare for Treasury Board, TBS program analysts challenge departments to first consider the target group of Canadians who will benefit from the new program or service and determine if men or women could be treated differently when the program is implemented. If a gender issue exists, TBS expects departments to undertake a thorough and complete GBA assessment. Based on their findings, we want to see evidence that they've tailored their program proposals to sufficiently address all the gender issues before they go to Treasury Board submission. That gives you a sense of what our goal is at the Treasury Board Secretariat level.
In fact, in July 2016 TBS updated its expectations of departments in this way. In the detailed guidance that we give departments on how to write a Treasury Board submission, we ask them to make the findings of GBA a mandatory annex to the Treasury Board submission that comes forward to Treasury Board now.
We are also refreshing the training given to TBS analysts and their executive directors who work regularly with departments. We refresh that training annually because we are continually trying to strengthen their skills and competencies in identifying gender issues. I'll tell you in a minute that it's not always obvious. It's sometimes very difficult to find gender impacts.
TBS has also been working closely with Status of Women Canada and the Privy Council Office to promote the value of GBA during meetings with departmental senior executive committees and in conferences and workshops and with departmental GBA champions.
You may ask why a CFO is here talking to you. I'm the CFO at Treasury Board Secretariat. I am also the gender- based analysis champion for us at Treasury Board Secretariat, so that's why I am here before you today.
[Translation]
In 2011, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat conducted a baseline survey of the degree to which gender- related issues were identified and addressed in proposals considered by the Treasury Board that year. Like the Auditor General, we found evidence that the level of adoption of GBA was low and that it varied by department.
[English]
With that said, the good news is that we're encouraged that in the departments that focus on the social and cultural areas of Canada, for the most part their proposals include findings from GBA to justify and explain why their programs have been designed a specific way. That has been our observation.
We also found that GBAs were being conducted more often in departments whose programs and services have a direct impact on the citizens that they serve. For example, our Employment Insurance programs have direct relationships with the citizens who receive their cheques, and that gives them the opportunity to collect the data and the information about the clients they are serving.
However, the need for and the benefits of GBA are less obvious in departments whose mandates to oversee or regulate certain industries or broad sectors of the Canadian economy are less obvious. We found that these types of federal programs are often delivered through complex programming structures. In many cases, for example, the federal role is to set regulations or provide funding to third-party entities or other levels of government who in turn deliver the services to citizens.
Getting at the root cause of gender issues can be difficult in these departments, particularly when the sponsoring federal program manager needs to go through several intermediary sources to collect the gender disaggregated data that we have been talking about to determine the performance of their programs.
Finally, many new government programs and issues are time-sensitive and they need to be implemented quickly to meet government commitments. If sponsoring departments already have the gender disaggregated data to do the analysis, it's not so bad. When they don't at that time, it is very difficult for them. And sometimes delaying the Treasury Board submission to collect the relevant data is not always practical or could create another risk for the Government of Canada. This gives you a sense of some of the barriers we are working with.
But based on our experience to date, we know we need to adjust our approach going forward to allow departments to continually follow up, both after Treasury Board approval and at any time throughout the policy program life cycle. This follow-up will ensure that gender issues are continually assessed and addressed as they arise so that the diverse needs, priorities and interests of Canadian society are continually being taken into account as programs mature. As our society changes, our programs have to continually adapt.
[Translation]
Going forward, TBS is committed to working with Status of Women Canada, the Privy Council Office, and other federal departments and agencies to better identify, understand and eliminate barriers and build capacity across the public service. We will encourage deputy heads to break down those barriers to ensure that GBA is solidly embedded as a sustainable practice across government.
[English]
TBS continually reviews its guidance to Treasury Board submission writers and as necessary adapts it to the needs of departments and agencies so that it's more helpful in achieving better gender outcomes. When departments do not have the time or resources to assess the gender implications of new programs, either at the policy research stage, the memorandum to cabinet stage or the Treasury Board submission stage of that life cycle, TBS will encourage follow-ups to ensure that any relevant gender issues are addressed as soon as possible before the program comes up for renewal again.
So according to Treasury Board policy as well, you should know that program evaluations are required before programs can be considered by cabinet and Treasury Board for renewal. This is another opportunity to assess and correct any unintended gender implications of our existing programs and services.
The secretariat will assist Status of Women Canada to develop guidance and tools to help the program evaluators who are embedded in departments all across the government to identify gender impacts when evaluating the performance of existing programs before they get renewed.
As well, because we know that federal regulations impact both genders in Canadian society differently, we will train regulatory analysts at TBS to challenge departments and agencies to conduct GBAs where applicable in the federal regulation development process.
To measure progress, TBS will conduct a review of the extent to which GBA findings influence decision making of Treasury Board between September 2016 and June 2017. We will share those findings with departments and the Status of Women to help them in their monitoring approach. To do this, we will also orient new Treasury Board ministers as they come on to the cabinet committee on the value and findings and conclusions of GBAs to inform decision making and relevant TB submissions.
Mr. Chair, the Treasury Board Secretariat is committed to working with our partners to strengthen the use of informed, evidence-based and gender-equitable policy and program options for decision makers in order to better serve Canadians. We welcome your input. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much for a very informative 30 minutes. It will add a lot to our study.
I would first like to recognize the driving force behind this study, to be followed by our deputy chair, Senator Ataullahjan.
Senator Nancy Ruth has done an incredible amount of work involved in this. She is a very humble person with a strong mind and will have the opening questions.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for being here. It's good of you to come and go through it again and again and again and again.
I get really confused. Is it mandatory for every department? It sounds like everybody is doing a little bit of training, including Treasury Board. It sounds like the people in the PCO have to come and do this. It doesn't say anything about the budget that's now being developed. I'd surely like to know how you are digging into that in advance to make those people do that. I can tell you one thing I'd like to see in it.
I am confused about if it is mandatory. Who is responsible for it? You all have some responsibility, but in the end, if we want to push the levers of power, where are we going? Do we have to go to each of you? Somebody has to be boss here. I want to know who the boss is. I would like all these documents you've been talking with tabled with the clerk, your checklists, all that other stuff. I want to see them. If you would all do that, that would be great.
Let's start there and see where we go. Is it mandatory and who is the boss of it?
Ms. Akman: I'll start but will, of course, invite my colleagues to add to that.
GBA has been a commitment since 1995 with the Beijing Platform for Action. In terms of it being mandatory, I would break that out into two elements: Is the policy development mandatory and is the training mandatory? A lot of people ask us about the actual training being mandatory.
On the training front, more and more departments are making it mandatory, as PCO and I believe TBS have done recently. It's certainly mandatory in the Status of Women context, and many other departments are doing so, including this year, for example, ISED. Industry, Science and Economic Development Canada made it mandatory, so we had almost 4,000 employees take the GBA training over the course of a month. The training is becoming mandatory more and more.
In terms of doing the policy development, what makes it mandatory is, as my colleague from PCO mentioned, it's in the templates that every bureaucrat has to fill out, the memorandum to cabinet when they're developing a new policy. It will apply to legislative changes as well, but for any policy that's being developed, a GBA will be part of that; and we, at Status of Women, are working very hard right now — our phones are ringing off the hook — trying to help departments to do the best GBA possible, and we give them guidance in every realm, so that could include defence, science, the economy and social programs, of course.
