Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) — Canada's Mandatory Federal Gender-Mainstreaming Tool

Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) is the Government of Canada's mandatory analytical framework requiring federal departments and agencies to assess how policies, programmes and legislation affect different groups of people — by gender alongside age, ethnicity, disability, income and other intersecting factors — before decisions are made. First introduced in 1995 as a commitment under the Beijing Platform for Action and rebranded with the "Plus" in 2011, it is now formally embedded in Cabinet decision-making, federal budgeting (since 2015) and international trade-agreement impact assessments, including the Canada–United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement.
The OECD has documented GBA+ internationally as a reference model for gender-mainstreaming toolkits, and Women and Gender Equality Canada publishes annual GBA+ Departmental Results Reports and runs a yearly cross-government implementation survey.
Despite three decades of institutionalisation, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada found in successive audits (2009, 2015 and again in a 2022 follow-up) that GBA+ was still inconsistently applied across departments. Its own 2021 implementation survey found 77% of respondents cited lack of time or capacity, and 67% cited insufficient training or tools, as barriers — though individual departments such as Employment and Social Development Canada reported a 94% GBA+ completion rate for initiatives in 2024–25, suggesting recent, uneven improvement rather than a settled success.

Read the full analysis: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/feds-not-doing-enough-to-make-sure-gender-based-analysis-in-place-ag-1.5925970