Gender-based analysis plus: 2020-21 Departmental Results Report, Women and Gender Equality Canada

Institutional GBA Plus Capacity

Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) is the lead federal department responsible for advancing gender equality, including with respect to sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression through the inclusion of people of all genders, including women, in Canada’s economic, social, and political life.

Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) is a critical tool for delivering on the department’s mandate and priorities. GBA Plus is an analytical tool 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 being addressed by the initiative; 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 can be applied to all stages of initiative development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Applying GBA Plus to all initiatives undertaken at WAGE ensures that diversity, inclusion, and accessibility considerations are embedded in the decision-making process, allowing for responsive and inclusive initiatives that meet the needs of diverse groups of people.

In addition to the systematic application of GBA Plus in WAGE’s core activities and decision-making processes, the Department also has the mandate to support GBA Plus implementation across the federal government and to work to improve its quality and scope in decision-making documents. As a centre of expertise for GBA Plus, WAGE works to:

• Promote a greater understanding of GBA Plus as a tool for advancing fairness, equality, and inclusion;
• Provide guidance, develop tools and training, support the implementation of GBA Plus across federal departments and agencies; and
• Contribute to evidence-based practices, including those related to policy and program development, and gender budgeting.

In 2020-21, the Department’s GBA Plus Directorate had 9 FTEs dedicated to the implementation of GBA Plus. Among the dedicated FTEs is a departmental GBA Plus Champion who reports to the Deputy Minister (DM), and works with senior managers and employees to ensure that GBA Plus is implemented in all internal activities. This is done through the provision of oversight, guidance and accountability for how GBA Plus is integrated throughout WAGE’s Treasury Board Submissions, Memoranda to Cabinet, legislation, regulations, budget proposals and other key initiatives.

In addition to having a Champion for GBA Plus, the following frameworks, governance bodies and accountability mechanisms support the systematic application of GBA Plus in WAGE’s core activities and helps ensure that GBA Plus is integrated into all departmental decision-making processes:

WAGE’s Departmental Results Framework (DRF):

The Departmental Results Framework (DRF) is WAGE’s performance measurement framework. It presents the Core Responsibility, the results the organization is seeking to achieve, and the indicators to measure outcomes. The DRF is complemented by Performance Information Profiles (PIPs), which support performance measurement, evaluation and reporting for each Program in WAGE’s Program Inventory. Gender, diversity, and inclusion considerations are incorporated throughout WAGE’s DRF and PIPs, which form the basis of annual plans and performance reports including the Departmental Plan and the Departmental Results Report. As a result, the DRF and PIPs act as accountability mechanisms to ensure that GBA Plus is integrated into departmental decision-making processes.

Executive Committee (EXCOM):

The Executive Committee (EXCOM) is WAGE’s senior decision-making and priority-setting body. It is chaired by the Deputy Minister and composed of senior management from all departmental areas and functions, including the GBA Plus Champion. EXCOM meetings take place weekly and serve to establish priorities, oversee the delivery of the organization’s work, and take stock of progress. As a permanent member of EXCOM, the GBA Plus Champion ensures that GBA Plus is considered in all departmental activities and integrated into all decision-making processes.

Diversity and Inclusion Committee (D&I):

The Diversity and Inclusion Committee aims to implement initiatives to increase diverse representation and support inclusion in the department; raise awareness about diversity and inclusion and the challenges diverse staff face; celebrate diversity at WAGE; and provide departmental staff a forum for discussing contemporary issues related to social inclusion.

Indigenous Advisory Network (IAN):

The Indigenous Advisory Network is comprised of Indigenous employees within WAGE. It serves as a platform and community to provide advice and mentoring to one another, to support and foster wellness among Indigenous employees, to provide opportunity for professional development, and to tap into and leverage other networks and relevant resources.

Indigenous Women’s Circle (IWC):

The Indigenous Women’s Circle is chaired by the Deputy Minister and plays an advisory role to WAGE. The membership of the IWC includes representation from First Nations, Métis, and Inuit women, youth, and Elders from a broad from a range of sectors across the country. The IWC provides strategic guidance, as well as expertise, to inform federal efforts to address the systemic inequalities that Indigenous women experience, particularly those related to issues of GBV, economic insecurity, and Indigenous leadership. IWC’s advice and guidance provides an opportunity to learn from best practices in both Indigenous communities and the Government of Canada.

Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence:

The Minister for Women and Gender Equality was mandated to implement and monitor a comprehensive gender-based violence strategy. Launched in 2017, It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence aligns all federal gender-based violence (GBV) efforts. A thorough GBA Plus was conducted for each initiative funded under the Strategy. WAGE chairs the governance of the Director General’s Coordinating Committee, and the Interdepartmental Coordinating Committee. These committees are responsible for the strategic leadership, development, implementation, and monitoring of the Strategy, as well as ensuring a GBA Plus lens is applied to all activities.

