HUMA Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, March 20, 2003

¹

1520

The Chair (Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.))

Ms. Jean Rasmussen (Director, Family Literacy, British Columbia Literacy)

The Chair

¹

1525

Ms. Elaine Cairns (Vice-President, Alberta Literacy)

The Chair

¹

1530

Ms. Cate Sills (Executive Director, NorthWest Territories Literacy Council)

¹

1535

The Chair

Ms. Marg Rose (Executive Director, Literacy Partners of Manitoba)

¹

1540

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ)

Ms. Marg Rose

¹

1545

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Ms. Monique Guay

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

¹

1550

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Monique Guay

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay

The Chair

Mr. Gurbax Malhi (Bramalea—Gore—Malton—Springdale, Lib.)

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Mr. Gurbax Malhi

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Ms. Cate Sills

Ms. Marg Rose

¹

1555

Mr. Gurbax Malhi

Ms. Cate Sills

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Gurbax Malhi

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Cate Sills

The Chair

Mr. Peter Goldring (Edmonton Centre-East, Canadian Alliance)

º

1600

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Mr. Peter Goldring

The Chair

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

º

1605

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Marg Rose

The Chair

Ms. Marg Rose

The Chair

Mr. John Finlay (Oxford, Lib.)

º

1610

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Cate Sills

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Mr. John Finlay

º

1615

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Mr. John Finlay

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Mr. John Finlay

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Cate Sills

Mr. John Finlay

Ms. Cate Sills

Mr. John Finlay

Ms. Cate Sills

Mr. John Finlay

Ms. Cate Sills

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

º

1620

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

º

1625

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Cate Sills

º

1630

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.)

Mme Cate Sills

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Mr. Raymond Simard

º

1635

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Cate Sills

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

The Chair

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Marg Rose

º

1640

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Peter Goldring

º

1645

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Mr. Peter Goldring

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Peter Goldring

The Chair

Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa—Orléans, Lib.)

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Cate Sills

º

1650

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Cate Sills

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Cate Sills

Ms. Marg Rose

º

1655

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

The Chair

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Elaine Cairns

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

»

1700

Ms. Marg Rose

Mr. Raymond Simard

The Chair

Ms. Marg Rose

The Chair

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Marg Rose

The Chair

Ms. Marg Rose

Ms. Cate Sills

Ms. Elaine Cairns

The Chair

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

The Chair

Ms. Jean Rasmussen

Ms. Marg Rose

The Chair

---

CANADA

Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

---

NUMBER 018

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

---

EVIDENCE

Thursday, March 20, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹  (1520)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mrs. Judi Longfield (Whitby—Ajax, Lib.)): I'll call to order the 18th meeting of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

    Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are proceeding with our study on literacy. We have with us today representatives from British Columbia, Alberta, the Northwest Territories, and Manitoba.

    I'm going to call on the witness from British Columbia Literacy, Jean Rasmussen, director of family literacy, but before I ask Jean to begin, I will also introduce the others who are with us.

    From Alberta Literacy, Elaine Cairns, vice-president; from the Northwest Territories Literacy Council, Cate Sills, the executive director; and from Literacy Partners of Manitoba, Marg Rose, the executive director.

    Welcome to our committee.

    Each of you will have five minutes to make your opening remarks, which will be followed by rounds of questions and answers.

    Jean, you may begin.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen (Director, Family Literacy, British Columbia Literacy): I'm really glad that you clarified it was for five minutes, because I timed this.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: Madam Chair, members of the standing committee, and colleagues, on behalf of the executive director, Linda Mitchell, and the staff of Literacy B.C., I would like to begin by thanking HRDC for the opportunity to speak to you today and to thank the National Literacy Secretariat for the excellent job they have done in providing coalitions like ours with the resources and guidance needed to accomplish our mandate.

    Literacy B.C. is the provincial organization responsible for promoting and supporting literacy development and coordination in B.C. The heartbeat of our organization is to act as a catalyst for broad sector partnerships, community capacity-building, and the integration of literacy and learning across all sectors and levels of government.

    Like my colleagues, I am here today to share with you some achievements and to make suggestions as to how we might go forward to address this very important issue. Never before has there been an opportunity or willingness on the part of so many to bring about the change that is needed to advance literacy in our country, and to create a nation of lifelong learners equipped for the future.

    In order to do this, we need national leadership, a clear vision and strategy, and an action plan informed by the many stakeholder groups with a vested interest in this issue, including all levels of government, literacy organizations, business, and the community at large. This committee can play a critical role in assisting the federal government in mapping out what this might look like. A pan-Canadian strategy must be informed by evidence-based research and must recognize and build on the expertise, structures, and partnerships that already exist.

    With the generous support of the federal and provincial governments, B.C. has been able to create the pre-conditions needed for a fertile literacy test bed, by piloting innovative demonstration models built on sound empirical evidence.

    Here's what's working in our province. Through the federal and provincially funded community grants initiative, we've been able to support programs and build capacity at the local level through a provincial network of regional literacy coordinators.

    In 2000 we conducted a year-long, province-wide consultation on literacy and learning across all sectors and interest groups. Twenty recommendations for action were identified, and will serve as a springboard for discussion and contribute to the development of a long-term strategic plan for literacy and learning in British Columbia.

    We've had success in piloting initiatives like the Canucks Family Education Centre in Vancouver, which is a provincial and national demonstration of a four-component, comprehensive approach to family literacy and learning, and had success with the youth at risk project. We've had success in piloting learning community projects that have identified literacy as a priority in areas such as the Upper Skeena, Lillooet, and Fraser River Canyon.

    We have also had success in entrenching the notion of the need for a basic skills agenda within the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, and success in bringing the business community to the family literacy table, which has resulted in more than $500,000 in resources and in-kind services for the family literacy field over the past four years.

    Our summer institutes have trained thousands of literacy practitioners in topics such as workplace and family literacy and in volunteer tutor training.

    We are now prepared to take our work to the next level and initiate learning community projects that could serve twin objectives, namely, fostering federal government objectives around the learning and skills agenda, which illustrate horizontality, including cooperation among HRDC, Industry Canada, Health Canada, and INAC in learning community projects; which illustrate collaboration between first nations and non-first-nations learning communities; and which illustrate the role of family literacy in building social and human capital.

    The second objective would be to support Vancouver's Olympics bid, through a proposed decade of literacy and learning, informed by successful models such as the Birmingham core skills partnership in the U.K. Birmingham has taken a whole-city approach to raising literacy and numeracy across all levels, sectors, cultures, and ages over a ten-year period. They are currently in year seven, and are exceeding projected expectations.

    Here's what we could be doing next as a nation or the opportunity that we have. We could develop a national agreement or accord on literacy and essential skills. We could increase capacity for literacy and learning by increasing resources to the National Literacy Secretariat and provincial literacy organizations, and by having sustained core funding for program delivery. Indeed, the current demand for support and program development, particularly in the area of family literacy, exceeds the resources currently available. We could also invest in learning communities, which are community-based and which support social and economic development and prosperity. Finally, we could invest in our people and communities in the way they need and want us to. The cornerstone of this investment is literacy and learning.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Rasmussen.

    Elaine Cairns, from Alberta Literacy.

¹  (1525)  

    Ms. Elaine Cairns (Vice-President, Alberta Literacy): Madam Chair, it is my pleasure to be here today. My name is Elaine Cairns, and I am vice-president of Literacy Alberta, a volunteer position. There are thousands of Canadians volunteering in literacy work every day in this country. I am also co-administrator of the Further Education Society of Alberta, a non-profit society that works to provide learning opportunities to multi-barriered learners.

    Imagine a Canada where everyone reads. Imagine a Canada where everyone writes. Imagine a Canada where all children have people who read to them every day. Imagine a Canada where people who have difficulty reading and writing feel valued and supported. Imagine a Canada where language is plain.

    Imagine a Canada where literacy organizations have the resources to serve the literacy needs of their communities. Imagine a Canada that celebrates and supports literacy in all its forms. Imagine a pan-Canadian literacy strategy that allows us to accomplish all of this. This is our dream for Canada, and your committee has a chance to play a leadership role in allowing us to achieve our dream.

    In our province, Literacy Alberta takes a leadership role in promoting literacy and supporting organizations to expand community capacity to address literacy needs. For example, 74 volunteer tutor programs serve 80 communities in Alberta. In addition, Literacy Alberta works with learners to encourage them to address their literacy challenges and help them feel valued and respected.

    For example, our BLAST project teaches learners to be public speakers, and I can say, after watching them speak at our last provincial conference, I wish they were the ones speaking to you today. They are awesome.

    Through the federal-provincial literacy partnership, with the assistance of both provincial and federal expertise--and some funding--an idea for a project to address a literacy need is explored, discussed, and researched until it is ready to fly.

    I can speak from personal experience, because in 1994 my partner, Laureen MacKenzie, and I had a little idea that we brought to the federal-provincial partnership. Through a small grant we were able to research and refine our idea, and thus, Literacy and Parenting Skills, LAPS, a family literacy program, was born. It develops literacy skills while participants learn about parenting. Our program is now recognized nationally and has been adapted for use with first nations, francophone, and English as a second language low-literate parents.

