Thank you so much, MP Dhillon, for your leadership. I know, as a Quebecker, that it has been a really difficult time for you and your communities, and I know that those femicides aren't just numbers for you. They're community members, and you continue to live with the consequences of those tragedies. I thank you for your leadership.
As you know, we work really hard. It's thanks to the public service that we have a tool called GBA+. We do this best when we start our analysis focusing on the under-represented and underserved.
We've applied that lens throughout the entirety of COVID. Maybe we didn't in the first 24 to 48 hours or the first week of COVID, as we were working to set up responses to this unprecedented crisis. Very quickly, however, the Prime Minister asked all of us...and we discussed in cabinet and amongst our teams that we were going to make sure GBA+ was core to our decision-making.
I'm really glad we did that, because it helped us see how older women in rural communities were faring. It helped us understand how small businesses in really small communities were taking up the business supports our government was putting forward. When, for the first time, we started collecting race-based data to add to our existing statistics, it helped us see that newcomers, racialized folks, Black women and those on the front lines of the fight against COVID were carrying the heaviest burden.
That work was recognized by the international community. We may not be perfect, but we've done the best GBA+ of COVID response in the world, and we continue to endeavour to respond well in the budget. Budget 2021 is the most feminist budget that any federal government has put forward.
Those women whose experiences we're tracking and those with care responsibilities need universal early learning and child care. They need their child care fees cut by half as soon as possible. If the budget passes, with the support of our colleagues and all parties, we'll get to that cost being cut in half by next year. We'll get to an average of $10-a-day child care in five years.
We'll hopefully be able to move forward with the budget so that more than $3 billion in funds can be unlocked, moving forward, to respond to the calls for justice in the MMIWG report and ensure that we move forward with our response to gender-based violence.
I sincerely hope that every single one of us votes in favour of this budget and that we work together, moving forward, to ensure that we address the vulnerabilities that COVID has only amplified.