In terms of responsibility, we've looked at executive responsibility and accountability as part of our GBA action plan. The more the leadership is taking it on board, then the better it will be implemented across government.
Does anyone want to add?
Mr. Daigle: Maybe I could add. On the policy development, it's clear now that any minister who wants to bring forward a new proposal to cabinet will have to do a GBA analysis. We have documents and tools that force them to sign off and do the checklist to say, yes, we've done one but, more than that, to actually developing an annex and provide other ministers around the table with the results of their analysis. That has to happen for any new proposal coming to cabinet.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Does that mean that the PCO is the whipping stick, this kind of thing?
Mr. Daigle: Yes.
Senator Nancy Ruth: When you say every memo to cabinet has to have this, does that include every line item in the budget?
Mr. Daigle: It includes any new proposal. If you look at the mandate letters that are now public, any minister that brings forward a proposal on gender-based violence, for example, or the government's commitment to Syrian refugees last year, when they bring forward a proposal and they want to spend some money on something or put forward some new laws or new programs, they have to do a gender-based analysis and tell ministers, "We're going to do it this way and these will be the impacts,'' or "Given the impacts, we're going to do it this other way.'' They do have to do that analysis, and that's part of the process for any new program, policy or legislation going forward.
In terms of the budget — you asked about the budget — any proposal for a budget proposal that will create legislation or a new program or a new policy, they will have to do the gender-based analysis in order to get approval from cabinet and then, once that's been approved, they will go to Treasury Board to access the funds.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Just so I understand, you do the training and Treasury Board encourages a higher level of development, especially with some of the executives?
Ms. LaFontaine: Can I try it a different way, senator?
Senator Nancy Ruth: Yes, you can.
Ms. LaFontaine: To pick up from where François left off, and maybe we should have been more clear in our remarks, anything new going forward goes through this process of PCO, cabinet discussion, funding through the budget, coming to Treasury Board; and at each stage we look for gender-based analysis supporting to make sure we're making evidence-based, good policy decisions and policy choices.
I would say that at the cabinet level we may not have as much information about the implications of a program, but there is certainly work done. At the Treasury Board level we get into real implementation issues — how, when, what, why, how much — and we get a lot more granular information before Treasury Board gives them approval to spend the money.
Does that help in the cycle?
Senator Nancy Ruth: There are so many fingers in so many pots, and we've had 21 years of dysfunction or minimal function and two Auditor General reports. We, all of us, keep working on it. I believe that we parliamentarians have a responsibility here. Could you see the possibility of when legislation is tabled that it also be tabled with the GBA so that parliamentarians can see it?
Mr. Daigle: That's not a requirement now but definitely when bills will be studied by committees, they can ask all of those questions, and those documents could be provided at that point.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Would you see it as the responsibility of civil servants such as you or the others who come before all the committees of the Senate and the House of Commons such that, when they come, they also come with their GBA analysis on the subject to which they're speaking? Would that be encouraged?
Mr. Daigle: That could be encouraged. Ultimately, the ministers who are bringing the proposals, legislation, policy or program forward will be accountable for the proposal. They'll be supported by the departments. If there's a significant gender-based analysis issue, they would likely bring their officials with expertise in that area to answer questions.
Senator Nancy Ruth: And if it's not significant, they won't bother?
Mr. Daigle: If it's not significant, they still have to tell the Privy Council Office that they have done a gender-based analysis. If the analysis tells us that there's no gender issue, or that there's little gender issue, to consider, then the question wouldn't likely come up at committee and they probably wouldn't bring their officials with them.
But not all new initiatives —
Senator Nancy Ruth: Can I just stop you there? I listened to a wonderful speech from Senator Omidvar yesterday. It took a perspective on a piece of government legislation that definitely left out a huge number of GBA+ issues. If we aren't allowed to see what you've done and what we — in our wisdom — and 60 or 70 years of it — we might have some suggestions for you. I don't think it's good enough that civil servants or ministers don't appear with it, because we might have something to add.
Senator Ataullahjan: Earlier this month, the federal, provincial and territorial ministers met in Edmonton to address, among other things, enhancing the use of GBA in decision making as a critical tool for advancing gender equality.
It was reported that when discussing ways to improve the implementation, the minister heard about innovative strategies that were being used by the governments of Yukon and Quebec that focus on the development of gender equality indicators to track progress on gender equality.
Do you know anything about these strategies? Could you tell us a bit about them?
Ms. Akman: I wouldn't want to go into too much detail. Yes, we were in Edmonton about two weeks ago at our federal-provincial-territorial meeting with ministers of Status of Women, and we did have presentations from Yukon and Quebec. Yukon has very much focused on the notion of intersectionality within their development of gender-based analysis tools. As you've mentioned, Quebec is focusing on the indicator development.
We are planning a number of different activities so that we can continue to share information with our provincial and territorial colleagues over the course of the next year in the lead-up to the next FTP meeting of ministers of Status of Women. This will include a series of conference calls between us and them.
Then, on our part, we're in the process of a discussion of updating our own GBA online tools to look at identity issues. We've invited our PT colleagues to join us for those discussions.
I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to represent their initiatives in any great detail, but we do have plans to share information and make sure that our tools and training are as up-to-date and as creative as possible.
Vaughn Charlton, Manager, Gender-Based Analysis, Status of Women Canada: The only thing that I would add is that, first of all, we have constant dialogue with our PT counterparts. I had a call very recently with Quebec. They wanted to know what we're doing as well. It's an ongoing dialogue with the provinces and territories. I'd say that we're always trying to learn from one another in terms of the approach. Those are very strong partnerships, and we'll continue to work with our partners in the provinces and territories.
Ms. Akman: I believe, like parliamentary committees, we can provide documents after the meeting, so we could make sure to provide you information about their strategies after this meeting.
[Translation]
Senator Gagné: My question stems from a comment you made in your presentation, Ms. Lafontaine, regarding the fact that you were the champion of that process. I am wondering whether you have made arrangements for every department to have a champion. I would also like to know how you put together your teams to ensure that integration.
I will let you answer my question, and then I will talk about best practices in departments and clarify my second question.
Ms. Lafontaine: I will answer the first part of your question and will let my colleagues from Status of Women Canada answer the second part.
I would like to explain to you my role of champion within the Treasury Board Secretariat.
[English]
As a champion, you need to understand the business of your department and where GBA is necessary to make good program decisions. At Treasury Board, our role is to assess the submissions of other departments. Our focus is really for our Treasury Board analysts to understand the business of the departments that they're supporting and for them to make the connections with the GBA champions in those departments.
My job as champion at Treasury Board is to make sure those program analysts are trained and understand their role. My job at Treasury Board Secretariat is to make sure that the tools and the annexes that I was speaking about in my notes work in terms of gender-based analysis and how it fits into our challenge function at Treasury Board, every time a Treasury Board submission comes in.
I'm also responsible for promoting GBA across TBS. Every time new analysts or senior managers come in, I make them aware of their role and how this fits into our process. I also work with my other central agency colleagues to make sure that what we do at TBS supports the rest of the government infrastructure or "machinery,'' as you talked about, in terms of implementing GBA across all of our commitments.
