On gender-based analysis, government should show its work

July has been a busy month for gender-based analysis (GBA) in New Brunswick.

Early in the month, the Government of New Brunswick (GNB) publicly released a tool it developed to facilitate GBA and just last week the Telegraph Journal reported on the efforts of a Member of the Legislative Assembly to obtain documents relating to GBA done on the 2016–2017 budget.

While the New Brunswick Women’s Council has applauded government for releasing their tool, we are advising government to go further with their information-sharing on GBA. Specifically, the Women’s Council is recommending that government provide detailed information on how it uses GBA and make a practice of releasing the findings of the GBAs it conducts.

GBA in government

In the context of government, GBA is a process used to identify and consider how laws, policies, programs, service delivery, budgets, etc. may affect one gender differently than another. Here’s an example: a government decides to redirect significant funds from nursing for seniors to a number of construction projects. A GBA would identify that the majority of nurses are women, there are more senior women than men in New Brunswick (especially in the 85 and older demographic) and that construction is a male-dominated field. This decision would, therefore, have significant gender-based impacts.

Gender-based analysis is important because, for much of modern history, public institutions like governments have not considered how their work may impact specific demographic groups, such as women, differently than others. It is still relatively new — and certainly not yet a reflex — for governments to explicitly consider how decisions may affect women differently than men.

When implemented properly, GBA is part of the development of initiatives from the beginning and through to implementation and evaluation. Some governments, like the Government of Canada and the Government of New Brunswick, have GBA processes that also take into account intersecting factors such as race, ethnicity, socio-economic standing, ability, etc.

In early 2016, GNB announced that it was carrying out GBA as part of its decision-making and policy development process. To guide its use of GBA, GNB has developed the aforementioned tool. This particular tool asks users to provide qualitative and quantitative information, to identify gaps in available information, to identify potential gender-based impacts and options to make outcomes more equitable, and to plan for monitoring and evaluating outcomes.

Women’s Council’s recommendations

Given the importance of GBA, the NB Women’s Council has recommended that GNB:

· explain when GBA is used in their decision-making and when a decision may be exempted from requiring GBA;

· explain what steps they have taken to support GBA, such as identifying how many civil servants are trained in the tool and whether responsibility for completing analyses is centralized or spread throughout departments; and

· make a practice of releasing information generated by GBA processes, particularly for significant announcements like Throne Speeches and provincial budgets as well as initiatives involving consultation with residents.

These recommendations are about ensuring that GBA is not only being done, but done well and actually affecting decision-making. They are about ensuring that GBA is being treated as an integral part of policy development, not as a box that must be given a perfunctory checkmark or a way to anticipate public relations challenges. They arise from a long and ongoing history of women — especially those who are Indigenous, racialized, LGBTQ2S+ and/or disabled — being overlooked, marginalized, or treated as tokens in decision-making.

While the Women’s Council believes that transparency in government’s use of GBA is critical, the rationale for the recommendation to release the findings of GBAs goes beyond accountability. When done well, GBA processes should generate valuable information that, if made publicly available, will enrich debate on issues and strengthen our democracy. This information is also useful to the work of entities like the Women’s Council and community-based organizations striving to advance women’s equality in our province.

Obstacles and the case for working around them

In order to impact decision-making in GNB, GBAs must be advanced to a Minister or to Cabinet; this is where New Brunswick’s Right to Information and Protection of Privacy Act comes into play. This act is the mechanism through which persons can ask public bodies to release information relating to their public business, but it also carves out instances in which heads of public bodies either must or may refuse to release information. Information must not be released when it would “reveal the substance of deliberations of the Executive Council” (a.k.a. Cabinet). The release of information is discretionary when it is advice to government.

These provisions give GNB the right to refuse (and, in some cases, may even require that they refuse) to disclose GBA information that has been prepared for or submitted to a Minister or Cabinet. However, it is in the interest of women’s equality that GNB challenge itself not to default to refusing to disclose this kind of information. Government can develop a practice of disclosing GBA information that both shares as much as possible while also respecting the confidentiality of Cabinet deliberations.

It is worth noting that this proposed practice of releasing the findings of GBAs would also align with commitments government has made to open data and citizen engagement. GNB’s policy on open data affirms that data held by or for GNB is a “valuable provincial resource and strategic asset that should be made freely available to the public, barring any privacy, confidentiality, security or legal restrictions.” The policy affirms that providing public access “can increase government transparency and accountability” and “support meaningful public engagement on public policy.”

Next steps

If it asked, government would find many partners with expertise in GBA who would be eager to work with them to help implement the Women’s Council’s recommendations. The Women’s Council itself would, of course, number amongst those partners. Engaging in this work from the start in collaboration with stakeholders would be in the spirit of our recommendations and align with a number of the purposes and objectives of open data policy. In adopting our recommendations and working in collaboration with stakeholders, government would be taking important steps toward increased transparency and accountability while advancing women’s equality in New Brunswick.