    This was possible because of government leadership that assisted us to develop the idea. There are numerous other projects we could talk about that can say the same thing, that through the excellent work of the National Literacy Secretariat we are able to empower parents to assist their children with reading and writing, assist agencies to write their materials in plain language, or encourage literacy practitioners to do research around what works with learners and what does not.

    NLS-funded initiatives allowed all of this to happen and continue in our communities. With the NLS budget of $28 million, which I would point out is less than $1 per person in Canada, much has been accomplished. But a lot more could be accomplished with a pan-Canadian literacy strategy that would encourage cross-sector partnerships to look at things through a literacy lens. With an expanded mandate for NLS, programs that are successful could grow and flourish nationally. This cannot be done under the current mandate that requires them to fund short-term, innovative projects.

    When we are successful and there is interest not just in the literacy community but also in health, child care, or justice, we have no long-term funding to sustain excellent initiatives and they often wither and die.

    NLS could take a leadership role in forming cross-sector partnerships. This could be done with provincial governments that are already forming cross-sector partnerships. For example, Alberta Learning's parent-child literacy strategy brings together various government departments to encourage and develop family literacy initiatives in our province.

    With expanded resources, NLS could also work to support the work of literacy coalitions that are underfunded and continually forced to look for additional dollars to support the important work they do. The expertise exists in the literacy field to build community capacity. We know how to partner, collaborate, develop, and achieve results in the literacy work we do. We need your assistance to help us do more.

    Lastly, I would like to say that the first essential skill is literacy, and with literacy anything is possible.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Cairns.

    Next we will hear from Cate Sills, from the Northwest Territories Literacy Council.

    Welcome, Cate.

¹  (1530)  

    Ms. Cate Sills (Executive Director, NorthWest Territories Literacy Council): Thank you.

    Members of the committee, my name is Cate Sills, and I'm the executive director of the NWT Literacy Council. We are a non-profit organization with a mandate to promote and support literacy development in all official languages of the NWT.

    To many Canadians the NWT may seem a vast empty wilderness. In fact, our territory is home to 42,000 people, about half of whom are aboriginal. We have 11 official languages: English, French, and nine aboriginal and Inuit languages. We generate significant economic activity, especially in the mineral, oil, and gas sectors.

    We are resourceful and culturally rich, but at the same time the NWT is home to some of the lowest literacy rates in the country. Of our aboriginal residents, 50% do not have the literacy skills they need to meet the complex demands of today's world. In Canada, this is unacceptable.

    As you work to develop a renewed national vision for literacy, I welcome this opportunity to bring you a northern perspective on literacy--one that is often missing from the broader literacy picture here in our country. I also welcome the opportunity to challenge you to apply some of the lessons we've learned to the national stage.

    Like other Canadians with low literacy, northerners with limited literacy skills face many challenges. They struggle to find jobs in an information- and technology-based economy. They struggle to support their children's literacy development. They struggle to be active participants in community decision-making.

    But there are other literacy challenges that are specific to the north. There are the challenges of reaching people in remote areas; supporting a multilingual and multicultural approach to literacy; and rebuilding a strong aboriginal identity and ensuring a future where aboriginal language, culture, and knowledge have an equal place in our society.

    With the support of the National Literacy Secretariat and the Government of the NWT we have been working to meet these challenges. We've done so by adopting a model that supports the development of new partnerships and builds community capacity from the ground up. We believe that giving people the capacity or the skills they need to do something for themselves is far more effective than doing something for them.

    One example of this is a program we've developed called “Tools For Community Building”. Through this program we help communities identify, plan, deliver, and sustain their own literacy programs through local community partnerships.

    Using this program, Holman, a small Inuit community on the Arctic coast, was able to develop its own comprehensive community family literacy plan based on partnerships among the local school, the day care, the language and culture program, and elders and parents. The result has been a range of programming that supports both English literacy and Inuinnaktun language and cultural activities, thereby meeting the twin goals of supporting literacy through language and cultural revitalization.

    In the NWT we've also been successful in recognizing that literacy is not a one-dimensional issue. In order to effectively do our work, we have had to be resourceful and explore ways to integrate literacy into existing or emerging government programs and services.

    For example, we worked with the territorial government to make family literacy a key part of the NWT delivery of the national children's agenda. This provided us with the support to train over 150 practitioners from family support programs, adult literacy programs, aboriginal head start programs, and schools in family literacy methods. It also helped us to support family literacy pilot projects and develop literacy resources for parents. As a result, family literacy is now an integral part of many early childhood and family support programs available in the NWT.

    I encourage the committee to think about the ideas behind these successes as I turn to the next part of my presentation, which will provide the committee with some recommendations for action. Each of the recommendations I will now speak to can be applied to the federal level and can contribute to the development of a meaningful pan-Canadian literacy strategy.

    The first recommendation is the need to support an infrastructure that develops community capacity and partnerships and respects diversity and culture. This must be the cornerstone of any national action plan on literacy. Many solutions to literacy challenges must happen at the community level. That's why the federal government must play a role in bolstering community capacity by supporting literacy infrastructure, advancing research, and supporting partnerships.

    One way to do this is to expand the funding and mandate of the National Literacy Secretariat to build on its excellent track record. Through its various funding streams, the NLS supports a national infrastructure that in turn creates and enhances community capacity. Unfortunately, the NLS is constrained by a budget of only $28 million a year. That's less than the budget of any one college in Canada.

    The second recommendation is the need to integrate literacy into existing federal programs and policies. The integration of literacy into existing federal government programs and policies promotes a multi-dimensional approach to supporting literacy at the community level.

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    The committee should recommend that key federal government departments and policies be reviewed through a literacy lens. By this I mean that across departments, federal programs and policies should be examined and adapted to ensure that they support literacy. The budget and mandate of the NLS could be expanded to lead this initiative. For example, while the national children's agenda did not explicitly include family literacy as part of its objectives, it certainly could have. This serves as a good example of how literacy can be supported within key federal programs outside the NLS.

    The third recommendation is the need for leadership, vision, and sustained support. The time is right for the development of an intergovernmental accord or agreement on literacy. This agreement could establish pan-Canadian priorities, standards, and protocols for new federal investments, and accountability measures for those investments. The time is also right for the development of an aboriginal literacy strategy in partnership with the aboriginal and Inuit communities. This strategy could actively support language and cultural revitalization as an integral part of aboriginal literacy.

    In closing, in this presentation I've only been able to scratch the surface of what's necessary to advance literacy in Canada. However, the movement for Canadian literacy has done a tremendous amount of work in developing key priorities of the literacy community as a whole. I would encourage the committee to look to their recommendations for the federal government, and to their framework for a national literacy action agenda.

    Thank you very much for the opportunity to travel here to make this presentation.

    The Chair: Thank you for making the effort to attend.

    Our final presenter today is Marg Rose, and she's from Literacy Partners of Manitoba.

    Ms. Marg Rose (Executive Director, Literacy Partners of Manitoba): Merci, Madame Chair, honourable members, colleagues, and friends of literacy.

    We take literacy very seriously in our province as an economic and social benefit and obligation, especially today. I'm here as the executive director of the provincial literacy coalition of more than 130 organizations and another 200 individual business supporters and members to offer you some food for thought. I've consulted with business, grassroots, and government partners before taking this journey today.

    Manitoba faces its future with one-third of its working-age population having less than a high school diploma. We in literacy are concerned that 43,000 people who are not seniors have less than a grade nine education and can't fit into the three dozen free programs in our province. Given this urgent need for more hands on deck, I'd like to turn to seven key ideas we urge your committee to consider.

    First of all, as you heard from Cate, our group also felt you should start by looking at what the federal government itself can do and should do as you take a lead position on crafting this national strategy to improve literacy skills and help move literacy up the policy and program ladder.

    Your committee can take the lead in looking through a literacy lens at all policies and agreements. We need to ensure that access to literacy and essential skills training is a priority of every federal department, especially the HRDC machine, to help meet the social inclusion agenda. We will all reap the benefits that will impact health, justice, aboriginal and Indian affairs, immigration, revenue, and citizenship portfolios, since their bottom lines are also linked to adult literacy progress.

    You already have several excerpts from our recent training sessions with the health authorities in your packages, on health getting the link, and you might even consider creating a literacy seal of approval award based on readability, clear language, and basic training inclusion.

    Two, while putting your own house in order, you could build on the strong partnership model that is already in place and succeeding through the National Literacy Secretariat. In Manitoba alone these NLS projects have leveraged 50% more spending on literacy delivery from the province since 1995. What originally started out as a fifty-fifty cost-shared formula has spurred a doubling of those dollars provincially.

    Another significant impact of the NLS in Manitoba has been through the support of pilot projects and information sharing. Once new methods, new materials, or new models have been tested, our provincial government has been more likely to pick up the tab for further funding and ongoing support.

    For example, an initial NLS project of $80,000 for a social marketing campaign about literacy needs had a seven-to-one return on investment on your dollars. That seed grant helped us to solicit $40,000 from the province to join that campaign; collect $58,000 from the corporate sector at the next two PGI golf tournaments, which we put towards learner bursaries and new materials; secure a grant of $100,000 from the Manitoba Lotteries to produce a TV series, which reached thousands by satellite this winter; and finally, link to the Winnipeg Foundation through the campaign's radio and billboard publicity. They heard about us and now we're partners with them in a new Literacy for Life Fund.

