Manitoba’s Health Minister, the Honourable Kelvin Goertzen, made a visit to Niverville Collegiate on January 19 to meet with the school’s SWAT (Students Working Against Tobacco) team. The students had arranged booths in the gym for the annual health fair, each booth dedicated to exploring the dangers of smoking in creative ways.
Goertzen spoke with students individually and as a group as he toured the booths.
“People are going through cancer—lung cancers, other cancers—as a result of their lifetime of smoking,” Goertzen said to the assembled students. “It’s absolutely devastating for them and their families. But what you’re doing here is at the grassroots of it, because you are helping to stop young people, at your age and younger, from starting. We can spend all the money in the world on ads and all sorts of things on tobacco cases and cartons, but really what makes the most difference is young people talking to young people.”
