“Exploring Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) in Impact Assessment”
Major resource projects, like the creation of mines and expansion of pipelines, can have significant social impacts at the local level and beyond. Local communities in the vicinity of these projects may experience both positive and negative effects, but these effects are not experienced uniformly or equally by all community members. Existing social inequalities may determine who benefits—and who is negatively impacted—by designated projects.
As part of the federal government’s stated commitment to gender-based analysis, the 2019 Impact Assessment Act (Bill C-69) requires that impact assessments consider “the health, social and economic effects [of projects], including with respect to the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors”. The legislation therefore references a concept called intersectionality, which describes how gender, race, Indigeneity, socioeconomic status, age, (dis)ability, and sexual identity—among other factors—shape people’s experiences and create different conditions of power or marginalization for certain groups. For example, not all women will experience a particular project in the same way; factors like culture, occupation, and socioeconomic status can cause some women to benefit while others do not.
Intersectional approaches facilitate a more complex analysis of how power works. They avoid painting all members of a group with the same brush. Understanding these diverse experiences is important for a fulsome consideration of how projects may affect community members in different ways. If we understand who is most likely to be negatively affected and how, we can better implement changes to prevent these negative impacts.
In policy terms, the process of considering these complex impacts is called Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+), with the “+” referring to the intersection of gender with other forms of inequality (e.g., socioeconomic status, race, age).
The main objectives of NEDIA’s GBA+ case study are:
To examine the structural forces and practical limitations affecting the implementation of GBA+ analysis in the Canadian impact assessment (IA) sector; and
To develop practical outputs to facilitate GBA+ in the IA sector.
The GBA+ case study is divided into three sub-projects to address these objectives:
The first project assesses how GBA+ considerations were understood and discussed during public consultation about Bill C-69. During consultations held across the country, members of the federal government heard a variety of arguments both for and against the GBA+ requirement in the proposed legislation. Our team has coded and analyzed 56 documents from the public consultation phase to examine how GBA+ considerations were framed. The results provide useful data on dominant understandings of GBA+ in IA, and how limitations in these understandings might hinder the implementation of IA.
The second project examines how gender was addressed in past assessment cases considered to embody the values of sustainability assessment (SA)—a conceptual framework focusing on sustainability rather than harm reduction. We analyzed five historical cases: the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, 1977; Voisey's Bay Mine and Mill Environmental Assessment,1997; Whites Point Quarry and Marine Terminal Project, 2005; Mackenzie Gas Project, 2009; Lower Churchill Hydroelectric Generation Project, Nalcor Energy Newfoundland and Labrador, 2011. The preliminary results suggest concerns about the influx of resource workers in communities, including issues associated with alcohol and sexual violence. Concerns about equitable employment were also raised in these cases. The results suggest that doing gender analysis in IA is possible and, indeed, useful.
The third project is a theoretical review of SA as a conceptual framework for IA. Using the Ring of Fire as a case study, we explore how GBA+ considerations can be brought into IA through an integrated, gendered SA approach that specifically considers 2SLGBTQIA+ people, women, and girls. Through this project, we propose an expansion of existing SA criteria to explicitly consider gender issues.
Taken together, these three projects identify current understandings and perceptions, past and present practices, and provide a tool for future use toward more inclusive IA in Canada.
