Mr. Speaker, we face many challenges getting women’s voices to the table because of the way we have set up our society of the day. We have some opportunities to do that a little better in this government. I’d like to ask the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women: does this government have a policy in place that ensures that a gender lens is brought to the development of public policy?
Mr. Speaker, first I’d like to thank the Member for the statement, which sounded like music to my ears.
Mr. Speaker, on the question the Member is asking, I have to say that my understanding…. I don’t have all the detailed information with me on the gender-based analysis, but it’s something that has been going on in many different jurisdictions. Also, there has been some work been going on by previous governments. I’m going to have to make a commitment now that I’d be happy to look into that and come back to the Member to see where we are with that.
Mr. Speaker, thank you to the Minister for that response. I’m well aware of the Minister’s personal interest in this issue — and appropriately so, of course.
I would also like to know if the government will look into bringing gender-based analysis in on all of the legislation that we contemplate, as well, as a routine matter?
Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that there has been quite a bit of work and analysis that has been done on this and on how the policy could come about, how that would be implemented and how we could lay that out. I have to get the details of that to see what work, exactly in detail, has been done and where we are with that. I just haven’t had the time to look into that further.
But I do want to assure the Member that a lot of work has been done on this issue by this government. I’d just like to look into that further, get back to the Member and then maybe we could have more discussion at that time.
Thank you again to the Minister on that. It’s good to hear that there has been a lot of work done. I’m looking forward to hearing the results of that. I think we are early in our four-year term. It would be great to see this put in place as early as possible so that it could become a routine part. We’ve got lots of legislation, I’m sure, that we’re contemplating. So thank you for that response.
Of course, following the formula, when might the Minister get back to me with the details on that?
We’ve been very busy with a lot of things. One of the things we are working on is some new initiatives and new ideas in time for the next business plan process. As a new Minister in a new government and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, it’s something that I’d like to look into further. Hopefully within the next two or three months we can have some documents to review and discuss.
