Sport For Life Summit
The Sport for Life Summit brings together leaders who strive to enhance quality sport and physical activity throughout Canada. By establishing an environment for knowledge sharing and idea generation through thoughtful and open dialogue, the Summit fosters connection, advances best practices and identifies opportunities for innovation. We aspire to ensure quality sport and physical activity programming, and the development of physical literacy, are equitably available to everyone.
When everyone has the opportunity to take part in quality sport and physical activity, the benefits to our population and society are immense. People live healthier, more active lives. Those pursuing high performance have a clear pathway and greater possibility for sporting achievement. Communities–from the physical communities in which we live to the collective national sport community–grow stronger and more aligned.
2027 Regional Locations to be announced soon!
QUESTIONS?
If you have any questions at all about the event or you want to get involved, please email Shelley Roddie: shelley@sportforlife.ca.
Summit Archive
2026 Summit
Date: January 20-22, 2026
Location: Westin Calgary Downtown
Theme: Unity Through Sport
The 2026 Sport for Life Summits will highlight how sport and physical activity can bring people together, create shared opportunities, and set the stage for a stronger future for everyone in Canada. By bridging divides to enhance participation and performance, the Summit invites thought leaders, decision-makers, researchers, practitioners, and sport and physical activity partners to share ideas and make meaningful connections. By unifying sport and physical activity organizations at all levels of the system, we can establish developmentally appropriate, progressive, effective pathways that are safe, welcoming, inclusive, and accessible for every participant.
2025 Summit
Date: January 21-23, 2025
Location: Gatineau, Québec
Theme: Joy for Everyone
Joy for Everyone celebrates the essence of fun and enjoyment in sport and recreation at every stage of the pathway. By centring our efforts on creating joyful experiences, we can build social connections, support mental wellness, and enhance physical literacy for every participant. People who enjoy their sport experience stay engaged in sport for longer. Increased participation and retention rates lead to stronger, more successful sport systems in Canada. Focusing on the fun and joyful aspects of sport, we can work to dismantle barriers and foster a lifelong engagement in sport and physical activity.
Keynote Speakers
Farkhunda Muhtaj
Afghan-Canadian professional footballer and social activist
Ron Thompson
Track and Field Builder
Amanda Stanec, PhD
Author, Physical Education and Sport Consultant, and Sport Program Developer
David Arsenault
Founder of the Champions for Life Foundation and Canadian Taekwondo Champion
Waneek Horn-Miller
Mohawk Activist Olympian
2024 Summit
Date: Multiple Dates
Location: Multiple Locations
Theme: Everyone Belongs
At its core, quality sport and physical activity is accessible, fun, and safe. In today’s landscape, the positive benefits of quality programs and environments have taken on renewed significance – they must be universally welcoming and inclusive of everyone. This means programming must be participant-centred, and all participants should have the opportunity to build social connections, experience developmentally appropriate and progressive challenge, and enhance their mental wellness while improving their physical literacy. That is how we, as sport and physical activity leaders, can foster feelings of true belonging.
2023 Summit
Date: Multiple Dates
Location: Multiple Locations
Theme: Thriving through Changing Times
Our means of connecting, engaging, innovating and experiencing quality sport and physical literacy have been re-envisioned to meet the challenges and opportunities of a post-pandemic world. Across sectors, and from the municipal to the national scale, we have all evolved. As we continue to embed Long-Term Development and physical literacy into our communities, there is no better time to share the ways we have learnt, grown and expanded our policies, programs and resources to meet current needs, engage and support diverse communities—and imagine new, exciting ways forward.
Keynote Speakers
2022 Summit
Date: Multiple Dates
Location: Multiple Locations
Theme: Reflect. Reconnect. Reimagine.
We often hear about participants facing adversity in sports, finding ways to overcome it, then going on to accomplish great things. Their ability to overcome obstacles becomes as much a part of their success story as the victories they achieve. Adversities, ranging from the present global pandemic to the historical and current climate of systemic racism and discrimination present the current challenges and opportunities to begin crafting our own success story.
Let’s reflect—as individuals, organizations, and sectors—on where we were, what we have learned, and where we want to be. Let’s reconnect in meaningful ways, as connection fosters understanding, creativity and progress. And let’s reimagine a collaborative, resilient system where the sport, recreation, health and education sectors are truly aligned and working together to address barriers and strive towards quality sport programming and physical literacy development that is equitably available to everyone.
Keynote Speakers
Aisha Saintiche
Entraîneure de santé Certified Health Coach, Me To Moi Health
Dorota Blumcyzńska
Chief Executive Officer, Manitoba Museum.
Glenn and Nick Hoag
Father-son Olympic volleyball duo; Long-Term Development proponents
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
Director, Boston University Center for Antiracist Research; #1 New York Times bestselling author