    This endowment fund already totals half a million dollars in the last few months, spurred on by the HRDC offer to match dollar for dollar what we raise locally. In this volatile money market, this example alone shows that making $7 for every federal buck is a wise investment. I wish my RRSPs could do the same.

    Building on successes such as this, we'd like you to call for an expansion that is brokered by the NLS in three new directions.

    First of all, provide for a dedicated carve-out of NLS funds for aboriginally focused projects but with a mentorship component for administration, training, and links to proven successes.

    Two, increase support for the research and developmental phase of community project proposals and their evaluation.

    Three, expand the NLS to start up a new interprovincial-territorial collaboration fund that would require at least two government partners and grassroots representation to avoid duplication, encourage information sharing, respect diversity, and enjoy a larger multiplier effect.

    Let's turn to the newly announced Canadian Institute of Learning. We'd like you to ensure that it dedicates at least 25% of its resources to analyzing proven successes in adult and family literacy. Since 25% of our adult population faces severe skill shortages, the institute should not narrow its focus on post-secondary education alone.

    Finally, we in Manitoba encourage you to show leadership by championing this pan-Canadian strategy and inviting the provinces to create a new accord. You've done it before. Look at how the essential skills collaboration model fuelled a national roll-out with hands-on involvement by multiple layers of partners. Results of those earlier efforts are accountable, and they have impacted on local literacy and workplace programs through access to new training and new learning materials.

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    Literacy must be positioned as a legitimate part of the adult learning spectrum.

[Translation]

    And away we go! Good luck and welcome to this unbelievable world of adult education.

[English]

    We can't afford to wait any longer. Now is the time for action.

[Translation]

But it's worth it. Thank you.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    I'll now turn to the question and answer period. In a prior arrangement Mr. Goldring had agreed to let Madame Guay take the first round.

    Madame Guay, you have seven minutes.

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Goldring, for allowing me to put my questions right away. I have to leave because I have an important meeting at another committee, but I'd like you to know that we appreciate having you here today and that it's also very important to have had you come all this way to share your comments with us.

    At the outset, I'd say that education falls strictly under provincial jurisdiction, which you're not without knowing as you work with provincial organizations. So there's a linkup to be done with the provinces, particularly Quebec, where we speak an entirely different language from the rest of Canada. Literacy education is also important but it can be done in a different way. Each education system in Canada is also different. So, in my opinion, it's very important that what is already being done be respected.

    I'd like you to tell me what the federal government could do in the very short term, while being respectful of jurisdictions, because it's clear that if provincial jurisdictions aren't respected or if duplication occurs that's not something we want because we absolutely want it to be profitable. If we invest a dollar, we want a dollar back, not less than that. So we have to try not to duplicate things but to act in a complementary fashion and in line with what's already being done so we don't wind up with non-profit organizations that are all offering the same services and becoming inefficient.

    I for one get very concerned when the federal government starts getting involved in 100% provincial jurisdictions by investing in them. It's important for us to get our own share here, that's for sure, especially since literacy education is a priority. But we should also be aware that there are associations already working in the field in that area. The provinces are already investing in there.

    Perhaps you could also tell me what difference there is between the federal government and the provinces in the area of literacy education. What is our share? Could we be doing better? So the question is put. If you want to answer, you have the floor.

[English]

    Ms. Marg Rose: I can start for Manitoba.

    Just in terms of dollars, the federal government is investing $648,000 in projects this year and the province will put $1.3 million towards delivery. But they are also now, through the national children's agenda, putting money towards family literacy programs. It's hard to take just that money from that one department, in education.

    Of course, as you said, the province is concerned with delivery. But the federal government, as shown in my example, helps fuel that delivery through various methods, such as we were reaching people through bursaries, through the Peter Gzowski golf tournaments. Promotion and publicity led to the creation of this endowment fund, which will help with delivering programs and so on.

    You have a model here, and the recommendations that are shown in the national strategy, which was advanced by the Movement for Canadian Literacy, give you concrete examples of how the federal presence can be built on in partnership with the provinces. There are about fourteen ideas there to look at.

    Does anybody else want to talk about that?

¹  (1545)  

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: I would like to say look at what's working now, and the federal-provincial literacy partnership is working well. They have limited resources, but those federal-provincial partnerships have figured out how to work together. They're doing exactly what you say to make sure that what you're afraid will happen doesn't happen: they talk to one another.

    That's why we need a national perspective, because they come to the province and say okay, someone in New Brunswick is doing something in family literacy that kind of connects with something you're doing in Alberta, so talk to them. We're already seeing that it's very effective when the federal and provincial governments work together.

    In Alberta, for example, NLS funded a number of family literacy programs to be developed. Once those models were developed, the provincial government stepped in, because they had these fine programs, and said okay, we're going to give $1.1 million annually so these programs can be delivered in communities. That's the kind of thing we need to see more of. That's the kind of thing that can be expanded on, and the expertise is there.

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay: Isn't there already a panel for all the provinces and territories where they can all sit together and compare the different programs or the most efficient ways of doing things and where they could use programs that may have worked very well in one province and could be implemented elsewhere? Isn't there somewhere they can discuss those things?

    One last question. Where should the money come from? In your opinion, at the federal level, where should the money come from?

[English]

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: This kind of activity happens already through the National Literacy Secretariat and the provincial and territorial coalitions. The executive directors of the coalitions meet on a regular basis to talk about the kinds of initiatives that are happening in their provinces or territories and where we need to be going next.

    There's a great deal of collaboration, not just at that level, but also among practitioners in different parts of the country who are sharing about the kinds of programs they're developing and the kind of expertise that is coming out of them--best practices and that kind of thing. So it exists already.

    Currently in B.C. we get about $900,000 from the federal government to develop literacy programs or pilot programs. Right now, in terms of the number of people who have applied for project dollars, it's doubled this year. So $1.8 million is what it would take to meet the need just of the programs that have been applied for.

    I don't know how to say this other than that we've done a really good job at raising awareness across all sectors, all ages, and all interest groups, and we've set the stage for many people who would not have seen literacy as an issue for them, such as business in B.C. We have major corporations at the table wanting to put dollars or in-kind services in. But we don't have the capacity as an organization to do what we need to do to really grow this thing.

    That's what we need. We also need some kind of.... When we talk about a pan-Canadian strategy, yes, we're connecting to each other and talking to each other, but it's across a certain level. We need all government levels to be involved in some way or other in this.

    I mentioned that we're looking at creating a learning community, a decade of learning, in Vancouver and using the Birmingham core skills project as kind of twinning with them. We have approximately a million people in Vancouver, and we want to work with the mayor there to develop this kind of initiative. That would be a national model we're looking at here. It could be duplicated in other cities across the country.

    I think that's key. If we develop strong models or initiatives in one part of the country they can be shared through the engine of the National Literacy Secretariat, which is extremely important to the work we all do.

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    Ms. Marg Rose: I just want to clarify that I think it's important to build on it, but I don't want you to be left with the impression that it's enough, because yes, it's happening, but it's often happening off the sides of our desks. The National Literacy Secretariat, for example, has one officer looking at all national community-based projects--that's over 200 a year. Imagine the caseload of a doctor trying to juggle that much intense work, with many layers of partners. The capacity is at its limit right now.

    You heard from Charles Ramsay of the National Adult Literacy Database. That's where a lot of us try to put information, so we can go there. It's facing a backlog of weeks' worth of work. So the organization and the infrastructure in literacy is stretched to its limit, and I'm glad you picked up on that.

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay: Well that's actually why we're reviewing the whole matter of literacy education. We know there are problems and that improvements have to be made.

    I have two short technical questions for you, Madam Chair. I'd simply like to know if people from Quebec will appear as witnesses before this committee. I think that's important.

[English]

    The Chair: Yes, we've actually split it. We've had votes from the west, the north--

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay: Agreed, you've answered my question.

    I'd also like to know when the report will be coming out. We're hearing a lot of people, but what's our schedule? Is it going to be done before the end of the parliamentary session? If that's the case, we're going to have to work fast.

[English]

    The Chair: Before of the parliamentary session, yes.

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay: Before the end of June. So that means we could table a report for the month of June and that we'll be able to go ahead during the summer, in other words the officials will be able to work on it. Is that it?

[English]

    The Chair: That's certainly our hope, yes.

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay: Fine. Thank you.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Malhi.

    Mr. Gurbax Malhi (Bramalea—Gore—Malton—Springdale, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    What are the most significant barriers to literacy in your region?

    Are your organizations struggling to meet the demand for your services? If so, has the volunteer sector in your regions contributed to the literacy training?

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: Can I just clarify? There are several questions there. Is that barriers to access for literacy learners?

    Mr. Gurbax Malhi: Yes, to the training. What are the most significant barriers to literacy training in your region?

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: In the region.

    Mr. Gurbax Malhi: Yes.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: I think they would be fairly similar across all regions. One is, there have been a number of studies done recently that looked at these kinds of issues, at what the barriers are. One of them is the ability for somebody to actually go to a program, in terms of child care, travel, and also programs that actually are taking in new students, because many of the programs are maxed. There's just not the availability, at least in B.C., for people to attend programs. The waiting lists are very, very long.

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: I would agree with that. We see all kinds of barriers, and we're in the business of trying to help people overcome barriers.

