Refresh & Reframe: Reconnect to the Heart of Interpreting

The three provincial ASL/English interpreting organizations in Western Canada – ASLIA, MAVLI, and WAVLI – are pleased to announce that they are working together to organize a regional conference for interpreters working with sign languages. 

The objective of this conference is to allow interpreters, both Deaf and hearing, to refresh their passion for the profession, reframe on how their work has contributed to the heart of interpreting, and reconnect with each other in this exciting profession. 

American Sign Language (ASL) is the official language of the Western Canada Interpreting Conference 2026. 

This applies throughout the conference—in workshops, presentations, and discussions—and equally in the informal spaces around them. We ask that every attendee, presenter, and volunteer commit to using ASL as our shared, unifying language for the whole event. 

We respectfully acknowledge that we gather, work, play and travel on the ancient and storied land

steeped in ceremony and history that, until recently, was occupied exclusively by people indigenous

to this place.

We also acknowledge that many of us travel here from other lands across Canada—lands held

under treaty, and lands that remain unceded—and we carry with us a responsibility to those territories as well as to this one.

With gratitude and reciprocity, ASLIA, MAVLI and WAVLI acknowledge the relationships to the land

and all beings, and the songs, stories and teachings of all First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples,

wherever those relationships are held.