Pfizer partners with Quebec for Sports Awareness Day

Pfizer employees and guests from other enterprises joined up on an unusually bright and sunny October last Friday for some fun-filled fresh air and exercise near the company's head office in Kirkland, in order to jointly celebrate Quebec's Sports and Physical Activity Day.

"Pfizer Canada (…) recognizes that it takes more than medication to be healthy," explained Paul Lévesque, President and CEO of Pfizer Canada.

Before Chronicle staff participated in a "brisk walk," as organizers put it, it spotted joggers outside and moved in to watch different participants partake in an indoor hockey game.

Bruno Allary, head of Pfizer's internal health and awareness program, VIVA, said Pfizer has been placing an important emphasis on health on its employees and others who work with the company for the last three years.

"The program has three pillars," Allary said." Nutrition, physical activity, and work/life balance."

Allary said the program includes an in-house gym, as well as specialists working full-time on location to help out employees with their various health and awareness needs, such as nutritionists and kinesiologists.

"We do a lot of sports sponsorship," he said, adding full-time Pfizer employees also receive fitness subsidies for fitness-related activities.

The 5-km walk, which moved through different suburban streets of Kirkland behind Pfizer's head office, included over 20 participants. A trainer and some of the kinesiologists mentioned by Allary were present in order to make sure everyone kept pace, warning them with a smile at the beginning that this would be no stroll in the park.

The Quebec Sports and Physical Activity Day began in 2005, in collaboration with the Canadian government, in an effort to encourage children, young people, persons with disabilities, and Aboriginal people in the province to do more physical activity and sport.

Though Pfizer prides itself on the emphasis it places on employee health, Allary admit other corporations have moved in on the trend as well. "A lot of corporations are now realizing that they have to work on prevention for the health of their employees," he said.

Participants in the event also got a chance to meet some Canadian Paralympian champion athletes, including Valérie Grand 'Maison (five medals, swimming), Benoît Huot (four medals, swimming), Diane Roy (three medals, athletics), David Eng (medallist, wheelchair basketball), Hervé Lord (medallist, sledge hockey), and Jacques Bouchard (athletics).

Chronicle, Raffy Boudjikanian