Gender-based analysis plus (GBA Plus)

Introduction

In 2018, Parliament passed the Canadian Gender Budgeting Act. The departmental plans and departmental results reports are being used to fulfill the President of the Treasury Board’s obligations to make public, every year, analysis on the impacts of expenditure programs on gender and diversity.

Each organization is responsible for conducting their own Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus).

The Policy on Results indicates that Program officials, as designated by Deputy Heads, are responsible for ensuring data collection for meeting policy requirements.

Applicability

All organizations must complete GBA Plus supplementary information tables in departmental plans and departmental results reports on an annual basis.

Section 1: institutional GBA Plus governance and capacity

Governance

As a small organization, the NFB is integrating GBA+ into its very governance structure, with its Human Resources division, including the Strategic Planning and Government Relations team, assuming responsibility for the GBA+ process. In 2023–24, the NFB recruited a Senior Advisor, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, who serves as a consultant on EDI and an agent of change supporting the organizational transformation efforts to ensure that EDI continues to be an NFB priority. This senior advisor works closely with the Strategic Planning and Government Relations team to implement GBA+ and integrate it into the NFB’s decision-making processes. These people also carry out the tasks of consulting, monitoring and reporting on this subject.

Capacity

In February 2021, the NFB released a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan that aimed to drive sustainable and meaningful change and make the NFB an egalitarian, open and diverse organization. In line with this plan, in 2022–23 the NFB met its commitments regarding gender parity and the proportion of its production budgets allocated to Indigenous creators. The same year, the organization developed a self-declaration questionnaire. The information gathered with this questionnaire will enable the NFB to measure and report on the effects of its commitments to equity, diversity and inclusion. In 2023–24, with the appointment of the Senior Advisor, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, the NFB began preparing a new EDI plan to be deployed in 2024–25.

Human resources (full-time equivalents) dedicated to GBA Plus

Four (4) full-time equivalents (FTEs) are dedicated to GBA Plus:

• One person is dedicated full-time
  • Senior advisor, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Five (5) people are dedicated part-time
  • Advisor, Labour Relations, Diversity & Inclusion
  • Head, Strategic Planning and Governmental Relations
  • Three (3) Analysts, Strategic Planning and Governmental Relations

Section 2: gender and diversity impacts, by program

Core responsibility: Audiovisual Programming and Production

Program name: Audiovisual Programming and Production

Program goals: The National Film Board’s mandate is to create relevant and innovative audiovisual content that interprets Canada and its diversity to Canadians and people around the world. By working with filmmakers and artists from every region of Canada, the NFB seeks to reflect the perspectives and experiences of communities that are systematically underrepresented in the media and to develop innovative new storytelling forms and approaches.

Target population: Creators of audiovisual works, including documentaries, auteur animation and interactive projects.

Distribution of benefits

Specific demographic group outcomes

Certain initiatives specifically target women directors, creators from Indigenous communities, visible minorities and emerging filmmakers, as well as those from official-language minority communities.

Key program impacts on gender and diversity

Diversity of voices and perspectives is essential to the fulfillment of the NFB’s mandate and the success of storytelling in Canada. Hence, in August 2023, the NFB announced new objectives with regard to parity. The NFB made a commitment that by March 31, 2025, over 30% of its current productions and co-productions would be directed by filmmakers and artists who identify as Black or as persons of colour. This commitment is in addition to those made in 2016 with regard to gender parity and in 2017 to redefine the NFB’s relationships with Indigenous people. Together, these commitments will give a voice to communities that are systematically underrepresented in the media landscape, both in front of and behind the camera: women, Indigenous people, official-language minority communities, ethnocultural communities, sexual minorities (2SLGBTQI+), people living with disabilities, and others.

Here are some of the NFB works released in 2023–24 that reflect this diversity of voices and perspectives.

