Alan C. Middleton

This fall, ABC CANADA Literacy Foundation launched a new public-service announcement TV campaign called “Dark Secrets.” The campaign uses humor to underline a very serious fact: that many people whose lives would be enriched and improved by help with reading, writing or math keep their need under wraps like a shameful secret. A lot of people with low literacy skills just don’t want to talk about it with family, friends and co-workers.

Perhaps this is not so shocking. People are often reluctant to talk about what they themselves perceive — rightly or wrongly — to be weaknesses or shortfalls. That’s part of the frailty of human nature. What is shocking — and truly shameful, even — is that in our technologically advanced society, we continue to have so many literacy-challenged citizens who feel this way about themselves. Consider that 22% of Canadians have serious problems dealing with printed materials, and another 24% can cope only with simple reading tasks. Consider that almost a quarter of young Canadians who graduate from high school have difficulties with reading and writing except at a basic level. Consider, too, that more than 40% of Canadians have so much difficulty with numbers that even such everyday tasks as balancing a chequebook or calculating a tip are difficult. That we have, in 2004/2005, such a large number of literacy- and numeracy-challenged citizens is not only a major social issue, it is an ethical affront.

For those of us in the business community, this situation is also a serious challenge since literacy and numeracy levels have a demonstrable impact on the performance of our economy, our industries and our individual companies. This summer, Statistics Canada released an important international study that showed the direct correlation between literacy and numeracy skills and economic growth and productivity. Among other things, the study shows that investment in human capital, for education and skills training, is more important for economic growth over the long term than investment in physical capital. It shows that higher literacy translates into higher productivity and per capita GDP. And it also shows the reverse: that not investing in adults with low-level literacy skills exerts a negative influence on economic growth. This study is one of the best arguments I have seen to show that addressing literacy issues is not only an ethical responsibility of business, it is a business imperative.

This issue of Canadian CEO, like the first, tells the stories of companies large and small that have made a major contribution to the cause of literacy in Canada. In an important way, these stories are business parables. By the example of others, they show how you can do something to address a pervasive problem in Canada, something that at the same time can only be good for your business. As you will read in these pages, Syncrude Canada was a pioneer in implementing workplace-education programs, and the company still puts a premium on them. “Being first is not what drove us to put the program in place,” says Syncrude CEO Charles Ruigrok. “We did it because we identified a business need.”

Alan C. Middleton
Schulich School of Business, York University
Chair, ABC CANADA Literacy Foundation