Rumours have been flying over the state of BC’s Forest Science Program. Research grant funding was supposed to have been announced March 20th. However no news has come forward formally.
PriceWaterhouseCooper staff had this to say March 30th (PwC administers the FSP reserach program):
There’s been a delay in sending notifications out to Full Proposal proponents for 20009/10 Call for Proposals, since we (PwC) had not been advised by the government about final project approval and the program budget for the next fiscal year. The notifications will be sent out to all proponents as soon as we receive the information from the government.
Sources close to the government administrators say that FIA-FSP has received word from the Province that its budgets are severely reduced for next year, across all fronts. This includes all committees, all advisory groups, all working groups, and all chairs. All these functions will now be handled internally, within the Province, until the economic climate improves. Effectively, that means these programs ceases to exist as of tomorrow midnight (March 31, 2009).
Sources suggest that discussions will be held in the near future to determine how the functions each committee & chair held will be carried out. There is, however, no idea who will be invited to these discussions.
It would seem that ten years after the Liberal government axed and transforemed Forest Renewal BC into a an industry led program that they have finally decidd to hand the entire program over to industry directly and to remove all aspects that do not meet industry demands. I hope that this dire prediction is not correct. However only time will tell.