• The Labrador Doc Project (Lab Doc Project) supports Indigenous cinema by working with emerging Inuit filmmakers from Labrador to create and distribute Inuit stories told from Inuit perspectives. Two of the four short documentaries produced through this project were released in 2023–24. In Hebron Relocation, director Holly Andersen explores what makes a place a home as she learns more about her community’s connection to generations of displaced Inuit from northern Labrador. Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher, by Heather Campbell, tells the story of Evelyn Campbell, a trailblazer for an Inuit-led educational system in the small community of Rigolet, Labrador.
• In 2023–24, the NFB released the DVD box set Alanis Obomsawin: A Legacy, containing 12 discs of films by internationally renowned Abenaki director Alanis Obomsawin. Composed of 21 films chosen by the director personally, this collection offers seven never-before-seen bonus titles, four short films making their premieres in this release, and a full-colour 44-page booklet. These films are available in English and French, with some Cree versions.
• A 2SLGBTQI+ film, Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, by directors Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee, offers a remarkable portrait of a misunderstood icon. At a time when queer artists of colour were usually silenced, trans soul singer Jackie Shane was able to find her voice and make her raw, authentic talent resonate.
• With unadulterated truth and complexity, Nisreen Baker’s Arab Women Say What?! paints an unparalleled portrait of Arab women living in Canada. This film offers a counter-mainstream narrative that embraces the unique experiences and perspectives of eight Arab women sharing their insights, cuisine and laughter.
• In Boat People, author and illustrator Thao Lam partners with animator Kjell Boersma to trace the spectacular journey of her family, among the 1.6 million refugees who fled the chaos of postwar Vietnam and crossed the South China Sea in open boats.
• Once again this year, the NFB supported projects by directors from official-language minority communities. Here are some examples:
  • Travailler autrement (Work Different), by Vancouver-based director Julien Capraro, asks how working remotely has reshaped our workplaces and our lives. With humour and intelligence, this documentary uses interviews with experts to reframe a wide range of societal issues.
  • The short film Rosemarie Landry: l’art lyrique en partage (Rosemarie Landry: Sharing Lyric Art), by Acadian filmmaker Renée Blanchar, pays tribute to soprano Rosemarie Landry, recipient of a Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award at the 2023 edition of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards.
  • Five short animated films produced or co-produced by the NFB’s Animation & Interactive Studio of the English Program: Maybe Elephants, by Torill Kove; Miserable Miracle, by Ryo Orikasa; In the Shallows, by Arash Akhgari, and two of the short animated films from the 14th edition of the Hothouse animation mentorship program—The Last Tango, by Mochi Lin and My World, Your Melody, by Bianca Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes.

Key program impact statistics

Other key program impacts

No additional qualitative impact to report 

Supplementary information sources

Gender Parity at the NFB

Equity, diversity and inclusion. NFB’s goals and commitments

NFB Indigenous Action Plan

Review on Official Languages

 GBA Plus data collection plan

In April 2024, the NFB launched a confidential, non-mandatory self-declaration questionnaire that was sent out to the filmmakers, artists and production-team members who collaborate with the NFB. The personal information collected through the questionnaire will include data on Indigenous, racial and ethnic identity; disability status; gender identity and expression; belonging to the 2SLGBTQI+ community; and belonging to an official-language minority community. Since the launch, 88% of people have filled out the questionnaire, enabling the organization to measure and report on the effects of its commitments to equity, diversity and inclusion.

Core responsibility: Content accessibility and audience engagement

Program name: Preservation, conservation and digitization of works

Program goals: This program sets out to preserve and digitize works in the National Film Board’s collection in order to secure their longevity and availability to Canadians today and in the future. This program also allows the NFB to offer high-resolution excerpts, outtakes and stock shots to the audiovisual and institutional sector.

Target population: All Canadians in all parts of Canada, but also, specifically, players in the audiovisual industry and the non-theatrical sector. Note that as part of a partnership between the NFB and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), Indigenous communities are more specifically targeted.

Distribution of benefits

Specific demographic group outcomes

Not available

Key program impacts on gender and diversity

One NFB production that benefitted from the organization’s expertise in preservation, conservation and digitization this year was the 1979 series Sounds From Our People, by Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin. In 2023–24, all six episodes of this series were remastered so that they could be included in the DVD box set Alanis Obomsawin: A Legacy and thus made available to the public. This box set celebrates the work of this director, who has always strived to chronicle the lives and concerns of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples while examining issues that are important to all Canadians.

In 2022, the NFB conservation team’s expertise led to a special partnership with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Under this partnership, the NFB is converting the videos of Survivors’ statements and other original audiovisual content recorded at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings into formats suitable for archiving and for posting on the web. In 2023–24, the NFB converted and delivered 315 hours of additional content to the Centre. In total, some 7,000 statements and more than 1,500 hours of content will be preserved through this project. This partnership is the result of the commitments made by the NFB in 2017 when it published its Indigenous Action Plan.

Key program impact statistics

Not available

Other key program impacts

No additional qualitative impact to report 

Supplementary information sources

NFB Archives

NFB Indigenous Action Plan

GBA Plus data collection plan

Not available

Core responsibility: Content accessibility and audience engagement

Program name: Distribution of works and audience engagement

Program goals: This program makes National Film Board works available to Canadian and international audiences in their chosen formats. The various distribution channels used by the NFB allow it to reach out to its audiences, prompt discussion and encourage debate on issues of importance to Canadians. The NFB has also been recognized for generations in schools as a reliable provider of educational content. Its online educational offer, available in both official languages, includes activities and teaching resources tailored to the needs expressed by major players in Canada’s education sector.