    I know in Alberta we have over 1,500 trained volunteer tutors. Out of that, they are working with 2,300 learners. Obviously more than one tutor is working with learners, so we need more tutors to do this work. We also need more trained professionals. We need more programs, but we don't have the dollars to do that, and that's the bottom line. We're doing the best we can with very few dollars and very few resources. We continue to do what we can, working together, but we need more.

    Ms. Cate Sills: I would second all those things. In the north, oftentimes there are just no programs available, or what is available is often a program delivered by the college system, which is often too advanced for a lot of people with literacy needs to be able to access.

    So it's about basic access to the programs and services that would support people.

    Ms. Marg Rose: When we look at what works, we know adults will step forward if there's technology involved. A lot of the programs don't have up-to-date technology. Programs like AlphaRoute have been piloting the use of the Internet to deliver programs, yet that's expecting the highest level of skills from the lowest level of learner. It is showing some positive results. It's basically about more hours, and we can't rely on the charitable approach that we've been looking at for the last while.

    It can't just be a volunteer-driven field. For example, in Manitoba there are 500 volunteers. If we had to pay them for all their work, that would equal what our provincial government is putting in as funding. So I think it's time now to look at what government's role is in moving this agenda forward as an economic benefit. It's not just a feel-good issue; it's an economic benefit for us all.

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    Mr. Gurbax Malhi: Are your organizations struggling to meet the demand for your services? If so, has the volunteer sector in your regions contributed to literacy training programs?

    Ms. Cate Sills: Yes. The work of most of the coalitions is to support the field, to train, support, and provide resources to literacy practitioners in communities across the territories and provinces and engage communities in discussions about what their literacy needs are and how we can work together to initiate programs at the local level.

    I think Marg said it earlier. We've been very successful in that engagement, and I think we've reached the threshold where we need new investments in literacy so that communities can actively participate, so that we can continue to do the outreach in training and support services that we've provided to ensure that people have access to the opportunity.

    Ms. Marg Rose: This is an organization chart I can leave with your researcher that shows you the multiple layers of people involved in running a provincial coalition, as one example. We have representation from business, labour, grassroots, volunteers, learners, and the universities. So what more do we want? Everybody is at the table. We heard from the national summit that this is an agenda item of the top 500 educational leaders in the country, and I think all people are recognizing this. We have a window of opportunity to say yes, let's reconsider this investment level.

    Mr. Gurbax Malhi: Do you think the literacy development agreements should be used as a vehicle for improving workers' literacy skills? If so, do you have any suggestions how these agreements can play effective roles in helping individuals improve their literacy skills?

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: My field is not workplace literacy, so I think you would be best to speak to them, who I know are coming to speak to you.

    The only thing I would say is that any kind of training needs to involve literacy, because you obviously can't be successful in the workplace unless you have basic literacy skills. This would be my comment.

    Ms. Marg Rose: You have brokered, however, a national children's agenda, and we know from studies that child care is a magic bullet that can help more people step forward.

    As most of the LMDAs are devolved to the provinces, it's hard to put strings on them after they go into effect, but you could perhaps look at the federal government supporting the child-care piece and at learner supports. If a program coordinator is trying to deliver a program, it costs an average of $30,000 in our province, which is a teacher's salary, delivery hours, overhead, and supports. If the federal government picks up those learner supports for distance and transportation, this money can cover more hours, so we'll have more contact time.

    Ms. Cate Sills: As far as I understand, the LMDAs are currently being renegotiated, or will soon be. I think they are a really good example of how we can integrate literacy into government programs and services. LMDAs are one example, and aboriginal human resources development agreements are another. Moreover, EI part two dollars could certainly be used to support literacy. While these agreements are being negotiated between the federal government, the provinces, and territories, there are a number of different ways in which literacy can be supported through a range of currently existing government programs and services.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Goldring.

    Mr. Peter Goldring (Edmonton Centre-East, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Madam Chairman.

    Thank you, ladies, for your presentation.

    I'll start with a question about how we measure and gauge literacy. We're using a lot of statistics here nationally, which indicate that 15% of Albertans are at level one literacy and 21% at level two. Are all of these people who enter this program tested? How do you know this is the level? Are these children, the adults, and the various people who approach the groups tested before you begin your literacy indoctrination and assistance?

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    Ms. Jean Rasmussen Indoctrination? I will speak to this.

    Adults who are coming into any kind of program, whether institution or community-based, will have assessments done.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: Are children assessed too?

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: Many children.... When you talk about children, you're talking about the K to 12 system, unless you're speaking to family literacy. For children in the K to 12 system in B.C., the school becomes a partner in the family literacy model, so they would be tested in the ways the school tests them.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: Along with this, we're trying to follow the need nationally. We are looking at percentages and numbers in various documents and we have the statistics, whether federal or provincial, and more and more numbers. But at the end of the day, is the child in this picture here, or any child, tested under the same testing regime the statistics are formulated from? How do we know this, or do we know this?

    Ms. Marg Rose: This was based on testing adults—if you're looking at the levels. So we're not taking on the whole world, but we're just taking on the adult world at this point. If we use the opportunity to make double-duty dollars by investing, the adult part of the equation will get to the children.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: Just a second. Your statistics are for the entire population, so—

    Ms. Marg Rose: They are for Canadian adults.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: But this programming I'm seeing in Alberta and other comments that have been made suggest that there's an awful lot of attention being paid to children, teens, and other areas. The real question is do you even know if there is a literacy problem at those levels? And if you have been testing and know, how have you gauged your results? Do you have a number of people or children you have assisted? Have you had an impact in raising their literacy level from one level to another, which you can call a success? How do you determine this?

    Ms. Marg Rose: Perhaps you'd like to talk about Alberta. I know about Manitoba.

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: I work at the grassroots level. I can't talk to you about statistics, but I can talk to you about people. Working with people on a daily basis, I know that those statistics that are quoted are correct. I have seen the difference a literacy program makes in the life of a person. A young lady came to one of our literacy and parenting skills programs. She came for a very long period of time before she felt she had the confidence to go back to school. She went back to school and within a couple of short years she graduated from grade 12.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: I'm sure there are individual cases that can be cited, but we see statistics showing that across Alberta we have fixed percentages. We're really looking at a funding issue here. Let's talk about the province of Alberta. With this one particular program, $1.2 million has gone into it. How are you gauging the success of the program itself? Some of these are children's programs. It's nice to have the books, the mobile library, and other things, and certainly it's nice to introduce this. But are you really elevating from one level to another, or is this just more literacy material and assistance overall?

    The real question following that would be if we have this in our regular educational system and library structure, are we not duplicating? Do you have some way of judging that you are making progress statistically? Can you statistically substantiate that?

    The Chair: Ms. Rasmussen.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: I mentioned the Canucks Family Education Centre, which is a provincial and national demonstration model. It's trying to get at exactly what you are saying. It is a virtual centre. It has a place where the Canucks get to brand their name. But really what it's working with is the school board, at both the elementary and high school levels. These are the program partners. It's working with libraries, child care centres, family resource centres, and recreation. It is letting each of those individual programs come to the table and add their expertise and the testing they do.

    We're trying to look at what happens over a three-year period if we are all working in concert with each other, starting with learning at conception and throughout the lifespan. We don't have that kind of integrated system in terms of information available. I don't know what document you're referring to.

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    Mr. Peter Goldring: There are a number of them.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: One of the things we're attempting to do in terms of the comprehensive family literacy approach is to look at the experts in the areas that already exist, what kind of testing is happening, how we can start this little being on this road of learning, and how we can document it, evaluate it, and look at the impacts. What happens when a parent and a child come together in a program? We will have ways to evaluate that. We are developing those kinds of tools.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: But you don't have it yet.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: We don't have that yet. Family literacy is really new. In terms of working in this integrated services approach, it's a new thing. That's one of the reasons we're wanting some support in this. We want to be able to do exactly what you are asking, to demonstrate after three years what happens.

    We know some things from other models in other places in the world, such as the U.S. and the U.K. They have been documenting and evaluating impacts over a period of whatever number of years. For instance, the National Centre for Family Literacy in Kentucky, through some of the research that's being done, can demonstrate that for parents and children who engage in these kinds of programs, including children at risk, families at risk, poverty, the whole bit, ten years out of a program 85% of those kids were at or above grade level and 66% of the parents were either gainfully employed or had moved on to higher education.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: Maybe we need something like that.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: These are the kinds of things we want to do. We want to be able to demonstrate this. So that's what we're doing with that centre. It's one centre in one province in the country.

    Ms. Marg Rose: Yes, I can understand your frustration. We sat down with the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce policy director, and he asked, when is enough enough? When do you hit the point you're trying to reach? He was looking for a statistical formula as well.

    We put his mind at ease with this. If we know there's a problem.... And the reason you're seeing children in those pictures is because adults may write themselves off. If you fall off a horse fifty times, are you going to come back to my nice stable no matter how nice I make it look? No. Often they will write themselves off. But when their children come to them and want a bedtime story or are struggling with their homework, they will often come forward. Family literacy is often a hook to get at both that adult and that child at the same time, because literacy can become an intergenerational issue. First of all, family literacy is an attempt to reach two generations at once, and we love those double-duty dollars, don't we?

