The Canadian Impact Assessment Act and intersectional analysis: Exaggerated tensions, fierce resistance, little understanding

Abstract

Canada's newly adopted Impact Assessment Act requires gender‐based analysis plus (GBA+)—a type of intersectionality mainstreaming—as part of assessing the impacts of resource projects. This explicit inclusion of a GBA+ requirement in legislation for the first time represents an important advance in Canada's commitments to mainstreaming, and one that offers an opportunity to examine how interested policy actors both enable and challenge mainstreaming commitments in the legislative sphere. We consider what the compound problem of invisibility and resistance in the legislative process means for ongoing efforts to advance intersectional policymaking and strengthen mainstreaming in Canada and other western democracies.