Dear Colleagues,

As some of you are aware, there has recently been a major development
concerning the 2002-2003 CAIN grants. The Department of Canadian
Heritage has decided to decrease the amount of CAIN funding which it
committed to last fall. The CCA informed each member council that it
must cut 20% from 2002-2003 CAIN funding. CCA has passed the
responsibilty for the cuts on to each provincial board or council.

As members of the IDC, I am asking for your input on how we should
handle the situation. There are several avenues we could pursue, such as
having all institutions take a 20% cut across the board, or revisiting
the ranking of the applications and eliminate the lowest ranked projects
until we come up with the necessary funds.

The AAO President and myself have contacted all institutions awarded a
CAIN grant to determine whether they would volunteer a cut to their
project funding. If we do not get the required funds voluntarily, than
the Board must take some form of action to get the required funds.
Whatever strategy we adopt, this is certainly a lose-lose situation.

Once I have received the IDC members' opinions, I will bring them
forward for a vote. I will then pass the decision of the IDC on to the
Board for their consideration.

We hope to have the situation resolved by the end of this week, so I
will need your thoughts by Wednesday. I thank you all in advance for
your time and consideration of the matter.

Yours truly,

Paul Leatherdale
Chair, AAO-IDC



Paul Leatherdale
Archivist
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario   M5H 2N6
phone: (416)947-3320; fax: (416)644-4884