    Second, in Manitoba every person who steps forward is tested. Luckily, with one of the NLS projects called CARA, the Canadian Adult Reading Assessment, the people who made it up at the University of Alberta were able to cross all the jurisdictions. It's grade level, or rather stage level; it's insulting to an adult to say what grade level they're at, so we use these functional levels. Level one is to be able to understand basic print and level two is with more complexity.

    So adults are tested. At the end of a year or when they exit, they are exit-tested. In Manitoba alone, 130 adults exited social assistance after being in a literacy program. The province made its money back; it made money off the folks in that program.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Goldring has asked me to ask you if there's some way the committee can see a copy of the assessment test you referred to.

    Ms. Marg Rose: Certainly.

    The Chair: Good, thank you.

    We now go to Mr. Finlay.

    Mr. John Finlay (Oxford, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Having been involved in education, I know that it's a provincial matter, but I hear you really talking about national things because it's a national problem.

    At the National Summit on Innovation and Learning in November 2002, the pan-Canadian literacy development system was cited as the number one learning priority in this country. Given that the provinces and territories each control their own systems, do you think the pan-Canadian literacy strategy is the best approach for addressing literacy in Canada? If you agree that it is the best way to proceed, what role can the federal government realistically play to enhance the level of literary skills across the country?

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    Ms. Marg Rose: Just as we've said, start putting your own house in order. Look at the Canadian Institute of Learning as an opportunity. Have a look at brokering this accord; we know there's an appetite for it, and this is the window. The provinces will come to the table, I believe, because you have business, industry, and education leaders voting for that at that national summit.

    Ms. Cate Sills: Provinces and territories are already coming to the table. I know in the Northwest Territories the government there has introduced a five-year literacy strategy, and it has increased its investment in literacy. I think it would be very open to a partnership with the federal government to support that. The money it has been able to contribute to addressing some of the literacy issues in the north is just not enough, so I think they would welcome the opportunity.

    The discussion has never happened, and I think it's important that we start to look at what's possible. We've come up with the national children's agenda as an example of how the federal, provincial, and territorial governments can work together. It happens through health care, for instance; health is also a provincial jurisdiction, but the federal government has an integral and very important role to play in that as well.

    It's time to sort of step back from old constitutional issues and try to look at new partnerships and new arrangements that can really move this issue forward.

    Ms. Marg Rose: The Conference Board of Canada also championed this issue at their national summit. I was at the rural summit with rural leaders, and literacy and basic training emerged as issues. People are saying this, and of course the people elect their governments. I think this is really a unique window. Canada is one of the few industrialized nations in the world that doesn't have a national strategy.

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: I would echo my colleague's comments. I would urge you to look at the Movement for Canadian Literacy and the work they have done around a pan-Canadian literacy strategy. There is nothing in that document all of us wouldn't support 100% or wouldn't give all the energy our coalitions can to make possible. The work is there, and as everyone has said, the opportunity is here and it is time.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: If you start with the premise that literacy is everyone's business.... And as we said earlier, there's not a problem getting people to the table; they're there. Everyone is owning this issue. That's what we're hearing echoed throughout the provinces and territories, in business and education and in ministries for children and family development, that literacy is being cited over and over as the key.

    When we speak to literacy, by the way, we're talking about literacy and numeracy. It isn't as explicitly stated as maybe it is in the U.K., but we're certainly looking at a person's ability to read, write, and use numbers effectively.

    It's the will at the provincial level, and with business it's there. What we need is a will across all governments, all departments of government and all levels of government, to move this issue forward. The notion of a pan-Canadian strategy is something my colleagues and I have been wanting to happen for a very long time. We need to be singing from the same song sheet, as Linda Mitchell likes to put it. I think it's true; we're ready. And we aren't going forward as a country if we don't really address this issue. If we look at 12 years out in terms of the literacy levels and the changes that have been made, it's just not good enough. We need to go further and we need to invest in this, not just in terms of dollars but in terms of energy and time, making it a real commitment and a priority.

    Mr. John Finlay: I've had a little bit to do with it in the past, and it seems to be that the stigma attached to literacy training is one thing that has to be overcome. I understand that people can fool you for a long, long time. One thing we did find out in a little project we did in the county was that doing the training in a classroom, doing it in the place where some of the younger people--and older ones too--had never been successful, as they were functionally illiterate, just didn't work. We have to use other venues or we have to change it in some way. And that makes it much more difficult, does it not, to sort of codify to do the same thing to say this is the way we have to do it?

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    Ms. Elaine Cairns: That's why we believe in meeting participants where they are. We work with women's shelters, we work with family resource centres in low-income housing projects, and we work with church organizations and cultural groups. We go where the people are.

    That's why family literacy is a great initiative, because even though I may not come to you to improve my reading and writing because of a lot of factors you've talked about, I will come because I'm scared and I want to help my children. No matter what, I want to do what's best for my children. So often, family literacy brings them to the table, and then we can move them into adult basic education classes. Then we can test them and show significant results, and then we can really have great success with them.

    That's why the opportunity is so great now, because family literacy has really, really taken off. Health is interested, child care and day care workers are interested, and social services is interested. So we had everybody interested, and now we just need to be able to deliver.

    Mr. John Finlay: So there's no shortage of things we should be doing on the social side?

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: There is no shortage.

    Mr. John Finlay: Except maybe money eventually.

    Ms. Marg Rose: Before we worry about the stigma of those who might be concerned, we have enough willing learners at the door who we should focus on now.

    We have multiple points of entry: workplace technology, your own in Ontario, AlphaRoute, as I said, tele-learning. We have 2,000 people coming forward into the 34 community-based programs in Manitoba. In ten weeks of these half-hour TV shows through this Math Works tele-learning strategy we have 20,000 downloads of the study guide and 317,000 hits on our website. So it's time to look beyond the box, you're right.

    Ms. Cate Sills: We've been exploring similar initiatives in distance learning as well as in the workplace. In the north, the diamond industry has stepped up to the plate big-time, supporting aboriginal employees to develop their literacy skills. But they've taken it one step further, because they work on a rotational shift, with two weeks in and two weeks out. They've also included family literacy as part of that. They're using workplace documents to support literacy, but they're also encouraging them to read to their children. They're integrating family literacy methods into the training they get in the workplace, and they're partnering with communities to help support that. There's less of a stigma because there's an opportunity there for people.

    Mr. John Finlay: I wasn't aware of that. You said two weeks in, two weeks out.

    Ms. Cate Sills: They work on rotation.

    Mr. John Finlay: Is that so they can do their indigenous pursuits and...?

    Ms. Cate Sills: No. It's a remote site, and they cycle people through that two-week process. They're up there for two weeks and then have two weeks off. People go home and--

    Mr. John Finlay: They take the books home and read them.

    Ms. Cate Sills: Some of them do, and others go hunting.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Finlay.

    Ms. Davies.

    Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you very much.

    First of all, to the witnesses, you've all been terrific. You have a tremendous wealth of information. I kind of feel that if we went a couple of hours longer we could design the pan-Canadian literacy program right here and now, with all the knowledge you have. We could do it right in this room, I'm sure.

    The committee is studying this issue, and we hope that by gathering this information we can actually put forward the recommendations we need to get the government to really expand this whole area, in terms of both money and scope. So I think you've really hit some major points today.

    There are a couple of things I want to pick up on. I totally agree that we need to have a broad strategy that allows people across multi-sectoral areas to buy into it, but that can be applied locally. I think that's really where you see the creativity that happens. We can see that just from what you're telling us, from different parts across the country.

    I also agree--I actually hadn't thought about this before I heard you today--there's a critical need to have federal departments themselves look at this issue, in terms of how they work or how they apply their own programs. That's a very important item for us to pick up and say okay, what are these federal departments doing that are fairly engaged in program delivery, and are they working in a similar philosophy, in terms of integrating services and going to where people are? So I think that's very important.

    I have a couple of questions. Hopefully there will be more financial resources attached to a national strategy. That's pretty essential. On how those funds are divided, do you have any sense that they should be mainly focused on the community sector, or do we actually need to look at program development that is through direct government service? I'm just curious where you see the emphasis there.

    I was very interested, Jean, to hear you speak a little bit about the model in Birmingham. I wonder if you could say a little more about that. If it's coming from the City of Birmingham, how have they approached this in dealing with sectors right across the city, and different kinds of services?

    Maybe you could begin by addressing those questions.

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    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: Would you like me to begin with Birmingham?

    Ms. Libby Davies: Sure.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: We had a gentleman named Geoff Bateson, who's the partnership manager for the Birmingham core skills partnership, come to B.C. for family literacy week to speak at our breakfast of champions and a number of other different venues, including one up in the Yukon. He got a lot of people really excited, because what they've been able to do in Birmingham is.... I called his presentation “moving the mountain”, because that really is what it's about. It's how to do this.

    Birmingham has taken a whole-city approach to raising literacy and numeracy levels across all sectors and all ages. And what they did, way back when, nine years ago, is that a number of people came together, saying there's a problem here.

    Birmingham had a cotton industry, which was astounding to me. I had no idea they did that in Birmingham. As that industry closed, they were looking at how they could revitalize the community of Birmingham. One of the real issues was that their workforce did not have strong literacy and numeracy skills. This was coming from various sectors, a coming together in this, saying this is a problem and we need to do something about it. They had initially nine organizations with a vested interest in this make a commitment--as Geoff put it--to the post, not the person.

