Supplementary Information Tables

Gender-based Analysis +

Governance Structures

Gender and Diversity Focal Point(s)

The Strategic Policy sector at Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) provides overarching leadership on Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA+) including integration into Cabinet items and sharing government-wide best practices identified by the Department for Women and Gender Equality. This unit works closely with the Gender Focal Point within the Canadian Coast Guard, which is a separate unit available to consider Coast Guard specific concerns. The Focal Points coordinate the integration of GBA+ into departmental decision making through:

• A GBA Framework (adopted in 2012) which establishes departmental guidelines and responsibilities. The framework is readily available to all employees through the intradepartmental network and refinement of the framework is considered an evergreen process.
• The Framework mandates a requirement to consider sex, gender and diversity issues (through a GBA+ analysis) in the development of all initiatives, policy, or program proposals seeking new funds or Ministerial approval. This includes Memoranda to Cabinet, Federal Budget proposals, and Treasury Board Submissions.
• The GBA+ Focal Points are tasked with supporting the application of a GBA+ lens during initiative development, raising awareness, enhancing knowledge through sharing of best practices, and performing periodic stock takes to ensure GBA+ standards are being applied consistently across the department.
• Reporting and monitoring by the Gender Focal Points include tracking implementation progress through a GBA+ worklist tracker, departmental docket tracking for completed GBA+ forms for Memoranda to Cabinet, and Budget Proposals with record keeping within DFO’s Cabinet Affairs for all completed items.

Intra-departmental Community of Practice

The Community of Practice (CoP) is co-chaired by the DFO and CCG Gender Focal Points and is an open forum for working level and senior advisors, officers, and analysts. The CoP aims to build GBA+ capacity across the Department by offering learning opportunities to its members, and by providing them with tools to help them to better implement GBA+ in their everyday work. The CoP also regularly provides updates on all GBA+ related matters to ensure that members are kept up-to-date on key developments throughout the year.

Intra-departmental Network

A reinvigorated director-level working group forms a key element of the GBA+ accountability structure at DFO by expanding our shared accountability model and enhancing our GBA+ knowledge base. The group meets quarterly.

Senior Management Oversight

An Assistant Deputy Minister-led Policy Committee is consulted on major developments and initiatives for departmental GBA+ implementation and is chaired by DFO’s senior executive GBA+ champion. The committee provides an avenue for the GBA+ Focal Points to provide strategic advice to senior executives on department-wide GBA+ implementation.

Departmental Plan: DFO will report on GBA+ implementation through the Departmental Results Report.

Human Resources

Fisheries and Oceans Canada plans to have 5 full-time equivalents (FTEs) dedicated to GBA+ implementation in 2019-20. This includes 1.0 full FTE (the GBA+ Focal Point) to support and monitor GBA+ within the Department; and 0.75 FTE that assists with matters specific to the Canadian Coast Guard, and the remainder within Planning, Results and Evaluation.

As evident from recent federal Budgets, GBA+ has become a whole-of-government priority. At DFO and the Canadian Coast Guard, policy and program development are areas of shared responsibility between internal enabling services (e.g. Strategic Policy on Memoranda to Cabinet and the Chief Financial Officer on Treasury Board submissions) and the DFO Sectors and Canadian Coast Guard who are the program authorities. As such, the Department has made a concerted effort to ensure that staff in sectors and the Coast Guard have an awareness of, and training in, GBA+ to support the development of expertise that can be applied in the relevant operational contexts across the Department.

Planned Initiatives

DFO

For All Planned Initiatives

The Department will continue to collect, refine, and analyze data through interdepartmental efforts and best practices led by the Department for Women and Gender Equality, and will leverage valuable resources that are available through the new Centre for Gender, Diversity and Inclusion Statistics at Statistics Canada.

DFO will pursue measures and strategies, as necessary, to ensure that women and men of all identity factors, including Indigenous peoples, or any segment of the population that may be more vulnerable, have an equal opportunity to provide input during the development of new policies, regulations and mechanisms.

Sustaining Canada’s Wild Fish Stocks

Sustaining Canada’s wild fish stocks continues to be a top priority for the Department. Following funding announcements made as part of the recent 2018 Fall Economic Statement, DFO will expand on the success of the Atlantic Fisheries Fund with the creation of a British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund, as well as a Quebec Fisheries Fund. The Department will also implement stock assessment and rebuilding provisions in a renewed Fisheries Act.

The B.C. and Quebec funds will support projects focused on innovation, clean technology adoption, infrastructure investments that improve productivity, sustainability and safety, and science partnerships. These funds are expected to enhance the long-term sustainable growth of the fish and seafood industry which will have both direct and indirect positive economic impacts as it will create or sustain many jobs available to those in both B.C. and Quebec, including women and Indigenous peoples, and notably in many rural and coastal communities.

In line with its strong commitment to GBA+, the Department will continue working to integrate sex, gender, and other identity considerations into decision-making, and to avoid reinforcing existing inequities. Additionally, as programs and policies are developed further, analysis to inform more specific assessments of differential impacts will be undertaken.

Advancing Reconciliation

The Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation Directorate at DFO is undertaking a complete review of their collaborative management and commercial programming, and as part of this review, DFO will be introducing additional performance measures to track gender-based employment statistics aimed at pursuing opportunities to increase employment for Indigenous women.

In addition, DFO will be advancing proposals to negotiate treaties and reconciliation agreements over the coming year. Each proposal will consider and incorporate GBA+ considerations, drawing on existing information and gathering new information through department-wide collaboration. DFO will continue to strengthen and consolidate its capacity to implement its treaty and reconciliation obligations with Indigenous Nations across Canada where DFO manages the fisheries.

The long-term benefits of achieving agreements, implementing treaty obligations, and conducting meaningful engagement will contribute to narrowing the economic gap between Indigenous Nations and non-Indigenous Canadians, reducing health risks associated with living in communities with low socio-economic outcomes, and enhancing self-determination with respect to fisheries management. DFO will take measures to ensure that treaty rights and the benefits of fisheries agreements (treaty or reconciliation) are communicated equally to men and women.

Canadian Coast Guard

Review of Crewing Factor

In 2019-20, the Canadian Coast Guard will continue to apply GBA+ principles across its business lines and conduct GBA+ analysis to the way it manages its seagoing personnel with a view to increasing the participation and retention of a greater diversity of people within the seafarer workforce. To do this, the Coast Guard will undergo a review of its crewing factor with greater consideration to supporting family units, the implementation of a wellness strategy and a review of its career planning support for its workforce.

Sustained Efforts Towards Diversity and Inclusion

The Coast Guard will also build on previous years’ efforts in creating more inclusive workplaces through employee and management empowerment, education, training, awareness, and leadership development. Diversity and inclusion considerations will also continue to be applied to existing and new policies, programs, and to how the Coast Guard interacts with partners and Canadians alike. The Coast Guard’s Diversity and Inclusion Secretariat and Diversity Officer will lead transformation initiatives and act as enablers of change towards more inclusive, compassionate, and respectful workplaces.