It is impossible to total the figures on enrollments and expenditures that are available, because so much data is absent, and so much of what is available clearly consists of over- or under-estimates. It seems, however, plausible to conjecture that in 1989-90, total provincial and territorial expenditures on literacy programming (0-8 equivalent or distinctive "literacy" programs) could not have exceeded $125 million.¹³⁶ Total enrollments could not have exceeded 100,000. Even such a generous enrollment estimate means that only about 3% of the 3.4 million with fewer than nine years of schooling, or about 3.5% of the 2.8 million at reading levels 1 and 2 in the Statistics Canada survey, are participating in programs. (These figures are consistent with specific provincial estimates that have been made). In a slightly different light, 100,000 literacy program enrollments would roughly equal the estimated annual number of secondary school drop outs.

If literacy programs do not serve all they might, are they at least secure? Pessimists might even doubt whether current programming increases are here to stay. Literacy advocates generally know that multi-year core funding of programs is essential to allow them to consolidate and expand their work, and that project funding is also crucial to enable developmental activities to be undertaken. But they also know that, historically, programs have often been underfunded or sporadically funded. Temporary funding, and grants restricted to "innovative projects" are a perennial problem. Practitioners in many contexts spend time on fund-raising that should be spent on the work itself; practitioners learn to do their jobs only to see their funding disappear; programs disappear by the time that learners decide to enter them, or begin to make progress.

Even with recent programming expansion and policy development, most mandates for literacy work are stated only in plans, policies and strategies; these have some weight in committing governments to act, and in at least two provinces they describe literacy as a right. However, these commitments are not as deeply entrenched as they would be if stated in legislative or judicial definitions of adults' right to basic education. Only Québec has legislation giving adults the right to complete elementary and secondary schooling (administratively, Québec establishes a learner entitlement to 2,000 hours of literacy instruction). In all other provinces and territories, school legislation limits the right to education to children and adolescents. A right to literacy could also be judicially decided, perhaps as an age equity issue under the Charter of Rights. The Canadian Alliance for Literacy has discussed raising a legal challenge, but no action beyond a survey of provincial legislation has been taken.¹³⁷