    So the commitment was over a ten-year period to put dollars from these different areas--education was one, the library was part of it, and their municipal government, those kinds of things--into this and see what they could do about changing those statistics.

    They got big buy-in, because there was the will. There was the will because basically, their backs were against the wall. It was “What are we going to do? This city is not succeeding, it's not thriving, and we need to reinvent it.” And believe it or not, it's now a tourist city. This is what they've done--they've been able to take a dirty, grimy city in England and create a tourist attraction.

    Ms. Libby Davies: We don't often hear of programs here that are ten years in length.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: A ten-year commitment.

    Ms. Libby Davies: We get up to five years. This is something that's very important, I'm sure, from your point of view, trying to build in the continuity in terms of stable funding that continues to build, so you can get that kind of buy-in and people have some certainty that they can move on a continuum.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: That's right. And that's what they knew. They knew five years wasn't going to do it. You'd just be getting people ready, engaged, the relationships built, and some form of mechanism of getting dollars out.

    But they also take a “fix-it” attitude. He made an example of the orphanages. They went into these orphanages and looked at what kinds of materials were available for these children. There were no books; there wasn't anything. So the idea was, “How can we fix this problem now? Let's not put people into programs for 15 to 20 years. Let's deal with what you need as an individual to be able to go forward in your life, and let's create that situation so it happens.”

    I've included for the researchers a package of information that includes the Birmingham core skills partnership--a very good report. I have more packages that I could send you, Libby, if you're interested.

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    Ms. Libby Davies: Sure.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: So it's let's do something, rather than let's think about it, and they've been, as I said, very successful.

    Ms. Marg Rose: I would suggest that this committee go to Edinburgh this summer, because that's where there is a whole international gathering looking at the learning societies model of Norman Longworth. He's come up with a learning charter. I think Birmingham is one of the cities that's signed on to this charter. It's similar, you're right.

    It's a ten-year process, but get this: it doesn't cost a cent. In this model it's an informal barter economy where you may have a skill and you register your talents in a talent bank. So Mr. Simard is fantastic at perhaps accounting programs, and I register my need and my skill--so literacy doesn't have a stigma any more in this talent pool--and I may want to learn accounting programs. So this coordination is set up where he will teach me that skill; I will learn from him, but in return I may be able to help someone with another skill that I have. So it's an informal barter economy approach. It's catching on in Europe, and they are having an international conference at Edinburgh in June.

    Another approach is the certified literate communities approach. The Governor of Georgia looked around at the economically depressed areas in his state and said they had to have a long-term approach that brings more people to the table.

    There's a report written on the first Canadian pilot of that approach--David Sherwood's report, From Spark to Sustained Heat, which is posted on the National Adult Literacy Database. Your researchers could have a look at that. It's in French and English.

    We piloted it in Manitoba in a town called Beausejour. We tried to do it in one year. It's going to take a long-term effect, but the Beausejour Chamber of Commerce now is owning this. We have an organizational chart that has I think fourteen members at the table who are owning the issue. We have health care, we have the mayor, we have the town council saying yes, if somebody is going to set up business in our little town, we want to have a lifelong plan for learning, because we know we need a mature worker strategy.

    So there are these international models that I would encourage you to look at that are more long term.

    Ms. Libby Davies: And in terms of the federal or government-directed services vis-à-vis community-based, in terms of where money should go, do you have any comments on that?

    Ms. Marg Rose: I think that through the National Literacy Secretariat you can get that expertise and advice, because they know what's working.

    Ms. Libby Davies: No, I'm asking you for your opinion about if there were an expanded program, where do you think the emphasis should be?

    Ms. Marg Rose: Speaking from our perspective, given the demographics in Manitoba, I think we have to look at expanding into the aboriginal community more, because it's a jurisdictional nightmare. The ball gets tossed around the court, saying provincial, federal, and so on. So I think we have to broker agreements with those first nations.

    We have a literacy atlas that looks at the places where the literacy levels are high, and the top 22 of the 25 communities with people who have more than half their population in the adult population with literacy problems are first nations. So in Manitoba, that would be a priority.

    I don't know about you.

    Ms. Cate Sills: I think there needs to be sustained investment at the community level, and whether that's the aboriginal community, whether it's families, whether it's persons with disabilities, seniors, I think it's hard to zero in on one group, but I think the communities with the right kinds of support through....

    Our work around community development and community capacity-building has taken us quite a while. We've been working at it for six or seven years. Over the past two years we're starting to see some real results and real ownership.

    Communities are deciding where they want to put their energies, whether that's family literacy, supports for adults with literacy needs, and so on, and I think setting up a process that supports this notion of capacity at the community level, that supports some ownership around this issue, is really critical to any kind of investment.

º  (1630)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Could I ask Jean one question?

    The Chair: I'm sorry, you'll have to wait until we can get to the second round.

    Ms. Libby Davies: It was just about--

    The Chair: Mr. Simard.

    Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Welcome to our guests. A lot of my questions, actually, have been addressed to a certain extent, so you might be hearing some of the same things, but I may want to delve a little bit deeper.

    With regard to a national strategy, we keep talking about that, and to some extent this scares me, because normally when governments do that, they have a one-size-fits-all policy, and that's very dangerous. What will work in downtown Toronto may not work in Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, that type of thing.

    I've obviously heard here that different regions have different challenges, obviously. For instance, I believe it was it in the Northwest Territories, where the towns are farther apart and all that, and you have multilingual problems or challenges there.

    The national strategy is probably a good idea, but how do you see the different regions and provinces playing a role maybe in the organizational chart? Do you see the National Literacy Secretariat heading this thing, and then provincial representatives? And have you thought of a national strategy with regional and local strategies? Because they're all going to be different, and what happens at one end of the country might be totally different from what's going to happen at the other end.

    Mme Cate Sills: From my perspective, the National Literacy Secretariat sounds like it's the best-kept secret in government. They have been very effective in building the kinds of partnerships and capacity at the regional and local level, and provincial and territorial level, to move literacy out. So I think you already have the bones of a delivery system. Their mandate needs to be expanded, it needs to be better resourced, and I think they have the ability to move this forward. I also think they need to have some support to work interdepartmentally as well to move this whole notion of integration throughout government forward.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: You also have different strengths. I've noticed by the conversations here that, for instance, Elaine spoke about a very successful family literacy program and the multilingual talents over there. Have you identified that across the country in terms of whether we could go in there and capture these strengths from different provinces and not reinvent them?

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: We came up with the idea of a manual for literacy and parenting skills. We didn't even get the manual published for mainstream learners before we were approached by first nations people who said they need this too. Then before we went another month, we got a phone call from francophone organizations that said they would like to work in combined literacy and parenting. Then we've been approached by people with disabilities, who would like it for people who are developmentally delayed who are parents. So you're running behind all the time.

    But we have the expertise. We've figured out how to partner with the francophone community, how to partner with the first nations people. We now have programs for English as a second language as well. We'd love to have that go national. We'd love for other people to learn from our experience, who want to, who have an idea. That's why we're saying NLS's mandate should be expanded, because right now they're allowed to fund short-term innovative projects, but if you're a short-term innovative project who becomes successful, and you have interests nationally, then what happens? Do you let people go out and reinvent the wheel and create another family literacy program that looks like yours, but call it something different?

    Mr. Raymond Simard: It's already done.

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: Yes. It's here, use it.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: Marg, you spoke of the technology. That really caught my ear, because I always thought that to bring a person from a level one or level two or level three would take a lot of very intensive, one-on-one education. I didn't think you could do this through the Internet or through distance education. Am I wrong? Is there a lot that can be done through distance education?

º  (1635)  

    Ms. Marg Rose: That's what the AlphaRoute study is showing. We wondered, can you really take a person functioning at a low skill level and expect them to function independently, and so on? But there are cyber-tutors, and there are other levels of support. We can't keep expecting people to step forward into programs. There are so many bricks-and-mortar limits to what you can deliver, so I think we have to look more into this.

    That's why the National Adult Literacy Database is our common depository. And places like AlphaPlus in Ontario, which houses a lot of the innovative programming, need to be also available to more people. AlphaPlus has thousands and thousands of resources, but it's basically for the country of Ontario. So those of us outside would like to be able to access some of that, but they have to serve their own communities first, of course.

    There are things like this TV show, which we produced with no government money, except the lotteries indirectly. I know the NLS is very interested in looking at perhaps taking this nationally, but it's moving its money around the table and it's limited. So we're getting calls, because this is broadcast on a satellite channel, it is going to communities across the country, and we put a call to action into the show--this is a DVD version--saying “Would you like to learn more? Phone the Learn Line.”

    The Learn Line is a project that is organized by ABC Canada. I know you heard from Christine Featherstone earlier. So you see how we all interconnect? They worry about the promotion in the media. We answer the Learn Line and link people to the programs. So in effect, we are all coordinated together, serving a specific part of the pie.

    Ms. Cate Sills: One thing I would like to add, though, about technology is that I think we always have to keep in mind access. Not everybody has equal access to computer technology, broad band, and all those kinds of things, which is really essential to making that work.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: I have one last question. We spoke about Birmingham. I was just wondering if there was one country that could serve as an example of having a good program? Why would we reinvent stuff? There must be something out there that already works. Which country would it be?

