President’s Newsletter Summer 2021!

Welcome to our New Normal, or is it?

Many of us believed we would be back to some sort or normalcy by mid summer, turns out it is far from what most of us envisioned. Raging fires shutting down train, plane, and vehicle traffic. Supply chain chaos coast-to-coast, security threats hampering the flow of goods into Canada.  Astronomical freight rates for shipping containers from Europe and Asia pushing up the cost and availability of goods and materials. Sanity needs to prevail at some point before our fragile supply chain snaps!  In conversation with many of our members, the supply chain issues along with spiraling upward costs are at the forefront. Labour shortages run a very close second. Let us hope our countries leadership starts to pay closer attention to the needs of our businesses.  We have the platform to ensure they do in September!

Stephanie McCallum and her Regulatory group have been very busy working with various levels of government on our behalf. Recent reply to her hard work below from the Science and Technology Branch Environment and Climate Change Canada / Government of Canada:

“Thank you for sharing your comments on the Notice of intent to address PFAS as a class. Your comments will be considered as this work moves forward. Please note that the Government of Canada is in the early stages of exploring considerations for the PFAS class approach”.

The CASF Board is doing what we can to assist our membership and the good news is that our membership is growing. We are up 25% in 2021. Mr. Bob Smith and his committee are doing an excellent job of soliciting diverse organizations to become part of our community. We know, we are stronger together!

The Communications Team, led by Mike Kuntz has completed both the logo redesign and redesign of our website on time and under budget. We hope you have made time to visit the new site and explore it’s new features, including the membership directory, recruitment board and online payment options.  Additionally, we have launched a new LinkedIn page that showcases the members alphabetically. We hope you will take ten minutes out of your day to explore our new site and the new LinkedIn page. You will be impressed.

Brigitte Roth of Acclaims Environmental and CASF board member for a number of years, has agreed to step into the role of Secretary on our Executive Team. We are grateful to have her skill set and look forward to working more closely together.

Paola Battiston, our Education Chair, continues to move forward with her committee preparing the on-line electroplating course offering, scheduled for later fall. More news to come in September on registrations.

Our prize laden “CASF Golf Tournament” is a go for Tuesday, September 21^st. We are looking forward to finally getting together as a group, it has been far too long. There are still a few spots open for either singles or foursomes. If you cannot make if for the tournament then perhaps, you are interested in joining us for dinner.  You can register via our website. Thank you to all our sponsors and contributors.  Stewart and Bob have worked very hard to put this all together for us this year.

Wishing everyone continued good health. Enjoy the rest of your summer. Looking forward to seeing as many as possible on the links September 21st.

Best Regards,
Graham

Graham Douglas, President
The Canadian Association for Surface Finishing