The $300 million was specifically to fund shelters, sexual assault centres and any organization that was supporting those who were fleeing any kind of gender-based violence during the pandemic, so that funding was very specific to that emergency situation.
I just want to clarify that WAGE did not have resources previous to that to provide any kind of funding to shelters specifically in terms of their operations. This was emergency, pandemic-specific funding, so that they could keep their doors open, because we knew there was a rise in violence against women. We could see what was happening in other countries before the pandemic came to Canada, so this was what that funding was for specifically. It's not necessarily a cut, but it was time-limited funding.
The pivot we're talking about now is moving towards a national action plan in which we're working with each province and territory, through the $500 million plus that was announced in the budget, to put in place bilateral agreements under which each province and territory can prioritize what their needs are with respect to ending gender-based violence over the 10-year national action plan.
We talked about things like requiring 25% of the funding to go for prevention, but we also have priorities within the national action plan for the funding, which include stabilizing the sector.
This is where we're sort of moving towards some of that support potentially coming through PTs. As the deputy minister said, we plan to make those bilateral agreements and the plans public on our website.
Thank you.