The Harper government’s decision to cut funding to the Canadian Council on Learning comes at a critical time in the nation’s economic recovery when we should be investing more, not less, in education, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and Human Resources and Skills Development Critic Mike Savage said today.
“The CCL was created because Canadians were falling behind the rest of the world in areas critical to maintain a competitive edge – innovation, creativity, skills development and basic learning,” said Mr. Ignatieff. “We saw we had some serious catching up to do, and the CCL was making some great strides in this regard.
“Making this kind of cut at this time is ridiculously short-sighted. This government is putting our country’s future prosperity at risk,” he said.
The CCL was established in 2004 by the previous Liberal government with a five-year $85-million grant to promote lifelong learning. In 2009, the Conservatives provided no further funding. CCL’s present funding agreement ends March 31.
“According to the CCL, almost half of all Canadians have low literacy skills,” said Mr. Savage. “That’s an incredibly high number of people who don’t have full command of literacy and numeracy. That’s a problem that we as a society must address, particularly during a time of fragile economic recovery.
“This is the worst possible time to cut investment in learning. And the fact that they do this when the House is shut down is particularly egregious, since they’re not even here to be accountable for such an important decision.”
