Question Period Note: Office of the Auditor General’s Report

What is the government doing to address the Auditor General’s Performance Audit of Gender-Based Analysis Plus?

• Women and Gender Equality Canada welcomes the Auditor General’s 2022 Report on Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus). While we have made progress, we need to do more.
• The Government of Canada is committed to continuous improvement in using GBA Plus as a key tool in the development and implementation of programs, policies, and services to ensure that no one is left behind.
• The Auditor General’s Report findings focus on the implementation of GBA Plus in response to selected recommendations from the 2015 Auditor General’s Report on GBA Plus. The report also examined the use and availability of data to support GBA Plus.
• An action plan is being drafted to respond to the Auditor General’s recommendations and to strengthen the application of GBA plus across government, and it will be submitted in November to the Public Accounts Committee.

Investment
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Results
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Project examples
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BACKGROUND:
• Canada’s Auditor General performed audits of Gender-based Analysis (GBA) Plus in 2009 and 2015. These audits found that despite efforts to improve, many departments had not delivered on the Government’s 1995 commitment to analyze gender impacts (2009) and that there were barriers to conducting gender-based analysis and integrating gender considerations into decision-making (2015).

• PCO, TBS and WAGE responded to the 2015 Audit with an Action Plan (2016-2020) to address the audit recommendations. This included activities such as tools to clarify how to do intersectional analyses, training, and other resources to build departments’ capacity, as well as activities to increase collaboration between departments.

• In May 2021, Canada’s Auditor General launched its third audit of GBA Plus to provide assurance that the federal government acted to address the recommendations from the 2015 audit and implement the Action Plan. The audit report was published in May 2022, and covers the period of April 1, 2016 to January 31, 2022.

• In particular, this audit focused on two recommendations from the 2015 audit related to: identifying and addressing barriers to conducting rigorous GBA Plus (Recommendation 1.61); and assessing and reporting on the implementation of GBA Plus in federal departments and agencies, and their impacts on policy, legislative and program initiatives (Recommendation 1.62). The report also examined the use and availability of data to support GBA Plus.

• Overall, the audit found that while WAGE, PCO and TBS had partially addressed recommendations from the 2015 audit, including through WAGE-led initiatives to provide training, tools and guidance, and through collaboration and learning through interdepartmental committees, little progress overall had been made in the implementation of GBA Plus within the federal government and longstanding barriers to the implementation of GBA Plus persist.

• Within six months of tabling of the report, WAGE, TBS and PCO are required to submit a Management Response and Action Plan (MRAP) to the Public Accounts Committee to address the recommendations. The MRAP will be finalized and submitted in November.

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