I would say the job of every other GBA champion in every other department across government is to really understand where GBA needs to focus for their departments for the mandate they have to deliver, and that varies, as we were trying to explain to you.
[Translation]
Senator Gagné: Would people still be appointed in every department to play that role?
Ms. Lafontaine: What about your second question?
Senator Gagné: Of course, some departments probably perform better than others. How are the best practices of departments that are performing well being used to better transfer that knowledge and methods to others?
Ms. Akman: I will begin answering and will then yield the floor to my colleague Ms. Charlton. If I have understood correctly, the question was about which departments have the best application practices and not necessarily what the best examples are. When it comes to best practices, some departments already have a lot of data. Health Canada is one example.
Because of the direct impacts of health policies on Canadians, the department has dedicated numerous resources to information gathering, research, and so on, as well as to the GBA process within the department. In addition, the Department of Defence has hired experts, including members of our team. Our mission is to thoroughly examine the implementation of the GBA process into human resources policies and operations. That includes the type of equipment the Department of Defence uses to help women perform their duties.
The Department of Immigration is the only one that has integrated legislative measures on GBAs. Its annual report on immigration levels actually contains a section on GBAs. That department has the necessary research resources and a more in-depth process to do the work. Some departments are at a higher level than others, but they are all working very hard.
Our team receives a lot of telephone calls. Fortunately, the 2016 budget set aside additional resources to implement GBA within Status of Women Canada. Departments are demonstrating a lot of interest. We held an interdepartmental meeting last week with 65 individuals in attendance. In the past, that meeting may have drawn the participation of 15 or 20 individuals at the most. The government is showing a great deal of interest in GBAs.
Ms. Charlton: I would also like to talk about the Department of Natural Resources. I will speak in English, as this is in reference to the question asked by Senator Ruth.
[English]
What Natural Resources Canada has also done is developed a GBA template or process related to their budget items so that they are conducting GBA on each of their budget items. That's something that certainly we hadn't seen other departments doing in the past. It's internal to Natural Resources Canada, but it's something that's emerging as a best practice we hope others would adopt, so that when they are going in with their line items on budget, that's where GBA kicks in for them. It's now integrated as part of their internal processes.
Renée talked about the fact that GBA can be inserted at all these different stages, but what they have done is really identified specifically what those stages should be. One is, when you're going to be putting something new in your budget and giving the rationale for why you need that new budget item or why you need that new proposal, they need to include GBA in there. We hope that others are going to follow that model.
Senator Omidvar: I'm fascinated by this. I wish I and my staff had applied a gender-based lens to the legislation I presented yesterday. I think if I had done so, it would have looked a little different.
I am curious to know how Senate and Senate staff can have access to some of these things as a going-forward mechanism. We ask others to do things. We should also embrace this idea ourselves. I would like to get GBA+ training for myself and my staff, and I want to know how that is possible.
I have a particular question to our colleague from Privy Council. I understand from you that 100 per cent of all proposals to cabinet must apply a GBA+ analysis. Is that right?
Mr. Daigle: That's correct.
Senator Omidvar: So what's the accountability here? How do we know that's done? Is there a report put out that they did this?
Mr. Daigle: I mentioned the new tool that we have where every assistant deputy minister in each department has to sign off on a document, an evidence-based tool that says that they have done the GBA analysis.
It just started this September. We'll be collecting those, and we'll be able to report out and have a sense of who is doing it, who is not doing it, who is doing it well and who is not doing it well. I can make that document available to the clerk afterwards.
Senator Omidvar: That would be good. It is important. Process is important, and lots of training and lots of boxes to be ticked off.
I'm curious for you to make this sync for me a little. Give me an example of a policy or a law that was changed because of the work done through GBA or GBA+, preferably in a non-traditional area. So not Immigration, maybe Defence. I'd like to hear what changed as a result.
Ms. Akman: I'll speak about the infrastructure funding, perhaps. My colleague is the person who has been working with National Defence, so I'll pass it over afterwards.
As everyone here is aware, infrastructure funding has been an enormous effort of this government. We worked with Infrastructure and all of the departments involved in that all the way through to provide information about gender- based analysis, about the needs of different groups, as those proposals were going forward.
We focused most heavily, admittedly, on the housing aspect of it. We are very involved right now with the National Housing Strategy, which is being consulted widely across the country. The reason for that is it's in our own minister's mandate letter — and a few others — that no woman fleeing from violence should be left without a place to go. We've been very focused on the shelters, transition houses and wraparound supports that are required as part.
We'd like them to be part of the social infrastructure funding continuing to go forward. We've been working with our stakeholders, including in the North where there's a real gap in the analysis and the information about the needs for shelters and other kinds of supports for women fleeing violence in the North and in rural areas. We've been teasing out that information, providing it to the departments involved.
In phase one infrastructure funding, it resulted in the building of new shelters and other forms of housing. As part of the National Housing Strategy, for those of you who are following it, they've got a very aggressive online and in- person consultation strategy. It has included many round tables over the course of the summer, but they've had specific round tables on the issue of women fleeing violence and on indigenous housing.
When we say GBA+, of course, we take the "plus'' seriously as well, but they have looked at it from an intersectional viewpoint.
That's just one example where it will really fill a huge need. There are over 300 women and children being turned away from shelters every day, at the moment, in Canada. It will fill a huge need and make a big difference to be able to work with our colleagues and for them to be mandated to work with us. There was a time where it was difficult to get a return phone call from Infrastructure Canada, but at the moment, as I've said, we're popular.
The Chair: Did you want to say a few words about Defence?
Ms. Charlton: I could say a few words about Defence.
We've been consulted over the past year. I don't know if you are aware that the chief of defence staff issued a directive in January for the full implementation of GBA. It's the way they are articulating the commitment to the UN Security Council's Women, Peace and Security resolution.
In working with them, we were sort of able to demonstrate to them how instead of making a general commitment to gender mainstreaming as sort of international lingo, that having a commitment to GBA in terms of building the competencies of their staff would be a good starting point.
I would say they are at the beginning of implementing this directive, but they are one of the departments that have made our training mandatory for big groups of Canadian Armed Forces members.
We haven't worked with the department. We've been really working on the Armed Forces side at this point. I think that their intention is to have in the tens of thousands of people trained over the course of the next year. They've been kind to us and are rolling this out slowly so we can keep pace with tracking and things like that. The results remain to be seen.
A good example that comes to mind, though, is some work we'd done with the RCMP. They have SWAT teams that, in Canada, are called emergency response teams, and there has only ever been one woman, which is really interesting. Other police services have women on their ERT teams, but they don't, so the RCMP looked at their recruitment process to ensure the process was not unduly prohibitive toward women.
We were able to help them dig deeper. Yes, you could go through and see all the ways it wouldn't be fair if you're just inviting your friend to be in an ERT, and if you're not in those informal networks, it's a problem. But we asked them to take an actual look at their job descriptions — not just the process, but "how are you describing the work being done and who does it reflect doing that work?'' If you've only had one type of person doing that job, you will describe it in only one particular way. Are there ways they could begin to describe the work differently that would have a greater impact?
