While the federal Conservatives deny a recent report that they have made up their minds to eliminate the $14.5-million Canada New Media Fund, they do confirm the possibility the fund will run its course come March 31, 2009.

In response to an Aug. 30 article in The Globe and Mail, Dominic Gosselin, Heritage Minister Josée Verner’s press secretary, says it is merely ‘speculation’ the fund will be cut.

‘We didn’t say ‘no,’ we didn’t say ‘yes.’ It’s in evaluation at the department,’ says Gosselin.

The Canada New Media Fund, administered by Telefilm Canada, provides support for the creation and distribution of interactive digital media. Gosselin says the CNMF is a ‘sunset’ program – created for a specific purpose in a specific period of time. He says the Tories renewed the program in 2007 because it had not yet fulfilled all its mandates and objectives.

‘From the beginning, this was not a program that was supposed to exist until doomsday,’ he explains. ‘Like any other sunset program, it will be re-evaluated and then decided if it will be renewed or not.’

Rumors of the program’s demise have sent the industry – already reeling from recent Tory cuts to cultural programs – into a frenzy. There is now fear for the future of the Canadian Television Fund, which has also yet to be renewed by Heritage.

‘It’s disheartening,’ says Andra Sheffer, executive director of the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, of the possibility of the CNMF being cancelled. The Bell fund is a major private backer of interactive content that complements TV shows.

‘Between [the CNMF] and the Bell fund, it’s the only way that anything has been funded in this country for the last few years in this area of new media,’ Sheffer continues. ‘It [would leave] us alone as the major funder…I don’t know where producers [would] find the other money.’

A Telefilm spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.

The Tories last month confirmed plans to stop annual contributions of $300,000 to the A-V Preservation Trust, $1.5 million to the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, $2.5 million to the National Training Schools Program, $9 million to Trade Routes and $4.7 million to PromArt as of March 31, 2009.

Gosselin insists the future of the CNMF has nothing to do with the elimination of those other cultural programs.

‘No, it’s not linked to [other] cuts in culture,’ Gosselin says. ‘Some people at Telefilm have been told the program may end in 2009. We hope it will be renewed, but we don’t have the final signature on the paper.’