FEWO Committee Report

This chapter outlines some key issues and concerns with the implementation of gender-based analysis and gender responsive budgets in the federal government that were raised by witnesses. The chapter also makes recommendations for improving the GBA capacity in the federal government, thus contributing to the development of a gender responsive budget.

A. Interactions between Departments

A first recurring theme that the Committee heard was that a collaborative dynamic relationship needs to be developed between central agencies and line departments. PCO and TBS appear to have developed such a relationship. However, the Committee heard that Finance Canada may not have adequate collaborative arrangements with the line departments. Professor Good, in his testimony before the Committee, emphasized the importance of a good relationship between Finance Canada and the line departments but also noted that this interaction has traditionally been limited.

My observation is that to really have good gender-based analysis, you need both of what I would call the spenders and the guardians there together—in other words, you need the tax policy analysts in the Department of Finance and you need the program people in the line department—in some kind of process that’s going to examine what the ramifications and what the options are. For a number of the tax policy initiatives—and we have a large number of tax expenditures in the social area and across all other areas—the tendency has not been, in the past, to have a great deal of interaction between the departments and tax policy. It tends to be created largely in the Department of Finance, for a whole set of very significant and important reasons.[99]

One way of encouraging interaction between departments and central agencies is through involvement in interdepartmental committees or working groups. The importance of a coordinated approach for the successful implementation of gender responsive budgeting was emphasized by Professor Bartle:

I think there needs to be coordination across the ministries. While you want to let different types of analysis happen in different types of places, it still has to be coordinated. It has to all feed into the same set of numbers. If you have one agency doing something very different from what's being done in another agency, that can be a problem. If the goal ultimately is to have a comprehensive budgetary plan—which is to me what a budget is, a comprehensive plan for spending and revenue raising—then there needs to be coordination among the agencies on how to do it.[100]

According to the witnesses, there are two interdepartmental committees in existence that address the issue of gender, both chaired by SWC. The first, the interdepartmental committee on gender equality, meets once a year and is comprised of 24 departments.[101] The second, the interdepartmental GBA committee, is comprised of representatives from departments with some degree of GBA capacity and has approximately 17 members.[102] It is unclear what the mandates of these committees are or how effective they are in championing the GBA agenda in the federal government.

The Committee also learned that there is an interdepartmental working group on gender indicators, a subset of the interdepartmental GBA committee, consisting of nine departments. The Committee is concerned that Finance Canada is not one of the nine departments participating in this working group.[103] Witnesses all agreed that Finance Canada is the most crucial player within the federal Public Service when it comes to developing a gender responsive budget. As noted by Lisa Philipps, Associate Professor at York University:

We must deploy the expertise of the Department of Finance. If they are not included and invested in a gender budget process, it will have limited effect. I would obviously support whatever any other department or committee can do, but Finance is crucial.[104]

The Committee agrees that strengthening the interdepartmental process is crucial to the successful implementation of GBA and gender responsive budgeting in the federal government, and that Finance Canada must be an active participant in this process. Therefore:

RECOMMENDATION 1

The Committee recommends that the Privy Council Office, in collaboration with Status of Women Canada, take the lead to strengthen the existing interdepartmental committees on gender equality and gender-based analysis (GBA); and, that PCO report to the Committee on a yearly basis on the progress being made, beginning January 2009.

RECOMMENDATION 2

The Committee recommends that Finance Canada immediately join and actively participate in the interdepartmental working group on gender indicators.

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B. Involvement of Civil Society

Building on the previous recommendation to strengthen the interdepartmental process around GBA, other witnesses have suggested that, in order for the process to be successful, it is necessary to look outside the federal Public Service and bring in representatives from civil society. The Committee heard from a number of witnesses who emphasized the importance of the relationship between government and civil society. The importance of this dialogue was noted by Ms. Peckford:

Internationally, it is recognized that in order to have a rigorous gender budgeting process, you need dialogue, engagement, and conversation with civil society groups who are endeavouring to ensure women's full economic security.[105]

Professor Philipps also discussed the role that civil society can play in enhancing the federal government’s GBA and in moving towards a gender responsive budget, noting:

