The Canadian Paleontology Conference began in 1965 as the Seminar on Biostratigraphy. It later became known as the Eastern Canadian Palaeontology and Biostratigraphy Seminar, but "eastern" was removed in 1979 when it acquired a national scope and the first meeting was held in Western Canada. In 1991, the Seminar was renamed the Canadian Paleontology Conference. The Paleontology Division began its involvement with the Conference in 1977 when it co-sponsored the meeting with the University of Waterloo. The Division has sponsored this conference since 1979. The main goal of the CPC. and its predecessors has been to provide a relatively small, informal forum for presentation and discussion of current paleontological research, to be a welcome setting for student researchers to present their results and meet other researchers, and to visit sites of paleontological interest across the country. Since 1991, the CPC. Programs with Abstracts / Conference Proceedings and the CPC Field Trip Guidebook have been formally serialized. To recognize the importance of graduate research to Canadian paleontology and encourage graduate participation in the Conference, a cash award and a copy of Palaeontographica Canadiana are presented to the authors of the best student papers.