Up in Canada, Dragon Boat racing is a big part of the summer. Lots of companies sponsor boats and encourage their employees to participate - thousands of people - join Dragon Boat crews.

None of them used to wear PFDs.

And if you'd asked someone why not, they would give you all the reasons you know so well - they're the same reason you hear from anglers, and sailors, and canoeists and kayakers:
- it's not part of the culture
- it gets in the way of the sport
- it looks stupid…
- it's too expensive

But just as the Dragon Boat community was a microcosm of the whole PFD debate, it became a powerful example of how quickly a confluence of voices related to PFDs can change the behaviour of a whole community.

The Cook-Rees Memorial Fund raised the PFD question with the Dragon Boaters Association, and we weren't alone.

The Coast Guard played a significant role. PFD manufacturers joined in and brought their new paddling lifejacket designs right to the participants.

More importantly, perhaps, the insurance companies and the folks who organised dragon boat events got on board. We only had to get them thinking about two dozen paddlers overboard in the Toronto harbour to motivate them on the issue.

To help seal the deal, we funded PFDs for one of the top dragon boat teams in Ontario - the Shaolin Monks. They raced and won in comfortable PFDs, showing leadship and laying bear the argument that wearing a PFD would impede competition and enjoyment.

The final piece of this puzzle was achieved when, with the expert help of the Ontario Lifesaving Society, the Fund supported the development of a Dragon Boat Safety Protocol and handbook and seminar and this was adopted by the Ontario Dragon Boat Association. And this included the mandatory wear of PFDs by all participants in all training and competition activity. This illustrate how many voices can come together and change the way a whole sport behaves.

Come up to Canada this summer and you'll see Dragonboaters wearing PFDs, not arguing about PFDs.

Now they're arguing about the size of their paddle.

I raise that because it speaks to a critical point that sometimes gets obscured when we focus too much on the debate about mandatory wearing of PFDs.

People won't really change their behaviour just by changing a law.

But they may change their behaviour if we make this idea very personal to them.

And making ideas personal is a topic that, as a recording artist, I do know something about.

There are a few ways to make safety personally meaningful to people.