Declaration of the International Year of Literacy in 1990 by the General Assembly of the United Nations served as the impetus for the literacy thrust by placing worldwide emphasis on literacy issues and improving literacy skills. September 8^th was established as International Literacy Day and is now celebrated annually. Canada joined other nations in a concerted effort to not only recognize, but also to promote literacy as a basic human right. Concerns about levels of literacy skills were brought to the limelight and in the ensuing period of the 1990s the public took a much greater interest in literacy.

An unprecedented amount of federal government funding was channeled into literacy research and the creation of a variety of pilot projects and new initiatives across the nation. For example, in 1993, the National Literacy Secretariat (NLS)² commissioned a policy paper on Literacy Initiatives in Canadian Municipalities (Nutter, 1993). This was followed in 1994, by the NLS's approval of a proposal from the Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators for a two year project to build commitments to workforce literacy in Canadian municipal governments (Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators, 2004).

Growing interest in literacy was also reflected in the media; popular Canadian family magazines, such as Canadian Living, which had only given passing attention to the topic of literacy, began featuring a series of articles on literacy topics. This consumer magazine, along with other Canadian magazines such as TV Guide, Macleans, Chatelaine and l'Actualité, made a commitment to donate advertising space to promote literacy awareness (Brown, 1999). Likewise, the Canadian Community Newspapers Association and the Canadian Cable Television Association began to show their support of the literacy cause by printing and broadcasting information on literacy as a public awareness service (National Adult Literacy Database, 2003).