FEWO Committee Report

In Gender-Based Analysis: Building Blocks for Success, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women made various recommendations highlighting the role of central agencies, in order to improve gender-based analysis in the federal government. In its September 2006 response to the Committee’s report, the Government elaborated on gender-based analysis initiatives undertaken by Status of Women Canada and the central agencies. During its study, the Committee heard that central agencies played an important role in the budgetary process. It thus included as part of its study, the role played by the Treasury Board Secretariat, the Privy Council Office and Finance Canada. The Committee also heard from officials from Status of Women Canada, the lead organization on gender issues, and Statistics Canada, which plays a key role in providing the data necessary for all government departments to undertake evidence-based GBA.

The Committee’s approach stemmed from an understanding that the development of a budget was a process involving line departments developing policy proposals, supervised by the central agencies, and feeding directly into the budget drafting exercise, presided over by Finance Canada. As noted by Ms. Beckton in her appearance before this Committee:

It [gender budgeting] requires participation not only at the budget implementation stage, but also throughout the entire budgetary cycle and the policy development cycle.[50]

This chapter provides background information on the status of GBA in these agencies and departments, as well as processes and initiatives contributing to gender responsive budgeting. In Chapter IV, key issues with the implementation of GBA and gender responsive budgets are discussed, and recommendations are developed to address these issues.

A. Status of Women Canada

Status of Women Canada (SWC) is a federal government organization that promotes the full participation of women in the economic, social and democratic life of Canada. SWC works to advance equality for women and to remove the barriers to women’s participation in society, putting particular emphasis on increasing women’s economic security and eliminating violence against women. To advance equality for women, SWC works with federal departments and agencies to ensure that the gender dimensions are taken into account in the development of policies and programs, by conducting gender-based analysis and supporting research.[51]

1. Current Priorities for Status of Women Canada

As part of the 1995 Federal Plan for Gender Equality, Status of Women Canada took on a GBA capacity building role. Today, SWC continues to play an important role in the application of GBA in the federal government. Its GBA work is focused in the newly amalgamated Policy Directorate. The Policy Directorate carries out two main GBA activities: “it helps include gender equality considerations in current and new policy initiatives, and generates knowledge and tools on gender issues and GBA practices.”[52] Approximately $849,000 per year is allocated to GBA support activities, including capacity-building, training, research, international and federal-provincial-territorial relations.[53]

The Committee heard that, while SWC initially developed the GBA training tools, it does not provide the training to departments directly. Rather, SWC conducted a “train the trainer” program that led to the creation of a bank of trainers licensed by SWC, to which the departments could then turn to obtain the training needed.[54] As a follow-up to this, SWC plans to “act as the central agency on practices” in an attempt to determine whether people are using the training they have received. This project will require follow-up evaluations to determine the impact of the GBA training in the departments.[55]

In terms of where the work of SWC is heading, the Committee was informed by witnesses that, while past efforts have been focused on capacity building and creating GBA tools, the future of GBA is in “sustainable practices, accountability, and evaluation.”[56]

On the sustainable practices front, SWC interacts directly with the line departments to offer GBA support, in order to ensure that gender considerations are taken into account through the Memorandum to Cabinet and Treasury Board Submission process.[57] This particular function has gained in importance as a result of a recent change in the Guide to Preparing Treasury Board Submissions. The Guide now requires that departments, when seeking approval or authority for a particular initiative, demonstrate that they have performed a gender-based analysis in preparing their submission.[58]

On the issue of accountability and monitoring, SWC is undertaking a comparative analysis of how GBA is done in Canada and in the European Union, in order to see “how we can do a better job at monitoring the practice.”[59] The witnesses from SWC also spoke of the importance of developing proper program activity architecture, including departmental reporting through the Reports on Plans and Priorities and the Departmental Performance Reports, to take into consideration the impacts on gender.[60]

With regard to the third component, evaluation, SWC officials pointed to the need to evaluate the practices and where those practices have made a difference “in terms of results and changing the reality of women’s lives.”[61] This component is being carried out through the Gender Equality Indicators Project, which is part of a global trend in GBA to focus on measuring the progress made.

top

2. The Gender Equality Indicators Project

The Committee heard that Status of Women Canada’s Gender Equality Indicators Project aims to develop a tool that tracks the situation of women and men over time, provides data to be used in the gender-based analysis of policy and programs, and monitors key gaps between women and men through time. This Project builds on the existing statistics and disaggregated data on women, as well as economic gender equality indicators and violence indicators previously developed, to create a tool that may be used by policy experts and decision-makers throughout the federal government. As explained by Suzanne Cooper, the lead analyst assigned to this project:

For decision-makers, gender equality indicators could be quite beneficial. They provide evidence for setting policy direction; for monitoring progress on equality for women and men; for taking corrective action; for communicating any progress to a wide variety of audiences, such as policy-makers and the general public; and they support federal GBA policy.[62]

Many experts who appeared before the Committee stressed the importance of developing good gender equality indicators, including Dorienne Rowan-Campbell, a former member of the Expert Panel on Accountability Mechanisms for Gender Equality, who noted:

You need those indicators to set up a ranking system so that you know what you're doing. You may know where you want to go, but it gives you an idea of where the potential impact needs to be. Those indicators will also help you identify whether you're there. I would urge a lot of support for the creation, with various departments, of the relevant gender equality indicators […][63]

The government has allocated $200,000 to the Gender Equality Indicators Project, which is currently in the framework development stage. [64] While SWC has taken the lead on this project, it does coordinate the work through an interdepartmental working group comprised of representatives from eight other departments. The current focus is on finalizing the draft domains and indicators. The Committee learned that the draft domains are: personal safety and security, economic security and prosperity, unpaid work, and socio-political engagement.[65] As explained by Ms. Cooper, the following principles guide the work of the working group in the development of indicators:

For example, the indicators should be consistent with international reporting, and of course domestic priorities. A key for us was addressing the interrelationship of gender with diversity factors such as race, disability, age, […] as well as addressing data gaps—there may be a need, for example, to collect new data for particular groups. They need to be accessible to users—the policy makers, the general public, for example. They need to be based on the frequency and availability of data, and provide, of course, data for trends over time—we're not interested in just a finite snapshot in time, but in trends—as well as be selected in key domains. This is basically a notion that less is more. We can't measure everything under the sun, so we have to focus on the areas where women are particularly lagging.[66]

B. Privy Council Office

The Privy Council Office (PCO) is the secretariat for Cabinet and the source of policy and operational advice for the Prime Minister. PCO has three main roles:

1. Providing non-partisan advice to the Prime Minister;

2. Supporting Cabinet decision-making processes; and

3. Providing strategic direction to the Public Service.

It is the second role that was most relevant to the Committee’s study, as PCO analysts are the ‘gatekeepers’ for departmental submissions to Cabinet. They ensure that the submissions are consistent with the government’s overall policy direction and help to coordinate departments on horizontal issues.

In her first appearance before the Committee, Anita Biguzs, Assistant Secretary to Cabinet Operations Secretariat at PCO, described the main function of PCO as providing Public Service support to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet:

We are responsible for facilitating the smooth and effective operation of the cabinet decision-making process, where policy decisions are taken by the government.

Our role is to help advance the policy process by providing constructive feedback to departmental proposals and to ensure that the proposals are ready for consideration by cabinet; in other words, that the due diligence has been undertaken so that proposals are practical, responsible, and sustainable. This is accomplished by helping to ensure that there is coherence and clarity in new policy proposals and existing programs and that these are consistent with the government’s overall agenda.[67]

top

1. Memorandum to Cabinet and Challenge Function

Generally, a new policy or initiative needs Cabinet approval before it can be implemented. The primary instrument used by departments to seek Cabinet approval is the Memorandum to Cabinet (MC). Though the writing of an MC is the responsibility of the sponsoring department, each of the central agencies is involved in the drafting of an MC. PCO for its part ensures that the MC is appropriately written and that the aims of the initiative described in the MC are consistent with the government’s priorities, and chooses which Cabinet committee will consider any given MC. Many considerations are included in an MC and, as the template provided by PCO suggested, gender issues should be considered “where appropriate.” Ms. Biguzs provided the following explanation regarding the content and the process associated with an MC, and the role played by PCO:

From a horizontal perspective it is part of PCO’s coordination role to make sure interdepartmental consultations are undertaken during the MC process and that the considerations raised by other departments are taken into account by the sponsoring department. At the same time, central agencies—and that includes PCO, Finance, and Treasury Board Secretariat—work together to provide feedback and to challenge proposals against the range of considerations—and that includes gender-based analysis—to ensure that when a proposal comes forward, cabinet is presented with information to help inform decision-making.[68]

The important distinction to be made is that the gender-based analysis will be prepared by the line department submitting the MC, not by PCO. Rather, as part of its challenge function, PCO will go through the proposal to ensure, among other things, that the GBA has actually been undertaken.[69] As explained by Ms. Biguzs:

It’s a dynamic process and there can be many meetings, many consultations with the department, to actually help provide constructive feedback to departments in actually developing the MC.[70]

