“About 1 in 2 Canadians will develop cancer in their lifetimes and 1 in 4 will die of the disease” (Canadian Cancer Society, 2017). Cancer is a major issue in Canada. It effects everyone; whether it is something you are struggling with or someone you know that has it. When you think about how major of a topic cancer is in Canada it is still baffling to think there is no cure for the disease, let alone no one knows the real reason (maybe it really is just hereditary) to why humans get cancer. To better understand cancer though we must go into the past and look at cancer from a historical perspective. “The images of cancer are not positive. Early in the century physicians considered it a “dreaded disease” with an “insidious nature,” resulting in “suffering and great mortality.” Even when doctors considered the curative rate improving, Canadians remained caught in their fear of cancer, as in incidence rate continued to increase with thousands of Canadians dying from it each year” (Mitchinson, 215). Throughout Canada’s history we have always tried to help those with cancer. “As early as the 1920’s, L’Insitut du Radium in Montreal provided treatment for those with cancer. In the 1930s Saskatchewan introduced legislation to establish to Cancer Relief Act. In the 1940s, Alberta introduced the Cancer Treatment and Prevention Act and the Provincial Royal Jubilee Hospital” (Mitchinson, 216). During the same time, “the founding of the Canadian Cancer society in 1938 and the National Cancer Institute in 1947 increased cancer research and public awareness of both cancer and the lack of screening-program funding” (Hadenko, 128). “Historians of cancer have shown, as well, that the association between emotions and malignant disease, especially in women, has played a part in Western medicine for centuries, though interest in such a connection had reached a low ebb by the early 20th century” (Jasen, 267). There is must controversy about the correlation between post war depression and cancer in women. “It should be acknowledged that not all historians are in agreement over the nature and degree of postwar anti-feminism. Johanne Meyerowitz maintains that the notion (popularized by Betty Friedan and others in the early 1960s) that there was one oppressive ideology suffuring postwar mass culture’s view of women’s role and destiny has dominated the historiographical treatment of the period and distorted our understanding” (Jasen, 271). For many of these women their cancer was cervical. “Cervical cancer is one of the few cancers that with early detection, can have a 100 per cent cure rate. By the mid-twentieth century, medical communities in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom understood cervical cancer as a potentially preventable disease” (Hadenko, 127). Cancer being such a difficult disease to deal with, most of the time, it is hard for some people to accept the fact they have it. Yet when we talk about it we get the knowledge out about how we can help others with cancer, and the treatment options for those struggling. Hadenko states in her article about cervical cancer in women, “it appears that cervical cancer is finally getting the public exposure it has been demanding for half a century” (146). Although cervical cancer in women wasn’t the only issue in Canada; men and prostate cancer is also happening at the same time. There are many studies that show that women tend to live longer than the average male, and in Rachelle Miele and Juanne Clarke’s article they also state that “masculinity prescribes that men are more likely than women to adopt certain behaviors that increase their health risks” (16). There are many ways to protect yourself from prostate cancer getting too serious to cure, one of these ways is to regularly go to prostate-specific antigen screenings. Although cancer is such a talked-about topic on the media some men tend to not take the risks of getting prostate cancer very seriously. There are many reasons to why a man may not get a screening. “Men who do not participate in the screenings do not do so because they do not have symptoms; they are embarrassed because of the procedure, the fear surrounding cancer and diagnosis, and general confusion about the screening” (Clarke & Miele, 16). With such high reports about cancer and all of its effects it’s time to take action. There are many organizations that aid people with cancer but we need to focus on the things we can do to catch cancer before it spreads. Let’s start talking about the testing available for men and women in Canada so we can catch the cancer before it’s too late.