1. Addressing the TRC Calls to Action, Indigenization and Unlearning Colonialism – Accountability and Answerability.
   This sub-theme centers on the urgent and ongoing responsibility of nursing education to respond meaningfully to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action. It emphasizes the need for deep, systemic change through the processes of Indigenization, decolonization, and the unlearning of colonial practices within curricula, pedagogy, and institutional culture. Vital to this work is the principle of accountability not only to Indigenous communities, but also to students, educators, and the broader healthcare system. This sub-theme invites critical reflection on how nursing programs can move beyond symbolic gestures to implement tangible, measurable actions that honour Indigenous knowledge ways of knowing, support Indigenous learners, and foster cultural safety. It also explores how nursing educators enact their commitments, ensuring that reconciliation is not a passive ideal but an active, lived practice.
2. Social Justice, Anti-racism and Anti-oppression: from Intention to Praxis.
   This sub-theme challenges nursing education to move beyond aspirational statements and toward meaningful, sustained action in advancing social justice, anti-racism, and anti-oppression. It calls for a critical examination of how these principles are operationalized in curricula, institutional policies, faculty development, and student support systems. The focus is on transforming good intentions into praxis such as intentional, reflective, and justice-oriented practices that dismantle systemic barriers and foster inclusive learning environments. This sub-theme invites dialogue on strategies for embedding social justice, anti-racism, and anti-oppressive frameworks into all aspects of nursing education, ensuring that future nurses are equipped to provide culturally safe, equitable care and to advocate for social justice within and beyond the healthcare system.
3. Preparing Nurses to be Change Makers: Integrating Advocacy, Policy Reform and Political Engagement System Change in Nursing Education.
   This sub-theme explores how nursing education can promote system change by equipping nurses with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to lead transformative efforts in health care and beyond. It emphasizes the integration of advocacy, policy reform, and political engagement into curricula to prepare nurses as proactive change makers. By fostering critical thinking, civic responsibility, and leadership, this approach empowers nurses to challenge inequities, influence policy, and drive meaningful improvements in health systems and social structures.
4. Accessible Nursing Education: Supporting Neurodiverse/Non-Typical Learners. Accessible nursing education is essential for cultivating a diverse and resilient healthcare workforce. This sub-theme focuses on strategies to better support neurodiverse/non-typical learners through intentional and equitable educational practices. It highlights the critical role of educators in creating accessible, supportive learning environments for both in class and clinical experiences that recognize and accommodate diverse needs. By fostering inclusive teaching models and building strong support networks, nursing programs can empower neurodiverse/non-typical students to thrive, ultimately contributing to a more representative and responsive healthcare system.
5. Accessible Nursing Education: Supporting Rural/Remote Learners.
   Accessible nursing education is essential for building health human resources capacity in rural/remote communities. This sub-theme focuses on strategies to better support learners from rural/remote communities through intentional and equitable educational practices. It highlights the critical role of educators in exploring innovative pedagogical approaches to deliver nursing programs without jeopardizing quality of education. By fostering accessible and supportive ‘de-centralized’ learning environments, nursing programs enable students to thrive regardless of geographic location, remain in their communities, and ultimately contribute to a more representative and responsive healthcare system.
6. Preparing Future Nurses to Build Resilient Communities: Addressing Planetary Health, Climate Change, and Disaster and Emergency Response.
   As the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation intensify, nurses are increasingly called upon to play a pivotal role in promoting planetary health and supporting community resilience. This sub-theme explores how nursing education can prepare future nurses to understand and respond to the complex interconnections between human health, ecological systems, and global crises. It emphasizes the integration of climate science, environmental justice, and disaster preparedness into nursing curricula, equipping students with the knowledge and skills to lead in emergency response, advocate for sustainable practices, and support vulnerable populations during environmental and public health emergencies.
7. Innovations in Nursing Education Leadership and Administration in times of Uncertainty and Change.
   In a period marked by rapid change, global crises, and evolving healthcare demands, transformative leadership in nursing education has never been more critical. This sub-theme explores how nurse educators and administrators can lead with vision, adaptability, and resilience to foster learning environments that thrive amid uncertainty. It emphasizes the importance of innovative pedagogies, inclusive decision-making, and responsive leadership strategies that support both faculty and students through disruption and transition. By cultivating leadership that is reflective, equity-driven, and future-focused, nursing education can not only withstand challenges but also emerge stronger, shaping a generation of nurses prepared to lead with courage and compassion in a complex world.
8. Emerging Innovations, Technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Nursing Education.
   The rapid evolution of technology is reshaping the landscape of nursing education, offering unprecedented opportunities to enhance teaching, learning, and clinical practice as well as significant challenges. This sub-theme explores the integration of emerging innovations, including simulation, virtual and augmented reality, digital learning platforms, and artificial intelligence (AI) into nursing curricula. It highlights how these tools can support personalized learning, improve clinical decision-making, and expand access to education. At the same time, it invites critical reflection on the ethical, pedagogical, and practical implications of technology use in nursing education. By embracing innovation while maintaining a human-centered approach, nursing education can prepare future nurses to thrive in a digitally advanced and data-driven healthcare environment.
9. Upholding and Centering Community Health and Public Health in Nursing Education and Practice.
   Community and public health are foundational to achieving health equity and improving population outcomes. This sub-theme emphasizes the critical role of nursing education in preparing nurses to lead and advocate within community and public health settings. It explores how nursing curricula centers the social determinants of health, health promotion, disease prevention, and culturally responsive care while equipping nursing students to counter misinformation and mistrust of the public health system. By integrating community-based learning, interprofessional collaboration, and public health frameworks, nursing programs can empower students to address complex health challenges at the population level.
10. Other: Abstract does not fit any of the listed sub-themes yet meets the overall theme. This option provides space for innovative, interdisciplinary, or alternative abstracts that align with the overarching theme but do not clearly fit within a sub-theme. We welcome emerging ideas, approaches, and unique perspectives that contribute to the advancement of nursing education.

Councillor Leslie Maracle, RECE, SSW, Nation Well-Being and Wellness Lead, Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation

Councillor Leslie Maracle gained her communication and advocacy skills working with people on the front lines within her community. She is a Registered Early Childhood Educator, a Registered Reflexologist and has a Social Service Worker Diploma. She also has an Indigenous Diabetes Support Worker Certificate. Prior to her role as Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation Councillor, she worked in many diverse roles working directly with her community and has an understanding of the challenges the community faces. In addition, she is a mother of three who advocates for childrens’ best interests. Her goal as Councillor is to empower people within the community and to ensure the programs and services they need are readily available.

Councillor Leslie Maracle is a community focused leader whose work blends professional training, lived experience and advocacy. Her leadership emphasizes practical support systems, health equity, and empowering her Nation through accessible and culturally grounded services.

leannek@uvic.ca

Keynote Address Title: From Silence to Solidarity, Reflections on Two Decades of Decolonizing Nursing Education

Leanne Poitras Kelly, RN PhD, Metis/Cree cis-gendered woman originally from Saskatchewan’s Qu’appelle Valley, currently living and working on the unceded and occupied territory of the Coast Salish people of Vancouver Island. Leanne has worked in First Nations community and public health for over thirty years in various communities in Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Leanne is currently an Associate Teaching Professor with University of Victoria, School of Nursing. Her work is informed by strong relationships with local First Nations communities and Indigenous nurse mentors and has a strong focus on anti racist pedagogy, strength base Indigenous knowledges and intersectionality of complex community systems which influence health outcomes. Leanne has been involved in supporting nurse education throughout her career through community preceptorships, formal course work, both via distance and in-person classroom settings and immersive land based learning opportunities.

Presentation Description:

Since the release of the TRC Calls to Action in 2015, there has been a significant increase in anti-racist decolonizing education and incorporating Indigenous knowledge into curriculum. As a visibly identifiable Metis/Cree nurse, my entire career has been deeply embedded in the complexity of simultaneously experiencing racism while working to decolonize health care experiences from my role as a community health nurse and educator. Working within a racialized system means responding to the ebb and flow of the overarching social motivation and interest in change. In my career, I have witnessed the spectrum of responses to this work, from disdain, disinterest, curiosity, appropriation, benevolence, appreciation, community engagement and activism.

It is with all this in mind that I share my insights of implementing formal Indigenous-themed course development since 2005 via both distance and in-person delivery methods including land-based immersion. There is no panacea or short cut to equity and reconciliation. Transformational learning requires intention and thoughtful work not only on curriculum development but personal inventories. In this presentation, I will speak on the successes and challenges that I have had as a Metis / Cree nurse educator and my thoughts on nursing’s collective professional imperative to continue decolonizing efforts, including philosophical underpinnings and ethical considerations of including Indigenous Knowledges in our curriculums.

jesscrawfordnursing@gmail.com jcrawford@uvic.ca

Keynote Address Title: Nursing a Queer Identity, Together

Jess Crawford (they/them) is a white settler, perpetual guest with British and German ancestry, who has lived on several Treaty and stolen Indigenous Lands across so-called Canada, continually learning in relationship, from and with the traditional stewards of those territories. They are a queer, trans, non-binary, and neurodivergent Registered Nurse, educator, and researcher committed to equity, relational accountability, and joyful, liberatory futures. They graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (‘17) from Toronto Metropolitan University (George Brown College cohort). A proud University of Manitoba Master of Nursing graduate (‘25), their thesis work focused on gender affirming practices in nursing education and earned several awards/honours (including a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Master’s-level grant and Canadian Nurses Foundation Scholarship). A 2S/LGBTQ+ Health Hub alum, Jess continues to work in equity-focused research and teaches as a sessional instructor at the University of Victoria, where they will soon pursue a PhD in Nursing, weaving planetary health with queer and trans joy on the Land.  Whether teaching, researching, or wandering (often after birds), Jess is dreaming of collective liberation—and warmly invites you to dream with them.

Presentation description:

Nursing education’s power for envisioning and reimagining is nourished by the diversity among us. Drawing on my experiences as a BScN student who was not yet publicly out, and later as a queer, non‑binary frontline RN, MN student, and now a nursing instructor, I call on nurse educators, scholars, and students to consider our collective responsibility to meaningfully cultivate diversity and belonging within our profession.

Rooted in my thesis research, Student and Faculty Perspectives of Gender Inclusive and Affirming Practices in Undergraduate Nursing Education, I share tendrils of how undergraduate nursing students and nurse educators experience learning and teaching related to gender-affirming care. These perspectives illuminate current gaps in nursing education and shine a light on our shared responsibility to grow safer, more accountable educational environments where new possibilities can take flight.

Speaking from deep care for this profession, nursing education shapes not only the lives of our patients, but also each individual nurse and nursing student, and the ecosystem of our professional collective. Together, we can shift towards solidarity for and with 2S/LGBTQ+ nurses and students among us, cultivating a culture of care, grounded in humility, accountability, and togetherness.

Through a chronology of one white queer settler nurse’s career, I invite you to imagine how we might nurture a “queerer” nursing identity – one that challenges power and norms, moving beyond merely inclusivity towards fully embracing diversity as the fertile soil for nursing excellence.

Come: Listen, fidget, reflect, learn, and be uncomfortable! Together, we can rise to our responsibility and nurse a queerer, more courageous collective identity into full bloom, letting our profession spread its wings like never before.

Closing Keynote Address Title: Layers of Possibilities: Reimagining Nursing Education

Anne-Laurie Beaubrun is a Faculty Lecturer at McGill’s Ingram School of Nursing (ISoN) and currently serves as the Assistant Program Director (APD) for the Bachelor of Nursing Integrated Online Program. Previously, she served as APD for the School’s Satoko Shibata Clinical Laboratories, facilitating clinical skills education. She contributes to curriculum, student and faculty experience, and program coordination, supporting inclusive and equitable nursing education. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing from the University of Sherbrooke and a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Ottawa. Her master’s major research paper employed an art-based approach as a method of inquiry and reflection, which she is currently working toward integrating into her teaching. Her clinical background includes pediatric nursing and postpartum community home care. In 2014, she received the Innovation Recognition Award for her involvement in a school-based community engagement initiative.

Anne-Laurie is from Haiti, often called la perle des Antilles. This heritage informs her values and commitment to relational, community-centred approaches in nursing education and practice. Her social justice engagement spans academic, municipal, and national levels. She is an active collaborator with ISoN’s Office of Social Accountability in Nursing. She is a member of the McGill Faculty of Medicine and Health Science’s Health Professions Education Community Engagement and Belonging Committee, and a member of the Vivre Ensemble Advisory Committee for the city of Repentigny.  At the national level, she is a member and former Secretary of the CASN Social Justice and Anti-Racism Interest Group.

Presentation description:

When I reflect on nursing education, I see knowledge, practice, and values come together like layers in a collage, carefully assembled over time, each contributing to the whole. Rooted in its history yet responsive to the present, nursing education evolves alongside an ever-changing world. How might we shape it for the future? What new layers are needed to acknowledge where we have been while responsibly preparing what is yet to come? What masterpiece do we hope to create for nurses and the communities they work alongside?

This presentation explores ways to intentionally integrate social justice—encompassing anti-oppression, decolonization, and advocacy—across multiple levels of nursing education, creating learning experiences that cultivate compassion, authenticity, humility, integrity, reflective practice, and understanding of diverse community realities, while promoting true and sustainable systemic change.

Drawing on research and professional experience, and considering intersecting identities and positionality, this presentation explores how social justice serves as a foundational layer in preparing nurses for contemporary practice. By embedding social justice as a core value, educators foster learning that is inclusive, reflective, and responsive to challenging social contexts. Attendees will gain insight into how social justice can be thoughtfully and creatively integrated throughout nursing education, including teaching, leadership, collaboration with students, colleagues, and community partners to inspire advocacy, relational practice, and equity-focused approaches.

This perspective encourages educators and students to critically examine assumptions, power dynamics, and privileges, consider multiple perspectives, and develop accountable practices that extend beyond the classroom into clinical settings. Integrating social justice in nursing education is no longer aspirational—it requires action now more than ever, as rising to responsibility means moving beyond contemplation into deliberate, tangible steps that shape the future of nursing and the communities we partner with.

Knowledge Holder – Mark Sault, Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation

Mark Sault realized he needed to incorporate culture into his life while he was in his mid-thirties. He moved away as there was little knowledge in his community at that time. He left the community and resided in Thunder Bay for approximately 25 years. During this time, he was very active with Wisdom Holders and gained the knowledge he was searching for about his culture, traditions and what it meant to be an Anishnaabe Nini.  He also received his name Migizi Gikinoo’ amaagew Inin, which means “Eagle Teacher Man”.  Mark returned to his community of MCFN in 2014 and immediately began sharing his knowledge with family and community.  Mark is passionate about the community regaining its culture and traditions. Some of the knowledge he has shared and continues to share far and wide are the teachings of the drum, the process of producing maple syrup, medicines for tea and their uses, tree identification and their uses and fall harvest.

Knowledge Holder Sal Nebenionquit-Sault

Sal Nebenionquit-Sault, Gagebeigizhigo (“All Day Woman”) Kwe is an Ojibway from the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek First Nation, she resides on the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation with her husband, Mark Sault. Sal is a member of the Bear Clan, and is a mother to two daughters, three bonus daughters, and 10 grandchildren.

Sal graduated from the Native Community Worker Program in 1985 from Thunder Bay, Early Childhood Education Program in 1989 from Sault Ste. Marie, and Native Counsellors Program in 1989 from Sudbury.

Sal has worked at various Native organizations as an Early Childhood Educator, Family Support and Cultural Coordinator and as an Instructor for the Native Early Childhood Education program. Since moving to the Mississaugas of the Credit she has continued to work within the Early Childhood Education field.

Sal is an active volunteer for many organizations within the Nation. She is knowledgeable in her Culture and Traditions and is willing to share these many gifts. Sal is devoted to her Family, Community and Culture and takes great pride in being an Anishnawbe Kwe.

All registration fees are in Canadian dollars

In person registration fee includes:

• Networking/exhibitors reception on Sunday evening, May 31, 2026, which includes appetizers and one complimentary alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink ticket
• Breakfast, lunch, and coffee breaks on both days (June 1-2, 2026)
• Access to the conference app
• Access to the conference platform to view e-posters

Any other expenses related to the conference are the responsibility of the registrants.

Nurses registered in Québec (Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec) may use this conference for unaccredited continuing education hours.

All registration fees are in Canadian dollars

Intended for individuals whose abstract is accepted for an e-poster presentation but do not plan to attend the conference in person, or individuals who only wish to view the e-posters and live streaming of the keynote presentations.

Virtual Registration fee includes:

• Access to the virtual conference platform to view pre-recorded e-posters and live streaming of the keynote presentations (both days).

Access to the virtual conference platform will be available for six months post conference.

• Registrations that are cancelled on or before Sunday, March 22, 2026 will be refunded minus a 15% administrative fee.
• Registrations that are cancelled between Monday, March 23, 2026, to Sunday, April 19, 2026, inclusive will be refunded minus a 25% administrative fee.
• There will be no refunds for cancellations on or after Monday, April 20, 2026, and for no-shows.

CASN reserves the right to cancel this conference for circumstances beyond its control.

Hotel Reservation Information

Book your hotel reservation by Friday, May 1, 2026, at 11:59 pm EDT (Ontario/Quebec) to secure the special CASN 2026 Biennial Conference guestroom rates starting at $209.00/night by reserving online: https://book.passkey.com/gt/CASN2026BiennialConference

Please note: This special conference rate is available for a limited number of contracted rooms and subject to availability at the time of booking. We encourage attendees to book early to secure the special rate.

If you would like to book a guestroom pre or post conference beyond the room block dates of May 28 to June 4, 2026, you must call the hotel to make reservations. Guestrooms and rates are subject to availability.

For reservations assistance, please call 1-905- 821-1981 and mention the “CASN 2026 Biennial Conference” guestroom block.

Travelling to the conference