"We don't have a national organization that's speaking out and promoting preventative health. . . .if there's ever been a time that we need to get the light shining brightly on this issue, it's now."

An NGO is Born

Winnipeg Activist Launches Canadians for a Healthy Future

By SYD BAUMEL

At the World Congress on Heart Research held in Winnipeg this July, local activist Dennis Bayomi found himself in the middle of a conversation with a Mayo Clinic cardiologist who had just delivered a powerful presentation on preventative medicine and Manitoba's Minister of Health – who had eaten up every word.

Bayomi had been struck by how attentively Dave Chomiak had listened to the doctor, Thomas Kottke, describe a preventative health program called CardioVision 2020. As Project Leader, Kottke discussed the multidisciplinary effort to rally the citizens of Olmsted, Minnesota to stop smoking, eat better, exercise regularly, and take other steps to reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular blights. Chomiak, Bayomi noticed, "seemed to be taking copious notes."

Moved to congratulate Kottke, the affable Bayomi hopped onstage and commended him for his innovative program. Chomiak had also made the leap, and Bayomi commended him for showing so much interest.

It was then that Bayomi – who among other change-the-world things has been a long-term member of the Steering Committee of the Manitoba Eco-Network, a board member of Hogwatch Manitoba, and Founder and President of the Winnipeg Vegetarian Association – did what any inveterate reformer would do. He asked Chomiak why we can't follow Olmsted's lead. "Manitoba," he drove home his message, "would be in an enviable position. It would not only put us in the front of the pack nationally, but worldwide."

Chomiak's response seemed to transcend ingratiating lip service. "I was quite encouraged," Bayomi recalls. "He emphasized that although the NDP's priority has been to get the healthcare system back on track, their real goal is to focus on preventative health. . . .They definitely want to follow up with this project at the Mayo Clinic and see if they can work together on it."

It was the kind of network-building encounter Bayomi lives for. And it was a catalyst that would spur the fortysomething St. James resident on to do something he'd been dreaming of for years: found a national organization called Canadians for a Healthy Future.

"We don't have a national organization that's speaking out and promoting preventative health," Bayomi says, a little over a month since that fateful meeting. "I think if there's ever been a time that we need to get the light shining brightly on this issue, it's now."

Bayomi sees Canadians for a Healthy Future (CHF) as a popular rallying call that will appeal to the good intentions of politicians like Chomiak and his tobacco-bashing federal counterpart, Allan Rock.

But preventative health boosters like Chomiak and Rock are only as strong as their parties will let them be. They "really need to hear it from the people," emphasizes Bayomi.

And that's where CHF can make a difference. "I think if we had the numbers – whether it's 100,000 or a million or even 10,000 – it would just maybe help him [Rock] a little bit more to convince his caucus colleagues that there's support across the country for the kinds of things he's probably itching to do."

As for what CHF is itching to do, so far the nascent nongovernmental organization is little more than a website under development at www.healthyfuture.ca (a natural starting point for Bayomi who is an Internet developer and programmer) featuring three petitions calling for:

a nationwide ban on smoking in all indoor public places;

a nationwide moratorium on further development of intensive livestock operations (factory farms);

and (above all) a nationwide focus on preventative health.

(The site also links to petitions by other NGOs calling for a moratorium on genetically modified food development and for labeling of those already on the market.)

Ultimately, Bayomi wants CHF to address all issues that relate to its sweeping goal of a healthy future for Canadians. "This organization isn't just going to look at one or two issues, but put everything together," he says, citing such diverse examples as spiritual well-being, the dark side of milk (it doesn't even prevent bone fractures, Bayomi contends, citing a huge 1997 study from the Harvard School of Public Health), and our relationship to nature:

"How we treat other creatures and the environment really fits in together with how we treat ourselves and how healthy our own futures are."

On the academic side, Bayomi has already found advisors in University of Winnipeg's water safety specialist, Eva Pip, Vancouver dietitian Vesanto Melina (co-author of Becoming Vegetarian and Becoming Vegan, and coordinator of the vegetarian section of the Manual of Clinical Dietetics), and "an Oxford University biostatistician who I'll be tapping into for advice along the way." A fifteen year stint helping just about everybody at the University of Manitoba Medical School cope with computers has given Bayomi "a local network of medical expertise," including many who share his passion for preventative health.

This September, Bayomi will go into full gear getting the word out to people across Canada and beyond. "With communications the way they are now, it makes it so much easier to get a national organization off the ground. We're already starting to get the memberships coming in."

At $5 a pop, it's a small price to pay for a shot at a healthy future.

For more information, visit www.HealthyFuture.ca, email info@healthyfuture.ca, or write to Canadians for a Healthy Future, Box 702, Station Main, Winnipeg, MB, R3C 2K3.

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