That's one of the most tangible examples of how we were able to take an outsider view and help them dig deeper. Yes, we can eliminate those surface problems that everyone would say "it's wrong and that's discriminatory,'' but it's helping the departments dig deeper.
As the Armed Forces move forward with what they're doing, we will get a lot of good examples, because one area they've identified for action is looking at their procurement policies from a gender lens. I can't speak with any expertise on that, but it might be interesting to invite some of the colleagues in that department to speak to it. But we will monitor that going forward.
Senator Andreychuk: I will start with a few comments.
The gender-based analysis is a curious method, started some 20 years ago, probably from desperation, wanting to integrate women's needs. In a democracy, surely the government's services are supposed to meet the needs of women, and women were saying, "We're not being taken into account.'' So it became the tool for 20 years.
At the same time, we also went through the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we said that all of our rights are important and should be embedded in there.
So we've had gender-based analysis, Charter rights and a whole host of others. Even this committee suggested there should be a lens for children, because they're the only ones who do not get to vote. Their voices aren't heard.
My concern is that it's very bureaucratic. It fits nicely into the bureaucracy. It is another tick mark, another project. There is a lot of activity, but is there productivity for the people it should serve?
We know in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — we looked into that — the tick marks are always there. So some of the suggestions are that unless we change the culture, this analysis will not go anywhere except to be an exercise to get to the end.
So how is the culture changing so that we get back to serving the needs of the people? As 50 per cent of the citizens are women, their needs have to be met. You change the culture and introduce people who understand the needs of women, who do it instinctively rather than just a box. Or are we way into the future about that?
Ms. Akman: In terms of cultural change, can I assume you're speaking about bureaucrats?
Senator Andreychuk: I think you can throw politicians and ministers in that pile, too — and senators.
Ms. Akman: Especially in the course of, in the past six months or so, having been through the Public Accounts Committee and now here, and in responding to those reports, we've been through our own process of how to make this real. There has been some discussion of making it mandatory in all sorts of different ways.
But I don't think anyone here would disagree with you that there is an element of cultural change. That has to do with leadership, and it is definitely coming from this government. It's in our minister's mandate letter, and it has come from Prime Minister and elsewhere. So the appetite for doing proper gender-based analysis and not doing what had become in the past a little bit of a check-in-the-box exercise. In the last template for the memorandums to cabinet, it was a paragraph under "considerations.'' It was an exercise often done at the end of the policy development process rather than the beginning.
All of that — the tools are in place, but they're to back up the leadership and the messages that we're getting as bureaucrats, which are that you need to take this seriously. To take that seriously, you need to consider gender at the beginning of the process so that you can't just say, "Oh, I didn't have enough time. We were really busy.'' It won't be good enough anymore, because with the analysis that François has been talking about, you have to prove to the Privy Council Office that you have that.
What cabinet ministers might see, and perhaps parts of this could be made available to senators, is a streamlined version of that, but the department is supposed to own a lengthy document that does a thorough gender-based analysis.
In terms of how it's actually really going to make a change, I guess that's the answer: It's a bit complicated, but it's that leadership that has changed already, the tools and the processes that bureaucrats and federal public servants are going through, and it will be that GBA training being done by as many different people in different departments as possible.
In terms of cultural change, having done a lot of work with DND, the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP et cetera — and other departments — it's a process. It's definitely a process.
At Status of Women, we are a centre of excellence, but we spend a lot of time saying, "Please don't put this in a ghetto.'' There are still departments trying to hand their work off to us. We're here to support them but it has to be owned by every department and by senior management within every department. It should not be centralized in one location for us to do all the programs for women and programming policy development. We want it to be across the board, and that's where it should be.
Senator Hubley: In listening to your presentations, which we certainly appreciate, my question is for the Status of Women. You talked about your centre of excellence and the work you're doing in handing that over. Who is the watchdog of the whole idea of gender-based analysis? And if you see that there is something flawed in what you might be proposing, do you have an avenue that you can use to contact your partners and tell them something is an issue, that things are changing in a particular area? How quickly can that happen?
Ms. Akman: I'll give a quick answer and maybe colleagues can jump in.
In terms of the watchdog or who is responsible, it's all of us. That's why we're here. I hope I'm not speaking out of turn or out of context, but we're looking at every single memorandum to cabinet and going through cabinet right now with our small policy team, and when we see a glaring omission, we call up PCO and ask them if they can help us push it a bit.
Senator Hubley: Does the Auditor General have a role to play in this as well, in reviewing departments?
Ms. Akman: We've had two audits of gender-based analysis in the last little while, and we have been told, and it's their prerogative, that that will be the last ones for a while because but they've gone through GBA and told us what they think. Now it's up to us to take action.
Ms. LaFontaine: Just to add to that regarding who the watchdog is, we made gender-based analysis mandatory for Treasury Board submissions. So if gender-based analysis is germane to making a good program, our executive directors — my DM, my President of the Treasury Board — can actually say, "This submission doesn't go forward until we see it.'' If it gets to Treasury Board, they can say, "Yes, I'll give you money on the condition that you do a GBA and report back to me. Then we'll finalize this program.''
There are various checks and balances in the system now that can be easily used to really move this file forward.
Ms. Akman: The final answer to who the watchdogs are, they're the ministers. Our minister has been very vocal and, from our discussion, she will continue to be so on the need to do good GBA.
Senator Martin: I will ask two questions. Thank you for your presentations and insights.
Going back to the evidence-based tools that were recently developed and applied, it could be one box or end up in 10 boxes. The longer the list doesn't necessarily mean it's a more effective tool. It could appear that way, so I'm glad we'll have a chance to look at this tool.
I was wondering about the actual tool in terms of how comprehensive and how this tool allows you to be thorough in your check at the front end as it's added to an MC, how it was developed and by whom. Are there some really good examples in other jurisdictions that you may have looked at? How are we doing in that regard compared to some of these other jurisdictions?
I am curious about the tool itself. I want to see it in front of me to see how easy it is to fill out. In some respects, the quicker it is it may not be as effective, but longer is not necessarily better either. I am very curious about the development of the tool.
Mr. Daigle: I will share the document after the meeting. It's not just GBA. It's a whole bunch of other things.
What it does allow us to do is make sure that a GBA analysis was done. It only tells us whether it's done. Then we have to work with the department to actually see what analysis they've done.
The other thing we see in a memorandum to cabinet is an annex to the memorandum to cabinet where they explain the results of their analysis from a GBA lens. We'll be able to see, after they've done their analysis, what their conclusions are.
If we at Privy Council, when we see their draft memorandum to cabinet, think that the analysis isn't detailed enough, our analysts are trained and will be working with the departments and will ask to see more work to make sure that it has been done.
Ultimately, as Justine said, ministers are accountable for this stuff, so there will be a conversation on that memorandum to cabinet in the cabinet room, and the minister could raise the concerns with the analysis that was done, whether it was good or not good enough. Ministers will be able to decide what to do with that.