There have to be civil society agencies that will create expectations, insist upon gender analysis, and provide independent analysis to review what the government does in order for the government exercise to happen in the first place and then to be effective.[106]

The general sentiment among most of the witnesses was that civil society has much to offer, but that government is not making adequate use of this resource. As noted by Ms. Rowan-Campbell:

I think there's a gap right now in Canada where we don't have enough of that partnership. It's not that their research is necessarily going to agree. It may be diametrically opposed to what we think is happening, but it's still valuable.[107]

To address this gap, Professor Lahey specifically recommended that an advisory panel of experts should be created, bringing with them “academic objectivity”, to assist Status of Women Canada and Finance Canada in implementing gender responsive budgeting.[108] Ms. Rowan-Campbell, for her part, noted that the National Council of Women used to meet with the Prime Minister every year, which helped to make the voice of women heard at the highest level of the government. She also recommended that this dialogue between government and women’s organizations be re-instated, and that a mechanism to bridge the gap between government and civil society be created.[109]

Finally, one of the strongest arguments for the involvement of civil society is its contribution to enhancing the relationship between “government and the governed.”[110] In the words of Ms. Rowan-Campbell:

We had made a very strong recommendation about supporting the voluntary sector and about the need for creating a partnership with civil society, because it's vital for monitoring and it's vital for accountability. In the end, the accountability of any government is to the people, and civil society is the people.[111]

The Committee recognizes that civil society organizations can make a strong contribution to advancing women’s equality, and that the federal government must actively encourage their participation in the development of public policy, for the benefit of all Canadians. Therefore:

RECOMMENDATION 3

The Committee recommends that Status of Women Canada establish, by January 2009, an advisory panel of experts from civil society organizations and academia; that this panel provide advice to Status of Women Canada on the implementation of gender-based analysis and gender responsive budgeting in the federal government; and, that the Government of Canada provide adequate resources for this initiative.

RECOMMENDATION 4

The Committee recommends that Status of Women Canada, as the lead on the working group on gender indicators, immediately involve civil society organizations and academics in the development of the Gender Equality Indicators Project.

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C. Adequacy of Financial Resources

Budget 2008 allocated $20 million to Status of Women Canada. As noted by Professor Lahey, “with 16.6 million females in Canada, this indicates that SWC is expected to achieve its responsibilities with only $1.21 per woman […] in Canada.”[112] As a result of the recent internal reorganization at SWC, all GBA work is now performed by the Policy Directorate, which has a total of 10 analysts on staff.[113] Given the increased work created by the new Treasury Board requirements for GBA, and the other projects SWC is undertaking, concerns have been raised by members of this Committee as to whether SWC has the necessary resources to perform all of these tasks. The limited resources available to Status of Women Canada is particularly troublesome for those who believe that SWC has an important role to play in conducting research and analysis on gender issues. As stated by Professor Lahey:

What's missing is researchers who are willing and able to fill in the gender context on both sides of each and every tiny issue that's being examined. That's the key piece, and that's what Status of Women is uniquely able to provide.[114]

If Status of Women Canada does not have sufficient resources to produce the research that is needed on women’s issues, then the Committee is forced to conclude that the government will have to rely on civil society organizations to produce this research. The problem with this approach is that civil society organizations lack the financial resources to conduct these extensive studies. The already limited amount of research subsidies available to them has been further restricted by recent funding cuts and changes to the criteria to access funding from Status of Women Canada.[115] The situation is perhaps best summarized by the following excerpt from Ms. Rowan-Campbell’s testimony to the Committee:

I think the voluntary sector, the civil society sector, has a great deal to offer and perhaps is not being used as it might be. We have a number of civil society institutions that do research but are underfunded. We have a number of women's organizations that used to do certain amounts of research but now, under the funding requirements, find it difficult to access funds to do that type of research.[116]

Beyond the need to fund civil society organizations to conduct research on women’s issues, witnesses also called on the federal government to alter the criteria to access funding from Status of Women Canada, so that funding may again be accessed by organizations that play an advocacy role. As explained by Ms. Peckford, “part of what helps to attain women's equality is being able to exercise that voice with advocacy.”[117]

In its May 2007 report The Impacts of Funding and Program Changes at Status of Women Canada, the Committee recommended that the Policy Research Fund at Status of Women Canada be maintained, and that the limitations on funding for research and advocacy in the revised Women’s Program be removed.[118]

The Committee once more acknowledges the contribution that civil society organizations can make to the development of public policies that advance women’s equality, but also recognizes that these organizations often lack the necessary financial resources to achieve their objectives. Therefore:

RECOMMENDATION 5

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada provide financial resources to fund independent policy research on women’s issues, including gender responsive budgeting.

