Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Hello, colleagues. Bonjour. Aaaniin. As-salaam alaikum. I hope you're safe and well, and I wish the same for your loved ones.
I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today to thank you for all your important work, to speak with you about the progress that we all must work together to protect, about the path ahead, about the supplementary estimates, of course, and how we can work together to ensure that all women are able to benefit from the prosperity of this country and that those hardest hit by COVID-19 are able to land on their feet.
Let me first, though, acknowledge that a year ago on this day with the pandemic being declared, our lives changed forever. Women ended up taking the majority of the responsibilities for care for their loved ones in their chosen professions on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19. Women experienced higher rates of gender-based violence. With their kids at home and the elders they care for, increases in unpaid care responsibilities were realities for far too many. Women lost jobs faster than men, and those jobs are returning at a lower pace than men's. Without women in our economies and in our communities, Canada will not be able to achieve its full potential.
I would like to thank the Government of Canada's public service employees for all the ways they have pivoted, including our interpreters who ensure we're heard in both official languages, and their families for sharing them and for living with you as you take care of all other Canadians in this very difficult time.
My own team members, Guylaine Roy, deputy minister; Nancy Gardiner, assistant deputy minister; and the amazing, wears-many-hats Lisa Smylie, have been instrumental in moving us forward in key areas like ensuring that some 1,500-plus organizations received funds directly in their bank accounts in the early days of COVID-19 to make sure that they kept their doors open, stayed safe and offered a place of refuge for women, non-binary folks and children in their hour of need.
My team also ensured that, despite COVID-19, we were able to gather provincial and territorial ministers responsible for the status of women and get a historic agreement to move forward with Canada's first national action plan to end gender-based violence. The very same team, just a couple of days ago, hosted a two-day virtual summit which convened thousands of feminists from across the country so that their voices—the experts and their lived experiences—would shape the decisions that the federal government would be making. This is the same team that is going to be deploying, through the 2021-22 main estimates, the $125.5 million to support, through grants and contributions, the capacity building of women's organizations and LGBTQ2 organizations as well as support the national strategy to combat human trafficking and ensure survivors have what they need.
We have made progress. We stood in the House of Commons not too long ago commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women report being tabled. We now apply an intersectional gender lens to all our decisions, including the upcoming budget and our COVID-19 response. There are 100 women in the House of Commons. Senate is at parity. There are more women at the table now than ever before. Our voices matter. Our voices count. We're collecting gender disaggregated data. Tens of thousands of women have received support through the national housing strategy and have a safe and affordable roof over their heads. We've cut child poverty by some 40% through the child benefit, and the Canada child benefit has received additional supports for families directly into their bank accounts in this very difficult year that has been the pandemic.
We also have a women entrepreneurship strategy, the first of its kind, scaling up and supporting women entrepreneurs. We need them on our [Technical difficulty—Editor] employing others and contributing to the vibrancy of their communities and our country.
The universal broadband fund is not only going to connect every single household to high-speed Internet, but it's also addressing the cell gaps that create too many highways of tears in too many corners of this great country and putting at risk too many of our daughters, as we heard, in the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls testimony and report.