Target population: All Canadians in all parts of Canada

Distribution of benefits

Specific demographic group outcomes

Some initiatives also target the following sub-groups more specifically (but not exclusively):

• Indigenous people;
• People who identify as 2SLGBTQI+;
• Students and education professionals (particularly via its numerous resources including NFB Education, Media School and Ocean School);
• Members of visible minorities;
• People with disabilities;
• Official-language minority communities.

Key program impacts on gender and diversity

In 2023–24, as in past years, the NFB marked the events that celebrate the diversity of Canada, including Asian Heritage Month, Canadian Jewish Heritage Month, National Indigenous History Month, Pride Month, National Acadian Day, Latin American Heritage Month and Black History Month. Through online channels offering both classic and new films, online film releases, thematic blog posts and virtual conversations open to the public, the NFB celebrated these communities that so enrich the Canadian experience.

To mark Black History Month, the NFB held a special tribute to renowned filmmaker Charles Officer, who died in December 2023. This event consisted of a free screening of Officer’s film Mighty Jerome in the Alanis Obomsawin Theatre at the NFB’s Montreal headquarters, preceded by an introduction of the NFB’s curators and invited guests.

Also in 2023–24, for the 19th year in a row the NFB participated in the Rendez-vous de la Francophonie. This was the 26th annual edition of this cultural event, and its theme was “Launch Into Discovery.” Each year, the Rendez-vous de la Francophonie, organized by the Dialogue Foundation, presents activities to promote the French language everywhere in Canada. Throughout the Month of the Francophonie (March 1 to 31), the NFB offered five free programs of documentary and animated films celebrating the Francophonie to any groups, organizations and institutions that wanted to present screenings in person or online. In this 2024 edition, 202 public and private screenings were held in 66 Canadian cities in 11 provinces and one territory, and 86% of these screenings took place outside of Quebec. In total, 21,173 views were recorded.

Many other activities were held to present the NFB’s works in 2023–24. Here are some of these activities celebrating the diversity of Canadian audiences:

• The NFB worked closely with the Down Syndrome Resource Foundation, whose mission is to support people living with Down syndrome, to show the documentary feature film Lay Down Your Heart, by Marie Clements, at the very first edition of the Down Syndrome Film Festival.
• To mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Ligue des droits et libertés and the NFB presented Les droits humains à l’affiche, a series of five screenings of NFB documentaries about the history of the struggle for human rights in Quebec. Each of these screenings was held in the Alanis Obomsawin Theatre at NFB headquarters in Montreal and followed by a discussion. The themes of the five screenings were as follows:
  • The unfinished struggle for women’s rights;
  • The need to end impunity for police profiling;
  • 400 years of struggles for Indigenous Peoples’ rights;
  • The power dynamics of freedom of expression and environmental rights;
  • Work and migration: a story of modern slavery.
• On June 20, 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees held a special screening of the film Unspoken Tears, by Hélène Magny, at the Alanis Obomsawin Theatre. The screening was followed by a discussion with the director and with Dr. Garine Papazian, the film’s protagonist.
• On February 22, 2024, as part of the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma, a roundtable discussion was held about the series Maisonneuve, by Jean-Martin Gagnon. This discussion examined the various themes that this series addresses: living together, diverse identities, prejudice and diversity. The panel was moderated by TV personality Raed Hammoud and included the director of the series and four of its protagonists.

In addition to participating in many activities, the NFB developed educational materials to enhance its offerings for teachers and their students:

• In 2023–24, to accompany the online release of Janet Perlman’s film The Girl with the Red Beret, the NFB developed a mini-lesson consisting of an activity about French expressions and regionalisms. This activity underscores the cultural and historical context of the French language in Montreal, thus giving students a broader understanding of French, of the culture of Montreal and of its unique character.
• The NFB published mini-lessons on the documentary Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher and on the work of Alanis Obomsawin, designed to teach students about the cultures, histories and heritages of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples.
• To mark Black History Month, the February 2, 2024, edition of the NFB Education Newsletter informed teachers about activities that NFB Education has developed to encourage students to show more compassion and engage in more critical thinking.
  • NFB Blog – Teach Citizenship Education Through Animated Films
  • NFB Blog – Teacher Resources | Black History Month

Key program impact statistics

Other key program impacts

No additional qualitative impact to report 

Supplementary information sources

Channels available on the NFB’s online screening room:

• Indigenous Cinema
• Asian Communities in Canada
• Black Communities in Canada
• Films for Pride
• The Role of the English Community in Quebec
• L’Espace francophonie

GBA Plus data collection plan

Some analyses of the NFB’s media placement campaigns provide an understanding of the target audience by classifying the results by geographic origin, age and sex. But it is not currently possible to monitor the impact of these campaigns on the NFB’s online distribution or to verify their effectiveness.