Minister’s Advisory Council on Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence (Advisory Council):

Established in 2016, the Advisory Council serves as a forum on issues related to GBV and provides guidance related to the development and implementation of the Strategy. Advisory Council members come from a broad range of sectors and areas of expertise and have been selected to reflect expertise in prevention, support for survivors, and justice system responses. The Advisory Council works from an intersectional feminist approach to address particular barriers facing different groups such as Indigenous women and girls, young women and girls, LGBTQ2 and gender diverse individuals, newcomer and migrant women and girls, and women and girls with disabilities.

Forum of Federal-Provincial and Territorial Ministers responsible for the Status of Women:

The Department co-chairs the Forum of Federal-Provincial-Territorial (FPT) Ministers responsible for the Status of Women which meets at least once a year at the Ministerial level and monthly at the working level. Since 2014, one of the ongoing ministerial priorities for the FPT Forum has been GBA Plus in order to advance gender and diversity analysis approaches across FPT jurisdictions. Since that time, significant work has been done by the Department in collaboration with the provinces and territories in identifying promising practices to applying GBA Plus. For example, in January 2021, the FPT Ministers reiterated the importance of their collective work on gender equality, and the use of GBA Plus to guide initiatives through the pandemic.

GBA Plus Directorate:

WAGE’s mandate, which includes the promotion of a greater understanding of the intersection of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression (SSOGIE) with other identity factors, establishes the Department as a centre of gender expertise. In addition to implementing GBA Plus in its own programming areas, the Department acts as the centre for excellence across the Government of Canada by providing leadership and support across the federal government to ensure that policy and decision-makers understand and respond to the underlying drivers of inequalities and apply GBA Plus to decision-making. The GBA Plus Directorate provides policy guidance, develops and disseminates learning materials and training tools, and organizes events to support GBA Plus integration across the federal system. The Department co-ordinates quarterly inter-departmental meetings, manages knowledge-sharing and collaboration platforms for a wide range of stakeholders, including federal-provincial/territorial networks, and coordinates monitoring and evaluation activities to advance the whole-of-government GBA Plus implementation framework. In this capacity, WAGE works closely with Finance Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) and the Privy Council Office (PCO) to help ensure that GBA Plus considerations are integrated into key government decision-making process including those related to policy, programs, service delivery, and performance measurement. Accountability is ensured through the Public Service Management Advisory Committee (PSMAC), which includes Deputy Ministers from approximately 45 departments. Monitoring mechanisms include the Departmental Results Framework and the GBA Plus Implementation Survey.

The GBA Plus Implementation Survey provides an opportunity for federal departments and agencies to report on the state of GBA Plus implementation in their organizations, identify challenges they have encountered, and report on the impacts of GBA Plus on initiatives. This in turn, helps WAGE identify gaps and challenges to GBA Plus implementation and informs priorities and departmental activities.

Equality-Seeking Communities and COVID-19 Task Force (ESACT)

Created in April 2020 in response to the quickly developing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic and the evolving ways in which it was impacting equity-seeking communities, ESACT is made up of members from 28 federal departments and agencies. The Taskforce was established to track COVID-19’s impacts on equity-seeking communities, including economic, health, poverty, and mental wellbeing impacts, to hear from these communities directly on the need and gaps in government-response, and to react by reformulating the Government response to better meet the needs of those most affected. Various tools were developed at the outset of the pandemic which were used to compile information, data, research and news reports on COVID-19 from a GBA Plus perspective and have been updated on a regular basis throughout the pandemic. These tools have been used by other federal departments, facilitating quick access to relevant and accurate information in order to apply a GBA Plus lens to COVID-19 policies and programs across government.

Gender and Diversity Impacts, by Program

Core Responsibility: Advancing Gender Equality

The Department for Women and Gender Equality advances gender equality, including social, economic, and political equality through leadership, support and coordination of targeted policies and programs. It undertakes research, collects, and analyzes data and raises awareness of gender equality issues through outreach and engagement. The Department provides advice to government to achieve Canada’s gender equality outcomes and goals, including advocacy for gender-based budgeting, and facilitates the advancement of gender equality among other partners and stakeholders, through its expertise, contribution to research, and funding to community initiatives. The Department serves as a central point for sharing expertise across Canada and with international partners and uses this knowledge to inform and support Canada’s gender equality priorities.

In addition to leading and supporting targeted initiatives to advance gender equality, the Department is the Government of Canada lead on GBA Plus. The Government of Canada has sustained its commitment to GBA Plus for more than 25 years and today it represents a critical part of its strategy to advance equality, diversity, and inclusion. GBA plus helps reveal how inequalities constrain the effectiveness and responsiveness of government initiatives and provides a systematic process for identifying and addressing inequalities. It promotes a greater understanding of the intersection of identify factors including sex, gender, race, national and ethnic origin, Indigenous origin or identity, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic condition, place of residence and disability as well as institutional or structural factors that can impede the ability of certain groups and individuals to fully benefit from government programs and services. By embedding GBA Plus across government initiatives, the Government of Canada seeks to promote an active and visible approach to mainstreaming an equality perspective in all its initiatives, which enables more holistic responses to address the complex social and cultural factors that can perpetuate inequality

Program Name: Community Action and Innovation

Through its Community Action and Innovation program, the Department for Women and Gender Equality provides grants and contributions to organizations to implement projects that are designed to strengthen the sector working to advance gender equality and bring some degree of systemic change in the underlying factors that perpetuate inequality at a local and regional level.