RECOMMENDATION 6

The Committee recommends that Status of Women Canada provide project funding for gender responsive budgeting projects.

D. GBA Capacity

Creating greater gender-based analysis capacity within the line departments and central agencies was important to several witnesses. Ms. Rowan-Campbell for instance noted that while GBA is not “rocket science”, it does need to be grounded in some technical competence.[119] In fact, she stated that developing the technical skills of analysts to perform gender-based analysis is essential to developing gender responsive budgets:

It's all dependent on the quality of your gender-based analysis. If you don't have that, you can't make that leap into doing any analysis of the budget, and you can't compel the technical understanding or involvement of your bureaucrats. That's your first step.[120]

Two views emerged during the discussions on how to best approach the issue of fostering GBA capacity: the desirability of creating what SWC called a “gender focal point” within each department, where GBA expertise resides, versus a more diffuse approach, whereby all policy analysts are trained to become “experts” in performing GBA.[121]

Hélène Dwyer-Renaud, Senior Advisor for GBA Support Services at SWC, refrained from expressing an opinion on the preferred approach. However, she did share her own experience with the gender focal point approach, stating that it could lead to a situation where those GBA experts within the departments become “ghettoized.”[122] Professor Good cautioned against the focal point approach. He perceived this approach as leading to the isolation of the GBA expertise, when what is needed is for GBA to become a fundamental part of what one looks at in terms of public policy.[123]

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Professor Bartle, on the other hand, considered the existence of a coordinator, to whom questions on GBA could be directed, to be essential to successful implementation of gender responsive budgets.[124] Ms. Peckford, commenting specifically on the situation at Finance Canada, believed that, not only was the gender champion “mislocated” in the tax policy unit, lacking “a purview over the entire department’s operations”, but that a gender focal point in the form of a GBA unit was also needed in order to improve the gender budget analysis currently being done.

[T]he finance department needs a GBA unit. The GBA unit needs to be accountable to the deputy minister. You can't have finance department bureaucrats doing this GBA, because I think it's outside of how they understand their own job and how they understand their own expertise. I don't think the training that's being provided by SWC or internally allows you to bridge that gap sufficiently.[125]

Rather than choosing the gender focal point, the central agencies have opted to embed GBA in the policy and challenge functions within each of the central agencies. Nonetheless, each has appointed a GBA champion with a mandate to encourage the dissemination of GBA expertise throughout their respective central agency. Concerns were raised by Committee members due to the fact that the champion positions at PCO and TBS are currently vacant. However, witnesses remarked that the temporary absence of a champion did not undermine their GBA capacity. They pointed to their approach which has been to provide GBA training to “policy officers who actually do work on the front line with departments in terms of developing policy.”[126]

The Committee also heard from representatives from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), whose approach to building GBA capacity presents an alternative model, in which a gender focal point located within the Corporate Affairs directorate co-exists with efforts to train policy analysts across the Department. Peter Oberle, Director General for Corporate Affairs at CIC, described the approach as follows:

Across Citizenship and Immigration, gender-based analysis is carried out, by and large, at the branch level, where most policy and program work occurs. To support the mainstreaming of gender-based analysis, my branch provides advisory services. We develop tools, deliver training, facilitate information sharing, develop guides, and assist branches in formulating their branch plans. We also coordinate input into the annual immigration report to Parliament.[127]

The Committee strongly believes that, given the central role played by Finance Canada, the Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board Secretariat in the implementation of gender responsive budgeting in the federal government, it is essential that their GBA capacity be reinforced. Therefore:

RECOMMENDATION 7

The Committee recommends that Finance Canada, in order to improve its technical GBA capacity and the quality of the gender-based analysis being performed, create by January 2009 a centralized GBA unit comprised of gender experts; that this unit establish clear mechanisms to support the work of the policy analysts throughout the Department; and that this unit be adequately resourced over the long term.