Core responsibility: Content accessibility and audience engagement

Program name: Promotion of works and National Film Board outreach

Program goals: This program is dedicated to making the National Film Board and its works better known in Canada and abroad. Program activities generally include promoting NFB audiovisual works and themed compilations at major festivals, on the national and international markets and at major industry events, as well as marketing and promoting retrospectives of NFB works and pre-eminent NFB filmmakers (Norman McLaren, Pierre Perrault, Alanis Obomsawin). The program also leads many public relations and promotional activities in the cultural sector and film industry, including NFB involvement in roundtables, contests and award ceremonies, facilitated through partnerships and collaborations with both public and private sectors, with the NFB working in close collaboration with industry.

Target population: All Canadians in all parts of Canada as well as the international public and NFB creators.

Distribution of benefits

Specific demographic group outcomes

Not available

Key program impacts on gender and diversity

This year the NFB’s excellence was recognized again throughout the world, with 95 awards and honours presented to NFB works and filmmakers at festivals and industry events. One of the directors recognized was filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, who received a Career Achievement Award at the Banff World Media Festival and also became the first woman filmmaker to receive the Edward MacDowell Medal, given to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to their field.

The NFB works listed below received awards in 2023–24 and either dealt with subjects related to the lives and experiences of Indigenous people or presented diverse perspectives on race, ethnicity, religion, culture, disability or sexuality.

Boat People, an animated documentary that tells the story of the refugees who fled the chaos of postwar Vietnam, won seven awards at festivals in Canada and the United States, including the 2023 Best Canadian Animation Short Film Award at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival.

Croque-mort. C’est beau la vie ! (Undertaker for Life!), a deep, funny, comforting film, was the very first film from Acadia to win a Gémeaux award in the Best Documentary Program or Series: Society category.

The installation Meneath: The Mirrors of Ethics, produced in English and Ojibwe, received the New Voices Award at the Tribeca Film Festival.

WaaPaKe (Tomorrow), Dr. Jules Arita Koostachin’s deeply personal documentary unravelling the tangled threads of the silence suffered by residential school Survivors, received the award for Best British Columbia Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Key program impact statistics

Not available

Other key program impacts

No additional qualitative impact to report 

Supplementary information sources

Not available

GBA Plus data collection plan

Not available

Core responsibility: Internal Services

Program name: Internal Services

Program goals: Committed to promoting better ways of working together, the NFB develops actions to ensure the well-being of its staff and collaborators.

Target population: The employees of the NFB and its collaborators.

Distribution of benefits

Specific demographic group outcomes

Not available

Key program impacts on gender and diversity

In addition to the actions described in the 2023–24 Departmental Results Report, other measures and projects carried out in the course of the year helped to create a culture of mutual respect, dignity and inclusion at the NFB.

The NFB’s participation in Indigenous events and training strengthened its commitment to cultural sensitization, contributed to sharing of knowledge and enriched its cultural competence.

Lastly, we invited all NFB employees to take three online courses from the Canada School of Public Service on Indigenous subjects: Reflecting on Cultural Bias: Indigenous Perspectives; A Brief History of the Relationship Between Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Canada; and Inuit in Canada.

In keeping with the commitment that the NFB made to the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2023, we have developed an Indigenous internships program. To do so, we worked with community partners, applying best practices and taking the perspectives of First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities into account.

Key program impact statistics

Other key program impacts

No additional qualitative impact to report 

Supplementary information sources

Not available

 GBA Plus data collection plan

Not available

Definitions

Scales

Gender scale

• First group: predominantly men (80% or more men)
• Second group: 60% to 79% men
• Third group: broadly gender-balanced
• Fourth group: 60% to 79% women
• Fifth group: predominantly women (80% or more women)

Income‑level scale

• First group: strongly benefits low‑income individuals (strongly progressive)
• Second group: somewhat benefits low‑income individuals (somewhat progressive)
• Third group: no significant distributional impacts
• Fourth group: somewhat benefits high‑income individuals (somewhat regressive)
• Fifth group: strongly benefits high‑income individuals (strongly regressive)

Age‑group scale

• First group: primarily benefits youth, children or future generations
• Second group: no significant intergenerational impacts or impacts on generations between youths and seniors
• Third group: primarily benefits seniors or the baby boom generation