Item - 2019.EX8.7

The Executive Committee recommends that:

1.  City Council direct the Chief People Officer, People and Equity to develop a City of Toronto Gender Equity Strategy and report to City Council with the strategy in the fourth quarter of 2021.

2.  City Council express its support for establishing a Gender Equity Unit in 2020 within People and Equity at the City of Toronto to develop the Gender Equity Strategy.

3.  City Council direct the City Manager to include the new and enhanced request of $283,132 gross and net for the establishment of 2 permanent full-time positions to staff the Gender Equity Unit within People and Equity and $50,000 gross and net to conduct Community Consultations, for a total of $333,132 gross and net in the City Manager's Office 2020 Budget Submission for consideration as part of the 2020 Operating Budget process.

This report responds to 2018.MM44.14, Creating an Intersectional Gender Equity Strategy and Gender Equality Office for Toronto. It seeks approval of the plan outlined in this report to develop a Gender Equity Strategy for advancing an intersectional gender-based lens into City programs and services, and internal workforce initiatives, along with the establishment of a Gender Equity Unit to lead the development and ongoing sustainment of the strategy.

Several cities around the world have initiatives and/or strategies to embed a gender-based analysis into local municipal service planning and programs (see Appendix A for a jurisdictional scan).

Gender inequities still persist in Toronto as evidenced by research and the experiences of diverse women, girls, trans and non-binary people (see Appendix B for a profile of gender inequities in Toronto). A Gender Equity Strategy would demonstrate the City of Toronto's commitment to eliminating intersectional gender inequities experienced by Torontonians, allow for the development of new partnerships to shift the landscape, and track progress on reducing and/or eliminating gender inequities in the city, while ensuring public transparency and accountability.

This report recommends the establishment of a Gender Equity Unit within People and Equity to lead the development of the strategy in the following areas:

- develop tools and strategies for addressing intersectional gender equity in key areas such as housing, shelter, governance, transit planning, recreation, urban planning, youth, violence against women, affordable child care and budgeting;

- work with People and Equity's recently established Equity and Inclusion Advisory Group to inform the development of the strategy;

- further integrate a more fulsome intersectional gender equity analysis within the City's annual Equity-Responsive Budgeting (Gender-Responsive Budgeting) process;

- align the Disaggregated Data Strategy with an intersectional gender equity lens;

- solicit public input from diverse women, girls, trans and non-binary Torontonians to inform priorities, outcome measures and the establishment of an ongoing advisory committee;

- develop an educational program to ensure a consistent intersectional gender-based framework is applied by City staff into program planning, service delivery, and policy development;

- develop a results-based accountability framework to measure progress; and

- identify and establish partnerships with key sectors.