Liberal candidates Terry Lake and Todd Stone take to the podium to celebrate their wins in the North and South Thompson ridings election night.

(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)

Both MLAs named ministers in new cabinet

KAMLOOPS - The new B.C. cabinet was announced this afternoon and out of the 19 ministers appointed to the cabinet, many are new to their rolls, including Kamloops MLAs Terry Lake and Todd Stone, and in some cases the roll itself is new.

Lake, formerly in charge of environment, has been moved to health while Stone will be taking on transportation and infrastructure.

Premier Christy Clark, who lost her seat in her own Vancouver riding and will be running in a byelection in Westside-Kelowna next month, says Lake exemplifies how to live a healthy life and preventative care. With the expansion of Royal Inland Hospital beginning in the near future, the timing of Lake taking over the portfolio is ideal for the city. 

Lake is leaving behind the portfolio that oversees the environmental assessment process and Mary Polak of Langley has moved from transportation and infrastructure to environment.

"Todd knows how to build a business from the bottom up, and being from Kamloops knows how important transportation is," Clark said in her introduction of the new transportation minister. Stone will oversee the many infrastructure upgrades necessary around the province including the expansion of the TransCanada Highway to four lanes.

Among the new ministries created were ministry of natural gas development, ministry of technology, innovation and citizen services and the ministry of international trade, Asia-Pacific strategy and multiculturalism.

Rich Coleman, Fort Langley-Aldergrove, will remain as the deputy premier and minister in charge of housing, but will also take on the role of natural gas development minister. Mike de Jong, Abbotsford-West will stay in the role of minister of finance and house leader. Stephanie Cadieux, Surrey-Cloverdale, and Steve Thomson, Kelowna-Mission, are the only other ministers seeing unchanged portfolios. Thomson, the only other minister from the Thompson-Okanagan, continues as the minister in charge of forests, lands and natural resource operations while Cadieux will oversee the ministry of children and family development. In total six other ministers remain ministers but with different portfolios this time.

To contact a reporter for this story, email jstahn@infotelnews.ca, call (250)819-3723 or message through Twitter @JennStahn.

News from © iNFOnews, 2013