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Neil Collishaw, in an interview with Radio-Canada when he was spokesperson for Doctors for a Smoke-Free Canada in 2018. (Archive photo)
Photo : Radio-Canada / Dereck Doherty
Published yesterday at 4:44 p.m. EDT
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Neil Collishaw, a federal public servant who became a staunch advocate for tobacco control, died last Thursday at his home in Ottawa at the age of 77.
According to his family, he suffered from bladder cancer.
From his time at Health Canada to his final years as research director for the Ottawa-based non-profit Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, Neil Collishaw campaigned for a smoke-free world.
Notably, he helped craft legislation in the mid-1980s that limited the promotional capabilities of tobacco companies as well as passing a separate law banning smoking in workplaces, trains and federal planes.
In the early 2000s, he toured Canada with an Ottawa restaurant worker suffering from lung cancer to put a face to the health effects of exposure to second-hand smoke. .
With information from Guy Quenneville, CBC News.
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