Geen standbeeld voor Heather Crowe
Een commentator in een Canadese krant die opriep om een gedenkteken op te richten voor de onlangs overleden Heather Crowe, moet snel op zijn schreden terugkeren nadat hij grote hoeveelheden e-mails kreeg die hem vroegen of hij wel goed bij zijn hoofd was.
Heather Crowe werd het boegbeeld van de Canadese anti-rokenbeweging nadat werd ‘vastgesteld’ dat ze haar longkanker had te danken aan meeroken. De reacties van de lezers op de oproep waren vernietigend: mevrouw Crowe was een door de politiek misbruikte en op geld beluste dame die geen gedenkteken verdient, volgens de schrijvers.
De commentator moet toegeven dat hij zich wat heeft laten meeslepen in de anti-rokenmanie…
I received scores of e-mails and phone messages to my column in which I asked for your suggestions for some kind of permanent memorial for the late anti-smoking activist and former waitress who was diagnosed with lung cancer from second-hand smoke in restaurants where she’d worked — a park, a street, a building in her name, a statue in her image.
The column was in response to a lengthy e-mail from reader Latisha Otsira who attacked me for equating the morality of Crowe’s mission to that of Terry Fox. Otsira said Crowe was a willing pawn of the political anti-smoking lobbyists, Fox’s motives were pure and apolitical, and there should be no memorial in her honour.
The vast majority of you agreed with Otsira. Your passion is hot. You want to be heard. I haven’t the room for all your responses, so today selected anti-memorial excerpts.
Michelle Gervais, director media relations, Citizens For Civil Liberties. “Heather Crowe was financially compensated in the first set of commercials aired when she won her worker’s compensation claim. She was paid $20,000 from Health Canada. We have a letter from the minister of health documenting this fact. During her employment with the federally funded lobby group Physicians For A Smoke Free Canada she travelled across Canada and even to England on the taxpayers’ dollar. I have the impression this woman was, at least, a very financially astute woman who profited quite nicely from her illness and actions … We are requesting a public enquiry into the matter of the Heather Crowe file.”
