From 6 to 10 May 2024, the Government of Canada is holding its 12th annual Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) Awareness Week.
In response to the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted at the United Nations’ (UN’s) Fourth World Conference on Women, the Government of Canada developed the Federal Plan for Gender Equality. The plan commits the government to integrating gender issues into public policy and program development through GBA Plus.
This HillNote defines key concepts and aims to improve understanding of the way that GBA Plus is applied within the Government of Canada.
Definition of Key Concepts
The Government of Canada uses GBA Plus to assess the impact of legislation, policies, programs and budgetary measures on diverse groups of women, men and gender-diverse people in an effort to reduce inequalities. The “Plus” in GBA Plus includes a range of identity factors – such as age, disability, education, language, sexual orientation, culture, geography, ethnicity, Indigenous identity, religion, social class and income – that overlap in an intersectional way. The “Plus” is thus aligned with the concept of intersectionality introduced in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, which makes it possible to include multiple intersecting identity factors beyond gender in the analysis of what shapes people’s experiences.
Figure 1: Intersectionality
Source: Government of Canada, Government of Canada’s approach on Gender-based Analysis Plus, 2022.
Prior to 2011, the Government of Canada used Gender-based Analysis (GBA) – rather than GBA Plus – to assess the different impacts of legislation, policies and programs on women and men. Gender mainstreaming is an approach recognized by a number of international organizations, including UN Women, as an essential tool for promoting gender equality.
Federal Responsibilities
The Department of Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) leads efforts to promote and expand GBA Plus across the federal government by providing guidance to federal departments and agencies, facilitating knowledge transfer and developing training tools. The continuing application of GBA Plus and its assessment are a shared responsibility across all federal departments and agencies.
In its 2024–2025 departmental plan, WAGE reaffirmed its commitment to facilitating the implementation of GBA Plus within the Canadian government by promoting cooperation between federal organizations, making evidence-based data accessible, and emphasizing the full range of intersectional factors, including “race, national and ethnic origin, Indigenous origin or identity, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic condition, place of residence and disability.”
Central agencies – the Privy Council Office (PCO), the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) and the Department of Finance Canada – exercise a “challenge” function by promoting the integration of GBA Plus into decision-making processes.
Legislation also shapes departmental responsibilities regarding GBA Plus, including the following:
- The 2001 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act requires Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to report on GBA Plus in its annual reports to Parliament on immigration.
- The 2018 Canadian Gender Budgeting Act is designed to consider “gender equality and diversity in the budget process.” Therefore, budgets 2018 and 2019 included a GBA Plus of budget measures, and the Government of Canada provided a summary of a GBA Plus of Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan in its Economic and Fiscal Snapshot 2020. Budgets 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 included a statement and impacts report on gender, diversity and quality of life or inclusion.
Indigenous Perspectives
In its review of GBA Plus, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology (SOCI) highlighted the need for the government to integrate a culturally relevant approach into its GBA Plus practices and to do it in consultation with Indigenous peoples. In its March 2023 report, SOCI also recommended “[t]hat the Government of Canada ensure that data is collected using a culturally-relevant approach.” A number of Indigenous organizations have developed their own culturally relevant gender-based analysis (CRGBA) tools to facilitate understanding of the specific needs of Indigenous peoples and to address the inequalities they experience. During its appearance before SOCI, the Native Women’s Association of Canada defined CRGBA as an approach that “centres traditional knowledge and considers the historical and current issues faced by Indigenous peoples, including the impacts that colonization and intergenerational trauma have caused.”
To ensure that policies and programs take a distinctions-based approach to address the inequalities experienced by Inuit, First Nations and Métis and respond effectively to their needs, Indigenous women’s organizations have developed specific approaches and tools, for example, the Inuit-Specific GBA Plus Framework, A Culturally Relevant Gender-Based Analysis (CRGBA) Starter Kit and the Métis-Specific GBA Plus (GBA+) Tool.
GBA Plus Implementation
Since GBA Plus has been implemented within the federal government, various critiques have been made following assessments of various federal departments and agencies.
In her spring 2022 report Follow-up on Gender-Based Analysis Plus, the Auditor General noted several shortcomings, including gaps in capacity to perform GBA Plus, in particular in relation to the availability and use of disaggregated data, inconsistent use of GBA Plus at the outset of the policy development process, and an uneven understanding of intersectional approaches. The targeted departments and agencies accepted several of the recommendations, including:
- the implementation of additional initiatives by WAGE to promote the application of GBA Plus within the federal government;
- increased oversight of GBA Plus implementation and progress reporting within the federal government by WAGE, with support from PCO and TBS; and
- enhanced collaboration between PCO, TBS, WAGE and other government departments to collect and use disaggregated data.
In response to the Auditor General’s report, PCO, TBS and WAGE released their Management Response and Action Plan in November 2022. The Office of the Auditor General of Canada had previously issued two reports, in 2009 and 2015, which reviewed the implementation of GBA Plus within the Government of Canada. To address the shortcomings raised in the Auditor General’s 2015 report, Status of Women Canada (now WAGE), PCO and TBS jointly developed the Action Plan on Gender-based Analysis (2016-2020).
Besides SOCI, one other Senate committee – the Standing Committee on Human Rights – and two House of Commons committees, namely the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Standing Committee on the Status of Women (FEWO), have studied the implementation of GBA Plus.
- In its June 2016 report Implementing Gender-based Analysis Plus in the Government of Canada, FEWO made 21 recommendations, including the adoption of legislation to create the Office of the Commissioner for Gender Equality. In May 2016, in a complementary report, FEWO “challenge[d] all Members of Parliament to complete the online course ‘Introduction to Gender-based Analysis Plus’ from Status of Women Canada [now WAGE].” In its October 2016 response to FEWO, the government stated that “a number of the Committee’s recommendations [could] further strengthen [its] approach” to GBA Plus.
- In SOCI’s March 2023 report entitled All Together — The Role of Gender-based Analysis Plus in the Policy Process: reducing barriers to an inclusive intersectional policy analysis, the committee concluded that GBA Plus had not yet achieved its goal of ensuring that groups of individuals are not excluded from or harmed by Canadian federal policies and programs. SOCI made 15 recommendations on a number of themes, such as employee training, access to resources and data, and accountability. The government stated in its September 2023 response to the committee that it “agrees with the overall intent of the Report and in principle with its recommendations.”
Related Resources
Statistics Canada. Gender, Diversity and Inclusion Statistics Hub.
Women and Gender Equality Canada. Gender-based Analysis Plus resources.
Women and Gender Equality Canada. Take the Gender-based Analysis Plus course.
By Tatiana Haustant, Library of Parliament