Question Period Note: Gender-based Analysis Plus

What is the government doing to improve the implementation of GBA Plus?

•As Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, I have been working closely with colleagues to deliver on our joint mandate commitment to enhance Gender-based Analysis Plus (or GBA Plus), so that it better captures lived experiences and serves to reduce disparities.
•When we do GBA Plus early in the development of policies, programs and services and other initiatives, we design better, more responsive, and inclusive initiatives. We have listened to feedback on how we can do better.
•While progress is undeniable, we are collectively working to strengthen the application of GBA Plus so that barriers to government initiatives are reduced.

•Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) is an analytical tool used to support the development of responsive and inclusive policies, programs and other initiatives. GBA Plus is a process for understanding who is impacted by the issue, identifying how the initiative could be tailored to meet diverse needs of the people most impacted, and anticipating and mitigating any barriers to accessing or benefitting from the initiative. GBA Plus is an intersectional analysis that goes beyond biological (sex) and socio-cultural (gender) differences to consider other factors, such as age, disability, education, ethnicity, economic status, geography, language, race, religion, and sexual orientation.
•WAGE strives to:
o Increase awareness, and understanding of GBA Plus;
o Enhance capacity and expertise for GBA Plus across federal government;
o Foster collaboration between a broad range of actors to capture new knowledge and share best practices; and
o Act as a hub for GBA Plus knowledge and expertise.

Senate Committee (SOCI) Report on GBA Plus
•On March 30, 2023, the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology (SOCI) released its report on GBA Plus entitled All Together - The Role of Gender-based Analysis Plus in the Policy Process: reducing barriers to an inclusive intersectional policy analysis.
•The focus of the report was to study the role of GBA Plus in the policy process, the barriers to its implementation and how to support a more fulsome intersectional analysis. The Committee made 15 recommendations to address these gaps, most of which align with efforts underway to strengthen GBA Plus.
•On April 27, 2023, the Senate adopted a motion requesting a government response to the committee report. Under Senate rules, the Government’s Response is required 150 calendar days after the motion was adopted, which will require tabling by September 22, 2023.
•A response is being developed, in consultation with central agencies and other key government partners.

OAG Audit of GBA Plus
•In May 2022, the Auditor General of Canada published its third audit of GBA Plus. Previous OAG audits of GBA Plus were undertaken in 2009 and 2015.
•Overall, the audit found that while WAGE, PCO and TBS had partially addressed recommendations from the 2015 audit, little progress had been made in the implementation of GBA Plus within the federal government and longstanding barriers to the implementation of GBA Plus persist.
•The audit included seven recommendations for WAGE, PCO and TBS to address the persistent barriers and to strengthen the application, accountability and transparency of GBA Plus across the federal government.
•In November 2022, PCO, TBS and WAGE submitted to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts a plan to address the OAG recommendations. The plan includes meaningful action, including developing new training to increase understanding of intersectionality, and introducing a new framework to ensure departments have the internal capacity to support GBA Plus application.
•Progress on the plan is underway and monitored in partnership with TBS and PCO. At present, none of the actions in the plan are at risk of not being completed.

Strengthening GBA Plus
•GBA Plus is the result of a sustained commitment over more than 25 years. It has evolved over time and is guided by a process of continuous improvement. Changes have been informed by a wide range of evidence and inputs.
•2021 mandate letter commitments direct you to lead the evaluation process of GBA Plus with the goal of enhancing the framing and parameters of this analytical tool, with particular attention to intersectional analysis, so that it better reflects the lived experiences o f all people in Canada.
o The Ministers of Housing, Diversity and Inclusion; Crown-Indigenous Relations; Rural Economic Development; Tourism and the Associate Minister of Finance; Employment, Workforce Development, Disability and Inclusion; and the President of the Treasury Board have been mandated to support this work and will be critical partners in advancing the plan.
•To advance this mandate letter commitment, WAGE is facilitating an engagement process in collaboration with central agencies and departments to ensure a consistent and coordinated approach that will leverage existing networks and relationships of departments with equality, diversity, and inclusion mandates.
•To date, consultations with deputy heads, GBA Plus Champions and other key federal government officials have been held and opportunities for improvement identified. Engagement continues with internal and external stakeholders to validate and refine potential options moving forward.
•Recent engagement builds on the insights provided by SOCI, the Auditor General and the many studies and reviews that have been undertaken as part of a process of continuous improvement. Other recent inputs to strengthen GBA Plus include Senator Mary Jane McCallum’s (ISG) introduction of Bill S-218 in November 2021. The Bill proposes to include a provision in the Department for Women and Gender Equality Act to require the Minister for WAGE to examine every Government Bill introduced in either House of Parliament and to table a statement that sets out potential effects of the Bill on women, particularly Indigenous women. As of August, 2023, Bill S-218 is at Second Reading in the Senate.

Gender Budgeting
•The Canadian Gender Budgeting Act came into force in December 2018, enshrining gender budgeting in the federal government’s budgetary and financial management process.
•Similar to recent budgets and fiscal updates, Budget 2023 includes a gender budget statement and the publication of more than 200 GBA Plus summaries of budget measures, continuing a practice introduced in Budget 2019. In terms of the GBA Plus of Budget 2023,
o Most (75%) GBA Plus were initiated early or mid-stage of the initiative, which is indicative of the continuous efforts to better integrate GBA Plus earlier and throughout the budget process. Moreover, 41% of GBA Plus were initiated early, which is higher than Budget 2022, for which 32% were initiated early.
o The Budget reports that 14% of measures identified a potential barrier to access or participation for a specific demographic group. For most measures (90%) where a barrier was identified, a proposed approach to removing obstacles for groups experiencing these barriers was included.

GBA Plus as part of the implementation of the Impact Assessment Act
•WAGE supports the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and partner departments on the implementation of the 2019 Impact Assessment Act. This legislation requires that proponents of major initiatives, including resource projects, apply GBA Plus to project planning and implementation to assess potential project impacts on different groups of people.
•Through this legislation, WAGE is working to ensure that the negative impacts of projects are mitigated, including those related to gender-based violence, and that the benefits of these projects are felt equally among different groups of people.
•Both Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations Canada are important partners in the implementation of this legislation and in the application of GBA Plus from an Indigenous perspective.

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