open Secondary menu

2018–19 Departmental Plan

Gender-based analysis plus

Governance structures The nature of Elections Canada's service delivery mandate and approach has long been aligned with GBA+ principles. The agency proactively applies an analytical approach to assessing the potential range of impacts that its policy and service delivery have on the multiple factors that determine the identity of the people who benefit from its services. For example, over the past two decades, Elections Canada has conducted and shared research that brought to light the full range of effects that its services have on various segments of the Canadian electorate.

In 2018–19, the agency will work towards establishing structures and accountability frameworks to ensure that GBA+ analysis is conducted consistently across the organization and that the complex relationships between various aspects (such as an individual's gender, sexual identity, cultural background, disability, etc.) are considered in decision making at all levels.

As such, the agency will build internal capacity for such analysis and subsequently develop planning, monitoring and reporting frameworks to formalize this work.
Human resources Rather than relying on dedicated full-time employees, Elections Canada will promote a decentralized approach that will focus on developing champions across various disciplines and building agency-wide capacities for integrating GBA+.

This approach will be aligned with, and will leverage, current agency initiatives that integrate user perspectives and other human-centered principles into its decision-making process at all levels.
Planned initiatives Elections Canada operates and delivers services in highly complex settings. Many transformation and modernization initiatives are currently underway, including:
  • polling place enhancements involving digital technologies;
  • process enhancements that include both digital and paper-based changes;
  • service experience improvements; and
  • re-design of material.
The agency is proactively integrating qualitative and quantitative stakeholder research, diverse user perspectives, usability testing, experimentation best practices, and other human-centered service design and design thinking principles into its decision making at all levels, as well as into the monitoring of these complex initiatives.

As a next step, Elections Canada will begin establishing metrics and performance frameworks that will align GBA+ analysis with current human-centered service design approaches.