The most important lesson that can be gleaned from the data sources is that partnership development and sustainability is possible when a funding agency understands the work of the stakeholder organizations and becomes an equal partner in the process. When project work that stems from a partnership is regularly supported, a capacity for networking is established and this can spread across the country.
Over the three periods of time, changes have occurred in the program. Toward the end of the development and demonstration years (1996-2000), there was a subversion of literacy for an essential skills agenda. There was also a loss of momentum on the workplace literacy issue as provincial training agreements with HRSDC were being prepared and signed. In the period of program change (2001-2006), with its introduction of the tier system for project submissions, innovation was defined more rigidly and the concern regarding lack of information flow about policy change from the NLS heightened.