Mr. Speaker, learners, teachers and administrators have come to Ottawa today to urge parliamentarians to make advances on our literacy policy.
Almost half of the Canadian population does not have the literacy skills they need to succeed in today's society. Literacy affects child poverty, unemployment, immigration settlement programs and advances for aboriginal people.
I call on the Government of Canada to: one, ensure literacy is key to the federal innovative agenda; two, create a Canadian literacy and essential skills strategy; and three, expand the role and resources of the National Literacy Secretariat.
With critical labour shortages threatening we cannot allow low literacy levels to force any of our citizens to the economic sidelines. We need to act now to advance literacy.