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In 2003 the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) was conducted in the following countries: Canada, Bermuda, Italy, Mexico (Nuevo Leon), Norway, Switzerland, and the United States. It was a large-scale co-operative initiative coordinated by Statistics Canada and Education Testing Service, in collaboration with several national and multi-lateral agencies. The study built upon the International Adult Literacy Study (IALS), which included data collection of adults' literacy skills from 1994 through 1998. This study uses data from ALL to examine the literacy skills of Canadian youth. It focuses on three sets of research questions: (1) What is the level of performance in prose, document, numeracy and problem-solving literacy among Canadian youth, aged 16-25? What is the correlation among these competencies at the individual level? (2) What are the factors that explain the variation in literacy skills of Canadian youth? Is there a difference for those of high school age (16-19) compared to those of postsecondary education age (20-25)? Are the rates similar or higher among youth who are still at school compared to those who are working? What is the role of a person's own education and parental educational attainment? What factors are associated with literacy performance for low income youth? (3) To what extent do the effects of demographic characteristics vary among provinces and territories? The next section presents a brief literature review relevant to these questions. This section is followed by four sections, which respectively address each of the questions above. A discussion of the sample used for the study is presented at the beginning of the third section and details of the analytic techniques are presented in each section. The paper concludes with a summary of the findings and discussion of their implications for social policy.