    Ms. Marg Rose: Sweden. They're smart.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: Thank you.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: There are ways we can work with cities like Birmingham and not reinvent the wheel but take lessons from their cross-sector, cross-age approach to raising literacy and numeracy.

    Sweden is held to be the perfect place, but I think there are other countries and examples of program models that we need to look at. In the U.S., they fund family literacy from the federal government. The federal government has a four-component, comprehensive model for its definition of family literacy. With the efforts of the National Centre for Family Literacy in Kentucky, they've been able to take this approach and to move it out throughout the whole country.

    I would say that there are programs closer to home, which we could be and are looking at. The Canucks Family Education Centre is actually an adaptation of the National Centre for Family Literacy's comprehensive program.

    Sweden is great, but the U.S. is okay—especially in this instance, as is the U.K. So I think there are other models that are closer to what we're doing.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Goldring, you're on a second round.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: Thank you very much.

    [Inaudible—Editor]... Is StatsCan going to look at the statistics for this? I would think this is a natural statistic that StatsCan should run every ten years, or periodically.

    We can all recognize the benefits of putting more into literacy and helping people, but I am concerned that we really have to have some way of gauging success and how much progress we are making. For example, StatsCan recently started to collect statistics on the homeless. They did it by age category, so they've broken it down into four or five different categories, and they come up to the.... Maybe they examine or use this, but we need something we can use nationally so that we can gauge responses and success too.

    Who'd like to take this question?

    Ms. Marg Rose: I believe you had a briefing from StatsCan, but the international literacy survey was written and brokered by Canada, and done with industrialized nations around the world, in 1995. So we have a baseline of figures for Canada, which you're reading off. Then there was another round in 2002, so those results will be coming out soon, but—

º  (1640)  

    Mr. Peter Goldring: Can we not do our own?

    Ms. Marg Rose: They were done in Canada.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: They were done by StatsCan?

    Ms. Marg Rose: Yes, in Canada. In 1995, 5,600 Canadians were tested, which is enough of a sample to give us some national numbers.

    While Manitoba didn't buy a sample in the original round, the Manitoba government said in 2002, “Come in and test our people, because only 200 were tested in 1995”. Well, that's not enough, so a larger sample of the literacy test was purchased in Manitoba in 2002.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: Can we get some information on the methodology and particulars of the testing? In particular, I would like to see one of the tests to see how it is formed, how they are asking the questions, and what's involved in it.

    Ms. Marg Rose: It is copyrighted, because people could otherwise cheat, but there are excerpts of the test.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: Trust me.

    Ms. Marg Rose: The Literacy, Economy and Society report and the Reading Canada's Future report, which is available on the website, have excerpts of the kinds of questions asked. For example, a level-one question might be a locator test that says “On this briefing sheet, who was speaking at three o'clock?” This is one type of question. A level-two question might be “How much time will it be until Mr. Goldring speaks?” So you have to have two levels, thinking and subtracting.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: I'd really like to see that to get an idea on how in-depth it was.

    I think your comment on the number of people who were tested is very important: 5,000 is hardly an in-depth study of literacy levels in Canadian society.

    As I only have four minutes left, I'll go on to the second part of my question, revolving around getting an understanding that education and many things are a provincial responsibility under the Constitution. Perhaps it should flow more that way, with some federal oversight. In each province, is there an organization or provincial body under the provincial governtment that actually collects together the various interested groups, like school boards, libraries, industry, new Canadians, pre-school children, and all of these, which has oversight of this right now?

    Ms. Marg Rose: That's basically the role the coalitions play.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: Would that not make sense to do part of what you would like, federal involvement but provincial oversight on it, if the province were to put in a provincial coordinator of those efforts so that there would be some cohesiveness in the approach to it?

    I'm looking at the booklets here. I keep referring and realize this is one group--this is the Alberta one--but there is very little in here on the industrial approach.

    I think it's well recognized that the literacy level at the industrial level for technology is very, very important too, as well as, certainly, with the children and all levels. But are we pulling all factors together so that there's an appropriate appropriation of funding that will be sufficient for all levels on an equal basis?

    Ms. Marg Rose: There is a literacy secretariat sort of person in every province. In B.C., it's half a person. In Saskatchewan, it's half a person. In Alberta, it was one. In Manitoba, there are four--four full-time equivalent people in our adult learning and literacy department. But they fund the program delivery, they evaluate, they train them. So they don't really have the time with four people to also coordinate all the other players. They're busy enough evaluating and being accountable for the dollars they put out.

    In our office, as a coalition, we take on the broader mandate of public awareness and bringing people to the table. We have two full-time people and three contractors. We'd love to do more.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: I suppose this is the point, and when we look at it from a federal aspect, we would certainly hope that everything would be coordinated adequately. As I said...[Inaudible—Editor]...what the main goals are and seeing that the literacy testing here seems to be involving the adults--and those are the numbers that are being used, and they are disturbing numbers at a high percentage--roughly 40% of our population has difficulty reading a newspaper. That is very disturbing. So you certainly want to include all areas of the population on an equitable basis, and then hopefully, by having StatsCan or an official body do some monitoring, we can tell whether, at the end of the day and ten years of funding, we are doing well or we are not doing well enough.

    Maybe we should put more in it, but without a yardstick to show what we have done it is very difficult to sit back and objectively say let's just write a larger cheque. It's very difficult for us to make that type of--

º  (1645)  

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: You've just made the case for a pan-Canadian strategy.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: A provincially monitored pan-Canadian--

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: Yes, that's it. We can go home now.

    Ms. Marg Rose: If it's only provincial, I do believe you get that duplication. That's why the pan-Canadian coordination....

    I'm glad to hear you call for coordination, because some people view that as another layer. But definitely when you can coordinate and we can hear of events happening in other provinces and build that same success and learn from those lessons, it's more efficient.

    Mr. Peter Goldring: Like health care, as somebody had mentioned.

    An hon. member: Yes, very much.

    The Chair: Mr. Bellemare.

[Translation]

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa—Orléans, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Ladies,

[English]

you're a breath of fresh air--hands-on people. Perfect.

    I'm pleased there are locales other than Sweden. In my mind, Sweden is a small place--northern, homogeneous.

    Canada is the largest country. It's larger than Russia. It used to be smaller than the U.S.S.R., but today, in geography, it's larger. We have a multiplicity of languages. Amongst the multiplicity of languages, we have two languages. And of course we have provincial and territorial governments that look at the feds as the money bag that's coming in like a tyrant, taking over or pushing over their authority. At least in some provinces, that's how they feel. They see us as money bags--we should just give them money and shut up.

    Should we be focusing in this committee, for example, on coping-with-life programs--life skills, basic education, upgrading to be able to read or count at a level one or two, possibly, hopefully level three? That would be a wish list, a family cycle. Or should we orient ourselves, federally speaking, to productivity first, as opposed to coping with life?

    That's what you've been doing--coping with life, trying to get people to get out of their misery, learning how to read and count and do basic things. Some people would say at the federal level, really, labour is a big deal--and money. We're looking at productivity and technology at the manufacturing level. For example, in diamond mines, you can educate the people--upgrade them constantly as they work--to be more productive within the factory, the manufacturing plant, or the mining, digging process.

    I'm talking about productivity, as opposed to coping and life skills, which include all the above--reading and so on. What is it we should focus on? Or should we not focus, but look at both?

    Madame Rasmussen.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: How can we be productive as citizens in this country if we do not have good coping skills, strong literacy skills, all of that? I think they go hand in hand.

    For me, it's not an either-or situation. That's what the stats are telling us. That's what we know, as people working in this field for 20-some-odd years. We need both. We can't be productive as a country if our workers don't have strong literacy skills, and literacy skills for life. So I would say it's not either-or.

    Ms. Cate Sills: I think, from the experience we're starting to see in the north with some of the larger industries, they've recognized as employers that they can't focus just on productivity issues. They need to ensure their employees have the life-skill supports, the counselling supports--if they need them--to address themselves as whole people, as workers are.

    Workers are not just about productivity. They're also parents, they're voters, they're community members. I think employers who go down the workplace literacy path recognize that you need to support the whole person, not just the bottom line, productivity piece.

º  (1650)  

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: If I can add to that, we are not going to become a society where reading gets easier. Technology is going to become more advanced. The demands for literacy skills are going to become more pronounced. If you think about a number of years ago, even just learning how to operate a computer, and now we have computers, cell phones, and fax machines, that all requires literacy. I need to know how to turn on my computer. I need to know what it's telling me to do, even though they've made them as simple as possible.

    I think as a society, if we want to be productive, we're going to recognize the demands on us for literacy skills are not going to decrease, they're probably going to increase.

    Ms. Marg Rose: I would like just to remind us, on what is the role of government, workplace-related programs also focus on increasing the bottom line, because it's profitable for them, but is government not in the role of evening out the playing field? Entry-level jobs are shrinking. If we just focus on the productivity angle, I think we'll miss. And also parents... We'll miss seniors, who cost us because of the health-related impacts.

    We're not just in the business of human capital as government. That's also the corporate interest, and they do need to be at the table--and you'll hear more from them later.

    I know Palliser Furniture, one of the award-winning companies in our province, has a workplace literacy program, and they don't just teach the documents on the job; they teach about literacy in your family.

[Translation]

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Thank you very much.

