On Thursday, January 27th United Way of London & Middlesex, in partnership with the London Chamber of Commerce and the Child and Youth Network, held an event called the Economics of Literacy, featuring a presentation by Craig Alexander, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist TD Bank Group.

GenNext was there to provide the following live tweets of the presentation. The following is the stream of tweets from Craig Alexander's presentation. The tweeter, Jeff Preston, apologies for any typoes.

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Things are about to get started #eol http://moby.to/1f9hk1 
27 Jan

Craig Alexander, chief economist of TD Bank is taking the stage#eol
27 Jan  

Craig is going to talk today about research done on the state of literacy of Canada #eol
27 Jan  

He was startled to find out that both adults and youth had difficulty with literacy and numeracy #eol
27 Jan  

People do not understand the state of literacy in Canada: we think you either can read or you can't. But it's a spectrum of proficiency#eol
27 Jan  

5 in 10 adults don't have the literacy skills to get jobs, a foundation for all learning #eol
27 Jan  

We are doing good at youth literacy in Canada, comparative to other countries but 40% of youth don't hit the desired level #eol
27 Jan  

Weak literacy skills are linked to poverty #eol
27 Jan  

Only 17% have "Strong literacy" while 2-in-10 have poor and 3-in-10 have weak literacy skills #eol
27 Jan  

People with strong literacy take them for granted and people in the weak category don't recognize that they need to invest in this area#eol
27 Jan  

If they did invest they would have a higher standard of living #eol
27 Jan 

60% of Immigrants don't have strong English or French literacy skills #eol
27 Jan  

Canada is doing a remarkably bad job integrating new comers #eol
27 Jan  

Once the Baby boomers move out of the work force, the population growth will slow and immigrants will make up a huge part of our growth #eol
27 Jan  

By 2020, more than half of Toronto and Vancouver will be immigrants #eol
27 Jan  

New comers are earning 2/3 of what Canadians would earn #eol
27 Jan  

Currently, there is no hope of closing this gap if we do nothing #eol
27 Jan  

Consider how hard it is to get work with a high school diploma -- immigrants with BA, unemployment is higher than those people #eol
27 Jan  

An immigrant with a BA makes $27k less than Canadians with equivalent education #eol
27 Jan  

In 2000, 35% of new comers experience poverty in Canada #eol
27 Jan  

Some argue this is only true for refugees--not true #eol
27 Jan  

Economy is likely losing $3.4-5 billion due to this #eol
27 Jan  

Immigrants say the biggest problem is people won't recognize language, 2nd is language #eol
27 Jan  

Imagine how important language is to communicate your skills in an interview #eol
27 Jan  

Some studies believe language is responsible for 2/3 of gap in employment, others say 1/3. Alexander doesn't care which--we must act #eol
27 Jan  

Literacy is what you build all your other skills. The stronger your literacy skills, the more liking you are to so post-secondary #eol
27 Jan  

Why the problem? #eol http://twitpic.com/3tutxf
27 Jan  

If you have poor skills you are earning $20k per annum, with strong you are earning $42k #eol
27 Jan  

The single best ROI is your investment in education #eol
27 Jan  

Lack of productivity is also a HUGE problem in Canada, this is about increasing your income #eol
27 Jan  

Why are we better now post WW2? Because of productivity growth, but now it's slowing dramatically #eol
27 Jan 

We're only 70% as productive as Americans. The only way to fix this is with more skilled workers #eol
27 Jan  

More skills needed #eol http://twitpic.com/3tuvk1
27 Jan  

We can't compete with China on labour-intensive wage jobs, so we need to shift to high skill, technical jobs #eol
27 Jan  

Manufacturing will come back as the baby boomers go, but not as much #eol
27 Jan  

Benefits of higher literacy? #eol http://twitpic.com/3tuw93
27 Jan  

In other words, there is huge economic payoff to increased literacy in Canada #eol
27 Jan  

Craig has trouble finding presentations in front of businesses on literacy -- they're not immediately interested #eol
27 Jan  

Craig uses these points to sell the "product" of literacy to businesses #eol http://twitpic.com/3tux9f
27 Jan  

Businesses are worried to train and have employees leave -- Craig asks "What if you don't train them and they stay??" #eol
27 Jan  

If you look back all the way to the 70s, we really haven't seen any improvement in literacy #eol
27 Jan  

Having said that, if you remove the new comers, you WOULD see a rise but that doesn't matter--what matters is who is here right now #eol
27 Jan  

Politicians don't lead, they follow. If you want change you must lead the charge #eol
27 Jan  

And that completes Craig Alexander's formal presentation on the Economics of Literacy #eol
27 Jan