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How taking a stand against smoking in Inuvik launched Alfred Moses’ political career

Alfred Moses has never smoked in his life.
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Afred Moses demonstrates the difference between a smoker’s lung and a non-smoker’s lung during his 2008 Tobacco tour, where he visited schools in Aklavik, Inuvik, Fort McPherson and Paulatuk about the dangers of smoking. Photo courtesy of Afred Moses

Alfred Moses has never smoked in his life.

But that didn’t stop him from approaching a circle of smokers and asking if they could spare a cigarette.

“People would be like ‘Don’t give him one, he’s just going to break it,’” he said. “You give me a smoke, I would break it and throw it in the garbage.

“That’s what really got me on the map — smoking cessation prevention and promotion.”

While helping him make enemies, as it turns out standing up to the tobacco industry helped lay the foundation for the former cabinet minister’s political career, which has now seen two stints as an Inuvik town councillor and a four-year run as the MLA for Inuvik-Boot Lake and as a cabinet minister under Bob McLeod. But it all started with a desire to help others butt out.

His penchant for not-smoking has paid off. Inuvik became the first municipality in the Northwest Territories to pass a smoking bylaw while Moses was serving his first stint as a councillor at age 24. Under the bylaw, the areas where smoking was permitted were greatly reduced.

“A lot of the restaurants didn’t like it,” he said with a laugh. “But it was to protect the children. Following suit, the Northwest Territories passed legislation.

“We did a lot of things here. We held a conference for the region, we had a youth group that did presentations in the schools.”

From there, encouraging others to quit continued to open doors for Moses. He noted he was basically asked by the GNWT to work for them.

Moses said he was told there was federal funding available for a First Nations and Inuit Health Tobacco coordinator, promoting non-smoking in remote and Indigenous communities throughout the North.

“They made me do a presentation,” he said. “Off the cuff.”

Moses’ passion was first sparked when he attended a tobacco conference in Yellowknife while still working in community health in his early 20s. Noting he didn’t know anything about tobacco until that point, Moses said what he learned there really opened his eyes, prompting him to try and stop anyone he met from smoking.

He started his campaign off easy — first convincing his mother to drop the habit, then worked his way out from there.

“She was at a pack-and-a-half a day,” said Moses. “So I got her to quit. Then I just slowly worked on people.”

While there are many reasons to avoid smoking, Moses said the one he found hit closest to home was how it can derail an athlete’s career.

During his time as a community health professional, Moses toured the Beaufort Delta and showed children the difference between a smoker’s lung and a non-smoker’s lung. The difference in the amount of air each could take in was breathtaking.

“I thought, ‘If I didn’t know about this, how many others don’t?’” said Moses. “So I went out and started talking to kids at school, which is what got me started in public speaking.

“I used to carry lungs — healthy lungs and smoker’s lungs. I would pump up the healthy lungs and show them expanding very easily, then I would put the smoker’s lungs on the apparatus and try to pump that up, and it wouldn’t even pump halfway through. Then I would explain what’s happening is the chemicals in the smoke was burning the alveolar sac, which puts the oxygen in the lungs. So when you have less alveolar sac, you have less oxygen.”

With a second stint as Inuvik town councillor and other community projects on the go, Moses said he hasn’t had as much time to campaign against smoking as he used to.

But if you see him coming to your smoking circle, you can save him some time by breaking your own cigarettes.

“I don’t have anything happening right now,” he said. “But I should.”



About the Author: Eric Bowling

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