President’s Message Spring/Summer 2019

I would like to begin my President’s Message by thanking the organizing committees for the CAA and the Association des Archéologues du Québec (AAQ) who hosted a memorable conference in Quebec City. The CAA held its first Ethics Bowl this year. It was a great success, with a nail-biting finish that saw Team Memorial edging out Team Trent for the trophy. The event was well-attended and will clearly require a larger venue next year.

We are moving west to Edmonton for the 2020 annual CAA conference, which will be co-hosted with the Archaeological Society of Alberta at the Sutton Place Hotel from May 6–9. Kisha Supernant is chairing the organizing committee and preparations are well underway. The conference theme is “Where Communities Meet”, which identifies Edmonton as a meeting place for different peoples and nations over time. Presenters are encouraged to “think about how communities form, move, and interact in the past and present”. Our annual meeting will be moving east again in the following year to Membertou, Nova Scotia. It will be hosted by the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs at the Membertou Trade and Convention Centre and the adjacent Hampton Inn from April 28 to May 1, 2021. These are both exciting venues to look forward to.

I would like to acknowledge and thank Gary Warrick for his four years of service on the CAA Board of Directors. His position on the Board is now filled by Lisa Hodgetts, who is the newly elected President-Elect. She will formally replace me as President after my President’s address at next year’s Annual General Meeting. Jennifer Campbell is continuing as Vice-President, Joanne Braaten as Secretary-Treasurer, Cheryl Takahashi as webmaster, and John Creese as editor of the Canadian Journal of Archaeology. John will be assisted by Frédéric Dussault. As Associate Editor, Fred will be vetting documents submitted to the CJA in French and the French abstracts submitted by English authors. We are expecting CJA issue 43(1) to appear this summer, and the papers for our first online issue should begin the review process this summer as well.

The Board has taken several new initiatives over the last six months. In April, we responded to a serious incident at this year’s SAA conference in Albuquerque by establishing a temporary committee to review the current CAA policy on professional conduct and safety at our annual meetings. We also worked with the organizers of the Quebec conference to develop a strategy for members safety at this year’s meeting, which was posted on the CAA website and in the conference calendar. The new committee will be reporting to our standing committee on ethics, which will make a recommendation to the CAA Board of Directors. Their recommendation on this issue and suggested changes to our current statements of ethical conduct will be sent out to members for review before our next AGM in Edmonton. The CAA Board is also working on a re-structuring of our current standing committees, which deal with advocacy, ethics, membership and student affairs. We are developing a new page on our website that will list each committee, its members, their terms of office and the committee mandate. In addition, we will form a working group to establish a new protocol for CAA social media. At the next Board meeting in November we will also be reviewing and updating the current CAA five-year strategic plan.

The Canadian archaeology community lost a long-time advocate this spring when James A. Tuck passed away. Jim was the first professional archaeologist hired in Newfoundland and Labrador and he was largely responsible for building the archaeology program at Memorial University. He was also a former President of the CAA and CJA editor, and the 2009 recipient of the Smith-Wintemberg Award. He will be greatly missed.

I hope that everyone has a productive summer and fall. As always, if you have any concerns I can be reached at my CAA email address (president@canadianarchaeology.com).

Sincerely,
Michael Deal