In 2013/14, the Ministry of Advanced Education invested $1.9 billion in operating funding for the post-secondary education system, up from $1.4 billion in 2001. This direct investment resulted in $5.2 billion in annual expenses at British Columbia's (B.C.'s) public post-secondary institutions to provide high quality education to over 430,000…

Everyone under the age of 20 who has grown up in North America has lived in the common market created by NAFTA--the North American Free Trade Agreement. In a zone linking the United States, Canada, and Mexico, most goods and investments flow freely across borders to users, consumers, and investors. In 1994, NAFTA created the largest relatively…

The Training Centre Infrastructure Fund (TCIF) was initially announced in Budget 2004 and represented an immediate measure of the broader Workplace Skills Strategy. TCIF was a three-year $25 million pilot project, designed to address the growing need for union-employer training centres to replace aging equipment and simulators that were not up to…

In this article, the authors describe a group of committed people called the Our Kids Network in the Regional Municipality of Halton, in Ontario, Canada, which was given the opportunity to create a positive, future-oriented vision for the children in their community, and detail how it is making its vision for children a reality. The Halton Our…

The Learning Initiatives Program (LIP), formerly the Learning Initiatives Fund (LIF), is a contribution program which was established in 1994 to encourage and support initiatives that contribute to the development of a results-oriented, accessible, relevant and accountable learning system in Canada. Through this program, Human Resources and Skills…

The Office of Learning Technologies (OLT) was launched by Human Resources Canada (HRDC) in 1996 as part of an education and training strategy for adult learners. It was established with an annual budget of $6 million. As a contributions program, the OLT encourages and supports initiatives of various public and private sector partners to expand…

The National Literacy Secretariat (NLS) is a grants and contributions initiative established in 1987. The NLS has two objectives: (1) To increase opportunities and take-up, so that people improve their reading and writing skills; and (2) To work towards making Canada's social, economic and political life more accessible to those with weak literacy…