RECOMMENDATION 8

The Committee recommends that the other central agencies, namely the Privy Council Office and Treasury Board Secretariat, establish specialized units on gender analysis in their offices.

E. Data Availability

In order to perform a proper GBA of policy proposals, which in turn will lead to effective gender budgeting, witnesses emphasized the need for data on the situation of women in Canada. This point was made by both Professor Good and Professor Claire Young in their appearance before this Committee:

The differential impact on women and men needs to be focused on, and the material is there to do that. We certainly have excellent statistical material telling us all kinds of things about the socioeconomic status of women.[128]

I think on the data and the information, we have the best statistical agency in the world, StatsCan, and they have done some remarkable research on a number of these issues.[129]

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As the testimony from Statistics Canada and Status of Women Canada demonstrated, there is much gender disaggregated data being collected, such as the statistical compendium entitled Women in Canada: A Gender Based Statistical Report, which has been produced every five years since 1985. As noted above, Statistics Canada also produced for Status of Women Canada a publication entitled Finding Data on Women: A Guide to Major Sources at Statistics Canada. Nonetheless, witnesses acknowledged that there is still work to be done in some areas, which they hope to address in part through the Gender Equality Indicators Project.

When asked about obstacles to effective gender responsive budgeting, a number of witnesses pointed to the lack of adequate data in many areas as an outstanding problem.[130] Data availability was also identified as a problem by Professor Philipps, who noted the limitations in the existing data:

The Canada Revenue Agency does publish some gender disaggregated data; however, it is limited, and we would need to enrich it significantly to do a thorough gender analysis. There may be new kinds of data that would need to be produced about, for instance, the distribution of resources within households. So I believe that doing more data collection would need to be part of the exercise.[131]

The Committee recognizes that there is a disconnect between the central agencies pointing to a lack of data, and Statistics Canada and non-governmental witnesses stating that the data are available. This disconnect was explained in part by Michèle Bougie, Policy Analyst with GBA Support Services at SWC, who indicated that data are available, but that departments must seek the data actively:

On the disaggregated data and how we make it more available, Statistics Canada has a lot of data banks, and they do tend to collect things and disaggregate subpopulation groups and various cohorts. The trick is that departments have to ask for it and departments have to pay for it. When the departments have asked for it, are they asking for questions and things like census runs, or are they asking for the data broken down to meet their needs? So you have different approaches. But the departments have to ask for it in order to get it. And once they have it, they have to use it.[132]

Another aspect of the explanation may lie in the fact that, while basic disaggregated data are available, when trying to dig deeper—for instance when trying to differentiate between the impact on aboriginal women and men or immigrant women and men—it becomes more difficult to obtain good data.[133]

However, many witnesses noted that the lack of data is no excuse not to move forward with gender-based analysis of policy proposals feeding into the budget process. As stated by Ailsa McKay, an economics professor from Glasgow Caledonian University who studies gender budgets:

We regularly come across that as a reason, saying we can't do gender budget analysis because we don't have the required data to do the analysis. That in itself is doing gender budget analysis: discovering where you don't have the data, the gaps in the data, and to go about collecting them for the next budget round. I don't think it's sufficient to say we don't have the data, therefore we can't start. We start by saying we don't have the data, so let's collect it, and let's ensure we fill those gaps.[134]

This opinion was shared by Professor Russell, who noted that we can never have enough data but that again, this is not an impediment to moving forward with gender responsive budgeting.

The fact is that we all cope with life despite the fact that the data is not always ideal. Certainly it would be better to have more data, and certainly that would cost something. This does not mean we can't attempt gender budgeting today given what we know. […] Data issues are no excuse for not getting started.[135]

Moreover, in their appearance before the Committee, Statistics Canada representatives urged stakeholders, including all government departments, to let them know the type of data that they need in order to do a good gender-based analysis, so that the right questions can be incorporated into future questionnaires prepared by Statistics Canada.[136]

Sheila Regehr, a former employee of Status of Women Canada and now Director of the National Council of Welfare (NCW), shared with the Committee her own experience with Statistics Canada. Upon assuming her position at the NCW, she contacted Statistics Canada and asked them to provide her with a briefing on the available statistical resources that could be of use to her in her work. She then suggested that the people involved with gender-based analysis at Finance Canada could benefit from such a consultation with Statistics Canada.[137]