2. GBA Training and Champion

The Committee heard that PCO has been building its GBA capacity. PCO has been providing GBA training to its policy officers since 2006, to enable them to identify whether the gender-based analysis has been properly performed by the line departments in the preparation of their policy proposals.[71] A GBA champion was previously appointed by the Clerk of the Privy Council, attached to the function of Assistant Secretary of Social Development Policy, but this position was vacant at the time of PCO’s appearance before this Committee. According to Ms. Biguzs, who is acting in the position:

The champion’s role is to ensure that gender-based analysis is integrated into the policy process and challenge function of PCO. On an ongoing basis the champion works to promote and encourage gender-based analysis training to all PCO officials.[72]

C. Treasury Board Secretariat

The Treasury Board is a committee of Cabinet with a statutory base set out in the Financial Administration Act.[73] The Treasury Board, supported by its Secretariat, functions as the government’s management board and oversees the operations of the entire federal government. It performs this oversight role from three perspectives: expenditure management, management performance oversight, and as the principal employer of the Public Service.

In the area of expenditure management, after a policy has been approved through the Memorandum to Cabinet process, departments draft a Treasury Board Submission. The role of the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) was expressed as follows by Joe Wild, Executive Director for Strategic Policy:

It’s ensuring that the spending planned in the budget is properly expressed within the estimates through, ultimately, the appropriation act, which then provides the actual legal spending authority for a department to spend funds in that particular area. The focus of the Treasury Board submission process is very much on getting the details of program design, the specific costs, the expected results and outcomes, and how program delivery and administration will occur.[74]

1. Treasury Board Submissions and Challenge Function

A Treasury Board Submission is an official document that a department submits to seek approval from Treasury Board ministers to carry out a previously approved program or policy. A Treasury Board Submission generally includes details of the program’s design and delivery, how much it will cost each year, expected results and outcomes, and other required information. When TBS receives a submission from a department, it is required to perform a ‘challenge function’ to ensure that the submission is complete. In this interactive process between the submitting department and the Secretariat, TBS analysts are responsible for ensuring that funding submissions to the Treasury Board are consistent with the Board’s policies on departmental administration, that they identify costs and the source of funds, and that they address possible risks.

An important development in ensuring that GBA becomes entrenched in the departments, as discussed above, was the update to the Guide to Preparing Treasury Board Submissions. As part of this new process, program analysts at TBS must now review Treasury Board submissions to verify whether a gender-based analysis has been performed by the department.[75] As is the case for PCO, TBS analysts do not perform GBA of new policies themselves, but rather review the work done by analysts in the line departments, and as part of the challenge function, provide an opinion on whether the GBA performed by the department is adequate.[76] As explained by Mr. Wild:

They have conversations with the officials in the department who are responsible for the submission concerning any deficiencies or issues that are viewed in the submission. It’s a conversation, it’s a dialogue. Sometimes it results in the department making changes to the submission and sometimes it doesn’t.[77]

Furthermore, while the content of the submission is ultimately the responsibility of the line department, the TBS analyst does prepare a separate analysis of the risks or issues associated with the submission, an analysis which is given to the Treasury Board but not shared with the department.[78]

top

2. GBA Training and Champion

The Committee heard that TBS is building its gender-based analysis capacity. GBA has been incorporated into the TBS training program for new analysts, as part of the TBS “bootcamp,” and additional training has been delivered to analysts to provide further guidance on the application of GBA in the context of TB submissions. Over 100 analysts have attended these learning sessions.[79] As well, a GBA champion has been appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury Board at the assistant secretary level, although the position was vacant at the time of TBS’s appearance before this Committee.[80]

D. Finance Canada

The role of Finance Canada is to help set the overall economic and fiscal context. Finance Canada is considered the expert of economic and fiscal implications and analysis. A key responsibility of Finance Canada and the Minister of Finance is the preparation of the budget. In addition, the Department is responsible for ensuring the passage of the Budget Implementation Act through Parliament as well as tax and other statutory measures.[81]

1. Budget Analysis

Finance Canada plays a dual role in terms of budgeting: first, it reviews the policies proposed by line departments, and second, it elaborates its own policies that are submitted to Cabinet through its own minister. In the first situation, GBA should already have been performed by line departments as part of the MC process. In the second situation, a section requiring that GBA be performed has been added by the Department to the template used for budget briefing documents, and Finance analysts have been trained to perform GBA.

