It's interesting because Statistics Canada came out with the statement that a 1% increase in literacy skills would lead to a $15 billion increase in the GDP. So they already have gone into finding research to show that there's a link between literacy levels and the GDP and economy. As far as I can tell, using that statistic, the government has already researched and found that there is a link between the two. So how would they know that it's good value for money? They would go back and look at their existing research.
On October 2nd, 2006. See this statement in context.