People First Radio

In the first part of a series of conversations on stories from the history of drugs and alcohol, People First Radio speaks with Dan Malleck about pharmacists and liquor laws in Victorian Ontario. Malleck is a historian of medicine at Brock University and Director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Brock. He wrote about […]

In The King of Jam Sandwiches, author Eric Walters gets personal. The story follows 13 year old Robbie, but it’s heavily informed by Walters’ own childhood. It deals with themes like mental illness, poverty, and foster care, and won the Governor General’s Literary Award for young people’s literature in 2020. Walters, a Member of the […]

If you’re on a low income, and have been living in the same building for years, what happens to you if that building gets torn as part of a new development? It’s a question Brian Doucet has been trying to answer. Doucet is the Canada Research Chair in Urban Change and Social Inclusion, and an […]

Because TikTok has so many younger users, alcohol companies aren’t allowed to advertise on it. But as Dr. Jessamy Bagenal recently wrote in British medical journal The Lancet, there are a number of non-traditional ways that liquor could be being promoted to youth on TikTok. She spoke with People First Radio to share what these […]

"We all have a role in calling for accountability from platforms"

Earlier this year a group of tenants got together at Nanaimo’s Mount Benson Legion Branch for a mini town hall event. The goal was to come up with community based solutions, for ways to better support tenants who are vulnerable because of age, income, or disability. The meeting was organised by local media outlet The […]

In conversation with Ary Maharaj of the National Eating Disorder Information Centre(NEDIC). More information about can be found on NEDIC’s website, https://nedic.ca/

MySafe Society is one of several safer supply pilot projects in British Columbia. It provides around 130 people in the province with a prescription supply of Dilaudid – hydromorphone tablets that are taken orally. Dilaudid is an opioid that is sometimes used to treat pain. The prescriptions are intended to allow people who had been […]

Rebekah Young, Head of Inclusion and Resilience Economics at Scotiabank, discusses a recent column in which she called on Canada to double its social housing stock.

"Having some stress in your day also means that you're having more interactions with humans, and that there's also more positive events with other humans, and that good things happen"

On January 16, Nanaimo City Council declared the overdose prevention site on 264 Nicol Street a nuisance property after receiving a report from city staff detailing social disorder surrounding the site. The site is run by the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users (NANDU), and the designation means that the city can impose cost recovery […]

On January 16, Nanaimo City Council declared the overdose prevention site on 264 Nicol Street a nuisance property after receiving a report from city staff detailing social disorder surrounding the site. The site is run by the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users (NANDU), and the designation means that the city can impose cost recovery […]

A 500 million dollar fund is being made available for non profits in British Columbia to purchase existing housing. The fund is going to be managed and distributed through a non profit society created by the Aboriginal Housing Management Association (AHMA),the BC Non-Profit Housing Association‘ (BCNPHA), and the Co-operative Housing Federation of BC (CHF BC). […]

The BC Centre on Substance Use was established in 2017. It has a mandate to develop, help implement, and evaluate evidence-based approaches to substance use and addiction. Since 2016, British Columbia has been in a public health emergency due to deaths from illicit drug toxicity. Cheyenne Johnson, Executive Director of the BC Centre on Substance […]

Giuseppe Ganci of The Last Door Society discusses the concept of recovery capital and shares his perspective on the current state of addiction treatment options in BC.  

The Canadian Mental Health Association is helping bring a new approach to respond to mental health emergencies in BC. It was announced late last year that 12 Peer Assisted Care Teams, or PACT for short, are coming to the province. The teams are made up of one mental health professional, and one peer with lived […]

Program Chair Shannon Dames provides an update on Vancouver Island University’s Psychedelic Assisted Therapy program, which welcomed its first cohort in September 2022 for a one year term.

Dr. Melanie Badali, registered psychologist and member of Anxiety Canada’s scientific advisory committee, discusses panic attacks and panic disorder. The discussion covers what a panic attack is, how common they are, what you could do if you experience one, and how you can help if someone you know is going through one.

Most people are likely familiar with the idea of the poverty line, as in the phrase “living below the poverty line.” How do we figure out where that line is? Canada’s official measure of poverty is the Market Basket Measure. To learn more about how we conceptualize and track poverty in Canada, People First Radio’s […]

Six years ago Vancouver Island Mental Health Society’s Boundary Supportive Housing opened its doors in Nanaimo. What exactly is supportive housing? And what’s the relationship like between the housing and the surrounding community? To find out, People First Radio’s Joe Pugh paid a visit to the building, and spoke with Janet Rowley and Camille Eade, […]

Nanaimo MLA Sheila Malcolmson is British Columbia’s new minister for Social Development and Poverty Reduction. Malcolmson had previously been the province’s minister for Mental Health and Addictions. She joined People First Radio to speak about the tasks outlined in her mandate letter, and what changes within a ministry when a new minister takes over.   […]

Coverage of a new supervised consumption site opening in Nanaimo at the corner of Albert and Dunsmuir streets. Excerpts from a November 21 Nanaimo City Council meeting at which councilors questioned Ann Livingston on matters related to the overdose prevention site on Nicol street run by the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users. Ann Livingston, […]

Each province and territory in Canada has recognized one program or individual within its borders with an Award for Innovation in Mental Health and Addictions Care. People First Radio presents a series of conversations with a number of the recipients from across Canada. The Kainai Nation, also known as The Blood Tribe It’s the largest […]

With Canada’s National Housing Strategy hitting the halfway point of its ten year term, People First Radio featured a pair of conversations exploring the strategy’s progress thus far. One of those conversations was with Jacqueline Gahagan, Associate Vice President of Research at Mount Saint Vincent University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Gahagan’s background is in health […]

In 2017 the government of Canada launched a ten year National Housing Strategy, with the goal of reducing chronic homelessness by 50 per cent and removing over half a million families from housing need. We’re now five years into that plan. Ren Thomas is an associate professor at Dalhousie University who researches housing policy. She’s […]