Okotoks wins Iron Lung Award
Posted May 10, 2011 12:04 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Okotoks has won an award for its Smoke Free Vehicles for Children by-law.
The Town received the inaugural Iron Lung Award from the Lung Association of Alberta and Northwest Territories.
The Lung Award recognizes significant ideas and projects that demonstrate innovation, creativity and leadership to help Albertans have healthier lungs.
Tony Hudson, with the Lung Association explains why Okotoks was given the honour.
“There’s an element of being out front, there’s the element of innovation, but it’s basically sort of leader of the pack… and Okotoks, definitely, they’re a great first recipient of this,” he says.
The by-law bans people from lighting up in cars with kids under 16 in them, and was the first of its kind in Alberta.
Okotoks Mayor Bill Robertson tells 660News they didn’t know they were leading the pack when they created the law.
“We were surprised there wasn’t anything else in the province,” he says. “Certainly a few other provinces have by-laws regarding this, and of course our wish is to make it a province-wide by-law, because, of course, children across the province need to be safe in their vehicles.”
Robertson says if more towns jump on board, that might happen.
“What the province will do, I believe, eventually is when enough municipalities have enacted this within their own towns or cities, then they would make it a province-wide legislation,” he says. “The same thing basically happened with smoking in public places, in bars and restaurants and so on. A number of municipalities got on board, then the province eventually brought it in and made it province-wide.”
Since Okotoks enacted their by-law, Leduc, Athabasca and Medicine Hat have created similar laws.
