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President’s Perspective: Your New President and the Year Ahead By Stephen Wilson, P.Geo. APGO President
The start of a new cycle is usually an interesting time and the changes on Council ensures that this is always the case for APGO at this time of year. We have some new Councillors, some veteran Councillors in new roles and inevitably we say goodbye to some of our previous friends and colleagues. In particular, I would like to recognize the contribution of Steven Usher, P.Eng, P. Geo., who left Council after his term as Past President ended in early June. Steve had been on every Council since the beginning of the Association, and has attended an astonishing 61 of 64 Council meetings since 2000. Add to this his work as long time chair of the registration committee, co-chair of the Environmental Geoscience Subcommittee and a member of numerous other committees, including Executive for the past three years, and you have a level of effort that is unlikely to be duplicated. All geoscientists in Ontario owe Steve a debt of thanks, and I will miss his voice on Council. Now I would like to provide a brief summary of my background, my involvement with the APGO and what I would like to see Council and the Association accomplish in 2009-2010. I am currently a Senior Hydrogeologist and Associate with Golder Associates Ottawa office. I obtained my P.Geo. in April 2002. Prior to the proclamation of the Professional Geoscientists Act in 2000 and the formation of the APGO, I was a member of the Association of Geoscientists of Ontario and closely followed the efforts of that organization to bring the profession into the regulatory sphere in Ontario. I became a part of the first elected Council as the South East |
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Regional Councillor after I asked Ollie Bonham (the Executive Director & Registrar at the time) what I thought was an innocent question about the upcoming initial election of Council. Shortly thereafter, I got a call from APGO President Bill Pearson encouraging me to stand for election. I had previously never considered something like this, but it sounded interesting and different, so I agreed to stand. I have served on all elected Councils since that time, five years as the South East representative and the past year as Vice-President. I have been a member of the Environmental Geoscience Subcommittee since joining Council and have chaired the Enforcement and Compliance Committee since 2003. I am also currently a member of the Governance and Executive Committees. Finally, it is a fact of life that self-regulated professions like the APGO rely heavily on volunteers, not only on Council, but to serve on the numerous committees that do much of the policy work of the Association. This is the time of year when Council and Executive look at the makeup of these committees and seek out new members. If you are at all interested in assisting with Committee work, please contact either myself or the Executive Director & Registrar, Andrea Waldie. Enjoy your summer. |
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Enforcement & Compliance Protecting the Public by Ensuring that all Practicing Geoscientists are Licensed By Andrea Waldie, P.Geo. Executive Director & Registrar, APGO The mandate of the APGO is to protect the public and the environment by ensuring that all those who practice professional geoscience in Ontario, that is those who apply geoscience knowledge and principles, are licensed professional geoscientists with APGO. Licensing requires that the individual has met the knowledge and experience standards, continues to remain current through continuing professional development, and is subject to a legislated complaints and discipline process. If individuals are practicing professional geoscience without being registered, the public, the environment and the reputation of geoscientists themselves are not adequately protected. Many individuals have recognized the necessity and legal obligation of professional registration and have already gone through the process, met the requirements, and have been granted a license. Nevertheless, there are still individuals who continue to practice who have not yet applied for licensure. For many it is a misunderstanding. Some believe that one only needs to register if signing reports; or that only one individual at a company needs to register in order to oversee others; or that because they are members in another Canadian jurisdiction or an AusIMM member that registration with APGO is not necessary. Others who are new to Ontario are not even aware that geoscience is a regulated profession in Ontario. There are also those who have just decided not to do what they are legally obligated to do; apply to register as a professional geoscientist. Without the review of a geoscientist’s credentials which are held to a published standard; without a geoscientist being held to a legislated complaints and discipline process; the public, the environment and the reputation of the profession of geoscience are not adequately protected. View complete article |
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1. The CGEN website has moved to 
2. Winners for the national WHERE Challenge were announced on April 22, 2009 Earth Day. For new CGEN members, this student contest was part of Canada's International Year of Planet Earth celebration. Check out the winning entries at: 
3. The Canwest News Service ran an interesting article about William Logan, the founder of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in 1842, and a fossil trackway that he discovered in Quebec in 1851. Long thought to have been lost, contemporary GSC scientist Robert McNaughton has tracked it down and fit it into recent fossil discoveries
4. Please find attached CCPG press release announcing publication of the Geoscience Knowledge and Experience Requirements for Professional Registration In Canada document, in colour booklet format. Booklets are available in both English and French, in both hard and soft copies. We will be sending each CA, each director and each CGSB member by mail on April 22, 2009 hard copy examples for their information. Each CAs will also be receiving a boxed shipment of printed booklets for association use. Soft copy is posted on the CCPG website with direct link to the document appearing on 4 different web page locations
5. Canadian miners will need at least 60 000 new employees in next 10 years By Liezel Hill TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Despite the heavy job cuts implemented by Canadian miners in response to the financial crisis and low commodity prices, the industry is still facing a big shortfall in skilled labour over the next decade, according to the Mining Industry Human Resources Council. 
1. a)BBC News - Sunday, 24 May 2009 - Dynamite sticks and gem stones By Martin Patience Panjshir valley, Afghanistan.
Hundreds work in the gloom, enduring poor air quality. 
2. Thursday, 23 April 2009 - Rome wants G8 talks in quake town. Many buildings in L'Aquila were destroyed by the earthquake. Italy's cabinet has backed plans by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to move this summer's G8 summit to the earthquake-struck town of L'Aquila - Other G8 member states would need to back the move. Italy had previously planned to hold the 8-10 July summit on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. An earthquake on 6 April devastated L'Aquila and the surrounding area, leaving 295 people dead and at least 50,000 homeless. The decision to back the summit move was made at a cabinet meeting held in L'Aquila. Military school - Mr Berlusconi said that the 220m euros (£197m) that would have been required for security and infrastructure in La Maddalena, Sardinia, would be better spent on post-earthquake reconstruction. He said he did not think that anti-globalisation protesters would have what he called the wish or the heart to stage violent demonstrations in an area so badly damaged by an earthquake. 
3. BBC News - Tuesday, 26 May 2009 - Space rock yields carbon bounty By Jennifer Carpenter. Formic acid, a molecule implicated in the origins of life, has been found at record levels on a meteorite that fell into a Canadian lake in 2000. Cold temperatures on Tagish Lake prevented the volatile chemical from dissipating quickly. An analysis showed four times more formic acid in the fragments than has been recorded on previous meteorites. The researchers told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union that the formic acid was extraterrestrial. Formic acid is one of a group of compounds dubbed "organics", because they are rich in carbon. 
4. Environmental Protection Agency News Brief: New Fugitive Added to EPA Fugitives Web Site - (Washington, D.C. – April 2, 2009) EPA has added Albania Deleon, former president of Massachusetts’ largest asbestos removal training school, to its fugitives Web site. Deleon failed to appear for her sentencing on March 23 at the Federal District Court, District of Massachusetts, and a warrant has been issued for her arrest. Last November, a federal jury convicted Deleon, a resident of Andover, Mass., of selling certificates from Environmental Compliance Training of Metheun, Mass., to hundreds of undocumented immigrants who had not taken the mandatory training course. The individuals who purchased the training certificates without the training filed them with the Massachusetts Division of Occupational Safety so they could work in the asbestos removal industry. Hundreds of these individuals were sent to asbestos demolition sites in Massachusetts and other New England states. 
