Young Changemakers 2026: Madi Vanstone In Conversation With Paul Holmes

(MENAFN- PRovoke) By the age of 14, Madi Vanstone had already accomplished something that would be the crowning achievement for many healthcare public relations professionals: she had led a campaign that culminated in a change to Canada's healthcare policy, giving patients across the country access to life-changing medication.

Diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at age three, Madi spent much of her childhood at SickKids Hospital in Toronto. At age 11, she was accepted into a clinical trial for the first CF modulator, and“for the first time, I could breathe. I could just be a kid.” Then the trial ended and because the treatment was not publicly funded, the cost of continuing treatment went from zero to almost $350,000 a year.

So Madi and her mom became advocates, embarking on two years of relentless public advocacy including media interviews, community campaigns, thousands of petition signatures, and meetings with Ontario's Premier and Health Minister at the Ontario provincial legislature, Queens Park-until the law was changed.

All of which set her on a path to her current career in health advocacy with GCI Canada, and to one of our 2026 Young Changemaker awards. Here, in an interview with PRovoke Media founder and editor Paul Holmes, she talks about the impact of the disease on her childhood and how“my mom Beth and I decided to start advocating. for access, not just for myself, but for the other patients. We realized there were real gaps in the healthcare system.”

Her mom“had no background in advocacy or healthcare or anything. But she was the best at being a mom and she did what she had to do to make sure that I got what I needed. She always made it up to me. She said, do you want to fight for this? And I said, yes. And so we did it together and we learned a lot together and we're still both very involved in that space.”

She talks about her advocacy work, about the need to take a step back from those issues for a time in high school, and about her education and her path back to patient advocacy as both a profession and a mission.

“In my heart, I wanted to keep going. I think to this day, there's so many changes that need to happen.... I knew that I didn't feel complete without doing advocacy. It really felt like my life purpose. And so I acquired the skills to handle my anxiety and heal a little bit....

“These drugs kept coming down the pipeline and the government kept saying no. And I said, how can you do this to children, people who are born with these things? It's just infuriating that they can just say no. It feels so heartless. And that really it just set a fire in me.”

She had made connections in the world of PR and communications and as she learned about the power of the PR industry to shape opinion and change minds,“I ended up getting connected with GCI Canada and I was really nervous because I didn't have an education in PR or comms or anything like that. My biggest tool was... I had my experience.

“I'm passionate about it. I'm driven and I want to make change. I'm just really thankful that they saw something in me that I don't even know if I saw it in myself.... I'm working on pharmaceutical clients now. I work with lots of patient groups. I think I think GCI Canada knows where my passion is, where my strongest skills are. And they set me up to do what I love to do.”

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