We are all busy this time of the year, but there are upcoming elections both provincially and federal. We all need to get involved to protect our business interests. This is simple to do when there are elections upcoming; politician need your help to get elected. They need people to put signs in the ground, make calls, lick stamps, or be a runner. Why do you need to help these people? Because you need a friend in government, and this is the easiest way to get your local politician to know you.

Our opponents do this all the time, and this is how regulations move forward or don’t. There are several research papers that have surfaced in the last 6 months that could hurt us if we don’t all get involved with our local politicians. As I mentioned before, Health Canada does a survey (Canadian Health Survey) every 5 years that includes questions about our industry. This will be done in 2019. A new research paper will follow reporting on how our industry is doing. The JCTA is not asking you to rebut anything; we just need as many friends in the government as possible. All the JCTA is asking of you is you to create a relationship with your local representatives, and the easiest way to do that is to help with their election.

I’ve been doing this for the last 10 years, and I have great relationships with both my MLA for BC and my MP for Canada. I can make a phone call, and they’re ready to listen to me. This only took the first time I helped each one gets elected. I continue to do it every time there is an election to make sure they remember me. I occasionally attend political events, so they remember my face. They continue to promise if they hear of anything brewing about our industry, they will call me.

The JCTA continues to educate government by periodically sending out newsletters to government on our industry, how JCTA Members follow Professional Standards, and how these standards protect our clients. These newsletters go out to Health Ministries, bureaucrats and local politician we already know. We would like to be able to send these newsletters out to your local politician, but we need to make sure they are sympathetic to you and what you do. Without you knowing your local politician, what the JCTA sends goes on deaf ears. Why is this? Because it’s not connected to a local constituent – meaning you the salon owner, a person that they represent in government.

When I was dealing with regulations across the country, every time I talked with a local politician, they said, “No one has every talked to me about this. Why don’t your members ever come in to talk to us?” If we all get involved, we will have information to them to help explain our vision for our industry and how we protect our clients through controlled exposure to a sunbed. I live by these sayings: “It’s who you know, not what you know” and “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” So, please plan some time in your busy schedule to get to know your local politician, especially if you have an upcoming election. Let us know if you would like us to send information your local politician on your behalf. We just need an email address for your local politician to make that happen.

The JCTA continue to market the industry this year with positive information and protective messaging of “Please Tan Responsibly.” We have now exceeded impressions and click rate to our website compared to last year’s campaign and still have 4 months to go. There are over 4 million impressions so far on Facebook and Google and 500 to 1000 Canadians every day checking out TanResponsibly.ca, which always shows salon members located closest to them. The Lifestyle campaign in in full swing with PreTanning ending mid-February. The Sunburn Prevention Campaign will start up in March.

The Sunburn Prevention campaign will for the first time include “Survey Says” ads thanks to 202 salons that got involved with the First Canadian Tanner Survey in January. The survey was done in 93 cities, 8 provinces and over 1300 survey were completed. That makes the survey valid with a 95% confidence level of +/- 2.7 percentage. With the survey we’ll be able to let Canadians know what Canadian tanner think. There were also two questions that asked about politics and thoughts on further regulations that will help us show government how 1.34 million Canadian tanning voters feel about further regulations.  JCTA Members will have access to the Survey Report, hopefully out by the end of March.

If you are interested in becoming a Member please check out “Why Join the JCTA?” video or contact me at 1.800.915.0367 or info@TanCanada.org

FYI, everyone I talked with has had a great start to the season. Hope the same is happening for you.

Don’t forget to get politically involved!!