b'work with education to address student vaping. Ministers of Health were very responsive and have shared their efforts to deal with an increasingly challenging threat to our children and youth. It was very disappointing that the Board was unable to meet in Ottawa in May, with our annual advocacy event cancelled. While we lost the opportunity to connect with federal ministers, Senators and senior staff on areas of common interest face-to-face, we were part of several initiatives remotely. We continue to be directly involved with Transport Canada as a member of the School Bus Safety Advisory Committee. Although the mandate of the Task Force and the Advisory Committee is improved student safety, the work paused to focus on transportation of students during a pandemic. Ongoing collaboration and input from throughout the nation proved to be very valuable as school systems plan for return to school. We are also involved in an initiative with Public Safety Canada, aimed at addressing Cyberbullying and Online Child Exploitation. Our Executive Director provided input and the Board will consider a more formal MOU to support this work. A third area of input is to the Canadian Standards Council, which is developing guidelines related to COVID-19 and workplace safety. I am very pleased that federal leaders understand the importance of including input from the field and ensuring that trustees provide input as the local democratic voice in public education. Other partners include the Healthy Schools Alliance and EdCan.Indigenous Education continues to be a key priority for CSBA. As you will see in the report, the Indigenous Education Committee has made a great deal of positive progress. We continue to pursue the development of an award for Indigenous Education leadership and we are very pleased to be developing a memorandum of understanding with the Assembly of First Nations to strengthen national, provincial and territorial relationships in education, under the strong leadership of Renee St. Germain, Director of Education at AFN. I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the previous director, Janice Ciavaglia, for her leadership and support of CSBA. We wish her all the best and look forward to continued collaboration in her new role as CEO of AFN. As President, I have been very active during the past year. From July to March, the Vice-President and I attended numerous association general meetings and conferences. I met virtually with board chairs from the Northwest Territories and continued talks with provincial school boards associations about increased collaboration and membership. We have established outreach to the Ministry of Education in PEI, meeting with their Minister and policy staff to support the reinstatement of School Trustees in their next election, sharing leading practices for strong governance from across Canada. While education governance is being strengthened across Canada, it was a sad day for Democracy in Canada when community voices were silenced for Majority French-speaking elected Trustees in Quebec, replaced by service centres. We continue to hear of the loss of voice and access to information in the absence of boards there and in Nova Scotia.Since March, we have increased our online presence. I was honoured to do a series of interviews with Irvine Carvery on systemic racismwe have so much to learn. Mr. Carvery is an experienced board chair and a highly respected community leader. I also did an interview with Dr. Stan Kutcher. As a psychiatrist and senator, Dr. Kutcher is in a unique position to provide sage advice to trustees and those they serve. Canadian Teachers'