The Committee believes that, while it is necessary to continue to collect better gender-disaggregated data, the gaps in the existing data should not prevent departments, particularly Finance Canada, from performing gender-based analysis leading to a gender responsive budget. Rather, departments should seek to address these gaps by working closely with Statistics Canada and by actively seeking gender-disaggregated data to help inform their gender-based analysis. Therefore:

RECOMMENDATION 9

The Committee recommends that Status of Women Canada, in collaboration with Statistics Canada, immediately begin developing data gathering and statistical training workshops essential to gender responsive budgeting; that these workshops be based in part on the existing publication Finding Data on Women: A Guide to Major Sources at Statistics Canada; that these workshops be provided to all federal departments and central agencies on a cost-recovery basis; and, that additional resources be made available to Status of Women Canada and Statistics Canada for developing these workshops.

RECOMMENDATION 10

The Committee recommends that the GBA Champion at Finance Canada immediately contact Statistics Canada for a briefing on the available statistical resources that could be of use to the Department; and that the GBA unit, once created, actively seek disaggregated data and gender statistics from Statistics Canada on a regular basis.

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F. Transparency and Cabinet Confidences

Another issue that came up during witness testimony was the protection of cabinet confidences. New policies go through the Memorandum to Cabinet process for approval, which means that they ultimately end up before Cabinet. The gender-based analyses performed as part of this process are then included in the recommendations to the Minister and as such, they are, for the most part, covered by cabinet confidentiality.[138]

The same problem arose when Committee members tried to get examples from TBS of Treasury Board submissions that had to be sent back to the departments for failing to do a proper GBA. Mr. Wild insisted that he could not provide specific examples of either good or bad GBA, or of the analysis performed by TBS officers on those submissions, because of cabinet confidentiality.[139]

In their explanation on confidentiality of certain documents, Finance officials made a distinction between the analysis that comes from the line departments and feeds into the budget process, and the internal GBA of tax policies performed by Finance analysts. They emphasized that they disclose the latter.

As far as the gender-based analyses that come from departments are concerned, when they go into our budget process and are provided to the minister, that really becomes advice to the minister. But the department has chosen, on the tax side, to provide that information to you. If you wanted to ask departments about their gender-based analysis and how they could provide that to you, they may be able to provide that information. From a tax policy perspective, we provide that information.[140]

Because the initial GBA performed by Finance Canada on potential tax initiatives for the budget takes the form of advice to the Minister, and is therefore considered to be cabinet confidences, the GBA of new tax policy measures provided to the Committee is a separate document prepared by Finance Canada after the fact. The Deputy Minister explained to the Committee that the public document is “a compilation of the individual items that were sent, as part of the budget process itself”, and therefore is based on work that was done before the budget was released.[141] Nonetheless, because of cabinet confidentiality, the Committee is unable to ascertain whether the “public” GBA of tax policy initiatives provided by Finance Canada is the same as the analysis provided to Cabinet in the course of the preparation of the budget. The quality of the GBA performed by Finance Canada will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter VI.

Finally, the Committee heard that the lack of transparency endemic to this process has caused some of the witnesses who appeared before the Committee to look at gender budgeting efforts in the federal government with a certain degree of cynicism. As stated by Ms. Peckford:

[T]here's a profound lack of transparency within the federal government and the finance department. I think that's because the measures have been so modest to date. It's very difficult to be publicly forthcoming about what you're doing when for the most part, I believe, it has been ad hoc and somewhat arbitrary.[142]

G. Decision-Making and Accountability

An obvious tool in assessing the performance of both the departments and the central agencies in GBA is to look at the policies that come out of these organizations and how they impact women. However, witnesses noted that this approach carries with it a major flaw in that the public servants who do the work, who perform the gender-based analysis, do not ultimately make the decision as to whether or not a policy will go forward or what form this policy will take. As noted by Mr. Wild, “[t]he difficulty is that you can’t use the decision made by a minister as a proxy to discern the quality of the policy advice that’s been brought forward.”[143]

