Waste Connections, Inc.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Waste Connections, Inc. Q1 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Ron Middlestad, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning. I'd like to welcome everyone to this conference call to discuss our first quarter results. I am joined this morning by Marianne Whitney, our CFO, as well as several other members of our senior management. As noted in our earnings release, we are well positioned for 2026 following a strong start with upside potential from recent trends. We not only exceeded expectations for revenue in EBITDA, but delivered EBITDA margin of 32.5%, up 90 basis points year over year, excluding commodity impacts in spite of outsized weather impacts and in advance of recovering higher fuel costs. Against a volatile macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop, our results reflect the durability of our model and consistency of execution as we continue to benefit from improved operating trends, along with recent increase in commodities and special waste activity. Before we get into much more detail, let me turn the call over to Mary Ann for our forward-looking disclaimer and other housekeeping items.

Thank you, Ron, and good morning. The discussion during today's call includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities law. Actual results could differ materially from those made in such forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are discussed in the cautionary statement included in our April 22nd earnings release and in greater detail in Waste Connections filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Securities Commissions or similar regulatory authorities in Canada. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. as there may be additional risks of which we are not presently aware or that we currently believe are immaterial, which could have an adverse impact on our business. We make no commitment to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may change after today's date. On the call, we will discuss non-GAAP measures such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income on both a dollar basis and per diluted share, and adjusted free cash flow. Please refer to our earnings releases for a reconciliation of such non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. Management uses certain non-GAAP measures to evaluate and monitor the ongoing financial performance of our operations. Other companies may calculate these non-GAAP measures differently. I will now turn the call back over to Ron.