National Trust for Canada – call for presentations

The annual National Trust Conference is Canada’s largest heritage learning and networking event. Held every year since 1974, the National Trust Conference brings together a wide-range of people working to keep Canada’s heritage alive: from grassroots activists and elected officials, to professionals, planners, policy makers, and property owners. Join them this year October 23–25, 2025 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Heritage conservation in Canada has never felt more critically important, whether it’s recognizing marginalized histories and places, responding to climate disasters, advancing reconciliation, or helping sustain the sense of place, pride, and wellbeing of communities. And yet Canada’s heritage conservation sector is under unprecedented pressure: from social upheaval and cultural conflict, to economic disruption, the climate emergency, and the surging housing crisis. How do we navigate this societal sea change? Where is heritage currently on the public agenda, and where does it need to be? Now is the time for the full spectrum of the heritage sector – from industry and professionals to non-profits, government and educational institutions –to come together and reassert the value of sustaining and reinventing our heritage places. Now is the time for action.

Heritage Now will bring together 500+ participants from a diverse range of backgrounds – from professionals (emerging and established), craftspeople, and advocates, to planners, heritage site owners and operators, construction industry workers and suppliers, developers, insurers, academics, students, and volunteers. The conference will feature innovative case studies and replicable lessons from heritage practice, government, communities, and industry, along with productive discussions on the future of our work.