Editor’s Message, May 2025

Greetings! The Bulletin’s editorial board went through a bit of a transition at the beginning of the year, so the January edition didn’t make it into your inbox. That makes this our first issue of 2025! It’s now well past the new year: the year of the snake has been celebrated, talks of tariffs have preoccupied our lives enough, and hopefully everyone has had a great, productive year so far. As I write this, we are preparing for the annual CRPA conference. Indeed, this is the conference edition of the Bulletin!

First, let me introduce, or reintroduce, myself. For those of you who don’t know me, I have been part of CRPA for over 20 years. I have worn many hats, including sitting on the board as a director as well as CRPA president, and I am currently the board secretary. I have also been involved in many of our association committees, including the Communications Committee, which is where the seedlings of ideas and plans for CRPA communications get planted. (Yes, it’s May; gardening season is also here!)

The Bulletin has been one of the association’s main communication superhighways for decades, and I must give credit to the editors that have carried the Bulletin from its inception to the current state. Our most recent chief editor, Dave Niven, did an incredible job over the past seven years, as he migrated the printed publication over to the online format, allowing even more flexibility for content generation and presentation, as well as timelines for publication. We are forever indebted to Dave for all his years of service to the Bulletin and the association as a whole. We wish him well in his future endeavours, and we hope that he continues to contribute regular updates to the Bulletin from his international communication liaising work.

I am looking forward to working alongside our Bulletin team and learning from Grant and Alicia, as well as our production manager, Michelle. My goal is to continue the trajectory of the Bulletin as a platform for sharing information among our members, as well as hopefully see some of the yet-dormant plans from the Communications Committee blossom into some great information resources and communication tools.

I also want to welcome any interested members of the association to join the Communications Committee, especially those with an enthusiasm and passion for communication and marketing. So, reach out anytime by emailing our secretariat.

Moving along (just like the Hamilton Street Railway!). This edition of the Bulletin mirrors the theme of our conference, which is being held in Hamilton, ON. Hamilton, a port city in Lake Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe region, embedded along the Niagara Escarpment, is known for its industrial heritage. Although Hamilton’s local economy is led by the steel and heavy manufacturing industries (yes, burning fire and smoke), Hamilton is also home to other sectors, like health sciences and tourism. Hamilton has beautiful conservation areas, gardens, waterfalls, rivers, and trails.

Hamilton is also home to several great post-secondary institutions and, arguably, one of the best health physics programs in Canada. McMaster University, which has been a huge supporter of CRPA for many years, is also the home of Canada’s only university research reactor. As McMaster’s campus is the venue for CRPA’s conference this, the conference theme—“Forging the Future”—is an homage to both the industrial heritage of Hamilton and the health physics foundations laid by our McMaster alumni.

The conference envisions bringing like-minded radiation protection professionals together to discuss the themes affecting radiation protection today and in the foreseeable future. Therefore, the theme for this issue of the Bulletin is “Forging a Connection.” We hope the editorial content within these pages will resonate with those who recall reading some of our staple columns, such as the Health Physics Corner and the report from our Provincial Territorial Radiation Protection Committee, and ignite some interest in new topics that are affecting our daily lives, like recent changes around safeguard legislation, what’s emanating around radon, and much more.

This is my first edition as (interim) chief editor, so I wholeheartedly wish you happy reading. I hope those attending our annual conference have a very entertaining, memorable, and enriching experience. And, yes, and perhaps belatedly, I want to wish you a prosperous, healthy, and joyous 2025!