Pt 1: Literacy in Canada - At the risk of oversimplifying, it's pretty hard to come up with a better case for literacy than the one made by Dr. Seuss. "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."

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Pt 2: Mail - We looked at some listener mail, with the help of this week's Friday host Linden MacIntyre. For more on our interview with Douglas Feith, we were joined from London, England by British lawyer and author Philippe Sands, who wrote The Torture Team.

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Pt 3: Buying Farmland - All over the world, the value of good, arable land is on the rise, thanks to a growing global population, the development of biofuels and the increasing cost of food.

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Today's guest host is Lynden MacIntyre.


Satire

It's Thursday, June 12th.

A senior Conservative staff member resigned yesterday after admitting that he too dated Julie Couillard and shared sensitive information with her.

Currently, At this rate, the Liberals will be electable in 2028.

This is The Current.

Literacy in Canada


Canadian Council on Learning

At the risk of oversimplifying, it's pretty hard to come up with a better case for literacy than the one made by Dr. Seuss. "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."

But according to a report released on June 12, 2008 by the Canadian Council on Learning, nearly half of all Canadians have low literacy skills. And the consequences -- on the economy, employment, social harmony and the places Canadians may go -- could be profound.

Dr. Paul Cappon is the President and CEO of the Canadian Council on Learning and he joined us from Ottawa.


Reaction

Low literacy can make life challenging in many ways. Anna Acosta has had difficulty with reading and writing for most of her life. She began studying to improve her skills at the Toronto Center for Community Learning and Development and she joined us in Toronto. And to look at some of the options for adults who struggle with low levels of literacy, we were joined in Toronto by Margaret Eaton, President of the ABC CANADA Literacy Foundation, an organization that advocates for adult literacy programs in the private-sector.


Listen to Part One:

 

Mail

We looked at some listener mail, with the help of this week's Friday host Linden MacIntyre. For more on our interview with Douglas Feith, we were joined from London, England by British lawyer and author Philippe Sands, who wrote The Torture Team. And as part of our coverage on the detention of Bashir Makhtal, we were joined from Brussels by Leslie Lefkow, one of the authors of a new report that looks at the government's record in the Ogaden, where its forces are carrying out a counterinsurgency campaign against the Ogaden National Liberation Front.


Listen to Part Two:

 

Buying Farmland

Financial Writer

All over the world, the value of good, arable land is on the rise, thanks to a growing global population, the development of biofuels and the increasing cost of food.

And that's created a frenzy of interest. Private investment companies, pension funds and even national governments are buying up agricultural land all over the world because they believe it's one of the hottest commodities going.

You might therefore think it would be a good time to be a farmer. But for Ravinder Cheema, it's more complicated than that. Back in 1993, his family bought about 20 acres of farmland in Abbotsford, British Columbia. It cost them about $250,000, a mere fraction of what it was valued by 2008.

Across Canada, many farmers are finding themselves grappling with similar problems. Roy Hjelte, a senior appraiser with Farm Credit Canada -- a crown corporation that tracks the value of farmland across Canada -- shared his thoughts with us.

The rising value of farmland is a global phenomenon. And farmers aren't the only ones taking note of it. Diana Henriques has been following the phenomenon. She's the New York Times' Senior Financial Writer and she joined us from New York City.

Role in Food Shortages

Investors are gravitating to farmland looking for good returns. But Gary Blumenthal says they might just help solve the global food crisis. He is the President and CEO of an agricultural consulting firm called World Perspectives and he's in Washington.


Status of Family Farms

Not everyone is as optimistic about big farms run by large, private companies. Joining us from Kingston, Ontario was Tom Pawlick, the author of The End of Food: How the Food Industry is Destroying Our Food Supply And What You Can Do About It. His latest project is a book about the challenges faced by small family farms.

Last Word - Literacy Poem

Poor literacy can make life challenging in many different ways, but the full impact of it is hard to imagine if, like many people, you take literacy for granted. We therefore closed this episode with a poem about living with poor literacy. It's by Barbara Adler, a spoken word artist in Vancouver and it's called "Florence."

Listen to Part Three: