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If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Sir Isaac Newton, 1676

We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.

Bernard of Chartres (John of Salisbury, 1159)

Like any successful Society, that CFAS did not arise spontaneously, fully grown and effective.  Rather, it has been built progressively by successive generations of its members.  Since attending my first CFAS meeting in September 1984, I have been privileged to witness almost half of the Society's evolution.  The CFAS thrived as assisted conception treatment spread across Canada, expanding everyone's horizons with the possibilities of treating ever more types of infertility.  In those days we met as a single group with no parallel sessions, and with a strong focus on social interaction.  CFAS was already strongly multidisciplinary, with clinicians, both basic research and applied scientists, and some pioneer fertility nurses attending the meetings and presenting their work.  CFAS members were strongly vocal during the Baird Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies (10/1989 - 11/1993), and work also started on the voluntary self-regulation of ART in Canada in 1990, entirely driven by CFAS members.

After spending most of the 1990s in Sydney (Australia), I was keen to re-engage with CFAS and, at the 2000 Annual Meeting in St John's, I found an active, but perhaps more clinically-focussed Society.  My first Board Meeting after being elected as the Western Provinces Director in November 2001 turned out to be a truly landmark meeting:  Art Leader's proposal creating the framework for Special Interest Groups within the CFAS was discussed;  John Jarrell reported that the development phase of the Accreditation Committee's work had been completed, and that it was now up to CCHSA to develop the formal Standards;  and a proposal, moved by Matt Gysler, that IVF clinics should fund a national ART Registry using a capitation model was approved.

This brief foray into the Society's relatively recent history illustrates how the CFAS we are all proud to be members of today is the product of efforts invested by numerous foresighted members: the initiatives mentioned above are now key elements of our multidisciplinary society.  Our SIGs - now 11 of them - illustrate the diverse nature of our membership; the CFAS truly represents the interests of the various groups of professionals who work in reproductive biomedicine and biomedical research.  It is through the SIGs that our membership has grown, and will continue to grow; recognizing the diversity, as well as professional status, of all our members gives CFAS strength - just as Canada as a nation is strengthened by its multicultural diversity.

Through the same time period our Society has enjoyed unwavering generous support from its industry partners, for which we are deeply grateful.  In recent years our Industry Liaison Committee has invested a lot of effort in expanding the Exhibition at our Annual Meeting so that, as we meet in larger venues with more space to accommodate exhibitors, we are now able to build relationships with an increasingly broad spectrum of welcome industry partners.

The Assisted Human Reproduction Act (the "AHR Act", or "Bill C-6" as-was) received Royal Assent on 29 March 2004, and Health Canada's Assisted Human Reproduction Implementation Office ("AHRIO") has been working drafting regulations ever since.  Throughout this long process many CFAS members have generously given their time to participate in numerous consultations, site visits, and to act as advisors either on various panels or to individual AHRIO policy analysts and regulatory officers.  Based on feedback, we know that such input has helped create more practical and less onerous draft regulations.  Publication of the draft regulations is delayed awaiting the resolution in the Supreme Court of Canada on the constitutionality of parts of the AHR Act following the"Quebec Challenge".  Only once the entire process of public review, revision and formal publication in the Canada Gazette Part II has been completed will the Federal Agency Assisted Human Reproduction Canada ("AHRC") be able to implement the regulations.  One estimate suggests that, assuming the "Quebec Challenge" ultimately fails, the earliest we might see regulations in force could be Q1 of 2011.

In the meantime, CFAS continues to work cooperatively and constructively with both AHRIO and AHRC, and CFAS participates with AHRC and SOGC in the "Tripartite Committee".  Our clinical Presidents are supported in this latter task by representatives from the ART Lab SIG, Nursing SIG, Counselling SIG, and the IVF Medical Directors Group.  This committee works together to ensure that the Government understands the professions' perspectives on all matters covered under the AHR Act.

As evidence of the symbiotic nature of our relationship with Government, AHRC has been extremely supportive of initiatives from the ART Lab, Nursing and Counselling SIGs for projects to develop professional standards guidelines.  Please look at the various documents produced by these SIGs, which are available in the public section of the "new and improved" CFAS website (another area where we are making substantial investments to better serve all members of the Society).

I want to express special thanks to Roger Pierson, who continues to chair our Communications Committee.  Roger fields all those enquiries that come from the media, and somehow always manages to put them in touch with an appropriate resource person.  Grateful thanks also go to all our members who have given time - always at short notice (for some reason, media people always have "crash" deadlines) to speak with the media.  If you are called upon by Roger, please see it as a professional compliment and share your knowledge and insight.  Getting our message out to the media depends on such efforts, and only through the mass media can we hope to educate the Canadian public regarding subfertility, ART, single embryo transfer, etc.