    Ms. Marg Rose: You're welcome.

[English]

    Ms. Libby Davies: I have a couple of questions, to follow up, one specifically about B.C., and then a general one for everybody.

    I think, Marg, you said the Province of Manitoba was spending $1.3 million, and you were receiving $600,000 through the NLS.

    For B.C., I think you said $900,000 federally. What is the province contributing? Do you happen to know off the top of your head?

    Maybe if you're looking, I'll just raise the other question. That is, I noticed it was mentioned that in one of the boards, I think the B.C. one, Literacy B.C., you have four learners. I would assume that, as a model, it's pretty important that learners be involved in various levels, in terms of program feedback and program design. Is that widely done and accepted everywhere, or is it a bit patchy? Is that something we actually really need to pay attention to, that learners are not necessarily involved in the process?

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: We all work to involve learners wherever we can. For example, on our Literacy Alberta board we have two learners, and I'm happy to report that in the last Literacy Alberta election we had--I can't remember the numbers exactly--10 or 12 students who ran for those two positions. So we do that. We have 80 learners who are members of our organization, and we're working to increase that.

    Your point is excellent. We need to listen to learners, and all of us have various ways of doing that.

    Ms. Marg Rose: We have a learners speaker bureau, and as Elaine said, usually they would be here with me. Whenever I go somewhere, I take a learner with me, because I can talk statistics until your eyes glaze over--and I have more, if you want more--but it's the learners' stories that make other people listen and that speak to other potential learners.

    Ms. Libby Davies: I find, in many service areas, it's something that can actually be overlooked, though. So it's something that has to be very systematic and always has to be paid attention to, in terms of being accountable in where those services are going.

    I'm very glad to hear that you actually do that a lot. That's good.

    Ms. Marg Rose: It is a challenge, because literacy is linked to low income, so these people are also very transient.

    We don't want to institutionalize them. Just because you're a learner once, doesn't mean you're a learner forever. Just like if I were a cancer survivor, does that mean that's all I am? So we have to watch out.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Does that become your identity? Yes.

    Ms. Cate Sills: That's certainly how it plays out in NWT. We don't have learners on our board, but a lot of the people who are delivering programs are, I guess, depending on how you define “learner”.... They struggle with low literacy, and their parents do. So they're participating in the process.

    Ms. Libby Davies: So they all participate; maybe that's a better word.

    Ms. Cate Sills: Yes, they participate in the process, very much so. Or they sit on our board, not as a learner necessarily, but as somebody who may have some literacy challenges.

    Ms. Marg Rose: There's also the Learners Advisory Network, the movement for Canadian literacy. It's a national group, so there's a representative from every province who advises the national body.

º  (1655)  

    Ms. Libby Davies: Okay.

    Were you able to come up with a figure?

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: It's $700,000.

    Ms. Libby Davies: So we're pretty low.

    When I heard Manitoba was at $1.3 million, I was just curious to know where B.C. was at.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: We need more money.

    Ms. Libby Davies: So it's less than the federal...?

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: It's less than the federal.... It's through the cost-shared dollars. I have Audrey Thomas' statement here, so it's $700,000, and in terms of a request for projects, there are 36 projects that the Ministry of Advanced Education would deal with specifically. So that would be the--

    Ms. Libby Davies: Have you had cutbacks in the literacy programs from the provincial level?

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: We haven't had increases, let's put it that way. We've had an increase in terms of a desire and need for dollars. There hasn't been a cutback specifically.

    As we were talking about earlier, in terms of “core funding” coming to coalitions, it hasn't changed in ten years. The money we got ten years ago to do the work we're doing now, from a core grants perspective, is the same. What we've been able to do with those dollars is really quite incredible.

    The Chair: Just as a follow-up to some of the questions you were asking, the National Literacy Secretariat has provided each of us with these...and the funding amounts are actually in them, Libby. I think you can go through them. I would also recommend that you go through the other very large document the Library of Parliament provided us. Mr. Goldring, on some of the questions you were asking, I think you'll find information in here as well. So it's a little homework for all of us.

    Before I give Mr. Simard the final question, Mr. Bellemare was asking about companies that engaged in workplace literacy. On April 3 we'll actually have a number of companies who have some best practices they're prepared to share with us. I know you'll be anxious to attend that one.

    Mr. Simard.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I have just two short questions. On practitioner training, it is my impression that a lot of people who work in this field are volunteers. I'm just curious to know what percentage of these people are properly trained to do this.

    Secondly, one thing we've learned in the last little while is there are a lot of organizations working in this field, whether we like it or not, because the demand is there. If we ever put a national strategy in place, do you see a streamlining of all of these organizations? Do you see a lot fewer of your organizations being around, or do you see your organizations being there working maybe in harmony with everybody else?

    Ms. Marg Rose: Can I just start with that? You'll be proud to know that Manitoba leads the country in many ways, but we do have articulated levels of training. There's a level one, 15-hour course for people who are just interested in teaching adults. There's a level two, with short-term courses on, for example, how to motivate people and how to teach a multi-level class. There is a level three, which is almost like a second-year university course.

    The trouble is, who recognizes that training? It's just the field itself. We've done a study funded by the NLS called the “Millennium Project”. The average wage for a teacher in literacy is $12 to $15 an hour. With a teacher shortage, trained teachers are of course flocking to the adult learning centres and classrooms.

    In Manitoba it's not a volunteer-driven field. Volunteers do jobs like sit on the community-based boards, drive, and do some tutoring. But there are paid people, and they are so passionate and dedicated to staying in the field. There's a huge succession crisis going on right now, where people who have come to the field out of their passion are now at the age when they're looking to exit. It's a big concern.

    Maybe other people could talk about the training.

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: I think you've raised a very important issue. We actually certify volunteer tutors, and we'd love to have a stamp of some kind. We're actually looking at that right now. We're looking at what Manitoba has done, because they have done excellent stuff and we can learn from them.

    It is very true what Marg says. We have very dedicated volunteers, but they don't have the background we would love them to have in education and working with low-literate students.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: In B.C. we have a number of programs through the universities, one through the University College of Fraser Valley and one through the University of Victoria. But most people who are volunteering in this field get 20 or 30 hours of training from the local organization they're going to work with, and it's not enough.

»  (1700)  

    Ms. Marg Rose: I would encourage you to ask that question to the Nova Scotia representatives, if they come, because they've done a prior learning assessment project within NLS funding. We sound like we're getting paid off here, but that's where the expertise is brokered. They are looking at helping people in the field get credits toward bachelor of education degrees, I believe.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: Good. Thank you.

    The Chair: I want to thank each of you for coming to appear before us today.

    It's obvious when you talk about NLS that you are more than happy with the work they are doing. If I hear one consistent thread, it's that they just don't have the dollars required. I also hear that you believe they are the appropriate delivery mechanism and vehicle, and you're happy to continue working through them.

    I'll give each of you an opportunity to suggest to the committee how much more funding you think NLS should have, to assist you and your communities in doing the kinds of jobs you're undertaking. Marg, we'll start with you.

    Ms. Marg Rose: Oh, my goodness.

    The Chair: Somebody said double.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: It's $28 million currently.

    Ms. Marg Rose: We did an on-site analysis looking at fact-based decision-making just for our coalition alone, and we're working at almost three times the capacity of what we're funded for. But I would think that's a question that would require a lot more study than what I could just toss out at this point.

    The Chair: Then let me go this way. For every dollar we put into the NLS, how many dollars come back? For one program you were talking one to seven. Should we realistically be looking at one to four, that one dollar would create four or five?

    Ms. Marg Rose: I guess it depends, in my point of view, if we see education as a sound investment or if it's something that has to bear a significant return. Even one to two is a pretty good return in this market.

    Again, I think it's fair to look at the fact that voluntary organizations, if they're going to have to generate return on investment, will need more support in accountability measures. A lot of the groups that get this funding have volunteer treasurers. We can't expect more accountability without providing more professional support as well.

    Ms. Cate Sills: I don't know if I can just pull a figure out. I think doubling it is probably not enough. I think it bears some consideration, but doubling would be a good place to start.

    Ms. Elaine Cairns: My short answer was I would give the NLS anything they want. But as I said in my speech, we spend less than one dollar per person in Canada.

    The Chair: After reviewing your submissions, they might feel they could get a whole lot more than they did before you got here, because you certainly have been very clear in your support for them.

    Jean.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: I was going to say lots more.

    I think it depends on what we want the NLS to do. If it is to take this pan-Canadian strategy and run with it in cooperation with the federal government and provincial and territorial governments, it would need a significant amount of money to do that. How much? I don't know. It would depend on what the expectations would be.

    The Chair: And I guess also it depends on whether we expanded its authority and its ability to fund more than just the short-term projects.

    Ms. Jean Rasmussen: Yes.

    Ms. Marg Rose: Also, if there could be more of an integrated focus, for example, an NLS approach to work with the health department or the justice department--we're funded by the population and public health branch for that health study, for example--then literacy would become everybody's business and it wouldn't have to all be centred out of that one secretariat. I know they're very interested in that, but again, they need a human body or two to do that work.

    The Chair: There's always the approach that perhaps Health Canada could give some money to the NLS and do it that way, maybe redistributing rather than having all new dollars.

    I thank you all again.

    The meeting is adjourned.