People First Radio

People First Radio is a weekly one-hour radio broadcast to educate and raise awareness about issues related to health and wellness — with a particular emphasis on topics related to mental illness and mental health, homelessness and housing, and addiction, harm reduction and recovery.

It’s currently broadcast weekly from Nanaimo, B.C. on CHLY 101.7 FM and St. John, New Brunswick on CFMH 107.3 FM. People First Radio is produced and presented by Joe Pugh.

The program is also available as a podcast, click below to listen and subscribe to People First Radio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

If you would like to receive episodes to broadcast on your campus/community/nonprofit radio station please contact us.

People First Radio
People First Radio
"The world wants to see you succeed" - educating others about schizophrenia
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  • "The world wants to see you succeed" - educating others about schizophrenia

    Mar 16, 2023 • 27:50

    Leif Gregersen on the educational work he does with the Schizophrenia Society of Alberta, and his own experiences with mental illness.

  • What is the Systems Planning Organization?

    What is the Systems Planning Organization?

    Mar 16, 2023 • 29:28

    John McCormick, incoming executive director of Nanaimo’s new Systems Planning Organization explains how it aims to coordinate the community’s strategy on housing and homelessness.  

  • People First Radio March 16

    People First Radio March 16

    Mar 16, 2023 • 56:55

    Featuring conversations with Leif Gregersen, who works with the Schizophrenia Society of Alberta, and John McCormick, incoming executive director of Nanaimo’s new Systems Planning Organization.

  • People First Radio - March 9 2023

    People First Radio - March 9 2023

    Mar 11, 2023 • 56:55

    MARCH 9 2022 This month nearly one hundred people gathered at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre to discuss solutions to the toxic drug poisoning crisis in Nanaimo. Among the voices included on the episode are Central Island’s Medical Health Officer Dr. Sandra Allison, Community Action Team co-chair Sarah Lovegrove, Lanae…

  • Nanaimo gathers to talk solutions to the toxic drug crisis

    Nanaimo gathers to talk solutions to the toxic drug crisis

    Mar 11, 2023 • 56:55

    This month nearly one hundred people gathered at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre to discuss solutions to the toxic drug poisoning crisis in Nanaimo. Among the voices included on the episode are Snuneymuxw elder Yetta (Connie Paul), Central Island’s Medical Health Officer Dr. Sandra Allison, Community Action Team co-chair Sarah…

  • The LSD Rescue Service

    The LSD Rescue Service

    Mar 6, 2023 • 22:28

    Historian Chris Elcock discusses George Peters and the LSD Rescue Service. Peters founded the service in Chicago in the 1960s. It helped psychedelic drug users through negative experiences, and Elcock argues, was an early form of harm reduction.

  • The Transgressive Woman: gender, class, alcohol and drugs

    The Transgressive Woman: gender, class, alcohol and drugs

    Mar 6, 2023 • 18:24

    Vancouver Island University History Professor Cheryl Warsh discusses gender, class, alcohol, and drugs in Canada since 1850. An essay by Warsh on the subject appears in the book “Pleasure and Panic”, published by UBC Press, which Warsh also co-edited.

  • "Medicinal Purposes" - pharmacists and liquor in Victorian Canada

    Mar 3, 2023 • 16:56

    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…

  • "For me to survive meant I had to get old fast." Author Eric Walters on getting personal in The King of Jam Sandwiches

    Feb 25, 2023 • 28:06

    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.…

  • Building better: person centred solutions in the housing crisis

    Building better: person centred solutions in the housing crisis

    Feb 23, 2023 • 30:24

    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…