One of the recommendations of the Report is:

that Adult Basic Education be regarded as an integrated system which can aid in the amelioration of provincial problems in such areas as unemployment and social welfare.7

Similarly, a discussion paper on adult education prepared for the Ministry of Colleges and Universities and the Ministry of Education of the Province of Ontario by a team of researchers (which included an adult educator) suggests that the correlation between undereducation and conditions like poverty, low income and need for social assistance is a causal one. 8 It argues that a high rate of economic return is possible from public investments in adult basic education opportunities. It points to a Washington, D.C. adult basic education program which claimed to have returned to taxpayers benefits totalling three times the cost of training for the 1400 participants. These benefits were said to have been realized in the form of foregone welfare benefits, unclaimed unemployment insurance benefits and increased tax payments resulting from employment of the participants. 9 The Ontario paper fails to cite or explain the far more pertinent, and pessimistic, conclusions concerning the cost-benefit analyses of academic upgrading under the Canada Manpower Training Program and the manpower and adult basic education programs under the U.S. War on Poverty. Like the British Columbia report, the Ontario discussion paper uncritically supports the liberal perspective, and ignores contrary evidence.

Another report,, this one prepared for the Government of Canada, relies on the liberal perspective in arguing for increased opportunities for literacy education for employed workers. The 1979 "Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Educational Leave and Productivity", also referred to as the Adams Report, was prepared for Labour Canada.10 It states that illiteracy prevents individuals from being "productive members of society",11 and likens illiteracy to the problem of alcoholism in its destructive effects. 12 It argues:

Adult illiterates cannot operate effectively in society. They are disproportionately poor. unemployed, accident prone and a drain on the public purse.13

A one-day public conference to consider the report was convened in Toronto in 1980, and was attended by representatives of business and industry, labour unions and educational institutions. At the meeting, the report was officially endorsed by officers of the Movement for Canadian Literacy, a national organization with provincial and local affiliates, dedicated in part to the development of new literacy opportunities for Canadian adults. 14