“It’s a little intimidating and daunting to think that I have power,” says Global BC News Anchor Sophie Lui of her ranking in Vancouver magazine’s 2024 list of the city’s 50 biggest power players. “But you know, there’s that saying: ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’”
Using her platform to do good is what drew Sophie to become a cabinet member of the BC Cancer Foundation’s Beyond Belief campaign. Having supported the Foundation, as an emcee and through the Tour de Cure annual cycling fundraiser, she joined in an official capacity after losing her dad, Jeff Allan, to colon cancer in 2020.
“He was my dad from the time I was seven,” she says of her stepfather who stoically faced the disease for five years before quickly deteriorating at the height of the pandemic. When asked how she held it together every night in the public eye during that difficult time, Sophie’s answer is simple: “I didn’t.”
“I started crying on the air a lot that year. But I wasn’t the only one. When all this was happening, everyone was very uncertain about everything. I remember I was doing a voice over ‘thank you’ to healthcare workers — to BC Cancer staff who continued to selflessly do their job, despite the lockdown — and I got very emotional.” So much so that her co-anchor Squire Barnes had to take over, she says.
A few years later, while speaking at a BC Cancer Foundation event, Sophie came face to face with her dad’s oncologist. “My dad wasn’t under Dr. Renouf’s care for very long because everything happened so fast. But he listened and he explained, and he gave my parents hope.”
Sophie wants to pass that same hope on to other families. “We will all deal with cancer, but we’re in this together.” One thing we can do, she says, is support breakthroughs in research and the compassionate care — and the hope it provides — at BC Cancer.
Learn more about volunteering with the BC Cancer Foundation.
