Some faces at city hall have changed after a special event Wednesday afternoon.
Mayor Keith Hobbs, Coun. Paul Pugh, transit union president Charlie Brown and others shaved their facial hair in an effort to raise awareness for prostate cancer as the annual Movember campaigned kicked-off Wednesday.
Men across the world shave their faces at the beginning of November and grow a moustache until Nov.30. Canada alone raised more than $22 million last year. Hobbs has had his trademark goatee when Flock of Seagulls tore up the charts.
He grew it during his time on the Thunder Bay Police Service’s drug unit.
“It’s been part of my face for a long time and it feels a lot different now,” Hobbs said after getting his face shaved by a volunteer hair stylist.
“It matches my head I guess … I was a bit nervous but it’s for a great cause.”
A member of the local prostate cancer support group, Hobbs said it’s time that men start talking about a cancer that one in six men will be diagnosed with and one in seven die from.
“It’s something that we need to bring awareness to. Women have brought awareness to breast cancer and they’re campaigns are huge in the country and we need to bring that awareness to men’s health issues as well.”
As for what kind of moustache he’ll be sporting, the former cop said that choice is easy.
“I’m going to try the handle-bar moustache, the long old ‘70s moustache and see where it goes,” Hobbs said.
While the campaign is fun, the fight is important he said.
“Cancer is an insidious disease,” Hobbs said. “We need to really fight it hard.”
Prostate Cancer Canada Network Thunder Bay president Phil Junnila had his moustache since he was 16 before shaving it off for last year’s campaign.
All money raised through the campaign will go to the national PCCN for research. And because the campaign has been going so successfully the past few years, research on prostate cancer has been groundbreaking. In a few generations from now, prostate cancer treatment will be light years ahead of what it is now he said.
“The surgeries are going to be obsolete,” Junnila said.
Junnila said men need to get tested for prostate cancer.
“Too many are dying and it’s not necessary,” he said.
There has been talk of a moustache contest for those who participated in the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 966 campaign at the end of the month though no date or time has been set.
