The 2014 Hastings Lecture featured speakers Dr. Evan Adams (Chief Medical Officer for B.C.’s First Nations Health Authority) and Duncan McCue (CBC News Reporter), who shared their experiences and stories of Aboriginal health, and discussed strategies for community healing. They explored how Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal health systems can work together to improve Canada’s health.
Dr Evan Adams of the Sliammon First Nation (Powell River, B.C.) is an actor and physician. He is currently the Deputy Provincial Health Officer for Aboriginal Health in B.C.
On December 1, 2014 Dr. Adams will become B.C.’s first Medical Officer of Health for the First Nations Health Authority. In March 2014, he received an Inspire Award which recognizes Indigenous professionals and youth who demonstrate outstanding career achievement.
Dr. Adams completed his MD at the University of Calgary, an Aboriginal Family Practice residency at St Paul’s Hospital/UBC, and a Masters of Public Health degree from John Hopkins University.
As an actor, Dr. Adams starred in the Emmy award-winning TV movie Lost in the Barrens and won the 1999 Independent Spirit Award for Performance in the Miramax feature Smoke Signals.
Duncan McCue has been a reporter for CBC news for over 15 years. His news and current affairs pieces are featured on The National. In 2014, his series ‘Last Right’ won a Webster Award for excellence in legal journalism.
Mr. McCue was awarded a Knight Fellowship at Stanford University in 2011, where he created an online guide for journalists called Reporting in Indigenous Communities.
Mr. McCue is also an adjunct professor at the UBC School of Journalism, and has taught journalism to indigenous students at First Nations University and Capilano College. Before coming a journalist, Mr. McCue studied English at the University of King’s College, then Law at UBC. He was called to the B.C. Bar in 1998.
Mr. McCue is Anishinaabe, a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation in Southern Ontario.