My year as President of the CAP is winding down, but the pace of the CAP’s activities is most definitely not following suit! You will soon be seeing many of the fruits of our communications labours of recent months, some of which are described elsewhere in this Bulletin. The Congress is taking shape, and we certainly hope and expect those in attendance will be amply satisfied with the experience. This will include the Herzberg Lecture given by Nobel Laureate Art McDonald, a familiar name to many of us even before October 2015.
On an overcast Saturday afternoon last month, I participated in the Montreal March for Science held on Earth Day (under weather conditions rather different from Vice-President Stephen Pistorius’ march, described below). An estimated 1000 participants took part in the March, which culminated in a set of inspiring speeches which highlighted not only the importance of science for technology (the smart phone being one example mentioned), health and other applications, but also just the importance of science for the sake of understanding the world around us.
The message was all the more urgent given the current political climate in the US, with (to mention just one example) an Environmental Protection Agency headed by a man who previously was a very outspoken, downright hostile critic of the Agency he now heads. I saw several CAP members in the crowd, including (see photo) former CAP President Louis Marchildon of the Université du Québec, Trois-Rivières and Charles Gale of McGill University, who is this year’s recipient of the CAP-TRIUMF Vogt Medal for Contributions in Subatomic Physics.
I hope to see many of you at Queen’s University at the end of the month!
The above is just a sampling of our recent activities and developments. I invite you to read the entire Bulletin to learn more. If you wish to get involved in the CAP in any way, your help would be appreciated; please contact me or the CAP office at cap@uottawa.ca.