Thank you, Chair.
Ladies, thank you both for being here today in these unprecedented times. Most importantly, thank you for the work you do helping Canadians, helping women and young girls and everyone. You're doing phenomenal work.
Ms. Walker, I want to give you a shout-out. I believe it was early days in the pandemic that you realized and brought to attention the fact that the human trafficking hotline had ceased to work. Thank you for bringing that to the government's attention. It was interesting that you reached out on one day and the next day, thankfully, the Minister of Public Safety had it up and relaunched. Since the relaunch, it's received more than 340 contacts. So I thank you for that. If it wasn't for that, those ladies and friends would have slipped through the cracks again.
Ms. Hawranik, I really loved what you said, that COVID is the “flashlight”. We all know that a lot of these issues have been on the go for so long, and COVID did put the flashlight on them. What are we doing, and what can we do better, to make sure that when the second wave comes, we've addressed it, and that, more importantly, we've made changes for the organizations and these women and children and young boys in the future going forward?
I have just a couple of little points I want to bring up with you. Number one is that with regard to the funding that was announced in 2015, it was known that it was going to expire in 2020. We recognize the importance of human trafficking. That's why the human trafficking strategy will be launching at the end of this month, I believe. That will be great. We know that we're investing $75 million across the government, with $10 million for WAGE; applications from the WAGE funding for that will open shortly.
We know that there's an urgency of action. That's why we're rolling out some things now. We know that we need to address gender-based violence in all its forms. That's why we're supporting the national action plan with more than $200 million in additional investment. We know that women are at the core of our first-ever national housing strategy. It's our 10-year, $55-billion plan to give more Canadians a place to call home. Of those investments, 30% has to go to projects that benefit women and girls.
On top of that, we've promised to create at least 7,000 shelter spaces by 2027. We hit that number long before the pandemic of COVID-19 hit. However, since the pandemic began, we've doubled down on funding for vulnerable women and their families. One of our first announcements was $50 million for this group, including $30 million for shelters and sexual assault centres; $10 million for indigenous shelters through Indigenous Services Canada; and a $10-million contingency fund for groups, like the London Abused Women's Centre, to provide the essential non-shelter services to help so many women.
Through Women's Shelters Canada, we've provided more than $20 million to more than 420 women's shelters across Canada from coast to coast to coast. Through the Canadian Women's Foundation, we've provided more than $2 million to more than 90 sexual assault centres. We've worked with the Province of Quebec to deliver funding there as well. We've provided that province with $6.46 million. According to the most recent report, that has gone to over 120 women's shelters and 50 sexual assault centres in the province of Quebec. As we speak, the contingency fund is flowing out the door via the Canadian Women's Foundation.
We don't know exactly how many organizations have received money from that so far, but we do and can confirm that one of the recipients was yours, Ms. Walker, the London Abused Women's Centre.
To touch on child care for a minute, I just want to make sure.... Again, from all the conversations, in terms of our women being ready and able to go back to work, it's the child care component that is so important. We proudly signed the first-ever multilateral agreement with the provinces and territories on early learning and child care, because we understand that investing in our children means investing in our future. We have provided $7.5 billion, between 2017 and 2028, to give the children the best possible start in life. Since 2017 we've created more than 40,000 child care spots, providing kids who need it the most with quality, affordable and culturally appropriate child care. We have put a lot of money in the pockets of nine out of 10 families with the Canada child benefit. We're currently in the process of renewing each of the bilateral agreements with the provinces and territorial partners. We hope to announce those agreements soon. We all know that child care is basically the responsibility of the province, as many segments are, but we're jumping in to help out there.
We know that there's still quite a lot more to do. It's important to recognize how far we've come, but between 2015 and 2019, our government increased funding to women's and gender equality-seeking organizations from less than $20 million under the last year, in 2014, of the Harper government, to more than $65 million a year since then.
This year, through the Department of Women and Gender Equality, WAGE, a department that didn't exist before but was instead a subsection of another department, our government has approved total funding of over $110 million. That's more than the combined total funding in the last five years of the Conservative government, so it's wonderful that this has come to the forefront. Thanks to our investments, we are providing essential funding to more than 1,200 organizations.
Ms. Hawranik, I'd be curious to hear from you, as we talk about the COVID-19 issue, about your experiences in Alberta when you hit the downturn in the oil and gas industry, which my province is going through now too. What programs did you come up with that really helped? How can we learn from what you did in Alberta and from your experiences there? What can we learn and glean from that to take forward in what we're doing in COVID now and what we have to do coming up in the second wave of COVID?