Senator Martin: Ms. LaFontaine, when you talk about the tool that exists to understand why certain groups of Canadians are not able to access or benefit from the myriad of existing programs — and you cited the examples of indigenous males or low-income single mothers — I am curious about the group of Canadians for whom language is the biggest barrier. So it's neither English nor French, but whether, because of certain cultural practices, but specifically language, they're not able to access programs simply because it's hard for them to understand what is available to them.
Is there a greater effort to really try to reach these vulnerable groups of people with language accessibility? What sort of resources are being put forward, and how does that work with the gender-based analysis?
Ms. LaFontaine: That's a very good question, senator. If we go back to the tools, our tools at Treasury Board Secretariat are maybe at a more detailed level but very similar in the approach to what François just explained to you, and we will share those as well.
Our tool, though, does focus on the plus side of GBA, but don't underestimate the challenges we have in the government to disaggregate the data about the clients we serve into those four or five different key factors. I can tell you that certain departments — for example, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada — are very focused on language and will notice that submissions coming forward from that department will have language information in there that creates barriers for the new immigrants coming in and why they need more money to up their language programs and so on.
It may not be relevant in all departments. Gender is mandatory. The list of extra factors, like language and ethnicity, tends to align with what the department's business is about. I don't want to underestimate the difficulty in disaggregating the data to do a good GBA.
Senator Martin: I think language should be a concern for all departments. We don't want to segregate or separate the status of women and the work you do on its own. We need to look at this across all departments, but that's a separate topic. To me, the programs that we have are excellent, but it really is not accessible to everyone, and I think language is one of those glaring issues.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I have two questions. One is about the watchdog. I heard you say it is the ministers that are responsible.
The Status of Women Committee, in conjunction with another committee, tabled a report which talked about the commissioner and that commissioner having staff. What do you think about that idea?
The other thing I was curious about is if you're working in — well, it's not the Defence department. Whoever you are over there, when you look at structures, training, equipment, all that stuff, does it have any links with violence against women? This is a major problem in this ministry. How do you link GBA to something everyone in the public knows is going on, even the Auditor General?
Mr. Daigle: The departments are working together to prepare a response to the committee recommendation and advice is being formulated. It will go to ministers, and then we'll see how the ministers respond to the idea of a commissioner. I don't have anything more I can share. I think it's something they're working on.
Senator Nancy Ruth: So senators will not know that information until the ministers comes through it.
Mr. Daigle: Yes. We will have to wait until ministers make a decision and a recommendation.
Ms. Charlton: You asked me this very simple question: How does their work relate to violence?
What we're encouraging in our advice to the Canadian Armed Forces is that they take a holistic approach to how they're going to implement GBA.
They have a couple of initiatives under way. You might be aware of Operation HONOUR, which is about sexual misconduct. They have this directive on implementing GBA, and they're also working on a diversity strategy, and we've been kind of involved in all of them in what, I would say, might be an overly siloed way.
Certainly when you're looking at implementing GBA in operations, you can think of it as we're doing gender-based analysis to look at when we're going to be overseas dealing with local populations, what are the gender concerns? That's one thing, but the other thing is you need to think about the men and women or the gender-diverse people who are in the Canadian Armed Forces and what their experience will be. Those things need to go hand in hand to be effective.
I'm probably not making anyone very happy in the Armed Forces by saying that, because I think they tend to want to deal with the issue separately. They are, of course, very interlinked. When you talk about kit and equipment and the environments, it's always an important consideration.
They have done quite a bit of work to look at those issues in terms of kit and equipment. We see this in policing as well. You can be sending subtle messages about who you think belongs somewhere by the tools that you use. If somebody can't safely use the firearm you've selected, you're kind of telling them, "We don't want somebody like you. It needs to be somebody else.'' CBSA actually found this when they went through their arming initiative. They chose a firearm that a lot of people couldn't handle properly.
That's where procurement comes in. Before you procure the giant contract, make sure you're looking at those things that people can use. I don't think that women want men's pants in a smaller size. So giving people choice so that they can fit in.
I'm not totally answering your question, but I think that creating good environments is important.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Three quick questions, not to answer today, but you can write them down: Who does the training? Where do they get their expertise from? Do you have enough trainers? You've used that term quite a bit today. Who are they, and where do they get their expertise? Does the government, in its mandate to date, need more trainers because of the expanse of this program?
In the meantime, I want to thank you very much for appearing before us today. It's an extremely important issue, and we look forward to connecting with you not just in this formal environment but in an informal environment with all the senators.
Continuing our study on gender-based analysis, we would like to invite before us Kathleen Lahey. Ms. Lahey is a law professor at Queen's University, and she has insights for us on dealing with gender-based analysis within the making of federal policy and legislation.
Welcome to our Human Rights Committee.
Kathleen Lahey, Law Professor, Queen's University, as an individual: Thank you very much, and I have to say that I'm extremely pleased to see that the Senate Committee on Human Rights is taking up the issue of gender-based analysis and gender budgeting because there has been a very long tradition of treating gender issues as being in some way separate from human rights. I think that having this committee working with these issues is a very important disregard of that de facto segregation of the two streams of human rights activity. Indeed, the whole origin of gender- based analysis is owed to the original international and national documents that recognize women's rights to gender equality as the only way that they can exercise all of their human rights.
Today, I'm fully prepared to and excited to talk about the technicalities of gender-based analysis and gender budgeting, but even more than that, I'm feeling strongly motivated to just touch back on where it came from, and how and why it's being done increasingly all around the world.
Because we often forget where things begin, I'd like to begin by saying that I think it's important to know that gender-based analysis was invented in Canada by CIDA. Back in the 1970s, the women's bureau began doing a gender analysis of various issues, and it became formalized in a way that made it easy then to sort of feed into the growing interest in gender equality, so it had quite a bit of influence just at the administrative level. If you look back at the mechanisms that are now most effective in carrying out gender-based analysis, you will find that the tools that CIDA developed and which it used right up until the middle of the early 2000s, around 2005, represented the state of the art. When the Beijing Platform for Action was drafted, it was already informed by this kind of process.
The next thing that's important to understand about the whole sort of origins of what is now preoccupying the people who are implementing this increased activity in gender-based analysis is the other really important development. As soon as the Beijing Platform for Action was completed, and as soon as the federal action plan had been put into place, Status of Women Canada worked very closely together with the provincial and territorial ministers and with Statistics Canada to come up with an extremely good set of gender equality indicators. They're called the "Federal-Provincial/Territorial Ministers Responsible for the Status of Women, Economic Gender Equality Indicators,'' and they cover the three domains of work, education, and income with a number of indices that measure the gender gaps in relation to a large number of dimensions of each of the work, the education, and the income domains that affect women's lives and that shape much of the discrimination and inequality that women experience.
This is an important development to understand because this was done by taking not just a departmental view of gender equality issues but by taking a holistic, women-in-all-of-their-forms-and-conditions view of what are the core problems that cause the perpetuation of gender inequality.
It's a well-known fact that gender inequality continues to be an unsolved problem in every single country in the world. There is no class of women, whether defined by income, education, health, age, marital status, racial origins, geographic location, urban or rural, who are equal with the men that surround them. Women are always in sort of a second class status on all of these indicators.
