Gender-sensitive Parliaments : Parlements sensibles au genre

While there has been a slow but consistent rise in the percentage of women, most parliaments fall below the widely recognized 30% benchmark to ensure a critical mass of women.1 In Canada, the 2 May 2011 federal election saw women win 76 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, putting them at 24.7% representation;2 on the same date, in the Senate, 37 of the 105 appointed seats were held by women, [...] Such legislation includes the Official Languages Act, the Multiculturalism Act and the Employment Equity Act, all of which provide enforcement and accountability mechanisms in order to support policy goals that lie outside the individual mandates of government departments.14 Canada does not have specific legislation to promote the principles of gender equality, but it does have two principal statu [...] Gender budgeting refers not only to expenditures earmarked for women, but also to an analysis of the entire budget from a gender perspective, including security, health, education, public works, and so on, to ensure that the allocations and resulting impacts respond to the needs of both women and men.41 LIBRARY OF PARLIAMENT 4 PUBLICATION NO. [...] The Status of Women Committee, in a 2008 report, recognized the importance of a gender-sensitive budget and recommended that: Status of Women Canada establish … an advisory panel of experts from civil society organizations and academia; that this panel provide advice to Status of Women Canada on the implementation of gender-based analysis and gender responsive budgeting in the federal government; [...] House of Commons, Standing Committee on the Status of Women, Government Response to the First Report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women: Increasing Funding to Equality Seeking-Organizations, 18 September 2006; House of Commons, Standing Committee on the Status of Women, Evidence, 1st Session, 38th Parliament, 2 November 2005, 1530 (Mrs.