However, Treasury Board President John Baird, who announced the cuts, suggested that his government would rather spend more money teaching children how to read and write than try to help illiterate adults.

"I think if we're spending $20 million and we have one out of seven folks in the country that are functionally illiterate, we've got to fix the ground floor problem and not be trying to do repair work after the fact," Baird said as he handed out newspapers alongside Harper.

"We're obviously not doing something right if one out of seven has some reading challenge."

It's time, though, for Laureen Harper to have a chat with her husband about reversing the cuts, said Liberal critic Scott Brison.

"It's probably a good idea that Laureen go home today and have a good talk with Stephen Harper about why he doesn't support adult literacy programs," Brison said.

"It's possible that these cuts . . occurred without thinking them through," he added.

"There's still an opportunity to reverse those cuts and I would urge him to do the right thing."

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