Canadian Psychedelic Summit (Application)

The psychedelics field is experiencing rapid and exciting growth in Canada and abroad. As we stand on the precipice of establishing a regulated market for medical access, MAPS Canada invites leaders to pause, connect, and create a vision for the future fitting of the revolution that psychedelics promise.

The Canadian Psychedelic Summit is the first in a series of annual gatherings that will bring together leaders across sectors to explore a vision for psychedelics in our nation centered around equity and ethics. We will offer a container to have the challenging conversations facing our field. Beyond envisioning the future of psychedelics, together participants will co-create how we wish to do this work, inviting a community of shared commitments and accountability.

What to Expect

Led by facilitator and ceremonial practitioner Kim Haxton, our time together will center the embodied knowledge of Indigenous peoples, creating space for ceremony, storytelling, and connection with ourselves, one another, and the natural world. With these foundations in place, we will lean into tough conversations facing the psychedelic landscape, creating a movement for the future.

The Canadian Psychedelic Summit offers five days of inspiring talks, structured group and breakout sessions, as well as unstructured time for socializing, rest, and community connection. This three-year project will meld in-person gatherings with continued engagement of cohorts of those attending.

Over five days, our curated community of ~60 participants will:

• Create connections and develop relationships across diverse sectors and perspectives
• Contemplate a short and long-term vision for psychedelics in Canada, leaning into challenging conversations with trust and goodwill
• Create shared agreements about how we wish to shape the psychedelic industry, with equity at its core

Who should attend

This interdisciplinary Summit welcomes individuals from the psychedelic community as a whole. We truly want this to be an opportunity where voices from a wide range of stakeholder groups are present to help bring to life a long-term vision for psychedelics in Canada that is representative of all Canadians.

We invite people working across research, not-for-profit, public health, underground, market, government and other communities to bring their valuable experience and knowledge to this interdisciplinary space.

With a key outcome to shape a more equitable field, we encourage in particular participants from equity-denied communities to attend, including folks who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQ2S+, neurodiverse, physically disabled, and those seeking economic equity. Scholarships are available to support participation.

Hollyhock and MAPS Canada are working to make sure our gatherings and events are accessible and valuable to diverse communities. We welcome and encourage applicants who will bring diversity to the Summit, including but not limited to diversity of gender, race, ability, sexual orientation, and class. We know that important, exciting, and innovative work is happening on the margins.

Given the limited number of spots available to attend in person, participation is by application, which will be curated by the Core Team and Summit Advisory Committee who will review applications to reflect the most diverse and representative community possible. We encourage you to apply soon to be considered for early admission. The final application deadline is June 6.

Participate from afar

Even if you aren’t able to attend in person, we want to invite you to share your voice. Stay tuned for opportunities to contribute your vision, as well as how we’ll share what happens at the gathering.

Sign up for updates 

Schedule

You may view the tentative schedule here.

Partnership Opportunities

We are inviting a limited number of organizations to join as Sponsors of the event. As a sponsor of the Canadian Psychedelic Summit, you are actively building a vision for psychedelics in Canada founded on principles of decolonization, inclusion, justice, equity, human rights, and public health.

Learn more about sponsorship opportunities here. For more information or to express an interest please reach out to Penelope Naldrett, Hollyhock Development Director at penelope@hollyhock.ca.

Terms & Conditions

You may find our terms & conditions here.

Health & Safety

Learn more about Hollyhock’s current health & safety policies here.

With special thanks to our Advisory Committee

Dr. Pamela Kryskow is a medical doctor with a strong interest in chronic pain, mental health and psychedelic medicine. She is a clinical instructor at UBC and adjunct professor at VIU. She is the Medical Director of the Vancouver Island University Post Graduate Certificate in Psychedelic Medicine. She is one of the founding board members of the Canadian Psychedelic Association. Dr Kryskow is actively involved in research related to psilocybin, MDMA, ketamine, front line health care workers and first responders mental wellness. She is co-investigator on the largest microdosing study Microdose.me which is ongoing with 15000+ enrolled participants. She is the medical lead on the Roots To Thrive Ketamine and Psilocybin Assisted Therapy Programs that treats health care providers and first responders with PTSD, depression, anxiety, addiction and people with end of life distress. In real life she loves hiking in the forest, ocean kayaking, growing kale and daydreaming in the hammock. Her heritage includes Polish, Ukrainian, and German. She currently resides in the traditional unceded territory of the Klahoose First Nations.

Jodie Milward is a Metis woman of French, Ukrainian and Anishinaabe descent currently residing in the traditional unceded territories of the Sto:lo nation and Nlaka’pamux First Nations in what is commonly known as BC. She currently serves as the Director of Health Emergency Management & Overdose Response at the First Nations Health Authority. Jodie’s goal is to find a way to bring the most useful parts of western practices into our traditional and ancient ways of healing. As a mental health clinician and traditional knowledge keeper, she has a strong focus on substance use and violence caused by trauma in the present time and intergenerational experiences.

Antonio Rodrigo is a volunteer within the MAPS Canada Development and Events committee. He is also one of the organizers of Mapping the Mind, a psychedelic science conference that takes place annually in Toronto with the goal to raise funds for psychedelic research. As well, Antonio serves as the partnerships manager of the Fungi Foundation.

Monnica Williams, Ph.D. is a board-certified, licensed clinical psychologist, specializing in cognitive-behavioral therapies. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa, Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities, and Director of the Laboratory for Culture and Mental Health Disparities. She is also the Clinical Director of the Behavioral Wellness Clinic, LLC in Tolland, Connecticut, and she has founded clinics in Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Anne-Marie Armour, MSW, RSW is a Psilocybin-Assisted Therapist and Psychedelic & Harm Reduction Consultant working in private practice on the unceded traditional and ancestral territories of the Lekwungen people, in Victoria, BC. Anne-Marie has an extensive background in low-barrier harm reduction service provision in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and is a current Board Member with the Overdose Prevention Society. Anne-Marie is former Executive Assistant and Volunteer Coordinator with MAPS Canada and former Registered Social Worker with TheraPsil, where she supported patients with section 56 exemption application and advocacy and co-created a Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy for Substance Use Disorders Pilot Program. Anne-Marie passionately advocates for increasing access to psychedelic-assisted therapies and reforming drug policy to include the voices of people with lived and living experience. As the field of psychedelics would not exist without the wisdom of Indigenous Knowledge Keepers who have maintained relationships with sacred plants and fungi for centuries, Anne-Marie would like to see reciprocity and the amplification of Indigenous perspective​s become top priorities in the movement.

Joel Solomon is a Founding Partner of Renewal Funds, Canada’s largest mission venture capital firm, at $240m assets under management. Investing in Organics and Environmental & Climate Technology in Canada and the USA, Renewal Funds is GIIRS-rated, a founding Canadian B Corp (5x “Best for the World”), a “1% for the Planet” member, recognized as ImpactAssets “Top 50 impact fund managers.” Joel is a 2021 Clean50 Canada “Lifetime Achievement” honoree, frequent public speaker, board member of the University of British Columbia, co-producer of the Just Economy Institute, and co-author of The Clean Money Revolution: Re-Inventing Power, Purpose & Capitalism.

Jaipreet Mattu is a PhD candidate studying philosophy of neuroscience at Western University. Her thesis focuses on challenges in translating findings from rodent studies to humans in the context of psilocybin research. She has been a volunteer with MAPS for 6 years, including working alongside the Research Committee and Podcast Committee.