Waterloo gets $60-million Centre for International Governance Innovation

Financing arrangements have been completed for the creation of the Waterloo ON-based Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). On February 10, CIGI received and converted shares in Research in Motion Ltd (RIM) worth $30 million from two of its principals, triggering a matching federal grant.

The RIM shares were donated February 10 by Jim Balsillie, chairman and co-CEO, and Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO. The shares were then sold as per the terms of the federal funding agreement. The endowment will generate an annual operating budget of approximately $3.5 million, which will eventually be boosted by funds from other sources.

The major tasks now facing CIGI are the creation of an international board of governors and relocation to a permanent home. In the first year, three program themes will be established which will be further refined by the board of governors:

• financial governance — new modes of corporate governance, tax policy, deregulation of finance service markets;

• economic governance — multilateral and regional trade liberalization, diplomacy of competitiveness, governance of international economic institutions (Bretton Woods, World Trade Organization), new forms of public-private cooperation;

• multilateral governance — globalization of policy networks, communication and information exchange, and the interface between values and production and economic and security concerns.

CIGI has a start-up staff of four including executive director John English, professor of international relations and international affairs at the Univ of Waterloo. A final business plan should be posted on CIGI’s website by the end of the month.

The City of Waterloo has donated the former Seagram’s Museum Building, valued at $2.5 million. The old Seagram’s factory will also be used to display Seagram artifacts, pieces from the John Pollock Collection and an affiliation with the National Science and Technology Museum. There will also be space for Project Ploughshares, a research-conducting, non-governmental organization and ecumenical peace centre of the Canadian Council of Churches.

R$