Gender-based Analysis Plus for the 2024-2025 Departmental Plan

Publication type
Departmental plans
Date

Introduction

In 2018, Parliament passed the Canadian Gender Budgeting Act. The departmental plans and departmental results reports are being used to fulfill the President of the Treasury Board’s obligations to make public, every year, analysis on the impacts of expenditure programs on gender and diversity.

Each organization is responsible for conducting their own Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus)

Applicability

All organizations must complete GBA Plus supplementary information tables in departmental plans and departmental results reports on an annual basis.

General information: Institutional GBA Plus capacity

Governance

The Office of the Superintendent for Financial Institutions (OSFI) is a prudential financial regulator, focused on financial stability and on the solvency, liquidity, and safety and soundness of federally regulated financial institutions (FRFIs) and private pension plans (FRPPs).

In its regulatory and supervisory role, OSFI’s primary interactions are with federally regulated entities, which include all banks in Canada, all federally incorporated or registered trust and loan companies, insurance companies, cooperative credit associations, fraternal benefit societies and private pension plans. There are over 400 FRFIs and approximately 1,200 FRPPs regulated by OSFI. OSFI’s scope of regulation does not include consumer or consumer-related issues or the securities sector, which are the responsibility of other federal and/or provincial agencies. OSFI develops supervisory policy and guidelines for these regulated entities and does not collect individual microdata information from entities it regulates. Although OSFI does not develop or manage individual programs specifically targeted to individuals or groups, the entities it regulates provide services and benefits to all Canadians.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core values OSFI upholds. For the 2024-25 reporting period, OSFI continues to implement a corporate DEI Strategy, and is in year three of its 3-year Action Plan. The Action Plan requires the review of human resources policies and processes, which includes applying a GBA Plus lens. The review is planned in 2024-2025.

Capacity

OSFI is one of the agencies under the Finance portfolio. In the context of its legislative and regulatory work, including statutory amendments and regulatory amendments, work is normally led by the Department of Finance where OSFI's role in this regard is typically a supporting role.

OSFI does not currently have any Full-Time Employee Equivalents (FTE) dedicated to GBA Plus implementation and GBA Plus was not measured. However, a new Culture, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (CDEI) unit was created in 2021-22 and subsequently, a DEI Strategy and 3-year Action Plan which includes work to promote training on GBA Plus and how to apply GBA Plus to the OSFI reporting framework, program inventory, and internal policies that impact OSFI employees. This work is anticipated to begin in 2024-2025, year three of the 3-year Action Plan.

Highlights of GBA Plus results reporting by program

Risk Assessment and Intervention – Federally Regulated Financial Institutions

In its regulatory and supervisory role, OSFI’s primary interactions are with federally regulated financial institutions and pension plans and the scope of regulation does not include consumer or consumer-related issues or the securities sector. Given its mandate, OSFI does not collect individual recipient microdata information nor provide direct services or benefits to individuals or targeted groups. As such, quantifying the distribution of benefits by gender, income level, or age group is not applicable to OSFI’s role or context. No program indicators currently identify impacts on these sub-populations.

Regulation and Guidance of Federally Regulated Financial Institutions

In its regulatory and supervisory role, OSFI’s primary interactions are with federally regulated financial institutions and pension plans and the scope of regulation does not include consumer or consumer-related issues or the securities sector. Given its mandate, OSFI does not collect individual recipient microdata information nor provide direct services or benefits to individuals or targeted groups. As such, quantifying the distribution of benefits by gender, income level, or age group is not applicable to OSFI’s role or context. No program indicators currently identify impacts on these sub-populations.

Regulatory Approvals and Legislative Precedents

In its regulatory and supervisory role, OSFI’s primary interactions are with federally regulated financial institutions and pension plans and the scope of regulation does not include consumer or consumer-related issues or the securities sector. Given its mandate, OSFI does not collect individual recipient microdata information nor provide direct services or benefits to individuals or targeted groups. As such, quantifying the distribution of benefits by gender, income level, or age group is not applicable to OSFI’s role or context. No program indicators currently identify impacts on these sub-populations.

Federally Regulated Private Pension Plans

In its regulatory and supervisory role, OSFI’s primary interactions are with federally regulated financial institutions and pension plans and the scope of regulation does not include consumer or consumer-related issues or the securities sector. Given its mandate, OSFI does not collect individual recipient microdata information nor provide direct services or benefits to individuals or targeted groups. As such, quantifying the distribution of benefits by gender, income level, or age group is not applicable to OSFI’s role or context. No program indicators currently identify impacts on these sub-populations.

Actuarial Valuation and Advice

Demographic trends are considered in actuarial analyses, and the Office of the Chief Actuary performs an enabling function to other government organizations through the provision of actuarial valuation and advisory services. It provides checks and balances on future costs of pension plans under its responsibility, and performs statutory actuarial valuations of various programs, including the Canada Pension Plan and Canada Student Financial Assistance Act. The GBA Plus impact and analysis for these programs are conducted by their administrators.

Internal Services

In 2024-25, the implementation of OSFI’s DEI Strategy and associated 3-year Action Plan includes the following activities to support GBA Plus:

  • Conduct a review of human resources policies to determine alignment with DEI objectives (ongoing).
  • Conduct a GBA Plus review and strategy pilot project with one area of the organization, to use as a case study before sharing and rolling out across OSFI (not yet started).
  • Prepare a pay equity plan to be posted by September 2024 (in progress).
  • Implement actions identified in the 2023-2026 Accessibility Plan (ongoing). The first report of the Accessibility Plan was posted on December 31, 2023, as per the Accessible Canada Act.
  • Collect self-identification data through an annual Self-ID campaign. The campaign was updated in 2023 to include members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

OSFI is continuing to measure success and progress of the DEI Strategy by leveraging the Centre for Global Inclusion’s DEI benchmarks as a starting point to help track progress against the broader vision for DEI at OSFI.

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