Minister Terry Lake Orders Probe Of Budget-Busting Fraser Health

Health Minister Terry Lake has ordered a strategic and operational review of Fraser Health to help contain rising costs and deal with persistent hospital congestion.

The health region is B.C.’s largest – it consumes $3 billion a year on behalf of 1.6 million residents – but it’s running over budget once again this year and Lake said it will require another infusion of extra money to meet patient demand.

bit.ly/2BDSmEf via @TheProgress

BC Health Minister Terry Lake His First Major Interview

By Pamela Fayerman

Just over a month into his cabinet post as B.C.’s latest health minister, Terry Lake agreed to sit and chat with me, in his first major media interview. In his Victoria office at the BC Legislature, we covered a lot of ground, from what kind of dog he’d be (if he were one) to the scandal gripping the ministry over employee firings and health research privacy breeches.

During our chat, Lake revealed his lighter, humorous side. And also some deeply felt emotion. Discussing end of life care, he choked up and got teary-eyed as he recalled his mother’s passing, about seven years ago. She was 75, had heart disease, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), all of which Lake attributes to smoking.

A runner and soccer player, he’s conscientious about his own health and has never been seriously ill or hospitalized. A former civic (councillor and Mayor of Kamloops) politician, Lake singled out two of his predecessors — Kevin Falcon and Mike de Jong — for the “excellent” job they each did as health minister.

Dressed in denim for our morning interview, Lake changed into a suit for the legislative session later in the day where he faced a barrage of questions from the NDP opposition. As a still-green minister in a complex $17 billion a year portfolio, he got lots of encouragement from de Jong, the finance minister. You can read the previous Q & A de Jong did with me here. To read my Q & A with Kevin Falcon, click here. To see a list of health ministers going back about 20 years, click here.

bit.ly/2ReBr5g via @VancouverSun

Terry Lake Dad, Animal Lover And Health Minister

If B.C. health minister Terry Lake were a dog, he says he’d be a terrier.

“Terriers are tenacious and tough. They know what they want and how to get it,” he said in his first major interview since being appointed health minister in June.

Lake’s professional background includes working many years as a veterinarian and animal health educator. The married father of three adult daughters started his political career as a city councillor in Kamloops in 2002 and was elected mayor from 2005 to 2008. Most recently, he was the minister of environment (2011-2013).

During an hour-long interview in his office at the B.C. Legislature, Lake teared up while talking about end-of-life care, recalling his own mother’s death seven years ago.

bit.ly/2ValDj2 via @VancouverSun

Terry Lake Sworn In As New Minister Of Health

Terry Lake was re-elected in June 2013 as MLA for the riding of Kamloops-North Thompson. He was appointed the Minister of Health June 10, 2013.

Lake has served as Minister of Environment. Prior to that, he served as the Parliamentary Secretary for Health Promotion to the Minister of Health Services and Parliamentary Secretary for the Ranching Task Force to the Minister of Agriculture and Lands. He also sat as a member of the Select Standing Committee on Health and on Legislative Initiatives.

A veterinarian by profession, Lake served as the mayor of the City of Kamloops from 2005-2008 and as a city councillor from 2002-05.

bit.ly/2Sjzm5e via @BCGovNews

Early Days Of Electricity, Pender Street 1914

Early days of electricity, Pender Street 1914. City of Vancouver.

Tags: history, Early, electricity, Pender Street, 1914, City, Vancouver,

bit.ly/2GGhyzZ via @tumblr, @htimes100

CNN International, World's Untold Stories, Shooting Up Legally April 2013

CNN International's documentary unit focuses on INSITE, the safe injection site for heroin users in Vancouver's Downtown East Side. While many other cities around the world are considering this strategy for their own problems and many in Vancouver applaud the program, addictions therapist and Executive Director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, David Berner, thinks the whole idea is misguided and destructive.

bit.ly/2Bhr6Ms via @YouTube

Remembering Vancouver’s First Race Riot

It all began on the morning of the 24th: a sign was paraded through town, reading: “The Chinese Have Came [sic]. Mass Meeting In The City Hall To Night”. The labourers had only been back in town for only two or three days before they were discovered, keeping a low profile on a large portion of vacant land near the foot of modern-day Burrard Street. By 8:00 that evening, the municipal building was a seething mass of bodies, with speakers declaring that action must be taken -- a position backed by prominent local business interests. However, by the end of the meeting, the crowd whipped into a frenzy by racist rhetoric, no concrete plan of action had been formed, and it quickly became clear that speeches wouldn’t be enough.

bit.ly/2GFlYHl via @TheTyee

The Pig Farm Documentary

This is the story about Robert Pickton, Canada's most prolific serial killer.

bit.ly/2Bc7IjQ via @YouTube

Insite - Not Just Injecting, But Connecting

Last year the HCLU's video advocacy group traveled to Vancouver to film about Insite, the only legally operating injecting facility in North-America. When we have arrived to Hastings Street, Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, where Insite is located, we were taken aback by the magnitude of the street drug use scene we found there. Hundreds of marginalized people live on the streets -- they are virtually homeless because I would not call those crowded stuffy buildings home where they get cheap a bed and breakfast. A lot of them come from other parts of Canada, where the climate is colder and there are no services like Insite, and all the other health and social services the Portland Hotel Society provides to drug users.

bit.ly/2TR7nus via @YouTube