A Statistics Canada study provides a startling picture of where we might expect to find people with low literacy skills. The study suggests there are some groups in Canada that have a much higher proportion of barely literate people.33
The following chart shows how widespread literacy problems are. It also indicates which of a tribunal’s clients might, at first glance, be suspected of having reading problems. The chart shows what we have already learned—that 98 per cent of those with less than a grade 8 education have low reading skills.
33. Statistics Canada, et al., Reading the Future, as referred to in Issues and Challenges in Communicating with Less Literate Canadians, Canada Information Office, June 2000, p. 2.