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OTTAWA - A Canadian-led international forum, which specializes in the workings of federal states, will lose almost half its annual budget after the Conservative government decided not to renew its funding.
A spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon says the current six-year funding arrangement with the Forum of Federations will not be renewed when it expires in March.
The decade-old forum has won international recognition for its work in helping build and promote federal governance models to deal with issues such as linguistic division and the sharing of resource revenues.
It received $3.7 million from Ottawa in 2009-10 on a total budget of $8.1 million and has collected $36.7 million in total from Canadian taxpayers since 1999.
"The most recent funding agreement, signed under the previous Liberal government in 2005, was clear that the forum would need to diversify its funding base over time and that the government of Canada would not be capable of providing funding indefinitely," Cannon spokeswoman Melissa Lantsman said in an email Monday to The Canadian Press.
"Consistent with expectations," Lantsman wrote, the Harper government "will not be renewing our financial contributions to the Forum of Federations after the current arrangement concludes in March 2011."
She added that "Canada continues to support the forum's mission and objectives and views the forum as a partner in several ongoing projects."
George Anderson, the group's president, says his understanding is that Canada will remain a partner country in the forum, meaning it will pay the minimum fee of $50,000 annually.
He also has oral, but not written, assurances that roughly $2 million frozen in past surplus accounts can be used by the Ottawa-based forum to support its operations for the next two years.
"Core money is different from development assistance money, in that it goes straight into our core operations, so we're going to have to make some major adjustments here in terms of our office," Anderson said in an interview.
The forum now includes nine federal states, including Canada, Germany, India, Brazil and Nigeria.
Former Swiss president Dr. Arnold Koller was the past chairman of a board that includes former chief of defence staff John de Chastelain and former prime minister Kim Campbell.
The newest member is Ken Boessenkool, a longtime confidant of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was elected to the board this fall just in time for the forum's funding cut.
Opposition MP Paul Dewar is crying foul, saying the Harper government appears to be undermining another democracy-building institution after dramatically shaking up the board at Montreal-based Rights and Democracy over the last year.
"It's a pattern we've seen with these guys," Dewar said in an interview from Winnipeg.
"Are they going to support democracy-building abroad? If they're going to cut off the Forum of Federations and they're undermining Rights and Democracy and the work they are doing, what are they going to replace it with?"
According to its most recent annual report, the "highest profile issues for the forum's program in North America this past year were environmental assessment, public security and how to manage and share oil-and-gas resources in federal countries."
Anderson says his group should survive for at least the next two years, as long as other partner countries don't bail out. He's in talks with some member states to seek increased funding.
"We've prepared a business plan based on what we think is the new Canadian funding arrangement," said Anderson.
"One lives with hope that we can demonstrate the value of the organization for the longer haul."
Great, now Harper just needs to do that about 13750 times ($3.7 million into our $55 billion deficit).
If his government can find one similar program per day from now on, the deficit will be gone in ONLY 37 short years!
![[cheer]](./images/smilies/icon_cheers.gif "Cheer")
That's why I think it would be easier to make a few major cuts, but that usually costs votes. But hey, that's just me I guess...
CKA Uber 