The three domains that Status of Women Canada, and Statistics Canada and the federal-provincial-territorial ministers committee put together were designed to get into how do these three domains interact with each other, and how do they mutually reinforce, reproduce and perpetuate women's inequality.
Gender-based analysis was born of the idea that you can look at that intersectionality of the causes and structural determinants of gender inequality and then pull out what look like big pieces and start doing gender-based analysis to solve it through program strategies. That's where it came from. It's a very integrated kind of structure.
The key questions that I feel I'm here to answer are, first of all, what is gender-based analysis for? Well, it is to eradicate all forms of discrimination on the basis of gender, as well as in relation to all of the intersecting characteristics that themselves can either intensify or affect the way in which gender discrimination is carried out in specific circumstances.
In this regard, I see it as being fully integrated into the spirit and the letter of the law of gender equality in the Charter of Rights, gender equality in the Canadian Human Rights code and all other domestic human rights codes, the International Covenant, which is the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, or CEDAW, and to see that it also is fully integrated into the framework of vocabulary and principles and standards that shape human rights principles, the UN Declaration on the Universal Rights of Persons, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
This should all be seamless. Every one of these systems should produce the same outcomes. The problem is that they don't. Why not? Because there's gender discrimination in the way in which elimination of discrimination on the basis of gender is being done. Gender-based analysis is designed to fix that.
Tthis goes back to the scholarship of a wonderful contributor on the academic side to the whole understanding of gender dynamics in Canada, Dorothy Smith, who basically said that we routinely reproduce inequality on the basis of gender in our everyday lives in everything that we do, every minute that we spend. Every dollar that gets circulated reproduces inequality. We have to take every small piece of interaction as well as the large frameworks apart and study all of them, from multidisciplinary perspectives, socio-economic, medical, environmental, climate — everything has a role and everything gets involved.
So what gender-based analysis is about is fixing that big system of entrenched-international-virtually-but-not- always-everywhere perpetual stratification of society by gender and try to fix it in a way that will actually work and that's durable.
I hate to tell you this but very few countries have actually achieved what could be described as durable gender equality.
I brought some handouts with me, which I hope you have available to you. These are just a series of graphics or tables that attempt to illustrate how, if you take the basic economic gender equality indicators that the federal- provincial-territorial ministers put together in 1997 and use to benchmark Canada, you can use them as a framework with which to see what it is that you need to fix.
This goes to one of the questions that was asked towards the end of the discussion earlier in this meeting, and that is: How do you know what you need to do when you're doing gender-based analysis? There was some discussion about the interlinkages between portfolios and issues and so on, but, basically, what you need to do is you need to work on every level, the macro all the way down to the micro.
I'm going to go through these handouts to illustrate how it is that we figure out what gender-based analysis and gender-budget analysis should be.
The first thing I want to do is go through page number 1 in this handout on human development and gender equality rankings as contrasted with tax ratios. This is about as macro an overview as you can get. What I've done is I went to the UN Human Development Index from the beginning all the way up to the present time and I picked two years: 1995, which was when the Beijing platform was adopted, and 2015, which is the most recent year for which most of this data is available. I identified the countries that started out in the top 10 most highly-developed countries in the world in 1995 and are still in the top 10. There's only five.
What you don't see on this chart is that in fact, from 1995 through 1999, Canada set a world record in being the country that held the number one spot in terms of human development and in gender development for the largest number of years.
No country has ever consecutively held the number one spot in these indices for four years in a row. But if you look across the Canada line, you see that level of human development has now fallen down to number nine, and its ranking on the gender-inequality index, which this index has been relabelled as being, has fallen down to number 25. Canada has been lower recently; it was low as 32 a couple of years ago.
I have tied this to tax ratios because what this table shows is that the countries that have done the least massive tax cutting, in this select group of countries, maintained higher levels, generally, of human development and gender equality. Canada has fallen extremely far, and, not surprisingly, is also the country out of this group and in fact is the country in the OECD that has cut its tax revenues the most of all countries in the OECD over this 20-year period.
I'm, first of all, pointing to the deliberate decision on the part of the Canadian government to reduce the size of its government, and that has a direct and negative impact on gender equality. You can see how dramatically these two are linked if you go to the next attachment, which is a table. It tracks those four years in which Canada was at the very top and still increasing its tax ratio, which is tax revenues as a percentage of GDP.
You can see the light-coloured circles that are going down and keep going down and never come up. That's Canada's tax ratio. It's gone down. It has not gone up yet. We're still pretty much at that very same level, although it's expected to go up a little bit through changes that have been made in the tax rates recently.
The top, darkest line is the human development line. You can see how it has deteriorated. But the lines that are jumping way down and way up, the top one that has the big jagged ups and downs, is the gender equality ranking by the UN. The one that's the very lowest is the World Economic Forum gender equality ranking of Canada.
You can do this kind of table with each of the countries, and you will see that Canada has, more than any country, changed its gender equality levels really rapidly in response to the roles that the government literally plays based on how much revenue it has available to it.
Part of the reason for this is that Canada's tax and transfer system is highly integrated, so most of the economy is dominated by the way the tax system here is structured. Canada collects as much revenue through its total tax system, federal, provincial, municipal, et cetera, as it gives away. It gives away as many hundreds of billions of dollars every year as it collects. To put it another way, if Canada didn't use the tax system as a subsidy system as well, it could collect twice as much revenue as it actually does.
Anyway, the next chart here is a 2016 chart showing the distribution of incomes of men versus women. The bottom line is women's average incomes by age. This is women's lifetime earning cycle. The top line is men's income earning cycle.
You can see that women's peak years are pretty flat. Once a woman hits her kind of "adult-earning years'' in her mid to high 20s, she'll see some increase in income, on average, but it's not going to keep climbing in the same way that men's do. Men's peak earning years keep sort of mounding up, and they don't begin to fall so dramatically until long after women's peak earning years drop. Women, basically, peak economically in their mid-50s whereas men's real drops don't start until several years after that.
Women are just much more fragilely located to or connected with income, and that is one of the reasons that the federal-provincial-territorial economic gender equality indicators target income — income by itself, whether it's earned income, investment income, social protection payments or whatever — as one of the major domains.
The second domain is work. The next chart shows what has happened to women versus men in full-time employment — this should say "full-time employment;'' it doesn't, but it is — before and after the recession. The darker set of blocks and lines is women. The lighter one is men.
You can see that before the recession, which is the big "V,'' there was continually a gap but it got pretty close sometimes. This means that women were actually getting almost equal numbers of full-time jobs as men. But during the recession both tanked significantly. You'll see that women's didn't actually fall as far as men's did, and there's actually a gender reason for that. It's not good news for women. I can explain, should anybody have any questions about that.
But post-recovery, look at where the two lines are now: They're really far apart. This is the domain of work. Full- time work, even at minimum wage, is as good as it gets for some women. And if women are now so much more severely disadvantaged than gaining access to full-time work, then that means that across all departments, there should be a big focus on women's incomes and on women's work.
The third domain is education. This is a chart that I've kept using — the report called Women in Canada that's produced every five years by Status of Women Canada. Unfortunately, I couldn't update it for 2015 because although they did come out with the chapter for 2015, it omitted the educational attainment by income data that is usually included in this particular report.