Finance Canada’s approach to GBA for policies developed internally, including those that feed into the budget, was defended by Louise Levonian, General Director of the Tax Policy Branch, as being not only more efficient, but also leading to higher quality proposals:

The systemic approach allows for gender-based analysis to be included from the earliest stage of development of policy. We also believe it is an efficient way to proceed in that it is the same officer who performs gender-based analysis who develops the policy. As most policy proposals developed at the department are complex and technical in nature, this approach eliminates the risk of the person conducting the gender-based analysis not understanding the proposal and it reduces the time necessary to complete a good gender-based analysis.[82]

As for the type of policy advice that Finance analysts might provide to the Minister where GBA could be applied, while officials would not provide specific examples, they did note that they would consider various mechanisms for delivering social policies, such as direct spending, intergovernmental transfers, tax expenditures or regulations, and put the pros and cons of each before the Minister.[83]

2. GBA Training and Champion

In order for this work to be carried out, one of the main measures taken by Finance Canada has been to provide GBA training to its analysts, starting with the tax policy branch and gradually expanding into other policy areas. The Committee heard that 60 policy analysts out of 500 have been trained in GBA. [84] Starting in the fall of 2008, GBA training will be included in the training curriculum for all new analysts and managers coming into the Department.[85] A GBA champion was also named, a position currently held by Ms. Levonian, and mention was made of gender-based analysis in Finance Canada’s 2006-2007 Departmental Performance Report.

3. GBA of Tax Policy Changes

The Committee learned that Finance Canada has undertaken a gender-based analysis of tax policy changes of the 2006, 2007 and 2008 federal budgets. The Deputy Minister of Finance informed the Committee that the Department has conducted this GBA for those measures where data was available.

What this committee recommended in 2005 and the previous government committed to do in 2005 and the current government committed to do in 2006 was that in cases in which data exist, individual branches—and they named three branches within the Department of Finance—may include gender-based analysis in the policy when data are available.[86]

The Committee heard that Finance Canada’s GBA is “still a work in progress” but that Finance will continue to share benchmarks of its progress with the Committee. [87] Chapters V and VI address in greater detail the Committee’s concerns with Finance Canada’s approach to the budgetary process and recommend specific areas of improvement to ensure that the federal budget becomes gender responsive.

E. Statistics Canada

Statistics Canada is Canada’s central statistical agency, legislated to serve the federal government’s responsibility for providing statistics for the whole of Canada and each of its provinces. These statistics are crucial in understanding key variables of the Canadian society such as its population, its resources, its economy and its culture. This enables elected representatives, businesses, unions, non-profit organizations and individual Canadians to make more informed decisions. Statistics Canada conducts a Census every five years and approximately 350 active surveys.[88]

top

1. Contribution of Statistics Canada to the GBA Process

Statistics Canada’s main contribution to gender-based analysis in the federal government is the provision of gender statistics that are then used by departments to conduct their GBA of policies and programs.[89] The information provided is meant to be objective; although some analysis is performed on the raw data collected, Statistics Canada does not recommend specific policy outcomes.[90] A gender-based analysis at Statistics Canada involves an assessment of existing sources of data, as well as questioning the assumptions underpinning statistical concepts and collection methods. Statistics Canada provides sex-disaggregated data as well as data relevant to both men’s and women's experiences.[91] The following definition of gender statistics was provided by a representative from Statistics Canada:

Gender statistics are data that reflect the situation of women and men, taking into account their different socio-economic realities. Gender statistics are then used in gender-based analysis to assess the differential impact of policies, programs, and legislation on women and men.[92]

The Committee learned that Statistics Canada does not have a special division dedicated to the promotion and production of gender statistics, but rather, that expertise in gender analysis exists across the agency. As explained by the representative from Statistics Canada, all projects have some commitment to collecting information on gender, and there are individuals at the agency who participate in specific gender projects, such as the indicators project and the Women in Canada publication with Status of Women Canada, or the United Nations committee for gender statistics.[93]

2. Available Sources of Gender Statistics

The Committee learned that Statistics Canada collects and analyses a wealth of gender statistics. These statistics are found in tables, in microdata form, and in analytic publications, many of which are available for free on Statistics Canada’s website, or in CANSIM II, Statistics Canada’s socio-economic database, for a small fee. In addition, if the existing resources do not meet the needs of a particular department, custom tables can be purchased directly from Statistics Canada.[94]

Of particular interest for departments seeking data for gender-based analysis is the publication Finding Data on Women: A Guide to Major Sources at Statistics Canada. This publication was produced as a result of a joint project between Statistics Canada and Status of Women Canada and was last updated in 2007.[95]

The representative from Statistics Canada indicated that the agency produces a range of analytic products using gender statistics, and that the best known publication for data on women is a statistical compendium entitled Women in Canada: A Gender Based Statistical Report, which has been produced every five years since 1985.[96] This report analyzes the situation of Canadian women by exploring their demographic and cultural characteristics, living arrangements, income, labour force activity, health and victimization characteristics.[97] A more concise guide to gender-based statistics entitled Women and Men in Canada: A Statistical Glance, is also produced periodically by Statistics Canada for Status of Women Canada.[98]