A message from our spokespersons
Founded in 2001, the Coalition Priorité Cancer au Québec has been created to defend and to provide a voice for people living with cancer (parents, survivors, their families, their close ones), and so that the fight against cancer could be organized better.
We are proud of what the Coalition was able to accomplish during the last few years. Some of the most noteworthy accomplishments include: the presentation of a 40,000 name petition to Québec's Assemblée nationale; the recognition of the fight against cancer in Québec as a government priority; the organization of three forums and of the États généraux de la lutte contre le cancer au Québec (a first in Québec and in Canada which led to the adoption in the publication of 68 recommendations to defeat cancer in Québec).
Following the États généraux, we committed ourselves to promote the implementation of the 68 propositions to defeat cancer. Pursuing that vision, once again we are calling on the whole population to attend the National Conference to Defeat Cancer on May 14 and 15, 2009. The Conference will be a milestone event allowing an open exchange on all the aspects in the continuum of the fight against cancer.
So we are inviting you to join us in this two-day annual gathering where hundreds of participant and experts will be heard at numerous roundtables and major presentations. A thematic exhibition, featuring over 30 booths, will promote the exchange of expertise between all partners and stakeholders in the fight against cancer.
In the following pages, you will find out more about the magnitude of this event.
Together, we can organize much better the fight against cancer in Québec.
Looking forward to seeing many of you to the Conference!
The spokespersons of the Coalition,
Dr Pierre Audet-Lapointe
Nathalie Rodrigue, T.M.
A message from Alain Zouvi
Cancer
I am sure that somebody around you, maybe in your family, has been stricken by cancer. This disease has become a real plague. Statistics are scary. Very close to me, over 20 friends and relatives – man, woman, smokers and non-smokers, overweight or not, old and young – have been touched. Last June, my wife who trains five days a week, who doesn't now and has ever smoked, who drinks very moderately, and who has the heart of an athlete, was diagnosed with cancer of the tongue.
Why?
Today, she is doing really well. Fortunately.
But what provoked the disease?
Nobody knows.
A few days later, my mother was admitted to the hospital with breast cancer. It had not been diagnosed soon enough, so it had already progressed to her lungs and her bones. She died on November 7.
Parise, 38 years old, survived.
Amulette, 80 years old, lost her life.
And that's only what happened near me over a few days.
To find out where the disease comes from and what causes it; to continue living without the fear of becoming another statistic; for the friends I have lost; for my wife; for my mother; I must get involved and support the Coalition Priorité Cancer au Québec.
Thank you.
Alain Zouvi
A message from Anne Lagacé-Dowson
Next door to me there lives a girl who carries the same name as my own daughter-11 year old Emma has cancer and has undergone treatments that would make an adult pale. Her childish life has been lived around endless hospital appointments, and long lonely periods of seclusion because of immune suppression.
My husband's beloved best friend died of throat cancer, a man with a golden voice, and a love of conversation, and even a good argument. It took his voice, then his life. Cancer has made its presence felt among my colleagues, several have been diagnosed and been treated successfully.
For a long time cancer had a stigma of scandal around it, like tuberculosis and HIV AIDS. Now we all know that it is disease that can be treated, and we hope, prevented.
And that is where my hope lies-in the hope that we can find out why cells go wrong, and turn on our friends, and family, and maybe us. We are all in this together.
Anne Lagacé-Dowson
