Canada's Conservative government is axing a $14.5 million program — administered by Telefilm — which fosters the creation of internet content and its distribution, according to a report by the Globe and Mail.

The story, published Saturday, says the Canadian New Media Fund has been cancelled.

The move comes in the wake of a series of cuts by the Tories to several arts programs this summer.

Only last week, the government had announced it would slash the following programs because they were deemed out of date:

• Trade Routes ($9 million).
• the A-V Preservation Trust ($300,000).
• the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund ($1.5 million).
• the National Training Schools Program ($2.5 million).
• PromArt ($4.7 million).

All programs will disappear by the end of March 2009.

Arts communities have been outraged by the cuts and say they are hoping for announcements of new programs soon.

Canadian Heritage Minister Josée Verner has not indicated whether the programs will be replaced. Rather, she has stated that they needed to be updated.

Raja Khanna, a co-CEO of GlassBOX Television, says the cut has dealt a hard blow to Canada's interactive media industry.

"We have no idea what's going on," Khanna told the newspaper.

GlassBOX captured a Gemini Award and other international trophies for Degrassi.tv, an online community website. The company also created the acclaimed website of Discovery Channel's Race to Mars series.