Witnesses from the central agencies emphasized that the role of the Public Service is to provide the best possible advice to the ministers, including a complete GBA of policy initiatives coming forward. However, it is Cabinet that decides which policies will take priority and what considerations to give to the results of the GBA. According to one witness, this is exemplified by the unofficial public service motto: “fearless advice, loyal implementation.”[144]

This important distinction between the role of the Public Service and Cabinet was made by both the representatives from PCO and TBS during their testimony, and is best summarized by the following statement by Mr. Wild:

Our job is, in a non-partisan way, to provide the best possible policy advice that we can that takes into account all perspectives and interests and gives our best view of what we feel is the best course of action. But ultimately ministers have to take all of that into account plus political considerations and they make decisions. Then we loyally implement those decisions, and that’s in essence the process. […] We do provide our advice. Our advice has a GBA lens on it, and certainly from a minister’s perspective, that may not necessarily be the only lens or the determinative lens. I think that’s part of their job as an elected official and then they’re held accountable for the decisions they’ve taken.[145]

The same point was also made by the Deputy Minister of Finance, during his appearance before the Committee, when he noted that:

[T]he role of the public service is to support ministers in making decisions. My role as Deputy Minister of Finance is to support the Minister of Finance. The way to do that is to ensure that the minister is making informed decisions and informed choices. In that sense, the gender-based analysis is integral to the analysis we provide, but it's one part of a very comprehensive assessment.

[…]

It's not just the department; all departments can help support ministers in making choices and making decisions. The core of being a public servant is to have neutral, non-partisan advice based on the facts[…] This [GBA] is one element that I would say fits well into that body of informed advice.[146]

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Witnesses raised two key elements in this discussion. The first is that GBA is but one of the many lenses through which policy initiatives are evaluated as part of the decision-making process, which must take into account competing priorities and pressures.[147] The result is that in the policy process, as with any other situations where a choice must be made between various alternatives, there will be “winners and losers.”[148] The second element is the notion of accountability that flows from the Westminster system of governance, in which both parliamentarians and all Canadians have a role to play in holding ministers of the government accountable for their decisions. As stated by Mr. Wild:

Ultimately it is up to parliamentarians and the public to hold the government accountable for how they feel, how those decisions have been made, and whether those decisions are reflective of anybody’s given view of the public interest at that time.[149]  

This issue will be addressed in greater detail in Chapter VII of this report, which focuses on the need for oversight mechanisms and leadership, and makes specific recommendations in this regard, in order to achieve gender responsive budgets and, ultimately, gender equality.

While there is no question that ultimate leadership on gender issues must come from the political arena, there is nonetheless an important role to be played by senior management from within the Public Service. When asked by a member of this Committee whether it would be fair to say that the notion of including gender consideration in the decision-making process of the departments is ingrained and now a part of the culture of this decision-making, Ms. Dwyer-Renaud stated:

I don’t think it’s there yet. The practice is there. Senior management knows that there is a practice going on, but does it make it through to the decision-making process? That’s uneven, depending on the support that’s being given to the departments.[150]

The Committee heard from witnesses that the Treasury Board Secretariat uses two management structures to help ensure departments are addressing gender-specific objectives and implementing a gender-based analysis approach to their programs and activities.[151] The Management, Resources and Results Structure (MRRS) and the Management Accountability Framework (MAF) allow the Government of Canada to implement results-based management that is informed by accurate and timely performance information. Ms. Beckton informed the Committee that the MRRS and the MAF can be used to track the GBA of departmental activities and initiatives, policy and program objectives and resource allocations.[152]

Given that these structures are already in place, and given the important role that senior managers play in the decision-making process, the Committee discussed the idea that senior managers should be evaluated on their performance on gender-based analysis based on criteria incorporated into the existing management accountability structures. Therefore:

RECOMMENDATION 11

The Committee recommends that senior government officials, namely Deputy Ministers, Assistant Deputy Ministers, and Director Generals, be held accountable for their implementation of a true gender-based analysis in all government departments by tying their performance assessment, and thereby pay increases and promotions to the implementation of gender-based analysis in their respective areas of responsibility. This must include the Clerk of the Privy Council, Secretary of the Treasury Board and Deputy Minister of Finance.