The message of this chart is that as of 2010 — and I don't expect the figures to be significantly different right now based on what you see with the full-time employment rates — women are actually earning average incomes by level of educational attainment that are in all but one case lower as a ratio of men's than they were as long ago as 1971, or 1990 or 1995.
Basically, women's average incomes by educational attainment are now lower than they were in the year 2000. So anybody who tries to tell you that women are doing a whole lot better than they have been over the last 10 or 20 years — that's just not true. Women are actually going backward.
That brings me to my main point, which is that when you then add to that mix all of the income, employment and education inequalities associated with race, ethnic identity and Aboriginal heritage, you see that gender equality is in very bad shape in Canada right now.
To bring all of these domains together as fully as possible, I tried to — and, again, this triangle on the next page is based on 2010 data, because we don't have time-use data since 2010. The cancellation of the time-used questions on the census was promised to be made up through the general social survey, unpaid work cycles. It's a national survey, but that promise has not been kept. And, oops, this last census did not include unpaid work questions either, so we don't know what women's unpaid work profiles look like right now.
But as of 2010, you see how the unpaid work domain comes together with the paid work domain and the income domain to basically put women into a really tight spot in Canada. That tight spot consists of having responsibility for nearly two-thirds of all unpaid work that goes on in this country and nearly 50 per cent of the paid work hours. This paid work percentage here — 45.6 per cent — that's hours of work. Remember that days only have 24 hours in them, unless you're flying across the international dateline the right way or the wrong way.
For all of that excessive responsibility for work, women get only slightly one-third of all incomes earned in this country. That's gender inequality, but it's a dynamic form of gender inequality in which the unpaid work stops women from having more hours to put into paid work. They can't stretch the clock.
If they can't spend more time now on an equal footing with men who are only doing half as much unpaid work as they are, they can't compete equally in paid work. Also, they can't sustain themselves autonomously on their incomes, because women's incomes are not calculated to provide durable support for the entire life cycle of an adult woman who may or may not have children, other family members or whoever.
This leads us to one diagnostic here, aside from lack of sufficient supports for unpaid work that needs to be done by human beings who are living in a collaborative society and abolition of all forms of discrimination in paid work and in income. It also means that Canada has fallen too far behind in providing support for the main form of social care resources and unpaid work supports that are necessary to solve the gender issue, and that is gender inequality in access to care resources.
I think it was best said by some of the women members of the Supreme Court of Canada when they were talking in one of the cases and challenging these kinds of issues about the idea that men can usually leave their homes, even if they have children or people who are in a dependent relationship with them, knowing that they don't have to worry about their care during their work day. That is not all men, but it's predominantly men. Women, on the other hand, need to find a substitute for them before they can leave the home.
This is OEC data on this participation tax rate sheet. It shows that even when women can go into paid work on a sustainable basis, the cost of childcare is such that they're paid work actually does not pay. It actually makes more economic sense for an awful lot of women to just stay at home, do unpaid work and hope that this supports the other income earners in the family to an extent that makes everyone able to live on that particular income or set of incomes.
I've probably made a mistake in highlighting the Canada columns of greatest interest here, but basically what this shows is that if a second parent in an intact couple with children goes into paid work, then between the taxes paid on that income and the child care resources needed to get out of the house, that person will lose 77.9 per cent of their income to child care expenses and taxes; that is, child care will take 36 per cent of their income.
It's even worse for a single parent who has children. This is using average incomes. This was calculated by the OECD on a comparative basis, and it used the Ontario child care rates and tax system as they were in 2012 to make these calculations. A lone parent making the typical income for the age and educational level of that lone parent will lose 94 per cent of his or her income to child care and taxes. That is because the whole tax transfer system is set up to subsidize the single income earner.
I've included the federal-provincial-territorial ministers' economic gender equality indicators, a list, so that you have them. What I'd like to now segue to is that this is the status of women in Canada, and you can see that these very important pieces — income, work, child care and other care, education — are all interlinked, but government departments are not interlinked in this same integrated way.
I think that for some of the questions that have been asked — who is the watchdog, who is the boss, where is the brain behind all of this? — this is the brain behind it. One of the challenges is going to be to translate the existing gender-based initiatives that have been now put into place — finally, thank goodness — in a way that will stay connected with this understanding of what are the internal drivers of gender inequality.
The world is watching. I put at the very back of this handout a short set of excerpts from a very important case, de Blok v. the Netherlands. This is a decision of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the committee charged with implementation of CEDAW. Canada was one of the many countries that signed the optional protocol to the CEDAW women's rights convention or treaty quite some time ago, I think in 2002.
Tthe committee has been hearing complaints that are conducted on a fully judicialized basis. The Blok decision is important because it is the very first time that any treaty monitoring an enforcement body has ruled that once a country has signed this CEDAW, it is bound by it, even if it has not enacted domestic legislation putting those rules into place as domesticated treaty obligations. The Blok decision says: You signed it. You're going to get sued on it.
Then the Blok decision went on to say: And you cost this woman money, and you cost her job advancement. It was a denial of maternity leave under certain circumstances. So the CEDAW committee said: You pay.
Canada has also been the subject matter of one of these cases. A year ago, an inquiry called the Canadian inquiry into the status of indigenous women, including murdered and missing women's issues, produced an even more aggressive decision out of this CEDAW committee or judicial process and produced five single-spaced pages of detailed recommendations on policy initiatives that need to be taken in order to solve the problem of the massive denial of equality rights to indigenous women. It is an unbelievable document, and it's grounded not only in CEDAW but also in core human rights principles, like maximum available resources to stop poverty; stop human suffering; stop early and inappropriate, illegal death; stop discrimination; and also the necessity to avoid anything but a consistent forward progress toward equality.
Having said all of that, I think that's what gender-based analysis is for, which is why I think — just in short form, some of the key steps that have to be taken as this whole process gets put on the proper basis — that Canada needs a statute. It needs a compulsory gender-based analysis, gender-budgeting statute.
Canada would not be breaking any new ground. Seventeen countries already have such a thing pertaining not just to gender-based analysis but also to gender budget analysis. Four of these countries have actually put it in their constitution. I can only say the name of two of them: Austria and Morocco. I am totally blanking at the moment on the other two, but I can get it very easily.
The second thing is that this legislation should apply to all departments and agencies that are under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
The third thing is that I do really think it would be important for Status of Women Canada to be given the sort of watchdog, boss, brain creativity, think-this-through type of responsibility vis-à-vis finance, treasury and PCO.
There are now 60 countries in the world that have both gender-based analysis and gender budgeting as a regular part of what they do. Remember, there are only just a bit fewer than 200 countries in the world, so that's a pretty good number.
Empirical research done by the IMF has now determined that countries that give finance mandatory obligation for gender-based analysis of everything that flows out from its publications are the ones that are doing the best. Empirical research has also shown that gender inequality is actually improving as this type of mechanism is worked through.
It would be important for this to also in some way try to lock in the importance of the economic gender equality indicators that the federal-provincial-territorial ministers have put together.