This year will also see the introduction of Accreditation Canada's Qmentum Standards for ART Centres, an updated accreditation scheme for ART in Canada that has evolved from the original AIM programme's ART Standards that were developed by CCHSA with the CFAS Accreditation Committee.  Several CFAS members have been heavily involved in the development of the new Standards, and the specialist surveyors (medical, scientific and nursing) who work for Accreditation Canada are all CFAS members.

The 2010 CFAS Annual Meeting (our 56th) will be held in Vancouver at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver on Wednesday 29th September through Saturday 2nd October.  The theme of the meeting is "Physiology - The circle of life", and it will be our biggest programme yet.  All 49 invited speakers have now been identified so the core scientific programme is complete (a "Programme Highlights" PDF is posted on the CFAS website).  All that remains is for a record number of free communications to be submitted so that as many members as possible can present their exciting new work.

On the subject of abstracts, given the earlier date of the 2010 meeting, a trend that we are hoping to continue over the coming years, the abstract submission deadline must be brought forward slightly to ensure that abstract reviewing and programme compilation are finished ahead of the Summer break.  This is essential as there are printing deadlines that must be met in order to keep costs down - and it takes time to cost-effectively ship everything 4900 km by road to Vancouver.  Therefore, please mark your calendars now: the abstract submission deadline for 2010, and future years as well, will be midnight on May 1st.  And, to be certain of getting everything completed before the end of June, there will be no extensions to this date.  This is a new policy for the CFAS, but we are a larger Society now, and need to operate as such - no-one expects ASRM or ESHRE to extend their abstract deadlines (both of which are also about 5 months ahead of their Annual Meeting) - so we are giving all members due warning that the CFAS will no longer allow this practice either.  Please, don't wait until the last minute before deciding to prepare an abstract!

Financially, the CFAS is in a reasonably strong position.  Our investments did not take too big a hit during the crisis, and our funding base from our industry supporters remains strong.  For this we are extremely grateful, and I would like to take this opportunity to express the most sincere thanks from all CFAS members to all our industry supporters.  Overall we're running a more-or-less balanced annual operating budget of ca. $700K, with some special projects (e.g. the new website) being funded from our reserves (which include a substantial sum that came to the CFAS as a result of the 2004 IFFS congress).  However, we must recognize that over 70% of the Society's revenues still come from its main three pharma supporters, only about 21% comes from the Annual Meeting and Exhibition (~$145K), and barely 7% from membership dues.  As for expenses, the CFAS Office is an amazingly lean operation at just over $300K p.a., so our greatest expenditure is on the Annual Meeting, costing around $360K.  While our Annual Meeting is clearly the most obvious "value for membership", we do need to work towards making it more self-sufficient, and reducing our dependence on pharma support.  Of course, this is a long-term plan, especially for a relatively small Society, and while we have already made some progress towards this goal, more effort - and especially innovative ideas - will be required.

One example of such change was the very difficult decision taken by the CFAS Board in late 2008 to restructure in order to operate more cost-effectively and efficiently.  We were facing the prospect of a Board of 20 people, including 11 SIG chairs - almost 5% of the membership!  To reduce travel costs we moved to a more "executive" Board model with a broad-based Advisory Panel that ensures open lines of communication for the SIGs, geographic regions, the Industry Liaison Committee, and patient advocate groups.  At the same time, a Governance Committee was created as a formal channel for members to express any concerns they might have regarding the running of the Society or perceived disenfranchisement of members.  So far, the experiment seems to be working well.

To conclude, I must thank all those CFAS members who have given - and continue to give - so generously of their personal time to help make the CFAS the vibrant Society that it is today.  As President it is my honour to be the current figurehead of our Society, and I encourage everyone to avail themselves of one or more of the opportunities that exist for members to help the Society, to help their peers and colleagues, and to help themselves in their professional and personal development.  Please take an active role and help us achieve our greater mission, to be the recognized Canadian multidisciplinary authority for fertility, and achieve our goals of providing leadership in fertility in the provision of practice guidelines, standards and certification for non-medical professionals and public education.  Make the CFAS your Society, not just a meeting that you might attend from time to time.

Before closing, I must express my thanks to our Executive Director, Agneta Holländer, without whose unwavering efforts our Society would achieve far less.

I wish you all a happy, safe and successful year, and look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible to Vancouver in September.

David Mortimer, PhD