Target Population:

• All Canadians
• Women and Girls
• Indigenous Women and Girls
• LGBTQ2 Individuals

Other

Women’s Program: Encouraging women’s leadership and democratic participation

This year, WAGE invested nearly $25 million to support 39 projects through this priority. Funded projects in this area that were completed in 2021 developed and disseminated more than 1,100 different resources to improve access to supports for women leaders. As a result, more than 1.4 million women gained access to services and supports that resulted in better opportunities for leadership positions in various spheres.

Women’s Program: Increasing women’s economic security and prosperity

This year, WAGE invested nearly $54 million to support 73 projects through this priority. Funded projects in this area that were completed in 2021 developed and disseminated more than 150 different resources to increase awareness of what services and supports were available and how to access them. As a result, nearly 370,000 women gained access to services and supports that resulted in better opportunities in education, employment, health, and social services, and gained skills and knowledge to create more equitable conditions for women in various spheres.

Women’s Program: Ending violence against women

This year, through the Women’s Program, WAGE invested nearly $15 million to support 38 projects through this priority. Funded projects in this area that were completed in 2021 developed and disseminated more than 180 different resources to increase awareness of what services and supports were available and how to access them. As a result, 2.2 million women and girls gained access to services and supports related to gender-based violence, including access to counselling, court services, and trauma-informed victims’ services.

GBA Plus Data Collection Plan:

In 2020-21, WAGE developed and launched reporting tools tailored to each of the grants and contributions program for which it is responsible. The tools were designed to 1) collect project data to monitor new indicators included in the PIPs for each Program and 2) allow the Department to systematically collect project data in a format that greatly improved its’ ability to analyze the information being collected. Reporting tools also include questions to collect data disaggregated by identity and social factor, to monitor outcomes for those population groups.

Finally, the Department launched a new online application portal to improve the efficiency of the Call for Proposals process. This endeavor also included a redesign of the application form to include questions related the identity factors of project target populations to be able to monitor and report on the impact of program investments on diverse populations.

Program Name: Expertise and Outreach

Through its Expertise and Outreach program, the Department for Women and Gender Equality provides tools, expertise and advice: (1) to federal organizations and central agencies on their proposals to Cabinet and the Treasury Board, (2) to further develop the federal government’s intrinsic capacity to conduct GBA Plus at all stages of policy development and program delivery, including gender-based budgeting; (3) to provincial, territorial and local governments, private sector and civil society organizations that have the levers to address gender equality issues through policy, programming and organizational practices; and (4) to increase public awareness through outreach to the general public.

Target Population:

• All Canadians
• Women and Girls

Other

Not available

Supplementary Information Sources:

The fall 2015 Report of the Auditor General of Canada, “Implementing Gender-based Analysis,” pointed to the need to do more to fully implement GBA Plus as a rigorous practice across government and recommended to work with all federal departments and agencies to identify the barriers to implementing GBA Plus on a periodically assessment and report on progress.

To address this recommendation, WAGE is collecting information from departments and agencies on GBA Plus implementation via a detailed GBA Plus Survey to all Deputy Ministers. WAGE is also engaging the Public Service Management Advisory Committee (PSMAC) on the status of government-wide implementation of GBA Plus and its impacts on legislative, policy, and program initiatives on an annual basis. During this fiscal year, WAGE has conducted its fourth edition of the GBA Plus Implementation Survey. Of the 89 organizations invited, WAGE obtained 81% response rate. The survey collects data on different aspects of GBA Plus implementation, including capacity, data and research used in GBA Plus, barriers to GBA Plus, and examples of initiatives where GBA Plus has been applied and its impact. In addition, this year’s survey also included supplementary questions that looked at how GBA Plus was applied to COVID-19 response measures. The results analysis is currently underway, which will be used to guide the Department’s strategic priorities as they relate to strengthening GBA Plus capacity. This survey is the final survey mandated through the 2016-2020 GBA Plus Action Plan.

GBA Plus Data Collection Plan:

To better guide the Department’s strategic priorities to further develop the federal government’s intrinsic capacity to conduct GBA Plus at all stages of policy development and program delivery, including gender-based budgeting, WAGE conducts an annual government-wide GBA Plus Implementation Survey. This survey serves to collect data on different aspects of GBA Plus implementation, including capacity, data and research used in GBA Plus, barriers to GBA Plus, and examples of initiatives where GBA Plus has been applied and its impact. Ultimately, this serves to ensure that when policies, programs, services and other initiatives are being developed, the Government of Canada design better, more responsive and inclusive initiatives.

The Department is also supporting knowledge synthesis and/or research related to gender equality or gender-based violence in Canada. The purpose of this research is to fill knowledge gaps in support of key populations, including: Indigenous Peoples; women and girls; men and boys; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and non-binary individuals, queer, two-spirit (LGBTQ2) individuals; visible minorities; those living in northern, rural, and remote communities; people with disabilities; newcomers; children and youth; and seniors.

Program Links to Gender Results Framework

Program Links to Quality of Life Framework