Finally, I think that the recommendation of a commission is important. But what no one has recommended yet — and what I think is of the most importance — is that this is about Canadian women, and the interface between the government and civil society organizations, professions, academia, non-governmental organizations, community groups, et cetera, is absolutely essential because that is where the real critical evaluative knowledge comes from. Those are the people who have been doing gender studies degrees, cross-departmental degrees; people who have been practising, whether it's medicine, accounting, law, health sciences and so on. This is where that information is going to come from.
The last point is why are we doing all of this? Not just to eliminate gender discrimination but because empirical research also demonstrated quite conclusively that when women are equally empowered along with men, economies grow more durably and go through the boom/bust type of cycle, resource issues and so on much more durably as well. In fact, this should be done to make life better for everyone, and that is a proven way of getting there.
The Chair: That was an excellent presentation. In some respects, we wish we had had you before the bureaucrats. It might have been smarter. But we were quite smart anyway.
I know Senator Nancy Ruth has been the driving force behind our study today. But Senator Andreychuk, you said you have to go, so go right ahead with your question.
Senator Andreychuk: I appreciate we received your perspectives on how to approach women's issues, and you've given the facts and you seem to have tied it to income, rather interestingly. But it was gender-based analysis that we were after, and I appreciate you have your perspectives also on how we can go ahead.
How long have you been studying GBA as it's being practiced in the federal government? Do you have anything to say about its progress over the 21 years?
We wish we were doing a women's study, but we're doing a study on GBA, and I need the answer to that.
Ms. Lahey: I started doing this work in the early 1980s.
Senator Andreychuk: On GBA?
Ms. Lahey: It is GBA. It's always done GBA. It's the way my mind works.
In 1988, I did a comprehensive, 450-page study of all the laws, policies, et cetera, in the federal domain and developed a gender equality index to apply to spending and revenue issues. That resulted in long and detailed meetings with Status of Women Canada in the late 1980s. So I think I've been in on the ground floor right from the beginning, working both federally and provincially.
I work with UN women a lot because they do a lot of this. The biggest job that I've done so far was earlier this year. UN women set up a training program for all of the ministers of finance and their top staff from the Asia-Pacific region of the UN group of countries and did a three-day training of ministers of finance and their top staff directly on how to do gender-impact analysis of anything that goes through their hands, including their whole budgets.
That's one of the biggest jobs that I have done, but I work on every continent in dozens of countries.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I believe that parliamentarians should have some kind of challenge function of GBA, and I wondered if you knew of other legislative bodies that have it and can you tell us about it?
Ms. Lahey: Most countries have a really open form of GBA, so any GBA or gender budget reports that are produced are not kept secret. They're actually in many cases vetted through various civil society groups and academic groups. The parliamentarians are often right in the thick of that, and many of them do take on that challenge role and go back to their own legislative roles in acting that challenge. This is particularly happening a lot in the European Union.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Does that mean that it's mainly informal?
Ms. Lahey: I wouldn't say that it's informal. I would say that it's so well institutionalized that it's accepted that parliamentarians interface simultaneously with their constituencies and with their colleagues and perform this challenge function.
Senator Omidvar: First, could we get your seven recommendations that you talked about right at the end? If you have them to share with us, that would be good so we can reflect on them, because they're not included.
Ms. Lahey: Yes.
Senator Omidvar: Second, on page 9 of our presentation, you made a remark that one of the challenges is that government departments are not interlinked and we have to translate initiatives in a way that are.
I don't know if that was bafflegab or I got baffled. I need some deconstruction of that. What exactly did you mean?
Ms. Lahey: For example, in a gender budget report that the Department of Finance produced in 2006, they were asked to evaluate the gender impact of the repeal of a biofuel subsidy, and they said both women and men drive cars, no gender issue. If they had been interlinked with the transportation division, if they had been interlinked with status of women, which could comment on the various transportation opportunities open to women because women don't own nearly as many cars as men and have different travel patterns, those inter-linkages could have been pulled together and finance might have made a different evaluation of whether there was a gender impact, what it was, how much it would impact women, whether it was material and then whether any action should be called for.
It could have been a much more intense evaluation. It may seem like a small issue but women's transportation and women's travel patterns are remarkably different from men's, and the federal government has carried out detailed studies that track men's daily lives versus women's from the minute they leave the house, including what they're carrying when they leave the house, whether it's three kids or a freshly brewed cup of coffee.
Senator Omidvar: Can I assume from page 8, participation in child care costs, that if we're looking for a solution to women's poverty, women's income rates and employment rates, that solution is child care?
Ms. Lahey: It's one piece of it, and this is the inter-linkage thing again. There have been a number of comparative studies of the highly developed countries trying to figure out why gender inequality never goes away.
It is so interesting that one country will have solved almost all the problems, but they'll have a huge high level of part-time employment of women. Another country will have solved all of the problems, but there are very few women in the paid workforce.
No country has gotten it right. It's not just child care. It's being able to get a job on an equal basis with men, labour force participation access, it is income equality, it's access to child care, and it's non-discrimination in retention promotion.
Senator Omidvar: That's helpful.
Ms. Lahey: It's all these moving pieces,z but the one that Canada is the most efficient on and the one I would start with is child care and link it out with the other pieces.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Is it correct that I heard you say that you thought Status of Women should be the watchdog?
Ms. Lahey: I think that that's absolutely important for Status of Women to be the watchdog, the interface with the expert community, of which there are many members now in Canada with the number of gender studies and cross- departmental programs throughout the country. Canada's engagement with the rest of the world is monumental. Status of Women Canada is the natural interface with that sort of huge source of intellectual, empirical, et cetera, and they need to be on an equal footing with Finance, and Finance needs to be on the hook.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Yes, absolutely. The Auditor General has stepped aside and said maybe they will look at it later. I'm concerned about that because first, I'm in part responsible for getting the Auditor General to do the first study and, second, it was through her after she had retired and her former staff still in the Auditor General's department that I had to push the NDP in Parliament and those staff in the AG's department to do to second one. I'm not going to be here for the third five-year review. On the whole, I think it's useful. What's your response to making it mandatory that the Auditor General do a review every five years?
Ms. Lahey: I think it would be gender discrimination if the Auditor General didn't have equal responsibility for auditing this right along with auditing everything else.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I asked you about other legislative bodies you knew where parliamentarians use this. One of my dreams was that parliamentarians would take responsibility ourselves for it and demand it and that the clerks would tell any presenters they have to show it up and when a bill goes forward and is tabled that it also include a GBA. What's your response to some of those ideas?
Ms. Lahey: I think that's completely right. I think any bill that goes forward will obviously have had gender-based analysis attached, and I think all of those should be made fully public, preferably in advance of legislation being released, because not all gender-based analysis is adequate. I think it also helps deepen the meaningfulness of the parliamentary debates. So I think that once someone is going to bring a bill forward, they for sure have to have the gender-impact analysis right alongside it, and I would assume by that point they would be a champion of the gender impact that they're disclosing. I think it's a very good idea.
The Chair: Thank you very much, professor, for appearing before us today. This has been a fascinating, incredibly important two hours. I certainly learned a lot, and I think we all have. It will add to our study and report. We'll try to keep this as fresh as we can on every page.
Ms. Lahey: Thank you very much for the opportunity.
The Chair: That's the end of this session.
(The committee adjourned.)