Breast Cancer Action Montreal (BCAM) is a non-profit group directed by women who have been sensitized to the trauma of breast cancer and who are committed—long-term—to erasing the disease. We believe the focus of breast cancer research must move beyond its current emphasis on treatment to also embrace a serious search for the causes of the disease and its prevention.

BCAM

Projects

BCAM wants the safety of cosmetics and personal care products to be improved and we provide information about dangerous ingredients so you can make informed decisions. BCAM offers opportunities for action as well as educational workshops about safe cosmetics for youth and adult audiences. Call to book!

BCAM's Bulletin is a lifeline to members, providing news of BCAM activities, upcoming events related to breast cancer, original reports on breast cancer, events, opinion pieces by BCAM members, book reviews, and more.

FemmeToxic's goal is to educate young Canadian women about the potential dangers of cosmetics ingredients and provide people with the tools they need to create personal change and to influence national legislative reform. Refuse to be “toxified”! Demand safer cosmetics!

What's happening

A gift for your mother. A gift for all mothers, and for women everywhere

This Mother’s Day, give the gift of prevention.

You might be aware that the modern origins of Mother’s Day have nothing to do with gifts of chocolate truffles, silk scarves and perfume. In fact, Mother’s Day started as a celebration of women’s grassroots activism
 
This is why donating to BCAM this Sunday in honour of your mother, or any woman you love, makes the perfect gift.
 
BCAM is a non-profit activist and advocacy group run by women who understand the trauma of breast cancer. We’re working harder than ever before to raise awareness about prevention and environmental links to this disease. We’re doing this to make the world a safer place for women of all ages, and reduce the risks of cancer through education about prevention.
 
As activists, we celebrate women everyday; but we also try to protect them. As activists, that’s our job.
 
Our safe cosmetics campaign and FemmeToxic projects are in full swing. Our interns are busy starting their summer outreach work, booking presentations and workshops into next fall. Our staff are making ties with community groups across the city and Canada so that our educational programs can reach more women and their loved ones.
 
All this work is exciting. But we need your help.
 
Sunday is fast approaching, but it isn’t too late! So make a tax-deductible donation in honour of the women you love. A membership is only 25 dollars, but no amount is ever too small.
 
You can make a donation online right now by going to our website.
 
This year, make your Mother’s Day meaningful for all women.
May 11 2012 - 8:47am

How Breast Cancer Activists and the Pink Ribbon can learn from the Red Square

written by Deborah Ostrovsky

 

I’m sitting in a café and I am surrounded by red squares.

The waitress is wearing a red felt square attached to her collar with a safety pin. The barista’s red square is made of wool, knitted in a garter stitch and attached to the buttonhole of his shirt. The elderly woman sitting next to me is wearing one, too. She is fawning over my baby daughter who is sleeping soundly against my chest despite the red cotton square on the woman’s beret dangling over her tiny, newborn face.

If you are from Quebec, you are familiar with the red square. It’s a symbol of solidarity with our college and university students who are currently protesting government tuition hikes.

To my friends from the U.S., where the cost of university tuition can bankrupt a middle class family, the proposed increase of $325 each year over the next five years seems piddly and trifling.

In Quebec, we subsidize education in order to make it accessible to everyone. The students have decided to take this promise of subsidized education very seriously. In fact, some students interviewed by the media are putting their own academic future on hold to ensure that the next generation will not have to pay more to go to school.

You may not be in favour of the student strike. Some of my friends find the student strike intolerable, particularly after the recent bouts of violence during protests (this violence must be condemned; although it comes from a tiny fraction of students and most has not been caused by the students at all).

But if you are an environmental or breast cancer activist, you cannot hide from some of the unpleasant truths the students are trying to reveal about the connections between education, health, the environment and social justice. And like all sensitive, dedicated activists, they are aware—despite being so, so young—that even small incremental changes can hurt a population as much as a swift and sudden blow.  

May 2 2012 - 3:26am