Young advocates from the Canadian Cancer Society – Ontario Division will flex their muscle against big tobacco on the grounds of Queen’s Park on Nov. 19.
A tug-of-war will pit youth against individuals dressed up as flavoured tobacco products and tobacco industry executives. The aim is to urge Ontario politicians to reintroduce legislation to ban the sale of flavoured tobacco products to people under 18. A previous bill died when the June election was called.
“We want to bring this bill back to the floor and we anticipate that MPPs will be on side and recognize the damage that flavoured tobaccos are doing to young people,” said Annette Power, director of communications at Canadian Cancer Society.
The tug-of-war event is part of CCS’s Big Tobacco Lies, a youth-led awareness and advocacy campaign created by youth and funded by CCS.
Aside from getting the attention of MPPs, CCS aims to drum up media coverage for its cause. There’s a scheduled photo op and three CCS youth volunteers will be doing media interviews. Following the tug-of-war, youth advocates will meet with MPPs and drop off thousands of postcards collected from various events throughout the year.
“Canadian Cancer Society continues to see the power of youth and we also understand the power of media,” said Power. “When you bring those two things together, it’s very powerful. We’ve been able to compel government to impact generations beyond.”
The tug-of-war event was developed with Toronto-based dpPR, which has worked with CCS for the past five years. The PR agency, headed by Daniel Paquette, is currently working on a new smoking cessation campaign called “Driven to Quit,” which will launch at the end of the year.
“In the past, we’ve used PR primarily to talk about the hard news: the research and big wins around advocacy,” said CCS’s Power. “But we are increasingly looking to public relations to help bolster some of the work that we do in our fundraising [and awareness] efforts.”
