The critical pedagogy movement, inspired by the work of Paolo Freire, started in the 1960s and has since provided a framework for contesting the status quo in education. However, critical pedagogy remains largely unfamiliar to those outside of education and education research. Extant literature is primarily published in English, with only a few exceptions (e.g. Desmarais et al., 2020; Rousseau et al., 2013). With the onset of the pandemic in 2020, universities had to adapt to a rapidly shifting landscape, which led to reflections on what a post-pandemic world might look like. Would post-pandemic campuses integrate universal design for learning in all disciplines? What about the increasing role of technology and online connectivity in post-secondary education and the workplace? What about the calls for greater social justice that existed pre-pandemic, but that became all the more pressing as the pandemic exacerbated pre-existing asymmetries? These questions underpin our reflection and the teaching strategies we propose. More specifically, we interrogate some of the long-standing norms in Canadian translation programs, for instance, the “exaltation” of the official languages over languages of migration and Indigenous languages (see Thobani, 2007). How might we reconsider or reframe some of our pedagogical practices, so that they may better serve today’s student demographics and better reflect the realities of an increasingly connected, digital, and automated world? Can we move away from prescriptivism and normative language instruction given the shifting demographic and linguistic profile of Canada? This critical reflection serves as a step towards a more reflexive and equitable pedagogy in translator training in Canada, which we believe can only contribute to student success. Translation programs provide a unique context in which to expose our students to a range of texts and worldviews and, as such, to encourage them to become “citizen translators” (see Basalamah, 2005).