Mr. Speaker, last week we celebrated the fight against illiteracy in Canada. As someone who has been involved in this issue for a number of years, I want to take the opportunity to congratulate all the non-profit organizations, school boards and people involved in the issue of illiteracy from coast to coast.
Members will know that illiteracy costs Canada about $10 billion a year in lost productivity. To business alone it costs about $4 billion a year. That is quite appalling.
The initiative the government has taken on the issue is commendable. I take this opportunity to congratulate the minister responsible for literacy in the other place as well as the minister of human resources for their initiatives.
I hope that by the year 2002, we will have a literacy perfect society, whereby everybody will have a chance to read and write as they should be doing.